Didius Gallus Campaigns against Silures 52-57 AD
Who Fought
Roman legions including the Second Legion; Silures tribesmen of south Wales
History & Significance
Aulus Didius Gallus was a member of the Roman Senate and general active during the 1st century AD. He held a number of offices and imperial appointments, the most important of which were governor of Britain between 52 and 57 AD, proconsul of Asia, and suffect consul in the nundinium of September to December 39 as the colleague of Domitius Afer.
According to Anthony Birley, Aulus Didius Gallus was considered a novus homo, "if not necessarily the first of his family to enter the senate." A proconsul of Cyprus, Aulus Didius Postumus, might be a close relative.
His career up to 51 can be partly reconstructed from an inscription from Olympia. Didius is attested as quaestor in a senatus consultum dated to AD 19, that forbade Senators, eques, and their descendants from actively participating in gladiator games. Birley notes that if this inscription has been correctly restored, "he had the signal honour, for a new man, of being quaestor of Tiberius." Further, if he achieved this magistrate at the normal age of 25, Gallus would have been born around 8/7 BC. Record of his tenure as plebeian tribune and aedile are missing from the inscription, while the next magistracies whose record survive on the inscription are legate or assistant to the proconsul of Asia, and prefect of cavalry. Birley admits that while "it would be fruitless to speculate on the identity of the proconsul of Asia under whom Gallus served" he observes that during this period only two men were proconsuls when he could have been their legate: Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, ordinary consul AD 6, and Publius Petronius, consul 17, "making it probable that it was one of these two." As for his commission as prefect of cavalry, while Birley notes it has been thought he held it during the invasion of Britain, he argues it is more likely Didius commanded the cavalry as part of a campaign in Thrace "for it would satisfactorily explain the choice of Gallus to command the Moesian army c. 44-5."
After these two magistracies, Didius was proconsul of Sicily, which fell during the reign of Tiberius; "given Tiberius' practice," Birley comments, his governorship of Sicily "may have lasted more than twelve months". Didius was curator aquarum (superintendent of aqueducts) from 38 to 49, consul in 39, and a member of the septemviri epulonum, one of the four most prestigious ancient Roman priesthoods. Birley notes the later "would have had special prominence at the Secular Games in AD 47." Didius received triumphal regalia as an imperial legate under Claudius, probably in Bosporus: Tacitus records that he commanded forces there that were withdrawn in 49. After this the sortition awarded him the post of proconsular governor of Asia, which Ronald Syme dates to 49/50.
The ground they fought on
The site of Didius Gallus Campaigns against Silures 52-57 AD lies on South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation, bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
Following the death of Ostorius Scapula in 52 AD and the subsequent heavy defeat of the Roman Second Legion by the Silures, Didius Gallus was sent to Britain to restore order; he quelled the rebellion and, rather than pushing further into the difficult terrain of Wales, constructed roads and forts at the borders such as those at Usk to contain the native tribes, a strategy that Sheppard Frere attributed not to timidity but to direct instructions from Emperor Claudius, who judged the potential gains of further conquest insufficient to justify the hazard.
- The Roman Second Legion suffered a heavy defeat by the Silures following the death of Ostorius Scapula
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