Genobaud (3rd century)

Genobaud
The Franks of the 3rd century are located between the Rhine and the Weser upstream to about Mainz. The word Franks does not appear; instead, the previous Germanic tribal names are shown. Outside of this region only the alliance names are shown: the Saxons, the Longobards, the Allemanns. Genobaud was first war leader and then client-king over the entire Frankish alliance. Borders of the Roman provinces are not shown, but the capital of Gaul, Trier, is shown.
Born	Unknown
Died	Unknown
Allegiance	Franks first, then Roman Empire
Years of service	Unknown
Position	Dux, or "Commander," of the Franks
Known for	Proactive surrender to the Emperor Maximian in 289

Genobaud, also called Gennobaudes or Genebaud, dated to the second half of the 3rd century, was the first Frankish war-leader on record. The Franks at the time were an alliance of Germanic-speaking tribes living on the north, or right, bank of the lower and middle Rhine as far north as the Weser, the border with the Saxons.

Little is known of the man personally, so little that he is sometimes confused with another Genobaud of similar rank in the 4th century, nearly a century later. The length of time precludes any such identification. Furthermore, the Franks of the 4th century cover a larger range and have more historical impact. The similarity of name is more typically accounted for by a hypothetical dynastic, or family-naming tradition, although there is no evidence of any. The etymology of the name is of little assistance, as it is yet undecoded.

The times in which the 3rd-century Genobaud lived are more important for understanding the early history of the Franks, which is as elusive as the history of their leader. They appear suddenly in history without precedent. They are, however, such a fixture, without reference to any previous migration, that the culture at that location cannot be assumed to be unprecedented. The culture must have been there before the name. Certainly, a hypothetical immigration of Frankish people into their homeland would not have escaped the attention of the Roman historians, who universally treat the Franks as long-standingly there. It is universally agreed that the people were well-known to the Romans under previous names.

The Franks lived in a period when tribes were uniting into new ethnic groups with new self-styled names, such as Saxons ("axe-men"), Langobards ("long-beards"), and Allemans ("all the men"). There is some evidence that that the ethnic Frank was understood to mean "bold" or "fierce." The Roman name for this boldness was audacia, and it figured in the classical expression, "fortune favors the bold." Certainly, one of the earlier tribes, the Cherusci, had seemed bold enough when they massacred three Roman legions (15000 men) in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest at the start of the first century, causing Augustus to set the border at the Rhine. On the south bank of the Rhine he formed two buffer states, "Lower Germany" and "Upper Germany" upstream. The Franks were opposite the lower, and the Allemans the upper. Each of these alliances were governed by a war-leader, which the Romans called a dux ("Duke").

Living next to the Rhine frontier, the Franks were to a large degree economically sustained by the Empire. One of the occupations made available to them was mercenary in the frontier guards. References to these drifting Franks appear in the mid-3rd-century, the first ever. The Romans found them likeable. Thus they were drawn with the Saxons into a criminal conspiracy conducted by the Roman governor of Belgium, Carausius. This conspiracy sent privateers against travelers in the English Channel. They were interested in cash, goods, and captives to be sold as slaves.

The central government, troubled by anarchy and inefficiency during the 50-year Crisis of the Third Century, in which the army did not allow any emperor to live long enough to make a difference, did not detect the conspiracy, but in 284 the army relinquished its hold on the government, voting to install Diocletian as Senior Emperor (rank of Augustus). He appointed Maximian junior emperor (rank of Caesar) and assigned him to suppress a peasant revolt in Gaul. His use of Carausius to help him and to suppress piracy in the channel led to the discovery that Carausius was the chief of the pirates.

The emperors sentenced Carausius to death in absentia. Declaring another splinter empire, similar to the Gallic Empire, to consist of Britain, Belgium, and the tribes along the Rhine, Carausius gave the order for a surprise attack on Trier, Gallic capital, by the Germanics, but it was they who were surprised. By chance Maximian and Diocletian were both at Trier with their armies. Maximian did a sweep of Gaul, driving the Germanics back across the Rhine. He entered Belgium in the hope of clearing the forces of Carausius from there. Those forces most likely included Franks.

Unable to clear the channel coast of rebels, Maximian resolved on building a fleet to attack Britain, an operation too far ahead. He needed the channel ports for ship construction, and even with the ships he would have had to defeat Carausius on the mainland first. He decided to build them in the various river commands held by the Romans. Meanwhile he split his command, sending a substantial force under Constantius Chlorus to cross the Rhine. Whether he intended to outflank the Franks is not said in the sources, but that turned out to be the effect.

Maximian's forces continued to be ineffective. No more is heard of the fleet, except an obscure reference in another author said it was lost in a flood. Constantius turned out to be a military genius. He defeated all the other alliances that came against him, instilling fear of him throughout all the Germanics. He then turned westward. Genobaud now makes his brief appearance in history. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, he changes sides. He fears to deal with Constantius, who has been somewhat ruthless, so he crosses the Rhine with a contingent of Franks, requests an audience with Maximian, and begs his mercy, offering his submission and services, going out of his way to be obsequious.

The offer was accepted. Genobaud claimed Maximian was only restoring to the Franks land the Romans had already possessed. The claim appears to have been some sort of figure of speech, as the 291 source says clearly that the Franks surrendered through fear of being attacked. Genobaud with this submission would have lost his status as war-leader, at least de facto, but Maximian made him client-king of the Franks.

Maximian now had to answer to Diocletian. He was fired upward, so to speak, removed from command duty to receive a staff position with Diocletian, who promoted Constantius to Caesar and gave him the task Maximian was unable to complete. Carausius evacuated Boulogne in 293 and with it probably the channel coast. Whether or not he retained some renegade Franks is not clear, nor is the fate of the Saxons. Carausius was a problem for the emperors for a few more years, claiming to be an imperial partner, until he was finally assassinated by his best friend and partner. Constantius reclaimed Britain. Frankia disappears from history again, suggesting that peace reigned there now, at least for a while.

Historic identity

Sources

The sources for this early Frankish leader are mainly confined to a single collection of 12 orations termed the Panegyrici Latini. They are not in any special order, but have been arranged as collected. Each was delivered to a high official of the Roman Empire on some special occasion. The chronologies have been more or less deciphered by scholarship. Each oration praises the deeds of subject, often stating events that are dateable. As the orator was unlikely to lie to his emperor or other superior officer, the Panegyrics are given the credibility of a record, whereas histories of individuals written in private from other sources are more liable to personal judgement.

The first Clovis

The last Louis, Louis XVI

Mention of the early Franks in some of the Panegyrici provides only fragmentary information about them. The later career of the Franks is well-documented by such writers as Gregory of Tours in The History of the Franks. Gregory, however, under "The Early Rulers of the Franks (Book II)," working from books available to him then, but lost now, begins with the invasion of Roman Germany by Franks under the 4th-century Genobaud with the assistance of Marcomer and Sunno. The last of the early war leaders and first independent king of the Franks was Clovis I, or Hlodowig, the original "(C)Louis." Book III goes on from his death. There were many more Clovises and then beginning with Charlemagne's son, Louises, as a single Europe became united into the Frankish empire.

Two panegyrics establish the identity of the 3rd-century Genobaud as Frankish: number X delivered in 289, and number XI delivered in 291. They have the same author, and some of the manuscripts identify him as Claudius Mamertinus, but the presence of another Claudius Mamertinus as author of a panegyric 75 years earlier makes this possibility less likely. Instead the author is usually listed as anonymous. X and XI are the order of presentation in the volume; overall they are the 2nd and 3rd composed. Mention of X in XI establishes a real-time sequence: X, XI.

X tells the basic story of Gennobaud, portraying him as a barbarian king doing the best he can to reach a settlement for his constituents in a difficult historical situation. The relationship between the Germanic-speaking people and the Romans had been troubled since its inception, when joint expeditions of Celts and Germans invaded northern Italy in the Roman Republic.

The Franks and the Roman army

Just before the Roman civil war that created the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar undertook to solve the problem by conquering Gaul. Succeeding, he found that they were being seduced to rebellion by Germanic tribes who crossed the Rhine and attempted to establish states there. He was prevented from a permanent solution by his assassination at the start of the civil war. When it was finally done and Augustus reigned as the first emperor, the Romans fortified the south bank of the Rhine, and established two buffer states of Germanic speakers, Lower Germany, located about where the Netherlands are at the mouths of the Rhine, and Upper Germany upstream. Writers now began to refer to the northerners as barbarians rather than Germans, which is what they are called in the Panegyrici.

In the middle of the 3rd century the military seized control of the government. They began by assassinating Severus Alexander, emperor 222-235. Considered incompetant by the soldiery, he relied on the advice of his mother, for which he was disrespected. In 234 the barbarians crossed the Rhine-Danube frontier. Hastening to the border, he cultivated an expectation among the men of shortly solving the barbarian problem. His mother, however, urged him to buy them off instead. In a rage, the soldiers killed both him and his mother.

The subsequent 50 years are known as the Crisis of the Third Century. The Senate and the various factions of the army supported approximately 26 emperors, only to have them voted down by murder after a short reign. The economy declined, as the government was unable to perform public business. The empire divided into three states: the Gallic Empire, the Palmyrene Empire, and what was left of the Roman Empire.

The method of trial and error sooner or later turned up some capable emperors, such as Aurelian. These were men of modest means who rose through the ranks for their ability and popularity. Aurelian served as top commander for five years, 270-275, during which time he defeated the splinter states, re-united the empire, and drove the barbarians north of the frontier once more. They consisted of the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi, but not a word of Franks; however, they were on the east, while the early Franks were on the coast.

There is another, more detailed source, which is not considered as reliable: the Historia Augusta. The Franks first appear in it in somewhat ambiguous circumstances in the reign of Gallienus (r. 253-268), 15 years, one of the longest-lasting of the crisis period. From 253 to 260 he ruled as junior emperor under his father, Valerian, Gallienus in the west, Valerian in the east.

In 260 his father had the rare distinction of being taken prisoner by the Persians. Taking advantage of the situation, the Franks chose this moment to invade Batavia in the Netherlands, crossing the Rhine from the north. It was already Germanic, had been so from the 1st century BC, when the Germanics were given it as vacant land. Those Germanics were completely integrated to Roman life as Lower Germany.

Gaul was being officered in fact by a Batavian, Postumus. He met the Franks at Empel, easily defeating them, but both he and they were somewhat tractable. Postumus planned to break from the Roman Empire to form the Gallic Empire, in which the Franks were willing to cooperate. The Historia Augusta relates that among his auxiliaries were units of Celts and Franks. Some were no doubt in the army earlier, but how early is not known.

In 269 Postumus also received the army's stamp of disapproval, but by this time another military genius was conspiring to pick up the pieces. The Historia Augusta says that Aurelian was tribune (commander) of the VIth Legion at Mainz when the Franks crossed the Rhine into Gaul yet again and began to devastate it. Aurelian went against them and won, killing 700 and capturing 300, whom they sold into slavery. The passage is the more credible because the author claims to be quoting Aurelian's letters, one of which details regulations for the men. He gives a more complete list of European peoples defeated (in addition to Middle Easterners): Goths, Alans, Roxolani, Sarmatians, Franks, Suebians, Vandals and Germans.

He fell victim to a plot hatched by his corrupt secretary, who fearing discovery forged a document purporting to list members of the Praetorian Guard slated for denouncement and execution, and they murdered him. The doomed Aurelian was followed by another capable but doomed emperor of the crisis, Probus, who ruled for six years, 276-282, before his assassination. He is remembered by the author of Panegyric VIII, who is anonymous now, lauding Constantius Chlorus (father of Constantine) for his recapture of Britain after it had been lost to another splinter state. In VIII, the Franks splash across an entire section.

Surprisingly this author has mainly good to say of a Frankish adventure, comparing the emperor to the Franks in boldness. His summary is along the lines of "fortune favors the brave." A "small force of captive Franks" is being held at the mouth of the Danube, where they are penned in by the extensive marshes of the natural terrain. Exhibiting incredibilis audacia et indigna felicitas, "incredible boldness and disproportionate luck" they disappear into the marshes and at the edge of the Black Sea manage to steal a fleet of small boats.

Necessarily exiting the Black Sea via the Bosphorus, they raided the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece, then Libya, finally capturing Syracuse. The tale asks the reader to believe that a small contingent of Franks slipped by some large cities, such as Byzantium, capturing the largest, Syracuse. Presumably the element of surprise exercised with boldness accounted for their unusual luck. They were not long in the Mediterranean but voyaged into the Ocean and disappeared, no longer of interest.

They behaved in this regard like mercenaries trapped in a foreign country breaking loose and escaping to their own country again, which implies the Franks lived on the Ocean and not on the Danube. The passage does not reveal their employers, but the Romans admired them for the exploit. Perhaps they were Roman mercenaries after all fighting to restore Roman rule to the Balkans. There is another source on the event. According to Zosimus the Franks had applied for admission to the empire and were assigned lands at the mouth of the Danube, which they were obliged to occupy. Some left there illegally to make the long voyage "home" (oikade). The passage does not say where home was.

The homeland of the Franks

The 3rd century crisis came to an end, finally, the last doomed emperor being Carinus (r. 283-285). He had ruled with his brother, Numerian (r. 283-284). After 50 years of succession by murder the army had developed a distaste for it. Carus (r. 282-283) succeeded Probus in 282 totally unwillingly. He had been informed by the Senate that he was now emperor, while Probus was being killed by his own men. Carus held a public court martial, swore to the men he had no hand in the emperor's death, and tried and executed the assassins.

Carus had wanted Constantius Chlorus as emperor, but he had no choice but to accept, and departed for the Persian Wars with his son Numerian leaving the west to Carinus. He had made them both co-emperors. In the east the will of the gods made itself apparent, it was believed, killing Carus with a lightening bolt. Numerian retreated. On the way back Numerian was discovered dead in his coach of unknown causes, his death being reported by the Praetorian Prefect, Arrius Aper. An inquest was held by all the officers. Aper was standing for emperor, but he fooled no one. The inquest appointed Diocletian as emperor instead. His first task was to deal with Carinus, who, it was said, abandoned the army for a life of profligacy at Rome. He was murdered there by his enemies.

A sculpted head of Diocletian. Only a few such survive. From their similarity it can be deduced that they are life-like.

Diocletian, a professional soldier of humble origin, had the insight to see what was wrong with the army and to correct it. It having become clear that one emperor could not manage the huge empire, the Senate had created co-emperors, one for the east and one for the west, as well as two imperial ranks, the senior the Augustus and the junior the Caesar. Diocletian expanded the partnership into a tetrarchy of four emperors, a team of two each for the east and west. Each member was given 1/4 of the empire to rule. In theory one team contained one Augustus and one Caesar, but it depended on the circumstances.

Diocletian also divided the military from the civilian administration. He divided the 50 or so provinces into 100 new provinces. The senate was removed from the succession process. From then on the tetrarchy managed itself more or less independently, picking its own successors. It did not last forever, of course, being replaced later by Constantine, the first Christian emperor. The ideology had changed, and with it the manners.

The tetrarchy was not fully in place until 293. Between 284 and 293 Diocletian had his hands full trying to stop the disintegration of the empire. When Probus had been murdered, the population had lost all confidence in the government. A peasant revolt began, who were called the Bagaudae (Gallic for "fighters." Not to be confused with the Bagaudae revolt of the 4th century.) By 284 it was clear they would have to be suppressed. In his capacity as Augustus, Diocletian elevated Maximian to Caesar and assigned the rebellion to him. He suppressed the revolt by 286 and was ready for new honors. It is at this point that the events described in Panegyric X begin.

Head of Maximian, probably life-like.

Maximian as Caesar superseded the other officers in Gaul, notably Carausius, commander of Roman Belgium. The commander himself was Belgian, a country, probably Celtic in origin, a sister population to the Gauls. Some writers refer to them as Gallic. Speakers of Gallic and speakers of Belgic could understand one another. Events subsequent to the suppression of the Bagaudae suggest that some animosity still existed between Romans and Belgians, and that a certain cameraderie existed among the Celts, or at least that is what Maximian feared and concluded.

Maximian promoted Carausius to admiral, gave him a fleet, and commanded him to suppress the piracy of the Saxons and Franks in the English Channel. The Saxons are known to have inhabited the shores of north Germany. If the location of the Franks followed suit they ought to have lived on the shore of the North Sea from the Rhine to the borders of the Saxons.

Much of this was already Lower Germany, probably not then Frankish. The barbarian names of the Panegyric are mainly the confederacy names: Franks, Saxons, Alamanns, rather than the Germanic tribal names related by Caesar and the historians of a former day. Alamanni means in fact "all the men," where Mannus, the mythological primal German, as everyone who has read Tacitus knows, was the son of Tuisto, the German god (etymology uncertain, but possibly related to Deutsch/Dutch, where the Dutch occupy the original Frankish lands.)

Unpleasant surprises

Carausius' kingdom, shown in red. He made claim to a separate kingdom, but declared himself an emperor and his kingdom a part of the Roman Empire. Gesoriacum in the picture is Boulogne.

A coin of Carausius regent

Carausius apparently was a corrupt coastguardman right from the beginning of his appointment. The high command began to receive reports that he was delaying law enforcement until the robbery or kidnapping was complete. Then he would confiscate the booty, or at least presumably his share. Suspicious, Maximian set a trap for him. He ordered him return the money and free the victims or turn them over to imperial authorities. When the order was ignored Maximian assumed the worst, a collaboration of Carausius with the pirates, and sentenced him to death in absentia.

He was probably not wrong as Carausius hearing of the order created another splinter empire of Britain, Belgium, Lower Germany, and barbarian mercenaries from beyond the Rhine, including, no doubt Franks and Saxons. His first reaction, however, on hearing of the sentence, was to move the fleet and his headquarters to Britain. He was certain of British loyalty, nor is there any evidence of resistance there. Public opinion was for him, as the British resented the forced return of the previous splinter empire to the main empire. The date of this move is 286 or 287. Subsequently Carausius began building ships, apparently expecting to have to repel an invasion from continental Roman forces.

His hearing of the order in lieu of being arrested on the spot demonstrates the willingness of the administration and troops under his command to support insurrection. Mutiny among the troops was common in the Roman Empire. Discipline was severe, including, for example, the death penaly for not wearing your sword. Roman troops did not disobey, but they did mutiny from time to time. A successful emperor or imperial officer was able to talk them down, address their complaints, and offer a deal in which only the ring-leaders would be executed, but the others pay no penalty.

In the midst of ship-building Carausius received notification of support by a to us mysterious legion (unspecified by the sources) that had mutinied and was now willing to join the insurrection. Carausius returned to Boulogne and set up a perimeter. As there would be no point in the author singling out one legion from the many in Britain that had mutined, the editors conclude it was a continental legion. The best bet is Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix stationed at Xanten on the lower Rhine. It had supported the Gallic Empire only to be decimated and brought back to duty by Aurelian.

This huge base, seat of a river command and home of the Classis Germanica, a fleet of river vessels, not unlike future viking vessels with wide beam and shallow draft, controled the lower Rhine under the jurisdiction of Lower Germany. There could be no perimeter around Boulogne without the assent of this base, but there is coin evidence of two more legions originally assigned to Carausius and of no particular note if located in Britain: Legio II Augusta and Legio XX Valeria Victrix. They were perhaps in Lower Germany and Belgium north of the Ardennes. Ordinarily these troops were intended to keep the Franks north of the Rhine, but after the insurrection the Franks were their friends and allies. Taking advantage, the Franks were soon south of the Rhine occupying the country of the Scheldt (see below) between Boulogne and what is now The Hague. These specific Franks were the Frisians and the Chamavi, called out as such by the sources. Descendants of both peoples are still in the Netherlands.

Apparently there was a rush to join Carausius, as populations remembered the Gallic Empire. He acquired ("stole" in the sources) "some divisions of foreign troops," believed by the editors to have been the Germanic auxilliaries along the northern frontier. A supply administration was formed from merchants in Gaul, which had the form of a levy, but the merchants were willing. Individual recruits were solicited by the promise of booty.

Maximian had no idea all this was happening. In late 285 or summer of 286 "all the barbarian peoples" launched a coordinated attack on Gaul across the Rhine. They struck communities progressively southward, plundering, kidnapping, and burning. Panegyric X.5 states that these were the Burgundians, the Alemanni, the Chaibones, and the Eruli. That there may have been more is not excluded by the language, but these certainly are not all the alliances or peoples in Germany, nor were they all the tribes on the frontier. The Franks do not appear there at all. Very likely they were not part of this attack. They were, however, under the command of Carausius.

The two panegyrics do not explicitly say that they acted by command of Carausius. If they did not, one might assume an uncoordinated common cause attack taking advantage of a new weakness. However, if Carausius did not have enough power to manage them, he is probably unikely to have been able to manage a revolt. Nixon and Rodgers support the managed revolt based on Carausius' piratical operations with the Franks and Saxons. Maximian later called Carausius a pirate.

The term "all the barbarians" is somewhat confusing, as the Franks and the other alliances of Germany seem to be included; however, they are not mentioned. The author may be extrapolating from "all the men;" i.e., he really means to say Allemanni. In that case Carausius would have given the order to the auxilliaries on the east to go specifically for the capital city, Trier, and destroy it, killing Maximian if they could; that is, the blow makes better sense as a pre-emptive first strike. As for the Franks, they were opposite Belgium, Carausius' home country, which he would not have wanted to destroy, and anyway he was using them to man his fleets. There is evidence later in the panegyric that Constantius' counter-strike aimed for the Alemanni, and that later the Franks surrendered rather do battle with Constantius, suggesting that they had not yet had to do so. Carausius held them in reserve, but they refused that role by surrendering.

Scale model of Roman Trier. The ancient city still has the layout of a Roman castra, with headquarters in the central plaza, and legionary quarters in rectangular blocks formed between criss-crossing streets, the whole being surrounded by a wall pierced by gates. There is pleny of room for many thousands of soldiers, and easy access to the gates from anywhere.

By coincidence, or by the Roman view of destiny, the timing of the Germanic attack could not have been worse. Shortly (same day or near it) they reached the targeted provincial capital of Trier. It so happened that Diocletian had planned to honor Maximian on that day, promoting him to Augustus and swearing him in as one of the two consuls the Senate still elected yearly. In the permanent fort of a capital city with both emperors present there must have been many legions of men present, one legion being about 5000 men. Some of these would have been drawn up as cohorts on parade in the central plaza, witnessing the proceedings before the headquarters building. No sooner had Maximian sworn the oath of allegiance than a commotion arose near the gates of Trier and messengers arrived to tell of the barbarian attack.

According to the author, Maximian had no sooner taken the oath obliging him to defend the city when he had to defend it. Dropping the toga praetexta, ceremonial garb of his new duties, he threw on a cuirass and picked up a spear, taking command of two of the cohorts that must have been standing by for the ceremony. Ordinarily a cohort was commanded at the rank of centurion, the commander being called a pilus. The cohorts were numbered in order of precedence in the line of battle. The commander of the first cohort was the primipilus ("first spear"). The pili commanded from horseback on which the preferred weapon was a spear.

Apparently the emperor had no time for formalities. He grabbed a few cohorts, so to speak, and set off double time for the gates. The author points out that he could have taken the whole army, which must therefore have been present at Trier, but preferred the smaller units for their speed. The relief force must, in other words, have been commanded by a mobile headquarters group, presumably including the customary officers with the emperor.

A Roman gate at the city of Trier, now called the Porta Nigra, "black gate," from the blackening of the stone. Its magnitude and complexity, as well as its survivability, mark it as a candidate for the main gate of the city.

The gates of the city flew open and the Germanics saw before them about 1000 veterans charging straight at them in good order, with the emperor before them, whom, however, they did not recognize. Here the text becomes slightly confusing. The emperor runs so fast his men cannot keep up with him, and so it is he who does most of the killing, as he always gets there first. One suspects a fish story. Apparently the emperor had Olympic running capabilities so that he personally killed all the enemy.

A little later he comments disingenuously the emperor was required to transition "from the tribunal to the field of battle, from the curule seat to horseback." Apparently the headquarters unit rode, rather than ran, and no doubt had some cavalry to help them. However, Maximian's desire to be in front rather than behind was in fact unusual. The barbarian line was ragged, as the emperor was able to attack groups piecemeal, which can be explained as a result of surprise.

The first barbarians attacked were the Chaibones and Eruli, who must have been the ones who rashly interrupted Maximian's advancement. The author of X says they were "destroyed by open warfare at one blow," and "were cut to pieces and slaughtered." This butchery phase was accomplished with "only a few cohorts." He went after the others at a more leisurely pace employing "bands of troops to capture them ... in countless battles and victories all over Gaul." He did therefore take prisoners, which he intended to parade in Rome.

He cannot be supposed to have transported these prisoners around with him nor did he intend to butcher them. Panegyric VIII subsequently described the temporary care of Frankish prisoners until their disposition was decided, which may be relevant in Panegyric X. The Franks were leased out for labor to locals who were responsible for quartering them until they were sent home, assigned new land, or sold permanently into slavery.

Victorious, Maximian divided the army into small units of pursuit and sent them after any report of plundering by Germanics. Shocked, the entire mass of barbarians was soon running northwards for their lives. It so happened that it was a drought season and the Rhine was fordable by foot, and so the surviving barbarians were able to cross. The text here is definitely misleading. It is coupled with a statement about Maximian's famous crossing of the Rhine, giving the impression that Maximian followed the barbarians across the Rhine. One might suspect this implied tactic as by then it was well-established that troops must never be caught crossing a river, which the Roman theoreticians well knew from conflicts such as the Battle of the Trebia. In fact subsequent panegyrics (below) show that Maximian did not cross the Rhine in pursuit of the barbarians but turned west to assault Boulogne unsuccessfully. Constantius later made the Rhine crossing in his name, but he did not wade through any water over any pebbles as the Germans were said to have done.

The truth in retrospect

It is at this time that Genobaud appears, once as known within the current events of the year 289 (Panegyric X) and once in retrospect in 291, a rare opportunity for cross-comparison of public events. Not much detail is explicitly stated in speeches so short relative to the wealth of events they have to relate, but more, often omitted in encyclopedic summaries, is implied. The reminiscences of 291 offer some contradictions when compared to the news of 289. The scholars offer plausible accounts for most, but not enough information survives to resolve them definitively.

In 289 the author writes: "Indeed, could there have eventuated a greater one (miracle) than that famous crossing into Germany, by which you first of all emperors proved that there were no limits to the Roman Empire except those of your arms?" Supposedly he met and shook hands with Diocletian, who had just crossed the Rhine at Rhaetia (subalpine).

The Rhaetian crossing and the meeting, however, remain unverified. Regardless of what Diocletian did, there could be no shaking hands if one of the partners was not present, which seems to be the case for Maximian. The author lets slip that Maximian has loyal men bound by "ties of friendship and marriage even those who perform the highest office in your entourage .... Under the leadership of such men ... that pliant and treacherous race of barabarians was crushed as it deserved. This is to your credit, Emperor, yours, for even what is carried out by others originates with you." Reading between the lines, Nixon and Rodgers conclude that the author is saying Maximian did not lead the Romans across the Rhine or do battle with the Germans there. A subordinate commander designated by him did, but the army was still Maximian's.

Constantius

As to who commander was, the Panegyrics do not say, but Nixon's and Rodgers' top candidate is Carus' old preference for emperor, Constantius Chlorus, whom the Senate bypassed. The army did not bypass him. In 287 Maximian brought him into the family, giving him his daughter, Theodora, as wife, with whom he subsequently had six children. Maximian also adopted Constantius, qualifying him for the imperial office should the occasion arise. Constantius had to divorce his wife, Helena, whose son was Constantine the Great, future Christian Emperor. The imperial families all got along well. The murders so characteristic of previous imperial succession had ceased. Constantius was promoted to Caesar in 293. Meanwhile he may have been Praetorian Prefect.

Receding waves at Dunkirk

The nature of a panegyric is that it must praise everything (pan-) about the recipient, leading to some equivocal passages such as the ones affirming that Maximian did/did not cross the Rhine and was equally wise in doing so (whichever). As to when and under what circumstances the split in command might have occurred X gives further equivocal passages. On the one hand: "It is through ... your felicity, Emperor, that your soldiers have already reached the Ocean in victory, and that already the receding waves have swallowed up the blood of enemies slain upon that shore." Apparently the counterattack striking directly west has pushed Carausius into the receding waves on the beaches of Normandy or at Dunkirk. But no, wait: "In what frame of mind is that pirate now, when he can see your armies on the point of penetrating the channel ...." By the time of the celebratory oration they were still "on the point." Carausius still holds the channel and it is part of the Ocean. How much territory on the mainland Carausius still held if any is an unsettled question: Maximian never did drive him from it and the rebels were there claiming membership in the empire along with Maximian and Diocletian until Maximian was relieved of duty by Diocletian in 293 and Constantius took Boulogne-sur-Mer.

After noting that Carausius on the channel was hypothetically in fear of surrounding Roman forces, Panegyric X drops the subject, revealing nothing about Maximian's decision-making process, as though text had been cut out. The thread jumps suddenly to "the most beautiful fleets," that were "about to reach the Ocean simultaneously via every river." The next few sentences describe the emperor's concern with ship-building over the previous year, which must have been 287-288. If he was managing the building of ships personally, he was not crossing the Rhine and defeating the Germans there. The circumstantial evidence is that Maximian split the command, sending Constantius on ahead, while he stayed to build ships, as though that would be a substitute for defeating Carausius on the channel.

For what purpose these ships were built or hypothetically built (perhaps planned) is not stated in this panegyric, as it ends there. Panegyric XI, however, says "the wars with the pirates were suppressed when the Franks were subdued." The Franks were never subdued either by ship or any other method. The beautiful ships and their simultaneous debouchement from somewhere were just another fish story, a disguise for an unknown truth.

The beauty of the ships is not the objective of their construction and the only river indicated is the Rhine indirectly. "Our river," the Moselle, on which is Trier, is too shallow for ocean-going ships, but can float timbers down to the river commands on the Rhine, which have some facilities for constructing boats. The simultaneous rivers then are undoubtedly the mouths of the Rhine. If Maximian could use them he might bypass Boulogne. The panegyric gives a rosy picture. Everything is balmy in winter thanks to the gods. There is no ice or snow. Floods happen at appropriate times to move vessels over the shallows with the assistance of crews singing chanties wading in the warm Rhine waters. This policy and these methods are expedited by two emperors that agree better than Romulus and Remus (not hard to do, as Romulus murdered Remus).

Archaeological park in Xanten

As irony was not allowed in a panegyric, or criticism of the emperor in any case, the audience was to take the excuses as presented. Their unbelieveability to the editors is "a sure sign of disaster," meaning the truth was too unspeakable to relate. In fact at the end of the year there was no fleet and Carausius held the same ground as previously.

The main difficulty, unspeakable to the emperor by the author, is not hard to find. Xanten, the main ship-building base on a river command, was in the hands of the rebels. Ships could be built at Cologne, but they would still have to get past Xanten. The conventional story is that the ships did get past but were destroyed by an Oceanic storm. As to why this storm did not also destroy the Britannic fleet remain unanswered. Perhaps some ships got by Xanten only to run into difficulties in the channel, as the men were novice ship handlers. The soldiers at Xanten were trained in boat-building and handling, but these men were not with Maximian. There was now not much else for Maximian to do except camp in Belgium and wait for the results of Constantius' expedition across the Rhine.

The rise of Constantius

Map of ancient Mainz showing the Rhine Bridge of the times.

The rise of Constantius and the details concerning the fates of the Germanics opposed by him are given in Panegyric VIII, the Panegyric of Constantius, the fourth of the set. It was delivered at Trier to Constantius in 297 by an aging former administrator in his regime, in celebration of his recapture of Britain, 296. It presents detail of his command from the time he parted from Maximian in Belgium. He did not attempt to cross the Rhine into the Frankish homeland. Instead he proceded eastward to the Rhine Bridge, undoubtedly at Mainz, and crossed into the country of the Alamanni. From there he went up the Rhine and down the Danube to Guntia (Günzburg) devastating the country of the Alamanni the whole distance.

Background

The literary sources give evidence that the mighty empire of the Franks that united all continental Europe, saving for Britain and Scandinavia, under the aegis of the Holy Roman Empire, derived ultimately from an aggressive population between the Rhine and Weser Rivers united under a single duke and calling itself the Franks. For their first appearance on the stage of history in the Third Century they escape destruction by surrendering to the Roman Empire with which they subsequently cast their lot. When the western branch of that empire fell finally, they were in a position to assume its language, its symbols and customs, most of its power and authority; in short, to take it over.

The sources, however, do not cover the arrival of the Franks on the historical scene in the Third Century; but such a gap is not as complete as it might be. In the first century the Frankish homeland was populated by a number of Germanic tribes mentioned in sources of those times. The historian's first move and obvious choice is to connect those tribes with the Franks. Since that could not be done with written or inscribed sources, they turned to another method, archaeology. If the archaeologist could discover cultural elements common in that area to both centuries, and show that there were no cultural breaks between, then he could argue that the Franks descended from the tribes.

The main archaologist in this case was Rafael Von Uslar, who concentrated on pottery over southern Germany and the Netherlands and published his findings in a massive work.

Sources

• James, Edward (1991). The Franks. The Peoples of Europe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
• Nixon, C.E.V.; Rodgers, Barbara Saylor (1994). In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08326-1

External links

Media related to Genobaud (3rd century) at Wikimedia Commons