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: https://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
discerned. The great war in Illyricum of A.D. 6-9 involve
series of extremely arduous campaigns extending across th
the Balkan Peninsula, in particular the impenetrable forests
rugged karst of Dalmatia. The nearness of this area to Ita
great crisis in the reign of Augustus: conquest of Illyricum w
Augustus' northern frontier policy and no efforts were spar
Advances in Germany could be determined from expediency
tion of the Bosnian tribes was a necessity. During the war th
was so great that conscription was introduced in Italy an
were enlisted when ordinary citizen volunteers were not for
Dio speaks of the low morale and outbreaks of mutiny in the
during the last season of the war.2
Tacitus gives us our fullest account of the mutiny which b
the end of the summer of A.D. I4, a short time before th
Pannonia were due to leave their common field camp to spen
their individual permanent bases.3 The instigator of the mut
Percennius, whose speech about the hardships and injusti
service, if actually anything like the version Tacitus records
credit to any barrack-room lawyer. He inveighs against t
centurions, the excessive length of active service, and the
veterans were still forced to remain with the colours (sub ve
their official discharge had been granted. He then goes on to
the quality of lands awarded to veterans: 'ac si quis tot casus
trahi adhuc diversas in terras ubi per nomen agrorum uli
inculta montium accipiant.'4 While it is possible that this is
to lands then being awarded to legionary veterans throughou
is on the other hand more than likely that Tacitus is recordin
grievance which the Pannonian legions (still at this time
composed of Italians) had about lands which they were grant
and which consequently are unlikely to have been very far d
camps. No body of Roman troops faced the terrible penalties
remote and vague reasons. They revolted because of som
mediate grievance, something which affected them and n
is the case, does the epigraphic evidence for veteran sett
IVell. Pat. 2. Iiof. early September. Drusus must have left
2 Cassius Dio 56. I2 f., where Rome he records
to deal with the mutiny before the
that Tiberius was afraid of a mutiny session of ifthe he
Senate on the 17 September
kept his legions together in a single force.was formally adopted as
when Tiberius
3 Tac. Ann. I. 16-30. Augustus died As
princeps. on H. Schmitt has pointed out
19 August A.D. 14, but his death was kept
(Historia a
vii [1958], 378ff.) he can hardly
secret by Livia to enable Tiberius toout
have set return
after this date and have reached
from Illyricum; cf. ibid. I. 5. PannoniaThe mutinyin time for the eclipse of the moon
in Pannonia broke out only when in thethe
earlydeath
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 palu

and the inculta montium?
The three legions involved in the mutiny were VIII Augusta, VIIII Hispa
and XV Apollinaris. The last two had been in Illyricum for many years an
probably fought under Tiberius in the earlier Bellum Pannonicum of 12-9
while VIII probably arrived from the Eastern Balkans during the w
A.D. 6-9.1 The location of their joint summer camp is unknown but T
reference to trouble among a detachment engaged in road- and bridge-bu
at Nauportus (mod. Vrhnika), on the road between Emona and Aqui
suggests that it was somewhere in the south-west of Pannonia betwe
Rivers Save and Drave.2 As for their permanent bases, VIII was at Poe
(mod. Ptuj on the Drave), while VIIII may have been stationed at Siscia (m
Sisak on the Save), although no trace of this legion's sojourn has been disco
anywhere in Pannonia. Up to the time of the mutiny the permanent base
XV was probably Emona (mod. Ljubljana).3
The large-scale land grants made by Augustus after Actium in Ital
similar areas in the Empire had used up a good deal of the available land,
by this period the government was having to look for suitable land i
frontier provinces. No veteran settlement is known to have taken pl
Pannonia during the reign of Augustus. The first was the creation of a c
at Emona, Colonia lulia Emona, dated by an inscription to the first year
reign of Tiberius. That is, at about the time the mutiny took place disch
veterans were receiving their lands in the territory of the new city.4 Cert

the earlier presence of a legion, makes it

I On VIIII Hispana and XV Apollinaris,
likely
see E. Ritterling, R.-E. xii (I925), 1665 andthat Emona was its station at the time
1747-8, s.v. legio. VIII Augusta appears
of thetomutiny. Cf. B. Saria, Laureae Aquin-
have been for some time in the East, censes
some i (1938), 245 ff., and more recently in
of its veterans being settled at Berytus in i (i950), 454f. Certainly the legion
Historia
cannot
14 B.C. Syme, J.R.S. xxiii (1933), 30-31 and have remained at Emona once the
n. 116, suggests that it may have been colony
in the had been established.
Moesian army by A.D. 6. 4 Pliny, N.H. 3. 147, colonia Aemona; 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.
The older view that Emona was founded in
4o060 (centurion),1 o879 (equesfrom Cremona),
34 B.C. by Octavian after his first Balkan
10878 (a single instance of a veteran, from
campaign in Iapydia and the upper Save
Cremona). VIIII is a problem: the only pos-
sible record of this formation in Illyricum valley
is (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
excavation before the First World War,
no legion at Siscia in the years immediately
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 ofquent work cf. B. Saria, Historia, loc. cit.
important valleys leading into the heart ofThe 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 ofHirschfeld'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 suggestedimb. xxi trib. potest.] xxxvii pate[r patriae Ti.

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 270 J. J. WILKES

no other veteran colony is know

where in Pannonia the settlement
Scarbantia (mod. Sopron), where
but this probably did not occur
belonged) had already been tran
which took place immediately afte
have been granted to Scarbantia un
under the Flavians.3 At this period
veterans still preferred to return t
and other centres in north-east It
At Emona the names of four ea
have been original settlers in the
(two from XV and one from VII
fragmentary h and the number of
Emona, which lies beneath the m
far from the River Save at a poi
more than twenty miles across. To
the most easterly heights of the A
begins the notorious limestone
scrubland which extends the en
Adriatic. In the plain itself there
the fringes, especially on the nort
By far the greater part of the pla
Igg, is a forbidding swamp (mod.
to drain it and render it useful
success.

Thus if we are correct in interpreting the remark abo

specific complaint against those being awarded to veter
legions at this period, then it is Emona that they had i
was no choice for the veterans: it was either land at
veterans demanded a money gratuity to be paid in cash b

anything
C]aesar [divi Au]gustif. Augu[stus to a military
po]nt. max. unit in the sense that
he 'gave'
c[os. ii imp.] vi trib. potest. xv[i] walls or. other
m[urum . ] amenities to cities
in for
dederunt. The terminus post quem the Empire.
the inscrip-
I Pliny,
tion is 1o March A.D. 15 when N.H. 3. 146. Early veterans at
Tiberius
became pontifex maximus. ItScarbantia,
cannot be C.LL. iii. 4235, 4247, A.E. 1914,
later
5, 6, 7;
than Tiberius' seventh imperial and from R6pceszemere east of
acclamation,
which Cuntz, loc. cit., would Sopron,
dateC.LL. iii. 4229.
to April/
May A.D. 15. The titles recorded2 Cf.
onE.the
Swoboda,
stone Carnuntum3 (Graz,
belong to the two months 1958),
or so 30,after the
and p. 269 n. 3 above.
io March A.D. 15. The last line3 C.LL.
mayiii. 4192, municipium Flavium
perhaps
be restored m[urum et turres] dederunt, Aug(ustum) Scarbantia,
althoughand 4243, dec(urio)
Cuntz maintains that there is insufficient mun(icipii) Flav(ii) Scarb(antiae).
4 For instance veterans of XV at Aquileia,
space for turres. The formula murum et turres
occurs on similar records from near-by C.LL. v. 891, 917, 928, E. Pais, Suppl. C.I.L.
Liburnia; at the Augustan colony of lader
v. 182, 1161.
(mod. Zadar), ibid. iii. 13264, 2907; and sin
C.LL. iii. 3845 (I.L.S. 2264), L. Oclatius
the neighbouring municipium of Argyruntum
Tarquiniensis vet. leg. XV, T. Calventius T.f.
vet. leg. VIII; 3847 (10757), T. Varius T.f.
(mod. Starigrad Paklenica), Oest. Jahreshefte
xii (1909), Beibl. 49. The use of dederunt onNarbone vet. leg. XV; 3848, C. Vettenius
Pap.
the Emona inscription excludes any possi-[.f ...... ] veteranus leg. [....
bility that it belongs to the period when6aTac. Ann. I. 17.
legion was based there. No emperor 'gave'

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 A NOTE ON THE MUTINY OF THE PANNONIAN LEGIONS 271

This the government was either unable (or probably unwilling) to pa

is hardly to be wondered at that serious unrest occurred among legio
who, after surviving more than twenty years of gruelling Balkan wa
faced the prospect of eking out an existence on the swamps of the Ljublja
Barje or elsewhere on the fringes of the waterless limestone karst.'

University of Birmingham J. J. WILKES

I I should like to acknowledgeattention
my debt the
to possibility that the Ljublja
Dr. Jaroslav Sagel, of the Slovenian Aca- have been connected wit
Barje might
demy in Ljubljana, who first brought
mutinyto my
ofA.D. 14.

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