Revolt of The Batavi - Background

Background

The Batavi were a sub-tribe of the Germanic Chatti tribal group who had migrated to the region between the Old Rhine and Waal rivers (still today called the Betuwe after them) in what became the Roman province of Germania Inferior (S Netherlands/Nordrhein). Their land, though potentially fertile alluvial deposits, was largely uncultivable, consisting mainly of Rhine delta swamps. Thus the Batavi population it could support was tiny: not more than 35,000 at this time.

They were a warlike people, skilled horsemen, boatmen and swimmers. They were therefore excellent soldier-material. In return for the unusual privilege of exemption from tributum (direct taxes on land and heads that most peregrini were subject to), they supplied a disproportionate number of recruits to the Julio-Claudian auxilia: one ala and 8 cohortes. They also provided most of the emperor Augustus' elite German Bodyguards Regiment (Germani corpore custodes), which continued in existence until AD 68. The Batavi auxilia amounted to about 5,000 men, implying that for the entire Julio-Claudian period, over 50% of all Batavi males reaching military age (16 years) may have enlisted in the auxilia. Thus the Batavi, although just about 0.05% of the total population of the empire in AD 23, supplied about 4% of the total auxilia i.e. 80 times their proportionate share. They were regarded by the Romans as the best and bravest (fortissimi, validissimi) of their auxiliary, and indeed of all their forces. In Roman service, they had perfected a unique technique for swimming across rivers wearing full armour and weapons.

Gaius Julius Civilis (an adopted Latin name, not his native one) was a hereditary prince of the Batavi and the prefect (commanding officer) of a Batavi cohort. A veteran of 25 years' distinguished service in the Roman army, he and the 8 Batavi cohorts had played an important role in the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 and the subsequent subjugation of that country (43-66).

By 69, however, Civilis, the Batavi regiments and the Batavi people had become utterly disaffected from Rome. After the Batavi regiments were withdrawn from Britain in 66, Civilis and his brother (also a prefect) were arrested by the governor of Germania Inferior on false accusations of treason. The governor ordered the brother's execution, and sent Civilis to Rome in chains for judgement by the Roman emperor Nero. (The difference in treatment indicates that the brother was still a peregrinus i.e a non-citizen subject of the empire, while Civilis, as his name implies, had been accorded Roman citizenship, which entitled him to have his case heard by the emperor in person). While Civilis was in prison awaiting trial, Nero was overthrown in AD 68 by an army led into Italy by the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, the veteran general Servius Sulpicius Galba, and committed suicide, ending the rule of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, founded a century earlier by Augustus. Galba was proclaimed emperor. He acquitted Civilis of the treason charge and allowed him to return home.

Back in Germania Inferior, however, it seems that Civilis was arrested again, this time by the new governor Aulus Vitellius, at the urging of the legions under his command, which demanded Civilis' execution. Meanwhile, Galba disbanded the German Bodyguards Regiment, which he distrusted due to the loyalty they had given to Nero in the latter's final days. This alienated several hundred crack Batavi troops, and indeed the whole Batavi nation, who considered it a grave insult. At the same time, relations collapsed between the 8 Batavi cohorts and their parent-legion XIV Gemina, to which they had been attached since the invasion of Britain 25 years earlier. The seething hatred between the Roman legionaries and their German auxiliaries erupted in serious fighting on at least two occasions.

At this juncture, the Roman empire was convulsed by its first major civil war, the Year of the Four Emperors, for a century. The cause was the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The heirs of Augustus had enjoyed the automatic and fervent loyalty of ordinary legionaries in the frontier armies. But Galba had no such legitimacy in their eyes. Supreme power was now open to whichever general was strong enough to seize it (and keep it). First, in AD 69, Galba's deputy, Otho, carried out a coup d'état in Rome against his leader, who was murdered by the Praetorian Guard.

Then Vitellius launched his own bid for power, and prepared to lead the Rhine legions into Italy against Otho. Now in urgent need of the Batavi's military support, Vitellius released Civilis. In return, the Batavi regiments helped Vitellius defeat Otho's forces at the Battle of Bedriacum. The Batavi troops were then ordered to return home. But at this point arrived news of the mutiny of general Titus Flavius Vespasianus, commander of forces in Syria, whose own massive army of 5 legions was soon joined by the legions on the Danube. Vitellius' governor in Germania Inferior, desperate to raise more troops, lost the goodwill of the Batavi by attempting to conscript more Batavi than the maximum stipulated in their treaty. The brutality and corruption of the Roman recruiting-centurions, who were also responsible for many cases of sexual assault on Batavi boys, brought already deep discontent in the Batavi homeland to the boil.