The Universal and the Local in the Civitas Batavorum

I Universalization and localization

The model of “universalization” and “localization” derives originally from the work of Redfield, anthropologist at the University of Chicago in the mid-twentieth century and a foundational figure in the development of peasant stu­dies. The particular benefit of this model is its insight into the different na­tures of eli­te and local culture. Because the former is codified by literature, it ta­kes the shape of a “uni­versal tradition.” The codification ensures that it can spread across vast distances and be preserved across time without brea­king up into dif­ferent entities. In contrast, whi­le people in local com­mu­ni­ties may pos­sess degrees of literacy, it is often of a limited nature, as is their ac­cess to the written works of the elite. Thus, their culture re­mains main­ly oral in nature and tends to change over time and from place to pla­ce. Gi­ven the limits on literacy in the pre-modern world, these “local tra­di­tions” are ne­ver fully assimilated into the universal one, but co-exist with it for mil­len­nia.^[5] This em­pha­sis on the fundamental difference in cultural out­look bet­ween the literate and non-literate spheres allows the model to encompass the glo­ba­lising nature of cultural idioms in agrarian empires while also ad­dres­sing the extreme social hierarchies of the­se societies.^[6]

The co-existence of the two traditions may be seen in practice by looking at the first ca­se to use the model, the 1955 study of the Uttar Pradesh vil­la­ge of Kishan Gar­hi by Red­field’s associate Mar­riott. Marriott ar­gued that since the cul­tu­ral traits ma­king up stan­dard Hinduism we­re co­di­fied by San­skri­tic li­te­ra­tu­re, they were “uni­ver­sa­li­zed.” How­ever, his study sho­wed that the religious li­fe of Kishan Garhi contained dei­ties and festivals un­known elsewhere whi­le so­me features of standard Hinduism we­re un­known to the villagers.^[7] Moreover, the Sanskritic culture present in Kishan Garhi had often un­der­go­ne chan­ges, adopting idiosyncratic features that anchored rituals more clo­sely in the ag­ri­cul­tu­ral lifestyle of the village. For instance, the festival of Cow-Nou­risher Wor­ship de­ri­ves from the tenth century AD Bhāgavata Pu­rā­ṇa, yet in Kishan Gar­hi the celebrations had acquired a peculiar form with loa­ves of cow­dung arranged to represent farm ani­mals that families ho­ped to ob­tain.^[8]

Marriott’s study revealed deep di­vides in li­fe­sty­le bet­ween the educated layers of the population and the pea­sant­ry. How­ever, it also demonstrated that their cultural tra­ditions existed in a state of con­ti­nuous, low-intensity in­ter­action. Traits from the li­te­rate tra­di­tion might ex­pe­rience localization, being transformed to suit a local con­text. The op­posite pro­cess of uni­ver­sa­li­zation might elevate traits from the vil­la­ge le­vel into the universal sphere, trans­forming them in the process so as to ma­ke them re­levant and ac­cep­tab­le to literate high culture. As the traditions co-exist for mil­len­nia without mer­ging, in the final analysis the processes represent a cir­cu­lar flow with ele­ments borrowed from one tradition into another so­me­ti­mes borrowed a se­cond ti­me, returning in transformed guise to their tra­di­tion of origin.^[9]

While Marriott’s research was limited to an Indian village, Red­field’s ori­gi­nal con­cep­tion of the model, as well as those of later adapters such as Gell­ner and Chak­ra­bar­ti, carries the premise that the features described abo­ve we­re common to pre-modern ag­rarian societies, seeing as these lacked the means to in­tegrate the mass of the po­pu­la­tion into a single culture in the man­ner of later nation states.^[10] The applicability of the model for the Roman world has been de­monstrated by Frank­furter, who used it to make sense of the varieties of re­ligious phe­no­mena in Ro­man Egypt.^[11] The existence of local cultures thri­ving beneath the universal Greco-Ro­man cultural package is likewise vi­si­ble in other sour­ce corpora from the empire. Whi­le most pre­ser­ved writing from Ro­man ti­mes is Latin or Greek, scattered pieces of evi­den­ce and men­tions by Clas­si­cal authors suggest a significant per­se­ve­ran­ce of lo­cal lan­gua­ges in ma­ny parts of the empire.^[12] In material culture, pot­tery as­sem­blages from Ro­man Es­sex show significant di­ver­gen­ces in both fabrics and forms bet­ween ur­ban lo­ca­tions and their rural hinterlands.^[13]

The present paper will apply Redfield and Marriott’s concepts to a so­me­what dif­fe­rent community. The Batavians were a provincial community like the villagers of Ki­shan Garhi. However, their extensive re­cruit­ment for the Ro­man army sets their so­cie­ty apart. For the Ba­ta­vians, army ser­vice con­sti­tu­ted a significant source of contact bet­ween their lo­cal world and the uni­ver­sal cultural forms of the wider em­pi­re. In par­ticular, literacy is likely to ha­ve been significantly higher among the Batavians than other provincial com­munities because of the large number of veterans. The pur­po­se of the pre­sent paper is therefore to investigate if the special nature of Batavian so­cie­ty still resembles the general contours of Redfield’s model or whether by their clo­se association to the Roman army, the Batavians experienced a cul­tu­ral as­si­mi­la­tion beyond that of other pre-modern provincial communities.

II The civitas Batavorum

A long tradition of archaeological research means that the Batavians are among the bet­ter known provincial populations of the Roman Empire. Since Wil­lems’ com­pre­hen­sive 1984 study, a long range of publications by Derks and Roymans have both brought in new material and vastly increased our un­derstanding of the cultural chan­ges occurring in the region throughout the Ro­man period. Moreover, the contribution of van Driel-Murray has been va­luable for the light it has shed on the role of women in Ba­ta­vian agriculture and the phenomenon of ‘ethnic sol­diers’, whi­le the de­po­sits of weaponry in the region have been par­ti­cu­lar­ly il­lu­mi­na­ted by Ni­colay.^[14]

The impact of Roman power on Batavian identity went beyond mere army ser­vice. Ro­man political decisions were instrumental in creating their com­mu­nity to begin with, as they originated as a subgroup of the Chat­ti that was al­lowed to settle in the Rhi­ne del­ta. Here they presumably mi­xed with sur­vi­vors of the lo­cal Eburones whom Cae­sar had devastated.^[15]

The Romans viewed the Batavians as a naturally martial people (e.g. Tac. Germ. 29.1; Hist. 4.12). This eth­nographic ste­reotype had wide-ranging effects on the evolution of the com­munity, as the Ba­ta­vians were gran­ted immunity from state tax from the Au­gustan period on­wards in re­turn for sup­ply­ing the Roman army with troops.^[16] By AD 43, there were eight Ba­ta­vian cohortes equitatae, one ala Ba­tavorum and a significant number of Batavians ser­ving in the hor­se guard and the fleet, suggesting some 5,500 Ba­ta­vians ser­ving at any one time. Af­ter the cohorts participated in the Batavian Revolt of AD 69-70, they were re­organised as four cohortes, but at least by the end of the first century these four were mil­liary cohorts with double the strength of the previous equita­tae. Hence it does not ap­pear the reorganisation fundamentally altered the num­ber of Batavians in Roman mi­litary service.^[17] Given the total po­pu­la­tion of the civitas Ba­ta­vo­rum is es­ti­mated at around 35,000, scho­lars believe Batavian leaders must have recruited be­yond their own tribe to sa­tis­fy the de­mand for so many recruits. Even so, it is hard to ima­gine that military ser­vi­ce did not constitute a con­ti­nuous, major drain on lo­cal man­po­wer well into the second cen­tury.^[18]

The Batavian case was not unique. Several of their neigh­bours such as the Ner­vii and Tungri also provided units for the Roman army. How­ever, the re­cruit­ment of the Ba­ta­vians was the most substantial and may ha­ve been the lon­gest-lasting, persisting in­to the early second century AD.^[19] Frag­ments of Ro­man military equipment at rural set­tle­ments presumably evi­den­ces ve­te­rans brin­ging home their equipment af­ter dis­char­ge, and the pre­sen­ce of frag­ments in almost all Batavian set­tlements from the first to the third cen­tu­ry shows a persistent, close connection to the military.^[20] The earliest exam­ples of objects associated with Roman military and colonial sites such as colour-coa­ted beakers to appear in local Batavian cemeteries even coincides roughly with the time when the first Batavian recruits are likely to have been discharged.^[21]Almost eve­ry fa­mi­ly in the ci­vi­tas probably had a family member serving in the army, and al­to­gether Ba­ta­vian expo­su­re to at least the aspects of the Ro­man uni­ver­sal tradition cen­tral to mi­li­ta­ry life must have been sub­stan­tial.^[22]

The Batavians’ special relationship with the Roman military dic­ta­ted the so­cio-eco­no­mic structure of their community. Through­out the late Iron Age, stockbreeding ra­ther than arable farming was the main economic ac­ti­vi­ty of the region, and pollen dia­grams sug­gest this mo­de of living chan­ged lit­tle through the first century AD.^[23] Army re­cruit­ment may have acted as a bra­ke on the de­ve­lop­ment of arable agriculture due to the continuous ab­sen­ce of lar­ge numbers of men, and so in this respect actually con­tri­buted to a per­sistence of local cultural distinctiveness.^[24] The high age of slaughter of cattle in the area suggests a need for ma­nure to fertilize san­dy soils.^[25] Van Driel-Murray ar­gues this may re­flect an ag­ri­cul­tural re­gime centred on pro­ducts such as ve­ge­tab­les, eggs and chee­se, a re­gime that, significantly, may ha­ve been pri­ma­ri­ly in the hands of the wo­men, al­lo­wing men to leave for ar­my ser­vi­ce.^[26] Such a regime may even be part­ly res­pon­sible for the dearth of Roman luxury goods in the region, as wo­men are mo­re likely to invest money in family support and eco­nomic buf­fers, where men are more likely to invest it in status enhancement. Ar­chae­ology has do­cu­mented an ex­cess of women over men in cremation bu­rials from the re­gion.^[27]

There is little certainty about either the date or reason for the end of Ba­ta­vian re­cruit­ment. Gradually improving economic conditions in the civitas may have reduced the number of willing recruits, and the consequent gra­dual decrease of actual Ba­ta­vians in the nominally Batavian cohorts would ex­plain the appearance of non-Bata­vian prefects commanding the units in the second century.^[28]

Probably from the reign of Claudius onwards, Roman occupation brought ur­banism to the Rhi­ne delta. The chief settlement, Batavodurum, ‘Fort of the Batavians’, was des­tro­yed in the revolt of AD 69, but rebuilt as No­vio­ma­gus, ‘New Market’ (Nijmegen), the next year. Several secondary ones set­tlements such as Cuijk and Elst also ap­pea­red. By the second cen­tury No­vio­magus appears to have had a po­pulation of c. 5000, while the oth­er set­tle­ments are es­ti­mated to have had populations below 1000.^[29]

The earliest inhabitants of Noviomagus appears to have been out­si­ders from the in­te­rior of Gaul, who only mixed with the local population over ti­me. Ma­ny features of Me­diterranean urbanism adopted across Gaul, such as thea­tres, buildings with peristyles, private baths and floor heating are absent from the ci­vi­tas Ba­tavorum and neighbouring areas.^[30] Despite such caveats, the intro­duc­tion of urbanism must have been a dras­tic chan­ge, affecting not on­ly the new urban population, but also the rural com­munities that were brought into eco­nomic ties with the settlements.

Villas appeared during the first cen­tury AD yet were relatively scar­ce. They seem al­most entirely to ha­ve developed from pre-exis­ting farm­steads ra­ther than being new foun­da­tions, suggesting their ow­ners be­longed to the lo­cal com­munities. Their wealth was presumably de­ri­ved from sup­plying the new set­tlements as well as the military forts constructed as part of the Rhine li­mes in the mid­dle of the century.^[31] Except for the villas Batavian hou­se­buil­ding changed little, con­tinuing the pre-Roman tradition of byre houses though sometimes at­ta­ching a wooden por­ticus, evidencing inspiration from Ro­man military ar­chi­tec­ture. Whether these were first used by re­tur­ning ve­te­rans or by people actively serving in the nearby legions has been de­ba­ted.^[32]

Mo­nu­men­tal bu­rial ar­chi­tecture is completely ab­sent from the ci­vitas ex­cept for a few examples in the ce­me­tery of No­vio­ma­gus.^[33] In­stead, as the re­cent­ly transplanted Ba­tavians con­struc­ted their so­cie­ty in the first cen­tury AD, they drew upon the distant past for burial prac­ti­ces. Their dead we­re interred in low barrows modelled upon ones in use in the area bet­ween 1100 to 400 BC and sometimes even built in the same lo­ca­tions.^[34] This pe­culiarity sug­gests a deliberate intention to embed the com­mu­nity mo­re deep­ly into the lo­cal world, possibly as a response to the dra­ma­tic back­ground of originally being a transplanted ethnic group.

Despite the undeniable cultural change with the introduction of urbanism, the ar­chi­tec­tural world of the civitas Batavorum remains largely local. The adoption of the porticus is best ter­med a localization as it borrows from Roman culture, but only to enhance byre-hou­ses that otherwise retain a pre-Roman form. The limited urbanism, villa-con­struc­tion and the deliberate emphasis on a local past in burial architecture further re­veals a society with a distinctly lo­cal identity.

In some areas, however, Roman in­fluen­ce was early and substantial. Ro­man coinage en­tered the area in significant amounts in the Au­gus­tan era al­rea­dy, and from the Fla­vian era onwards even rural villages ap­pear to have used coins to trade imported wa­res.^[35] This rapid influx could reflect the hy­po­the­tical women’s agricultural regime, as small-scale marketing (in this ca­se with the nearby garrisons) is often a stra­tegy em­plo­yed by families af­fec­ted by male migration.^[36]

The Ba­ta­vians and their clo­se neighbours also appear early on to have adop­ted Ita­lian ter­ra sigillata to a lar­ger degree than com­mu­ni­ties deeper in­si­de Ro­man ter­ri­to­ry. There was no history of Ita­lian wine im­ports in the Lo­wer Rhine region prior to the Roman occupation, and pre-Ro­man pottery con­sisted of hand­ma­de domestic wa­res. It seems therefore that terra si­gil­la­ta was introduced by the Ro­man mi­litary. How­ever, the rapid spread of the pot­tery to non-mi­li­tary sites suggests that Ro­man use of terra si­gil­la­ta was emu­lated fairly ear­ly on by local au­xi­lia­ries.^[37] Outside new Ro­man-era set­tle­ments wheel-tur­ned pot­tery was rare until the Batavian Revolt of AD 69-70, but was ra­pid­ly adopted in the following years.^[38]

This change was ac­com­pa­nied by a spread of new pottery ty­pes such as amphorae for olive oil and wine, sug­ges­ting that exposure to Roman food culture during military ser­vice changed Ba­ta­vian food consumption.^[39] Notably, access to wider traditions of con­sumption did not on­ly lead to cultural convergence as grave goods from late first-cen­tury AD Batavian ce­me­teries show a re-emergence of older beaker and fibula de­signs largely abandoned by their neighbours.^[40] As in the case of the burial mounds, the­se grave goods suggest a de­sire to emphasize the unique identity of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Altogether, the influx of coinage and pottery reflects the dis­tinc­ti­ve Ba­ta­vian si­tua­tion, as significant army presence and recruitment must ha­ve been the chief drivers of the process. By the second century, increased cul­tu­ral con­ver­gence with the Medi­ter­ra­nean world is visible in other fields. The stock­bree­ding economy declined and a sig­ni­fi­cant population in­crea­se in the sa­me period was probably made possible by an in­crea­se of arable far­ming.^[41] A par­ti­cularly sharp decrease in the number of sheep and con­versely an in­crea­se in that of horses suggest the latter were bred for sale to the near­by Roman gar­risons.^[42] Ru­ral pro­ducers acquired more Gallo-Ro­man artefacts, pre­su­mab­ly as a re­sult of trade with the forts. Nevertheless, the limited po­ten­tial for wheat production in the area meant the ci­vi­tas Batavorum was ne­ver ab­le by it­self to feed the gar­risons along its stretch of the Rhine, and it is even un­cer­tain whether the ci­vilian society was self-sufficient.^[43]

These later developments are evidence of closer engagement with the Roman uni­versal tra­di­tion. Yet whether they might over time have produced a civi­tas Ba­ta­vo­rum more akin to the neighbouring Gallic provinces is a moot ques­tion, as the period of growth was followed by col­lapse in the lat­ter half of the third century. The area came under pres­sure from Fran­kish raiders while the imperial centre was mired in crises, and the num­ber of settlements in the ci­vi­tas contracted from near­ly 300 to c. 70. Pollen evi­den­ce shows far lower le­vels of cul­ti­va­tion in the region than earlier, No­vio­ma­gus was largely de­ser­ted, and coin evidence sug­gests the aban­don­ment of the forts by c. AD 260-270.^[44] Hou­se ty­pes and material culture preserved from fourth-century settlements are ra­di­cal­ly dif­fe­rent from earlier times, suggesting a transformation of the re­gion which pro­bably included the demise of the Batavian community. The­re is no epi­graphic evi­den­ce of individuals identifying themselves as Ba­ta­vians af­ter the third cen­tu­ry.^[45]

This short survey demonstrates that the civitas Batavorum is comparable to oth­er pro­vincial societies in the mixture of universal and local traits, just as Ki­shan Garhi con­tained mixtures of literary Hinduism and idio­syncratic cults. However, the in­fluen­ce of the army on Ba­ta­vian society is unusually in­tense, appearing to be res­pon­sib­le for rapidly ushering in coinage and ter­ra sigillata whi­le acting as a brake on the tran­sition to arable farming.^[46]

III Literacy

The influence of Roman recruitment is likely to have been particularly sig­ni­fi­cant in re­gards to literacy levels. This aspect is crucial to the ana­lysis as the written text is the central vehicle of the universal tradition. Whe­re lite­ra­cy is limited, cultural traits pas­sing from the universal to the lo­cal are likely to be transformed through mis­un­der­standings, such as was de­mon­strated by the festival of Cow-Nou­risher Worship in Ki­shan Garhi.

At rural sites of the civitas Ba­ta­vorum, incontrovertible proof of literacy has been found in only two set­tle­ments, which have both yielded frag­ments of sty­lus tab­lets. How­ever, the coun­tryside has produced a far larger amount (271 examples) of seal-bo­xes, and the aca­de­mic debate on the extent of li­te­ra­cy in the area hin­ges on the dif­fe­rent in­ter­pre­tations of these.^[47]

Seal-boxes are objects usually 20 to 40 mm in length consisting of a base and a lid con­nec­ted by a hinge and furnished with holes allowing for a cord to pass through the box. It is ge­ne­ral­ly agreed that their purpose was to pro­tect wax seals as evi­den­ced by an example from Wroxeter with remains of bees­wax in­si­de. Once wax was poured in­to the box and the lid was shut, which­ever object was enclosed by the cord could not be accessed without ei­ther cutting the cord or breaking the seal.^[48]

In the civitas Batavorum seal-boxes have been found mainly at mi­litary camps (48 %) and cult cent­res (10 %), in­clu­ding a large quantity at Em­pel. At ru­ral set­tle­ments they are found in smal­ler num­bers, but taken as a whole their dis­tri­bu­tion through the coun­try­si­de is significant (33 %). Derks and Roy­mans suggest these are evi­dence of literacy, ar­guing they were used to seal letters written on wax tab­lets. Their con­cen­tra­tion at mi­li­ta­ry and re­li­gious si­tes would sug­gest they sealed sol­diers’ let­ters and pri­va­te vows, and their pre­sence at ru­ral sites would thus suggest a con­si­de­r­ab­le deg­ree of La­tin li­te­ra­cy in the coun­try­si­de.^[49] Derks and Roy­mans further interpret the seal-bo­xes as the re­sult of an ongoing ex­chan­ge of let­ters between common sol­diers and their fa­milies at home. The ma­jority of rural dwel­lers may ha­ve been il­li­te­ra­te, yet returning ve­te­rans, ha­ving acquired li­te­ra­cy du­ring mi­litary ser­vi­ce, could have as­sisted in rea­ding and writing letters on be­half of their neigh­bours.^[50]

The literacy of the Batavian soldiery is illustrated by the hun­dreds of leaf tab­lets with ink writing found at the auxiliary fort of Vindolanda in nor­thern Bri­tain. Most de­rive from the period of c. AD 90 to 105 when the Ninth Co­hort of Ba­tavians were gar­ri­so­ned at the fort. About half of the 200 peop­le na­med in the letters can be iden­ti­fied as gar­ri­son-members, many of them Ba­tavians and almost all clearly not Roman ci­ti­zens.^[51] The many dif­fe­rent hands seen in the material suggest widespread literacy among the gar­rison, and at least some letters seem to derive from the lower ranks.^[52]

The Vindolanda corpus is not unique in demonstrating the role of the army in sprea­ding literacy among its recruits. For instance, ostraca from the Bu Njem outpost in Tri­politania has preserved evidence of what appears to be Af­rican auxiliary recruits in the process of learning Latin.^[53] The Vindolanda ma­terial demonstrates that this pro­cess af­fected Batavian recruits as much as any oth­ers.^[54]

While this material supports Derks and Roymans’ theory of a po­pu­lation of literate ve­terans, their interpretation of the seal-boxes as evi­den­ce of this po­pulation in the ci­vitas itself has not gai­ned universal ac­cep­tan­ce.^[55] An­drews has poin­ted out that the­re is little certain evidence for the re­la­tion bet­ween seal-boxes and let­ters whereas he high­lights three examples (from be­yond the civitas Batavorum) sug­gesting they were used to seal leather pou­ches.^[56] Besides these, he questions why common soldiers would use expen­si­ve sty­lus tab­lets and seal-boxes for simple family letters, as well as whether the Ro­man army would allow soldiers on duty to engage in sealed corres­pon­den­ce.^[57] His practical ex­pe­riments with re­con­struc­ted seal-bo­xes sug­gest that using them to seal stylus tablets is un­ne­ces­sa­ry and im­practical, whe­reas they ap­pear well-suited for sealing cloth pur­ses and pou­ches. Thus, their wi­de disperal may well evidence the pro­vin­cial cash eco­nomy ra­ther than li­te­ra­cy.^[58] Derks and Roymans have voiced scepticism as to whether An­drews’ re­search suf­fi­cient­ly demonstrates seal-boxes to have been used so­le­ly for sea­ling bags of va­luab­les.^[59] However, Andrews has certainly thrown into doubt their own theo­ry of the boxes as a re­liable measurement of the ex­tent of rural li­teracy.^[60] The general extent of li­te­racy in the civitas Ba­ta­vo­rum thus re­mains uncertain.^[61]

Nonetheless, the Vindolanda material demonstrates that Batavian rec­ruits we­re ex­po­sed to Latin literacy. Taken together with the unusual extent of Ba­ta­vian re­cruit­ment, it is likely that the civitas Batavorum contained a grea­ter pro­portion of literate ve­terans than the average Roman province. Sin­ce there is little direct evidence of wri­ting from the area, however, it is dif­ficult to determine the effect of this literacy on the Ba­tavian world-view. Un­der these circumstances, our best eviden­ce for their world-view – and so for the degree to which this as­si­mi­la­ted to the uni­ver­sal culture of the em­pi­re at large – is found in the remains of their re­li­gious culture.

IV Religion

The civitas Batavorum contained three monumental temples at Elst, Empel and Kes­sel.^[62] All three appear to have been of the Gallo-Roman type – rec­tan­gu­lar stone temp­les constructed on top of earlier cult sites.^[63] Animal re­mains dis­co­ve­red underneath the ruins of Elst sug­gest a pre-Roman open-air cult pla­ce, whi­le Empel appears to ha­ve housed a temple al­rea­dy in the Late La Tè­ne period. These two temples were des­tro­yed in the middle of the third cen­tu­ry and never rebuilt. The temple at Kessel is known from spolia and ri­tual de­posits, including La Tène materials, but the temple si­te itself has not been lo­cated.^[64]

Monumental temples are generally quite scarce in the Lower Rhine re­gion com­pa­red to the rest of Gaul, possibly due to the lesser affluence of the land­scape and the less urban way of life. Cult places commonly con­sis­ted of on­ly so­me post struc­tures, so­me pits and a bank or ditch.^[65] The ap­pea­ran­ce of no less than three monumental temp­les in the ci­vi­tas Batavorum thus con­sti­tute an unusual degree of assimilation to the uni­ver­sal tradition of re­li­gious practice in the empire and testifies to the pre­sen­ce of a resourceful eli­te. The latter is also reflected in an in­crea­sing ar­chae­ological vi­si­bi­li­ty of gra­ves in the second century AD due to the pre­sen­ce of mo­re Roman ma­te­rials, sug­ges­ting a development towards a less ega­li­ta­rian so­ciety in the pe­riod.^[66]

The main focus of public cult in the civitas Ba­ta­vo­rum appears to have been the figure of Hercules Magusanus. All three known monumental temp­les were most likely devoted to this amalgamation of a local dei­ty, Ma­gu­sa­nus, and the Ro­man Hercules. Most de­di­ca­tions to the god de­rive from the civitas whe­re they are mainly the work of soldiers and veterans.^[67] Hercules Magusanus is al­so attested in places whe­re Ba­ta­vian soldiers we­re sta­tio­ned, such as Dacia and northern Bri­tain, while de­di­ca­tions from el­se­whe­re in the Lo­wer Rhine area demonstrate a regional spread of the cult. When in 260 Pos­tu­mus sei­zed con­trol of the north-wes­tern pro­vin­ces, he cho­se Her­cu­les Ma­gu­sa­nus and Her­cu­les Deu­so­nien­sis (‘Hercules of the town Dies­sen’, lo­ca­ted in the ci­vi­tas Batavorum) as his pa­trons.^[68]

In large parts of Gaul, the principal deity of local communities was usually amal­ga­ma­ted with Mars. The Lower Rhine frontier is unique for the sub­sti­tu­tion of Hercules for this role.^[69] Derks has advanced the hypothesis that Her­cules’ ro­le as patron of wan­dering herdsmen made him particularly re­le­vant for com­munities with eco­no­mies based on cattle-breeding and religious prac­tices centred on ritual feasting, whe­reas Mars was popular in areas do­mi­nated by arable farming.^[70]

Depictions of a club-wielding Hercules Magusanus clad in lionskin and ei­ther of­fe­ring the apples of the Hesperides or holding in check the hell-hound Cer­berus demon­stra­te the perception of the god as a variant of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean Hercules. The iden­ti­fication appears to have extended to his func­tions, as Hercules Magusanus was seen as patron of tra­vel­lers in the same fas­hion as his Mediterranean counterpart.^[71] The clo­se similarity of the two dei­ties fits with the theory that their amalgamation was the work of a pro-Ro­man elite, possibly people who had lived as hos­ta­ges in Italy and been edu­cated there. The pre-eminence of Hercules Magusanus in the temples and the epigraphic record certainly suggests a con­nection with lo­cal po­wer­hol­ders.^[72] This con­nection may have shifted the available evi­dence in the god’s favour, as other as­pects of Batavian religion are dif­fi­cult to trace.

While the god’s visual imagery and functions reflect the universal tra­di­tion, archaeology, however, also sheds light on important differences. Ex­ten­si­ve evi­den­ce of but­chered cattle at both Elst and Empel reveal the con­ti­nua­tion of a pre-Roman cul­tu­re of ri­tual feasting.^[73] Moreover, while weapon of­fe­rings we­re prominent throughout Gaul in pre-Roman times, they lost sig­ni­ficance af­ter the occupation.^[74] This was not the case among the Batavians, how­ever. The temple at Empel has yielded lar­ge amounts of military ar­te­facts, and wea­pon offerings are common throughout the civi­tas.^[75] These aspects reflect a Batavian local tradition, though both become less pro­mi­nent by the second century AD. The decrease in weapon-offerings may be due to the res­pon­si­bi­lity for army re­cruit­ment shifting from the Batavian aris­to­cra­cy to the Roman au­tho­rities themselves, which may have dulled the mar­tial va­lues of the former.^[76] The near total absence of fibulae and bra­celets at Em­pel sug­gest little fe­ma­le in­vol­ve­ment in the worship of Hercules Magusanus, lea­ving open the pos­sibility of wo­men’s re­ligiosity ha­ving been practised in dif­ferent settings which have not left the same tra­ces for posterity.^[77]

A few attestations preserve the name of a warrior goddess cal­led Vi­ra­deg­dis, while two other goddesses, Haeva and Hurstrga, are each at­tested by a sing­le inscription.^[78] The­se suggest a local tradition pantheon lar­ge­ly ignored in the fields of temp­le-buil­ding and epigraphy. Despite the hy­po­the­sis of high veteran Latin literacy, moreover, the­se we­re not sub­jected to in­ter­pre­ta­tio Ro­mana.

The limits of our evidence for religion is underscored by the scarcity of vo­tive al­tars and votive inscriptions in the Lo­wer Rhine coun­try­side, with the Ba­ta­vian area pro­du­cing only a few and their neighbours, the Ca­na­ne­fa­tes, none at all. This contrasts mar­kedly with areas further south, such as the ter­ritory of the Ubii which has more than a hund­red inscriptions.^[79]

Batavian society thus presents us with a localization of the Ro­man figure of Hercules in­to a local religion ba­sed on martial values, ritual feasting and wea­pon-offerings. Iro­ni­cally, the longevity of the­se local elements under Ro­man rule was encouraged, ra­ther than im­pe­ded by Roman imperialism, as rec­ruitment practices reinforced their so­cial foundation. Hercules Ma­gu­sa­nus aligns Batavian religion with the values of the Ro­man army, but as other ele­ments of local religious life demonstrate, this alignment does not re­flect an assimilation of the po­pulation to a Roman religious outlook. It is in­stead yet another example of a local tradition adopting elements from the univer­sal tra­dition to make sense of life in the local context.

The case of Hercules Magusanus is rather unique since the evidence makes vi­sible a full circular flow of cultural bor­ro­wing. Through his attachment to the figure of Ma­gu­sa­nus and local Ba­ta­vian customs, Hercules is localized and transformed into a deity fit for tra­di­tio­nal weapon-offerings. However, upon Postumus’ seizure of the north-west he is (briefly) uni­ver­salized into the patron deity of the break­away Gal­lic Empire. He is thus an apt il­lus­tra­tion of the continuous give-and-take bet­ween the local and uni­versal spheres of culture.

V Batavian Culture

The Vindolanda material supports Derks and Roy­mans’ hypothesis of a sig­nificant po­pu­lation of literate ve­te­rans in the civitas Batavorum, even if the purpose of the seal-bo­xes remains un­certain. This paper has surveyed the broader cultural evi­dence from the re­gion to investigate whether the pro­bab­ly closer fa­mi­lia­ri­ty with the im­pe­rial uni­versal tra­dition on the part of this veteran po­pu­la­tion can be seen in Ba­tavian so­cie­ty in general.

Roman policies had a trans­formative effect on Batavian society, creating their com­mu­nity to begin with, spreading monetisation and terra sigillata unu­sually rapidly and introducing a limited degree of urbanism. How­ever, whi­le the­se de­ve­lop­ments in so­me respects brought the Batavians in­to close align­ment with the Me­diterranean world, Ro­man re­cruit­ment al­so led to a persistence of stock­bree­ding and to the likely de­ve­lop­ment of an unu­sual wo­men’s agricultural re­gi­me.

Our glimpse of their religion follows the same pattern. Hercules Ma­gu­sa­nus is hardly distinguishable from his Roman counterpart, yet the practices of ritual feas­ting, weapon-offerings and deliberately archaic burial mounds and grave goods re­veal a lo­cal tradition co-existing with the influences of the uni­ver­sal one. Her­cules Ma­gu­sa­nus aptly sum­ma­rizes Batavian cultural iden­tity as it ap­pears to us: a close and sig­nificant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with the mar­tial values of the Roman army, but existing to­get­her with a sha­do­wy presence of local god­desses rather than other Roman gods, com­parable to how eve­ryday li­fe in the ci­vitas, with its li­mi­ted ur­ba­ni­sa­tion, scar­ci­ty of vil­las, and tra­di­tio­nal by­re houses, must ha­ve re­mai­ned ve­ry dif­ferent from Ro­man Ita­ly.

The mixture of local and universal traits reveals that despite an unusual de­gree of ac­cess to Latin literacy and the cultural practices of the universal tra­dition, the civitas Ba­tavorum remained fundamentally a local community with a distinct identity of its own. The influence of the Roman army drove a se­ries of spe­cific cultural align­ments to produce a highly mi­li­ta­ristic so­cie­ty which adopted universalized symbols from the Ro­man ar­my. Yet at the sa­me time, unintended consequences served to heighten the pe­culiarity of Ba­ta­vian society which remained quite cul­turally distinct from the Me­di­ter­ra­nean. Some of these peculiarities – the stockbreeding economy, weapon-of­fe­rings and ritual feasting – were in relative decline by the second century. Yet the dis­tinc­ti­ve architectural traditions were not, and the collapse of Ba­ta­vian so­ciety in the third cen­tury came before it could be seen if the developments of the second would go far enough to fundamentally alter the character of the area.

In the civitas Batavorum, veteran literacy probably produced some of the best cir­cum­stances for cultural assimilation in the empire. Yet even he­re the im­perial uni­ver­sal tradition did not take the shape of a na­tio­nal cul­ture that was ex­por­ted who­lesale. The social and economic con­di­tions of provincial li­fe were too different from the ur­ban en­vi­ronments at the centre of imperial po­wer. Instead, the imperial cultural tra­di­tion was engaged with and bor­ro­wed from to sa­tis­fy local cul­tu­ral needs.