Batavian Descendants- Background

Background

Batavians and the Roman Conquest of Britain
Author(s): M. W. C. Hassall
Source: Britannia, Vol. 1 (1970), pp. 131-136
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/525836
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Batavians and the Roman Conquest of
Britain*
By M. W. C. HASSALL
T ACITUS'S account of the Claudian invasion of Britain and the campaigns
that followed it down to the year 47 is unfortunately lost,I and historians
have to be content with Dio, who gives the only consecutive account,2
supplemented by scattered references in other sources. This short note is an attempt
to extract a few more fragments of information from these literary sources and in
particular it concerns the part played by Rome's Batavian auxiliaries.
The first definite evidence we have that Batavians were stationed in Britain
comes from Tacitus who, in describing the preparations made by Nero for an
expedition against the Albani of the Caucasus, says that units were withdrawn
from several provinces including Britain, and from his later narrative it is clear
that these included legion XIV and eight cohorts of Batavians who were attached
to it.3 The date is 67. However, there is strong reason to suppose that there were
Batavians serving in Britain before this date, indeed from the invasion of 43
onwards. This is an inference derived from the known methods of fighting employed
by the Batavians, and the descriptions of auxiliaries in action in Britain given by
Tacitus and Dio. It was the proud boast and peculiar skill of the Batavians, that
they could swim rivers fully armed, the cavalry still retaining control over their
horses. This skill they had exhibited in the campaign of Germanicus against
Arminius in attempting to cross the Ems4 and were later to show in crossing the
Po during the civil wars of 69.5 Batavian cavalry could cross great rivers like the
Rhine6 and Danube7 under arms and without breaking ranks. Accordingly the
KEAroTw ho during the invasion of 43 crossed the Medway and later the Thames
in the face of strong enemy opposition to form a bridge-head for the army of
Aulus Plautius8 are usually identified with Batavians. The term KEATri6s not a
* I would like to thank a number of colleagues and friends for reading this note in typescript and making
valuable suggestions.
I The initial stage of the conquest probably came at the end of Annals, ix, subsequent events down to
47 in the first half of Annals, xi. See R. Syme, Tacitus, p. 260.
2 Dio, lx, I9-2I.
3 Tac., Hist., i, 6 with i, 59 and ii, 27; cf. iv, 5.
4 Tac., Ann., ii, 8.
5 Tac., Hist., ii, I 7.
6 Tac., Hist., iv, 12.
7 Dio, lxix, 9, 6; cf I.L.S. 2558, under Hadrian.
8 Dio, Ix, 20.
I'3
difficulty since Dio regularly calls Germans, among whom the Batavians were
generally classed, 9 by this name, while he calls Gauls Frocarai.Io Again it is very
likely that Suetonius Paulinus used Batavian cavalry for his attack on Anglesey in
60, for on this occasion too Tacitus says that the troopers forded the straits and,
where the water was too deep, swam by the side of their horses.I
Are these Batavians, whose presence in Britain from the time of the conquest
until A.D. 60 has been argued, identical with those Batavian cohorts withdrawn
by Nero in 67 ? These early references mention cavalry but this does not invalidate
an identification with the eight cohorts of 67 since these latter were part-mounted,
as we know from their demand at the outset of their mutiny in 69 that the cavalry
element be increased.2I The real difficulty in assuming that these cohorts had
been in Britain since 43 lies in the fact that Nero sent auxiliary as well as legionary
reinforcements to Britain after the Boudiccan revolt of 60 and that this involved
precisely eight cohorts.I3 The number is suspiciously reminiscent of the eight
Batavian cohorts to be recalled by Nero half a dozen years later. CichoriusI4 held
the view that they were the same and was therefore of the opinion that there was
no evidence for Batavians in Britain before 6I. The circumstantial evidence for
Batavians here during the conquest period is, however, strong and, even if one
accepts Cichorius's point, the case for other Batavian units taking part in the
opening phases of the conquest is not affected. Is there, in fact, additional evidence
to suggest that they did serve before the year 61 ?
In a much quoted passage (Histories, iv, I2) Tacitus says as a general comment
on the Batavians that they increased the renown won in long wars with the
Germans by service in Britain, to which some cohorts had been sent under the
command of their own nobles. As Professor Frere has pointed out,I5 the period
61-67 is not one in which they would have acquired a great reputation in Britain.
They will have taken no part in the defeat of Boudicca when Legion XIV won the
title Martia Victrix, and indeed the whole period will have fallen in the governorships
of P. Petronius Turpilianus who, after the suppression of the revolt dared
'nihil ultra', and of M. Trebellius Maximus, under whom the army, accustomed
to campaigns, 'otio lasciviret'.i6 Even if we discount the desire of Tacitus to belittle
the achievements of these two 'unmilitary governors', and thus draw a contrast
with 'viri militares' of the succeeding Flavian period, it is likely enough that this
was a time of consolidation and it is difficult to see how reputations can have been
won. If Tacitus in Histories, iv, 12 cannot be referring to the period immediately
9 Tac., Germ., 29, where the Batavians are included among tribes of German origin.
1o A. Riese, Forschungenzu r Geschichtde erR heinlande( Frankfurt am Main I889), p. 14, note 4. KeXrLKti st
fur Dio Germanien. Die Gallier nennt er raX&raL, die Germanen KEcXrT6, reppdcva ist ein Ausdruck, der
fiur ihn mit den rheinischen Legionen verbunden ist. Dies ist sein stetiger Sprachgebruch (with supporting
references).
" Tac., Ann., xiv, 29.
12 Tac., Hist., iv, 19.
'3 Tac., Ann., xiv, 38.
14 R.E., iv i, 250.
'5 S. S. Frere, Britannia (London 1967), p. 61, note I.
I6 Tac., Agric., i6.
I32 M. W. C. HASSALL
BATAVIANS AND THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN 133
after 61, because of the absence of serious fighting, he cannot refer to the subsequent
Flavian period when the advance in Wales and North Britain was continued,
for after 69 and the Batavian revolt their cohorts will no longer have been commanded
by their own countrymen. Histories, iv, I2 then, refers to the pre-
Boudiccan period and either has no connection at all with the eight Batavian
cohorts withdrawn by Nero in 67 but relates to other units present in Britain
before 61, or, if it does refer to the units withdrawn in 67, they are not identical
with the eight cohorts sent in 6 . A third possibility is just conceivable: the eight
cohorts of Batavians took part in the invasion but were withdrawn before the
Boudiccan revolt; after it had been crushed Nero sent them again to Britain.I7
It seems certain therefore that Histories, iv, I2 must refer to the pre-Boudiccan
period and it is even possible that we can name one of the chiefs whom Tacitus
there says commanded the Batavian cohorts in Britain. Julius Civilis was of
noble birthI8 and commanded a cohort.I9 In 69 he had seen twenty-five years
service with Rome,2o which sounds like a round figure, but should mean that he
had been enrolled about the time of the Claudian invasion of 43. He and his
cohort could have been recruited by Gaius, who probably enrolled two new
legions, XV and XII Primigenia, if Gaius's enlistment of Batavians in A.D. 40
extended beyond those for his own bodyguard.2z This suggestion even finds some
slight support in Civilis's nomen, Julius, which hints at a grant of citizenship made
to him on enlistment by Gaius. The Batavian Julius Briganticus's father (Civilis's
brother-in-law) could have received citizenship at the same time, while others such
as Claudius Labeo, and Claudius Victor will have received it from Gaius's successor.
Above all Civilis claimed before Petillius Cerealis that he had been a friend of
Vespasian before he became emperor.22 Such an association was a potential
embarrassment to the Flavian party, whom Civilis had claimed to support during
the early stages of his rebellion, and a tie with Vespasian himself was unlikely to
have been invented by a pro-Flavian historian like Pliny (Tacitus's presumed
source).23 If Vespasian and Civilis had really been friends. when could they have
become acquainted? Vespasian had been put in charge of Legion II by Claudius
through the influence of Narcissus, and in 43 had accompanied it from Germany to
Britain where he had fought with distinction.24 And Civilis will most likely have
17 The view of M. Bang for whose discussion of the history of Batavian auxiliary units see Die Germanen
im RomischenD ienst (Berlin 906), pp. 32-39.
'8 Tac., Hist., i, 13, regia stirpe.
29 Tac., Hist., iv, i6 and 32.
20 Tac., Hist., iv, 32.
2T Suet., Caligula, 43, where Suetonius says that Gaius undertook his expedition to Germany in order
to get new recruits for his Batavian bodyguard. The immediate reason in fact was to suppress the revolt of
Gaetulicus in Upper Germany. However, P. Bicknell argues persuasively in the 'The Emperor Gaius'
Military Activities in A.D. 40' Historia, xvii (1968), 496-505 that Gaius did at least visit Lower Germany in
A.D. 40 and that the army of the Lower Rhine carried out minor operations against the Canninefates
from the Insula Batavorum (cf. especially Tac. Hist., iv, 15).
22 Tac., Hist., v, 26.
23 Cf. P. A. Brunt, Latomus, xix (I960), p. 5Io.
24 Suet., Vesp., 4 with Tac., Hist., iii, 44.
met him during this period.25 This would fit extremely well. For it was Vespasian
who, with his brother Sabinus, was sent to reinforce the bridgehead formed by
the 'Batavians' during the 'Battle of the Medway'.26
There is a hint of one other theatre of operations for Batavian forces in Britain
during the early conquest period. Tacitus, when recounting the feud between
Venutius and Queen Cartimandua and its subsequent consequences for Rome,
tells us that Venutius, whose Brigantian extraction he has already mentioned
(this will be in one of the lost books of the Annals), had long been loyal and had
received the protection of Roman arms during his married life with Queen
Cartimandua.27 This can only mean that, in the words of E. Birley, 'within the
four years when Plautius was in Britain (43-47) there were Roman troops operating
in Brigantian territory in support of its ruling house'.28 Now Civilis had a
nephew Julius Briganticus, his sister's son, who loyally supported the Romans
against his uncle during the Batavian revolt. The cognomen could well derive from
the name of the north British tribe,29 and if Briganticus was in his mid-twenties in
69 he should have been born during the early years of the Claudian invasion of
Britain. It does not seem impossible that Briganticus's father, like his brother-inlaw
Civilis, commanded a cohort of Batavians in Britain, and that his son's name
recalls some successful operation in Brigantian territory. In giving his son such a
name he would not lack famous precedents. The practice of coining a cognomen
from a conquered barbarian people was common under the republic and continued
under the empire, when it was not restricted to the imperial house. Thus
Cossus Cornelius Lentulus after his north African victory in A.D. 5/6 bestowed
the name Gaetulicus, derived from that of the Gaetulians, upon his son,30 while
of particular relevance both as regards date and geographical setting is the case
of Gabinius Secundus, legate of Lower Germany in 4I, whom Claudius allowed to
assume the name 'Cauchius' because of his conquest of the 'Cauchi' (=Chauci).3I
The clearest precedent however would have been the imperial one, for
the Senate not only gave Claudius the title Britannicus in 43, but gave the same
name to the emperor's son.32 That more humble folk could coin such exotic
cognomina for themselves is shown by the cognomen Actiacus derived from
Octavian's great naval victory borne by veterans of Legion XI settled at Ateste,
and that they did so for their children can be demonstrated, to cite but two
examples, by the name borne by the son of a chief pilot of the Classis Britannica
25 Cf. G. Walser: Rom, das Reich und die fremden Volker, p. 91: 'Vermutlich bestanden zwischen den
batavischen Truppen und Vespasian alte Beziehungen aus der Zeit, als Vespasian Legionslegat in Germanien
und Britannien war.'
26 Dio, Ix, 20.
27 Tac., Ann., xii, 40.
28 E. Birley, Roman Britain and the Roman Army (Kendal, 1953), p. 47.
29 Not discussed by I. Kajanto: The Latin Cognominap, . 52, cognomina from conquered towns, peoples,
etc. Lewis and Short derive Briganticus from Brigantes, v. sub Brigantes. A derivation from the Brigantii of
the Lake Constance region is also theoretically possible.
30 Velleius, ii, 16.
3I Suet., Div. Claud., 24.
32 Dio, Ix, 22.
I34 M. W. C. HASSALL
BATAVIANS AND THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN 135
under the Flavians-Oceanus!-and that of Arminius's nephew, who was called
Italicus by his pro-Roman father, Flavus.33 Vespasian's own presence with the
Batavians in Brigantian territory is not entirely out of the question either-at all
events Flavian propagandists later linked Vespasian's name with operations in the
far north.34
To summarize: it seems likely that there were Batavians from the year 43
onwards serving in Britain, and that Histories, iv, 12, which describes their
coming under the command of their own chiefs, refers to this period. Further,
that Civilis may have been one of these chiefs and his brother-in-law another,
and that the latter saw action in the north of the island connected with the operations
hinted at by Tacitus, in his back-reference to a previous mention of the
Brigantes in a lost book of the Annals.
What part, finally, did Batavians play in Britain after their revolt was
crushed in 70? We know that Agricola employed four cohorts of Batavians at
Mons Graupius35 and, as already suggested, it is morally certain that some at
least of the 'lectissimi auxilarium quibus nota vada et patrius nandi usus quo
simul seque et arma et equos regunt'36 used by him during the second Roman
invasion of Anglesey were Batavians also. The only problem concerns the exact
identity of the units involved. The eight cohorts which revolted in 69 will have
been disbanded (a ninth-cohors IX Batavorum equitata milliaria exploratorumwas
not).37 Richmond38 believed that Agricola's Batavian cohorts were milliary
and are to be identified with cohorts I, II and III milliariae which by the end
of the first century or later were in other provinces.39 If this view is correct, it
may be that the eight quingenary (?) cohorts of the Batavian revolt were disbanded
only to be reformed as four milliary cohorts and quickly sent back to Britain.
There is, however, some doubt as to the strength of the original eight Batavian
cohorts. If cohors IX was milliary they should have been milliary also, despite the
apparent rareness of milliary cohorts during this period. That Agricola's Batavian
cohorts included at least some veterans is suggested by the phrase 'vetustas
militiae' applied to them at the time of Mons Graupius. The quingenary Cohors I
Batavorum attested in Britain for the first time in 12240 will then belong to a
33 E.g. I.L.S. 2243, M. Billienus M.f. Rom(ilia) Actiacus legione XI proelio navali facto in coloniam
deductus, with the other examples quoted in the article by Ensslin cited below. Dig., xxxvi, I, 48 (Oceanus),
Tac., Ann., xi, x6 (Italicus). The name of Arminius himself may be a geographical cognomen 'Armenius'-
the Armenian, given him as one of the companions of C. Caesar to the east and Armenia in A.D. I. See
the discussion of the suggestion of E. Hohl by W. Ensslin, 'Arminius-Armenius?' Das Gymnasiumli v/lv
1943/44, p. 64 f. Ensslin however tentatively supported a Teutonic derivation. Examples of cognomina
used by the aristocracy and derived from some special geographical connection could be multiplied under
the empire.
34 Momigliano, J.R.S., xl, 1950, p. 41 f.
35 Tac., Agric., 36. quattuor-so the best MS. See R. M. Ogilvie and Sir Ian Richmond, De Vita
Agricolae (Oxford 1967), introduction, p. 78.
36 Tac., Agric., 18.
37 E. Stein, RomischeB eamteu nd Truppenkirpeirn Deutschlandp, . 167.
38 Ed. Richmond and Ogilvie. De Vita Agricolae, p. 78.
39 For these units see most conveniently Cichorius in R.E., iv, (249 f.) and the indexes of C.I.L., xvi.
40 C.I.L., xvi, 69.
136 M. W. C. HASSALL
different series, and this is perhaps the most likely explanation though others are
possible.4I The subsequent history of Cohors I Batavorum quingenaria, the only
Batavian unit to remain in Britain, is not here relevant. It has left epigraphic
records at Carvoran on Hadrian's Wall, possibly Castlecary on the Antonine Wall,
and most notably at Carrawburgh on the former, where it is also stationed in the
Notitia.42
41 Bang, op. cit., thought that Agricola's Batavian cohorts were quingenary and that the Cohors I
Batavorum later attested in Britain was one of them. After their withdrawal to the continent cohorts II and
III were made up to milliary strength and a new milliary cohort I was added to complete the series.
42 It has recently been suggested by J. E. Bogaers, Studien zu den Militirgrenzen Roms (Beihefte der
Bonner Jahrbiicher, xix, p. 75) that finds of North British trumpet fibulae and of a late La Tene mirror of
British type from Nijmegen are to be connected with the presence of the IXth legion there in the early years
of the second century. This is perhaps true of those trumpet fibulae whose provenance is adequately
recorded, since these came from the legionary cemetery. But the mirror came from the Graberfeld unter
Hees which belongs to the civil settlement of Ulpia Noviomagus, and this, at least, could equally well have
been brought back by a returning Batavian veteran.