The “Romanness of the Soldiers” : Barbarized Periphery or Imperial Core?

Surviving historical accounts record some striking instances of what happened when imperial Rome’s soldiers (milites), overwhelmingly born and recruited in distant provinces, came into contact for the first time with the people of Italy. In 69 CE, during the civil wars following the death of Nero, Vitellius brought soldiers from Germany to secure the capital. His Rhineland troops were swaggering and aggressive, even fighting amongst themselves, and terrorized the civil population to whom they all, legionaries as well as provincial auxiliaries, appeared dangerous aliens. To the people of the city, Vitellius’s strangely garbed milites became targets of ridicule and, in an instant, figures of terror: some soldiers responded to mocking and attempted robbery with lethal violence. Soon after, when Vespasian’s eastern legions fought the Vitellians in the Po Valley, they proved themselves equally alien to Italy, manifesting the oriental custom of hailing the rising sun, and showing no empathy for their fellow Roman citizens when they savagely sacked Cremona as though it were a barbarian stronghold.