Battle of the Allia
| date | 390 or 387 BC Chr. |
|---|---|
| place | at the Allia |
| output | Victory of the Celts |
| consequences | Conquest of Rome |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
As a military tribune - the three sons of Markus Fabius Ambustus, among them the trigger of this conflict Quintus Fabius Ambustus. As well as Quintus Sulpicius Longus; Quintus Servilius and Servius Cornelius Maluginensis |
|
| Troop strength | |
| six legions, about 40,000 men | unknown |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
The Battle of the Allia was a clash between Celts and Romans as part of the Celtic invasion of central Italy. The battle is dated 387 BC. BC, possibly also to the year 390 BC BC, dated and took place on the Allia , a tributary of the Tiber near Rome. The historian Livius called the day of the battle the name of the unlucky day (lat. Dies ater ).
background
At the beginning of the 4th century BC Celtic tribes, which until then had lived north of the Alps, conquered the Po Valley , which was ruled by the Etruscans . The Senones tribe settled in the area of Sena Gallica, later named after the Gauls . Apparently it was also the Senones who then came into being in 387 BC. BC (or 390 BC?) Advanced across the Apennines to central Italy. At first the Senones got into conflict with the Etruscans and attacked their city Clusium , which then turned to Rome for help . The Roman emissaries sent to Clusium to negotiate with the Celts are said to have appeared so arrogant - a member of the Fabier family is said to have killed a Celtic leader - that the Celts decided to attack Rome themselves.
Localization
The Allia is a small tributary of the Tiber. The exact identities of this body of water and thus the location of the slaughter site are not entirely clear due to the contradicting tradition in ancient times. According to Livius ( Ab urbe condita V, 37) it is a left tributary of the Tiber, whereas Diodorus Siculus ( Bibliotheca historica XIV, 114) speaks of a right tributary. The version of Livy is generally considered to be more believable. A stream called Fosso della Bettina is therefore a possible modern name for the Allia.
The battle
The events surrounding the Battle of the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome cannot be adequately reconstructed due to the later legendary tradition. It is said that the Senones were stimulated to advance on Rome by the refusal of the Romans to hand over the culprit of Clusium from the Fabier family to the Celts; three Fabians were even appointed to military tribunes. Exact dating is also difficult; Varro relocates the battle of the Allia to the year 390 BC. BC, but probably more like 387 BC. Took place. The date of the battle is July 18th. The Romans raised six legions with around 40,000 men under the command of Quintus Sulpicius, who were stationed on the Allia, a small left tributary of the Tiber , a good 10 km north of Rome. The Celts overran the right wing of the Romans, on which mainly younger and inexperienced soldiers stood, in order to then hit the center and the left wing of the Roman line. The surviving Romans fled in a panic to Veji and Rome, where the citizens ultimately withdrew to the better fortified Capitol Hill .
Conquest of Rome
According to Polybius, the Celts besieged the Capitol for seven months. Since they pillaged the city and plundered the area around Rome, they soon ran out of supplies. Hunger and diseases, such as malaria , broke out among the besiegers, certainly reinforced by the fact that the conquerors were not used to the southern climate in the hot summer. Because of the widespread destruction of the city, it is believed that there are practically no records from Rome before the Celtic invasion. One night the Senones tried to take the Capitol in a coup. The geese of the city would then have sounded the alarm, so that Marcus Manlius Capitolinus as Interrex could thwart the attack. Since then the geese have enjoyed special veneration among the Romans (sacred geese of Juno ). Livy and Polybius also reported a ransom payment of 1,000 pounds of gold to buy Rome out, which the Celts agreed to. When the Romans complained about the amount to be raised and also complained that the Celts would cheat them when weighing the gold to be delivered, Brennus also threw his sword into the scales with the words: “ Vae victis !” (“Woe to the Defeated! ")
consequences
It took Rome a long time to psychologically recover from the disaster. If the Romans had initiated their expansion policy immediately before the invasion with the subjugation of Vejis, this had to be interrupted for the time being and reconstruction was to be considered. Above all, the city needed better fortification. Therefore, the Servian Wall was built over the next few years . The military was also reorganized. Instead of the Greek phalanx spear, the Romans were armed with the short sword ( gladius ). The legions were restructured and the units of the Triarii , Principes and Hastati introduced. Incidentally, the “Gauls catastrophe” stuck to the collective memory of the Romans as a trauma and still played a role when they were later able to conquer Gaul under Julius Caesar . The trauma was particularly activated again when the united Germanic tribes of the Cimbri , Teutons , and Ambrones appeared on their northern border and in 113 BC. BC destroyed three Roman legions near Noreia . The city of Rome itself, on the other hand, was spared from further invasions for eight centuries until the sack of Rome by the Visigoths .
See also
literature
- Duncan Norton-Taylor : The Celts , Series: Time-life Books, 1974, ISBN 9-06-182-057-X , Cape: Heroic Defeats
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhard Herm : The Celts - The people who came out of the dark , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1975, ISBN 978-3430-144537
- ^ Allia in the Treccani Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 28, 2020 (Italian).
- ↑ Gerhard Herm : The Celts - The people who came out of the dark , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1975, ISBN 978-3430-144537
- ↑ Gerhard Herm : The Celts - The people who came out of the dark , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1975, ISBN 978-3430-144537