(iailienus discovered that the Roman army had to change. He created a more mobile army by using vexillations, anticipating the type of Roman army used in the fourth century, which could respond quickly and decisively to frontier problems. Before Postumus took power, a vexillation from the XX legion took part in one of Gallienus’ wars. In 260, vexillations taken from British and German legions, as well as their auxiliaries, were in Pannonia. None of this stopped Postumus. After murdering Gallienus’ son Saloninus, Postumus formed a breakaway regime in the northwest provinces. He knew his support was regional, and that Gallienus needed the stability he could offer. In a climate of military and economic chaos, Postumus restricted his imperial claims to Britain, Gaul and Germany, creating what is now known as the Gallic Empire.
The vexillations may have been unable to return to Britain. The evidence from the fourth century is for a vastly reduced II legion. The XX legion seems to have disappeared at some point in the 300s, though a detachment was on Hadrian’s Wall between 262 and 266.'- Postumus had no need of the forts to protect himself from Gallienus, but he did need to prove to the peoples of the Gallic Empire that he could protect them from external threats, especially from coastal piracy. In any case, the shore fort building carried on, long after the Gallic Empire had ended.
Postumus was excellent at presentation. He adopted all the formal trappings of a Roman emperor, claimed imperial virtues on his coinage, and posed as a restorer of traditional Roman qualities. In the violent and unstable years of the late third century, Postumus realized the importance of appealing to tradition. Far from rebelling against the Roman Empire, he claimed to be restoring it. This would be a mark of most of the usurpers that followed, especially those whose rebellions started out in Britain.
60. Tower Hill (London).
Roman London’s third-century walls enclosed 138 ha (341 acres), thereby defining LonJiniu/n as the largest city in Britain. Only the lower section visible here is Roman. The medieval wall-builders incorporated what was left of the Roman walls. Most of Britain's other ma{or towns were equipped with mast>nry walls by the middle of the third centurv.
61. Poslumus (259-68).
A double-s«ferr/M5, struck over a first - or second-century sestertius, Postumus established the Gailic Empire, which ruled alongside the legitimate regime until 273.
62. Opposite. Portchester (Hampshire).
Aerial view of the Saxon Shore fort at Portchester (Portus Adurni), built under the rebel Carausius (286-93). A Norman gatehouse, and later a 12th-century castle, were built into the Roman fort walls.
The previous 50 years of chronic instability had had various consequences. One of them was chronically debased coinage, as each successive regime needed to buy the army s loyalty. By the time Postumus came to power, gold was rare and ‘silver’ coinage was little better than bronze with a silver wash. Postumus produced good quality gold coinage, and tried hard to restore the silver and base-metal small-change coinage that had suffered so badly. The designs were good, and some were innovative and creative |6I]. Producing intrinsically valuable coinage was synonymous with imperial prestige. Postumus failed to reestablish silver, the staple bullion used to pay soldiers, but he inspired (or enforced) loyalty in the British garrison. Some of the units styled themselves Postumiana. The First Cohort of Aelian Dacians, long-term resident at Birdoswald, and the Sebosian Cavalry at Lancaster both adopted the title.
Postumus was murdered in 268. A brief and violent series of successors culminated in the accession of Tetricus 1 in 270. In 273, Tetricus capitulated to Aurelian (270-75), who pensioned him off. The demise of the Gallic Empire did nothing to solve the problem of maritime raiders. Portchester, the best-preserved of all the British shore forts, was built in the 280s [62], with Pevensey following in or after 293. There is no doubt about the danger, but there was just as much from within. Britain was still ripe for revolt, but this was an age of imperial usurpers, in which rebels posed as restorers of Rome.
Before he was murdered. Probus (276-82) faced a revolt by an unnamed governor of Britain. Despite this evidence of Britain’s potential instability. Probus put the revolt down and then sent prisoners-of-war from Continental skirmishes to Britain. They later joined Britain’s garrison, but their loyalty can hardly have been guaranteed. By 285, the Roman Empire emerged from another bout of political and military turmoil, with Diocletian now in power. Diocletian knew Roman government needed reform. He appointed Maximian to be his co-emperor, and divided the Empire in two. He would rule the Eastern Empire, and Maximian would rule the West as the senior emperors, or Augusti. They recruited a pair of junior emperors, the Caesars, to assist them. Galerius would rule with Diocletian, and in time would succeed him, and Constantins Chlorus would assist and then succeed Maximian. The idea was to delegate imperial authority and spread the load, while also instituting a programme of smooth successions. This four-emperor system was known as the Tetrarchy.
In 284, a soldier from Menapia (roughly equivalent to Belgium), Mausaeus Carausius, excelled himself in a civil war in Gaul. He fought for the Empire against the Bagaudae, a group of landless outlaws whose livelihoods had been amongst the casualties of the disorder of the age. By
286, Carausius had suppressed them, and was appointed by Maximian to lead the Roman fleet in the North Sea against the pirates. Carausius did too well. Stories were put about, perhaps by Maximian, that Carausius let the raiders through, only setting on them as they staggered home weighed down by loot, which he pocketed for himself. It might have been true, but it is no less likely that Carausius had started to acquire the sort of loyalty Postumus had earned for producing results. No emperor could afford a general with that sort of popularity.
63,64. Carausius (286-93).
A pair of bron/e medallions, probably struck as donatives. The letters on the bt»ttom of each reverse represent the initial letters of words from the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, and mean 'the Golden Age is back. Now a new generation is let down fr«)m heax en abt>ve’.
Carausius moved decisively to confound his critics. In 286, Carausius declared himself emperor. Almost all that we know about the regime has had to be pieced together from a few scattered references in imperial histories, panegyrics and coinage. It is Carausian coinage that above all else demonstrates the regime’s flamboyant and imaginative command of Roman iconography and imagery [63,64). Utilizing phrases, words and images from Virgilian poetry, Carausius plundered the classical Roman tradition to portray himself as a messianic figure who would restore Rome’s golden age.'* Such use of coinage as a propaganda tool was unprecedented. Although Carausius borrowed ideas from Postumus, he made a much more impressive job of it. No official Roman coinage ever carried such explicit literary references. He styled himself‘Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius’ to manufacture a spurious lineage from the second-century Antonine emperors.
Carausius issued the best-quality silver coins produced for 220 years on which to display his slogans. These were swamped by his abundant bronze coinage that repeated many of these themes and added a host more, including types commemorating legions stationed both in Britain and on the Continent. Some of the coins were produced at London in its first era as a mint town. For a short time, Carausian coinage was also issued at Rouen. The Rouen coinage is so different, and so much less idiosyncratic, that it seems to have been produced by people who knew very little about their new usurper. Carausius is recorded on a single inscription, on a milestone found near Carlisle.'* Together with the mint at London, it helps show that Carausius had spread himself from one end of Britain to the other.
Some Carausian coinage was targeted specifically at the army. The reformed silver would have gone a long way to consolidating his legitimacy in military eyes. It is also likely that the urban elite and rural landowners regarded his efforts at sea as proof that he was a more useful protector than Maximian. In 286 almost any mature man of consequence whose wealth and property was in Britain would have grown up under the Gallic Empire and seen how effective Postumus had been. Roman Britain’s elite seem to have been excluded from the upper echelons of Roman cosmopolitan society. This exclusion, deliberate or accidental, may well have contributed to a sense of isolation, elevating a sense of parochial loyalties. Paradoxically, however, a striking characteristic of the revolt was the way in which Carausius appealed to classical aspirations and themes. There was no attempt to revive ancient tribal traditions or identities. It was a mark of how much Britain had changed in the 230 years since the Boudican revolt. The Carausian mission was an explicit effort to turn back the clock to Augustan Rome, not to the world of Caratacus.
Carausius was a source of monumental embarrassment to the Tetrar-chy. Bad weather wrecked their plans to invade Britain in 289. Carausius remained in control, but by 293 he decided to adopt a more conciliatory approach. With breathtaking cheek he issued coins in the names of Diocletian and Ma. ximian, as well as himself. For good measure he added a type that showed the three of them together, with a legend that read C'arausius and his brothers’. He had, in effect, appointed himself to the Tetrarchy. In the same year, Constantins recaptured Boulogne, causing terminal damage to Carausius’ prestige. Before the year was out, Carausius had been murdered and replaced by his finance officer, Allectus. Allectus had none of Carausius’ flair. His coinage was produced with greater mechanical competence, but no more silver was produced, and the bronze and gold coins exhibited none of the imaginative panache that distinguished Carausian issues [65].
Apart from the Carausian milestone, only the coinage of Carausius and Allectus survives as a manifestation of the breakaway regime. The fort at Portchester seems to have been begun around 293, suggesting that it was ordered by either Carausius or Allectus, but as a single site in a much more protracted scries it would be unwise to attach too much significance to it. Portchester hardly amounts to a major strategic initiative. Massive structural timbers found on St Peter’s Hill in London were felled in or around 294, and it has been suggested that their size is evidence for a monumental building, possibly Allectus’ headquarters. The connection makes for good archaeological speculation, but the nature of the building, as well as for whom it was built, is unknown. In any case, timbers felled in 294 might not have been used for several years, and by 296 Allectus was dead.
In 296, a new imperial fleet set out in two waves. One flotilla was commanded by Constantius Chlorus, and embarked from Boulogne. The other, commanded by the praetorian prefect, Asclepiodotus, left from the Seine. Asclepiodotus approached the south coast of Britain by the Isle of Wight. Shielded by fog, he landed somewhere in the Solent area and headed north. His arrival ambushed Allectus, who had to flee inland before he had had time to organize his forces. Asclepiodotus caught up with whatever army Allectus was able to pull together, defeating it and killing Allectus. Constantius, meanwhile, sailed up the Thames and seized London to the obsequious gratitude of the population. Or so it was claimed. Britain had been ‘restored to the eternal light’, as a celebratory gold medallion issued later by Constantius bragged [66|. But it was not the last time Britain would play host to a usurper.
65. Allectus (295-96).
A bronze radiate struck iit London. Allectus was made emperor after the murder of Carausius, but within three years he, Uhx, was defeated and killed, this time by the army of Constantius I.
66 Constantius I (293-306).
A gold medallion showing Constantius as Caesar, struck at Trier. The reverse commemorates the ‘liberation’ of London and the ‘restoration of the eternal light’ after the defeat of Allectus. Abtxut 296. (British Museum).
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