Summary
The Germanic tribes important to Roman downfall originated in Scandinavia, from
which they moved south around 1000 BCE. By 100 BCE they had reached the Rhine
area, and about two hundred years later, the Danube Basin, both Roman borders.
The western German tribes consisted of the Marcomanni, Alamanni,
Franks, Angles, and Saxons, while the Eastern tribes north of the Danube
consisted of the Vandals, Gepids, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths. The
Alans, Burgundians, and Lombards are less easy to define.
Caesar first observed the Germanic tribes in 51 BCE, and marked them as a
possible threat. German tribes were clan-based, with blood-loyalty the basis
for all bonds. Living intermittently in settled forest clearings called
hamlets, they engaged in mixed subsistence cultivation of crops and animals.
Cultivation was rudimentary given the hard clay soil and use of implements more
suited to Mediterranean areas. There were no food surpluses, so population
remained small, around one million. Without much occupational specialization,
they were an iron-age culture emphasizing war.
For the first century CE, they were not a real danger to Rome: 1)Poverty ensured
poor armor and weapons; 2) they had limited tactics, consisting of ambushes and
a mass charge; 3) Divisions into numerous small tribes meant a lack of political
cooperation; 4) There was no real, continual government beyond the clan. In
peacetime, tribal assemblies made up of all free men and warriors decided issues
of peace and war. They would elect temporary war chiefs, whose legitimacy ended
after hostilities.
The Roman historian Tacitus described the Germans again about 100 CE. After
Caesar had conquered Gaul up to the Rhine, expansion space was curtailed for
the nomadic tribes, causing demographic pressure on the borders. Some Germans
began to come into contact with Roman civilization at border garrisons. They
greatly admired the material aspects of Roman culture, such as arms, domestic
wares, etc. Small numbers were accepted for service with Roman legions, and
small scale German-Roman trade relations emerged involving cattle and slaves.
Gradually, changes occurred in the tribes over the next 250 years: A) Though
kinship remained the primary bond, a new kind of political formation evolved:
the Comitatus. Older, successful warrior chieftains took in younger
aspirants, who then raided and shared the booty with each other. This
arrangement produced a professional, more lethal warrior group, where bonds were
now between man and lord, the latter signaling the beginning of a small
aristocracy. B) At the same time, as inter-tribe conflict increased, spurred in
part by the desire to partake of Roman material culture, tribes began electing
fewer, longer serving war-chiefs. C) Eastern German tribes, Goths and Vandals,
gradually migrated from North Poland to the Ukraine, pressuring the Danube
frontier; they also settled north of the Black Sea, to the West of the Huns.
D) Around 200, small tribes began to coalesce into supra-tribal groups.
Southern Germans came together into the Alamanni, while middle Rhine groups
incorporated into the Franks, and the North Germans coalesced as Saxons. By the
300s there was a continual belt of barbarian tribes all along the Roman limes
from the North Sea to the Black Sea. E) Increasing numbers of Germans began to
serve as Roman auxiliary forces just beyond the Roman borders, learning new
tactics, acquiring better materials, coming to admire Roman society even more.
Some even underwent a process of partial Romanization. F) Some, the Visigoths
in particular, were gradually converted to Christianity from the 340s by
Ulfillias, son of a captured slave. Converting to the Arian form of
Christianity soon to be branded heresy, the Visigoths slowly communicated it to
the Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Burgundians.
Roman-Barbarian dynamics remained normal until 375. In the mid-360s the pagan
back-sliding emperor Julian the Apostate undertook a large Sassanid
campaign, taking elements of the Rhine and Danube armies with him. In the 370s,
Alamanni thus raided in Gaul, but were stopped by the western Emperor
Valentin. In 375, Valentin died while pushing the Sarmatians back over the
Danube. He was succeeded by Gratian in the West and Valens in the East.
Commentary
The gradual if at times explosive migrations of a myriad of Germanic tribes into
Roman domains began in the mid-second century CE, ending the placidity of the
early part of Marcus Aurelius' reign (r. 161-180). These barbarian
incursions have come to be known as the volkerwanderung, 'wanderings
of the peoples.'
What set off this very unfortunate demographic avalanche was not Barbarian anti-
Roman animosity. Rather, to a certain extent, the incursions were
predetermined: a defining aspect of ancient and Medieval history was the
inability of settled, sedentary peoples to avoid encroachment by neighboring
nomadic groups. Beyond that, the sheer demographic pressure of the piling up of
different Barbarian tribes served to encourage expansion: unsettled, roving
societies do not well tolerate population pressure. Thus, in the fundamental
division of antiquity between an urbanized, agrarian-based, Latin civilization
whose core was the Mediterranean basin, and a rural, pastoral, nomadic, non-
literate Barbarian world emerging from the steppe lands, these tribes
represented the citadel of Barbarism ready to move.
In a more immediate sense, Barbarian entry into Roman lands, aside from their
pathological tendency to plunder, was less motivated by a clear intent to
destroy than by a hope to enjoy Roman civilization combined with the frantic
urgency of avoiding annihilation by the Huns. As an example, the Visigothic
king Fritigern was able to ascend to his position of power based simply on a
commitment to flee the Huns. That the Barbarians on the whole wanted to fit
into the Roman system is indicated by their attempts to secure
recognition as Roman soldiers, officers, and officials. This effort was not
simply a matter of expediency, it was a legitimate desire. Thus, it would help
to look upon the Barbarian entrants, and especially the Visigoths, with some
sympathy.
