Agri Decumates
Encyclopedia
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
's province of Germania superior
Germania Superior
Germania Superior , so called for the reason that it lay upstream of Germania Inferior, was a province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany...
("Upper Germania"), covering the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
area between the Main river and the sources of Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
and Rhine rivers, presently in Southwestern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(modern Wurttemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern). To the southeast, the decumates bordered the militarily important province of Raetia
Raetia
Raetia was a province of the Roman Empire, named after the Rhaetian people. It was bounded on the west by the country of the Helvetii, on the east by Noricum, on the north by Vindelicia, on the west by Cisalpine Gaul and on south by Venetia et Histria...
. The only ancient reference to the name comes from Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
' book Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
.
The meaning of Decumates is lost and has been the subject of much contention. According to the English Classicist Michael Grant
Michael Grant (author)
Michael Grant was an English classicist, numismatist, and author of numerous popular books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome remains a standard of the work. Having studied and held a number of academic posts in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, he...
, the word probably refers to an ancient Celtic term indicating the political division of the area into "ten cantons."
According to Tacitus, the region had originally been populated by the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii
Helvetii
The Helvetii were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC...
but soon Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
, possibly under Ariovistus
Ariovistus
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, after which they settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic...
, settled there before migrating, around 9 BCE, to Boiohaemum (modern day Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
). After the Suebi left, the area was again inhabited by Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
s. Later on, the region was to become part of the Roman Empire.
Under the Flavian
Flavian dynasty
The Flavian dynasty was a Roman Imperial Dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian . The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors...
emperors, 69-96 CE, the area was settled and colonized. A network of roads eased legionary communications and improved protection from invading tribes using the re-entrant to penetrate into the Gaulish provinces. Frontier fortifications (limes
Limes
A limes was a border defense or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire.The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any...
) were constructed along a line running Rheinbrohl—Arnsburg—Inheiden—Schierenhof—Gunzenhausen—Pförring.
The major places of Roman settlement were Sumolecenna, Civitas Aurelia Aquensis, Lopodunum and Arae Flaviae, modern day Rottenburg am Neckar
Rottenburg am Neckar
Rottenburg am Neckar is a medium-sized town in the administrative district of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It rests about 50 km southwest of the provincial capital Stuttgart and about 12 km southwest of the district town Tübingen...
, Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
, Ladenburg and Rottweil
Rottweil
Rottweil is a town in the south west of Germany and is the oldest town in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg.Located between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb hills, Rottweil has about 25,000 inhabitants...
respectively.
The region flourished during the next two centuries in spite of periods of unrest: around 185/186, a revolt against Roman authority took place, mainly directed against the presence of the Roman military in Argentoratum
Argentoratum
Argentoratum or Argentorate was the ancient name of the French city of Strasbourg.The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province close to a Gaulish village near the banks of the Rhine, at the current location of Strasbourg,...
(modern-day Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
).
The Romans controlled the province until the latter half of the 3rd century, when it was evacuated by the emperor Gallienus
Gallienus
Gallienus was Roman Emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and alone from 260 to 268. He took control of the Empire at a time when it was undergoing great crisis...
(259-260) in the face of invading Alamanni and the secession of much of the Western Roman Empire
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
under the "usurper and ruler" Postumus
Postumus
Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus was a Roman emperor of Batavian origin. He usurped power from Gallienus in 260 and formed the so-called Gallic Empire...
.
The area may have been briefly reoccupied by the Emperor Aurelian
Aurelian
Aurelian , was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following...
(270-275 CE), during the Roman resurgence of the late 3rd century CE under the so-called "military" emperors. Even if this did occur, the re-establishment of Roman rule was brief. After the death of Emperor Probus (282), the area was finally given up and left to the Alamanni. The territory has since remained inhabited by people of Germanic descent continuously to the present day. However, Roman settlements were not immediately abandoned. There is evidence of continuity of the Roman way life well into the 5th century, much as Roman patterns continued in neighboring Gaul long after the Western Empire's collapse.
J. G. F. Hind has suggested that the inhabitants of the agri decumates are to be found from the later third to the fifth centuries in the decem pagi— also "ten cantons"— transferred west of the Rhine, to the region between that river and the Saar
Saar River
The Saar is a river in northeastern France and western Germany, and a right tributary of the Moselle. It rises in the Vosges mountains on the border of Alsace and Lorraine and flows northwards into the Moselle near Trier. It has two headstreams , that both start near Mont Donon, the highest peak...
, between Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
.