Regional mobility patterns and their implications

Looking at the whole Lower Danube Basin, we see a much less connected region when compared with the Middle Danube Basin. First, the hill zones all orient outward and away from one another, unlike Transylvania. Second, the plains of the south-east division are less conducive to general mobility because movement tends to be convenient only in the north-south direction, unlike on the Hungarian Plain, where movement in any direction is fairly easy. The difficulty in east-west movement across the Wallachian and Bulgarian plains is also the factor that separates the Scythian Corridor from the plains to the west. As long as Rome controlled fluvial movement on the Lower Danube and its major tributaries, raiders and migrants moving southward out of the Pontic Steppe almost always found it much easier to cross the Lower Danube once and continue unhindered into Thrace than to fight their way westward through Wallachia or the Bulgarian Plain, crossing one marshy river after another. Given these realities, it was more crucial that Rome maintain the ability to interdict would-be river-crossers north of the Danube here than it was in the Middle Danube theater, a fact we see reflected in the greater use of transdanubian bridgeheads in eastern Wallachia.

The Middle Danube was the preferred invasion/raiding route for armies and bands looking to gain access to Pannonia and the West. Movement down from the Pontic Steppe by way of the Lower Danube was naturally directed south at Thrace and Greece because of the difficulties in east- west movement. To counter the vulnerability posed by the open landscape of the Middle Danube Basin, Rome worked hard to ensure that the population of the Sarmatian barbaricum remained politically divided and subservient to Rome. Without the double-barrier of these buffer tribes, and the Roman limes forces, any hostile raiders able to cross over the Northern Carpathians would find the plains and hills of Pannonia ripe fruit for the picking, not to mention Italy just over the Julian

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Alps. Indeed, as we will discuss in Chapter Two, the Marcomannic Wars began in the later second century precisely because Rome’s clients beyond the Middle Danube failed to interdict raiders from further afield.120 _{When Attila finally broke down the Middle Danube limes system in the mid fifth} century - a topic to be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Five - the Middle Danube Basin proved an extremely productive base for his Hunnic-Gothic coalition and other would-be raiders and invaders of Italy and the western provinces.121

By contrast with the openness of the Middle Danube Basin, groups moving directly out of the Pontic Steppe into the Scythian Corridor found their progress firmly directed to the south by the natural boundaries of the south/east division of the Danubian Borderland. The most notable

examples of this phenomenon during the Roman period were the two waves of ‘Gothic’

invasions/raids, which we will discuss in depth in the following chapters. During the third century, peoples identified alternatively as Scythians and Goths raided out of the Crimea. Some plundered by sea, and these pirates found it easy enough to loot and pillage throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Those who raided by land, however, found their options for movement much more limited. The topography funneled these barbarians south through the Scythian Corridor into Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, while Pannonia, Dacia, and the rest of Illyricum remained largely untouched by the third century marauders.122 _{The second round of ‘Gothic’ invasions a century later followed a similar} pattern. Tervingi and Greuthungi Goths/Scythians crossed the Lower Danube in the Dobrogea and

120 _{Dio 72.1a (exc. de leg. gent. 6).}

121 _{The Lombard invasion of Italy in the later sixth century began from Pannonia, but this region had also been the home}

base of Theodoric from which he launched his semi-sanctioned ouster of Odoacer. Earlier, Attila himself had found the Middle Danube Basin a convenient base for his raids into Italy and Gaul, as had Alaric before him. We will return to the fourth-fifth century breakdown of Rome’s Danubian order in Chapter Five.

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moved along the Scythian Corridor into Thrace. Subsequent movements westward into the Middle Danube Basin followed roads and river routes in Thrace south of the Stara Planina, rather than facing the laborious prospect of constant river-crossings in the Bulgarian Plain followed by a forced passage through the Iron Gates. In short, as long as Rome controlled the Danube itself, the risk of hostile movement westward across the Bulgarian and Wallachian plains was greatly decreased.123

The final component to be discussed in this section is the road network. Like the rivers, roads were avenues of communication and movement. Although tracks and routes of various sorts predated the Roman presence in the Danubian Borderland, the construction of well-made Roman roads represents an important turning point. Aside from presenting a visible marker of Roman power within the natural landscape, roads, once constructed, essentially become part of that natural landscape. Thus, during late antiquity, centuries after their construction, Roman roads should be seen as ‘dry rivers,’ that is, as another topographical feature of the Danubian Borderland which could be used by Romans and non-Romans alike in various ways. In general, roads ran parallel to the river system, illustrating, incidentally, the importance of the latter as well as the former. Most major rivers had a road running parallel, but in other places the roads do not literally shadow the rivers, but serve the same essential function. Thus, in the Bulgarian and Wallachian plains, the major east-west road runs along the south bank of the Danube, while numerous north-south ‘tributary’ roads serve to link Dacia and Moesia. These do not always follow the lines of the Danube's actual tributaries, but in facilitating movement between the plains and mountains, they serve exactly the same function as the navigable rivers. In the north-west division, where movement through the lowlands was generally

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fairly easy, roads - or their lack in regions outside Roman administration - may not have done much to alter the basic, natural mobility profile of the region. In the south-east division, however, roads running parallel to the Lower Danube would have done much to facilitate east-west mobility. Consequently, control of such routes - like the river itself - would have been a more important foundation block of Roman power in this region than in the lands of the Middle Danube.

Fig. 1.14 Rome’s Danubian provinces and major natural movement routes in the borderland.