Lacringi

Germanic tribes and other nomadic people have begun in the 160s to launch raids along the northern border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube.

This new impetus westwards is probably due to attacks from tribes farther east.

A first invasion of the Chatti in the province of Germania Superior had been repulsed in 162.

Far more dangerous is the invasion of 166, when the Marcomanni of Bohemia, clients of the Roman Empire since 19, cross the Danube together with the Lombards and other German tribes.

Fronto's son-in-law Aufidius Victorinus had been stationed during the early 160s as a legate in Germany, there with his wife and children (another child had stayed with Fronto and his wife in Rome).

The condition on the northern frontier looks grave.

A frontier post has been destroyed, and it appears as though all the peoples of central and northern Europe are in turmoil.

There is corruption among the officers: Victorinus has to ask for the resignation of a legionary legate who is taking bribes.

Experienced governors have been replaced by friends and relatives of the imperial family.

L. Dasumius Tullius Tuscus, a distant relative of Hadrian, is in Upper Pannonia, succeeding the experienced M. Nonius Macrinus.

Lower Pannonia is under the obscure Ti. Haterius Saturnius.

M. Servilius Fabianus Maximus is shuffled from Lower Moesia to Upper Moesia when Iallius Bassus joins Lucius in Antioch.

Lower Moesia is filled by Pontius Laelianus' son.

The Dacias are still divided in three, governed by a praetorian senator and two procurators.

The peace cannot long hold; Lower Pannonia does not even have a legion.

A force of six thousand Langobardi and Lacringi had invaded Pannonia in late 166 or early 167.

Local forces (vexillations of the Legio I Adiutrix commanded by Candidus and the Ala I Ulpia Contariorum commanded by Vindex) had defeated the invasion with relative ease, but they mark the beginning of what is to come.

In their aftermath, the military governor of Pannonia, Marcus Iallius Bassus, initiates negotiations with eleven tribes.

The Marcomannic king Ballomar (r. 166 –178), a Roman client, acts in these negotiations as a mediator.

In the event, a truce is agreed upon and the tribes withdraw from Roman territory, but no permanent agreement is reached.

Vandals (Astingi and Lacringi) and the Sarmatian Iazyges invade Dacia, and succeed in killing its governor, Calpurnius Proculus.

To counter them, Legio V Macedonica, a veteran of the Parthian campaign, is moved from Moesia Inferior to Dacia Superior, closer to the enemy.

The Iazyges defeat and kill Marcus Claudius Fronto, Roman governor of Lower Moesia, in 170.

Operating from Sirmium (today Sremska Mitrovica, Vojvodina, Serbia) on the Sava river, Marcus Aurelius moves against the Iazyges personally.

After hard fighting, the Iazyges are pressed to their limits.

However, while the Roman army is entangled in this campaign, making little headway, several tribes use the opportunity to cross the frontier and raid Roman territory.

The Costoboci cross the Danube, ravage Thrace and descend the Balkans.

Rome, in a bid to ease conflict in the upper Danube region, allows some German tribes to settle within the Empire in 171.

The disaster in northern Italy forces Marcus to reevaluate his priorities.

Forces from the various frontiers are dispatched against Ballomar.

They come under the command of Claudius Pompeianus, with the future emperor Pertinax as one of his lieutenants.

A new military command, the praetentura Italiae et Alpium, is established to safeguard the roads into Italy, and the Danubian fleet is strengthened.

Aquileia is relieved, and by the end of 171, the invaders have been evicted from Roman territory.

Intense diplomatic activity follows, as the Romans try to win over various barbarian tribes in preparation for a crossing of the Danube.

A peace treaty is signed with the Quadi and the Iazyges, while the tribes of the Hasdingi Vandals and the Lacringi become Roman allies.

Marcus Aurelius marches eastwards with his army, accompanied by auxiliary detachments of Marcomanni, Quadi and Naristi under the command of Marcus Valerius Maximianus.

The emperor, after the successful suppression of Cassius' revolt, returns to Rome for the first time in nearly eight years of expensive and largely ineffective campaigns against the Marcomanni and other Danubian tribes.

Marcus Aurelius is the first emperor since Vespasian to have a son of his own and, though he himself is the fifth in the line of the so-called Five Good Emperors who had each adopted their successor, it seems to have been his firm intention that Commodus should be his heir.

Marcus Aurelius grants Commodus the rank of Imperator on November 27, 176.

Commodus becomes consul on January 1, 177, for the first time, which makes him, at fifteen, the youngest consul in Roman history up to this time.

Marcus Aurelius grants Commodus the title Augustus in the middle of 177, giving his son the same status as his own and formally sharing power.

The emperor on December 23 of the same year celebrates a joint triumph for his German victories ("de Germanis" and "de Sarmatis") together with Commodus.

In commemoration of this, a triumphal column is planned, in imitation of Trajan's Column.

Because the original dedicatory inscription has been destroyed, it is not known whether it was built during the emperor’s reign (on the occasion of the triumph over the Marcomanni, Quadi and Sarmatians in the year 176) or after his death in 180; however, an inscription found in the vicinity attests that the column was completed by 193.

The emperor’s respite is to be brief.

Marcus soon embarks on another Danubian expedition against the Marcomanni.