Highland Campaigning

Like great Roman generals before him,* the Emperor recently undertook a campaign into the remote Northern Highlands.

It has to be said that the Emperor's recent expedition was of a more recreational than military bent, but the terrain was certainly challenging and the Imperial forces camped under canvas like the armies of old.

Well, perhaps with a modicum of modern comfort, but it was camping none the less.

The troops were well provisioned; lacked for nothing in fact and the camp was in high spirits.

  

The beautiful beaches and strange characters found on them, were a wonder to the Emperor who had led his armies to the farthest and uncharted shores of the North.

A long and arduous progression through the most mountainous of terrain, saw the Emperor safely marshal his forces back to civilisation.

  

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*One is reminded of of the Roman general Agricola , who in c.82AD made a concerted attempt to subdue the Northern lands of the Caledonian Tribes. Its fair to say the locals were not cooperative:

"We, the choicest flower of Britain's manhood, were hidden away in her most secret places. Out of sight of subject shores, we kept even our eyes free from the defilement of tyranny. We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till today by our very remoteness and by the obscurity in which it has shrouded our name. Now, the farthest bounds of Britain lie open to our enemies; and what men know nothing about they always assume to be a valuable prize. But there are no more nations beyond us; nothing is there but waves and rocks ... "

 

[Tacitus, Agricola, 30. Dramatic words of the Caledonian War Chief Calgacus, as imagined by the Historian Tacitus]

 

To Be An Emperor: Galba

[Galba:  one of the short-lived 'pretenders' of AD 69 that ultimately failed to succeed Nero]



"Rome is not like primitive countries with their kings. Here we have no ruling caste dominating a nation of slaves. You are called to be the leader of men who can tolerate neither total slavery nor total liberty."

[Tacitus, Histories, I.16]

The imperial usurper Galba's advice to his prospective heir, Piso - as put into words, by the cynical historian Tacitus.

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The sentiment reminds us that the position of a Roman Emperor was far from simple, or indeed, comfortable. Imperial stability required a powerful and largely autocratic ruler. And yet Roman sensibility, as moulded by many centuries of Republican and distinctly xenophobic prejudice, would not tolerate even the semblance of a tyrant. Or even worse, a derided foreign King!  

It was a bitterly ironic paradox; the lack of understanding of which proved the undoing of Caesar, Caligula and Nero.

"I am Caesar, and no King"

[Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, 79]

To little, too late, proved the unconvincing protestations of the great dictator ... and he paid for his mistake on the floor of the Senate House.

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Despite commanding (or at least seeming to command) the semblance of absolute power and spectacular wealth, the stability and security of an Emperor's rule, was always a complex and delicate affair. In the broadest of human terms, the Stoic wisdom of Seneca recognised that we should not automatically envy those in lofty positions. Not when we consider that:

"... what look like towering heights are indeed precipices.  ... there are many who are forced to cling to their pinnacle because they cannot descend without falling ... they are not so much elevated as impaled." 

[Seneca, Dialogues: On Tranquillity of Mind, 10 ]

To wear the Imperial purple was without doubt the most lofty of such pinnacles; and a descent from its heights, even for those few who it might be argued genuinely sought it, was riven with dangers that were all but insurmountable.

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For State, a relinquishment of imperial rule risked a return to the bitter murder and incessant civil war that had so blighted the last ages of the Republic. For the ruler who would so relinquish that power, the risk was total oblivion. As Octavian himself considered before the establishment of the very Principate:

"The question we are considering is not a matter of seizing hold of something, but of resolving not to lose it and thus expose [ourselves] to further danger. For you will not be forgiven if you thrust the control of affairs into the hands of the populace, or even if you entrust it to some other man. Remember that many have suffered at your hands, that virtually all of them will lay claim to sovereign power and that none of them will be willing to let you go unpunished for your actions or survive as a rival."     

[Cassius Dio, Roman Histories, LII.17]

Thus was it a somewhat reluctant Emperor [Tiberius] who had deftly perceived that to rule Rome was indeed like:

"... holding a wolf by the ears."

[Suetonius, Life of Tiberius, 25]

An Emperor was only safely in control, in so long as he held the power and guile not to release the unpredictable and savage animal that he so sought to dominate. Fail to dominate that savage animal and he was as good as dead. 

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To the casual observer a Roman Emperor seemed all powerful, but ever was his position actually vulnerable and fraught with threat.  To rule was inherently dangerous and yet to relinquish rule could be more dangerous still. What looked like towering heights, were indeed, precipices for some ....

Up At The Front: The Antonine Wall

This Emperor recently went up to the front to make inspection of the Northern defences.

(Well,  .... its the kind of thing that's expected of an Emperor ... )

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I must say I found the defences of the Antonine Wall to be somewhat degraded since their original construction in the 140's A.D. I suppose its not surprising really, but that's certainly not to say that they don't remain impressive.

[Looking North over the Antonine valum, in the outskirts of modern Falkirk]

Indeed, you can still clearly discern the impressive valum and ditch carved into the landscape at many points of the site and which, on the Southern flank, would have supported a major stone, timber and turf wall; reckoned to be palisaded on top and perhaps up to four meters high from ground level.

The Antonine Wall can lay claim to being Rome's most Northerly static frontier; although in almost every other respect, the Antonine is the historically lesser known, less materially intact and altogether, less sexy little sister to the more celebrated Hadrian's Wall (located in Northumbria, England).

[A well preserved stretch of the defences just West of the modern town of Falkirk. The foundation rise - of the now degraded wall - can still be seen on the reverse defencive side]

The Antonine's relative obscurity was dictated by virtue of its limited operational life cycle: c. 140's to 160's AD. Commissioned on the orders of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the wall runs 37 miles from East to West, right through central Scotland - linking and making good use of the natural obstacles of the major Clyde and Forth estuaries.

[Excavated 'lilia' pits on the advance slope to the Antonine wall. Anti-personnel defences in modern parlance]

Sited only 70 miles to the North of Hadrian's Wall, the Antonine may have represented an attempt to extend Roman rule, or at least military control, into a difficult and rebellious region (Caledonia Major - not Falkirk).

Or it may represent an expression of imperial ego: Antonine seeking as it were, to 'go one better', from his immediate predecessor Hadrian. And of course, one can never rule out an overt imperial attempt to fashion a martial persona; from an Emperor who by all accounts was not an overtly military man.

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Within the imperial context, it was indeed the duty of any Roman Emperor to protect the boundaries of his Empire.


Less obviously - though of critical import -  Emperors of Rome were obliged to  define themselves as ostensibly 'military' men. Commanders in Chief of the large professionalised and peace-time forces that held down their Empires; preventing unrest and guarding against sovereign incursion.


Form a political perspective, those armies could, paradoxically, be dangerous to imperial rule and it was essential for any Emperor to maintain meaningful connections with the garrison troops of their frontier provinces; if for nothing else, to minimise the risk of rebellion, mutiny and of course militarily backed usurpation. After all, it had not been lost on the historian Tacitus that even by the 1st century AD:

"A well hidden secret of the Principate had been revealed: it was possible, it seemed, for an emperor to be chosen outside Rome."

[Tacitus, Histories, I.5]

The defied Augustus, had dictated a policy of restricted empire expansion and thus static defence. It became therefore not at all uncommon for Emperors - if not actively to campaign - then to at least to make military reviews and expeditions to the provincial and military outreaches of their territories.

Thus by the early Principate had Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero all established precedents for imperial expeditions of varying scale to the frontiers; visiting the major garrisons and launching regionalised campaigns; providing military, economic or reputational gain.

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For the Antonine Wall, World Heritage Site, see: http://www.antoninewall.org/

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall

and
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/antoninewall

History Repeating

This week saw the 20th anniversary [15/04/09] of the tragic Hillsbourough disaster, in which 96 football spectators needlessly died in a man-made sporting catastrophe that could most surely have been avoided. There is still - understandably - much shock and anger in relation to this event, as well as an enduring disbelief that it could have been allowed to happen at all in such a relatively modern age.

The anniversary media coverage reminded me strongly of an ancient Roman disaster which befell the Italian town of Fidenae in the year [27AD] and in which many sporting spectators also died:

"A sudden disaster now occurred that was as destructive as a major war. It began and ended in a moment. An ex-slave called Atilius started building an amphitheatre at Fidenae for a gladiatorial show. But he neither rested its foundations on solid ground nor fastened the wooden superstructure securely. He had undertaken the project not because of great wealth or municipal ambition but for sordid profits. Lovers of such displays, starved of amusements under Tiberius, flocked in - men and women of all ages. Their numbers, swollen by the town's proximity, intensified the tragedy. The packed structure collapsed, subsiding both inwards and outwards and precipitating or overwhelming a huge crowd of spectators and bystanders."

[Tacitus, Annals, IV.61]

The historian Tacitus records that many thousands were killed or seriously injured in the disaster. Indeed, the Emperor Tiberius himself - who at the time lived in almost total reclusion on his beloved island of Capri - had to make himself available to the people in reflection of the deep national shock resulting from such an event.

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Suetonius also tells us of the Fidenae disaster: Suetonius, Tiberius, 40

For details of the Hillsborough disaster see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster