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The Silver Line in Context

More information about the time period, setting, and historical context of The Silver Line.

The Roman Army

The image of the Roman soldier is iconic in Western culture. Nearly all of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa were touched by Roman influence, and this influence was often forced and enforced by the presence of the legions. The army of Rome began as an elite warrior class, refined itself into the most ruthless and well-trained military force in the world, and eventually swelled and died out from conscription, dwindling infrastructure, and infighting amongst commanders. In the year 10 BC, when The Silver Line takes place, Rome was at its height under the rule of Augustus, successor to Julius Caesar. The civil wars were over, and the focus was on maintenance rather than expansion. Still, battles were fought, and the courageous and independent tribes of Germania were a constant threat to Rome's grip on her fledgling Empire. The fingers of that grip were the Roman legions.

Structure of a Legion
-Legions were almost entirely volunteer
-Recruits took an oath to serve for 25 years
-Officers were usually upperclass, though promotion did occur
-8 soldiers formed a contubernium; 10 contubernia formed a century; 6 centuria formed a cohort. A legion at full strength had 10 cohorts (4800 men), but most had fewer.
-The legion was led by the legatus. This post was senatorial; a legatus could be a provincial governor who controlled several legions or a general who commanded just one.

Raetia & Germania

The province of Raetia covered an area roughly consistent with parts of Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. It was officially annexed in 15 BC, though it had known Roman presence for decades. The northern area near the Danube was called Vindelicia; it served as a kind of buffer zone with the unconquered north until being officially absorbed into Raetia in the 1st century AD. The northernmost outpost in Roman Raetia, the 2nd-century fortress of Castra Regina, is now the Bavarian city of Regensburg.

Raetia was a rural frontier country. The mountainous areas were used for cattle and timber, but the hills and valleys were fertile and contained lush vineyards. Raetian wine was said to be the best in all the Empire, the personal favorite of Augustus. Being on the border of the wild northern lands, it was sometimes the staging point for battles with tribes in Germania Magna. These sporadic clashes would continue until the famous battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, which ended Roman attempts to move beyond the Danube or Rhine. Both rivers were then spiked with a chain of fortresses called limes or castra, but in the time of The Silver Line, the Raetian Danube was a mostly untouched frontier.

Sponsorship & Adoption

It was common for an upper-class Roman man with no heir to adopt a young man as his next of kin. In most cases the young man took his adopter's name and legally became his son; this was the case with Augustus, who was Julius Caesar's grand-nephew but was adopted by him at age 17 and thereafter referred to as his son. Most powerful Roman families practiced adoption to strengthen political connections and get rid of extraneous children, clearing the way for uncomplicated inheritance. Unlike royal examples, most adopted boys did not cut ties with their birth families, and some did not refer to themselves as the sons of their sponsors. For many the relationship was a way for the adoptee to advance his status and the adopter to secure his estate. Some men "adopted" heirs of equal age; this has led to speculation that adoption could be a form of same-sex marriage, but this theory is controversial. In The Silver Line, Dardanus seeks adoption by Valerian to begin his military career and gain his father another connection. Many officers took young soldiers as pupils to advance their training; such mentor/apprentice relationships fulfilled favors and created allegiances in the army, and could lead to official adoption.

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