The Reign of Decius

This article has appeared in Slingshot 276 May 2011, 2-8. The numbers in parentheses refer to the page numbers in Slingshot. The texts in parentheses are my additions to the original text. This is the un-edited original text and there are bound to be mistakes in my English, since I am not a native English speaker, and I apologize for that. [p.2] The Reign of Decius The Great Dragon and Precursor of Antichrist AD 249-251 by Dr. Ilkka Syvanne The Sources Just like with most of the third century emperors the sources for the reign of Decius are fragmentary, late and often unreliable.1 In fact, the best of our sources from the point of view of military methods date from the sixth century. These are the works of Jordanes (Getica), Zosimus (New History), and Maurice (Strategikon). Despite the fact that Jordanes’ Getica can be shown to be very unreliable or utterly false in places, the sections dealing with the invasion of Kniva/Cniva seem to be relatively reliable and come from a good source. Maurice also seems to have had access to reliable period evidence, since he describes in detail the tactics used by Decius and uses his folly as a warning of what might happen if one fails to follow the proper precautions. Zosimus’ New History is marred by pro-pagan bias, but it still provides one significant detail missing from the other two sources as will be shown in the proper place. What is most remarkable of all these three is that they all show the Romans using cavalry armies against the Gothic cavalry army. Decius usurps the power In 249 AD Decius raised a flag of revolt in the Balkans where he had been sent by the emperor Philip the Arab. The reason for his appointment had been the baptism of Philip the Arab into Christian Faith, which mean that he was henceforth unable to pursue military glory in person2. However, Decius’ revolt forced his hand and he had to march against Decius in person, but to no avail, since the latter defeated and killed him in the Battle of Verona3. Decius’ internal policies After being reaffirmed by the Senate in Rome, the ultraconservative Decius immediately set about to change the policies of his predecessor whom he had clearly hated intensely. He wanted to reunify the empire by a very great leap into idealized Roman past. He issued a series of coins commemorating his deified predecessors. He initiated public building projects to glorify Rome. He also saw himself as the restorer of ancient Roman republic and therefore held the consulship every year. However, most of all he wanted to restore the ancient Roman religion. He issued an order that all his subjects were required to sacrifice to the traditional Roman gods and thereby show their loyalty to Rome and emperor. The citizens, the Christians included, were required to perform the sacrifice by a specific day and receive a certificate of his show of obedience or face the consequences. This resulted in the first great persecution of Christians since the dark days of Nero. Decius assumed the title restitutor sacrorum et libertatis. There were evidently many reasons for this declaration. Firstly, he wanted a 1 return to the old Roman ways and wanted to revive the old traditional gods and public demonstrations of piety and loyalty. Secondly, as a usurper he also needed to legitimize his position. Thirdly, he may have wanted to ease the unease resulting from the passing of the millennium4. And fourthly, he hated Christians and Christianity. It is in this context that one should see the story of the appointment of Valerian as censor in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Val. 5.4-6.9)5. Decius had already shown his hostility towards the Christians during Maximinus’ reign. Contrary to other conservative senators like his friend Valerian, he had stayed loyal to Maximinus till the bitter end, even after the Senate had declared him an enemy of the state. Maximinus had two things that spoke in his favour in the mind of this ultraconservative senator, Maximinus also hailed from the Balkans and one of his first actions was to initiate persecution of Christians. Decius’ hate of the Christians seems to have been so great that he was even ready to overlook Maximinus’ low barbarian birth6. The Balkans The removal of forces from the Balkans by Decius for his march on Rome to usurp the power invited a host of problems. Now the Balkans lay open for the simultaneous invasion of the Carpi and Goths, who were boiling to take revenge over the failure of Philip the Arab to pay the agreed subsidies. See the maps below. The Goths were led by the famous Kniva. Decius assumed the name Trajan and prepared to march against the Carpi and Goths. The name Trajan recalled the exploits of the great optimus princeps in Dacia. It was also suitable because Trajan had also been a persecutor of the Christians. Decius’s first reaction was to send his eldest son Caesar Herennius with troops to reinforce the army of the Danube, while he himself attended to the matters of the state. His intention was to follow his son as soon as possible. However, before Decius himself could leave Italy, he had to take care of other urgent matters. In Gaul there was a revolt possibly by someone named Marcus Silbannacus, which was apparently suppressed without too much trouble. And then there was the question who would rule the city of Rome in his absence and in the name of his son Caesar Hostilian. Consequently, he ordered the Senate to choose a censor amongst its ranks to restore the old ways and also to put into effect Decius’ decree of the empire-wide demonstrations of public sacrifices to the Roman gods and himself. In effect, the censor was also put in charge of the persecution of the Christians. According to the SHA (Valerian 5.4ff.), the Senate chose the future Emperor Valerian (P. Licinius Valerianus) as censor. Decius had undoubtedly hinted to the speaker of the Senate what were his preferences before the session of the Senate. Consequently, Decius left his son Hostilian in the good care of Valerian. Now in the absence of the emperor, Valerian was put in charge of the census, taxation and public morale. In this role he persecuted the Christians mercilessly and thereby also enriched the state coffers. [p.3] 2 [p.4] The East There was also trouble brewing in the east. A certain Myriades, who was a member of the city council of Antioch, was expelled from the city because he had embezzled money. According to the SHA, he robbed his father and fled to Persia. There he managed to persuade the king Sapor that the time was ripe for an invasion. 3 The persecution of the Christians by Decius and Valerian at this time was very unwise because most of the Christian population lay in the east and this could now readily be exploited by the Persians. The Persians were persuaded and invaded. Myriades acted as an advisor to the crown-prince Hormizd-Ardashir, who evidently achieved considerable success in 250-251, because next year Sapor decided to invade in person. As a result, Decius or his successor Gallus seems to have issued an order for the Roman army of the East to assemble at Barbalissos during the winter 251-252 for the forthcoming war. Decius may even have sent reinforcements to the east and thereby weakened his army just before the decisive engagements of the war. At least, he appears to have sent the German cavalry guards of Caracalla, the Gothic Lions to the east7. It was not wise to use the Goths against other Goths. However, Sapor acted first and benefited from the chaos and from the unwise policy of persecution8. The Gothic Menace In the meanwhile in 250 AD, the Goths and a mix of their allies and subjects under Kniva had begun their invasion. His army seems to have consisted of the Goths, Dacian Carpi, Bastarnians/Peukesians and Vandals9. According to Jordanes, Kniva divided his army into two parts and sent some to ravage Moesia (= Moesia Superior) that lay undefended through neglect10. The army sent to Moesia Superior had two purposes: 1) It ravaged defenceless lands; 2) It acted as a shielding force against any possible relief/reinforcements sent from Italy. The invasion of Moesia was probably helped by the fact that there appears to have been Gothic and Alan auxiliary troops in the area that would not necessarily have fought against their fellow tribesmen. Other modern historians such as Wolfram (45) have also suggested that the Carpi and their allies were simultaneously directed against Dacia. This is by no means impossible. Some of the allies may indeed have exploited the opportunity and thereby tied up even more of Roman resources elsewhere. The main force of 70,000 men under Kniva, however, advanced first against Novae in Moesia Inferior. See the Maps! On the basis of the fact that the later separate Gothic tribes had 12,000 to 15,000 horsemen each, this force must have included at least some 25,000 to 30,000 horsemen if not more. On the basis of the combat tactics used by the Goths they, in fact, appear to have used only cavalry, which suggests that the vast majority of the fighting component of the invading force probably consisted of the mounted men. Contrary to modern tendency to underestimate the size of the invading barbarian forces, I do not consider this figure to have been anyhow impossible if we take into account the number of tribes and peoples involved (most of eastern Europe) and the need to be able to overwhelm the Roman cities and their garrisons with a force that lacked adequate siege trains and sophisticated siege techniques11. Therefore, it is no great wonder that the governor of Moesia Inferior Trebonianus Gallus was able to defend the city of Novae with his main army successfully. Consequently, Kniva moved on and marched towards Nicopolis with the intention of proceeding from there to the Shipka Pass and through it to Thrace. According to Syncellus (AM 5746), before reaching and sacking Nicopolis, the Goths surrounded the Mysians (Moesians) who were trying to flee to the city, which may suggest a grand tactical encircling used by the nomadic cavalries on the steppes for example during their large scale hunts. See the Map of the Balkans and the road from Nicopolis to Beroe. It is indeed notable that the Gothic Confederacy possessed enough warriors to be able to move about the Balkans without the Romans being able to do anything about it! However, by now the emperor Decius had reached the Balkans. He had already defeated the Gothic shielding army and was now fast approaching the main army under Kniva. According to the Strategikon, 4 Decius’ success had resulted from the use of feigned flight and cavalry. In other words, Decius had at his disposal a very sizable force consisting of cavalry of almost comparable size to that of the enemy. It should be stressed, though, that the use of the feigned flight suggests that Decius had fewer horsemen than the second division of the Gothic army. However, unlike his subordinates Kniva was not fooled and possessed first rate intelligence of the movements of the enemy. Consequently, Kniva, after having sacking Nicopolis, was able to retreat to the Haemus range and through the Shipka Pass. His intention was to lure the enemy to follow. The elated and overconfident Decius swallowed the bait and followed on the double. When Decius reached Beroe his army was exhausted and he had to rest his army and horses. It was at this precise moment that Kniva and his Goths attacked him like a thunderbolt from heaven. The Roman army was cut to pieces and Decius was barely able to flee through the Shipka Pass back to Moesia where Gallus was still guarding the frontier. According to Dexippus’ version preserved in Syncellus (AM 5746), Decius was defeated in a battle despite having killed 30,000 Goths. If there is any truth to the figure, it must refer to the casualties suffered by the Gothic shielding/raiding force previous to this and not by Kniva, but it is still more likely that we should put this casualty figure to the same category as the other so-called achievements of Decius: pro-pagan Roman propaganda. After his crushing defeat, Decius began hastily to collect together whatever forces there were in the area while the Goths proceeded to ravage Thrace.12 Decius also named his son Herennius an augustus in order to canvas support for his badly failing cause. As a result of Decius’ defeat, senator Julius Valens Licinianus proclaimed himself an emperor in Rome, but his revolt was soon squashed by Valerian. In the meantime, the Goths advanced against Philippolis (mod. Plovdiv) and put it under a siege. The governor of Thrace Priscus, who was in Philippolis, proclaimed himself an emperor and tried to save his skin by allying himself with the Goths. Priscus’ presence in Philippolis suggests that before Decius had marched to Rome, he had deployed his forces in depth so that he had posted some forces (possibly Legio V Macedonica with auxiliaries) at Philippolis. See the Map of the Roman Empire. In other words, this arrangement suggests the use of defence in depth well before its supposed adoption in the fourth century. Kniva appears to have promised [p.5] 5 Theater of Operations: The East Balkans and the principal Roman roads in the area drawn after J. J. Wilkes, “The Roman Danube: An Archaeological Survey,” in JRS 95 (2005), pp. 124-225 with some small changes. 6 [p.6] him his support, and Priscus opened up the gates only to find out that he had been duped by the wily barbarian. The Goths sacked the city. Now the Goths were ready to begin their homeward trek. Since the sources do not specify the route taken, this leaves open the possibility of the use of three alternative routes: 1) the Goths could have retreated via Serdica to north and then east along the Roman road until they reached the road passing by Abrittus; 2) the Goths could have used the same route as previously via Beroe, Nicopolis and then east until the Abrittus road; 3) the Goths could have moved east and ravaged Thrace and then moved north bypassing the Haemus range until the Abrittus road. See the map of the Balkans. The wagons of the Goths were laden with spoils of war and their marching column was full of hapless Roman captives 13. Decius decided to engage them in combat. He had no other alternative. Either he won or he would lose his life anyway because the soldiers would not tolerate failure. He decided to engage the Goths when they were retreating back home and hindered by their booty, which was later to become the favourite defensive strategy in Vegetius, Strategikon and De Velitatione in situations when there were initially not enough men to engage the enemy in combat. This is actually the method that Decius should have used from the start. However, before the battle proper, Herennius, the son of Decius, pressed an attack too boldly with the result that the retreating Goths slew him with an arrow 14, which suggest that Decius was using his cavalry to weaken the Gothic force with skirmishes before the actual intended engagement with the main force. After the death of his son Decius is said to have cheered his soldiers by saying that “Let no one mourn because the death of one soldier is not a great loss to the republic” 15. However, in truth he was unable to bear the loss of his son. This gave the crafty Kniva his opportunity. He lured the incompetent grief stricken Decius and his army into a well-prepared trap at Abrittus16. The supposed treacherous role of Gallus in the death of Decius mentioned by some sources such as Zosimus is pure pro-pagan anti-Gallus propaganda after the fall of the latter. Kniva simply outsmarted the Roman emperor and his staff of officers. According to Zosimus, Kniva divided his army into three divisions and placed the first division behind a marsh. Before the battle Decius set up an altar and sacrificed to the gods. The ultraconservative Decius may even have emulated the famous Decii of old and devoted himself to ancient Roman Gods and charged as suggested by A.R. Birley and R. Cowan17. According to Zosimus, when Decius had destroyed most of the first division, the second detachment attacked, which he also defeated after which the third division appeared near the marsh. Decius proceeded to attack this division too and galloped into the swamp where he and his army were assailed simultaneously from all sides. [p.7] Decius and his army were killed to a man. The Strategikon explains events of the battle better: “The troops are lined up in front of the swamp and, when the action begins, they feign flight, heading over the passageways, and lead the enemy to fall right into the swamp. Then the troops in ambush on the flanks suddenly charge upon them, and the men feigning retreat overpower and destroy the enemy. The Scythian tribes of the Goths used this against the Roman emperor Decius when they crossed the Danube and invaded Thrace and waged open war against him around Moesia (251 AD). Up to that time Decius himself had been successfully employing the same strategy, simulated retreat, in intensive warfare which enabled him to destroy many of them (Strategikon 4.3.12ff., tr. by G.T. Dennis 53-4).” If one tries to reconcile these two versions, it appears probable that the Goths had divided their cavalry army into three divisions two of which were used as baits. This same tactic was to become one of the standard ambushing methods of the Byzantine Empire as the emperor Phocas’ De Velitatione makes clear. In this case 7 the first division pretended to flee with the result that Decius and his single cavalry line followed them up to the second division which was then used to lull Decius into the belief that he had already defeated the whole Gothic army including those placed into ambush with the result that he no longer feared any ambush and charged at abandon. If Decius had deployed his cavalry force in two lines, the first ambush removed the reserve as it had to charge forward to protect the first line. [2013: I do consider this alternative to be likelier] What Decius did not understand was that the Goths had used a double ambush. Consequently, when Decius galloped after the retreating Goths into the swamp he did so with abandon and paid the ultimate price. See the Diagram below! Diagram of the Battle of Abrittus 251 AD The first Gothic division (A) feigns flight and leads Decius to the first ambush (B) with the result that the Romans believe that they no longer need to maintain any security (if they employed a reserve it was now brought forward to save the first line) and begin a reckless pursuit up to the main ambush (C). The diagram shows only the principle of the ambush and is not in scale. In actual scale the ambush would have spanned the distance of several miles/kilometres and the first ambush (B) would have been hidden in a valley or woods etc. C C A B A A 8 Conclusions What is particularly notable in the campaigns of Decius and Kniva is that both were using very sizable cavalry armies18 well before these had supposedly been used by either parties. In fact what is particularly remarkable is that Decius employed a cavalry army well before its supposed creation by Gallienus. This begs the question when was this cavalry army created? The best educated guess is that it was created during the reign of Alexander Severus who is known to have recruited eastern mounted archers and in particular Parthian refugees together with Armenian and Oshroene cavalry for his German campaign (SHA Sev. Alex. 61.8; SHA Maxim 11.7ff.; Herodian 7.2.1). In fact, we can see this cavalry force in action under Maximinus Thrax who defeated the Germans with them. It is probable that the Romans recruited new reinforcements from the east during the eastern wars of Gordian and Philip, and that Philip took a sizable portion of these forces with him when he marched back to Rome. The end of this force came with Decius who squandered the first real Roman elite cavalry army at Beroe and Abrittus. It was left for Gallienus to rebuild this cavalry reserve army by recruiting a new army of horsemen from Dalmatia, his famous Equites Dalmatae. I have also suggested in two research papers in 2008 that the Italian Drill and therefore the Italian Formation was probably created by Gallienus as a response to this disaster19. In fact, it is not impossible that Gallienus or someone else at the time may have written a military treatise which detailed the reasons for Decius’ death as a warning example and that Maurice had copied it verbatim. It is also notable that the two most vehement opponents of the Christians, Decius and Valerian, were both utter failures as emperors and generals, and it must have been a great pleasure for the Christians to see them fail, and conversely it must have been just as devastating for the irredeemable pagans and the most conservative elements within the senatorial class to see the scale of the disaster caused by these two traditionalist incompetents. No amount of whitewash could hide the truth. It was to be a long and bitter fight between the reformers and conservatives. The long struggle ended only when Constantine the Great adopted Christianity and reformed the structures of the Empire to withstand the future storms. Sources Most of the sources mentioned above can readily be found in one form or another from the web. The only exception is the Strategikon. It is available as English and German translations but a new translation and commentary by Philip Rance is due to appear shortly. Select Secondary Sources: Birley, A.R., « Decius reconsidered », in Les empereurs illyriens. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (11-13 octobre 1990) organisé par le Centre de Recherche sur l’Europe centrale et su-orientale, édités par Edmond Frézouls et Hélène Jouffroy. Strasbourg 1998, 57-80. Brauer, George C. Jr., The age of the soldier emperors: Imperial Rome, A.D. 244-284. New Jersey 1975. Cowan, Ross, For the Glory of Rome. A History of Warriors and Warfare. Greenhill Books London 2007. Farrokh, Kaveh, Shadows in the Desert. Ancient Persia at War, Foreword by Professor Richard Nelson Frye, Osprey. Oxford 2007. Goldsworthy, Adrian, The Fall of the West. The Death of the Roman Superpower. London 2009. Ivanov, Teofil, Abritus : rimski kastel i rannovizantijski grad v Dolna Mizia. T. 1. Topografija i ukrepitelna sistema na Abritus. Sofia 1980. 9 Loriot, X, « Trajan Dèce », in Les empereurs illyriens. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (11-13 octobre 1990) organisé par le Centre de Recherche sur l’Europe centrale et su-orientale, édités par Edmond Frézouls et Hélène Jouffroy. Strasbourg 1998, 43-55. McMahon, Robin, “Another View of Trajan Decius”, in De Imperatoribus Romani www.roman- emperors.org/decius/htm, 2002. Nathan, Geoffrey, “Trajan Decius (249-251 A.D.) and Usurpers During His Reign” in De Imperatoribus Romani www.roman-emperors.org/decius/htm, 2002.’ Potter, David S., The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180-395. Oxon and New York. Southern, Pat, The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. Routledge London and New York 2001. [p.8] Syvanne (Syvänne), Ilkka, “El sistema militar Godo,” in Desperta Ferro Nº1, 2010. The Age of Hippotoxotai. Tampere 2004. Wolfram, Herwig, History of the Goths. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1990. 1 In general for the life and career of Decius, see: Brauer, 14-57; Birley, 1990/98; Loriot, 1990/98; Geoffrey Nathan; Robin McMahon; Potter, 2004, 240-7; Southern, 2001, 73-5, 222-3; Goldsworthy, 94-104. For discussions and analyses of the other original sources or archaeological evidence not specifically mentioned here, see these studies. Note, however, that to my knowledge none of the modern histories of the period have taken into account the information in the Strategikon dealing with Decius’ use of cavalry army and the fact that this in agreement with the details in Jordanes and Zosimus. Regardless, my article is still built upon their conclusions. I thank Jim Sye for the time he took to read and comment and correct this article and my forthcoming cavalry article. He should not be held accountable for any remaining mistakes, because I stubbornly chose to hold on to some conclusions of mine despite his suggestions otherwise. 2 In other words, I belong to those very few modern historians who believe that Eusebius was right in stating that Philip was a Christian. His baptism was the reason why he despaired of his position and had to appoint someone else to take charge of the Balkans campaign. In fact, the probable reason for the lack of other similar claims has resulted from the fact that Constantine the Great and his successors wanted to portray Constantine as the first Christian emperor. 3 Sextus Aurelius Victor, Liber de Caesaribus 29. 4 This and the second reason have been suggested by Potter, 2004, 243. 5 The appointment of Valerian as censor is not accepted by all historians, because it is based on the claim of the SHA, but note that for example Zonaras 12.20 also states that Valerian was put in charge of the administration of the state. 6 Maximinus’ father was a Goth and mother an Alan. Note also that contrary to common opinion I do not consider the persecution of Christians under Decius to have been an unintentional by-product of the requirement for the population to sacrifice to the gods. He knew what he was doing just like the other emperors who initiated projects that ended up in persecuting the Christians. The same is also true of those emperors who showed tolerance or even favoured the Christians like Alexander Severus, Philip the Arab, and Gallienus. They knew full well what they were doing. 7 This is Birley’s (1990/98, 77) very sensible explanation to the lions of the Chronicon Paschale. Jim Sye has kindly suggested another very plausible reason for the sending of the Lions as part of the army: The adoption of the name Trajan by Decius suggests that he intended to continue his campaign in the east and the Goths can be seen as vanguard of this future invading force. 8 For the Persian Wars from the Persian point of view, see Farrokh, 186ff. 9 Wolfram, 1988/1990, 45. For the Gothic army and its fighting techniques, see Syvanne, 2010. 10 In other words, I do not accept Wolfram’s suggestion that the Goths divided their army into three parts, but rather follow Jordanes’ text. If there was a separate force attacking Dacia, it consisted of an independent and separate force. Jordanes is quite specific that Kniva divided his army into two parts. 11 In other words, I do not accept Goldsworthy’s (104) small figures for the Roman and Gothic armies. Regardless of this minor disagreement, I do still consider his book well worth reading and well written. 12 This account is based on Jordanes 101-103 and Strategikon 4.3.12ff. 13 For additional details concerning the Gothic wagon laager/fortress (carrago), see Syvanne, 2010 and 2004. 14 For the use of bows by the Gothic elite and their allies, see now Syvanne, 2010. The Germanic Goths had essentially become Sarmatisized when they had trekked to the Black Sea and their elite cavalry had adopted the use of bows while mounted and they had also incorporated Sarmatians and Alans into their ranks. In other words, the Goths were Scythians not just in the sense of their abode, but also because of their use of wagons and horses just like some of the period authors stated. In other words, I claim that we should make a distinction between the tactical systems in the sources when they claim that the cavalry lancers were used for charging and when they claim that the cavalry was used for skirmishing with missiles only in the relative amount of archery employed. The former did not necessarily mean that the cavalry lancers would not have employed bows while the latter would not have meant that the cavalry did not use lances. The former was simply a tactic in which the front rankers had lances ready for combat and charged at the enemy just like the East Roman cavalry was instructed to do against the Persians. We should remember that the Strategikon makes it very clear elsewhere that the rear rankers used bows while conducting such a lancer charge. The latter skirmishing style nomadic tactic consisted 10 of the use of bows by all those able to use them mounted, the front ranks included, until the enemy had been weakened enough after which the men put away their bows and grasped their lances/spears and charged. In other words, the skirmishing tactic did not mean that the men would not have used lances/spears. 15 English tr. by Mierow (Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, 103). 16 For the location of the city, see Ivanov. The exact location of the battle, however, is not known with any certainty except that it was fought somewhere near the city. 17 See Birley, 1990/98, 78 with Cowan (2007, 182). Cowan considers Decius’ charge to have been devotio-like and suggests also the possibility that he tried to engage Kniva in single combat. It should still be noted that any comparison to the Decii of old (such as in the SHA, Aurelian 42.6) is still more likely to be the result of later pagan propagandists trying to portray the horrible failure of their favourite in the best possible light. 18 In this case by cavalry army I mean an army in which the cavalry formed its actual fighting force and any infantry present was delegated to mere supporting role included as part of the baggage train or guards inside a camp. [2013 added here for clarity, but missing from the Slingshot article]. 19 I have also suggested that one can detect the same cavalry formation in Trajan’s column, if one interprets the horsemen as units. If there is any difference between the Italian formation and that one in Trajan’s column it was that in the former there were also separate flank guards which were missing from the latter but this may also result from artistic reasons. However, it is also possible that the formation in Trajan’s column was initially one line out of which the pursuing units charged. For additional details, see my forthcoming article of Roman cavalry warfare in Slingshot and Saga. 11