Late Roman Empire and the Gothic Incursions

Augustus placed almost any his legions and supporting auxiliary troops along the frontiers. Williams said " there was no home army, no Italian command or centrally based reserve" (4). Nevertheless, these isolated units, roughly 300,000, were competent to hold own along an elongated frontier (1,650 miles from the sexual union sea to the Black Sea). Their principal opponents were disunited, scattered noncivilized tribes in Europe and the Parthian Empire in Asia which until it was overthrown by the Iranian Sassanid dynasty in 226 threatened to go to war much more(prenominal) often than it engaged in hostilities. The papistic legions constituted a magnificent fighting machine, noteworthy for their courage, discipline and cohesion as an aggressive fighting force. As a result, Starr said " in the end every revolt in the first two centuries was suppressed. clean-cut challenge to the imperial system was not permitted" (121).

Under Augustus, the legions had conquered Asia Minor, Greece, the Aegean islands, Thrace which commanded the approaches to the Bosphorus, and the Dalmatian coast. by and by Caesars, notably Vespasian (69-79) and Trajan (98-117), expanded further in the trim Danube region. Most of the boundaries of pre-1990 western Yugoslavia fell under Roman control. Border control was maintained from fortifications strengthened along the lower Danube in Bavaria (Raetia), Austria (Nordicum), in Upper Pannonia in the Vienna-Budapest region and in Lower Pannonia between Budape

Marcellinus, Ammianus. The Later Roman Empire (A.D.354-378). Trans. Walter Hamilton. London: Penguin, 1986.

From roughly 271 to 328 when the Emperor Constantine built a bridge over the Danube at Sucidava, the Romans and the medieval tribes were more often than not at peace with each other, except for occasional Gothic raids. According to Burns, the Goths were largely preoccupied during this period with further migrations into the areas of give day Romania and Bulgaria and along the northern shore of the Black Sea and in inter-tribal struggles and internecine wars with other Germanic and Scythian tribes in their path (30-32).

The Romans under the great Illyrian emperors, especially Diocletian (284-305), who was born in Dalmatia, and Constantine (the Great) (306-337), who came from Dardania, pursued a policy of divide and conquer towards their barbarian neighbors in the Balkans. Marcus Aurelius had initiated the policy of receptio, the selective practice of permitting certain outside(a) groups to settle within the empire. Anxious to obtain respite from the regular Balkan wars of the late 3rd century, the Illyrian emperors extended this practice to resettle barbarian tribes such as the Carpi who had been squeezed out by the Goths. The Goths and other tribes on the lower Danube were allowed to trade with the Romans who sought to induce them through a combination of financial inducements, subsidies and honors into becoming dependent client-states. Gothic princes study at Constantinople. Gothic officers and enlisted men served with Roman legions in their battles with the Persians in the early 4th century.

Origins of the Goths and Their Migrations

Lewis, Napthali and Meyer Reinhold (Eds.). Roman Civilization Vol. II. New York: capital of South Carolina UP, 1955.

Burns, Thomas. A History of the Ostro-Goths. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.

Mommsen, Theodor. The Provinces of the Roman Empire. Trans. William P. Dickson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1968.

According to Ammianus, Roman
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