A Note on the Mutiny of the Pannonian Legions in A. D.

14
Author(s): J. J. Wilkes
Source: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Nov., 1963), pp. 268-271
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/637620
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A NOTE ON THE MUTINY OF THE PANNONIAN
LEGIONS IN
A.D.14
THE origins of the unrest among the Pannonian legions in A.D. 14 are easily
discerned. The great war in Illyricum of A.D. 6-9 involved the legions in a
series of extremely arduous campaigns extending across the western half of
the Balkan Peninsula, in particular the impenetrable forests of Bosnia and the
rugged karst of Dalmatia. The nearness of this area to Italy made the war a
great crisis in the reign of Augustus: conquest of Illyricum was the keystone of
Augustus' northern frontier policy and no efforts were spared to achieve this.
Advances in Germany could be determined from expediency but the subjuga-
tion of the Bosnian tribes was a necessity. During the war the need for men
was so great that conscription was introduced in Italy and even freedmen
were enlisted when ordinary citizen volunteers were not forthcoming.I Cassius
Dio speaks of the low morale and outbreaks of mutiny in the army of Tiberius
during the last season of the war.2
Tacitus gives us our fullest account of the mutiny which broke out towards
the end of the summer of A.D. I4, a short time before the three legions of
Pannonia were due to leave their common field camp to spend the winter in
their individual permanent bases.3 The instigator of the mutiny was a certain
Percennius, whose speech about the hardships and injustices of legionary
service, if actually anything like the version Tacitus records, would have done
credit to any barrack-room lawyer. He inveighs against the cruelty of the
centurions, the excessive length of active service, and the system whereby
veterans were still forced to remain with the colours (sub vexillo) even though
their official discharge had been granted. He then goes on to complain about
the quality of lands awarded to veterans: 'ac si quis tot casus vita superaverit,
trahi adhuc diversas in terras ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel
inculta montium accipiant.'4 While it is possible that this is a general reference
to lands then being awarded to legionary veterans throughout the Empire, it
is on the other hand more than likely that Tacitus is recording here a particular
grievance which the Pannonian legions (still at this time almost exclusively
composed of Italians) had about lands which they were granted at that time,
and which consequently are unlikely to have been very far distant from their
camps. No body of Roman troops faced the terrible penalties for mutiny for
remote and vague reasons. They revolted because of some specific and im-
mediate grievance, something which affected them and nobody else. If this
is the case, does the epigraphic evidence for veteran settlement from the
IVell. Pat. 2. Iiof. early September. Drusus must have left
2 Cassius Dio 56. I2 f., where he records Rome to deal with the mutiny before the
that Tiberius was afraid of a mutiny if he session of the Senate on the 17 September
kept his legions together in a single force. when Tiberius was formally adopted as
3 Tac. Ann. I. 16-30. Augustus died on princeps. As H. Schmitt has pointed out
19 August A.D. 14, but his death was kept a (Historia vii [1958], 378ff.) he can hardly
secret by Livia to enable Tiberius to return have set out after this date and have reached
from Illyricum; cf. ibid. I. 5. The mutiny Pannonia in time for the eclipse of the moon
in Pannonia broke out only when the death in the early hours of the 27 September which
of Augustus was made known, and this news so daunted the mutineers (Tac. Ann. I. 28).
can hardly have reached Pannonia until 4 Ann. I. 17.

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 A NOTE ON THE MUTINY OF THE PANNONIAN LEGIONS 269
Pannonian legions allow us to determine the identity of the uligines paludum
and the incultamontium?
The three legions involved in the mutiny were VIII Augusta, VIIII Hispana,
and XV Apollinaris.The last two had been in Illyricum for many years and had
probably fought under Tiberius in the earlier Bellum Pannonicumof 12-9 B.C.,
while VIII probably arrived from the Eastern Balkans during the war of
A.D. 6-9.1 The location of their joint summer camp is unknown but Tacitus'
reference to trouble among a detachment engaged in road- and bridge-building
at Nauportus (mod. Vrhnika), on the road between Emona and Aquileia,
suggests that it was somewhere in the south-west of Pannonia between the
Rivers Save and Drave.2 As for their permanent bases, VIII was at Poetovio
(mod. Ptuj on the Drave), while VIIII may have been stationed at Siscia (mod.
Sisak on the Save), although no trace of this legion's sojourn has been discovered
anywhere in Pannonia. Up to the time of the mutiny the permanent base of
XV was probably Emona (mod. Ljubljana).3
The large-scale land grants made by Augustus after Actium in Italy and
similar areas in the Empire had used up a good deal of the available land, and
by this period the government was having to look for suitable land in the
frontier provinces. No veteran settlement is known to have taken place in
Pannonia during the reign of Augustus. The first was the creation of a colony
at Emona, Colonia lulia Emona, dated by an inscription to the first year of the
reign of Tiberius. That is, at about the time the mutiny took place discharged
veterans were receiving their lands in the territory of the new city.4 Certainly
I the earlier presence of a legion, makes it
On VIIII Hispana and XV Apollinaris,
see E. Ritterling, R.-E. xii (I925), 1665 and likely that Emona was its station at the time
1747-8, s.v. legio. VIII Augusta appears to of the mutiny. Cf. B. Saria, LaureaeAquin-
have been for some time in the East, some censes i (1938), 245 ff., and more recently in
of its veterans being settled at Berytus in Historia i (i950), 454f. Certainly the legion
14 B.C. Syme, J.R.S. xxiii (1933), 30-31 and cannot have remained at Emona once the
n. 116, suggests that it may have been in the colony had been established.
Moesian army by A.D. 6. 4 Pliny, N.H. 3. 147, coloniaAemona;C.I.L.
2 Ann. I. 20.. ii. 6087, v. 7047, vi. 2518, 2718, 32526, lulia
3 VIII is well attested at Poetovio: C.I.L. iii. Emona. It was enrolled in the tribe Claudia.
4o060(centurion),1 o879 (equesfromCremona), The older view that Emona was founded in
10878 (a single instance of a veteran, from 34 B.C. by Octavian after his first Balkan
Cremona). VIIII is a problem: the only pos- campaign in Iapydia and the upper Save
sible record of this formation in Illyricum is valley (cf. Mommsen, C.LL. iii. 489; still
from Gardun, the camp of VII near Salonae retained by C.A.H. x. 88) is not supported
in Dalmatia, C.LL. iii. 13977, Sex. Cornelius by any evidence. The archaeological evidence
Sex f. Camilia nonanus veter [ . . . ., cited for a legionary fortress having preceded the
by Ritterling, op. cit. 1665. On strategic colonia is based on the partial plan of the
grounds one cannot imagine that there was city recovered by W. Schmid by large-scale
no legion at Siscia in the years immediately excavation before the First World War,
following the war of A.D. 6-9. On the main Jhb. f. Alt. vii (1913), 96ff.; for subse-
route to the East, it lay near the mouth of quent work cf. B. Saria, Historia, loc. cit.
important valleys leading into the heart of The key inscription from Emona is frag-
western Bosnia. Most of the records of XV mentary: the first fragment, found in 1887,
from this period occur in north-east Italy: was published with restoration by O.
C.LL. v. 3357, 3373, and 3379 (?), all Hirschfeld as C.LL. iii. 10768. The second,
from Verona. Veterans settled at Aquileia, and smaller, fragment was found by Schmid
cf. p. 270 n. 4. The legion was moved and served to establish the correctness of
to Carnuntum very early in the reign of Hirschfeld's restoration, cf. O. Cuntz, Jhb.f.
Tiberius, and the coincidence of this move Alt. vii (1913), 195 n. 5 and figs. 4-5. [imp.
with the founding of the colony at Emona, Caesar divi f.] Augustu[s pont. max. cos. xiii
where archaeological evidence has suggested imb. xxi trib. potest.] xxxvii pate[r patriae Ti.

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270 J. J. WILKES
no other veteran colony is known to have been planned at this period. Else-
where in Pannonia the settlement of an early group of veterans is attested at
Scarbantia (mod. Sopron), where Pliny speaks of oppidumlulia Scarbantia,1
but this probably did not occur until XV (the legion to which the veterans
belonged) had already been transferred northward to Carnuntum, a move
which took place immediately after the mutiny.z No official status appears to
have been granted to Scarbantia until it was raised to the rank of a municipium
under the Flavians.3At this period, of course, a fair proportion of discharged
veterans still preferredto return to their homes or at least to settle at Aquileia
and other centres in north-east Italy.4
At Emona the names of four early veterans are preserved who may well
have been original settlers in the colonia.s Three are from Pannonian legions
(two from XV and one from VIII); the tombstone of the fourth veteran is
fragmentary and the number of his legion has not survived.
Emona, which lies beneath the modern city of Ljubljana, was situated not
far from the River Save at a point where it flows through a plain in places
more than twenty miles across.To the north lie the foothills of the Karavanken,
the most easterly heights of the Alps, while at the southern edge of the plain
begins the notorious limestone karst plateau, a waterless and uncultivable
scrubland which extends the entire length of the eastern seaboard of the
Adriatic. In the plain itself there were certainly areas of fertile land towards
the fringes, especially on the north-eastin the direction of Celeia (mod. Celje).
By far the greater part of the plain, however, especially in the south towards
Igg, is a forbiddingswamp (mod. LjubljanskoBarje)and even modern attempts
to drain it and render it useful for agriculture have met with only limited
success.
Thus if we are correct in interpreting the remark about veterans' lands as a
specific complaint against those being awarded to veterans of the Pannonian
legions at this period, then it is Emona that they had in mind. Clearly there
was no choice for the veterans: it was either land at Emona or nothing. The
veterans demanded a money gratuity to be paid in cash before they left camp.6

C]aesar [divi Au]gustif. Augu[stuspo]nt. max.
c[os. ii imp.] vi trib. potest. xv[i] m[urum. . ]
dederunt.The terminus post quemfor the inscrip-
tion is 1o March A.D. 15 when Tiberius
became pontifex maximus.It cannot be later
than Tiberius' seventh imperial acclamation,
which Cuntz, loc. cit., would date to April/
May A.D. 15. The titles recorded on the stone
belong to the two months or so after the
io March A.D. 15. The last line may perhaps
be restored m[urumet turres]dederunt,although
Cuntz maintains that there is insufficient
space for turres.The formula murumet turres
occurs on similar records from near-by
Liburnia; at the Augustan colony of lader
(mod. Zadar), ibid. iii. 13264, 2907; and in
the neighbouring municipiumof Argyruntum
(mod. Starigrad Paklenica), Oest. Jahreshefte
xii (1909), Beibl. 49. The use of dederunton
the Emona inscription excludes any possi-
bility that it belongs to the period when a
legion was based there. No emperor 'gave'
anything to a military unit in the sense that
he 'gave' walls or other amenities to cities
in the Empire.
I Pliny, N.H. 3. 146. Early veterans at
Scarbantia,C.LL.iii. 4235, 4247, A.E. 1914,
5, 6, 7; and from R6pceszemere east of
Sopron, C.LL.iii. 4229.
2 Cf. E. Swoboda, Carnuntum3 (Graz,
1958), 30, and p. 269 n. 3 above.
3 C.LL. iii. 4192, municipiumFlavium
Aug(ustum)Scarbantia,and 4243, dec(urio)
mun(icipii)Flav(ii) Scarb(antiae).
4 For instanceveteransof XV at Aquileia,
C.LL.v. 891, 917, 928, E. Pais, Suppl. C.I.L.
v. 182, 1161.
s C.LL.iii. 3845 (I.L.S. 2264), L. Oclatius
Tarquiniensis vet. leg. XV, T. Calventius
T.f.
vet. leg. VIII; 3847 (10757), T. VariusT.f.
Pap. Narbonevet. leg. XV; 3848, C. Vettenius
[.f ...... ] veteranusleg. [....
6 Tac. Ann. I. 17.

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 A NOTE ON THE MUTINY OF THE PANNONIAN LEGIONS 271

This the government was either unable (or probably unwilling) to pay. It
is hardly to be wondered at that serious unrest occurred among legionaries
who, after surviving more than twenty years of gruelling Balkan warfare,
faced the prospect of eking out an existence on the swamps of the Ljubljansko
Barje or elsewhere on the fringes of the waterless limestone karst.'
Universityof Birmingham J. J. WILKES

I I should like to
acknowledge my debt to attentionthe possibilitythat the Ljubljansko
Dr. Jaroslav Sagel, of the Slovenian Aca- Barje might have been connectedwith the
demy in Ljubljana, who first brought to my mutiny ofA.D. 14.

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