Drinkwater J.F. The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis)
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Hariobaudus. The former must be the Macrianus later confronted by
Valentinian I as king of the Bucinobantes.197 At this time he was still
distant from Mainz and so still unaccustomed to Roman ways.198
Such an identiWcation suits Ammianus’ report that Julian moved
south from Mainz against the advice of his sta V.199 This suggests
that from the start the campaign was intended to settle matters with
communities up the Main valley. What Julian chose to embark upon
was a detour, which returned him eventually to the Main.
Ammianus says that hostile Alamanni advanced to the vicinity of
Mainz after Julian had arrived there, and that it was this that
conWrmed his decision to go south.200 However, Julian’s sending of
Hariobaudes to Hortarius, his considered location of a Rhine bridge
into Hortarius’ territory and his likely use of Hortarius in the failed
attempt to capture the Alamannic leaders201 indicate that he had
decided much earlier to enter Alamannia south of the Rhine–Main
confluence. The demonstration of Alamannic hostility can hardly
have been unexpected. Once it had become clear that Julian was
marching to Wght Alamanni, those leaders involved in Strasbourg
who had not already been defeated or pardoned must have guessed
that retribution was imminent and sought to protect themselves. But
how did they think they might achieve this? Ammianus, as usual,
refers to Alamannic bellicosity:202 the unsophisticated response of a
warrior society. However, there was no random raiding; and the
leaders concerned, representing just the rump of Chnodomarius’
alliance (and without Macrianus and Hariobaudus in their number),
could not have hoped to defeat Julian. More likely, as happened with
Constantius II, is that they hoped that a show of power on both sides
could serve as a preliminary to negotiation. Julian, unlike Constantius,
was not prepared to oblige: before they were forgiven, the Alamanni
Wrst had to be chastised.
197 As PLRE 1.527 and, most recently, Gutmann (1991: 34); Heather (2001: 45).
Contra Lorenz, S. (1997: 62 and nn.236–7, 145), putting Julian’s Macrianus on, or to
the east of, the upper Neckar. Cf. above 173–4; below 304–5.
198 AM 18.2.17.
199 AM 18.2.7.
200 AM 18.2.8–9.
201 Below 250.
202 AM 18.2.1, 9.
248 ConXict 356–61
Ammianus describes the Romans at Wrst teasing the Alamanni, as
they moved southwards up the complex course of the old Rhine.203
Although it seems that Julian knew precisely where he was head-
ing,204 he made a show of looking for a place to cross, goading the
Alamanni to react. Presumably the Romans made for likely places,
slowed down as if to use them, camped overnight and then moved
on. This was clearly no forced march. Though both armies marched
for several days,205 they could have travelled at no great speed;
indeed, Ammianus states speciWcally that the Alamanni marched
slowly.206 They are therefore unlikely to have covered a great distance.
If they travelled at around 13 km per day, the speed of Julian’s army in
the Wnal phase of his Persian campaign,207 the Romans could have
marched for around six days and then have crossed the Rhine
between Worms and Speyer, south of the Neckar confluence. This
accords w ith the likely location of Hortarius’ pagus, into which they
passed: straddling the Neckar208 (Fig. 21). They could then have
turned north, along the old Mainz road, and struck north-east
from Gernsheim, which would have brought them to the old frontier,
but not to the limes proper. Instead, they would have reached
the former river frontier of the middle Main, between the old
forts of Großkrotzenburg and Miltenberg. It was in this region that
they found the territories of Urius, Ursicinus and Vestralpus, the
Burgundian border and, just over the Main, the lands of Macrianus
and Hariobaudus.209 Julian’s contact with the brothers had probably
been arranged by Hariobaudes. He needed their cooperation to secure
this strategically signiWcant area.210 They were ready to oblige: as
Julian approached, they met him seeking peace.211 Macrianus’
alliance with Julian was the foundation of his Bucinobantian
‘empire’.212
203 Cf. above 231.
204 AM 18.2.11.
205 Cf. Lorenz, S. (1997: 59 and n.225).
206 AM 18.2.10: leniter.
207 AM 25.1.10 (70 stades).
208 Lorenz, S. (1997: 55). Cf. above 243.
209 Above 224.
210 Cf. above 114, 190.
211 AM 18.2.15.
212 Above 247–8; cf. below 304–5.
ConXict 356–61 249
Three further aspects of the campaign of 359 merit attention.
The Wrst is Hortarius’ feast. On the night of the raid by Julian’s
advance force over the Rhine, Hortarius had invited Alamannic
leaders to a banquet. His guests were attacked by these Roman troops
as they left in the early hours of the morning. The darkness and their
horses saved them, though not their menials.213 Heather has drawn
attention to this incident as an indication of the importance of the
feast in Alamannic society, as a means of acquiring status and of
creating a network of clients. He relates such activ ity to the possible
evolution of an Alamannic Great King.214 But the other passage that
Heather cites in this regard, concerning the capture of Vadomarius
while dining with imperial oYcials,215 suggests that such junketing
could have been encouraged by Roman as much as by Germanic
Fig. 21 The 359 campaign.
213 AM 18.2.13.
214 Heather (2001: 412–43 and n.82); cf. above 119, 123, below 335–7.
215 Below 255–6.
250 ConXict 356–61
practices.216 Indeed, Hortarius, who despite current circumstances
was still plainly loyal to Rome, may have arranged the gathering at
Julian’s instigation. It is unlikely that it was discovered purely by
accident by a small group of raiders in the dark. If the Alamannic
settlement opposite Valentinianic Altrip was the lowland
‘Herrschaftszentrum’ of Hortarius and his successors,217 it becomes
the most likely venue for the feast: not far from the Rhine and in a
place already well known to Romans. The Roman move south estab-
lished the bona Wdes of Suomarius and Hortarius as Rome’s ‘enemies’.
Therefore Hortarius’ invitations were acceptable to his Alamannic
‘allies’. However, despite Ammianus’ half-denial, 218 the purpose of
the feast was to bring about the detention of the Alamannic leaders. It
was part of the usual late-Roman diplomatic repertoire of dirty
tricks.219
Less speculative is the role of Vadomarius as an imperial politician:
active and conWdent by virtue of the patronage of the senior
emperor.220 If Julian was operating in the north-east of Alamannia, he
cannot have approached Vadomarius’ territory opposite Kaiseraugst;
and, therefore, Vadomarius cannot have felt directly threatened by
his actions.221 Thus, Vadomarius intervened as a third party on
behalf of local kings. He did so no doubt with the knowledge, and
perhaps even with the encouragement, of Constantius II. The
Augustus will have been anxious for Roman military activity on the
Rhine to be kept to a minimum. It seems, however, from Eunapius
that Vadomarius also had a personal motive in coming to Julian,
namely that the Caesar was still holding his son as hostage.222 This
helps explain Ammianus’ remark that Vadomarius also came ‘to
secure his own safety’.223 The boy had been taken, presumably,
when Vadomarius made his peace with Julian after the battle of
216 Note the grand birthday party that was used to launch the usurpation of
Magnentius: Zosimus 2.42.3.
217 Below 290–2.
218 AM 18.2.13.
219 Cf. Elton (1996a: 192).
220 Cf. above 156.
221 Contra Barcelo
´
(1981: 43).
222 Eunapius, Hist. Fr. 19 (Blockley).
223 AM 18.2.18: qui suam locaturus securitatem in tuto.
ConXict 356–61 251
Stras bourg.224 Though receiving Vadomarius courteously, Julian made
his intense irritation at his (and so, by proxy, Constantius II’s) inter-
ference clear. He ignored his appeal, granting peace to Urius, Ursicinus
and Vestralpus only after they had pleaded their cases personally before
him. And he only very reluctantly freed Vadomarius’ son, claiming that
Vadomarius still held Roman prisoners.225
Finally to be considered is Julian’s overall relationship with
Alamannia. Julian was soon proudly to proclaim himself conqueror
of Germani, Franks and Alamanni.226 All our sources imply that by
359 Julian had the whole of Alamannia at his feet. However, his
ventures had been limited and precisely targeted. North to south,
his Alamannic expeditions had taken him from Wiesbaden to just
beyond the lower Neckar. West to east, he operated within a relatively
narrow strip of territory. That the lands of the known Alamannic
kings involved, Suomarius and Hortarius, were not wide is suggested
by the fact that, in 359, Julian’s troops cleared those of the latter
quickly and with no trouble.227 His most ambitious foray, to the
Burgundian border, took him no more than c.50 km (30 statute
miles) as the crow flies from the Rhine, and back to the Main valley
where, if necessary, he could call on Roman naval power. He never left
the zone of imperial influence indicated by the coins: far less extensive
than the ‘inner circle’ of territory around the imperial frontier, at least
100 km deep, proposed as a general rule by Heather.228 Most of Ala-
mannia remained unvisited; and, as far as we know, Julian had not
even bothered to punish the people of Chnodomarius and Serapio.
Serapio, having given himself up,229 may, indeed, have been given the
lands of his uncle, in return for obedience: there is no sign of the area
opposite Strasbourg being involved in the resistance of 359. Julian’s
restricted area of operations is consistent with habitual Roman
224 Lorenz, S. (1997: 63 and n.242) suggests that the youth was handed over when
Vadomarius dealt with Julian in 359, i.e. on the Burgundian border. However, this
seems too late, especially in the light of Eunapius’ reference to Roman captives
supposedly still held by Vadomarius.
225 Eunapius, Hist. Fr. 19 (Blockley). See Blockley (1983: 132–3 n. 37) and Lorenz,
S. (1997: 62 n.241) for the association of this fragment with the campaign of 359.
226 Quellen 6, Inscriptions no. 65 (¼ILS 8945).
227 AM 18.2.14.
228 Heather (2001: 29–32).
229 Above 239.
252 ConXict 356–61
reluctance to campaign far to the east of the Rhine throughout the
fourth century.230 It appears that once he and his advisers felt that
they were getting the west under control, they refused to be drawn
into wider hostilities. As relations with Constantius II deteriorated,
they needed to consolidate their position prior to an inevitable move
eastwards.
The year 360 was one of high politics as Julian Wnally accepted the
position of Augustus and as he and Constantius readied themselves for
the struggle that must come. In 359 there had been serious trouble with
the Persians in Mesopotamia, culminating, around the beginning of
October, in the fall of Amida. Constantius was still on the Danube, but
he wintered in Constantinople where he prepared to move to the
eastern frontier in the following spring. It was his request to Julian
for troops for the coming campaign that supposedly spurred the
western army to a spontaneous proclamation of Julian as Augustus in
Paris early in 360. However, as with much else in Julian’s dealings with
Constantius, the whole business appears very contrived.231 It was what
Julian and his circle had been aiming for. The Frankish and Alamannic
campaigns had been a means to an end. Neither enemy had ever posed
much of a threat; and Julian had by now beaten the spirit out of both of
them.232 The emphasis was now on imperial politics.
However, Julian and his advisers continued to exploit the ‘barbarian
threat’. Just before the usurpation, Lupicinus was despatched with an
army to Britain to settle trouble there from Scots and Picts. Julian did
not go himself, pleading that he did not want to leave Gaul without a
ruler ‘when the Alamanni were roused to rage and war’.233 The truth
seems rather to have been that it suited the conspirators to have
Lupicinus, loyal to Constantius, well out of the way.234 Current preju-
dicial perceptions of the Alamanni again proved useful when Julian, in
his Wrst major address to his troops after his usurpation, made much
of their common experience against this foe.235 It is in Ammianus’
230 Cf. below 294.
231 On the engineering of the usurpation (in which Julian was only indirectly
involved), see Drinkwater (1983b: 370–83).
232 On the absence of menace from the Alamanni by 360 see Lorenz, S. (1997: 64).
233 AM 20.1.1: Alamannis ad saevitiam etiam tunc incitatis et bella.
234 For the ‘removal’ of Lupicinus see Drinkwater (1983b: 378–9). Contra
Matthews (1989: 95).
235 AM 20.5.4–5.
ConXict 356–61 253
account of events just before and just after Julian’s proclamation that
we learn that Julian had recruited men from ‘beyond the Rhine’, on
condition that they would not serve ‘beyond the Alps’, according to
him, a usual condition of service.236 It is also here that we have the
likely deliberate confusion of their unwillingness to leave Gaul with
supposed fear on the part of regular troops that their depar ture would
expose their families in Gaul to Alamannic attack.237 Finally, it was in
his early negotiations as Augustus with Constantius that Julian oVered
him laetic recruits.238
Once his position was secure, Julian crossed the Rhine and attacked
the Atthuarian Franks. Though Ammianus claims that these Franks
were ‘lawlessly overrunning the frontiers of Gaul’, commentators agree
that, in fact, this attack was done without provocation, and was meant
to maintain the Wghting qualities of the Roman troops.239 SigniWcant
here is that Julian did not extend this Wghting to Alamanni: there
were to be no campaigns against the remaining supporters of
Chnodomarius and Serapio.240 On the other hand, after his Frankish
campaign, Julian journeyed up the Rhine to Kaiseraugst, ‘carefully
examining and strengthening the defences of the frontier’. At
Kaiseraugst, ‘having recovered the places that the savages had formerly
taken and were holding as their own, he fortiWed them with special
care and went by way of Besanc¸on to Vienne to pass the winter’.241
Julian’s inspection of the Upper Rhine is unexceptional, given
what was to happen in the following year. However, what he did at
Kaiseraugst is far from clear. The context suggests that the installa-
tions he recovered were on the left bank, but this can hardly be true.242
The alternative is that they were bridgehead sites (or, allowing for
exaggeration, one important site) on the right bank, previously
236 AM 20.4.4. Cf. above 164.
237 AM 20.4.10. Cf. above 165.
238 Above 166.
239 AM 20.10.2. See, e.g. Barcelo
´
(1981: 45); Lorenz, S. (1997: 66).
240 Cf. above 238.
241 AM 20.10.3.
242 Jullian (1926: 225 and n.8), for example, suggests that Julian expelled Alamanni
who were still occupying left-bank sites they had taken in 354–5, and that it was while
doing this that he dealt with Vadomarius (cf. above 247). Szidat (1981: 48) pushes the
date of occupation back to 352–3. However, it seems to me most unlikely that Julian
would have tolerated Alamannic possession of Roman territory—still less of Roman
military installations—for so long.
254 ConXict 356–61
controlled by Vadomarius.243 Again, this would Wt the events of 361.
Julian’s tour of inspection was also useful in allowing an innocent-
seeming removal of his headquarters from Paris to Vienne, more
convenient for a move eastwards, that could be planned at leisure,
‘now that Gaul was quieted’.244
The year 361 saw Julian’s last Alamannic campaign and his depart-
ure from Gaul, never to return. Towards the end of winter, he learned
that Alamanni from Vadomarius’ territory had begun raiding widely
by the Raetian border.245 Stunned, Julian sent Count Libino, with the
regiments of Celtae and Petulantes who were wintering with him,
to sort out the situation.246 Libino ran into hostile Alamanni near
Sanctio. Disregarding or failing to notice their superior numbers, he
attacked and was defeated. Though Libino lost his life early in the
conflict, his men do not appear to have suVered heavy casualties.247
Ammianus then reports the rumour that Vadomarius, as a long-
standing ally of Constantius, had received written instructions from
him to appear occasionally to break the peace by raiding into the
Roman Empire, in order to detain Julian in Gaul.248 Vadomarius,
again according to rumour, obeyed with enthusiasm. He was found
out only after a secretary (notarius), sent by him to Constantius, was
discovered to be carrying a letter from Vadomarius, criticizing Julian
as Caesar: a double betrayal, since this occurred at a time when
Vadomarius was supposedly a loyal supporter of Julian Augustus.249
Julian set about arresting Vadomarius.250 He was apprehended by
Julian’s secretary, Philagrius, at the close of a dinner with a Roman
local military commander on the left bank of the Rhine.251 The
situation must have developed very quickly, since Vadomarius was
informed of his secretary’s arrest only after his own detention.252
243 The most likely such site would have been a forerunner of Valentinian’s
bridgehead fort at Wyhlen, over the Rhine from Kaiseraugst: Fingerlin (1990: 130
and Fig. 34); cf. below 295.
244 AM 21.1.6: pacatis iam Galliis.
245 AM 21.3.1: propinquante iam vere ...vastare conWnis Raetiis tractus.
246 AM 21.3.2.
247 AM 21.3.3: disiecti sunt nostri occisis paucis et vulneratis; cf. 21.4.7.
248 AM 21.3.4.
249 AM 21.3.5.
250 AM 21.4.1.
251 AM 21.4.2–5.
252 AM 21.4.6.
ConXict 356–61 255
Vadomarius’ comites were not seized.253 He was taken to Julian’s
camp, confronted with the letter, and exiled to Spain. Ammianus
says explicitly that this was to secure Gaul in case of Julian’s
departure.254
Julian led a successful sortie against those who had defeated Libino.
He accepted the surrender of the survivors, accepting some as dediticii
and promising peace to the rest.255 He returned to Kaiseraugst
where he announced to his troops his intention of marching against
Constantius, and won their support.256 He then quickly moved east-
wards.257 Dividing his army into three columns, he led one through the
Black Forest to the Danube, where it embarked upon waiting vessels.258
The Wrst Alamannic attacks probably took place in late February or
early March.259 Sanctio is now generally identiWed with Bad Sa
¨
ckingen,
on the High Rhine, east of Kaiseraugst and c.72 km (43 statute miles)
in direct line from the Raetian border.260 Kaiseraug st was probably
where Vadomarius was arrested, since Julian returned there following
his campaign against Libino’s killers.261 Leaving Kaiseraugst, Julian’s
best route would have been due east, to Windisch, then north, crossing
the Rhine at Zurzach. From her e he could have taken the former
imperial highway in the direction of Rottweil, forki ng eastwards once
more at Hu
¨
Wngen, along the road on the right bank of the Danube. This
followed the river to the vicinity of modern Ulm, just beyond its
confluence with the Iller, where it could certainly carry shipping,
though a case has recently been made for embarkation further west262
(Fig. 22).
253 AM 21.4.5. Cf. above 120.
254 AM 21.4.6.
255 AM 21.4.7–8. Cf. above 160, 166.
256 AM 21.5.1–10.
257 AM 21.8.1.
258 AM 21.8.2–9.2.
259 Szidat (1981: 91).
260 Szidat (1981: 88); den Boeft, den Hengst, and Teitler (1991: 35); Lorenz, S.
(1997: 67 and n.263). Geuenich (1997a: 52 and n.21) prefers Besanc¸on.
261 AM 21.8.1. Szidat (1981: 88); Matthews (1989: 315); Lorenz, S. (1997: 67)
(Basel, Windisch, or Kaiseraugst).
262 den Boeft, den Hengst, and Teitler (1991: 109, 115). For an alternative land
route (via Stein am Rhein): Szidat (1996: 77); for the debate over the location of
Julian’s embarkation: Szidat (1996: 72). For a possible relationship between Julian’s
Black Forest route and the information of the Peutinger Table see Benedetti-Martig
(1993: 360–1) and cf. above 132.
256 ConXict 356–61
What happened in 361 can be understood only against the back-
ground of imperial politics. It was becoming clear that Constantius II
and Julian would never reach a settlement. As the year progressed,
there were ever stronger signs that the former was preparing to move
west against his cousin.263 However, for the moment, to keep control
over as many as possible of the western provinces, Constantius had to
work through loyal subordinates: internal—military and civil
oYcials ensuring that forts and cities did not go over to Julian and
preparing them against possible attack by him—and external—allies
such as Vadomarius, who might spy on Julian and Wnd ways to
disrupt his plans. The question is, therefore, whether, as Ammianus’
‘rumour’ had it, Constantius went as far as to encourage Vadomarius
to organize raids into Gaul, or whether Julian and his supporters
chose to say that he did to discredit him and remove Vadomarius
before he could do any actual harm.
Evidence in support of the rumour is to be found, apparently, in
other texts. Only a short time after these events, still in 361, Julian
himself, in his letter to the Athenians, declared that Constantius:
let loose against us the barbarians and among them proclaimed me his
foe and paid them bribes so that the people of the Gauls might be laid
waste . . . in fact the letters that he wrote I obtained from the barbarians who
Fig. 22 The 361 campaign.
263 Browning (1975: 112–13).
ConXict 356–61 257