⚫️ THE 14TH AND THE BATAVIANS

“Vitellius decided to send them back to Britain, from which Nero had withdrawn them, and in the meantime to have the Batavian cohorts camp with them, because the Batavians had had a difference of long standing with the Fourteenth. Peace did not last long among armed men who hated one another so violently. At Turin a Batavian charged a workman with being a thief, while a legionary defended the workman as his host; thereupon their fellow-soldiers rallied to the support of each and matters soon passed from words to blows. In fact there would have been a bloody battle if two Praetorian cohorts had not taken the side of the soldiers of the Fourteenth and inspired them with courage while they frightened the Batavians. Vitellius directed that the Batavians, as being trustworthy, should join his train, while the Fourteenth was to be conducted over the Graian Alps by a circuitous route to avoid Vienna, for the people of Vienna also gave him alarm.”

Tacitus, Histories

🟡 TRIBUNE OF THE PLEBS

“But it was the speech of his colleague, Tiberius Gracchus, that produced the greatest effect. He said that for a man to use his official position as the instrument of his own personal animosities was in any case setting a bad precedent, but for a tribune of the plebs to become the agent of another man's vindictiveness was a disgraceful proceeding quite unworthy of the power and inviolability of the college of tribunes. Each man ought to judge for himself whom to love and whom to hate, what actions to approve of and what to disapprove of; he must not wait upon another man's look or nod, nor must he be driven hither and thither by the motives which sway another man's mind. A tribune who becomes the tool of an angry consul and is careful to remember what M. Aemilius entrusted to him privately, forgets that the tribuneship was entrusted to him publicly by the people of Rome, and entrusted to him for the protection and liberty of private citizens, not for the defence of an autocratic consul.”

Livy, history of Rome

🔶 ROME WAS TO BE FEARED

"The security of Rome's frontiers was based on dominating her neighbours, very much in keeping with the belief that peace came from Roman victory. Rome was to be feared, which meant that her might was paraded as a constant reminder of her strength, while attackers were dealt with ruthlessly and the communities believed to support them ravaged with fire and sword."

(From Pax Romana) Adrian Goldsworthy

🔴 CASSIUS DIO ON THE NORTHERN BRITONS

Cassius Dio speaks of Severus' campaign in northern Britain and the tribes of that land.

"There are two principal races of the Britons, the Caledonians and the Maeatae, and the names of the others have been merged in these two. The Maeatae live next to the cross-wall which cuts the island in half, and the Caledonians are beyond them. Both tribes inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate and swampy plains, and possess neither walls, cities, nor tilled fields, but live on their flocks, wild game, and certain fruits...They dwell in tents, naked and unshod, possess their women in common, and in common rear all the offspring. Their form of rule is democratic for the most part, and they are very fond of plundering; consequently they choose their boldest men as rulers....They can endure hunger and cold and any kind of hardship; for they plunge into the swamps and exist there for many days with only their heads above water, and in the forests they support themselves upon bark and roots, and for all emergencies they prepare a certain kind of food, the eating of a small portion of which, the size of a bean, prevents them from feeling either hunger or thirst" (LXXVII.12.1-4).

Cassius Dio

🔘 THE HEIRS OF AN EMPIRE

“Constantine also put down a certain Calocaerus, who tried to achieve a revolution in Cyprus. He made Dalmatius, son of his brother of the same name, a Caesar; Dalmatius' brother Hannibalianus he created King of Kings and ruler of the Pontic tribes, after giving him his daughter Constantiana in marriage. Then it was arranged that the younger Constantine should rule the Gallic provinces, Constantius Caesar the Orient, Constans Illyricum and Italy, while Dalmatius was to guard the Gothic coastline. While Constantine was planning to make war on the Persians, he died in an imperial villa in the suburbs of Constantinople, not far from Nicomedia, leaving the State in good order to his sons. He was buried in Constantinople, after a reign of thirty-one years.”

The Anonymus Valesianus

🔵 ROMAN CONDITIONS

“The conditions were these: All Roman prisoners and deserters held by the Carthaginians were to be delivered up; Sicily and the small neighboring islands to be surrendered to the Romans; the Carthaginians not to initiate any war against Syracuse or its ruler, Hiero, nor to recruit mercenaries in any part of Italy; the Carthaginians to pay the Romans a war indemnity of 2000 Euboïc talents in twenty years, in yearly instalments payable at Rome. The Euboïc talent is equal to 7000 Alexandrine drachmas. So ended the first war between the Romans and the Carthaginians for the possession of Sicily, having lasted twenty-four years, in which the Romans lost 700 ships and the Carthaginians 500. In this way the chief part of Sicily (all of it that had been held by the Carthaginians) passed into the possession of the Romans. The latter levied tribute on the Sicilians, and apportioned certain naval charges among their towns, and sent a prætor each year to govern them. On the other hand Hiero, the ruler of Syracuse, who had coöperated with them in this war, was declared to be their friend and ally.”

Appian. The Foreign Wars.