Welcome to Project Pannonia, a collaboration involving 11 History YouTubers all doing videos
on various events in the History of the Pannonian basin.
From the Roman era all the way to Hungary's involvement in WW2.
And what better way to start off this colab then with the people that created the province
that gave these grasslands the name of Pannonia, the Romans.
Prior to the Roman conquest of Pannonia, we don’t really know much about the area or
the people living in it.
However looking through archeology and “very” brief mentions of the area in Latin and Greek
sources we can gather small clues as to what happened.
At the beginning of the 4th century BCE there was a big Celtic invasion of Pannonia which
coincided with the Celtic invasion of Italy.
This invasion was mostly centered around going down the Danube and Drava rivers.
The people that inhabited the area before the Celts were mostly the illyrian tribe of
Pannonii.
When they got pushed out by the Celts this tribe moved south settling around the Sava
river.
However despite this resettlement in the 3rd century BCE the Pannonii eventually succumbed
to a celtic invasion by a tribe called Scordisci.
During this time eastern Panonnia and Transilvania was mostly controlled by the Dacians a subgroup
of Threcians but that didn’t stop the Celts migrating there as well.
For the next couple of centuries the Pannonian area underwent large celticization with the
Dacian lands having mixed Dacian/Celtic culture and the Scordisci controlled Pannonii having
a mixed Illirian/Celitc culture.
However even though the entire area was under the celtic influence, this is not to say it
was all unified.
There where many bickering celtic tribes that didn’t seem to be the best of friends.
Some of the most notable ones where the Boii tribal alliance who were driven out of northern
Italy by the Romans in 193 and settled in Northern Pannonia, the Taurisci inhabiting
western Pannonia, the Scordisci around the Sava river, and of course the celtic Dacians
in Eastern Pannonia and Transilvania.
In around 88 to 81 BCE the Scordisci which were struggling to keep control over the Pannonii
for several decades now where decisively defeated by a Roman general Lucius Cornelius Scipio
Asiaticus, no not that one, his grade grandson, yeah that one.
How unimaginative where the romans, It is a freaking 4 part name and yet there still
manages to be two of them with the exact same name, But I digress.
After this defeat the Scordisci disappear being replaced by their captives the Pannonii.
Also starting during this time until around 45 BCE the Thracian king Burebista solidified
the dacian lands and conquered all of pannonia east of the Danube.
This Dacian pressure from the East, newly liberated Illirian pressure from the South
and Roman pressure from the west destroyed the larger celtic political entities that
existed up until now and the celtic control of Pannonia became very fragmented.
When exactly the basin became part of the Roman empire is very much debated, but most
likely due to the now fragmented political nature of the area it was a gradual process
done under the reign of Agustus from around 35 to 9 BCE.
It was also during this time that the Dacian control of Eastern pannonia slowly withered
away as the kingdom struggled to keep together after the death of Burebista.
In 11 BCE the frontier of the Roman Empire was officially set all the way to the Danube
river and then 2 years later this new land was incorporated to the provinc of Illiricum.
However certain areas of this frontier weren’t very loyal to the Empire and the Romans didn’t
really have any major control in the countryside.
This along with the local resentment against the Romans resulted in the Great Illirian
revolt in 6 CE.
However this mainly involved just the Illirians in southern Pannonia as the Celts further
north seemed to have been content with the Roman rule.
When the revolt was finally subdued by Tiberius and Germanicus three years later, illiricum
was deemed to be too large to govern effectively and so it was divided up.
One of these newly created provincies was the province of Pannonia.
It was also in the early 1st century that the Sarmantian tribe of Iazyges migrated in
to the area east of the Danube.
Whether the Romans invited them to come here and act as a buffer between them and the Dacians
or they migrated on their own using the fracturing of the Dacian kingdom to their benefit, is
still debated.
What’s also debated is the origin of the name Pannonia but in my opinion it most likely
comes from an Illirian word which meant swampy land or wetland, which makes since as the
pannonian basin is just a giant tributary for the Danubian river and Illirians were
the original inhabitants of this area.
Now Roman Pannonia didn’t stretch across the entire pannonian basin, it encompassed
only the areas of the basin West and South of the Danube.
However with that said this Roman province name started to be used to refer to the entire
geographical location of the basin in the medieval period, hence why we call this entire
area the Pannonian Basin or plain today.
When it came to administrative matters Pannonia actually underwent several changes throughout
the Roman period.
First being the province of Pannonia then dividing in to two Pannonias then in to four
then back again in to one, etc.
However I am going to be mostly skipping over these divisions referring to Pannonia as a
whole.
So from the year 9 at the end of the Illirian revolt Pannonia was finally firmly under Roman
control and it will stay like this until the 5th century.
To put this in to perspective, Romans controlled Pannonia for longer than USA has been a country
plus about 200 years more.
With this much time of Roman rule in the area it is undeniable that they left their mark
on these lands.
The first major change that came with the Romans was the creation of cities.
Yes there where population establishments like celtic oppidums before the Roman arrival
but the majority of these were more of a “fortified village” rather than an actual city.
However as Roman colonists arrived combined with the slow latinization of the native population,
Pannonia gradually became more urbanized.
This urbanization was also helped in part by the creation of the Roman road network
which the Romans build mainly for an ease of supply to the legions stationed in Pannonia.
Along with building up these major roads and cities, 3 of which are capital cities today
the Romans also did some engineering work on the Danube.
This is because some parts of the Danube back then where very treacherous for boats and
sailing on it could be very costly for supply fleets.
But the Romans remedied this making the river much more safer to sail on and also established
the first known Danubian fleet station in Carnuntum.
This fleet was used to not only supply the cities along the river but also to protect
the border, as the Danube was the border.
The Romans also brought wine making to the region, established numerous bath houses,
and over all brought drastic economic development to the area.
When it came to legions stationed in Pannonia the amount and type of legions changed over
time but from the Hadrian era all the way to late antiquity there were roughly 6 main
ones.
The 10th Legion Gemina stationed in Vindobona todays Vienna
The 14th Legion Gemina stationed in Carnuntum todays Petronell Carnuntum
The 1st Legion Adiutrix stationed in Brigetio todays Komarom
The 2sc Legion Adiutrix stationed in Aquincum today’s Budapest
The 4th Legion Flavia stationed in Singidunum today’s Belgrade
And lastly The 7th Legion Claudia stationed in Viminacium
As you may have noticed the area between Budapest and Belgrade had a very large empty border
without any Legione protecting it.
This was mainly due to the very ineffective way that legiones where assigned to various
Roman provinces but since its very boring to talk about bureaucracy we can just conclude
that the Romans made a mistake.
Due to this mistake however the 2sc and 4th legione had to protect a much larger border
then for example the 10th, 14th and 1st legiones.
This resulted in the fact that the Second legione was by far the most active legion
in Pannonia having to go on many expeditionary campaigns within and outside of the Roman
borders, to secure peace in the regione.
While this was happening the 4th legion was always transferred to Budapest to protect
from any rear attacks.
This high activity of the Second legion in Pannonia along with that fact that it was
stationed in today's Budapest where some of the reasons why we decided to go with the
symbol of the second legion the pegasus for our Project Pannonia colab.
The relative peace that was had by the Romans in Pannonia was broken in 85.
This was because at this point the Dacian kingdom which was fragment ever since the
death of Burebista finally united again and started to hold raiding expeditions across
the Danube.
Most of these weren’t held in Pannonia but in Moesia more south, however Pannonian legions
did play a vital role in this conflict.
The Romans eventually brokered a peace with the Dacians but Romans being Romans knowing
this won't last started to built up many auxiliary fortifications along the Danube, getting ready
for the eventual second war with the Dacians.
This war came in 101 ending with a Roman victory in 102 but peace didn’t last as the third
Dacian war started in 105 with the Romans again winning in 106 but this time they made
sure there won't be a 4th Dacian war.
They subdued the entire area and incorporated in to the Roman Empire as a new province.
The Iazyges during this time where doing a bit of flip flopping with their alliances
between the Dacians and Romans, however in the end these wars resulted in a much more
direct control by the Romans over them, becoming a client state between 117 and 123.
From there for about 50 plus years Pannonians lived in relative peace, making wine, bathing,
socializing, trading, and whatever else the Romans do.
However this all came to an end during the outbreak of the Marcomannic Wars in 162.
These wars were the first signs of a large scale migrations happening outside of the
Roman borders and many tribes that were already living near the Roman border had nowhere to
go but across that border.
And so Panonnia got invaded first by Germanic tribes from north and then by the Iazyges
from the east.
However these invasions managed to be repelled by the Romans, after which the Romans launched
a counterattack against the Iazyges all while yet another Germanic army crossed from the
north devastating Vienna and marching all the way south to northern Italy before being
defeated.
After this the Romans undertook a large scale offencive North which proved successful and
the Roman Emperor Marcu Aurelius even considered creating buffer provinces north of Pannonia
to protect from any other future attacks, but this did not happen as he died in 180
and his successor Commodus didn’t follow through on these victories.
Commodus however did set out on another campaign against Iazyges scoring a quick victory.
At this point it is safe to say that the Iazyges where firmly under Roman control, however
what kind of control this was is unknown.
This combined with frequent small rebellions and wars by the Iazyges throughout the next
century or so means that even though they surely where controlled by the Romans the
area east of the Danube was never fully incorporated in to the Empire as for example Dacia was.
However one argument against this could be the fact that the construction of the Devil’s
Dyke started around the later half of the second century probably used as part of the
Roman Limes.
Hence we can conclude the Romans did consider this area as part of their Empire, even with
all the frequent Iazyges rebeliones.
After the Marcomannic wars the Pannonian area became settled by a lot of Germanic people
that where either allowed to settle here or used the confusion of the wars to cross the
border or even where the remnants of the defeated Germanic armies.
These germanic settlers probably numbered as much as the latin people living in it Pannonia
at this point.
However as it often does, during the next couple of decades of “roughly” peace these
germanic people got slowly latinized just as the Celts had before them.
The next major step in Roman Pannonian history came during the Christianization of the Roman
Empire.
It seems that outside of Sirmium most of Pannonia was very much starchly pagan until Constantine
came to power.
After which almost comically quickly the Pannonian people, especially the higher class converted
to christianity, with pagan burials being found increasingly rarely after early 4th
century.
It was also during Constantine's era that the Vandals showed up on the fringes of the
Pannonian border being pushed their by the Goths.
Constantine allowed the Vandals to settle on the right bank of the Danube most likely
to control the troublesome Iazyges.
It was also at this point that the Devils Dyke reached its highest extend meaning that
Romans were probably hoping to keep control of the entire Pannonian plain for a while.
However all things must come to an end, and the roughly 440 year long Roman control of
Pannonia was no different.
By the late Roman Period the border regions had a constant activity of intertribal wars,
migrations, alliances, etc.
This combined with wavering internal Roman politics meant that it was clear the Roman
hold on Pannonia wasn’t going to last.
There were several tribes like the Vandals, Goths, etc. that attacked Pannonia in the
late 4th and early 5th century but the Romans still managed to keep hold of the area until
the arrival of the Huns.
It is known that the Huns controlled much of Pannonia by 437 but how and when exactly
did they conquered it is unknown but most likely starting in around 420.
They probably did it the same way the Romans conquered Pannonia well over 400 years earlier,
it was a gradual taking of control by the Huns with interspersed Roman expeditions trying
to hold on to whatever they could.
It is also interesting to learn that the area of specially southern Pannonia and Moesia
was given back and forth between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires as both sides clearly
didn’t want to deal with the Hunnic raids.
The official Roman control of Pannonia is dated to be until 447 when the Eastern Roman
empire finally gave up the claims to the Pannonian lands but as we discussed, the Romans didn’t
really control the area for decades at this point.
That is where I will conclude my video about Roman pannonia because it’s time for Epimetheus
to take the torch and talk about the Huns.
Also check out the last video in the Project Pannonia colab done by Historigraph who’s
talking about Hungarian involvement in WW2.
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