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Lentulus and the Origin of Moesia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The ancient evidence for the wars and conquests of Augustus is not only fragmentary: the fragments themselves are capricious and misleading. Chance and design have conspired to produce a like result; and the interested partiality of contemporary authorities has been nobly seconded by the ignorance or the indifference of subsequent compilers. The successes of the Princeps and of his stepsons received ample commemoration and overshadowed the achievements of his lieutenants. The existence of a relatively full narrative in Florus and Orosius of the ‘Bellum Cantabricum’ of 26 B.C, the only Spanish campaign directed by Augustus in person, serves to illustrate by contrast how meagre is the record of that part of the long and arduous task of subduing Spain which was prosecuted and consummated in his absence. Similarly the spectacular conquest of the Alps by Tiberius and Drusus in 15 B.C. is more fully recorded and more widely known than the campaigns of P. Silius Nerva which preceded it and which made it possible.
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References
1 The works most frequently referred to in this article are as follows, in alphabetical order:—Filow, B., ‘Die Legionen der Provinz Moesia,’ Klio, Beiheft vi, 1906Google Scholar; M. Fluss, P-W, s.v. ‘Moesia’; V. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit; Patsch, C., ‘Beiträge zur Völkerkunde von Südosteuropa. V: Aus 500 Jahren vorrömischer und römischer Geschichte Südosteuropas, Teil I’ (Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 214, i, 1932)Google Scholar; von Premerstein, A., ‘Die Anfänge der Provinz Moesien,’ Jahreshefte, i, 1898, BeiblattGoogle Scholar; Rau, R., ‘Zur Geschichte des pannonisch-dalmatischen Krieges der Jahre 6-9 n. Chr.,’ Klio xix, 1924Google Scholar; E. Ritterling, P-W, s.v. ‘Legio’ (especially his narrative of the wars of the time of Augustus in cols. 1213-42); G. Zippel, Die römische Herrschaft in Illyrien. Much light will be thrown upon the history of the Danubian lands by A. von Premerstein's renewed and exhaustive study of M. Vinicius, of which the first part has recently appeared, ‘Der Daker- und Germanensieger M. Vinicius (Cos. 19 V. Chr.) und sein Enkel (Cos. 30 und 45 n. Chr.),’ Jahreshefte xxviii, 1933.
2 ILS 986.
3 The verbose inscription mentions among his operations no act of annexation: the terms in which it describes their result (‘per quem, sc. quae, pacem provinciae et confirmavit et protulit’) cannot therefore be understood to refer to annexation of territory.
4 That the ‘Sarmatians’ who vexed the Lower Danube in the time of Augustus were probably Bastarnae has been plausibly suggested by Patsch (p. 83). The point is irrelevant to the restricted scope of this paper.
5 Res Gestae 30. Patsch (p. 102 ff) assigns this passage to the operations of the unknown general of ILS 8965, whom he identifies with M. Vinicius and dates to 10 B.C.
6 Res Gestae 31.
7 For this view of the ‘Bellum Pannonicum’ of 13–9 B.C, see further JRS xxiii, 1933, pp. 70–1Google Scholar.
8 The war lasted three years (Vell. Pat. ii, 98). Dio dates its beginning to 11 B.C. (54, 34, 5–6), perhaps really the year of its conclusion, as has often been assumed.
9 Ritterling, col. 1229.
10 Patsch, p. 91 ff.
11 Dio 54, 20, 3.
12 Dio 54, 31, 3.
13 Vell. Pat. ii, 39, 3; Eusebius ed. Schoene, p. 142 f., Τιβέριος Καῖσαρ Οὐινδικοὺς καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς παρακειμένους τῇ Θρᾷκῃ ὑπέταξεν (Syncellus), ‘Caesar Tiberius Vindicenses et omnes qui circa Thraciam erant subegit’ (Armenian Version), ‘Tiberius Vindelicos et eos qui Thraciarum confines erant Romanas provincias facit’ (Jerome); Consolatio ad Liviam 387–8, ‘Danuviusque rapax et Dacius orbe remoto Appulus (huic hosti perbreve Pontus iter)’.
14 Premerstein, col. 158 ff. He had in part been anticipated by Zippel (p. 246).
15 Dio 54, 36, 2; cf. Suet. Aug. 21; Res Gestae 30.
16 What really lurks behind his statement, it is impossible to say. Eusebius makes Tiberius, the conqueror of the Vindelici, conduct an otherwise unknown campaign in Thrace. In Orosius again, Piso, the conqueror of Thrace, is nowhere described as such, but appears in a novel rôle as a general operating against the Vindelici (‘nam inter ceteros et Piso adversum Vindelicos missus est; quibus subactis victor ad Caesarem Lugdunum venit,’ vi, 21, 22). This is a singular coincidence—if it is only a coincidence.
17 Dio 54, 31, 2–3; on the Breuci, cf. also Suet. Tib. 9.
18 Mommsen, Res Gestae 2, p. 132; Provinces, p. 42. Similarly Gardthausen, in A.D. 6–9 or soon after (i, p. 1181 f., cf. p. 1193).
19 suet Tib. 16.
20 von Premerstein, col. 168; Münzer, P-W, iv, col. 1362; Pârvan, Getica, p. 96; so also apparently Fluss, col. 2395. Lentulus is omitted by Filow and by Stout, (The Governors of Moesia, Diss. Princeton, 1911Google Scholar).
21 Dio 55; 29, 3 ff.
22 Dio 55, 32, 3; Vell. Pat.ii, 112, 4.
23 Orosius vi, 22, 2.
24 von Premerstein, col. 167 f.
25 Ovid, Ex Ponto i, 8, 11Google Scholar ff.
26 Ovid, Ex Ponto iv, 9, 75 ffGoogle Scholar.
27 In A.D. 21 and 26 (Tacitus, Ann. i, 38–9Google Scholar; iv, 46–51). Compare Strabo's estimate of the man-power of Thrace (vii, p. 331), δύναται δὲ στέλλειν καὶπερ οὖσα περισσῶς ἐκπεπονημένη (i.e., as a result of Piso's war) μυρίους καὶ πεντακισχιλίους ἱππέας, πεζῶν δὲ καὶ εἴκοσι μυριάδας.
28 The only scholar who appears hitherto to have dated the operations of Lentulus to this period was A. von Domaszewski (in his popular Geschichte der römischen Kaiser): but he did not argue his case, and nobody has since mentioned his opinion for praise or for blame.
29 Dio 55, 10 a, 2.
30 ii, 104. On this point see further ‘M. Vinicius (cos. 19 B.C.),’ CQ xxvii, 1933, p. 147Google Scholar.
31 Res Gestae 16.
32 Appian, Ill. 30, καὶ πλεῖον οὺδὲν ηὖρον ὲπὶ τῆς Ῥωμαίων δημοκρατίας ὲς Μυσοὺς γενόμενον, οὐδ᾿ ἐς φόρον ὑπαχθέντας οὐδ᾿ έπὶ τοῦ Σεβαστοῦ. ὑπήχθησαν δ᾿ ὑπὸ Τιβερίου τοῦ μετὰ τὸν Σεβαστὸν τοῖς Ῥωμ αὐτοκράτορος γενομένου.
33 For example, by von Premerstein, col. 162 ff.
34 By Gardthausen (ii, p. 788), and by Rau (p. 319 f.). Gardthausen's words are ‘einem gewesenen Consul … konnte in den letzten Jahren des Augustus nur eine richtige Provinz, nicht ein blosses Militärkommando anvertraut werden.’
35 As, for example, when Piso was temporarily placed in charge of Thrace, cf. Seneca, Epp. 83, 14., ‘huic et divus Augustus dedit secreta mandata cum illum praeponeret Thraciae quam perdommt’; Vell. Pat. ii, 98, ‘quippe legatus Caesaris triennio cum his bellavit.’ (This evidence shows that Piso cannot have been proconsul of Macedonia.)
36 Ritterling, col. 1218 f; Zippel, p. 247; Patsch, p. 86; Mommsen, , Provinces i, p. 24Google Scholar; Dessau, , Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit i, p. 395Google Scholar; Premerstein, col. 162 ff.; Fluss, col. 2372; Filow, p. 2; Rau, p. 320.
37 Dio 54, 3, 2 (under the year 22 B.C.).
38 Dio 54, 20, 3. Dio does not state that Lollius was proconsul of Macedonia: but a dedication to him has recently been discovered at Philippi, , BCH lvi, 1932, p. 207 ff.Google Scholar; L'année épigraphique 1933, n. 85.
39 Dio 55, 29, 3.
40 This view has been urged by Rau, p. 320.
41 Vell. Pat. 11, 101, 3; cf. IGRR i, 654.
42 von Premerstein, col. 155; Fluss, col. 2372; P-W, s. v. ‘P. Silius,’ col. 73; P-W, s. v. ‘Makedonia,’ col. 765; Patsch, p. 96, though this is barely consistent with his view that the Macedonian legions had been transferred to a legate of Moesia as early as 15 B.C. (above, p. 117).
43 Like the ύποστράτηγοι of P. Silius Nerva (proconsul of Illyricum, ILS 899) operating in 16 B.C. (Dio 54, 20, 1–2).
44 Such as the praetorian army-commanders later attested in Moesia when Moesia, Macedonia and Achaia were under the charge of a consular legate (AD. 15–44).
45 Strabo iii, p. 303, ἔτι γὰρ καὶ ὲφ᾿ ἡμῶν Αἴλιος Κάτος μετᾠκισεν ὲκ τῆς περαίας τοῦ Ἴστρου πέντε μυριάδας σωμάτων παρὰ τῶν Γετῶν, ὁμογλώττου τοῖς Θρᾳξιν ἔθνους, εἰς τὴν Θρᾴκην καὶ νῦν οἰκοῦσιν αὐτόθι Μοισοὶ καλούμενοι.
46 Ritterling, col. 1238; Patsch, p. 114; cf. Mommsen, Res Gestae 2, p. 132 (‘in any case after A.D. 4’). Stout (The Governors of Moesia) omits Catus altogether, and Groag, in PIR 2, vol. i (1933), p. 25Google Scholar, refrains from assigning him a date.
47 Dio 54, 20, 3.
48 von Premerstein, col. 156 f.
49 Ritterling, col. 1229 f. This suggestion is accepted by Patsch (p. 83) and by Groag, (PIR 2 vol. i 1933, P. 25Google Scholar).
50 Fluss, cols. 2371–2. But Fluss is inconsistent with himself, for in another place (col. 2341) he dates the transplantation of the Getae c. A.D. 5.
51 Patsch, p.114.
52 The approximate date at which the governorship of Poppaeus Sabinus began is discovered from Tacitus, Ann. vi, 39Google Scholar.
53 Dio 55, 28, 2; Suet. Aug. 23.
54 The brief duration of their governorships might point rather to proconsulates.
55 Cf. Mommsen, Res Gestae 2, p. 131; Ritterling, col. 1229.
56 Cf. the arguments of von Premerstein, col. 168. If, as is probable, the Roman operations in the valley of the Marisus (Marosch, Mures) recorded by Strabo (vii, p. 304, quoted above, p. 115) were conducted by Lentulus, he must have been legate of Illyricum at the time. (The Marisus of Strabo appears to be the lower course of the Theiss and its chief tributary, the Marosch, erroneously but pardonably assumed to be the main stream.) Patsch, however (p. 102 ff.), assigns these operations to the unknown legate of ILS 8965 (in his view M. Vinicius in 10 B.C).
57 Dio 55, 10a, 2.
58 Developed in ‘M. Vinicius (cos. 19 B.C.),’ CQ xxvii, 1933, pp. 142–8Google Scholar. Here all is uncertain: von Premerstein dates the operations of M. Vinicius (ILS 8965) to 14 B.C., Patsch to 10 B.C.
59 Tacitus, Ann. i, 27Google Scholar.
60 Seneca, Epp. 83, 14–15Google Scholar.
61 For the view that there was a legionary garrison in Raetia in the period 15 B.C.—A.D. 9, cf. Ritterling, col. 1226. That Ahenobarbus set out from Raetia has been maintained by Mommsen, Müllenhoff, Much and Winkelsesser.
62 Seneca, Epp. 83, 14Google Scholar, quoted above, p. 123, n. 35.
63 For this conjecture, cf. CQ xxvii, 1933, especially pp. 147–8.
64 Above, p. 125.
65 Florus ii, 28, 19, quoted above, p. 114.
66 As Mommsen assumed, dating them, however, c. A.D. 9. ‘Probably at this time, after the Illyrian war was decided in favour of Rome, Gnaeus Lentulus led a strong Roman army across the Danube, reached as far as the Marisus (Marosch) and emphatically defeated them in their own country, which was then for the first time trodden by a Roman army. Fifty thousand captive Dacians were made to settle in Thrace.’ (Provinces I, p. 42.)
67 For this conjectural date and identification, cf. CQ xxvii, 1933, pp. 142–8.
68 Strabo vii, p. 304.
69 ILS 986.
70 Namely, either Imp. xv or Imp. xvi. One of these, probably Imp. xv, must be assigned to the operations of Gaius Caesar in the East (Dio 55, 10a, 6–7).
71 If we are justified in drawing this inference from a combination of the passages Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 4 and 113, 1, Tacitus, Ann. ii, 46Google Scholar, Suet. Tib. 16.
72 For the perennial danger of Thracian risings, cf. above, p. 120. Even in the time of Tiberius one, if not both, of the Moesian legions may still have been stationed in the interior, perhaps at Naissus (Niš). For the conjectural but highly probable military importance of Naissus in the time of Augustus, cf. von Premerstein, col. 165; Domaszewski, A. v., ‘Die Entwicklung der Provinz Moesia,’ Neue Heidelberger Jahrbücher I, p. 199Google Scholar.
73 Above, p. 126.
74 PIR, s.v. ‘L. Plinius’; Ritterling, cols. 1230 and 1770–1; von Premerstein, col. 167, no. 1; Filow, pp. 6–7; Fluss, col. 2373. Fluss even assumes that the legion may still have been in Moesia as late as A.D. 12. Patsch (pp. 87–8) attempts no close dating.
75 CIL iii, 2836 ( = ILS 2651); 2911; 2030.
76 Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 2; Dio 55, 30, 1–2.
77 Vell. Pat. ii, 113, 4.
78 Ritterling, cols. 1225 and 1781.
79 Pliny NH iii, 136–7Google Scholar.
80 Dio 54, 20 1.
81 Zippel, p. 260; Oberziner, G., Le guerre di Augusto contra i popoli Alpini, Rome 1900, pp. 59–60Google Scholar; Ileuberger, R., Rätien Innsbruck 1932, i, 227Google Scholar.
82 Dio 55, 10, 17.
83 Cf. Ritterling, col. 1231 f.
84 Suet. Tib. 9 and 14; Vell. Pat. ii, 94, 4.
85 Vell. Pat. ii, 101, 3; cf. Ritterling, col. 1231 f.
86 Dio 54, 20, 3; cf. Patsch, p. 83.