A N C I E N T
WARFARE
SPECIAL ISSUE 2009
The Varian Disaster:
The battle of the Teutoburg forest
With:
• Arminius’
masterstroke
• Finding the battlefield
• Roman legionaries reconstructed
And much more!
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A N C I E N T
WARFARE
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Special 2009
4
THE SOURCE
Four Misrepresentations
10
THE OPPOSING
ARMIES
Arming the warrior
PRELUDE
Bella Germaniae
17
FORTIFICATIONS
26
THE GENERALS
30
THE OPPOSING
ARMIES
Warrior tactics
48
52
THE BATTLE
62
AFTERMATH
70
THE BATTLEFIELD
74
THE BATTLEFIELD
Arminius’ masterstroke
Secrets from the soil
Road to destiny
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42
After Varus
Looking for Varus
THE OPPOSING
ARMIES
Augustan legionaries
37
THE OPPOSING
ARMIES
The legionary’s equipment
In Varus’ footsteps
Ancient Warfare is published every two months by
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ISSN: 1874-7019
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Four misrepresentations
Varus’ defeat in narrative sources
Catapult bolt stamped “Leg. XIX” from
Döttenbichl, southern Germany. Together with the lead ingot depicted
from Haltern, this is the extent of the
epigraphical evidence for the Augustan
19th legion. Now in the Archäologische Staatssammlung, Munich,
Germany.
Until the Kalkriese
excavations put an
end to the long debate
about the site where Varus’
legions were destroyed, the
only evidence for the battle
was a limited set of sources:
Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus,
Florus, and Cassius Dio. They
are all biased.
By Jona Lendering
The truth of a scientific or a scholarly
statement can be established in two
ways: coherence and correspondence.
The first approach means that a statement is considered to be true when it
is logically deduced from, and coherent with, other well-established facts.
The classic example is Euclidean geometry: applying logical means, the Greek
mathematician built upon a small
number of axioms and definitions a
beautiful, grand structure of knowledge. In the second approach, we check
a statement, perhaps by an experiment,
by comparison to the phenomena. Assuming that all objects fell with a constant acceleration, Galileo climbed to
the top of the leaning tower of Pisa,
let loose all kinds of weights, and after
many experiments, concluded that his
hypothesis corresponded to the facts.
Historians cannot take this second
road. No one can go back to the year
9 to see how Varus’ legions were destroyed. Historical facts can no longer
be observed; all we have is indirect
evidence (literary sources, archaeological remains, coins, inscriptions). From a
theoretical point of view, historical facts
belong to the same category as quarks
4
and black holes: although we cannot
observe them, we can deduce their existence because they have produced
other, observable phenomena.
The difference is that the astronomers’ data are pretty clear-cut, while
historical sources are ambiguous, biased, and written in dead languages.
How can we know that Saltus Teutoburgiensis must indeed be translated
as ‘Teutoburg Forest’? Are the motives
that our authors attribute to their actors their real motives, or are they
merely what the authors thought that
their motives had been? Historical interpretation can be hopelessly complex,
especially when the sources are limited
in number and literary in nature.
As a consequence, dozens of theories have been brought forward about
the battle in the Teutoburg Forest. They
could only be evaluated by checking
whether they were coherent with what
was known from other sources. Until
Kalkriese was discovered, it was impossible to establish correspondence
between scholarly statements and archaeological facts.
To be honest, ancient historians,
hoping for the archaeological discovery
© M. Eberlein, Courtesy of the
Archäologische Staatssammlung,
Munich, Germany.
that has now taken place, have always
concentrated on the written sources
and have not been looking for other
ways to check their ideas. As we will
see, implausible ideas have had long
lives. This can be explained partly from
the fact that the ancient texts are exciting, so that it is easy to forget that they
are incomplete and insufficient. Let’s
therefore have a look at them to see
what can and what cannot be deduced
from them.
Political bias: Velleius Paterculus
Our oldest source for Rome’s Germanic
Wars was written by a cavalry officer
named Velleius Paterculus, who published a Compendium to Roman History in 30 AD. It ends with the reign of
Tiberius, a former comrade-in-arms of
Paterculus. Because of his enthusiasm
for Tiberius’ reign, Paterculus has in the
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the ill-fated general during the reign of
Tiberius, probably - the words quoted
above seem to suggest this - by blaming the soldiers.
We do not know why Paterculus,
writing two decades after the disaster,
started to investigate again who were
responsible. Of course it is proper that
after a war the living defend the honor
of the dead - a surprisingly great number of military historical publications
was written with this purpose - but we
cannot be certain whether this general
pattern is applicable in this particular
case. What we can do, however, is guess
which conditions had to be met before
Paterculus could criticize Augustus: the
author must have had access to information that he considered to be more
reliable than the authorized interpretation of the events. This information
must have been given to him by eyewitnesses, and this means that we have to
take Paterculus very seriously.
Unfortunately, the problem remains
that Paterculus, who wanted “to set
forth in a larger work the details of this
terrible calamity” (2.119.1), focuses in his
Compendium on deeds of individual
heroism. The author who seems to have
had access to the best information, preferred to write something like a speech
for the defense instead of a full account
of the battle.
Moralistic bias: Tacitus
The best-known author on the RomanGermanic relations is the senator Cornelius Tacitus (c.56-c.120). It would be
wrong to call him an historian, even
though he presents himself as such.
In fact, he is far too intelligent to be
interested in the past only: he tries to
fathom the dark depths of human nature and wants to establish how an
aristocrat should act properly in the
face of tyranny. Tacitus is a moralist. To
him, the events in the Teutoburg Forest
are an invitation to write a moral analysis, and his account is - like a play in a
theater - constructed from contrasting
stereotypes.
The most important of these is the
opposition between barbarism and
civilization, represented by Germans
and Romans. This contrast is certainly
not one of utter darkness and complete
light. The barbarous Germans have noble qualities - they long for liberty and
are honest - while the civilized Romans
must be on their guard for decadence
and tyranny.
And indeed, if civilized Roman society is threatened by tyrannical emperors, a decadent populace, and savage
barbarians, important moral issues
arise. In a free commonwealth, a man of
dignity could show his care for the community by occupying a magistracy, but
in a monarchy, this had become dangerous. The Roman prince Germanicus,
however, had shown that it remained
possible for an aristocrat, even in the
dark days of the despotic Tiberius, to
live up to the standards set by the heroes of the republic.
Tacitus’ ambition to show that
an honorable life remained possible,
shapes his treatment of the battle in
the Teutoburg Forest, which he mentions several times in his account of
Germanicus’ retaliatory campaigns. For
example, when the Roman commander
decides to visit the battlefield, Tacitus
attributes to him pious motives and ignores the fact that no superpower can
allow its dead to remain unburied - it
was imperative for the Romans to wipe
out that symbol of its damaged invincibility.
© Karwansaray BV
past been criticized: the emperor had a
bad reputation, and Paterculus’ passion
was taken as evidence of his poor historical judgment.
However, historians have reevaluated the career of Tiberius, and think it
is unfair to criticize Paterculus’ admiration for a man who, as a general, simply
was admirable. It has also been stressed
that the author of the Compendium is
one of the few historians who lives up
to the standards that in Antiquity were
set for a historian: he had experience
as an official and a soldier, had visited
the countries he describes, and had met
many of the people whose deeds he describes. Few authors knew so well the
tensions between the realities of a war
zone and the Augustan propaganda. Although Paterculus adorns his account
of Augustus’ reign with the usual compliments, it is easy to discern a portrait
of Rome’s first emperor that is quite
critical: it is significant that his account
focuses on four military crises. The story of the annihilation of Varus’ legions
must be seen as part of this portrait.
Paterculus’ analysis of the massacre in the Teutoburg Forest is clear: “it
is evident that Varus ... lost his life and
his magnificent army more through
lack of judgment in the commander
than of valor in his soldiers.” (2.120.5)
More precisely, the general had underestimated the Germanic tribal warriors, “entertaining the notion that the
Germans, who were men only in limbs
and voice, were human beings and that
they who could not be subdued by the
sword, could be soothed by the law.”
(2.117.3) This is of course implicit disapproval of the man who had appointed
Varus, viz. Augustus. It is also criticism
of the aristocratic families who had
been able to restore the reputation of
Lead ingot marked by the 19th legion. To the left of the legionary name is the indication that the ingot weighed 203 Roman
lbs. Now in the Westfälisches Römermuseum, Haltern, Germany.
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© Karwansaray BV
Augustan propaganda, or how the
Romans liked to
see themselves: a
plaque showing a
Roman soldier with
a bound captive.
The latter is probably a Gaul, judging by the shield
hanging from the
tree. The text indicates the workshop
where the plaque
was made. Now in
the British museum, London.
“Germanicus was seized with
an eager longing to pay the last
honor to those soldiers and their
general, while the whole army
present was moved to compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of
the calamities of wars and the
lot of mankind”
Tacitus, Annals 1.61
This burial makes pious Germanicus
the opposite of evil Tiberius, who had
executed retaliatory campaigns without attempting to bury the dead. However, in order to present Germanicus as
the epitome of high moral caliber, Taci6
tus had to ignore something: that the
young prince’s visit to the battlefield no matter how pious or rational - was a
tactical mistake that easily might have
led to a new military disaster. On his
return from the funeral, Germanicus’
right-hand man Caecina almost lost an
army larger than Varus’ in the wetlands
between modern Münster and the Roman legionary base at Haltern. Tacitus
presents it as a horror story:
“It was a night of unrest, though
in contrasted fashions. The barbarians, in high carousal, filled
the low-lying valleys and echoing
woods with chants of triumph or
fierce vociferations: among the
Romans were languid fires, broken challenges, and groups of
men stretched beside the parapet or staying amid the tents,
unasleep but something less
than awake. The general’s night
was disturbed by a sinister and
alarming dream: for he imagined
that he saw Varus risen, bloodbedraggled, from the marsh,
and heard him calling, though
he refused to obey and pushed
him back when he extended his
hand.”
Tacitus, Annals 1.65
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With descriptions like these, Tacitus
distracts the readers’ attention from
Germanicus’ responsibility. Had this
been mentioned, Tacitus would have
admitted that Tiberius, who had not
risked the lives of his men with a march
through the wetlands, had been the
better general.
To achieve his literary aims, Tacitus needs a stereotypical German. This
barbarian is on the one hand the antiRoman and on the other hand the background against which Roman courage
is best shown. As we will see below, Tacitus is not the only one to employ this
stereotype. The problem is that parts
of Tacitus’ German ethnography are
almost fiction - archaeology has clearly
shown that the Germans were no savages dressed in animal skins. But to Tacitus, moral typology is more important
than historical accuracy.
This makes the use of Tacitus as a
source a rather frustrating exercise. He
leaves out information that is important to an historian, focuses on trivialities, attributes motives that may be
untrue. Still, because we have so few
sources about the Varian disaster, Tacitus’ references to the battle are important. Besides, we know where he found
his information: in the History of the
Germanic Wars by Pliny the Elder, who
had been able to interview survivors of
the battle who had been taken captive
and had been liberated in 50/51 by Publius Pomponius Secundus. Although
Tacitus reworked the information he
found in his source to suit his own aims,
it goes back to eyewitness accounts and
cannot be ignored.
Topographical bias: Cassius Dio
Tacitus’ moral and ethnographic bias
has a topographic component. The barbarians were, according to the ancients,
trapped in a vicious circle. Because they
lived in the wilderness, arable farming
was impossible, and they were forced
to live as poachers and marauders. If
someone had the idea to start a farm,
his hostile neighbors would force him
to give it up. Under these circumstances, there was no room for civilization,
and therefore, the barbarian was socially handicapped. He would withdraw
from people’s company, and preferred
to live in solitude.
There was no way out of this circle,
and worse: the barbarian had to be
permanently on his guard to protect
his cattle against thieves. As a consequence, the barbarian had to be armed
most of the time, and was a terribly efficient warrior, only comparable to the
monsters that were known to live at
the edges of the earth (cf. Paterculus’
remark that the Germans were humans only in limbs and voice). Because
the Germans were barbarians, they had
to be living in an unkind land with an
unpleasant climate. References to forests and mountains are therefore to be
taken with a pinch of salt: they are not
descriptions of what Germania really
looked like, but represent Greco-Roman
ideas about what the land of the barbarians ought to be.
Ideas like these were still common
at the beginning of the third century,
when senator Cassius Dio had difficulties in understanding the topography
of the Germanic Wars. Yet, his History of
the Roman Empire is written by a firstrate author. We cannot always check
how he used his sources, but where we
are able to do so - for example in his
treatment of Caesar’s Gallic Wars - we
can see that he summarizes carefully
and without losing his critical judgment.
Still, he has a topographical bias
and sometimes makes mistakes when
he wants to evoke what had happened.
His description of the landscape in
which Varus’ campaign took place,
where “the mountains had an uneven
surface broken by ravines, and the trees
grew close together and very high”
(56.20), is exemplary. The impenetrable
forests belong to the stereotypical topography of the country of the barbarians. However, the Kalkriese area was,
according to recent pollen research, an
open landscape without great forests,
and a small village with farms has been
identified just west of Kalkriese. It must
have been surrounded by cultivated,
open fields. We will return to this point
below; for the time being, it may be said
that a Teutoburg Forest never existed in
Antiquity.
The topographical bias of our sources is but rarely recognized. Ancient
historians who can easily see through
the misogynic or political prejudices
of the usually male, white, upper class
writers of our sources, lose their critical
instincts when faced with, for example,
Tacitus’ remark that Germania was a
poor and undeveloped country. Worse,
modern historians have used this presumed poverty to explain why Rome
eventually gave up its conquests east of
the Rhine: there was nothing of value
to be gained over there. One brief trip
along the Lippe or Main, or to the gold
mine near the Saalburg, would have
been sufficient to discover that Germany is simply not as poor as the sources
state. As noticed above, implausible
ideas have proved to be surprisingly
persistent.
Rhetorical bias: Florus and
Crinagoras
A completely different type of source
was written by Publius Annius Florus, a
sophist (show orator) who published a
Summary of Livy’s ‘Histories’ during the
reign of Hadrian. In this presentation of
Rome’s past, he focuses on anecdotes
that orators might find useful for their
speeches.
He may not be Rome’s greatest historian, but it is possible to be too harsh
in one’s criticism. When he says that after Drusus’ campaigns “there was such
peace in Germania that the inhabitants
seemed changed, the face of the country transformed, and the very climate
milder and softer than it used to be”
(2.30), he shares ideas with Tacitus and
Dio, who are never criticized for their
topographical bias. Other shortcomings of Florus are only mistakes if we
measure him against the standard of a
historian – which he was not. His text
must be seen as some sort of speech
and is indeed full of suggestive and entertaining details, which keep the audience interested. As a corollary, he sometimes loses sight of the main outline of
his narrative, but his stories are lively
and witty. It is no coincidence that in
the nineteenth century, he was appreciated as a school author, which explains
his remarkable influence on the historiography of the clades Variana.
Florus’ account starts with Augustus, who has the idea that it would be
useful to occupy the east bank of the
Rhine. This makes the first emperor
responsible for both success and catastrophe: the first by sending out Drusus,
the second by appointing Varus. The expeditions of Tiberius and Ahenobarbus
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and the retaliatory campaigns of Tiberius and Germanicus remain unmentioned. The last lines are about a “standard-bearer, who, carrying his eagle
concealed in the folds round his belt,
secreted himself in the blood-stained
marsh”, which explains – according to
Florus – why the Romans had only recovered two of the three legionary standards. Perhaps this incident inspired
the Greek poet Crinagoras (c.70 BC - c.
11 AD) when he dedicated a little poem
to a heroic soldier named Arrius, who
managed to recover a military standard
and died without having been defeated
(Anthologia Palatina 7.741).
Florus’ remark that the third eagle
had not been recovered, betrays that
his story is based on an eyewitness who
could not see what happened next: that
the Germanic warriors dredged the eagle from the marsh. We are sure that
this happened, because the Romans
managed to recover all lost standards:
Germanicus obtained two of them,
and the third one was discovered in 41
among the Chauci. We can conclude
that Florus’ source was written between 17 and 40. Perhaps Florus’ criticism of Augustus belongs to the debate
in which Paterculus took part as well: it
was tasteless to blame the dead. Both
authors stress Varus’ responsibility. As
we will, see that may be an incorrect
opinion.
Pontes longi
The “long bridges” were plank
roads, causeways through marshy
areas and bogs in Germany. They
are mentioned by Tacitus in his
description of the campaign of
15 AD, where he states that they
had been made by Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (1.63.3-4), who
had conducted a campaign north
of the Danube, had reached the
Elbe, and had returned to the
Rhine through the country of the
Cheruscans. This must have happened in 1 or 2 BC. Their location
cannot be established with any
certainty.
8
The battle according to the
written sources
It is frustrating that Paterculus and
Florus, who had access to the stories
of eyewitnesses, preferred not to write
real histories. Tacitus had access to a
slightly more recent source and might
have written a good military history,
but chose to look back upon the battle
in moralistic terms. The only real historian is Dio, the latest of our authors.
However, he ‘improved’ his account by
exaggerating the importance of large
forests and rocky mountains. Still, when
we take into account the biases of our
authors, we can recognize several more
or less irrefutable facts.
(1) Tacitus and Dio - probably independently - state that the battle lasted
several days and was fought on heavy
terrain.
(2) The contradiction in our sources
about the nature of this terrain is only
apparent. If we had never had Dio’s references to trees and forests, we would
have concluded, with Tacitus and Florus, that the massacre had taken place
in a marsh, which would have been correct. The only other indication that the
fight took place in a forest, is Tacitus’
name for the battlefield: saltus Teutoburgiensis. Of course the first word can
be translated as “forest”, but it can also
mean “narrows”, which is an adequate
description of the situation at Kalkriese
and probably is what Tacitus’s source
meant. It may be no coincidence that
at the western entrance of the passage
between the Kalkriese mountain and
the great bog lies the modern village of
Engter, which also means “narrows”.
(3) Our authors agree that the cause of
Arminius’ insurrection was Varus’ attempt to convert Germania into a normal province with normal courts and
normal taxes. (This is, incidentally, another indication that the country was
not as poor as is often assumed.) Paterculus, Florus, and Dio suggest that Varus had a false sense of security which
allowed his trusted adviser Arminius to
lure him into a trap. The same authors
mention that Varus had other advisers,
who gave him more accurate information. The Roman general was, therefore, more competent than Paterculus
and Florus insinuate, and the ultimate
cause of the disaster may have been
that Varus had no chance to evaluate
his information: “after this first warning, there was no time left for a second”,
Paterculus admits (2.118.4).
(4) Tacitus names the tribes involved:
the Cherusci, Bructeri, and Marsi. Probably, the Chauci took part as well, because it was in their land that in 41 the
Romans recovered the remaining eagle
(Dio 60.8.7). There used to be some
doubt, however, because the manuscript refers to the otherwise unknown
Kauchoi, not to the Chauci. This problem is now solved, because the double
fan of finds at Kalkriese suggests that
the army was originally marching from
the east to the river Ems and the country of the Chauci, until it was attacked
and started to move to the southwest.
(5) According to Paterculus, the Romans
lost three legions. From Tacitus, we learn
that among these was the nineteenth,
while the Caelius inscription confirms
that legion XIIX vanished during “the
Varian War.” That the seventeenth was
also involved in the fight, is less certain,
but can deduced from the absence of
this number in the otherwise continuous list of legions. Although the Roman
losses were serious, all sources imply
that there were survivors. They also
agree that Varus committed suicide.
From Tacitus’ account, we may perhaps
deduce that this happened in the Münsterland, because it was here, along the
road from Kalkriese to the pontes longi
and Haltern, that Caecina had a vision
of the dead Varus.
(6) Paterculus explicitly states that the
battle was less important than Carrhae. This means that during the reign
of Tiberius, the battle was seen as a
setback, nothing more. Rome had not
abandoned its claims, and from Dio and
Tacitus we know that operations on the
east bank of the Rhine continued. The
only author who states that the Varian disaster was decisive is Florus, who
concludes “that the Empire, which had
not stopped on the shores of the Ocean,
was checked on the banks of the Rhine.”
Tacitus is less explicit but implies the
same when he says that Arminius
was “without any doubt the libera-
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©: Karwansaray BV
The tombstone of Marcus
Caelius is without doubt
the most famous monument to the battle in the
Teutoburg Forest and the
only one explicitly linked to
it. The text reads: “To Marcus Caelius, son of Titus,
of the Lemonian (voting)
district, from Bologna, first
centurion of the eighteenth
legion. 53 years old. He fell
in the Varian War. His bones
may be interred here. Publius Caelius, son of Titus, of
the Lemonian district, his
brother, erected (this monument).” Now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn,
Germany.
tor of Germania” (Annals 2.88). Due to
the popularity of Florus and Tacitus as
school authors, the decisiveness of the
battle in the Teutoburg Forest has become the standard interpretation, but
it can be argued that the great, decisive
event that determined the future of Europe was the creation of the limes along
the Lower Rhine, and not the battle in
the Teutoburg Forest.
(7) The sources do not tell us why the Romans tried to conquer the land east of
the Rhine. There is no written evidence
for the common assumption that they
wanted to move their frontier from the
Rhine to the Elbe, an idea that must be
incorrect because the Romans did not
look at rivers as frontiers until Claudius
created the Rhine limes. (Archaeology
can add that so far, Roman forts have
only been identified west of the Weser;
there is no evidence for occupation of
the land between the Weser and Elbe.)
historical statements corresponded
to the facts, that progress could be
achieved. n
So, all we can deduce from our sources
is that Varus’ attempt to create a province in Germania provoked a rebellion
of several tribes and caused the loss of
three legions in a protracted battle in a
marshy area, which was, once the limes
had been created, regarded as decisive.
It is frustratingly little, and it comes as
no surprise that many historians have
proposed all kinds of hypotheses, which
could only be evaluated by checking
whether they were coherent with our
four sources. Given the fact that this
quartet offers little real information,
none of the theories was refutable. It
was only when the Kalkriese excavations made it possible to check whether
Jona Lendering is the webmaster of
Livius.0rg, has discussed the battle in the
Teutoburg Forest in two books, and is a
regular contributor to Ancient Warfare.
Further reading
The translations cited in this article (sometimes slightly adapted)
are all from the Loeb Classical
Library, and were made by F.W.
Shipley (Paterculus), J. Jackson
(Tacitus), E.S. Forster (Florus) and E.
Cary (Dio).
They are online at LacusCurtius
(http://tinyurl.com/dyhr5z)
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Prelude
Bella Germaniae
The German wars of Drusus the Elder and Tiberius
2009 marks the second millennium since the battle of the Teutoburg
Forest. What the Romans called the Clades Variana – the “Varian
Disaster” – which saw the loss of three legions among the trees
and swamps of ancient Germany at the hands of Arminius. It will
be the subject of dozens of articles published and documentaries
aired during the year. Yet in focusing on the three fateful days
of the battle in September of AD 9, it is often overlooked that up
to that moment, Magna Germania, the name the Romans gave to
the lands beyond the Rhine and Danube, was already well into
a process of pacification intended to transform it into a fully
functioning province.
By P. Lindsay Powell
It began with the wars of conquest
between 15 BC and 6 AD during which
the stepsons of Caesar Augustus, Nero
Claudius Drusus (Drusus the Elder)
and Tiberius Claudius Nero, fought a
German called Maelo.
Preparations
Casus belli
Up to 17 BC, the Romans seemed
prepared to accept the Rhine as the
northern limit of their imperial ambitions. The event that likely caused the
Romans to rethink their policy on the
Rhine frontier was what would come
to be known as the clades Lolliana – the
“Lollian Disaster.” In 17 BC M. Lollius
was the propraetor of Gallia Comata
and on his watch an alliance of the
Germanic tribes on the right bank of
the Rhine crossed the river and raided deep into the Roman province. “It
was the Sugambri, who live near the
Rhenus, that began the war”, asserts
the geographer Strabo (Geography
7.1.4). He identifies Melo – Maelo in
Augustus’ Res Gestae – as their leader,
and the culprit. The Sugambri were
joined by the Tencteri and Usipetes,
tribes that had been looking for new
homelands even in Caesar’s day. The
timing could not be worse for the
Romans, who had only recently quelled
10
117 – 138), also describes an event that
would surely have sent a chill down
the spine of any Roman reader. The
Germans “had begun hostilities after
crucifying twenty of our centurions, an
act which served as an oath binding
them together, and with such confidence of victory that they made an
agreement in anticipation of dividing
up the spoils” (History 30.24). It was
while tracking down Maelo’s marauders that legio V Alaudae under Lollius’
command was attacked and its sacred
eagle standard was taken. Augustus
was so concerned by the news that he
packed his bags and was about to set
off to take command of the situation in
person, but was persuaded to delay the
trip until the spring of 16 BC.
© Karwansaray BV
The emperor Augustus (63 BC – AD 14)
on a cameo cut from agate, rock crystal
and marble, 1st century AD. Found in
Rome, it was mounted in a fanciful
setting (cut from the photograph) comprised of other ancient elements in the
18th century. Now in the Louvre, Paris.
a revolt among the Gallic tribes. The
historian L. Annaeus Florus, writing at
the time of the Emperor Hadrian (AD
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (63 BC
– AD 14) was a conservative man by
nature, disinclined to take wild gambles and preferring to act only after
having planned his moves thoroughly.
Throughout his career he had been
assisted by M. Vipsanius Agrippa, his
younger friend by one year. He was in
Syria on a diplomatic mission while
Augustus was in Gallia Comata, but
it seems certain that he would have
contributed in a major way to crafting
the strategy for Germania. Agrippa was
twice propraetor for the region – from
the spring of 39 BC to the autumn of
38 BC and again from June 20 BC to the
spring of 18 BC. He had established cities there and laid down the first road
network radiating out from his capital Lugdunum (modern Lyons). He was
a superb strategist and tactician and
the brains behind the victories at sea
at Actium (31 BC) and on land against
the Cantabri in Hispania (29 – 19 BC).
Perhaps because he was so well travelled and knew key places first hand,
Augustus had commissioned Agrippa
to produce a map of the world (orbis
terrarum). This map, which was prepared by his own team of Greeks and
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© Carlos de la Rocha
Prelude
famously put Rome at the centre of
the world, would have given him more
than any other man in the administration as complete as was possible then
a view of the known-world – and the
extent to which the world beyond was
unknown.
He must have been aware of how
little was known about their Germanic
adversaries and the lands they lived
in. Magna Germania was not a single country but, like the Americas of
a thousand years later, a patchwork
of nations, tribes and clans. Based on
Julius Caesar’s Gallic War, the Romans
would have only known of some eight
German tribes by name. These socalled ‘Germans’ (since they did not
identify themselves by that name) were
clustered around the Rhine (Rhenus)
and Danube (Ister, Danuvius) and
believed to have been descendants of
the Celtic community called La Têne by
modern historians, such as the tribes
in Gallia Comata (or Celtica). Those further north and east shared a common
linguistic and cultural tradition, different from the Celts, that may be called
‘Germanic’ such as the Cherusci and
Chauci. Others were a mix of the two,
sharing Celtic and Germanic characteristics, such as the Batavi and Belgae. As
Roman observers like Strabo noted “different peoples at different times would
cause a breach, first growing powerful
and then being put down, and then
revolting again, betraying both the hostages they had given and their pledges
of good faith” (Geography 7.1.1). The
Suebi were the nation most feared by
the tribes closest to the Rhine and it
was their migration that put pressure
on the other tribes to move.
The Rhine-Danube was not an
impervious frontier. Just as Roman
merchants crossed to trade their wares
for amber, hides, horses and iron, the
‘Germans’ frequently crossed the rivers in boats to raid the lands to the
south for rich pickings. The Cimbri and
Teutones from Denmark and northern Germany raided down as far as
the Italian peninsular until they were
defeated by Marius at Aix-en-Provence
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Prelude
©: Karwansaray BV
Drusus’ ditch
Nero Claudius Drusus (38-9 BC), father
of Germanicus and the emperor
Claudius, and stepson of Augustus.
Bust from the Koninklijke Musea voor
Kunst en Geschiedenis, Brussels.
(Aquae Sextiae) in 102 BC and a year
later at Vercellae. The first Roman of
importance to cross the Rhine in the
other direction was Julius Caesar, first
in 55 BC and again in 53 BC, famously
building a bridge in just two weeks
and marching his army across it, after
the Ubii permitted him landfall on the
right bank. Agrippa was only the second Roman of status to cross the Rhine.
Attacked by the Suebi at its rear in 38
BC, the Ubii nation sought, and was
granted, asylum by Agrippa on the left
bank of the Rhine where it founded a
new settlement, Oppidum Ubiorum on
territory made vacant by Caesar’s extermination of the Eburones. One theory
12
Logistic considerations forced the Romans to use rivers to
invade Germany. The Main and Lippe were easily accessible,
because they emptied themselves into the Rhine. The Ems,
Weser, and Elbe, on the other hand, could only be reached
from the Wadden Sea, the lagoon-like rim of northwestern Europe, which was unfortunately not connected to
the Rhine. The “Drusus’ Ditch” (Fossa Drusiana) mentioned in our sources must have been dug to solve this
problem.
Its location is a mystery. An old theory is that it connected Fectio (Vechten) to Lake Flevo and is identical to
the modern river Vecht; an alternative hypothesis is that
it connected Castra Herculis (Arnhem) to the river IJssel,
which emptied itself into Lake Flevo. Since an inscription
proved that Drusus had built a dam just upstream of Castra
Herculis, this has become the preferred identification.
Whatever hypothesis one prefers, the general idea was
that the Roman ships used it to reach Lake Flevo, and to sail
from there to the Wadden Sea, thus avoiding the treacherous
North Sea. However, geological investigations published in
1986 proved that a wide strip of land separated the lake from
the sea; it was swallowed by the sea in the twelfth century. To
rescue the older hypothesis, it was pointed out that Fossa Drusiana
is plural, and that a second canal might have been dug through this
strip of land.
In 2008, geoscientists discovered that the course of water
between the Rhine and IJssel, the favorite location, was indeed a
canal, but was dug in the tenth century. This leaves us, for lack of
alternatives, with the Vecht hypothesis and a canal situated on a
place that can no longer be investigated. The location of Drusus’
Ditches is bound to remain a mystery.
is the first Roman fort referred to by
archaeologists as ‘Neuss A’ (Novaesium)
was founded to gather military intelligence in the region for Agrippa, located
as it was at the end of the long road
from Lugdunum.
During the three-year sojourn,
Augustus thoroughly reviewed the
situation in the region. He understood
that the stability of the western end
of the empire was closely tied up with
the intentions of the peoples across the
Rhine, as the raid led by Maelo showed.
Augustus brought with him his eldest
stepson, the 26-year old Tiberius
Claudius Nero – the future emperor
Tiberius – and appointed him as propraetor to replace Lollius. Tiberius had
proved his natural bent for military life
while a tribune in Hispania and diplomatic skills when negotiating with
the king of Parthia for the return of the
legionary standards lost at Carrhae.
Under him, Gallia Comata was reorganised into three new provinces – the
Tres Galliae (“three Gauls”) – Aquitania,
Belgica and Lugdunensis, while
Provincia was renamed Narbonensis.
When Augustus left Lugdunum in
13 BC, it is reasonably certain a plan for
the invasion of Magna Germania had
been worked out with his support and
agreement, setting out the objectives,
campaign strategy and resources. The
initial goal appears to have been to
set the new limit of empire at the river
Weser (Visurgis). To carry it out, military
forces would need to be assembled.
Remarkably little is known about the
deployment of the Roman army in the
Gallic provinces at the time. In 20 BC,
when Agrippa had crossed the Rhine
for a second time, he had with him the
legio V Alaudae and possibly part or all
of legio VIIII Hispana. Legions XVII, XVIII
and XIX may also have been stationed
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Prelude
Bella Germaniae
The first stage of the conquest of
Germania was the subjugation of the
central European alpine region. This
might at first seem a strange priority, however, to move troops from east
to west through the Gallic provinces,
the only route available to the Romans
without going through hostile territory
was via the coast road in Narbonensis.
By annexing the Alps and the land up
to the Rhine and Danube, the Romans
could shorten the frontier and begin
their German campaign with greater
ease. Perhaps in preparation for the
campaign, the Ligurian Cottius, son of
Donnus, was approached in his Alpine
kingdom at this time to agree to provide safe passage for Roman troops
and materiel. Augustus appointed
his youngest stepson, Nero Claudius
Drusus, who was then serving a term
as praetor, to lead the campaign. By all
accounts, he was dashing, charismatic,
and handsome to boot, but he was a
novice in military affairs. Just 23-years
old, Drusus was, perhaps, being tested
by Augustus for the grand campaign
to come.
In 15 BC, he entered the Alps from the
south and achieved swift gains against
the Raeti and Vindelici. He was quickly joined by his brother moving eastwards with legions from Tres Galliae.
One of these was legio XIX, evidence
for whose presence in Raetia has been
found in the form of an iron catapult
bolt point with its name stamped on
it at Döttenbichl, near Oberammergau
in Bavaria. Working together in a pincer movement, Raetia and Noricum
were brought under Roman control in
just one campaign season. To secure
these gains, a fort was established at
Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicum) and a
vexillation of legio XIX was stationed
at Dangstetten in Baden-Wurttemberg
between c.15 BC and c.8 BC. Having
proved himself able to command an
army in the field, Drusus was now
appointed legatus augusti pro praetore
and assumed governorship of the Tres
Galliae from his brother. Tiberius continued on eastwards to prosecute the
war in Illyricum and Pannonia.
Over the next two years (14-13 BC)
Drusus oversaw a massive build out of
military infrastructure and assembly
of materiel in preparation for the invasion of Magna Germania. During this
time fortresses were established along
the Rhine at Xanten (Vetera), Neuss
(Novaesium) and Mainz (Moguntiacum),
with smaller forts in between, such
as Moers Asberg (Asciburgium),
Bonn (Bonna), and possibly Koblenz
(Castellum apud Confluentes), Bingen
am Rhein (Bingium) and Speyer, all
linked by military roads. A fleet of
ships was constructed, possibly with
help from the local pro-Roman Batavi.
Indeed, W.J.H. Willems notes that the
Kops plateau around Nijmegen was
originally densely wooded with oak and
birch trees, but these were completely
cleared away in the Augustan period.
Were they felled to provide the vast
amount of wood required to build the
troop transports and barges? A canal
(Fossa Drusiana) was constructed from
the Rhine to the Gelderse IJssel or Vecht
rivers – scholars continue to debate the
precise location of the structure – to
provide access to the Lake Flevo. This
would save the Roman fleet from making a dangerous detour out from the
Rhine to the North Sea. A mole or dam
was also created at Herwen (Carvium)
to regulate the flow of water between
the rivers and the inland sea. This
investment attests to the considerable
care taken in preparing for this Roman
D-Day-like campaign. It also possibly
hints at the genius of Agrippa in the
planning of the war – he was, after
all, the architect of naval victories at
Actium, Mylae and Naulochus, and the
architect of great buildings and public
works, such as the Pantheon, and the
overseer to repairs to the Aqua Marcia
and water supply network in Rome.
© Karwansaray BV
in the Tres Galliae – but it is far from
certain if they were, or even where
they were based. With the war against
the Astures and Cantabri won in 19 BC,
additional military units could be redeployed from Hispania.
The tombstone of Marcus Mallius, a legionary of Legio I, who was ‘buried near the
mole at Carvium.’ This text almost certainly refers to the same dam that Tacitus
reported destroyed during the Batavian revolt. The image of the deceased would
originally have been displayed above the inscription. Now in Museum het Valkhof,
Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
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© Author’s collection, photo Michael V. Craton
Prelude
Left: Augustus on a denarius (obverse). Right: Germans offer up victory branches
from Raetia to Augustus (reverse). According to Pliny this was a German sign of
capitulation.
Amphibious Operations
On an autumn day in 12 BC, the campaign began in earnest when the army
crossed the Rhine and entered the territories of the Sugambri, Tencteri and
Usipetes. The mission seems to have
been both punitive and intended to
disable the tribes from causing trouble
while the Romans were active elsewhere. Thus neutralized, the audacious
amphibious campaign was launched.
Possibly a thousand ships carrying as
many as four legions sailed down the
Rhine through the Fossa into the Lake
Flevo. While intended to deliver troops
deep into Germania, the mission may
also have been in part a voyage of
discovery to establish the true extent
of the country; or perhaps based on
their understanding of geography – the
Romans thought this was a shortcut
to the Elbe? – the rationale is not clear.
There were some strategically worthwhile outcomes. The Batavi proved
their loyalty and treaties were signed
with the Cananefates and Frisii to pay
tribute and provide men and supplies
– indeed, the Frisii provided scouts and
warriors and accompanied Drusus’
army from that point on. Clearly, the
Romans did not only rely on the pointy
end of a pilum to achieve their aims.
Diplomacy also played a role in Roman
military strategy, facilitated by the lure
of trash and trinkets that its civilization
offered.
The fleet sailed into the Wadden
Sea, overcoming resistance at Borkum
or Bant (Burchania), before reaching
the safety of the estuary of the Ems
(Amisia). Part of the fleet sailed down
the 371 km long Ems river, leaving the
rest anchored at the mouth of river,
while part may have sailed along the
coast to explore the Weser (Visurgis).
14
The local but impoverished Chauci
were engaged on land and soon sued
for peace. Some way down the Ems
the Roman fleet was attacked by the
Bructeri, which the Romans repulsed.
As the campaign season drew to a close,
Drusus turned back, retracing the route
home. While sailing along the Dutch
coast several of the ships ran aground
and were marooned, but help from the
local Frisii freed the stranded ships and
the expeditionary force was able to
return to the Rhine for the winter.
At the end of the first campaign
season, Drusus could point to having
established treaties with new allies
and gained a better understanding of
the political and physical geography of
the coastal and western interior region
of Germania. Agrippa would have
watched with great interest from afar,
but before the year had ended, he died
at the age of 51. Augustus was devastated. More than ever he would need
to rely on his stepsons to execute his
military strategy.
In 11 BC, Drusus turned his attention
to the interior lands. From Vetera, his
army crossed the Rhine and followed
the meandering course of the 220 km
long Lippe (Lupia). Supported by river
craft carrying supplies, the route took
his troops deep into the lands inhabited by the Sugambri and Cherusci
nations. Drusus made swift progress
because the Sugambri had gone to war
against the Chatti for having failed to
support them the previous year. Forts
were established at Holsterhausen,
Beckinghausen and Oberaden, parts of
which have been excavated and dated
to this time. A bridge was built over the
Lippe and the advance continued. On
their way to the Weser, Drusus’ forces
encountered the Chatti who put up a
fierce resistance but were beaten back.
Drusus’ ambition would have driven
the Romans into trouble had not his
generals urged him to turn back concerned at the depleted supplies and
the onset of autumn. A fort was constructed among the Taunus mountains,
probably to station an intelligence
gathering unit in preparation for the
campaign the following year. Dio mentions the Romans gave the Chatti lands
taken from the Sugambri.
Guerilla warfare
On the return journey, the army was
ambushed by the Cherusci at a place
called Arbalo. In Cassius Dio’s account
the Cherusci had the upper hand during the struggle but did not press home
their advantage out of “a contempt for
them, as if they were already captured
and needed only the finishing stroke”
(Roman history 54.32). The Roman
army would have been in formation
for marching in hostile country, strung
out over many kilometers, with its baggage train (impedimenta) under guard.
Perhaps Drusus’ men were simply worn
out from the demands of the campaign, or their equipment was in need
of repair.
The Germanic warriors fought both
on foot and horseback and their preferred weapon was the framea, a spear
that could be thrown long distance or
thrust at close quarters. This weapon
may have been particularly dangerous to Roman troops wearing standard-issue chain mail (lorica hamata).
Whereas mail afforded good protection from the long slashing sword
favoured by the Gauls, the Germanic
weapon’s sharp point could pierce the
shirts made of riveted interlocking iron
or bronze loops. It is quite possible
that the segmented articulated plate
armour (referred to as lorica segmentata by modern historians, but almost
certainly not called that by the Romans)
was subsequently invented to provide
greater protection from Germanic
weaponry and styles of combat. Indeed,
the earliest known remains of this plate
armour were found at Dangstetten and
dated to 9 BC, while other fragments
have been found at Kalkriese, near
Osnabrück. If not expressly designed
for this theatre, the segmented armour
was certainly being introduced at this
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Prelude
On the return, somewhere between
the Saale (Salas) and Weser, Drusus was
wounded in an accident. On receiving
the news, his brother rode from Pavia
(Ticinum), covering hundreds of miles,
and arrived just in time to catch his
last words. Thirty days after his fall, at a
place Suetonius says the soldiers called
“the Accursed Fort” (Castra Scelerata,
which Jürgen Martin Regel suggests is
modern Schellerten, Germany), Drusus
was dead. He was just 29 years old.
Tiberius accompanied his brother’s
body to Rome “causing the centurions
and military tribunes to carry it over
the first stage of the journey, as far as
the winter quarters of the army” notes
Dio (Roman history 55. 2). The body was
laid in state in the Forum in Rome and
two orations were given. Drusus’ ashes
were placed in Augustus’ own mausoleum. An arch was erected in his honour in Rome and posthumously Drusus
and his sons were granted the title
Germanicus – “conqueror of Germania”
– by which his eldest was thereafter
known.
De Germanis
Tiberius returned to Germania the
following year determined to complete the mission. Where his brother
had used force, Tiberius chose to use
diplomacy. Hearing that Tiberius had
crossed the Rhine and was mobilizing
his forces, the Rhineland nations sent
emissaries to him to sue for peace.
Initially absent were the Sugambri.
Augustus told Tiberius he would not
accept terms from the Germans unless
the Sugambri were part of the peace
deal. When the stakes began to rise, the
Sugambri finally came to the negotiating table. Augustus states in his own
memoirs that Maelo was one of several
named kings that “sent me supplications” (Res Gestae 32). The terms offered
to the Sugambri were different than
those offered to the other nations. Like
the Ubii before them, the Sugambri
were relocated across the Rhine – one
account mentions 40,000 – to the
vicinity of Vetera (Xanten) where they
became known as Ciberni or Cugerni.
For his victories, Augustus granted
Tiberius a triumph.
Wells makes the case in his landmark
book The German Policy of Augustus
that the princeps did not intend the
Elbe to be the final frontier. The war of
conquest continued. In AD 1 L. Domitius
Ahenobarbus, the first governor for
Germania appointed by Augustus,
actually crossed the Elbe – and was the
first Roman of status to do so – and
engaged the Hermunduri, which he
relocated to Bohaemium in part of the
territory of the Marcomanni. Dio notes
that Ahenobarbus met no opposition
from Marboduus’ people and formed a
“pact of friendship” with them (55.10).
He erected an altar to Augustus on the
Rhine, the structure that gave the Ubian
capital its new name, Ara Ubiorum
(Cologne), and moved his headquarters
there. He attempted to negotiate for
Roman hostages held by the Cherusci,
but the involvement of other tribes as
intermediaries resulted in failure and
loss of prestige among the Germans.
Tiberius returned to Germania
again in AD 4. G. Sentius Saturninus,
Left: Drusus on a denarius minted by his son Claudius. Right:
De Germanis – victory spoils from Magna Germania of hexagonal German shields,
spears (frameae?), horns and a flag standard.
© Author’s collection, photo Michael V. Craton
time and worn by some Roman soldiers
on active service in Germania.
Drusus led his battered army back
to the Rhine, for which the troops
acclaimed him Imperator (commander). In an attempt to secure some gains,
garrisons were posted at Oberaden and
Haltern – the first time Roman troops
had spent a winter on the right bank of
the Rhine. Certain triumphal honours
were granted to Drusus by Augustus.
In 10 BC, Drusus advanced into
Germania from Moguntiacum following the Main (Moenus) part way,
hoping to reach the Elbe from this
direction. The route took them headlong into conflict with the Chatti. They
had finally formed an alliance with the
Sugambri and their combined forces
engaged the Romans near Mattium
(near modern Kassel), the capital of the
Chatti nation in the Taunus mountains.
Despite the opposition, the Romans still
punched their way through and made
it to the Weser and even some distance
beyond. When winter approached they
had to turn back.
In that same year Marboduus,
an enterprising noble from the
Marcomanni, who was educated at
Rome, returned to his people with ideas
about how he might introduce Romanstyle law and government. In a remarkable move, he convinced his tribe to
relocate far away from Roman temptation and thousands of Marcomanni
migrated to a new homeland in
Bohemia (Bohaemium).
In 9 BC, Drusus, now consul,
marched out from Moguntiacum
determined to reach the Elbe that year.
It was a slash and burn campaign as
the offensive force marched singlemindedly to achieve its mission. In the
summer, the army finally reached the
Elbe. Drusus would have crossed the
river and driven deep into Suebi territory had he not had, what he evidently
believed, was a supernatural encounter. Cassius Dio tells how Drusus was
visited by a ghoul one night in his tent
that demanded he leave immediately,
with the warning that his days were
numbered. Drusus was so disturbed by
it that he decided not to cross the river
and ordered, instead, that a trophaeum
be erected (possibly at Poppenburg,
near Hildesheim) and gave the order to
march home.
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© Author’s collection, photo Michael V. Craton
Prelude
Left: Drusus on a denarius minted by his son Claudius. Right: De Germanis –
a triumphal arch erected in honour of Drusus’ victories in Magna Germania.
who had been a legate under Drusus,
now shared command of the campaign.
During the next two-years the legions
moved to new forward positions at
Haltern and Anreppen (Aliso?) along
the Lippe, and Marktbreit am Rhein in
Bavaria. A new amphibious campaign
took the fleet via the North Sea to the
Elbe. Part sailed down the 1,091 km long
river, while another sailed up the coast
of Denmark. An inland invasion led to
the Cherusci, Chatti and others again
suing for peace terms. The brokered
peace remained fragile and there were
revolts among the Germanic tribes
supposedly under Roman influence.
Diplomatic setbacks notwithstanding, it seemed Germania Libera would
finally bow to the Roman will.
The Romans began their process
of pacification – rapid urbanisation,
introduction of Roman jurisprudence
and a common currency, encouragement of trade, recruitment into the
army and tax collection to pay for it
all. The Romans by now had a much
better understanding of the extent of
Magna Germania. Tacitus, writing in
the 80s and 90s of the first century,
mentions forty tribes by name, which
is five times the number than Caesar
knew (Ptolemy writing in the 130s cited
sixty-nine). Civilian settlements were
rapidly founded by the Romans. The
remains at Waldgirmes in the Lahn valley, discovered in 1993, complete with
a forum and basilica, are proof of this.
Others may yet lay awaiting discovery.
Roads were constructed throughout
the province according to Tacitus, a task
usually entrusted to the army.
When not involved in breaking
and packing stones, Roman soldiers
16
would have been on police duty across
the country and spending their small
change in the local communities.
Tacitus asserts in his Annals that the
Germans did not live in towns, yet in
the Histories he mentions Mattium, the
capital of the Chatti. Further, a study
of Claudius Ptolemaeus’ Geography,
reveals a remarkable list of named places – including strangely non-Roman
sounding names such as Coenoënum,
Galaegia, Leufana, Lirimi and Susudata
(Geography 2.10). Assuming they are
not inventions of Ptolemy’s imagination, these places may have predated
the invasion. Excavations at Feddersen
Wierde and Flögln, both in Lower
Saxony, and Meppen on the Ems river,
have revealed substantial native settlements of regular shaped wooden buildings for people and livestock. These
German farmers now sold their wares
in Roman markets in exchange for
Roman goods and currency. With such
rapid progress being made, in AD 6
Augustus appointed his new provincial
governor to continue the process of
Romanisation: P. Quinctilius Varus.
And what of the protagonists? The
warchief of the Sugambri, Maelo, who
started the war, disappears from history. His brother, Baetorix, and nephew,
Deudorix, are mentioned by Strabo as
having been exhibits in a later triumph
of Drusus’ son Germanicus. Cottius was
appointed by Augustus as praefectus
of the dozen tribes in his region of the
Alps and assumed the Roman name M.
Julius Cottius. He honoured his patron
with a triumphal arch in his capital
of Susa (Segusium), which still stands.
King Maroboduus and the Marcomanni
were now the only remaining obsta-
cles to completing the conquest of the
country between the Elbe, Rhine and
Danube.
In late AD 6, Tiberius executed
his plan to take the Marcomanni in
their homeland of Bohaemium. It was
the largest operation ever conducted
by the Roman army. At least twelve
legions were involved: VIII Augusta
from Pannonia, XV Apollinaris and XX
(later know as) Valeria Victrix from
Illyricum, XXI Rapax from Raetia, XIII
Gemina, XIV Gemina and XVI Gallica
from Germania plus an unknown unit;
while I Germanica, V Alaudae, XVII,
XVIII and XIX would attack along the
Elbe. However, a rebellion in Pannonia
stopped the massed army in its tracks.
It took three years of blood and treasure to quell the revolt. Taking part
in suppressing that violent insurgency
was a young Cheruscan noble leading
a Roman cavalry unit. He is known to
history as Arminius – ‘Hermann the
German.’ n
P. Lindsay Powell was born in Wales and
developed a life-long interest in Roman
history while at school. He is a veteran
of The Ermine Street Guard. He has
published several articles on aspects of
the Roman army and is writing a novel
of the German Wars of Drusus the Elder
and Tiberius Caesar. He divides his time
between Austin, Texas and Wokingham,
England. Email him at info@lindsaypowell.com
Further reading
- M. Carroll, Romans, Celts and
Germans: The German Provinces
of Rome. Stroud 2001
- J.F. Drinkwater, Roman Gaul: The
Three Provinces 50BC-AD260
London 1983
- A. Everett, Augustus: The Life of
Rome’s First Emperor. New York
2006
- C.M. Wells, The German Policy
of Augustus: An Examination
of the Archaeological Evidence.
Oxford 1972
- P.S. Wells, The Barbarians
Speak: How the Conquered
Peoples Shaped Roman Europe.
Princeton 1999
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Fortifications
Secrets from the soil
The archaeology of Augustus’ military bases
Archaeology has been called the ‘handmaiden of history’. Its
role is often subordinated to the study of the historical texts.
But should these always be elevated to this position of primacy?
Without the archaeological study of the sites along the Rhine
and in the interior of Germany, we could speculate endlessly on
the movements and campaigns of Augustus’ armies. It is only by
correlating the narrative sources with the results of archaeological excavation that we obtain a more complete picture. And
the material remains provide one or two surprises along the way.
By Duncan B. Campbell
is clear that it in no way represented a
frontier between the Celtic Gauls and
the Germanic nations. The Helvetii, for
example, had originally lived across the
Rhine before they migrated into the
© Carlos de la Rocha
When Julius Caesar laid down his Gallic
command in 51 BC, the border of Gallia
Comata (“long-haired Gaul”) lay along
the Rhine. This was certainly a convenient administrative boundary, but it
Roman province, provoking Caesar’s
intervention. Other nations, like the
Belgic Eburones in the northeast of
Gaul, had made the transition earlier;
they were a ‘Gallic’ people of Germanic
extraction. And when Octavian finally
fell heir to Gaul in 40 BC, the subsequent revolts that occupied his governors usually involved collaboration
between the Belgic nations and their
erstwhile Germanic cousins across the
Rhine. Clearly, the river did not represent a cultural barrier.
In fact, Augustus himself recognised this in his treatment of the long
corridor of land along the left bank of
the Rhine. Notionally belonging to the
province of Gallia Belgica, it was set
apart as a military zone, to be divided between the armies of Germania
Superior (“Upper Germany”) and
Germania Inferior (“Lower Germany”).
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Fortifications
So, from the time of Caesar, the Romans
had maintained a foothold in Germany;
they were simply awaiting the opportunity to extend their control.
In 16 BC, when Augustus was ready
to turn his attention to Germany, having brought Gaul and Spain into line,
it was only natural that the legions
should be poised on the Rhine. Several
major sites can be identified, chiefly
because they developed into the familiar legionary fortresses that remained
occupied throughout the period of the
Principate. However, the Augustan precursors of these fortresses are not well
known and still have many secrets to
divulge.
The Rhine: Nijmegen
© Karwansaray BV.
At Nijmegen, in the territory of the
Germanic Batavians of the Rhine
delta, the known legionary fortress
sat on the Hunerberg, an area of high
ground overlooking the Waal, a continuation of the Rhine. The site was
named Batavodurum, and renamed
Noviomagus after the Batavian revolt
of AD 69/70. The exceptionally small
(16.5ha) Flavian fortress, which is known
18
in some detail, was preceded by an
enormous Augustan base occupying
the entire 42ha area of the hilltop. Its
northern defences have yet to be elucidated, but they probably ran along
the steep cliff top overlooking the river.
Elsewhere, a double ditch was traced,
the inner of which was some 6m wide
by 2.3m deep, with an outer ditch of
slighter proportions. These presumably
remained open and in use well into the
Julio-Claudian period, to judge from
the date of the pottery sherds recovered from the infilling.
Curiously, no trace of the rampart
survived, perhaps because the turves
had been laid without foundations.
But there was ample evidence of the
towers that once dotted the rampart
at 24m intervals. In each case, four
substantial postholes marked out
a 3.6m x 3m structure, which must
have risen to a second storey, perhaps
giving a 5m-high vantage point. Both
west and east entrances were carefully
excavated, to reveal the characteristic
Augustan design of gateway, incorporating a recessed double portal. On
either side of the entrance, instead of a
standard four-post tower, the rampart
ended in a six-post tower, which
then turned inwards in a massive L-shaped arrangement,
before turning again to
span the gateway. The net
effect was to create
a small courtyard,
6m deep by 10m
wide, around which
Iron Weisenau-type
(Robinson
Imperial
Gallic A) helmet from
Nijmegen which was
found together with
the shield boss and
strigil in a pit on
the Hunerberg.
Now in the
Valkhof
Museum,
Nijmegen.
(Note that
this is a photo
montage, the
items are not
shown proportional
to their size).
the walkway was carried at rampart
level. Anyone approaching the gates
was under observation from all sides.
The eastern half of the base was
obliterated by the Flavian fortress. But
in the western half, excavations during
the 1990s exposed an area running in
from the west gate along the line of
the main east-west road, surely the via
principalis. Details of internal timberframed buildings were revealed, chiefly
to the south of the road, all sharing the
same alignment. Several foundation
trenches produced Augustan pottery
sherds, confirming the general dating
of the base; likewise the many refuse
pits dotted around the buildings. The
presence of certain forms of terra sigillata (“samian ware” pottery) indicates
an early date, perhaps as early as 19
B.C., further confirmed by coinage from
the mints of Nemausus (present day
Nîmes) and Lugdunum (Lyon).
Just visible in the northeastern corner of the excavation area, and thus
roughly in the middle of the base, were
the foundations of a wall flanked by a
row of timber uprights, hinting at the
courtyard which was a characteristic
component of the legionary headquarters building (principia). The rest was
unavailable for excavation.
Unfortunately, the large building exposed some way behind it had
been partly destroyed by the Flavian
ditch. From its position and large size
(c. 60m wide), the building was probably the commander’s house (praetorium). Archaeologists exposed several rooms and part of the peristyle
courtyard, typical in an upper class
Mediterranean-style house. Elsewhere,
smaller examples of this atrium houseplan, incorporating a central courtyard,
probably represented accommodation for tribunes; although junior to
the commander in both age and rank,
these were still upper class Romans
who expected some home comforts
while on campaign.
Clearly this base was rather more
permanent than the winter quarters
(hiberna) endured by Caesar’s troops
in Gaul. Many of the remaining features encountered during the excavations belonged to the barrack blocks
of the legionaries. These characteristically long, thin buildings, designed to
accommodate an entire company of
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men (centuria), often revealed traces
of the cross-walls separating the individual squad rooms (contubernia). In
common with other Augustan fortresses, the remains were often found to be
rather ephemeral, but the centurion’s
house, always located at one end of
the block, seemed usually to have been
more robustly built. This is perhaps
only to be expected, given the centurion’s rank and status. The precise functions of the four or five rooms within
each centurion’s house are unknown,
though separate sleeping, eating and
latrine areas might be imagined.
Frustratingly, no evidence has come
to light that might identify the troops
quartered here, but the size of the
Hunerberg base suggests that we
should think of a pair of legions, probably with auxiliary support. A base
located here, on the last available area
of high ground before the coast, was
obviously linked to amphibious operations around the Rhine delta, as well as
probing attacks into the lands of the
Usipeti and their eastern neighbours,
the Chauci. Just such operations were
apparently mounted in the year 12 BC
by Augustus’ stepson Nero Claudius
Drusus.
“Next Drusus crossed over to the
country of the Usipetes, passing
along the island of the Batavians,
and from there marched along
the river to the territory of the
Sugambri, much of which he devastated. He then sailed down the
Rhine to the ocean, secured the
alliance of the Frisians and, crossing the lake, invaded the country of the Chauci, where he ran
into danger, as his ships were left
stranded by the ebb of the ocean.
He was rescued on this occasion
by the Frisians, who had joined
his expedition with their infantry,
and withdrew since it was now
winter.”
Cassius Dio, History of Rome
54.32.2-3.
A little way to the east of the
Hunerberg lies another area of high
ground, the so-called Kops plateau.
Here, a 3m wide earth and timber rampart fronted by a double ditch followed
© Karwansaray BV.
Fortifications
Sword scabbard decoration found at the Fürstenberg, near Castra Vetera. Two
Eros-figures hold a shield with a wreath, under the shield is an eagle. Now in the
Römermuseum, Xanten.
the contours of the hill to create a
roughly triangular fort of 3.5ha. Finds
of pottery, particularly from a rubbish
dump (Schutthügel) on the northern
slope of the plateau, indicated a date
much earlier than the well-known
assemblage from Haltern and more in
line with the material from Oberaden
(see below for these sites). In short, the
site belongs firmly to the campaigns of
Drusus. In fact, as we shall see, it has
been hailed as his command post in 12
BC, although the case is purely circumstantial.
An impressive praetorium, equally as
large as the Hunerberg example, stood
over towards the north rampart in a
rather unorthodox way; the commander’s house usually occupied a more
central position. Its large size, in such a
small fort, has raised the suspicion that
its occupant was a very important personage, although the peristyle building
in the similarly sized fort at Rödgen (see
below) is not much smaller. Equally, the
Kops plateau fort was refurbished in
the early years of Tiberius’ reign, and
the praetorium may date from that
later phase, which also produced quantities of luxury decorated terra sigillata
pottery, some from the workshops of
the Ateius family. The stamp on the
base of one dish indicated that it had
been made by a slave of the XIIIth
legion (leg(ionis) XIII vern(a) fe(cit) : AE
2000, 1012). The remains of foodstuffs
included a pot containing the bones of
30 song thrushes, surely something of a
delicacy for a high-ranking Roman.
The Rhine: Xanten
If the Nijmegen base was sited with an
eye to the northern Germanic nations,
a second base 50km further upriver
near present-day Xanten was clearly
intended to control and exploit the
River Lippe, which flows from the east
into the Rhine at just this point. The
siting of successive fortresses here,
perched on the high Fürstenberg, emulated Nijmegen’s similarly elevated
position. And campaigning along the
Lippe is recorded amongst the events
of 11 BC.
“As soon as spring arrived, Drusus
set out again for the war, crossed
the Rhine, and subdued the
Usipetes. He bridged the Lupia
(River Lippe), entered the territory
of the Sugambri, and advanced
through it into the country of the
Cherusci, as far as the Visurgis
(River Weser).”
Cassius Dio, History of Rome
54.33.1-2.
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Fortifications
20
been planted on a virgin site. A separate length of ditch, displaying a classic
v-shaped profile but measuring only
2m wide by 1.2m deep, underlay the
area required by Camp A-C, and must
have belonged to a different phase of
occupation. Nothing more is known
about this so-called “Camp B”, and we
may wonder whether it was, in fact, a
marching camp built for the temporary
accommodation of troops in transit. A
similar situation is found, for example,
at Haltern (see below).
Later still, another fortress was laid
out on the site; its rampart base and
parallel ditches were traced for 300m
as they curved around the SW corner.
With ditches 4.5m and 3.6m wide and
around 1.5m deep, these were formidable defences. However, the excavator
was able to show that they belonged
to the reign of Tiberius, since they cut
through a layer of burnt Tiberian pottery debris. Sadly, we have no indication of the size or garrison of this later
fortress.
The Rhine: Mainz
Travelling a further 60km up the Rhine
brings us to Neuss, the site of the
famous Claudian legionary fortress of
Novaesium. However, traces of defensive ditches associated with early terra
sigillata pottery suggest that there was
Augustan occupation nearby. Such
early pottery has also been found at
Cologne, 40km further south, where
two legions had their base in AD 14
(Tacitus, Annals 1.39). There may have
been earlier occupation here, as well;
particularly if the graffito allegedly
belonging to the “chief centurion of
legion XIX” (AE 1975, 626: prin(ceps)
leg(ionis) XIX) has been correctly read.
A similar situation obtains 30km further on at Bonn, where archaeology
has revealed the Claudian fortress of
Bonna, but pottery hints at an earlier
occupation. And finally, 60km further
upriver, the hilltop at Koblenz, overlooking the confluence of Moselle and
Rhine, has been suggested as the site
of an Augustan fort, on the basis of a
few early finds.
Such a chain of strongpoints is
perhaps more in tune with Tiberian
or Claudian retrenchment than with
Augustan expansion. But the site of
Mainz, 80km upriver from Koblenz,
is different. Just as the Xanten base
was located opposite the mouth of
the Lippe, the base at Mainz sat on
high ground above the Rhine, opposite
the mouth of the River Main. This was
another ideal jumping-off point for an
invasion of Germany, this time targeting the lands of the Chatti, as recorded
for the years 10 and 9 BC.
“Meanwhile the Germans, especially the tribes of the Chatti, were
in some cases harassed, in others
subdued by Drusus. … In the following year, Drusus … proceeded
to invade the lands of the Chatti,
and advanced as far as those of
the Suebi.”
Cassius Dio, History of Rome
54.36.3 & 55.1.2
Detail of some the palisade stakes from Oberaden, clearly showing the markings of the centuria to which they originally belonged. Now in the Westfälisches
Römermuseum, Haltern.
© Karwansaray BV.
Excavations were conducted on the
Fürstenberg at the beginning of the
20th century, when techniques had not
yet reached the sophistication that we
expect nowadays. Nor was the task of
elucidating the early occupation here
an easy one. At Nijmegen, we have seen
that a large proportion of the original Augustan base remained undisturbed by subsequent occupation. But
here, the Julio-Claudian phases on the
Fürstenberg were obliterated by a huge
(56ha) double fortress, built in stone
during the reign of Nero. At some point,
the site was named “the old camp”
(Tacitus, Annals 1.45: Castra Vetera).
Of course, there can be no doubt
that an Augustan base lay here. If the
historian Tacitus had not recorded that
Augustus established a legionary fortress here (Histories 4.23), the discovery of the famous cenotaph of Marcus
Caelius, the centurion of legion XIIX
who “perished in the war of Varus” (ILS
2244), would have given us a heavy hint.
Sadly, the layout remains unknown, but
one or two traces have been found.
At the northern edge of the
Fürstenberg, a substantial military
ditch, 6.5m wide by 2.5m deep, was
traced for 500m. Two bedding trenches
ran along behind it, marking out a
3m-wide rampart. Around 700m to the
south, a similar ditch was found, this
time with the rampart to the north. If
the two ditch lengths belonged to the
same fortress, as seems likely, it must
have extended for more than 35ha,
quite sufficient for two legions. And
its fortifications, just like those of the
Nijmegen base, must have formed an
irregular polygonal perimeter, unlike
the classic playing-card shape of its
Neronian successor.
Both the northern and southern
features showed signs of remodelling,
suggesting a lengthy period of use subdivided into two phases. A 10m wide
break in the southern ditch marked the
position of one of the gateways, fronted at a distance of around 9m by a 22m
long titulus, the protective bank and
ditch often found covering the entrances to a camp. It, too, showed signs of
refurbishment. Dating evidence was
sparse, but included a late Augustan
Nemausus as.
This fortress (known to archaeologists as “Camp A-C”) may not have
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Fortifications
The site that the Romans knew as
Mogontiacum is entirely built up now,
but observations over the years suggest that the fortress enclosed an area
of perhaps 36ha inside an almost rectangular perimeter. In the 1950s archaeologists were able to examine an area
of around 2.5ha spanning the southeastern defences. In the course of their
excavations, definite Augustan remains
were identified underneath the stone
Flavian fortress. The sequence of seven
ditches demonstrates the complicated
phasing of the site, as not all will have
been in use simultaneously. Curiously,
one of them seems to have been a
“Punic ditch” (fossa Punica); instead of
the usual v-shaped profile, it has an
almost vertical outer wall, perhaps to
prevent an attacker from retreating
once he has crossed it.
One or two of these seven ditches
must have been contemporary with
the earliest rampart, an earth-filled box
construction with timber revetment
at front and rear. Behind it, the usual
intervallum space found in all fortresses extended for 12m, accommodating
a mix of rubbish pits, hearths, ovens
and the ephemeral traces of lean-to
sheds. Along the inside margin ran the
3m-wide perimeter road (via sagularis),
allowing troops to speedily make a circuit around the fortress to any threatened position. Its gravelled surface had
been repeatedly repaired, incorporating ceramic fragments of Augustan
date, and finally building up to a thickness of 1.4m! The water supply for this
early fortress remains problematic, but
it is perhaps unsurprising that no wells
were identified, as little of the fortress
interior is known, beyond the ends of
some nondescript buildings running
up to the via sagularis.
The Lippe: Oberaden
Nijmegen, Xanten and Mainz represented the main Rhine bases that
must have been established in good
time to support Drusus’ campaigns.
The archaeology is in broad agreement
with Cassius Dio’s narrative, though the
absence of any securely dated corroborating evidence is disappointing. Dio
records that Drusus’ second campaign
centred on the River Lippe with its
broad east-west valley, opening opposite the Vetera fortress and penetrating
the heartlands of the Sugambri. It is
here that we must search for the earliest Roman fortress beyond the Rhine.
In fact, 90km inland along the
Lippe, an enormous (56ha) oblong
base was sited on a hill at Oberaden
near the modern town of Dortmund.
Excavations in the early years of the
20th century revealed the four gateways and traced the 2.7km perimeter. A
5m wide, 3m deep ditch lay some way
in front of a 3m wide earth-and-timber
rampart, strengthened with towers at
25m intervals. Archaeologists estimated
that up to 25,000 trees must have been
felled in the neighbourhood to build
the defences. Like the Rhine fortresses,
this was a permanent base, designed
for year-round occupation.
“Drusus was scornful of the
enemy (Sugambri) and built a fort
against them at the junction of
the Rivers Lupia and Eliso, and
another amongst the Chatti on
the Rhine.”
Cassius Dio, History of Rome
54.33.4
A fascinating detail was preserved
along the northwestern sector, where
the ditch was found to contain around
300 wooden stakes, sharpened at both
ends with a handle in the middle. Once
identified with Caesar’s pila muralia
(Gallic War 5.40), they are nowadays
given the less contentious label of ‘palisade stakes’; they had probably been set
up as an additional obstacle, perhaps
along the lip of the ditch. The fortress
gateways followed a similarly robust
design to those found at Nijmegen.
Modern excavations in the 1980s
and 1990s concentrated on the area
between the headquarters (principia),
centrally located as usual, and the front
gate (porta praetoria), which in this
case faced south. Oberaden’s seven-sided perimeter is by no means unusual
amongst the generally irregular shapes
of Augustan fortresses, but its internal
layout differs from later orthodoxy on
two counts: first, the main street (via
principalis) runs along the long axis,
instead of the short axis preferred by
later generations of surveyors; and second, this street runs behind the principia, rather than in front. A final pecu-
Archaeological dating
It is a complex process to date an
archaeological site from the objects
found there. Much depends on the
type of object and the context of its
discovery. A Roman coin (particularly
from Flavian times onwards) can often
be dated very precisely to a twelvemonth period, but we should remember that this simply tells us when the
coin was struck. A single coin could
remain in circulation for years or even
decades, before finding its way into
the archaeological record. And a coin
recovered as a stray find in the topsoil
of a site has much less value for dating
purposes than a coin that was sealed
in a primary foundation layer.
Pottery is often an archaeologist’s
best guide to dating. The Roman army
used the red gloss tableware known
as terra sigillata (“samian ware”) in
huge volumes. The various forms of TS
were driven by fashion and changed
frequently. In addition, the different
workshops, which were mostly still
located in northern Italy for much of
Augustus’ reign, often stamped their
products, enabling us to trace the work
of individual potters (e.g. the wellknown Ateius family). But the argument can become circular, as with the
Augustan ceramic assemblage from
Haltern being used as a fixed point for
the wider TS chronology.
Other dating methods have
become available, as archaeology
embraced the scientific techniques of
the 20th century. Amongst the first
to be embraced was radiocarbon dating, despite two drawbacks: first, it
destroys the organic sample during
the dating process; and second, the
date it provides has a broad margin
of error. However, a second technique
has come to the rescue. Thanks to
the careful recovery and analysis of
ancient waterlogged oak and pine
timbers in western Europe, dendrochronology has provided an almost
complete tree-ring chronology going
back over 10,000 years. Unfortunately,
the technique fixes the felling date of
a tree by identifying the final growth
ring, which is not always possible if the
archaeological sample is too small.
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Fortifications
the Lugdunum altar series, a large issue
probably intended for soldiers’ pay, suggests that the garrison had left within a
few years of 10 BC; archaeologists agree
that the fortress was probably evacuated after the campaigning season of 8
BC, which saw the acquiescence of the
Sugambri.
“… Tiberius crossed the Rhine. All
the barbarians were alarmed and
sent envoys to make peace … After
this, the Sugambri remained at
peace for a while.”
Cassius Dio, History of Rome
55.6.2
The Lippe: Beckinghausen
The fortress at Oberaden lies some distance south of the Lippe, showing that
its hilltop location, reminiscent of the
Rhine fortresses, took precedence over
ease of supply. However, a small base
of the sort best characterised as a fort
lay 2.5km to the west at Beckinghausen,
right on the bank of the Lippe. Its position has often led to its description
as a “waterfront fort” (Uferkastell), but
the course of the Lippe has changed
dramatically over the centuries (as we
shall see at Haltern, below), and it is
Iron Weisenau-type (or Robinson Imperial
Gallic ‘F’) helmet with bronze decorations
from Oberaden. Now in the Westfälisches
Römermuseum, Haltern.
22
© Karwansaray BV.
liarity involves the siting of the gates,
which were each slightly offset from
the line of the internal streets.
Within the fortress, quantities of clay
wall plaster were recovered, still displaying the impression of the wickerwork that must have formed the walls
of the half-timbered buildings. There
was ample provision of wells for drinking water. One of these, located in the
courtyard of an atrium house (presumably a tribune’s billet), proved to be
lined with timber slats to a depth of 5m,
and contained wooden roof tiles and a
1.26m length of ladder. Elsewhere, when
the wells did not take this square, timber slatted form, they utilised old wine
casks, sunk up to 9m in the ground, still
complete with bung hole and importer’s name branded on the side.
Three oblong wood-lined tanks
located behind the rampart, roughly
5m x 12m in size, defied explanation,
but have been tentatively identified as
latrines. One of them contained roofing
debris, along with the usual rubbish
that clean-up squads typically toss into
such places to avoid having to bury it.
Seed and pollen analysis affords a rare
glimpse of the Augustan legionary’s
diet: wheat was well represented, along
with lentils and millet; apples, sloes,
raspberries and hazelnuts were present, as well as whitethorn and rosehip,
perhaps for medicinal purposes; and
various imported foodstuffs, including
olives, figs, grapes, almonds, and most
surprising of all, peppercorns.
Fortuitously, the sheer quantity
of wood recovered from the excavations, buried deep in the wet
clay soil, allowed accurate dendrochronological analysis. The
oak timbers used to build the
rampart had been felled in the
late summer of 11 BC, a fact that
neatly corroborates
Cassius Dio’s historical account
(see above, Xanten).
Unfortunately, the date of abandonment cannot be fixed with such
precision, but the absence of coins of
unlikely that any Roman fortifications
lay open to the river.
The fort took the form of an elongated oval, 1.6ha in area. Triple ditches
fronted a rampart with towers every
30m but only one entrance, located
at the west end and marked by the
standard massive gateway structure.
Little of the interior was available for
excavation; apart from a large granary,
only some nondescript buildings and
two ovens were identified. Pottery from
one of these matched similar finds
from Oberaden, and the few coin finds
included the same Nemausus asses
found in the main fortress. Of course, it
is virtually certain that the fort and fortress were symbiotic; the legionaries in
garrison at Beckinghausen were clearly
placed there to receive riverborne supplies in transit to the Oberaden fortress.
The Wetter: Rödgen
Archaeologists have also sought Drusus
east of Mainz, in the lands of the Chatti
where campaigning took place in 10 and
9 BC. In fact, in the 1960s, an Augustan
fort was discovered and excavated at
Rödgen, near Bad Nauheim, about
60km northeast of the Rhine. Here the
fortifications followed the contours of
a hill, enclosing an area of 3.3ha with a
double ditch and 3m wide rampart. The
single gateway, located on the east side
of the polygonal perimeter, conformed
to the standard massive design, but
the ditch remained unbroken in
front of it, so that there must have
been some kind of bridge.
The somewhat unusual
headquarters building
excavated at the centre
may, in fact, be the commanding
officer’s
house.
Whoever he was, he appears to
have been in charge of a supply base. For, although rows of barrack
blocks have been identified, much of
the fort interior was taken up by three
huge granary structures.
Coins of the Lugdunum altar series
were missing here, suggesting a similar chronology to that of Oberaden.
The pottery recovered from both sites
was very similar, and we must wonder whether Rödgen was Drusus’ fort
established “amongst the Chatti on the
Rhine”.
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Fortifications
The Main: Marktbreit
Troops were perhaps also moving in
a more southerly direction from the
Mainz base. The Augustan fortress identified at Marktbreit near Würzberg lies
fully 150km away as the crow flies, and
much farther for legionaries marching
along the winding course of the River
Main.
The site fits the standard image of
an Augustan base in every way: sited
on a hilltop, the surveyors followed
the contours of the land in laying out
its irregular perimeter; its 2.8m wide
rampart was fronted by a double ditch;
the entrances are marked by massive
gate structures; and the internal street
layout has its own peculiarities. (In this
case, the via principalis, normally the
main thoroughfare from one side of
the fortress to the other, appears to be
blocked by buildings.) At 37ha, it falls
into the category of two-legion fortress,
just like Mainz itself, and the dating
material conforms to the “Haltern horizon” (see further below).
Marching camps on Lippe and
Lahn
Roman armies on the march typically
built temporary camps for overnight
accommodation. The presence of permanent bases deep within Germany
implies that troops en route from the
Rhine must have broken their journey
behind more temporary fortifications.
Unlike the fortresses, these were not
intended for permanent occupation,
but were simply ditched enclosures to
afford the soldiers some degree of protection. Mostly laid out as giant rectangles, they shunned the hilltop locations
preferred by the permanent fortresses,
and lacked any internal buildings.
One such camp has long been
known in the Holsterhausen area of
Dorsten, on the north bank of the Lippe.
At 36km east of the Rhine, this would
have been an ideal first stop for troops
coming out from Vetera. And, at 54ha,
it could accommodate a sizeable battle
group involving at least two legions.
As expected in a marching camp,
there were no structures, for the troops
were accommodated in tents, but rubbish pits and field ovens were identified. No trace of the rampart survived,
but the single ditch was found to be
4m wide and up to 3m deep, a sen-
sible precaution in enemy territory. The
perimeter was broken by three 10m
wide entrance gaps, much of the fourth
side having been washed away by the
Lippe.
Following the excavations in the
1950s, there were traces of a second
camp lying immediately to the northwest, but nobody expected the complex
of five (with hints of another two) new
camps that came to light over to the
west in 1999-2002. Partially overlying
one another, these speak eloquently of
successive campaigns along the Lippe
by battle groups making their first stop
here. Such complexes of military works
are also known from Britain, and indicate the Roman expertise in reconnoitring an ideal position and revisiting
it from year to year. Aerial photography recently revealed traces of a tenth
camp, 2km to the north.
Besides pits and field ovens, wells
had been dug. Clearly, temporary
accommodation could extend over
several days, or even weeks, depending upon the circumstances. And the
history of these camps was not perhaps entirely uneventful: a hoard of
36 denarii had been buried in a pit,
presumably for safe keeping but never
recovered; its owner perhaps went out
on patrol, never to return.
Some of the material finds, such as
coins of the Nemausus crocodile series
and certain forms of pottery, can be
dated to the so-called “Oberaden horizon”, suggesting a link with Drusus’
campaigns. Other material, such as
terra sigillata from Ateius’ workshops,
belongs to the later phase of campaigning, which (as we shall see) is
connected with the fortress at Haltern.
And a denarius of 41 BC reminds us how
long coins could remain in circulation.
As we have seen, armies were also
moving from Mainz, up the valleys of the
Main and Wetter through the lands of
the Chatti. However, it is clear that their
journey continued onwards, because a
21ha marching camp has been discovered at Dorlar, some 30km northwest
of Rödgen, at the headwaters of the
Lahne. Again, no traces of rampart were
found, but the ditch was some 3m wide
by 2.3m deep. Pottery finds suggested a
similar date to Haltern, but other earlier camps perhaps await discovery in
the same general area.
The Lahn: Waldgirmes
The camp at Dorlar lies only 2km from
Waldgirmes, where a 7.7ha permanent
base was sited on high ground above
the River Lahn. During the 1990s, a
length of the trapezoidal perimeter
was excavated and found to comprise
the usual 3m wide rampart, fronted
Augustan coinage
When Augustus became emperor, he assumed sole responsibility for issuing coins across the Empire, and authorised mints at Rome, Lugdunum
(Lyon) and Nemausus (Nîmes). The coin types depicted his own profile on
the obverse (the “heads” side), sometimes with his trusted deputy, Marcus
Agrippa. The reverse (the “tails” side) depicted one of several symbolic
images; for example, the crocodile and palm tree, recalling the capture of
Egypt in 30 BC, or the Lugdunum altar, dedicated in 10 BC.
Legionaries were paid the sum of 75 silver denarii three times per year.
In practice, much of this would have been issued in bronze coins (sometimes called aes coinage), which were more easily spent. The choice was
between the sestertius, a very large, heavy, yellow brass coin worth 1/4
denarius, or the as, a slightly smaller red copper coin worth 1/4 sestertius;
in between lay the dupondius, matching the as in size but the sestertius in
colour. Each legionary probably carried a variety of all these coins.
However, a peculiar phenomenon occurred in the Augustan military
bases in Germany, where dupondii seem regularly to have been cut in half
to create two semi-circular asses. This is thought to have been caused by
Augustus’ re-valuation of the Lugdunum and Nemausus asses, which were
rather on the heavy side, as dupondii. Soldiers must have found that the
smallest coin available to them had suddenly doubled in value, so they took
the practical step of halving them to create small change!
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© Andrew Brozyna, ajbdesign.com
Fortifications
Roman fortifications in the Haltern area
by a double ditch, the inner of which
was some 3.2m wide by 2.3m deep, with
an outer ditch of slighter proportions;
soil erosion had perhaps reduced the
ditch dimensions somewhat. The east
gateway was investigated, and the gate
structure was found to conform to the
usual massive Augustan pattern.
Besides traces of ovens, pits and
timber buildings, there was evidence of
manufacturing, such as the discovery
of a small pit containing an anvil. So far,
none of these elements would be out
of place in an Augustan military base.
Some weapons finds were made, also,
including the tip of a pilum, a bronze
hinged buckle, and an iron spearhead.
The terra sigillata matches the ceramics from Haltern, and the coin list lacks
the Nemausus issues that define the
“Oberaden horizon”. Finally, a dendrochronological date from some well timbers fixed its construction in the year
4 BC.
Excavations
have
continued
at the site, and their interpretation
has become steadily more complex.
Fragments of a gilded bronze equestrian statue raised suspicions that
Waldgirmes was no ordinary military
base, but archaeologists have now
hailed it as the first town in Germany.
The stone foundations of the latest
building phase, including the idiosyncratically designed principia, certainly
suggest that the Romans envisaged a
degree of permanence. But whether
we accept that the base had taken on
24
civic pretensions, Waldgirmes clearly
has more secrets to reveal.
The Lippe: Haltern
And so we come to the key site of
Haltern, some 54km distant from
Vetera on the Rhine. Besides a large
(34.5ha) marching camp, which clearly
came first, several military installations
were erected here (see diagram): from
west to east, these are the fort on the
Annaberg, the Wiegel stores depot, the
two-phase fortress on the Silverberg,
and the Hofestatt fort, sometimes (like
Beckinghausen) incorrectly called a
“waterfront fort” (Uferkastell); at some
point, a metalled road was laid out,
apparently linking the stores depot
with the Annaberg fort, and there was
time for a cemetery to grow up along its
northern side. Part of a second marching camp of at least 20ha was excavated some way to the northeast.
All of the material remains appear
to be chronologically later than the
Oberaden assemblage, so the start of
occupation at the site is normally associated with the involvement of Tiberius
in Germany from AD 4, but it could
belong as early as AD 1, with Marcus
Vinicius’ “immense war” against the
Germans (immensum bellum: Velleius
Paterculus 2.104.2).
Unfortunately, excavations began
here, specifically in the Annaberg fort,
in 1905, when available techniques
were rather primitive; in addition,
much of the excavated material is now
lost, preventing any attempt at reassessment. Equally, interpretation of the
Wiegel stores depot, with its complexity of multiple palisades, ditches and
pits, was compromised by the excavator’s belief that it was a riverside
‘berth’ with slipways for warships. It
is now clear that the Lippe has wandered back and forth across the valley
in the intervening centuries and, far
from opening directly onto the riverbank, the Wiegel site probably stood
some way back, similar to the earlier
situation at Beckinghausen. Erosion
has also complicated our picture of
the Hofestatt fort, which was clearly a
three- or four-phase fortification, again
standing back from the riverside, but
much of it has been washed away.
The so-called “main camp”
(Hauptlager) is the best-known of the
four installations, and presents the
most complete plan of an Augustan
fortress, with its rows of barrack blocks
interspersed with officers’ houses, a
large workshop area, and even a hospital building. The principia, a fraction
of the size of the Oberaden headquarters but normal by later standards,
betrayed two phases of building, in
keeping with the fortress itself, which
was extended at some stage. Behind
it lay the commander’s house (praetorium), with another beside it, hinting
that command was somehow shared
here. Equally, the multiplicity of atrium houses, surely intended for junior
officers but far exceeding the normal
requirements of a legionary fortress,
suggests that Haltern had a more
important role to play.
Years of excavations brought thousands of finds to light: pilum heads,
spearheads, trilobate arrowheads,
arrowheads for catapults, and a fine
example of a sword and a dagger. More
interesting were the lead bar scratched
with the legend L(egio) XIX and the
lead stopper from a medicine bottle,
which indicated that it contained herba
Britannica, the cure for scurvy (AE 1929,
102). The coins and pottery found on
the site are uniformly later than the
“Oberaden horizon”; although the presumed abandonment of Haltern in AD
9 has been used to date the terra sigillata, thus creating a circular argument,
none of the coins were minted after the
first decade AD.
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Fortifications
The Lippe: Anreppen
© Karwansaray BV.
Another Augustan base of roughly the
same date is known, some 140km further along the Lippe, at Anreppen in
the town of Delbrück near Paderborn.
The irregular oval perimeter, enclosing
an area of 23ha, displayed a peculiar
semicircular re-entrant on the north
side, where it looked onto the river.
Like the other Augustan bases, it was
defended by a 3m wide earth-and-timber rampart, fronted by a 6.5m wide,
2.3m deep ditch; the south side was
further protected by a second ditch of
slighter proportions.
Only the northeast and southeast gates
could be investigated, and both displayed the now familiar massive timber gate structures. Alongside each
one, a long, narrow building positioned behind the rampart presumably
accommodated the night watch during
inclement weather; the same feature
was earlier noticed at Oberaden, too.
Much of the interior was unavailable
for excavation. The principia in particular was not revealed, but the commander was housed in an impressive
70m wide praetorium, and a truly enormous granary, with a capacity exceeding the three Rödgen granaries combined, stood just inside the southeastern gate, hinting at a wider supply role
for the fortress. Several barrack blocks
were also located, with the centurions’
houses oddly positioned at the far end,
rather than beside the via sagularis,
as found elsewhere. All of this serves
to remind us that Augustan military
bases came in various shapes and sizes,
each with its own individuality.
The preserved timbers of a well gave a
dendrochronological date of AD 5, and
the coins and pottery, including dishes
from the Ateius workshop, point broadly to occupation in the first decade
AD. Indeed, Anreppen’s position at
the headwaters of the Lippe has been
linked with the events of AD 4, with
interesting implications for the inhabitant of the large praetorium.
“The defence of the empire brought
Tiberius at the beginning of spring
(AD 5) back to Germany, where the
general had on his departure built
his winter camp at the source of
the river Lupia, in the very heart
of the country.”
Velleius Paterculus, Roman History
2.105.3
The Weser: Hedemünden
Perhaps the most exciting discovery of
recent years was made near Göttingen
at Hedemünden, 200km east of the
Rhine, where an Augustan military
site has been found. A two-phase ovalshaped fort, enlarged from 3.2ha to
4.5ha, was sited on a wooded hill above
the River Werra, a tributary of the
Weser. The standard 3m wide rampart
was fronted by a ditch 3.5m wide by
1.5m deep. No north gate was observed,
but the fort appears to have had an
extra east gate, opening onto a large
flat area occupied by a 12ha marching
camp.
A shovel and a beautiful example of
the legionary’s pickaxe (dolabra) were
discovered buried in the rampart on
the east side of the fort, where they had
perhaps fallen during the second phase
refurbishment. Another three dolabrae
have come to light, along with other
tools including two adze-hammers. The
many metal finds, largely from an area
outside the west rampart, included a
pilum-head, two daggers, various cataBronze capricorn, possibly formerly
part of a standard – the capricorn was
the legionary symbol of a number of
legions – found in the area of Bentheim,
Germany. Copy, now in the Now in the
Westfälisches Römermuseum, Haltern.
pult arrowheads, and 800 hobnails. The
excavator also found a phallus-shaped
amulet, almost identical to finds from
Holsterhausen and Haltern.
The interior has not yet been excavated,
but magnetometer survey indicated
the stone foundations of buildings
and the presence of ovens and pits.
Curiously, besides a silver coin of 80
BC, the coin list is heavily weighted
by the Nemausus issues typical of the
‘Oberaden horizon’. This suggests that
Drusus’ campaigns ranged far wider
than previously thought.
Clearly, we can expect the eventual discovery of more Augustan military installations, perhaps along the
Weser, or linking Hedemünden back
to the Rhine, either along the Lippe to
Vetera or back to Mainz via Rödgen and
Waldgirmes. n
Duncan B Campbell studied Roman
military archaeology for his PhD, and
is a part-time lecturer at Glasgow
University’s Department of Adult &
Continuing Education. His latest book,
Roman Auxiliary Forts, is a companion
volume to Roman Legionary Fortresses.
Further reading
- D. B. Campbell, Roman Legionary
Fortresses, 27 BC-AD 378. Oxford
2006
- W.
Ebel-Zepezauer,
“Die
augusteischen
Marschlager
in Dorsten-Holsterhausen”, in:
Germania 81 (2003), pp. 539-555
- K. Grote, “Das Römerlager im
Werratal bei Hedemünden (Ldkr.
Göttingen)”, in: Germania 84
(2006), pp. 27-59
- J. S. Kühlborn (ed.), Germania
pacavi: Germanien habe ich
befriedet. Münster 1995
- S. von Schnurbein & H.-J.
Köhler, “Dorlar. Ein augusteisches Römerlager im Lahntal”, in:
Germania 72 (1994), pp. 193-703
- S. von Schnurbein, “Neue
Grabungen in Haltern, Oberaden
und Anreppen”, in P. Freeman et
al. (eds.), Limes XVIII: Proceedings
of the XVIIIth International
Congress of Roman Frontier
Studies. Oxford 2002, pp. 527-533
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The generals
Road to Destiny
Arminius and Varus
before AD 9
Arminius and Varus will forever
be known as the great antagonists of the Teutoburger Forest.
Less famous are the roads both
men traveled prior to AD 9.
Sidney Dean
© Stéphane Lagrange
Arminius
The vexillum is inspired by a quote from Cassius Dio, who states that this standard
bore the name of the commander and the units it represented in red lettering. The
abbreviated notation here reads in full: “The army of Germania, legions XVII, XVIII
and XIX of the propraetorian legate Publius Quinctilius Varus.” The phalerae on
his chest were derived from a sample in the British museum in London, made from
blue glass on a silver disc representing members of the imperial family.
26
Everything known about Arminius
comes from Roman sources, especially
Tacitus and Velleius Paterculus. According to Tacitus (Annals 2.88) he
died at age 37 after leading his people
for twelve years. The Roman historian,
writing around 90 AD, is not precise
regarding the year in which Arminius
was assassinated. However, his statement establishes a definite framework
for the Cheruscan’s vital statistics. On
the one hand Tacitus clearly states that
Arminius was still alive at some point in
19 AD. On the other hand Tacitus cannot
have begun calculating Arminius’ rule
any later than 9 AD. Taken together this
places his death sometime between 19
and 21 AD, and his birth 37 years earlier,
between late 19 BC and 16 BC.
In contrast to his vital statistics, his
true name remains a mystery. All Roman sources refer to Varus’ adversary
by the Latin-form name Arminius. Was
this a Latinization of his Germanic given name? One possibility here would by
“Irmin” or “Ermin” (meaning “mighty”
or “exalted”), the name or by-name of
a god worshiped in ancient northern
Germany. Another theory is that he was
adopted into a Roman family clan, the
Gens Arminia, but there is no substantiating evidence. One interesting theory
is that Arminius is taken from “Armenium”, a mineral with a vivid shade of
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The generals
© Karwansaray BV
light blue or blue-green – presumably a
reference to his eyes. This theory builds
on the fact that the Romans named
Arminius’ younger brother Flavius,
meaning “blonde”. The only certainty
about his given name is that the modern German appellation of “Hermann”,
made popular by Martin Luther, is definitely false.
‘Prince’ of the Cherusci
According to Velleius Paterculus (Roman History 2.118), Arminius’ father
was named Segimer. Velleius refers to
Segimer as “a prince of that nation”
without indicating a special status
among the various tribal leaders. On
the other hand Tacitus (Annals 11.17)
writes that Arminius was a member of
the Cherusci stirps regia or “royal family”.
In fact the Cherusci, like most other
Germanic tribes of the era, did not have
one supreme monarch. Rather, the territory of the Cherusci was divided into
various districts, each with its own
chieftain (Roman chroniclers frequently use the term princeps, the title used
by Augustus). Even within their own
districts these chieftains were not allpowerful but had to consult their aristocratic peers as well as the Thing or assembly of free men to secure consensus
on vital issues (Tacitus, Germania 7.11).
The council of chieftains met on issues
effecting the entire Cherusci people.
Only during emergencies – for example
to provide unified leadership during
war – did they elect temporary kings.
Tacitus’ use of the term stirps regia
indicates that Arminius’ clan had a special position among the Cherusci aristocracy, leading to speculation by some
scholars that in an earlier decade this
family had indeed been supreme within the tribe. In any case Segimer seems
to have been recognized as war leader
by the other Cherusci ‘princes’.
In this function Segimer will have
led the Cherusci in years of resistance
against Rome. Beginning in 12 BC, Emperor Augustus’ adopted son Drusus
led annual Roman expeditions across
the Rhine in an attempt to subdue the
northern Germanic tribes. That same
year the Cherusci, the Suebi, and the
Sigambri swore a blood oath to jointly
resist – sealing the pact by sacrificing
20 captured Roman officers. Arminius
No known portrait of Arminius exists, apart from a very doubtful ‘Germanic’ bust
in the Capitoline museums in Rome. Generic barbarians are often seen in Roman
art however. Among those, Germans are most easily recognized by their ‘Suebian
knot’, as is clearly visible on this theatrical mask. Now in the British museum, London.
was between seven and ten years of
age when his father Segimer, representing the Cherusci, sealed this blood
oath. Perhaps the boy was even present
to witness the human sacrifice. In any
case his youth was marked by years of
intermittent bloody conflict against
Rome. As the son of a tribal leader, he
was trained not only to fight and to ride,
but also to plan military operations and
to lead the youth of the tribe in battle.
He most likely gained combat and leadership experience as a teenager during
the immensum bellum or “great war”
initiated in 1 AD as a concerted offensive by various tribes against the Roman presence east of the Rhine.
But in the end, the legions asserted
themselves. Drusus’ brother Tiberius,
combining a show of force with a diplomatic offensive, convinced the Cherusci to become Roman foederati (allies)
in 4 AD. As was customary, the leading
families of the Cherusci were required
to present their sons as hostages to
ensure compliance with the pact. The
treaty also included an obligation to
provide military auxiliaries for Rome.
In Roman arms
Unlike his younger brother and other
young hostages provided by foederati
tribes, Arminius was too mature to be
taken to Rome for education and indoctrination. As Segimer’s oldest son, he
was therefore appointed commander of
the Cherusci auxiliary contingent. This
contingent was stationed at one of the
Roman bases under Tiberius’ command
in Germania. There Arminius could still
be indoctrinated and observed, and he
would be vulnerable should Segimer
break the treaty. During this time he received formal training in Roman strategy and tactics, in order to effectively
lead his contingent in cohesion with
the legion units. Given the fact that
Arminius had been raised to hate the
Romans it is more than likely that he
spent this time observing their organization and tactics, consciously learning
their weaknesses and strengths while
ingratiating himself. He was said to be
charming, and won the confidence of
many Roman officers. The records concerning Arminius’ military service are
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The generals
© Karwansaray BV
act dates of his service with Rome, nor
the campaigns he participated in, but
much can be inferred from the writings
of Velleius and Tacitus.
Velleius is a particularly important source. He served as Tiberius’ cavalry commander at the same time as
Arminius served, and knew the young
German by sight. Indeed, he may have
been Arminius’ immediate superior. He
describes the Cheruscan as “a young
man of noble birth, brave in action
and alert in mind, possessing an intelligence quite beyond the ordinary
barbarian; (...) and he showed in his
countenance and in his eyes the fire of
the mind within.” (Roman History 2.118).
Velleius also states specifically that
Arminius “had been associated with us
constantly on private campaigns, and
had even attained the dignity of equestrian rank.” The fact that Arminius was
granted Roman citizenship and accepted into the ordo equester (i.e. elevated
to the status of Roman knight) has been
interpreted in two ways. Some scholars
believe these honors were automatically accorded Arminius in light of his position in the Cherusci aristocracy – and
simultaneously as an attempt to coopt
his loyalty. Others believe that at least
the knighthood was a reward for meritorious service. The fact that Velleius
emphasizes Arminius’ elevation to the
“dignity of equestrian rank” indicates
that it was not, as a rule, awarded auto-
Varus’ portrait on a coin struck during
his governorship of the province of Africa (modern Tunisia). Now in the Westfälisches Römermuseum, Haltern.
28
matically, but had to be earned.
In this context it is important to note
that there were two different classes of
auxiliary forces: “regular” auxiliaries
composed of well trained professional
soldiers drawn from client peoples and
often led by Roman officers (knights, if
they were cavalry units), and tribal levies raised for contingency service. There
is nearly unanimous agreement that
Arminius originally led such a tribal
levy in Tiberius’ campaigns against
other Germanic tribes in the 4-6 AD
timeframe. This would include service
as scouts and skirmishers during Tiberius’ 5 AD campaign against the Langobardi and his campaign to the Elbe
River. Presumably they also formed part
of the army Tiberius planned to lead in
6 AD into Bohemia, where Marcomanni
king Marbod had established a powerful kingdom.
At the last minute Tiberius had to
divert his forces to the Balkans to deal
with the Pannonian Uprising. This begs
the question: did Arminius and his levy
accompany Tiberius, or did they return
to Germany for good in 6 AD? Inextricably tied to this question is: when did
Arminius assume leadership of his clan
and his tribe? There are, again, various
theories.
One school of thought believes
Arminius and his force remained in
Germany to support Governor Sentius
Saturninus (as of 7 AD: P. Quintilius Varus) in securing the Rhine lest the Germanic tribes rise up, or that they were
even dismissed from service and
allowed to return to their tribe.
The fact that Varus implicitly
trusted Arminius could indicate familiarity developed over a two-year
period of acquaintance. Other scholars
are convinced that
Arminius either accompanied Tiberius
to Pannonia in 6 AD,
or joined him there in 7
AD when Saturninus was
dispatched from the Rhine
to reinforce Tiberius with regular legions and auxiliaries. If this
theory is correct Arminius, as a knight
and a proven leader, was probably promoted to lead a “regular” auxiliary unit,
most likely a German cavalry ala of 500
or 1,000 men.
Much speaks for this theory. Tiberius needed 15 legions and the equivalent
number of auxiliaries to suppress the
Pannonian Revolt during three years of
intense warfare. And Rome’s policy was
to deploy auxiliary forces away from
home whenever possible to minimize
the likelihood they would switch sides.
Sending Arminius and as many Germanic auxiliaries as possible to the Balkans would make military sense. Proponents of this theory interpret Velleius’
statement regarding Arminius’ “constant association” during campaigns
to mean Arminius served with Tiberius
and Velleius in the Pannonian expedition, the last major campaign before
the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.
Obviously he cannot have stayed
with Tiberius for the duration of the
war, which ended in September of 9
AD, only days before the battle in Germany. In light of Tacitus’ statement that
Arminius ruled the Cherusci for 12 years,
he must have succeeded Segimer sometime between 7 and 9 AD. He may have
been released from military service after
the major Roman victory at the Bathinus River in August, 8 AD, which significantly reduced the enemy forces. This
would have given him a year in which
to plan his own uprising and to ingratiate himself with Varus. Alternately, he
may have been released at any earlier
time during the campaign upon word
of his father’s illness or death. Believing Arminius a loyal Roman citizen and
soldier, Tiberius would have wanted to
guarantee him a smooth transition as
tribal leader.
Publius Quinctilius Varus
In contrast to Arminius, the vital statistics of Publius Quinctilius Varus are
precisely known. He was born in 46 BC
into an old patrician family. His father,
senator Sextus Quinctilius Varus, actively supported Pompey against Julius
Caesar, and committed suicide after
Marc Antony and Octavian defeated the
last republican forces at Philippi (42 BC).
The younger Varus thus grew up under
difficult circumstances – the family had
enjoyed more prestige than wealth to
begin with, and lost what remained of
both after Sextus’ disgrace and death.
As a youth P. Quinctilius Varus began
displaying the survival trait that would
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mark his adult life – subservience to
those who could benefit or harm him,
arrogance to those he was in a position to benefit or harm. He ingratiated
himself with Octavian, was appointed
quaestor in 23 BC (below the usual minimum age), and accompanied Octavian
(by that time Emperor Augustus) on his
three-year tour of the eastern provinces
(22-19 BC).
As a favorite of the emperor, Varus
quickly rose to honors, power, and consequentially wealth. He went through
the cursus honorum – a series of increasingly responsible public offices
intended to prepare the nation’s future
leaders – becoming in turn aedile, praetor, propraetor (probably commanding
a legion), and finally, in 13 BC, co-consul
of Augustus’ stepson Tiberius, with
whom he cultivated a close friendship.
That same year both Varus and Tiberius
married daughters of the emperor’s
close ally, General Marcus Vipsanius
Agrippa, cementing Varus’ ties to the
center of power. When Agrippa died in
12 BC Varus held the funeral oration.
The ‘War of Varus’
In 7 BC Varus was appointed governor
of the province of Africa for one year.
This was a very prestigious assignment,
which implied that Varus had not only
the Emperor’s trust but also that of
the Senate, which had direct authority
over Africa. Having proven himself an
efficient steward over this vital breadbasket of the empire, Varus was subsequently appointed as governor of Syria
– where he succeeded none other than
Gaius Sentius Saturninus, whose son
he would later succeed as governor of
Germania.
In contrast to Africa, Varus’ new
area of responsibility was under direct
authority of the emperor. Syria and the
surrounding client states were Rome’s
strategic buffer in the East, securing the
empire from their powerful Iranian rivals, the Parthians. Upon arriving at his
new post in Antioch, Varus took command of three legions, or one sixth of
the standing Roman army. The appointment as governor demonstrated Augustus’ high regard for his capabilities
– a trust that would prove to be well
placed. While Velleius (Roman History
2.117) later accused Varus of abusing his
position to line his own pockets, he was
© Karwansaray BV
The generals
The most common form for Germans in
Roman art: as a prisoner. What seems
to be a ‘Suebian knot’, on the other side
of his head, probably marks this bronze
statuette out as a Germanic warrior as
well. Now in the National Archaeology
Museum of Saint-Germain-En-Laye,
France.
in fact an efficient guardian of Roman
interests.
Among his other duties, Varus was
also responsible for Roman relations
with (and control over) the neighboring
client kingdom of Judea. When Judea
erupted in a major, multipartite civil
war in 4 BC following the death of the
pro-Roman King Herod, it was up to
Varus to restore order in this strategically vital region. At the first sign of unrest he dispatched one legion to secure
Jerusalem and the surrounding territory. This occupation of the holy city
only fanned the flames of religious and
nationalist resentment against Rome
and Herod’s heir-designate Archeleaus. When four separate full-blown
insurgencies erupted simultaneously
throughout Judea, Varus personally led
two additional legions and a large force
of auxiliaries from neighboring client
kingdoms into Judea. All in all, Varus
commanded a good 20,000 men, not
including his legion besieged at Jerusalem. Moving from north to south he
crushed the insurgencies in turn. His
campaign was systematic, efficient –
and brutal. He personally ordered the
complete destruction of two sizeable
towns. He ordered 2,000 captured
rebels crucified. Tens of thousands of
Jews – including many noncombatants,
women and children – were sold into
slavery.
This so-called ‘War of Varus’ was the
most dramatic episode of his governorship, and indeed of his career until
the disastrous battle of 9 AD. Varus is
thought to have returned to Rome in 3
BC. Following the death of his first wife,
Vipsania Marcella (with whom he may
have had a son), Varus married Claudia Pulchra, a niece of Augustus, with
whom he had one son. Little is known
of his political activities after leaving
Syria until his posting to Germania in 7
AD to replace Saturninus, who was sent
to Pannonia to reinforce Tiberius. It is a
safe assumption that Varus’ actions in
Judea contributed to his later appointment as governor of Rome’s frontier
province in the north. n
Further reading:
- H. Ritter Schaumburg, Der
Cherusker: Arminius im Kampf mit
der römischen Weltmacht. Munich
and Berlin 1988.
Ancient sources: Flavius Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews, Tacitus,
Annals, both available online at
www.gutenberg.org and C. Velleius Paterculus, The Roman History available on Lacus Curtius
(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/
Thayer/E/home.html).
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The opposing armies
Augustan legionaries
Defining features of the Roman army
Unlike the great wars of the Late Republic, the conquests and campaigns of the age of Augustus are poorly documented. However,
the surviving literary evidence (histories, geographical writings
and poetry) and epigraphic sources (epitaphs and dedicatory inscriptions) do provide glimpses of the wars and the legionaries
who fought in them.
By Ross Cowan
The obstinate pilum
The pilum was the defining weapon
of the Roman legionary (Livy 9.19.7). It
was a dual-purpose javelin, suitable
for thrusting as well as throwing (cf.
Appian, Civil Wars 2.76, Plutarch, Antony 45.3). As a close range missile it
was often deadly, designed to punch
through shield and armour, and on
through flesh and bone (Livy 10.39.12).
The legionaries of the age of Augustus
carried this distinctive Italian weapon
far and wide: it was used in anger from
Spain in the West to Arabia in the East,
and from Germany in the North and to
Egypt in the South.
This was the epoch in which a panegyrist of one of Augustus’ generals
could confidently envisage “the obstinate pilum breaking down all before it”
(Anon., Panegyric of Messalla = [Tibullus] 3.7.90). Its deadliness is demonstrated by great victories like the battle
of Negrana in Arabia Felix (23 BC), where
10,000 of the enemy were slaughtered
for the cost of only two Roman lives
(Strabo, Geography 16.4.24). Even when
the pilum did not break down the enemies of Rome and her first Emperor, as
at the disastrous battle of the Teutoburg
Forest in AD 9, the legionary javelin was
the weapon of subsequent revenge (cf.
Tacitus, Annals 2.14). It took skill, a strong
arm and iron nerve to wield the pilum
in the chaos and confusion of battle; it
took great courage to follow the path of
the thrown pilum into the ranks of the
30
enemy and to barge and batter with
scutum, and to hack and stab with gladius. But that is what happened countless times during the reign of Augustus
and the great expansion of the Roman
Empire. It happened because brave and
determined men hurled the obstinate
pilum with the same determination
and courage that defined their forefathers, the legionaries of Julius Caesar,
Sulla and Marius.
Valiant centurions
The most famous and impressive monument of the Varian Disaster is the
cenotaph of Marcus Caelius, a senior
centurion of the first cohort of the Eighteenth Legion (ILS 2244). He was killed
at the age of 53, probably having spent
more than 30 years in the army. The
inscription on the stone reveals nothing about Caeilius’ career in the army
except for the post he held at the time
of his death, but the accompanying
sculptural relief of the centurion gives
ample evidence of his personal bravery.
Caelius is depicted with torques (heavy
necklets, but slung on either side of his
neck, rather than worn around it), embossed phalerae (‘medallions’) worn on
a harness over his cuirass, and armillae
(bracelets) on his wrists. All were prizes
for bravery in battle. The Roman centurion was traditionally conspicuous
for his courage; the Caesarian centurions Baculus, Pullo, Vorenus, Scaeva and
Crastinus spring to mind as exemplars
of the type (see Ancient Warfare I.2).
Caelius’ dona militaria (military decorations) show him to be a worthy successor to these famous warriors. What
is more, Caelius’ monument depicts another decoration, one awarded for selfless courage. On his head is a corona
civica, the ‘civic crown’ woven from the
leafy twigs of the oak tree and presented to a soldier who had saved the life of
a comrade in battle.
The cenotaph was set up by Caelius’ brother, Publius, conceivably also a
legionary and perhaps therefore of senior rank like his brother. It would have
taken considerable wealth to pay for
the impressive stone monument but
centurions, especially primi ordines of
the first cohort were not short of cash.
Centurions of cohorts II-X probably received fifteen times the basic legionary
salary, primi ordines thirty times, and
the primus pilus sixty times as much!
Caelius would have left money with his
family and instructions in his will for
the contruction of his memorial in the
This legionary is equipped with a
bronze helmet with brass browguard,
the original of which was found in
Haltern; a chain mail with shoulder
doubling and fastening hooks after numerous finds from Augustan sites, and
a shield based on the find from Kasr-ElHarit, which concurs with pictorial evidence from the period. The shield has a
boss similar to finds from Dangstetten
and Haltern, and a gilded silver sheetlightning decoration as found in Kalkriese. Under his chainmail he wears
a subarmalis with madder-dyed herringbone woolen pteryges over a white
tunic. His pattern-welded sword, scabbard and caligae are based on finds
from Mainz. The belt and belt plates
are based on finds from Dangstetten,
Haltern and Augsburg-Oberhausen.
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© Johnny Shumate
The opposing armies
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© Karwansaray BV
The opposing armies
Many Augustan era pugiones, daggers,
are highly decorated as is clearly visible
on this example from Xanten. Now in
the Regionalmuseum, Xanten, Germany.
event of his death, and it would have
been Publius who instructed the stonemason on how to portray his brother.
What we see, the powerfully built individual with a hard flat expression,
should be a reliable representation of
the man.
It is unfortunate that we do not
know the circumstances in which Caelius won his dona militaria, especially
the civic crown (see Tactius, Annals 3.21
and Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 5.6.14,
for the circumstances leading to the
eventual award of such a crown in AD
20). The corona aurea, or gold crown,
was another award for conspicuous
gallantry, and it is to be regretted that
we have no idea of where, when or how
Titus Statius Marrax, whose last post
in the army was as primus pilus of legio XIII Gemina, won his notable tally of
five gold crowns and the other decorations for bravery which are listed with
pride on his gravestone (ILS 2638). The
gravestone of Gaius Allius Oriens, most
32
probably a contemporary of Caelius and
Marrax and, coincidently, also a centurion of the Thirteenth, shows three gold
crowns – the prizes of three brave deeds
(CIL XIII 5206). Once again, we can only
guess at how they were won, but considering the known movements of the
legion during the reign of Augustus, it
is likely Oriens won his decorations in
the campaigns to conquer the Balkans
or the punitive operations into Germany after AD 9. Lucius Blattius Vetus,
a centurion of legio IV Macedonica, may
have won his dona militaria in Spain
(AE 1893, 119; see Dio 54.11.2-5 for the
hard fighting there), while Vergilius
Gallus Lusius may have been awarded
one of his gold crowns while primus pilus of legio XI (later Claudia) during the
Illyrian Revolt of AD 6-9 (ILS 2690).
The bravery of Augustan centurions and their habit of leading from the
front is reflected in their high battle casualties (cf. Velleius Paterculus 2.112.6),
but unlike the centurions of the Late
Republic, we possess few literary accounts of individual officers in action.
We do know of Cornidius, a centurion
who fought in the conquest of Moesia
in 29-28 BC:
No little terror was inspired in
the barbarians by the centurion
Cornidius, a man of rather barbarous stupidity, which, however,
was not without effect on men
of similar character. By carrying
on the top of his helmet a pan of
coals which were fanned by the
movement of his body, he scattered flames from his head and
had the appearance of being on
fire.
Florus, Epitome 2.16
One wonders if Cornidius was decorated for his somewhat bizarre antics
on the battlefield. It is possible that the
centurion’s legion was IV Scythica, probably awarded its title for service against
the ‘Scythians’, a cover-all term for various Danubian peoples, in the Moesian
War.
It should also be noted here that
Cornidius’ general was Marcus Licinius
Crassus, grandson of the Crassus who
led his army to disaster at Carrhae in 53
BC. The younger Crassus was a far more
competent general, and during the
The legions’ helpers
As well as reorganizing the legions, Augustus formalised allied forces from
beyond the Roman frontiers, non-citizen formations from within the Empire,
mercenary contingents, and even exiles, like the retinues of dissident Parthian
nobles, into permanent infantry cohorts and cavalry alae (“wings” – the title
referred originally to allied Italian formations of infantry and cavalry). Some
of the cohorts, designated equitatae, also had a cavalry component. Unlike its
middle Republican predecessor, the late Republican legion did not have its own
cavalry or light troops. Julius Caesar sometimes deployed lightly equipped legionaries (expediti) but he relied on Germans and Gauls for cavalry. Some of
these new auxilia (“helpers”, “supporters”) regiments provided the Imperial
Roman army with specialists in which the legions were deficient: various types
of cavalry, archers (foot and mounted) and light infantry. However, a substantial proportion of infantry cohorts fought as heavy infantry. The number of
auxiliaries in Augustus’ army is uncertain; they presumably matched, and possibly outnumbered the legionaries; roughly 150,000 is a reasonable estimate. A
typical cohort or ala probably contained some 500 soldiers, who, after a service
period of 25 years or more, would be rewarded with Roman citizenship. Some
auxiliaries, such as the Batavi, proved themselves invaluable and loyal (until
AD 69, at least). Others, such as those recruited from the Pannonians and other Illyrian peoples, once trained and equipped in the Roman manner but still
commanded by their own nobles, revolted and threatened to prise back from
Augustus his central European and Balkan conquests (AD 6-9).
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The opposing armies
tary governor of a sector of the Black
Sea coast, would support his appeals
to return to Rome. Yet Ovid’s description of Vestalis in combat does have the
ring of authenticity, reminiscent, for example, of the actions of the Caesarian
primus pilus Baculus (Caesar, Gallic War
2.2, 3.5, 6.38): Vestalis acts as a primus
pilus should, leading from the front and
inspiring by personal example. Finally,
the spirit of the Augustan centurion is
encapsulated by the redoubtable Mevius:
Mevius, a centurion of Augustus
the god, had often fought with
distinction in the Antonian War
[the Actium campaign, 31 BC or
Egyptian War, 30 BC], but was
surprised by an enemy ambush
and surrounded and taken to
Antony in Alexandria. Asked
what should be done with him,
he replied “Have me killed, for
neither benefit of life nor infliction of death can make me cease
to be Caesar’s [i.e. Octavian-
© Stéphane Lagrange
course of the Moesian War he slew Deldo, king of the Bastarnae, in single combat and claimed the right to dedicate
the spolia opima (‘the greatest spoils’
being those stripped from an enemy
king) to the god Jupiter Feretrius. He
would have been the fourth Roman to
do so, following in the glorious path of
Romulus, Cornelius Cossus and Claudius Marcellus. However, Octavian could
not tolerate this. He had only recently
defeated Mark Antony and reunified
the Roman world. He was promoting
himself as the new Romulus and the
ancient magisterial powers were being
concentrated in his person. He was effectively emperor – something that was
confirmed in January 27 BC when he became Augustus. Generals fought under
his auspices: he was the supreme commander and their victories were his. So
when Crassus returned to Rome early
in 27 BC, he was voted a justly deserved
triumph, but Augustus denied him the
even greater glory of dedicating the
spolia opima. The ambitious and energetic conqueror of Moesia then disappears from Roman history. Cornidius
would have been a proud participant in
the colourful and dramatic triumphal
procession through Rome; his helmet
was probably among the curiosities
displayed to the masses.
Florus’ notice of Cornidius is brief
and mocking. Ovid, exiled by Augustus to the Danube delta, preserves a
more glorious and laudatory image of
a centurion in action. In AD 12, Julius
Vestalis, son of an Alpine prince, was
primus pilus of one of the legions based
in Moesia, and he fought in the recapture of Aegisos from the Getae. Vestalis
is described in armour bristling with
arrows and a battered scutum, ignoring his wounds and continuing to advance, and clambering over the bodies
of the warriors he killed. “It is difficult
to recount all your warlike actions, how
many you killed or how they died.” Ovid
declares that Vestalis’ bravery inspired
his legionaries and, like their centurion,
they ignored the pain of their wounds
to inflict worse punishment on the
Getae (Black Sea Letters 4.7). Ovid may
have exaggerated Vestalis’ role in the
victory. The poet was, after all, in exile
and probably hoped that Vestalis, subsequently promoted to the rank of mili-
Marcus Caelius brought to life, the primus pilus is wearing his full set of
decorations, a highly ornate helmet and similarly adorned greaves.
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The original of the helmet portrayed in
the reconstruction depicted on page 31,
a Robinson-type Coolus E helmet found
at Haltern.
Augustus] soldier or begin to be
yours.” But the more resolutely
he despised life, the more easily he obtained it, for in tribute
to his valour (virtus) Antony left
him unharmed.
Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds
and Sayings 3.8.8 (compare Plutarch,
Antony 64.2 for an Antonian centurion
at Actium)
Career Soldiers
Many centurions began their careers as
lowly milites gregarii (common soldiers)
and rose slowly through the ranks. Such
a career is inscribed on the gravestone
of a centurion of legio XIV Gemina (ILS
2649). The stone is broken and part
of the inscription is missing, so we do
not know the name of the centurion or
where he came from (it can be assumed
he was an Italian), and the numerals
and titles of all the legions he served in
prior to XIV Gemina are lost. However,
enough survives to tell us that he served
as an ordinary legionary for 16 years,
and as veteran sub vexillo –‘under the
banner’ of the veterans’ corps – for a further four years. This was the service requirement laid down by Augustus in 13
BC and remained in effect until AD 5/6,
after which new recruits had to serve
20 years plus a further five years sub
34
vexillo (Dio 54.25.5-6 and 55.23.1, failing
was appointed curator because he had
to mention that extra service sub
held appropriately senior posts in his
vexillo was required). Eventuold century, probably tesserarius (officer
ally, of course, all legionaries
of the watchword), optio (centurion’s
served for 25 or 26 years
deputy) or signifer, or had served on the
and only became veterstaff of a tribune or legate.
ans on discharge (misFollowing his four years under the
sio). As discharges
banner, our man chose to remain in the
were made every
army as an evocatus, a veteran ‘recalled’
two years, half of
or invited to remain in service with a
those
legionarstatus approaching that of a centuies who survived
rion (see Dio 55.24.8). As experienced
to complete their
men, evocati were rather useful, being
service spent an extra
employed to command small detachyear in the legions.
ments or carry out special assignments,
Our man held the
but our man was not content with that
rank of curator veteranorank and after three years he secured
rum, probably concerned with
an actual centurion’s post. Thus it took
the administration of the corps of
him 23 years to progress to the rank of
veterans attached to his legion. Some
centurion; in fact, he may not have atscholars have suggested that the curatained his promotion until the reign of
tor was in command of the veterans,
Tiberius (AD 14-37). He remained in serbut that is most improbable. We know
vice for another 23 years, probably until
that in AD 20, the veterans serving sub
the time of his death. His final centurial
vexillo of legio III Augusta numbered
post was as centurio princeps, perhaps
around 500 (Tacitus, Annals 3.21), but
in the first cohort, of legio XIV Gemina.
the curator was clearly lower in rank
What remains of his gravestone serves
than a centurion (as indicated by the
also as a reminder of his bravery: it is
subsequent career of this soldier), and
decorated with the torques and phalthe legionary centurion commanded
erae he won in 46 years of soldiering.
no more than a century of 80 or so men;
Professionals like this man formed the
the Augustan legions did not have enbackbone of the legions, but they were
larged first cohorts with five doublethe terror of new recruits and shirkers
size centuries (as indicated by Tacitus,
because they knew all the tricks and
Annals 1.32). It seems
that the veterans
were actually commanded by prefects
of equestrian rank
(e.g. AE 1926, 82 of
legio XII Fulminata).
Publius Tutilius, another Augustan curator veteranorum, is
known to have held
the ranks of signifer
(standard
bearer)
and aquilifer (eagle
bearer) in a legio V,
perhaps Alaudae, prior to serving sub vexillo (ILS 2338). The duties associated with
those posts were as
much administrative
as they were tactical
(Vegetius, Epitome
Detail of the tombstone of Marcus Caelius showing his
2.20). We may predecorations: phalerae on his chest, an armilla on his arm
sume that our man
and torques on a band hanging from his neck.
© Karwansaray BV
© Karwansaray BV
The opposing armies
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The opposing armies
dodges from having served in the ranks
themselves; this made their discipline
all the more stringent because they
had endured toil and hardships and
expected the soldiers in their charge to
do the same (see Tacitus, Annals 1.20 on
Aufidienus Rufus).
Other centurions were directly commissioned with no prior military service. Marcus Vergilius Gallus Lusius, adopted into a wealthy equestrian family
that could call on Augustus’ patronage,
was such an officer (ILS 2690). We have
already seen how he was decorated by
Augustus (and also by Tiberius), and
he must have had a real talent for soldiering, because he rose through the
centurions’ ranks to the exalted post of
primus pilus, went on to command a cohort of Ubian infantry and cavalry, and
then became tribune of a praetorian
cohort. This was in the period before all
of the cohorts of the Guard were based
in Rome (Suetonius, Augustus 49.1;
Tacitus, Annals 4.2); he may have found
himself at Aquileia, where praetorians
were stationed as something of a ‘rapid
reaction force’ (CIL V 886, 904, 924, etc.
with Tacitus Annals, 1.24). Lusius’ final
senior post was as idiologus (chief financial officer) of Egypt, a reflection of
the administrative skills developed by
senior Roman officers.
Resolute and tenacious
legionaries
If centurions were tough and determined men, so too were the legionaries
under their command. In AD 7, at the
battle of the Volcaean Marshes (or Mons
Claudius), a Roman army of five legions
(probably VII, VIII Augusta, XI, and two
drafted in from the eastern provinces,
perhaps IV Scythica and V Macedonica),
auxiliaries and various allies, was surprised during the great Illyrian Revolt.
Velleius Paterculus, who served as a legate in the war (but did not fight in this
particular battle), describes how the
steadiness of the legionaries averted
disaster:
[The two Batos, leaders of the
rebels,] surrounded five of our
legions, together with the troops
of our allies and the cavalry of
the king (for Rhoemetalces, king
of Thrace, in conjunction with
Augustus’ legionary army
Following his victory at Actium in 31 BC, and the conquest of Egypt and Cyrenaica from Antony and Cleopatra in 30 BC, Octavian found himself in control of 60 or 70 legions. More than half of the legions were disbanded, the
time-served soldiers of both sides settled in veterans’ colonies. After seven
years or so, by which time Octavian had become Augustus, he had whittled
the number of legions down to 28, retaining especially those regiments originally enrolled by his adoptive father, Julius Caesar (e.g. V Alaudae, IX Hispana,
X Gemina), and, as a mark of conciliation, the most renowned of the Antonian
formations (e.g. IV Scythica, VI Ferrata, XII Fulminata). Unlike the legions of
the Late Republic, which were raised to fight in a particular war and usually
disbanded after six years, Augustus’ imperial legions were permanent formations. Some survived for centuries. Remnants of V Macedonica and IV Scythica
are still attested in AD 635/6 and 637/9 (see Ancient Warfare II.5).
the aforesaid generals [Caecina
Severus and Plautius Silvanus]
was bringing with him a large
body of Thracians as reinforcements for the war), and inflicted
a disaster that came near being
fatal to all. The horsemen of the
king were routed, the cavalry of
the allies put to flight, the auxiliary cohorts turned their backs
to the enemy, and the panic extended even to the standards
of the legion. But in this crisis
the valour of the Roman soldier
claimed for itself a greater share
of glory than it left to the generals, who departing far from the
policy of their commander, had
allowed themselves to come into
contact with the enemy before
they had learned through their
scouts where the enemy was. At
this critical moment, when some
tribunes of the soldiers had been
slain by the enemy, the prefect
of the camp and several prefects
of cohorts had been cut off, a
number of centurions had been
wounded, and even some of the
centurions of the first rank (primi
ordines) had fallen, the legions,
shouting encouragement to
each other, fell upon the enemy,
and not content with sustaining
their onslaught, broke through
their line and wrested a victory
from a desperate plight.
Velleius Paterculus 2.112.4-6 (cf.
Dio 55.32.3)
Rigorous training, such as that described by the Panegyrist of Valerius
Messalla Corvinus ([Tibullus] 3.7.82105), and experience meant that in
circumstances like the near-disaster
described above, the legionary could be
his own general (cf. Appian, Civil Wars
2.72) and save the day. There were, of
course, defeats, not least the disaster in
the Teutoburg Forest, and some soldiers
were unwilling combatants who would
rather be anywhere than on the battlefield, like the poet Tibullus:
Let another be stout in war and,
Mars to aid him, lay the hostile
chieftains low, that, while I drink,
he may tell me of his feats in
fighting and draw the camp in
wine upon the table.
Tibullus 1.10.29-32
But Albius Tibullus was a Roman and,
despite his fears, he served with distinction under Messalla in the Aquitanian
War in 27 BC, winning dona militaria
(Suetonius, Life of Tibullus).
It was rare for the Augustan legionary to flee from the enemy in panic.
Sometimes it did happen, but he usually stood his ground and died fighting
or fought his way clear (e.g. Velleius
Paterculus 2.119.2 on the Teutoburg;
Dio 56.11.3-6 on Raetinum). In 17 BC, the
famous Legio V Alaudae was surprised
in Gaul by an army of Germanic raiders and its aquila, the eagle standard
in which the spirit of the legion resided,
was captured (Velleius Paterculus 2.97.1).
This was the ultimate disgrace but the
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Gilded silver phalera depicting a dog
or, perhaps more likely, a wolf. From
Oberaden, now at the Westfälisches
Römermuseum, Haltern, Germany.
defence of the eagle, although unsuccessful, was fierce. The poet Propertius
commemorates the brave defence of
the standard by a certain Gallus, who
“died for the aquila, bathing it in his
blood” (Elegies 4.1.95-96). It has been
proposed that Gallus was not an aquilifer, but was actually the primus pilus
of the legion. Gallus’ brother, Lupercus,
also died in the battle. He was among
the cavalry ambushed earlier in the
day by the Germans, leaving the legion
without its eyes and ears and vulnerable to attack (Propertius, Elegies 4.1.9394, with Dio 54.20.4-5). The Germans,
surprised at their success and fearful of
the revenge the Romans would wreak
upon them, sought terms, handed over
hostages to ensure their good behaviour, and presumably also returned the
eagle standard (Dio 54.20.6).
At the outbreak of the Illyrian Revolt
in AD 6, Legio XX was defeated. Sent by
Tiberius as an advance force to secure
Siscia and guard the route from Pannonia to Italy, the Twentieth was ambushed by one of the Batos and suffered
heavy casualties (55.30.1-2). The legion’s
legate, however, did not try to retreat;
Valerius Messallinus was determined
to fulfil his mission. The legion was
now reduced to half its usual strength;
it was probably not up to full strength
(4,800 infantry and perhaps 120 caval36
ry) at the start of its mission, and it
is conceivable that Messallinus
had only around 2,000 men
left to make the second attempt to reach Siscia. On
account of their small
number, Messallinus
and the men of the
Twentieth were surrounded by 20,000 of
the enemy, but the legionaries broke through
the enemy and put them
to flight. Siscia was secured
(Velleius Paterculus 2.112). It
may have been for his part in
this second battle that Lucius Antonius
Quadratus, a legionary of the Twentieth, received one of his two sets of
torques and armillae from Tiberius Caesar (ILS 2272; note also Velleius Paterculus 2.104.4 for the pride of legionaries
who had been decorated by Tiberius).
It was once thought that the Twentieth
was honoured with its famous titles,
Valeria Victrix (Valiant, Victorious), for
this victory, but the epithets were actually awarded more than 50 years later
for its part in defeat of Boudicca in Britain.
On the death of Augustus in AD
14, the legions stationed on the Rhine
and in Pannonia revolted. The historian Tacitus paints a vivid picture of
disgruntled legionaries, forced to serve
for many years beyond the terms they
had signed on for, living in rudimentary
camps, and when they were eventually
discharged given scraps of barren land
instead of the fertile small holdings
they had been promised (Tacitus, Annals 1.16-17). However, Tacitus’ image is
somewhat exaggerated. That soldiers
were kept under arms beyond the expected 25 years is demonstrated by the
funerary inscriptions (e.g. CIL III 2014, 33
years). That the land veterans received
instead of a large lump sum pension
was poor in certain areas, for example
around Emona, has been confirmed by
modern archaeology, but the loudest
cries among the mutineers came from
the unwilling legionaries, that is those
conscripted to meet the manpower
crises triggered by the Illyrian Revolt
and the Varian Disaster. A large proportion of volunteer legionaries mutinied
because their pay (good – when it was
paid on time) and discharge benefits
(potentially good) were viewed as in
the gift of Augustus. The early imperial
army was very much his private force,
and the soldiers were paid mostly out
of the emperor’s personal resources.
The legionaries knew Tiberius, Augustus’ successor, as a general in the German and Illyrian Wars, but they did not
know if he would be as generous as his
predecessor, the towering figure who
had dominated the Roman world for
six decades. The mutinies of AD 14 were
stimulated as much, if not more, by
fears for the future as by dissatisfaction
with the current terms of service.
A more contented image of the Augustan legionary is provided by the epitaph of Titus Cissonius, who served in
Legio V or VII (ILS 2238 and AE 1998, 1386).
As a veteran he was settled far from his
native Italy and ended his days in Asia
Minor, but he was happy with his lot.
The words inscribed on his tombstone
were surely requested by the man himself: “While I was alive, I drank freely;
you who are alive, drink!” n
Ross H. Cowan gained his PhD for a
study on Roman elite units and is now
a freelance writer and historian. He has
published several books and numerous
articles on all aspects of warfare in the
Ancient world.
Further Reading
- L. Keppie, Colonisation and Veteran Settlement in Italy 47-14 B.C.
. Rome 1983
- L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army, From Republic to Empire. London 1984
- L. Keppie, Legions and Veterans:
Roman Army Papers 1971-2000.
Mavors volume 12. Stuttgart
2000
- V. A. Maxfield, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army. London 1981
- R. Syme, ‘Some Notes on the Legions Under Augustus’, Journal
of Roman Studies 23 (1933), 14-33
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The legionary’s equipment
Archaeological evidence
Contrary
the
for
to
situation
Germanic
Warriors,
evaluation
the
of
archaeological
data for the Roman
soldier has been an ongoing process since the first sci-
© Karwansaray BV
entific excavations in Germany.
This started under the auspicies of the ‘Reichlimeskommission’ (imperial limes committee)
between the 1890s and the end
of WWI. Since then a gigantic
number of artifacts have been
found, evaluated, sorted in
relative
chronologies and,
where possible, linked to absolute dates. Archaeology as
a science has improved as well
with the result that, today,
we have a rather detailed and
accurate image of the Roman
soldier and his kit, although
several
detailed
questions
about his equipment still wait
for a definite answer.
By Christian Koepfer
A collection of lead and earthenware slingshot from Haltern.
Now in the Westfälisches Römermuseum, Haltern.
For the first decades of the imperial
era, we have ample archaeological evidence from a variety of archaeological
sites. Most important of these are – for
our purpose –Dangstetten, terminus
ante quem (t.a.q., see the note about
archaeological terminology on p.50) 9
BC, Augsburg-Oberhausen with a t.a.q
of AD 15/16, Haltern with a t.a.q. of AD
15/16, and Kalkriese with a highly disputed t.a.q of AD 15/16. These sites offer an insight into not only what the
equipment was like, but also into how
the equipment changed over the period
between 9 BC and AD 15/16 AD.
Defensive equipment
The defensive equipment of the Roman
soldier consisted of a helmet (galea,
cassis), body armor (lorica), and a shield
(scutum, parma, clipeus).
The helmets dating from this period are of the later Montefortino types,
the Mannheim types (‘Jockey-Cap-Helmets’), the Hagenau types (aka Coolus)
and the Weisenau types (Imperial Gallic). They were made from iron, bronze,
or brass, and in some cases from several
of these materials, such as a Hagenau
helmet from Haltern, which had a reddish bronze (copper and tin alloy) skull,
and a yellowish brass brow-guard (copper, tin and zinc alloy). Most examples
of Weisenau helmets also have this feature, e.g. a helmet from Idria pri Baci
(Slovenia), which probably had a tinned
iron skull and tinned iron cheek pieces,
both with brass decorations. In some
cases, the decorative rivets of these helmets had red coral or enamel inlays, an
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identical device can be found on daggers and dagger sheaths as well.
Attempts have been made to link
helmet types to certain periods or historic events; Mannheim types seem to
be connected to Caesar´s campaigns in
Gaul, and the late Montefortino types
to the civil wars. However, considering
the length of service such items enjoyed in the Roman army, as testified to
by several owners’ inscriptions on a single item, it is sensible to assume that all
those types saw service simultaneously
during the period under consideration.
Masked helmets may have been worn
by Roman infantrymen, but then only
standard bearers.
Body armor was most probably
worn over a padded garment (subarmalis), which could have textile straps
attached to it covering the lower body
and thighs as well as the upper arms.
There is some evidence suggesting
short-sleeved versions of this garment. This piece of equipment served
to protect the body from blunt trauma injuries, as well as making it more
comfortable to wear the metal armor especially on the march - while simultaneously protecting the soldier’s clothes
from rust, dirt, and damage through
chafing. As can be seen on the statue
of Augustus from Primaporta, this garment may have been quite colorful, especially the pteryges and their tassels,
which are displayed as being red and
blue. On the other hand, the colors on
that particular statue may simply follow artistic conventions and not be a
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land GmbH. Foto Christian Grovermann
This legionary wears a helmet after a
find from Oberaden; an early type of
lorica segmentata as suggested by M.C.
Bishop after finds from Dangstetten
and Kalkriese. Under the segmentata
he wears a simple padded subarmalis
over a simple white tunic, as suggested
by contemporary tombstones and wall
paintings. His shield is identical to the
legionary in the other picture, but has
a different shield boss after a find from
Haltern. The belt is based on finds from
Augsburg-Oberhausen, the framescabbard is after a find from Kalkriese.
Shoes and sword are again based on
finds from Mainz.
Upper chest plate of a lorica segmentata found at Kalkriese.
representation of real equipment. Also,
such a colorful version may not have
been deemed appropriate for regular
soldiers.
For body armor chainmail (lorica
hamata) and segmented plate armor
(lorica segmentata) was commonly
used. Although it has often been suggested (based on depictions of soldiers
on tombstones) that ‘leather’ or rawhide
armor was also in use, so far no material evidence has shown up to support
this hypothesis. Moreover, after the conquest of the Alpine region and its foothills, iron was available to the Romans
in huge quantities. It seems sensible to
stick with the material evidence and
dismiss the theory of ‘leather’ armor
until solid material evidence becomes
available. Leather finds are uncommon,
but not too rare to remove the possibility of eventually finding fragments of
leather armor, if it existed.
Finds related to chainmail and segmented armor exist in larger quantities from the different sites: fragments
of chainmail, chainmail closing hooks,
and buckles and hinges from segmented armor have been found at the earliest site, in Dangstetten, suggesting a
continuous use throughout the period.
The earlier types of segmented armor
apparently did not yet have the hooks
that were used to tie the girdle plates of
newer types, so it has been suggested
that the early types of this kind of armor were completely closed with belts
and buckles. The larger number of such
buckles found in Dangstetten and other early sites seem to support this idea.
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One of the
pilum shanks
from
Oberaden,
showing both the clamping piece and
the rivets for fastening the shank to the
wooden shaft. Now in the Westfälisches
Römermuseum, Haltern.
However, among the finds from Kalkriese there are already some hooks of the
later type, suggesting the introduction
of a new type sometime between the
Dangstetten and Kalkriese horizons.
The heavy iron armor plates from Kalkriese had a brass edging, and were
covered with silver foil, suggesting that
these particular objects were used by a
soldier of high status.
Offensive equipment
The common offensive equipment of
Roman soldiers consisted of a heavy
throwing spear (pilum), a short sword
(gladius), and a dagger (pugio). Soldiers
may also have been regularly equipped
with a sling (funda) and lead sling bullets (glandes).
A most interesting series of pila
were found at Oberaden. These pieces
even had some of the wooden parts
preserved, allowing a quite accurate
picture of the weapon. The finds consist of a thin, long round or square
iron rod, tipped with a pyramidal
head, and ending in a flat tang,
or spout, or in a thin, tapering tang. The first type
of these were set with
a tang into a wider
section of a wooden
shaft, and riveted to it
with at least two rivets. Pyramidal, square-sectioned
iron clamps held the wood
together on the upper point of the
wooden shaft. On their lower end
the pila were equipped with butt
spikes. Several of the pila from this period show decorations in the form of hor-
izontal ridges or recesses on
the iron rods, or just below
the tip. Other than common opinion
suggests, the iron shafts and tips were
hardened, thus implying that theses
shafts were not intended to bend, but
rather would deeply penetrate the target’s defenses.
The swords from this period, classified as ‘Mainz’ gladii, had a leaf-shaped
blade, a usually wooden round pommel,
a segmented or incised bone or wooden
grip, and a half-circular wooden hand
guard with an oval section, supported
by a brass or bronze plate. Many of the
blades were of a layered construction
of different types of steel, visible in the
form of a striped blade with lighter and
darker stripes running parallel to the
edges, simultaneously incorporating
the quality of hard steel and soft steel
to the blade, resulting in a somewhat
flexible blade with sharp edges. Some
were of a single type of steel and had
welded-on cutting edges.
The handle parts were often intricately decorated with carvings. Two different types of frame sheaths for the
swords were common, one type with
metal-covered facings and interasile
decoration, and another type with leather
covered facings and a (partial)
metal frame. Both types had a set of two
horizontal clamps, holding two rings
on each side of the scabbard, through
which it was connected to the belt. For
this connection several theories exist,
but it is currently not entirely clear how
it worked.
A similar problem exists for the dagger (pugio) sheaths, but in some cases
belt plates with attached frogs were
used for suspension. The daggers were,
like the swords, leaf-shaped, and had
rather long and thin tips with typically
a square section. Many also had a layered construction, displaying differentcolored lines along the fluting or the
central ridge. Some examples had silver- or brass- inlayed decorations and
decorative rivets with red enamel inlay
on their handles.
Three types of sheaths are known:
plain metal sheaths from Dangstetten,
metal sheaths with inlay, wooden
sheaths with a silver- or brass-inlayed
iron plate on the front and frame
sheaths similar to the frame sword
scabbards. The exact dating of these is,
due to the length of service of these objects, difficult. There are clear dates for
some plain metal sheaths and a frame
sheath from Dangstetten, as well as a
silver-inlayed dagger with red enam-
Two iron pilum fastening clamps from Kalkriese.
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land GmbH. Foto Christian Grovermann
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ply decorated u-shaped buckles were
found, whereas Haltern and Kalkriese
have brought several pelta-shaped and
more intricately decorated buckles to
light.
Over the course of this period, the
design of military belts seems to have
changed from rather simple belts with
little metal decoration to the plate
covered designs as displayed on numerous early 1st century AD military
tombstones. However, not all of those
later belts were completely covered
with plates, as finds from Idria pri Baci
(Slovenia) and Windisch (Switzerland)
suggest. As Dangstetten was only occupied by a single legion, it may also be
that finds just mirror different styles of
fashion in different legions. But since
‘earlier’ and ‘later’ types of buckles are
both found in Augsburg-Oberhausen
and in Haltern, it seems quite sensible
to assume a chronological change in
style. In the end the military belt became the status symbol that separated
civilian from soldier throughout the
Imperial period. n
elled rivets from Haltern.
Slings seem, judging by the
amount of lead sling bullets found,
to have seen wide use. Since the
slings were made of textiles or
leather, no examples survive. The
weapon seems to have been quite
successful, especially in combination with lead bullets, which could
reach a theoretical range of circa
450 m due to the high density of the
material, with enough energy to
easily penetrate a human skull.
Clothing
Only a small number of
actual clothing remains
from this period exist,
and these are mostly
from Egypt. Contemporary depictions show
soldiers mostly in white,
wide woolen tunics, although other colors like very
light blue, green or red are
also sometimes seen. The
most important source
here are the frescoes from
the so-called ‘Tomb of the
Statilii’ on the Esquiline
in Rome. Although depicting the founding myth of
Rome and thus referring
to an earlier period, it is
one of the few contemporary sources for the color of
clothing of Roman soldiers
from the Augustan period.
Tunics and tunic fragments from this time found in Egypt
are almost exclusively (off-) white, often
decorated with a pair of colored vertical stripes, the clavi. An item often worn
over the tunic and under the belt was
the so-called fascia ventralis, a kind of
cummerbund, which was used to make
the belt sit properly, perhaps preventing chafing from the belt plates and fittings, and also to form a bag for small
items, since trouser-pockets were no
option. The frescoes also suggest the
use of colored, in this case red, cloaks.
Shoes have been found for example at
Mainz, showing intricately cut sandal
patterns, with heavy, nailed soles. It
may be assumed that Roman soldiers
wore naal-bound woolen socks (udones)
inside their sandals to cope with the
climate north of the Alps. Such socks
Christian Koepfer teaches archaeology
at Augsburg university where he leads a
project on experimental archaeology.
Further reading:
© Karwansaray BV
Bronze alloy belt plates (top and bottom) and a pelta-shaped belt buckle
from Haltern. The bottom plate has
been silvered. Now in the Westfälisches
Römermuseum, Haltern.
were found in Egypt, and are depicted
on sculpture such as the late 1st century
AD Cancelleria relief in Rome.
The belts seem to have undergone
a change during this particular period.
Whereas we hardly find any rectangular or square belt plates at the site of
Dangstetten, some were found on the
other sites. Also the belt buckle seems
to change in form. In Dangstetten and
Augsburg Oberhausen mainly sim-
- G. Fingerlin,
Dangstetten:
Katalog der Funde. 2 volumes.
Forschungen und Berichte zur
Vor- und Frühgeschichte von
Baden-Württemberg 22 and 69.
Stuttgart 1986 and 1998.
- S. v. Schnurbein, ‘Die Funde von
Augsburg-Oberhausen und die
Besetzung des Alpenvorlandes
durch die Römer’, in: J. Bellot,
W. Czysz und G. Krahe (eds.):
Forschungen z. Provinzialröm.
Arch. in Bayerisch- Schwaben
(1985)
- W. Hübener, Die römischen
Metallfunde von Augsburg
Oberhausen. Kallmünz 1973
- Müller,
Die
römischen
Buntmetallfunde von Haltern.
Mainz 2002
- Hamecker, Katalog der römischen
Eisenfunde von Haltern. Mainz
1997
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Hit and run
The Germanic warrior in the 1st Century AD
The Germanic warrior confronted the Augustan legionary at a
distinct material disadvantage. The Augustan legionary was an
‘iron man’, encased in body armor and helmet, savagely armed
with a short sword and two javelins. Iron or bronze edged his
rectangular shield, culminating in an iron boss. Iron bridled the
legionary’s horse, dug his trenches, manacled his prisoners, and
even provided traction for his hobnailed boots. A legion on the
march, with approximately forty pounds of arms and armor per
soldier, bristled with over a hundred tons of steel.
By Michael J. Taylor
The abundance of iron on the Roman
side was the product of the sophisticated Mediterranean economy, and of
the complex mechanisms of the Roman
state. Iron was mined from diverse locations (Etruria, Southern Gaul, Spain,
etc.), transported to the military frontiers by a coordinated system of rivers
and roads and then hammered into
arms and armor in large-scale legionary fabricae.
Weapons and armor
Enjoying such a material advantage, a
Roman observer such as Tacitus could
only marvel at the relative scarcity
This figure is based on several finds
from Germany. He has a hexagonal
shield and a set of three spears, one is
a larger thrusting spear, while the two
others are ‘multi-purpose’ javelins. His
cloak is based on a later find, but it is
reasonable to assume that such cloaks
were already used at the time of the
Clades Variana. He has his hair tied in
a ‘suebian knot’, attested to by a bog
corpse.
of steel tools and weapons amongst
Rome’s Germanic opponents: “Iron is
not common, a fact that you might
gather from the manner of their weapons. Few have swords or long lances, but
they carry spears with short and narrow
tips which they call framea in their own
language. This is such a vicious and
handy weapon that they use it for both
long range and hand-to-hand combat.
Even the cavalryman is content with a
framea and shield. Each infantryman
spews forth many missiles, and either
naked or wearing a light cloak they hurl
them immense distances… few wear
mail, and scarcely one or two have a helmet or leather cap.” (Germania 6.1-3)
Weapons caches in Germany confirm the lack of swords and armor. A
cache in Ejsbol Moss in Denmark contained 60 swords, 190 spears, 200 javelins, and 160 shields. While it cannot
be said with certainty that any weapons cache will reflect the reality on the
battlefield, the interpretation that the
Ejsbol Moss hoard reflects the equipment of a company of 160-200 soldiers
would imply that only one-in-four Germanic warriors was lucky enough to
own a sword. Swords and armor, which
equipped the lowliest Roman soldier,
were reserved only for the wealthier
class of warriors in Germanic society.
The Germanic lack of iron was not
due to a lack of natural resources. Germany was (and remains) rich in iron
ore. Nor was it from a lack of technical
skill. Germanic smiths produced weapons of equal quality to their Roman provincial counterparts. But the primitive
nature of Germanic society and economy inhibited the mass-production of
steel. The collective efforts of village
charcoal-burners and smithies in Germania could not match the out-put of
slave-run mines in the Roman Empire,
where the ore-producing island of Elba
was nicknamed “Smokey” (Aethalia) because of the smelting fires. Nor could
the hap-hazard efforts of a few German
magnates patronizing local craftsmen
match the command-directed efforts of
legionary craftsmen.
Strategy and tactics
This basic disparity in arms and armor
would inform Germanic tactics on the
battlefield. The Germans by and large
did not seek head-to-head battles with
the Romans. Rather, they utilized ambuscades and harassment tactics. Disadvantaged in close combat, the Germanic barbarian triumphed when he
was able to rig the fight in his favor.
The Kalkriese battlefield shows clear
signs of a pre-planned ambush. Tribal
forces constructed an earthwork parallel to the route between the marsh
and mountains to conceal themselves
while the legions wandered into the
‘kill zone.’ Such ambuscades took advantage of the fact that Germania was
heavily forested and poorly drained,
with few roads. It was difficult for a legion to move and to maintain a combat
effective formation while negotiating
marsh and woodlands. Trees covered
far more of Germany in the 1st century
AD, than today; it would not be until the
high Middle Ages that the majority of
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Germany was covered by
open fields. There was
limited space convenient
for a Roman-style pitched
battle. The Romans tried
to improve their mobility
by building bridges and
military roads: Domitian
constructed over 120 miles
of road network in the
80s, but to no avail. The
construction of roads
and bridges took time,
and shortened an already limited campaigning season.
When coordinated
properly, Germanic ambushes could be devastating. Three legions,
or roughly 12,000 men,
were wiped out by
Arminius. Upwards of
1300 Romans perished
when their detachments were separated
in a bungled counterattack against the
Frisii in 28 AD. An entire legion, the 5th
Alaudae, disappeared
off the books during
an incursion against
the Dacians sponsored
by Domitian in 85-86
AD, presumably annihilated.
Yet coordinated ambushes were still rare.
The leadership necessary to coordinate
complex ambushes
was often lacking
amongst the Germanic tribes, which
remained non-state
societies where the
power of leaders rested primarily in persuasion and example.
A leader like Arminius
was exceptional, able
Single-edged Germanic slashing sword
dated to the early Imperial era. Now in
the Museum for Pre- and Early history,
Berlin.
44
to forge a multi-tribal coalition and to
coordinate a complex ambush, which
included coercing the drudgery required to dig earthworks. But Arminius
paid for his unusual authority. Tribesmen alarmed by his waxing power
murdered him. Likewise, Marboduus, a
king who forged the Marcomanni into
an increasingly centralized state, soon
suffered exile by those who resented
his novel powers. Roman diplomatic efforts, which subsidized and rewarded
loyal chieftains, further frustrated coordinated resistance. Arminius’ brother
Flavus and his father-in-law Segestes
remained Roman collaborators even after the destruction of Varus’ army.
The most prominent Germanic tactic was simply to avoid a pitched battle
altogether, and wait for the Romans to
retire back to their side of the Rhine.
Julius Caesar encountered virtually no
resistance in his twin crossings of the
Rhine in 55 and 52 BC, doing little but
burn a few abandoned huts; his Suebic opponents withdrew to the forests
to wait out the invasion. Roman commanders were repeatedly frustrated by
the unwillingness of their opponents to
do battle, knowing that they would easily triumph if they could only achieve a
pitched battle. For outclassed Germans
discretion was the better part of valor.
When the Germans did offer
pitched battle, the basic tactical formation for both infantry and cavalry was
the wedge (cuneus). The advantages
of a wedge formation are many, especially when moving through a heavily
forested area. Wedge formations allow
for both forward movement and flank
protection. A wedge can flatten into
a forward facing line to face a frontal
attack, or collapse into a column to receive an attack from the flank. With
a wedge, only the point makes initial
contact with the enemy, allowing the
decision to either commit the entire
body or withdraw before too many
warriors are engaged. Smashing into
an enemy formation, a wedge produces
a natural double ‘echelon’ attack. The
enemy in the center reacts to contact
from the point, often by weakening the
flanks, which are then hit by the outer
edges of the wedge. Certainly their use
of wedge formations impressed Roman
commanders, who sometimes adopted
this formation as well.
The skills of Germanic cavalry were
notable enough to prompt the Romans
to recruit Germanic mercenary cavalry.
However, Germanic horsemen were severely disadvantaged by the inferiority
of their mounts. Skeletons of Germanic
horses reveal that they were significantly smaller than Roman breeds. The
Romans often re-mounted Germanic
mercenaries on superior Gallic steeds.
Germanic cavalrymen were seldom better armed or armored than their infantry counterparts, carrying only a spear
and small shield. According to Tacitus,
they where capable of rudimentary
maneuvers, particularly a right wheel,
but nothing comparable to complex
equestrian exercises practiced by Roman horsemen. Caesar claims that Germanic riders often dismounted to fight,
essentially using their horses as taxi
services rather than combat-platforms,
a phenomenon like linked to both the
inferior size of horse and a lack of effective cavalry saddles.
Germanic armies were perhaps
more conspicuous for what they could
not do. They could not build a bridge.
They could not assault a walled town.
They could not construct artillery pieces, unless aided by Roman prisoners
or deserters. Even archers were rare in
the 1st century AD, although by the 2nd
Century the Germanic warrior had embraced the military use of the bow. Germanic war-bands had no supply train;
the warriors either carried their own
rations or lived off the land, and hunger plagued offensive operations. These
factors put Germanic armies at a severe
disadvantage when faced with the superior military capabilities of Rome.
Retinues and raiding
The basic combat unit in Germanic
society was the retinue (comitatus). A
prominent man (princeps) kept a band
of young warriors from his personal
resources. In the time of Caesar, these
retinues were temporary, a posse that
formed around an ad-hoc leader for the
purpose of a single raid. The retinue
dispersed when the objective was accomplished. By Tacitus’ time, however,
retinues had become permanent, and
retinue leaders formed an increasingly
distinct elite in German society. The
retinue leader provided his followers
with arms, and feasted them in times
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man wine, eating of Roman tableware
and wearing Roman jewelry. In short,
economic and military contact with
Rome facilitated social stratification in
Germanic society, creating a new warrior elite, who “when not at war pass
some of their time at hunting, but more
in leisure, devoted to food and sleep.”
(Germania 15.1)This new warrior-class
increasingly took a greater share of societal wealth for itself. Caesar reports
that land in Germany was redistributed yearly, to avoid economic stratification. By Tacitus’ time, the same annual
distributions occurred, “only now lands
are partitioned according to dignity. ”
(Germania 26.1) More ominously, some
retinue leaders received yearly gifts
from both individuals and communities. While Tactitus stresses that these
contributions were voluntary, they
seem suspiciously similar to ‘protection’ money extorted by modern mafia.
Retinue members closely followed
their leader, who was distinguished by
superior arms and armor. Unlike common warriors, the retinue leader would
likely carry a sword rather than a spear,
wear some form of body armor and
possibly don a helmet. Tacitus sums
up the relationship in combat between
leader and retinue: “when they come to
battle, it is a disgrace for leaders to be
surpassed in battle by their retinues,
it is shameful for members of retinues
not to equal their leaders. Truly, it is the
greatest infamy to return from battle
having survived one’s leader. To defend
him, to guard him, to assign one’s own
mighty deeds to his glory is the highest
bond of loyalty.” (Germania 14.1-2)
cowardice.
Given that the fighting capabilities
of the male population no doubt varied
significantly, select youths were picked
on the basis of martial ability to form
an elite vanguard of the general mass.
Supposedly, elite bands of 100 infantry,
appropriately called ‘Hundreds’ were
picked by each canton (pagus), which
then ran alongside the cavalry in battle.
Yet the ‘Hundred’ in Tacitus is controversial. In the Middle Ages, the term
‘Hundred’ was used as an administrative unit (in England a sub-division of a
shire). Some scholars believe that Tacitus confused the term for “the levy from
the (administrative) hundred” with “a
company of 100 men.” However, there
is no good reason to discount Tacitus;
it is quite possible that Medieval administrative ‘Hundreds’ developed out
of military units, just as Roman voting
centuries developed out of armed companies.
Should the picked Hundreds fail
in battle, a levee en masse of all males
might mobilize to counter the emer-
The Germanic horde
In the background of increasingly aggressive retinues, the tribal militia
remained, mobilizing the male population for both defense and for shortterm offensive operations. Most free
Germanic peasants were expected to
own arms. The major rite of passage for
a Germanic boy was to be presented before a tribal assembly with a shield and
spear, symbolizing his new role in both
political and military affairs. The tribal
levy doubled as a political assembly in
which armed citizens debated war and
peace, elected temporary war-chiefs
and tried capital cases, particularly
military crimes involving desertion and
© Karwansaray BV
of peace. Moveable wealth, in the form
of rings and torques, was the primary
form of reward (the theme of a chief or
king as ‘ring-giver’ is repeated in medieval Germanic literature; modern readers will see it reflected in the works of
JRR Tolkien). A retinue chief was obliged
to pursue constant raiding activities: he
needed a steady stream of booty to pay
and feed his retinue.
The raid was the standard form of
Germanic warfare. In a society with limited moveable wealth, raids sought primarily slaves and cattle. The successful
Germanic raider found a ready market
for both in the Roman Empire. German
slaves (particularly blondes) were a luxury item in Rome. Roman slave traders
wandered deep into the frontiers, buying up hapless barbarians enslaved by
inter-tribal raiding. Meanwhile, cattle
had always been a primary source of
wealth amongst German society, producing a vigorous culture of cattleraids. Rustled cows served to feast the
retinues, but also found ready market
in the Roman camps, where hides were
utilized to produce the thousands of
tents and boots required to shelter and
shod the legions. The Frisii were even
required to pay tribute to Rome in the
form of hides. The advent of a Roman
market for cattle and slaves may have
stimulated an increased in inter-tribal
raiding (as well as raids into Roman
Gaul) as ambitious retinue leaders
sought to obtain cattle and slaves which
could in turn be exchanged for Roman
luxury goods such as spices and wine.
Revenues from raids also financed the
purchase of smuggled Roman weapons.
With these purchases retinue leaders
could arm their retinues with Roman
swords and feast them in Roman style.
This allowed them to recruit bigger retinues, and raid even more aggressively.
Thus was the self-reinforcing economic
cycle of violence in Germanic society.
Indeed, E.A. Thompson has argued
that development of permanent retinues between the time of Caesar (50s
BC) and the time of Tacitus (98 AD)
was very likely a direct result of Roman
contact. Violent Roman incursions disrupted old equilibriums of power, and
caused people to look to new military
leaders for protection. The increased influx of Roman luxury goods allowed a
new elite to define itself by drinking Ro-
Edging of a hexagonal shield and decorated shield boss found in eastern Germany. Now in the Museum for Pre- and
Early history, Berlin.
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gency of invasion. Thus when Germanicus defeated the crack Cheruscan army
of Arminius in 16 AD, he subsequently
encountered a general force of “chiefs
and commons, young and old.” (Annals
2.19)
The mass of tribal infantry usually
received the contempt of the Romans
for poor discipline and performance.
Tacitus reports one exception: the Chatti, who unlike the other Germans “know
their place in the ranks, recognize opportunities, advance at a steady pace, plan
by day, entrench by night, relying not on
fortune, which is dubious, but on courage, which is certain. Moreover, they
obey a leader rather than the whims
of the army, something otherwise conceded only to Roman discipline. You will
see other Germans going to battle; the
Chatti go to war.” (Germania 30.2-3.)
Certainly Tacitus sees the imprint
of the Roman army on the Chatii. Given
the service of many Germanic warriors
as Roman auxiliaries, we can hypothesize that some attempted to reform
their forces along Roman lines, enforcing foreign standards of discipline and
subordination upon largely egalitarian
tribal levies. However, if some chieftains did indeed attempt to reform
their army along Roman lines (and we
have only hints that they did so), they
largely failed. It was simply impossible
for non-state societies to replicate the
patterns of authority and institutions
of command in their sophisticated and
stratified Roman neighbor.
Germanic armies were organized
along family lines, a fact which draws
praise from Tacitus, who believed that
this inspired courage and solidarity.
Women often accompanied their lovedones. Tacitus describes them as ‘cheerleaders’ on the edge of battle, although
they also doubled as crude logisticians,
providing both “food and encouragement to the fighting men.” Women
priestesses, such as Julius Civilis’ advisor Veleda, even played an important
role in strategic and tactical decisionmaking through their roles as augurs
and prophetesses.
In battle
While the vast majority of Germanic
warfare consisted of small-scale raids,
forays and skirmishes, large-scale battles did occur, often as a result of Roman
46
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The opposing armies
This fairly small spear point may have
tipped what Tacitus called a framea,
used both as thrusting weapon and
thrown as a javelin. Now in the Museum for Pre- and Early history, Berlin.
incursion into Germanic territory. Setpiece battles on occasion also erupted
between Germanic factions: In AD 18,
a coalition of Cherusci and Langobardi
under Arminius defeated Marboduus
and his Marcomanni. The Chatti battled
the Hermunduri for control of salt-flats
in 58 AD; the Hermunduri emerged victorious and sacrificed all their captives
to evidence their gratitude to the gods.
In 98 AD, Roman observers watched as a
coalition of Chamavi and Angrivarii defeated the Bructeri, with exaggerated
reports of some 60,000 killed.
Songs and chants marked the beginning of battle for the Germanic
force. These songs recounted the deeds
of gods and past heroes, and were in-
tended to at once intimidate opponents and to cement group solidarity
before the crisis of battle. The period of
singing also allowed each side to gain a
sense of the size and spirit of the opponent; whoever sang the loudest could
expect victory. The positive effect of
the rumbling war-chant (barritus) on
morale can be measured by the fact
that the Romans adopted an identical
low-pitched war-cry, hurling back the
haunting bellows that greeted them on
the cusp of battle.
Another marker of group solidarity
was the presence of idols and totems
of various gods. These religious objects
would have been in many ways analogous to the eagles and signa of the Roman army (which were also imbued
with quasi-religious significance), serving as a rallying points in battle and as
a symbols of common identity.
Battle was joined at a distance, with
the exchange of great volleys of frameae. Germanic warriors carried multiple
darts, and Romans noted their ability
to hurl them great distances, largely
because they were un-encumbered by
cuirasses (the emperor Hadrian considered hurling javelins while burdened by
body-armor to be the most difficult feat
a Roman soldier could perform). It was
important to recover spent missiles in
lulls; Tacitus reports that the refusal of
Germanicus’s legions to withdraw frustrated Cheruscan attempts to reclaim
their spent javelins. In the worst-case
scenario, the Germanic warrior was reduced to hurling rocks.
At some point, combatants closed
to fight hand to hand, although such
close combat was usually brief; the
weaker side withdrew when it sensed
that it was outclassed. Tactius suggests
that most confrontations oscillated repeatedly between sudden assaults and
temporarily withdrawals. With a touch
of characteristic sarcasm he notes “to
fall back from a position, only to surge
forward again, they judge to be strategy rather than cowardice.” (Germania
6.6)
In his assault, the Germanic warrior inspired great terror in the Roman
legionary. He was on average taller and
more heavily built than his Roman
counter-part, thanks to a diet rich in
meat and cheese. Unencumbered by armor, the Germanic warrior could indeed
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rush on with great speed, in assaults
that could unnerve a line of Roman infantry, causing them to break their wall
of shields. Arminius was sure to secure
the high ground opposite Germanicus
in 16 AD, so as to add momentum to his
warriors’ charge.
The Germanic commander, be he
king or chieftain, led in a heroic style.
Arminius was badly wounded in battle
with Germanicus, and smeared his face
with blood in order to be better recognized. Vannius, deposed king of the
Suevi, added honor to his exile by suffering a wound in a glorious last stand.
Germanic warriors expected such heroic leadership, but had its disadvantages. The Germanic commander was
in a poor position to actually control
the battle once it began, unlike his Roman counterpart who rarely indulged
in personal combat but was able to direct maneuvers from the rear.
If the Romans held firm, however,
their superiority in arms and armor
would soon force a withdrawal, prompting Roman accusations that Germanic
peoples lacked physical endurance. In
reality, they were often merely regrouping for another assault. At other times,
a deliberate withdrawal encouraged an
over-exuberant Roman pursuit, which
disadvantaged them as they lost their
cohesion and discipline in the pursuit.
If outclassed and forced into a rout,
the defeated side withdrew into areas
of dense forest or marshland to hinder
pursuit. Nonetheless, Tacitus reports
that every effort was made by Germanic warriors to recover the bodies of fallen comrades. Leaving behind a shield
on the battlefield was also considered
a mark of high shame (as it was for a
Roman soldier).
The end of a battle between the Roman army and Germanic tribes was not
the end of the campaign. The Romans,
usually victorious, would throw up a
trophy and salute their commander. But
the Roman army must inevitably withdraw. The commissary wagons would
run low on grain; the early northern
winter would soon impinge on further
operations. As the Romans turned back
for the frontier, the ‘defeated’ Germans
harassed the Roman rear. Roman soldiers were secure from ambush only
when they settled back into their legionary bases.
Germania and Rome
Roman propaganda from Caesar onward tried to emphasize the threat of
Germanic invasion. Caesar himself recalled the invasion of the Cimbri and
Teutones, defeated by his maternal uncle Gaius Marius, as justification for his
own intervention against the Germanic
war-band of Ariovistus. Augustus, following the Kalkriese disaster, repeated
the same religious rituals that had been
performed after the Cimbric victory at
Arausio nearly a century before. Domitian advertised his actions against the
Chatti in the 80s, although there was
malicious gossip that lacking genuine
victories and real prisoners he graced a
sham Germanic triumph with actors in
blond wigs. In the time of Trajan, Tacitus
could argue that the Germanic tribes
were an even more dangerous threat
than the mighty Parthian Empire.
But we should not be deceived by
this apparent concern in Roman sources into thinking that the disunited and
under-organized tribes of Germania
posed a significant threat to the Roman
Empire in the early Empire. The Romans
themselves, when they set literary
bombast aside, referred to Germanic
incursions as mere banditry (latronicinium). The barbarian problem was,
in the words of historian Peter Brown,
little more than a “crime wave.” The
Romans were able to hold a sparsely
defended frontier with an incredibly
circumscribed force. In 20 AD eight legions with auxiliaries, approximately
70,000 troops, manned the 820 mile
stretch of the Rhine, with an average
density of roughly 85 soldiers per mile.
Four legions, roughly 40,000 soldiers
with attached auxiliaries, manned the
1771 mile Danube frontier, with an average density of less than 25 soldiers per
mile.
Yet Roman contact was causing
changes in German society. Smaller
tribes were forging new confederacies to deal with the Roman threat. The
leaders in these political efforts were
the new class of warrior aristocracy, the
retinue leaders, whose development
was encouraged in part due to military
and economic contacts with Rome. By
the 3rd century, when the historian Ammianus Marcellinus picks up, old tribes
like the Cherusci and Chatti have disappeared, to be replaced by new configu-
rations: the Alamanni (“The Tribe of Everybody”), Saxons (“the Swordsmen”),
Franks (“Fierce Ones”), and Goths (“the
Good Guys”). With Rome wracked by a
slew of civil wars, and the army withdrawn from the frontiers, the Germanic
peoples emerged for the first time as
serious threats to Roman survival.
Yet these developments lay far in
the future at the time of the clades Variana. The victorious alliance of Arminius
by no means hobbled Roman power. His
victory simply convinced the Romans
that conquering Germania was more
trouble than it was worth. Romans had
being willing to endure far heavier casualties and far more significant setbacks to conquer other lands. But Germania, a heavily forested land which
could grown neither grapes nor olives,
was adjudged as not worth the cost. Yet
the imperial power of Rome continued
to be felt with great force. Arminius’ estranged nephew, Italicus, was taken to
Rome and raised as a Roman citizen. In
47 AD, the emperor Claudius imperiously imposed Italicus upon the unwilling
Cherusci, where he “was an affliction
to the Cheruscan people.” (Annals 11.17)
Despite the victory at Kalkriese, the Germanic tribes enjoyed their liberty only
under the ominous shadow of imperial
Rome. n
Michael J. Taylor earned a BA in History
from Princeton university and is currently a graduate student in Ancient
History at UC Berkeley. He is also an officer in the California National Guard and
a veteran of the Iraq war.
Further reading:
- J.G.C. Anderson, Tacitus:
Germania. Bristol 1997
- M. Todd, The Early Germans.
Oxford 1994
- P. Wells, The Barbarians Speak.
Princeton 1999
- E.A. Thompson, The Early
Germans. Oxford 1965
- M.P. Speidel, Ancient Germanic
Warriors. London and New York
2004
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Arming the warrior
Archaeological evidence
Research into ancient German peoples suffered from a lack of
interest and perhaps even stigmatization in Germany between 1945
and the 1970s. The Nazis had greatly misused extant historical and
archaeological evidence to fit their ideological and mystical
ideas: to do so, they often preferred to make the evidence fit their
ideas of ‘German’ history instead of letting the data speak for
itself. It took a while for the subject to become respectable again,
while the last archaeologists and historians which were worked
for, or under, the Nazis slowly were replaced by a younger generation in the last quarter of the 20th century. These new archaeologists generally had to base their work on results pre-dating
the 1930s, but as new finds came to light, the old and new could
be combined, resulting in new insights. It remains a politically sensitive topic, however.
By Christian Koepfer
In the following I will introduce some
recent results of research into the arms
and equipment of Germanic warriors.
Simultaneously I will attempt to give
an insight into the archaeological problems one encounters in this field.
Chronology and sources
One of the major problems in the academic discourse is that the terminology defines groups, which did not really
exist as such. The modern historian
needs to group cultures. Doing so, he is
then able to show differences and similarities and discuss these. The ancient
societies in question, however, defined
themselves through attachment to a
certain tribe and not through abstract
terms like ‘Germans’ or ‘Celts’.
Having said that, it is also important to remember that not all of these
tribes were actually ‘Germanic’ in origin. Some of them had ‘Celtic’ roots,
despite deriving from the right side
of the river Rhine. The famous mat48
ter-of-fact statement that the Gauls
lived on the left side of the Rhine and
the Germans on the other comes from
Caesar, who made it fit his own agenda. The individual tribes, such as the
Chatti, the Cherusci, the Hermunduri,
and all the others, were culturally and
politically independent entities which
nevertheless had a lot in common. They
were separated by differences in customs, attire and dialects.
Unfortunately, archaeologically
these groups can barely be separated.
The archaeologist Kossinna attempted
to do so in the early days of pre-historic
studies, but failed. It did not work for a
variety of reasons, the main one being
that certain material evidence must
not necessarily be linked to certain
cultures. For example, a certain type
of weapon burial could be used in a
certain region, which in itself may have
been split among several tribes, which
in their turn had a faction living in
that region using other burial customs
than the rest of the tribe. Or certain
items could simply have been traded
between tribes, thus suggesting a large
area of a singular tribe, where in reality
there were several ones.
Another difficulty when dealing
with this topic arises from the fact that
we have hardly any ‘absolute’ (independently verifiable) dates which can be
applied to the relative chronology of
the material culture of the Germanic
tribes. In other words: there is no skeleton to hang the flesh on. Most dates
given are rather vague, and many questions about when an item was in use
and in which context, have to remain
unanswered for the moment.
To make matters worse, the extent
of archaeological prospecting has been
quite uneven: some areas are archaeologically well documented, whereas
others are not. This can lead to a distorted image. Finally, the narrative
sources such as Tacitus or Cassius Dio
are far from ideal. They have biases as
explained elsewhere in this volume,
they are full of internal contradictions,
and often do not concur with the material evidence. Therefore, most statements made about specific ‘Germanic’
topics, in our case armament, have to
remain approximations for now.
With all these caveats in mind, one
archaeological source stands above all
others: a number of weapon graves
discovered along the river Elbe and in
Denmark.
Defensive equipment
Germanic warriors in the Augustan era
seem to have worn no – or very little –
body armor. No helmets have been discovered in Germanic context and only
some fragments of Roman chain mail
were found. Those had been deposited
in a grave after having been cut into
This warrior has a set of two ‘multipurpose’ spears and a round shield.
This equipment is typical for the period: a large number of grave finds show
this or very similar equipment.
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© Johnny Shumate
The opposing armies
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Grave goods found in the area of the Treveri tribe (Trier region,
Germany) dated to about AD 40-50. The deceased was buried
with his most valuable possessions according to tribal tradition and shows how quickly they were Romanized. He had a
gladius style sword, a Roman pickaxe, coinage and ceramics.
The Treveri tribe supplied Rome with cavalry units since the
early Augustan era, such as in the Ala Petriana Treverorum.
Now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier.
small pieces.
The only type of protection that is
attested in large amounts comes in
the form of shields. Around 60 percent
of warrior graves proved to contain a
metal shield boss. Most of those were
conical and ended in a spiked point,
which suggests an offensive use as
well: the shield bearer could thrust
forward with his shield hand and thus
could cause blunt trauma injuries to
his opponent. The shield bosses were
held in place by groups of first rather
flat and later strongly domed rivets.
A number of these shields also had
short metal grip reinforcements on the
inside. Shield shapes of the time seem
to have been mainly round, although
hexagonal and long-oval shields were
Chronological terminology
a l s o used. The shield boards
consisted mostly of planks of
alder wood, but some fragments
also show the use of oak, fir, beech and
birch. The planks were glued to each
other side by side, tapering towards the
shield rim. Again, there are exceptions
as an example from Vaedebro shows,
in which the shield boards were made
from a single plank.
The whole construction was held
together by rawhide facings on the
out- and probably also on the inside
of the shield boards. In some cases
metal edging for the shield was found
as well. Evidence from finds from the
northern German area suggests that
the shields were painted in bright colors in geometric patterns. Some shields
may have been decorated with bracteate (decorated metal) plates, however
the dating of these objects is difficult.
Archaeology has developed a series of methods which are
all linked to a clear terminology describing methodological
necessities, results and procedures.
Chronology requires terms describing situations mirrored by singular findings or series of findings. There are
two types of chronology, relative chronology and absolute
chronology. Relative chronologies try to establish how individual findings relate to each other, that is, which objects
in a series are older and which are younger. Relative chronologies can be established through a variety of methods,
for example by interpreting stylistic elements of a certain
group of objects. A good example is changing shapes of
fibula brooches. There are more methods to determine relative chronology. Vertical stratigraphy is the identification
of different layers of soil to explore what is deeper in the
ground (older) and what further up (younger). Horizontal
stratigraphy identifies the consecutive deposition within a
layer, for example on a graveyard: which graves were dug
first and which were added later.
Absolute chronologies describe when a certain event took
place, counting a number of years, months and days before
or after an established date, such as Ab Urbe Condita (From
the foundation of the City) or the traditional Western one:
50
They may have come in use only in the
course of the first century AD, or at its
end. They therefore were probably not
in use during the Clades Variana. For
the oft-mentioned ‘whicker-shields’ no
evidence has come to light so far.
Offensive equipment
The main Germanic weapons were
the spear and javelin. Large numbers
of spearheads were found, allowing
archaeologists to establish a rough
typology based on their shape. Objects
to be classified as spearheads need to
be at least 15 cm long and have to have
a thickness of at least 1.1 cm in one
place. The smaller javelin-heads usually have two barbs, in some few cases
only one. Spear and javelin shafts were
mostly made from ash wood. Javelin
shafts were often tapered from their
barycentre outwards in both direc-
the calculated date of the birth of Christ.
In some cases a certain date of a relative chronology
can be linked to a date in an absolute chronology, allowing all other objects in the relative chronology to be dated
before or after this particular date. The terms used here
are terminus post quem (date after which) and terminus
ante quem (date before which). Linking relative chronologies to the absolute chronology is a very rare opportunity.
For Roman history and archaeology a very important and
famous example of such a link is the site of Pompeii: all
objects found there can were constructed on or before
August 24 AD. So everything found on the site has a terminus ante quem of August 24 AD 79. The date is known
from a letter by Pliny the Younger. As often, dating was a
puzzle even here. Had the literary account not survived,
it would have been considerably more difficult to link the
relative chronology of the site to an absolute date. A single
piece of evidence in the puzzle can often make all the difference. That is the reason why it is so important to protect
archaeological sites from illegal looting. The information
gained from archaeological sites tells us, in the end, a lot
more about the past than the objects alone and out of their
archaeological context.
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Photo Christian Grovermann
tions. It is justifiable to assume that
the shafts often were decorated with
geometric carvings under the head, as
can be deduced from later finds. Based
on notches found on the edges of some
of the larger leaf-shaped spearheads
it has been suggested that these were
not only used as thrusting weapons,
but also as slashing weapons. This has
to remain a speculation however, since
the notches may also have been applied
on purpose to show ‘battle experience’.
In general spears seem to have been
used to thrust, although it cannot be
excluded that they also were thrown
when the situation required it. The
shape of many spearheads suggest a
multi-purpose weapon. In fact, only
over the course of the next two centuries did the typical ‘spear-sets’ with
distinctively different weapons come
into being. A clear division between
hunting gear and weapon cannot be
made for spears and javelins, probably
the same weapon was used in both
situations. Butt spikes for both spears
and javelins are extremely rare in the
archaeological record, so were probably
rarely used.
Swords are also rather rarely seen
among the finds. The two-edged versions and their scabbards are similar to
the late La Tène-type and seem to have
been used mainly by cavalry. At the
same time single-edged swords seem
to have been en vogue among those
foot soldiers who could afford such
weapons. They had a tang that partially enclosed the hand, similar to the
Greek falcate, but with a straight and
flat blade.
Knives are present in the archaeological record in considerable numbers,
but the context seems to suggest that
these were not regarded as weapons.
In average the blades are rather short
(7-12cm), and they were found evenly
distributed among male, female, and
child burials. Moreover, they were not
burned before inhumation, contrary to
almost all other types of weapons. A
similar situation can be observed for
axes and hatchets, as well as for bows
and arrow. Although these objects are
documented in a few cases, there is
so far no conclusive reason to identify
them as weapons of war in this period.
The combinations in which weapons were deposited in graves tells
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land GmbH.
The opposing armies
us how the individual soldiers were
equipped; of which items their panoply
consisted. These can be grouped as follows: A: Sword, shield, spear; B: Shield,
spear; C: Shield; D: Spear(s); E: Sword; F:
Sword, shield. It is difficult to deduce
tactical or social propositions from
these groupings, however. Only group A
seems to be regularly related to cavalry,
so a higher status of the deceased can
be assumed in those cases.
Clothing
A number of Germanic textiles have
been found in the northern bogs, mainly
in Denmark and in Schleswig-Holstein
(on the German-Danish border). A certain continuity in dress can be observed
for Germanic males. Generally they
wore woolen trousers, a long-sleeved
woolen tunic and a rectangular woolen
cloak. Details of the weaving patterns
and decorations of the cloaks are well
documented, showing quite bright colors for the cloaks, with complicated
multi-color checkered patterns and
striped tablet-woven decorations along
the rims, which were often additionally
decorated with tassels. The cloaks were
usually woven on a weighted loom
in one piece, applying different weaving techniques, such as different types
of twill. Tunics and trousers seem to
have been monochrome, but often had
tablet-woven rims as well to stabilize
the borders and prolong the life of the
clothes. As we have seen, the archaeological evidence is quite difficult to
interpret for a variety of reasons. So far
it is still difficult to get an exact picture
of the Germanic warriors that took part
in the defeat of Varus’ army. However, a
good approximation can be made. Not
too surprisingly, this approximation is
quite congruent with Tacitus´ report
Metal parts of a Germanic shield, found
in Kalkriese. It may have belonged
either to a Germanic warrior fighting
against the Romans or to a Germanic
warrior in Roman service.
about the Germanic warriors:
"But few use swords or long lances.
They carry a spear (framea is their
name for it), with a narrow and
short head, but so sharp and easy
to wield that the same weapon
serves, according to circumstances,
for close or distant conflict. As for
the horse-soldier, he is satisfied with
a shield and spear; the foot-soldiers
also scatter showers of missiles,
each man having several and hurling them to an immense distance,
and being naked or lightly clad with
a little cloak. There is no display
about their equipment: their shields
alone are marked with very choice
colors. A few only have corselets,
and just one or two here and there
a metal or leather helmet."
Tacitus, Germania 1.6
Christian Koepfer is a regular
contributor n
Further reading
- W. Adler, Studien zur germanischen Bewaffnung. Bonn 1993
- L. Jorgensen et. al. (ed.), The spoils
of victory. Gylling 2003
- T. Weski, Waffe in germanischen
Gräbern der älteren römischen
Kaiserzeit südlich der Ostsee. BAR
International Series 147, Oxford
1982.
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The battle
Arminius’ masterstroke
The campaign of AD 9
In September AD 9 the Roman empire suffered its greatest setback at
the battle of Teutoburg Forest in northern Germany. “The heaviest defeat the Romans had suffered on foreign soil”, wrote one
contemporary of the battle. The winners: Arminius, a nobleman
of the Cherusci, a tribe that dominated the area that roughly
corresponds to the southern part of the modern state of Lower
Saxony, and his confederation of Germanic warriors. The losers:
Publius Quinctilius Varus and three legions, three cavalry alae
and six auxiliary units.
By Adrian Murdoch
as he paced his palace on the Palatine
Hill in Rome, is well-known, but so serious was the loss of Legions XVII, XVIII,
XIX that the survivors of the battle
were banned from Italy, the legions
themselves were never replaced and
in due course the Rhine became a barrier between civilisation and barbarism
that was only ever unwillingly crossed
© Carlos de la Rocha
Arminius did what no military leader
up to then had been able to do and
few afterwards were to attempt. He
stopped the Roman empire in its tracks
and halted any imperial pretentions
east of the Rhine.
The emperor Augustus’ plaintive cry
of “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my
legions” (Suetonius, Life of Augustus 23),
even into late antiquity.
Little wonder that Arminius himself
soon became a mythologized figure
of German might. A massive statue of
the Cheruscan leader, the 26.5 metre
tall Hermannsdenkmal near Detmold,
remains one of the more popular tourist attractions in Germany. He is as
popular today as he ever was, thanks
to the discovery in 1987 of the battlefield itself near the town of Kalkriese
in Lower Saxony by an amateur British
archaeologist – a find justifiably trumpeted in one German newspaper as “a
second Troy”.
The significance of the battle on
German national consciousness can
hardly be exaggerated. This, the 2000th
anniversary of what the Germans call
the Varusschlacht, has been embraced
by the whole country, from German
chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened
Imperium – Conflict – Myth, the year’s
flagship exhibition to the battle, to
publishers who have flooded the mar-
52
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ket with new volumes describing the
conflict.
But how much do we actually know
about the conflict itself?
Contemporary accounts of the
Roman campaign in AD 9 are, inevitably, fragmentary. It is possible to
piece together a plausible account
of what happened to Varus and his
three legions, but there are discrepancies between the accounts of all of
the classical historians that go well
beyond their personal biases. Tacitus
describes the battlefield but not the
battle; Velleius Paterculus gives a considerable amount of background to the
events and Florus adds colour. Only
Cassius Dio gives us the details of the
battle itself. But all of them are wise
after the event and none of them were
there.
Varus, one of the Roman empire's
most experienced administrators and
officers, spent 9 AD on the minutiae of
provincial governorship - the process
of turning Germany into a province.
It was the setting up of governmental
infrastructure, day-to-day diplomacy,
the drudge of community patrolling
and escort duty – all that went with a
new province. There had been no military action to speak of.
At the end of August, he closed up
the summer camp at Minden on the
River Weser, a couple of miles downstream from the historic Minden Gap.
The campaign season was at an end
and it was time to head back to his
headquarters in Xanten.
An Augustan camp was discovered
in Porta Westfalica in the summer of
2008 in Barkhausen, a suburb of Porta
Westfalica, near Minden-Lübbecke. The
finds of what appear to be a marching
camp, rather than a permanent structure, date to the reign of Augustus and
his push into Germany in the last years
of the first century BC and early AD.
While archaeologists were careful not
to proclaim that they had found Varus’
summer camp, it is, at least, a plausible
identification.
Varus sets out
As far as Varus was concerned it had
been a good year. The only fly in the
ointment had been a warning he had
received just before the army set out.
Some days before departure, Segestes,
© Stéphane Lagrange
The battle
Equipped for a march through the inclement weather of late-Summer northern
Germany, the legionaries were well armed and armoured, but, tired and soaked,
not in the best condition to defend themselves from the German hit-and-run
tactics. This legionary is equipped with a combination of items evidenced by
Augustan era sites, such as the Coolus-type helmet, the belt plates and a pilum
reconstructed after an Oberaden find.
a pro-Roman Cheruscan noble and
later Arminius' (unwilling) father-inlaw, had come to Varus to warn him
that Arminius was plotting to overthrow Roman rule. Segestes demanded
that the plotters be thrown in chains
immediately or at the very least that
the governor be on his guard.
Varus dismissed these demands
out of hand. And why shouldn't he? He
and Arminius had been constant companions throughout the summer. The
Cherusci were not only allies and had
given no sign of resenting the Roman
yoke, but Arminius himself was a wellrespected and integrated leader.
Arminius had been an officer in the
Roman army seeing action somewhere
in the northern Balkans during what are
known as the Pannonian uprisings, the
revolts that shook the empire after AD
6. The Roman historian Tacitus writes
that Arminius “served… as commander of his fellow-countrymen” (Annals
2.10) the senior officer of an auxiliary
corps. He clearly distinguished himself.
Arminius’ service record was significant
enough for him to have earned not just
coveted Roman citizenship but promotion to equestrian status, the admired
middle class.
The rejection of Segestes’ intelliAncient Warfare
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The battle
gence report hides a broader Roman
blunder. Varus misunderstood not only
the extent to which Germany was in
any sense pro-Roman or even pacified,
he completely failed to appreciate the
potential for unity among the Germanic
tribes. After the dinners and the close
comradeship, the idea of betrayal never
once crossed Varus’ mind.
Arminius' trap was sprung with a
finesse bordering on genius. He had
organised an uprising within the fledgling province to draw the Roman army
out. This was a subtle manoeuvre. It
had to be a significant enough incident
for Varus to feel he had to lead the
army personally to put it down, but not
so serious a revolt to awake suspicions
either that it was a trap or that it was a
precursor to a more concerted national
uprising.
With the Angrivarii, whose territory was predominantly between the
Weser and the Elbe, just north of the
modern town of Hanover, primed to
rise up, Arminius planned to ambush
the Romans when they were off their
guard. He reckoned that they could
be overpowered easily while marching through what they believed to be
friendly territory.
As the Roman legions marched out,
heading northwest, Varus was later to
be criticised for not ordering the army
to march in a state of full war-readiness. The train was scattered with civilians, men, women and children from
the camp. As with so much that was
written at the time, it is difficult not to
see this as wisdom after the fact. It was
a march through friendly, not hostile
territory.
The Roman army
The subject of how many men Varus
had with him on his fateful march
has been endlessly debated. Velleius
Paterculus states that “three legions,
the same number of divisions of cavalry
and six cohorts” (2.117) were involved.
At face value that would give a figure
of around 18,000 legionaries, around
900 cavalry and a further 3,600 allied
auxiliaries. That would account for the
figure of 22,500 men which is commonly bandied about.
But it is extremely unlikely that all,
if any, of the battalions were fighting at
full strength. Surviving accounts of day54
to-day strength reports suggest a much
lower figure. The report of a cohort
which was found at Vindolanda camp
on Hadrian’s Wall and dates to the end
of the first century says that the first
cohort of Tungrians from Northern Gaul
was 752 men strong commanded by six
centurions. Of those 752 men, forty-six
were on secondment to the governor
of Britain’s guard; 337 men and two
centurions were at Corbridge, another
camp on the Wall; and one centurion
was in London on business unknown. It
is impossible to read where the others
were, but in the end, there were only
296 men left in Vindolanda under one
centurion – of whom thirty-five were
unfit for duty, either ill or wounded.
That leaves 35% of the men on active
service.
This state of affairs is corroborated
by a daily report from the third century
on a detachment of soldiers found on
an ostracon (pottery-shard) in Bu Njem
in Tripolitania. Of the fifty-seven men
stationed at the fort, more than half
were away on exercises, sick, or seconded to other projects.
None of these figures appear
extraordinary for any army before or
since. If one considers that some of
Varus’ soldiers were out on patrol or
policing duty in other parts of the province, even if one adds in the non-combatants who tagged along – women,
children and slaves – a total figure
for those who set out from Minden of
under 14,000 would be well within the
realms of possibility.
Towards the end of the first day's
march, Arminius and his auxiliaries,
Varus’ vanguard, begged to be excused.
As part of the advance team, they needed to get away, they said, to mobilise
other tribal auxiliaries in support of
the general and to clear the way for the
Roman army.
While those hostile to Varus have
seen this as a negligent move on his
part, it was procedurally common to
allow the advance guard to go ahead
to smooth the passage of the army. The
general knew of the need for reconnaissance in territory like this and as his
intelligence sources had failed to give
him any advance warning about the
tribal uprising, it was reasonable for
him to expect Arminius to bring back
more detailed information about what
was happening on the ground.
The problem was that the person
he chose to act as scout, to inform and
to warn him was the person plotting to
attack and kill him.
Arminius rendezvous-ed with his
fellow conspirators who were waiting
nearby. Although by the end of the
revolt many, indeed most of the tribes
of Germany were involved in the uprising, at this point we can only be confident of three: the Cherusci, the Bructeri,
a tribe based between the Lippe and
the Ems, and the Marsi, a much smaller
tribe which lived south of the Lippe and
east of the Rhine.
After Arminius headed off late
afternoon, it was time to build a camp.
“Varus’ first camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of
its central space clearly indicated the
handiwork of three legions,” is how
Tacitus describes it (Annals 1.61).
Battle begins
The attack came the following afternoon. Varus could not have known how
widespread or perfectly choreographed
the revolt was already. The detachments
that had been sent to the various communities had already been massacred.
According to Roman accounts, the
terrain was difficult; more mountainous
than Varus and his legions were used
to and much more forested. Forward
detachments had been engaged
in clearing a path for the army. The
weather had worsened as they headed
towards the Wiehengebirge mountain
chain making all movement difficult.
A literary device? Perhaps, but while
the difficulty of the terrain may well
be exaggerated, anyone who has visited northern Germany in the autumn
knows the account of the storms is
plausible.
The Roman force suffered its first
defeat east of Kalkriese. The first assault
came towards the end of the day when
the soldiers, tired, wet and anything
but alert were beginning to think of
rest and their evening meals. An attack
from all sides surrounded the army in
the forest. An escape route, the way
they had come, had been blocked off.
The question of how large Arminius’
army was is complicated. With no reliable literary account as a starting point,
it becomes a question of population
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The battle
density. Excavations in Scandinavia suggest that three hundred soldiers could
be recruited from fifteen hundred people (some fifteen villages of ten homesteads, each with ten inhabitants) the
approximate population density for an
area between ten and twenty kilometres in diameter. Arminius could easily
have massed an army 15,000-strong,
drawing on a mere 750 settlements.
While these figures are conservative,
they are broadly in line with other figures for German forces.
The attack of German spears was
murderously successful. Slighter than
Roman ones, yet with shafts that ranged
from one to three metres tipped with
10-20 cm metal heads, these were still
formidable weapons, the more so as
the Germans often used slings to give
them both speed and distance. With
Roman cavalrymen protected by shortsleeved, hip-length mail armour, the
obvious initial target for the Germans
was the horses themselves. Arminius
knew that not only was cavalry effectively useless in a confined space,
wounded uncontrolled animals could
act to his advantage causing confusion
in the Roman ranks.
The Roman troops could make no
serious defence. Under normal circumstance, the cavalry would have been
deployed on either sides of the marching legionaries as protection. But this
was impossible in a forest. And it was
no easier for the infantry. They struggled because of the difficulties in the
terrain, hampered by civilians and their
baggage wagons. In the confusion and
the rain, the number of casualties from
friendly fire must have high.
It is curious that Varus appears
to have organised his train so badly.
Gladius scabbard reconstruction with
original fittings. It would have had
leather covered facings, held onto the
wooden core by two clamps which
doubled as suspension points
and the chape protecting the scabbard
point.
Certainly it was one of the more serious criticisms levelled against him by
Roman authors.
“The Romans were not proceeding in any regular order, but were
mixed in helter-skelter with the
wagons and the unarmed, and so,
unable to form readily anywhere
in a body, and being fewer at every
point than their assailants, they
suffered greatly and could offer no
resistance at all.”
Cassius Dio 56.20.5
Yet again the answer lies in the
level of Varus’ faith in Arminius. It is
impossible to say when it was that the
general realised how misplaced this
had been, but it was certainly not quite
yet. There was no need for Varus to
insist on war readiness, because he was
marching through not just subdued,
but actively loyal territory.
Despite the assault and the shock
that it caused, Varus maintained admirable control and presence of mind. He
knew what he needed to do. He built
a camp.
A sign of how serious the attack
had been is that Varus insisted that
the baggage train be burned or abandoned along with everything that was
not strictly necessary. But there is no
reason to think that Varus believed
that his army would not survive at this
stage. He had bought himself a brief
respite. There was little chance that the
Germans would attack a Roman camp
directly. As the senior commanders met
that evening to form a plan of action,
© VARUSSCHLACHT im
Osnabrücker Land GmbH.
Photo Christian Grovermann
it is likely that they agreed to aim for
a river, where the army could pick up
transport to take it to Haltern and then
down to Xanten.
The second day
The next morning, one day after the
attack, the Romans left their camp
and began the march towards the oakcovered slopes of the Kalkriese Berg.
Arminius will have known with moderate certainty that this was the general
direction his opponent would take. It is
wrong to suggest that the Romans were
being herded. This was pretty much the
only option open to Varus, where the
main West/East routes from the midWeser to the lower Rhine converged,
avoiding more difficult terrain to the
north and the south. Indeed, until 1845
it remained one of the main routes
through the area and it is preserved
on maps up to that time as the Alte
Heerestraße (“the Old Military Road”).
Generally speaking, this was
farmed and cultivated terrain rather
than wild and ancient forest. It was
not the landscape of thick, dark oaks.
At times, Varus would have looked
out to see a damp agrarian landscape
not unlike the Fens of England. It had
been farmed for millennia while wetter, marshier areas were a source of
pasture or used for timber. In landscape
like this, Tacitus’ comment (Annals 1.64)
that the Cherusci were “experienced at
fen-fighting” begins to make sense.
As they came round the Kalkriese
Berg, the Romans approached a narrow
pass called the Kalkrieser-NiewedderSenke, the mountain rising up a hundred and ten metres above the pass to
the south, the Great Moor to the north.
It would be difficult to think of a more
perfect spot for an ambush. The analogy has sometimes been used that it
is like a lobster pot that allowed the
Romans in, but not out.
The Kalkrieser-Niewedder-Senke is
a narrow corridor, some six kilometres
long and only one kilometre wide. But
because of the high water table at the
time, it was only passable at the edges,
on the ridges of sand that had accumulated, some two hundred metres
wide. At the same time, with the nearest Roman relief forces some hundred
kilometres to the south, there was no
chance of the alarm being raised.
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© Carlos de la Rocha
The battle
Varus and his men had been harried
all the way. The constant attack then
retreat of the Cherusci began to take
its toll. But the losses the Roman forces
suffered there were minimal compared
to what happened next.
This is where archaeology adds
another dimension of our knowledge.
This is the site that has been found.
Arminius renews the attack
The Cheruscan commander had had
the opportunity to line the pass with
arc-shaped turf walls and sand ramparts that curve with the shape of the
hill. Three have been found to date with
a total length of four hundred metres.
Speed was of the essence for him and
his troops. From the construction and
variety of materials used it is clear that
they were built quickly with anything
that came to hand (turf predominates
where there was meadows, sand, at the
eastern end and a mixture of turf, sand
and limestone at the western end) all
of which suggests that the work had
taken at most a few weeks to complete.
The style of build of the walls is peculiarly Roman, indeed when they were
first discovered it was thought they
were rapidly constructed Roman defensive positions. Arminius had learned
the lessons of Roman engineering and
warfare well.
Despite the speed and crudeness
with which they were constructed,
these walls were massively effective.
Some four to five metres wide at the
base – something you can work out
easily by measuring the space between
56
the drainage ditches that had been dug
on the German side and the start of
the Roman finds – they were not much
more than one and a half metres high,
though in all likelihood this was raised
by a palisade.
Arminius knew that if his men could
attack a fragmented Roman tactical
formation, they could beat it. For the
Cherusci this was less about matching
the Roman gladius than out-psyching
the legionaries. The forest might help
the tribesmen achieve surprise, but it
was the basic organisation of the column that needed to be broken. Not
only did the construction of the walls
preserve the element of surprise for
the Germans, it also managed to narrow the path, to guide the Romans into
the dampest, most difficult part of the
pass where the legionaries could be
massacred when the Germans leapt
out through the gaps they had left in
the walls.
Disintegration of the column
It was now that the worst of the fighting took place and the greatest Roman
casualties occurred. If the human
remains that have been found at
Kalkriese provide only a snapshot of
the thousands that died, then it is a
high-definition one. Virtually all of the
human remains that have been found
are of men of military age, between
twenty and forty years old. All of their
deaths come from offensive weapons,
many of them from sword cuts.
The Roman soldiers were cut down
easily. Floundering through the pass it
was impossible for them to form their
famously impregnable legionary lines.
Just as the previous day, the cavalry
units hindered rather than helped. In
trying to mount any kind of defence, let
alone attack, both types of unit became
entangled, and crashed into each other.
Their disorganisation made it even easier for the German forces.
Here native traditions had the
advantage. Speed and agility were what
counted and the chief hope of victory
was a rapid, overwhelming attack.
In the face of this assault, there
was no time to draw on any of the
known and trusted techniques to
avoid ambush. The Roman soldiers had
nowhere to run. They could not reform.
Roman remains behind the wall in the
drainage ditches suggest that some
legionaries did go on the offensive,
scrambling over the top to get at their
attackers. Certainly the earth rampart,
built without wooden supports, began
to collapse even during the battle. From
an archaeological point of view this was
fortuitous as it protected finds, but in
the heat of combat, the disintegration
of the walls added to the confusion.
Testimonies of battle
The natural focus of the battle has been
on the human element. But another
dimension to our knowledge about the
battle is added by the animal remains
that have been discovered – the few
mules that survived Varus’ burning of
the baggage train. The remains of a
mule were found in 1992 along with
its pendants and the decorative glass
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The battle
and from scavenging animals.
But the series of finds is not limited
to the foot of the Kalkriese mountain as
might be expected of an army trying to
push its way through the pass to safety.
Traces can be found branching off, away
from the main army, in a two kilometre
wide strip that leads northeast-wards
to the edge of the Great Moor. It is clear
that one part of the army split off and
tried to make a break for it along the
sandbars through the boggy forest.
It is tempting to ascribe this
attempt to the flight of Numonius Vala.
Varus’ legate, his deputy, in Velleius
Paterculus’ account, did try to escape
taking the cavalry with him. It is always
dangerous to argue from a lack of evidence but there are remarkably few
traces of cavalry and horses at the foot
of Kalkriese Mountain.
Were Vala’s actions cowardice and
a loss of nerve or a calculated saving of
skin? We shall never know. Paterculus,
as a cavalry man himself, is damning, suggesting that Vala was deserting the legionaries, trying to reach the
Rhine and the safety of the Roman
zone. Certainly when Varus’ deputy left
he was effectively deserting the legionaries. But it is also possible that he was
acting on orders. The cavalry was a liability in the narrows of the KalkrieserNiewedder-Senke. For Varus to send
Vala away might have seemed appropriate, though we are firmly in the
realms of speculation here. Whatever
the circumstances, he did not make it
and his troops were slaughtered to a
man.
“Vala did not survive those whom
he had abandoned, but died in the
act of deserting them,” writes Velleius
Paterculus coldly (2.119.4).
End of the line
The fourth day since they had left
Minden brought no let up from the
weather, if anything it got worse. The
violent winds made throwing javelins
impossible and rendered the surviving
Roman archers useless. The legionaries could not even defend themselves
properly. The rain had soaked through
the leather of the heavy Roman shields
into the wood, making exhausted and
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land GmbH.
pearls that had fallen off their mountings. The iron clapper on the bronze bell
round its neck had been muffled with a
handfuls of oats its owner had grabbed
from a field while passing to keep them
moving as silently as possible.
A tangible sign of the state of
extreme tenseness of the Romans who
had survived the first day’s attack, it
is also the analysis of the oats which
has allowed archaeologists to date the
battle to September. In the heat of
battle the mule had broken free from
its wagon, still wearing its metal harness, iron ring snaffles and iron rein
chains. It fell in front of the wall which
collapsed on top of it, preserving the
remains.
Another, almost complete, skeleton
of a mule was found in 2000 at the
western end of the wall. Frozen in the
moment of death, its head facing west
and feet south, jaws still clamped on the
snaffle, the animal had tried to escape
over the wall and broken its neck in
the fall. The wall, there sand reinforced
with sandstone, then collapsed on it,
protecting its body both from plunder
One of the mule skeletons found at Kalkriese near and under the collapsed wall as it was found on-site.
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The battle
ture? Ceionius, one of Varus' senior
officers, decided to surrender. His colleague, Lucius Eggius, another legionary commander, had already died in
battle. A wounded Varus decided to kill
himself. Even this, the final gesture of
the commander-in-chief did not pass
Velleius Paterculus’ jaded eye without
censure:
“The general had more courage to
die than to fight, for, following the
example of his father and grandfather, he ran himself through with
his sword”
© Stéphane Lagrange
Velleius Paterculus 2.119
After their general’s death, some
joined Varus in suicide, others took
their cue from Ceionius and surrendered. The manuscript of Cassius Dio
breaks off in mid sentence, his account
mirroring history.
“To flee was impossible, however
much one might desire to do so. And
so, every man and every horse was
cut down without fear of resistance
and the…”
Cassius Dio 56.22.1
Florus reports: “...the third eagle was wrenched from its pole, before it could fall
into the hands of the enemy, by the standard-bearer, who, carrying it concealed in
the folds round his belt, secreted himself in the blood-stained marsh.” (Summary
of Livy’s ‘Histories’ 2.30).
demoralised soldiers carry even more
weight.
It was perfect weather, however, for
the Germans. Given their light equipment, the rain and the wind if anything
made their guerrilla attacks easier. They
could pick off the enemy and quickly
retire before the sodden Romans were
able to react.
More to the point, Arminius was
able to draw on fresh men keen for a
fight. Overnight, the German ranks had
been swelled by other tribes which ini58
tially had been cautious about throwing their lot in with Arminius.
Ranks thinned, surrounded by
Germans, with even the weather
against them, Varus and his senior officers took their final, unimaginably difficult decision. With ever-strengthening
German forces and two eagles already
captured, it must have been apparent
now that the Roman forces now had
no chance of escape. They would never
make it back to safety.
What was worse, suicide or cap-
Aftermath of battle
The next day, only the fifth day since the
battle started, there was no doubt that
Arminius had won. It was time for the
mop up operations to begin. Germanic
troops looked to their wounds and
began the honours for their own dead.
Their weapons were carefully collected.
It was important for burial rites that
a soldier’s arms be buried with him,
something that accounts for the lack of
native weaponry found by archaeologists at Kalkriese itself.
As for Varus, although his body had
been partially burned and then buried
by his adjutants, it was disinterred and
mutilated by the vengeful Cherusci.
The corpse was decapitated and Varus’
head was sent as a trophy to another
Germanic chief along with an invitation to join Arminius in his war against
Rome.
Arminius now divided the eagles
among his allies – rewarding those
who had supported his campaign and
supplied troops. In a last ditch attempt
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The battle
GmbH. Photo Christian Grovermann.
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land
to save one of the eagles, a Roman standard bearer had wrenched it out of the
ground, concealed it in the folds of his
belt and thrown it and himself into the
marsh. It was a futile gesture. All three
eagles were captured. That of Legion
XIX was given to the Bructeri, the Marsi
was given a second, the Chauci received
the third, though it is not known which
they were given.
What is often ignored is the religious element to Arminius’ campaign.
Blood sacrifice and mutilation of war
captives was particularly prevalent in
Germany and is clear in the way that
Roman captives were treated after
the battle. The eyes of some legionaries were put out and then after their
death, the Germans nailed their heads
to the trunks of trees.
One legionary’s last sight was of
the German soldier who had cut out
his tongue. He held it in his hands
with the words: “At last, you viper, you
have ceased to hiss.” The Roman then
had the further ignominy of having his
mouth sewn shut. It is one of two grotesque vignettes preserved by Florus
(both 2.30). Despite the chronicler’s love
of tall tales, there is the sense that
these anecdotes were passed down by
one of the survivors.
The other is the final heroic act
performed by Caldus Caelius. Having
witnessed the above, rather than suffer
the same indignity himself, he seized a
section of the iron chain with which he
was bound and brought it down with
such force upon his own head as to
cause his instant death.
Any hopes that Ceionius and other
senior officers might have had that
they would be spared or ransomed were
soon dashed. In the adjacent groves the
Germans soon set up their barbarous
stone altars on which they had immolated tribunes and the first-rank centurions. That was the fate that awaited
Marcus Caelius, the centurion of Legion
XVIII whose tombstone now rests in the
Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn,
and Fabricius, another centurion whose
name we know, if they were not already
dead.
What was going on was the construction of what was already a sacred
site, in all likelihood to the Germanic
god Donar. Later to became Thor, at
the time of the battle Roman authors
associated him with Hercules and his
cult was centred in the Weser basin.
Kalkriese was being constructed as a
memorial to celebrate the defeat of
the Romans. This is something that
Arminius would have encouraged. The
localisation of the battle would also
celebrate him as the leader.
It is in this light that we should see
the discovery of Kalkriese’s best-known
find, the seventeen centimetre tall iron
cavalry face mask that has become the
logo of the museum and site itself. It
stares blankly out of every book on the
subject. Originally covered with silver
leaf, it is the oldest preserved mask of
its kind found so far.
Originally belonging to auxiliary
cavalry from Gaul or Thrace, the feeling
of intimidation that every viewer who
sees it gets is deliberate. It was almost
certainly placed against the wall. The
Germans would have no use for such
a ceremonial piece of armour, and
after removing the valuable silver leaf,
placed it there as a memento mori.
Today there is no trace of this ritualistic aspect of the battleground. What
archaeologists have found is the detritus, damaged items, pieces too small to
scavenge or simply missed. The most
valuable archaeological treasures have
been found either because they lay
protected under the collapsed wall
where scavengers could not get them,
for example, or where paleo-botanical
analysis has suggested that the grass
was too long and they were hidden
from German eyes.
Even though most of what has been
found has been smaller items, they still
give a sense of the scope of the disaster: helmets, bosses of shields, random
pieces of armour and of belts. And of
course there are the weapons themselves. The sheer variety highlights the
number of troops that were involved:
arrow heads and swords, slingshot and
spears. Yet the anonymity of the battlefield is occasionally lifted. One fastener
for armour is identified as “Belongs
to Marcus Aius, Cohort I, Century of
Fabricius”. His name is punched into
one fastener with a sharp implement
and scratched onto its partner which
was found nearby.
After the tactically brilliant and
definitive ambush at Teutoburg every
Roman settlement east of the Rhine
was overrun. Even nascent towns like
Waldgirmes, an assimilated civilian
settlement in the Lahn Valley discovered in 1993, were either abandoned
or destroyed. The Germans wanted to
erase any trace of the hated invaders.
Chain mail fasteners found at Kalkriese.
The back of each is inscribed with a
text proclaiming that they belonged
to a Marcus Aius of the first cohort,
in the centuria of Fabricius. Sadly it is
not known which legion this soldier
served in.
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© Igor Dzis
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The battle
Our knowledge of how widespread
this destruction was is growing all
the time. The very recent discovery of
Augustan coins near Paderborn suggests that Romans there suffered
Arminius' anger too.
As Cassius Dio pointedly notes, it
was the actions and defence of one
camp which prevented the Germans
from either crossing the Rhine or invading Gaul. It does not matter that it
is doubtful whether Arminius would
have ever considered pushing into the
West. At a time of disaster like this the
Romans needed a hero and they found
it in Lucius Caedicius, the camp commander of Aliso.
Preparations on the limes
The modern site of Aliso has never
been formally identified, though it has
been equated with the Roman camp at
Haltern on the River Lippe since 1900.
Certainly Haltern was assaulted and
burned to the ground that autumn.
By the time that Varus had made
his last stand, Caedicius might already
have heard from scouts or refugees
about what had happened to his commander and to his colleagues Lucius
Eggius and Ceionius.
Caedicius was not the kind of man
to panic. He was a primus pilus, the
commander of the first cohort and the
legion’s most experienced and senior
soldier. Although the literary sources
do not mention which brigade he was
from, it is possible that he was from
Legion XIX. We surmise that the legion
was stationed there after the discovery of an ingot with CCIII L.XIX ("203
lbs Legion XIX") carved into the lead
(shown elsewhere in this magazine).
Caedicius appears to have had
enough time to get the civilian encampment settled in the safety of the eighteen hectare camp.
Initial attacks were repulsed by
archers who lined the wooden walls of
the fort, supported by ballistae, artillery
which could throw bolts and stones.
The archaeological evidence suggests
that despite this aerial bombardment,
A highly decorated Roman centurion
goes down fighting. An officer such
as Marcus Caelius would owe it to his
rank and imperial awards to show the
best possible example.
the double ring of ditches which protected Haltern – two and a half metres
across and three metres deep – was
soon to fall to the Germans. They seem
to have attacked the south gate, filling
up the ditches with hastily cut turfs.
That the remains of what is clearly
a hastily erected barricade has been
found suggests that the Romans were
able to fight off even this onslaught
and push the Germans back.
After the initial attacks failed, it
was apparent to the Germanic soldiers
that they had little chance of taking
the camp by normal means. Certainly
Cassius Dio comments that “they found
themselves unable to reduce this fort,
because they did not understand how
to conduct sieges” (56.22.2). With what
they must have presumed was a Roman
relief force on its way, the Germans
partly withdrew, deciding instead to
guard the road to Xanten, hoping to
catch Roman refugees in an ambush
as they left. In its isolation, food soon
began to run low which is hardly surprising as the camp was now holding
a large number of both military and
civilian personnel.
Caedicius tried a desperate trick.
He led German prisoners round the
store-houses in the camp, then cut off
their hands and set them free. As he
had hoped, they reported back to their
tribal compatriots that there was little
chance of starving the Romans out as
they had enough food to last them.
With no sign of assistance coming from Xanten, Caedicius waited
for an autumn storm, then crept out.
The Romans managed to escape, but
Haltern itself went up in flames. The
excavations show how rapidly they had
to move. Individually they add little,
taken together they provide a montage
of the disaster which befell the town.
The arsenal was found with unused
arrow heads and a thousand ballistae
bolts. A coin horde was found of 185
silver denarii and one gold aureus –
the savings of a legionary. It had clearly
been hidden and never recovered. A
cellar was found with some thirty pots
left untouched. A doctor may have survived, but he left his medicines behind.
The lead lid of a jar has been found, the
words ex radice Britanica [sic] (“from
the British root”, according to Pliny a
cure for scurvy) still clear to see.
Rome’s response
Rome’s reaction to this military debacle
was massive mobilisation. The Rhine
armies were boosted from five to eight
legions under the command of Tiberius
throughout AD 10 and 11. A new chapter
began in AD 13 with the appointment
of Germanicus, Tiberius’ nephew and
heir to the throne, as governor and
commander-in-chief. His commission
was to consolidate his uncle’s work, to
repair the damage caused by Varus and
to pursue and punish Arminius. In all
three he was an abject failure.
It took Germanicus three years
before he defeated Arminius at the
Battle of Idistaviso, an unidentified site
along the River Weser, possibly somewhere near Minden. Arminius was
injured in the first moments of the
battle and the Germanic tribes were
routed. A subsequent engagement
resulted in further German losses.
Germanicus’ plea for one more
campaign fell on deaf ears (Emperor
Tiberius had a campaign in Armenia to
fund) and he was recalled to Rome.
Yet on that inconclusive note, Roman
involvement on the eastern side of the
Rhine ended. His defeat at the Battle of
Idistaviso marked the beginning of the
end of Arminius’ power. The Cheruscan
was faced with a civil war and was soon
murdered by a member of his family
under somewhat murky circumstances.
We do not know who killed him or how
he died, though it is a tidy coincidence
of history that the same year that saw
the death of Germanicus saw his death
too.n
Adrian Murdoch is a journalist and
an ancient historian. He is the author
of several books on the classical world
including Rome's Greatest Defeat:
massacre in the Teutoburg Forest.
Further reading
- A. Murdoch, Rome’s Greatest
Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg
Forest. Stroud 2008
- P. Wells, The Battle That Stopped
Rome:
Emperor
Augustus,
Arminius, and the Slaughter of the
Legions in the Teutoburg Forest.
London 2005
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Aftermath
After Varus
Rome and the Rhine
When the Romans first encountered Germanic peoples in the late 2nd century BC, the latter destroyed
whatever Rome could put in their way. It required
a new army under the ‘New man’ Marius to erase the
stain. More than a century of confrontation and coop-
about what to do when Arminius destroyed Varus’ army.
After Marius, the Germanic tribes
next enter Roman history when Julius
Caesar became embroiled with them
in his Gallic Wars. He fought against
Germanic mercenaries in Gaul, mounted expeditions across the Rhine, and
enlisted them as soldiers himself for
service against Vercingetorix and in
the Civil war. It was he who arbitrarily
fixed upon the Rhine as the border
between Celtic and Germanic peoples,
though the actual differentiation is
often difficult to make since Germanic
tribes lived west/south of the Rhine,
and Celtic peoples lived east/north of
the Rhine, and there were many ‘mixed’
tribes.
The next incursion was in 39-38
BC, when Augustus’ closest friend and
colleague Agrippa campaigned across
the Rhine at the request of the tribe
of the Ubii, who were being pressed
hard by another, the Suebi. Agrippa
settled the former on the western
bank, founding Oppidum Ubiorum
which would later become an official
colony at the behest of Claudius’ wife
Agrippina, and be renamed Colonia
Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, and later
still Cologne.
In 16 BC, a portent of things to
come occurred – the Clades Lolliana
(“Lollian disaster”). The governor of
Belgica, Marcus Lollius was defeated by
the raiding Germanic Sugambri people
with at least two legions somewhere in
the Meuse valley. Legio V Alaudae lost
its Eagle, a terrible disgrace. This was
so serious that Augustus himself set
62
off for Gaul, but fortunately Lollius
himself recovered the situation,
defeating the raiders before they
could get back over the Rhine, and
apparently recovering the standard as well as obtaining hostages.
Although still retaining the favour
of Augustus, Lollius would never again
command a Roman army.
At this time, it is evident that
Augustus saw no reason why Rome
should not continue to expand, and the
completion of the conquest of Spain in
19 BC released numbers of troops for
further conquest on the Northern frontiers. Augustus himself stayed three
years planning the invasion, until 13
BC. He then handed the matter over to
his adoptive son Drusus and returned
to Rome. It is clear that the Romans
intended to turn the vast area between
the Rhine and Elbe into a province.
Obviously the inhabitants of the
area did not all agree and resistance
was soon to come. Further east the
confederacy built by Maroboduus, chief
of the Marcomanni, with its centre
in Bohemia, was seen as a threat. In
5 AD the largest campaign force yet
assembled would deal with this threat.
The rivers were once again of paramount logistic importance. The army of
Germania Superior (Legio I Germanica
and V Alaudae) marched east along the
river Main. Simultaneously, Tiberius
would march to the north from the
Danube, gathering eight legions at
Bratislava. Five other legions would
converge from the Elbe. It was the larg-
© Karwansaray BV
eration with these belligerent peoples shaped Roman ideas
Bronze bust of Tiberius (42 BC – AD 37).
He had had a very impressive military
and administrative career before he
finally succeeded his adoptive father
Augustus as emperor. His subsequent
problematic relations with the senate ended up damaging his historical reputation. Now in the National
Archaeological Museum, Madrid.
est military operation planned by Rome
to date, larger than the army Caesar
had conquered Gaul with, and involving almost half of Rome’s total forces.
The campaign was sidetracked by
an insurrection however. Pannonia
and Dalmatia broke out into revolt,
encouraged no doubt by the absence
of its Legions. With a possible disaster threatening, Rome offered a hasty
peace to Maroboduus.
Tiberius took most of the army east
to put down the revolt, while Varus
continued the pacification of the western German area. He set out to gather
taxes and impose a civil administration and justice system in the newly
reduced lands.
The next four years saw Tiberius
at his best as a general subduing the
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AfTermATh
revolt in Illyria. As he was about to
celebrate his well-won triumphs, the
terrible catastrophe to Varus and his
three legions in AD 9 became known,
turning the celebration into sorrow,
and eventually produced a change in
Roman policy towards Germania.
Setback for Rome
The survivors from the Clades Variana
made their way back to a fortress called
‘Aliso’, probably Haltern. There they
stubbornly held out through the winter against the victorious tribes under
Arminius, ultimately breaking out and
escaping. From Mainz, the nephew of
Varus, Lucius Nonius Asprenas immediately sent his Legions, I Germanica
and V Alaudae hurrying north and
occupied the fortresses of Cologne and
Xanten. This and the heroic Aliso fortress defence prevented the Germanic
tribes from invading Gaul, thus limiting the effects of the defeat. At the
same time, Tiberius marched from the
Danube to the Rhine with two legions
XX (later Valeria Victrix) and XXI Rapax
and prepared for Rome’s inevitable retribution.
Much is made of Suetonius’ report
of Augustus’ reaction. The old emperor
supposedly wailed:
The immediate effects were serious enough. The loss of three Legions
from the existing 25, or some 12 percent of Rome’s legions, was a heavy
blow. Augustus did not re-raise legions
XVII, XIIX and XIX, probably for superstitious reasons, instead raising Auxiliary
cohorts consisting of Roman citizens.
However, the manpower reserves of
the Empire were ample, and the losses
were fairly quickly made up.
A more serious setback would not
become apparent for many years yet,
and that was the loss of the ‘province’ of western Germany between the
Rhine and the Elbe, only newly won
after much effort and campaigning by
Drusus and his brother Tiberius, and, as
was now apparent, not fully ‘pacified’.
However, Augustus’ empire as a
whole was largely unaffected; but the
defeat ultimately caused Augustus at
least, to re-think continued expansion,
and in his will he recommended to his
heirs that they stay between the then
existing boundaries of the Empire.
“He was so greatly affected that
for several months in succession
he cut neither his beard nor his
hair, and sometimes he would
bang his head against a door,
crying ‘Quinctilius Varus, give me
back my Legions!’ and always kept
the anniversary as a day of deep
mourning.”
Seutonius, Augustus 23.4
The tombstone of Publius Clodius, a
former soldier of Legio I Germanica
which came north after the Varian disaster. This tombstone has been dated
to approximately AD 40, which together with Clodius’ 25 years of service may
mean that this soldier served during
the campaigns of Germanicus. Now in
the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn.
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© Karwansaray BV
Rome strikes back
During the winter following his masterstroke, Arminius, mindful that he
had only damaged a powerful Rome,
worked hard to hold his coalition of
tribes together. He also sought to
draw the tribes further east under
Maroboduus into an alliance – sending
him Varus’ head. But Maroboduus had
seen what powerful forces an angry
Rome could bring to bear, and refused
the alliance, sending Varus’ remains on
to Rome where Augustus gave them
honourable burial in his own family
tomb. Nevertheless the Langobardi and
Semnones joined Arminius’ coalition,
even though they owed their allegiance
to Maroboduus.
During the next two years Tiberius
embarked on a cautious policy. While
guarding the Rhine well, he took expeditions into trans-Rhine Germany, but
attempted nothing decisive or rash,
while Augustus recruited and trained
auxiliary cohorts of Roman citizens –
an unusual measure - to replace the
lost manpower. In AD 11, Tiberius
returned to Rome, in effect to become
co-emperor with the aging Augustus.
He finally got to celebrate his Illyrian
Triumph, postponed because of Varus’
disaster and duly ascended the throne
upon the death of Augustus in AD 14.
When he left Germany, he handed over
command to his nephew, and adopted
son, Germanicus, who had the eight
legions of Upper and Lower Germany
under command, together with their
associated auxiliaries, something of
the order of 70-80,000 men.
Unfortunately, upon the accession
of Tiberius, the legions of the Rhine and
in Pannonia revolted against their service conditions, despite the popularity
among the military of Tiberius. Tiberius’
son Drusus – Drusus the Younger –
quelled the mutiny in Pannonia among
the Danube legions, while Germanicus
dealt with the Rhine Legions, resorting to playing on the soldier’s sentiments by displaying his wife and
little son Gaius, who was nicknamed
Caligula. (“little boots”) by the soldiers,
and refusing to accept the Army’s offer
to make him Emperor. After quelling
the mutiny, the troops were still in
a dangerous mood, and Germanicus
decided they should vent their frustrations across the Rhine. He built a
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Aftermath
bridge and launched a raid against the
hapless tribes across the river, mainly
the Marsi. Twelve thousand legionaries accompanied by thirteen thousand
auxiliaries and four thousand or so
cavalry crossed the bridge, split into
four columns and proceeded to ravage
the countryside. No mercy was shown.
When they returned to winter quarters,
their bloodlust and frustrations satiated and laden with booty, morale was
high and the mutiny forgotten.
A Triumph was decreed for
Germanicus, but the war of revenge
was far from over. Arminius was not
to be allowed to boast of his victory
over Varus. The Cherusci and Chatti
were to be made to pay for their brief
success. During the next campaign season Germanicus gave Aulus Caecina
Severus four legions (20,000), around
ten cohorts of Auxiliaries (5,000 or so)
and a large number of tribal levies from
the East side of the Rhine. Germanicus
himself took the other four legions
(20,000), twenty cohorts of Auxiliaries
(10,000) and more levies.
The Chatti were completely surprised. The elderly, women and children were killed or captured and sold
into slavery in large numbers. Some
tried to surrender, but were refused.
Germanicus burnt their capital, the
town of Mattium. Smoke from fires
rose across the landscape. The Cherusci
were unable to help, being held at bay
by Caecina. It was cause for great satisfaction when the Eagle of the XIXth
legion was recovered.
Germanicus then went to the
battlefields where Varus and his men
had died, and survivors pointed to
where the standards had been taken,
the senior officers and Varus had committed suicide and so on, among the
whitened piles of bones. The harrowing groves where Roman officers had
been sacrificed were viewed, and the
army of Germanicus gathered up the
ghastly remains and gave them a proper revered burial. Finally, a turf mound
was raised, some six years after the
massacre. Tacitus brings all the drama
to the fore:
“The scene lived up to its horrible
associations. Varus’ extensive first
camp, with its broad extent and
headquarters market out, testified
to the whole army’s labours. Then
a half-ruined breastwork and
shallow ditch showed where the
last pathetic remnant had gathered. On the open ground were
whitening bones, scattered where
men had fled, heaped up where
they had stood and fought back.
Fragments of spears and of horses’ limbs lay there – also human
heads, fastened to tree-trunks.”
Tacitus, Annals I.61.
However Arminius refused battle,
giving ground and posting ambushes.
At the end of the campaigning season, the Roman army split up and dispersed to its winter quarters. The army
of Caecina had to cross a long causeway
across the marshes known as the ‘long
bridges’ (see p.8), but Arminius, unburdened by baggage, got there first. The
Romans had to repair the causeway, the
Germans diverted streams to flood it.
Arminius exulted, telling his men that
here was another Varus come to the
slaughter. The Germans grew bolder
and tried to assault the Roman camp.
Caecina’s men sallied forth and slaughtered the German tribesmen. Arminius
barely escaped.
Frustratingly, after two campaigning seasons, Arminius was still free. The
Romans had been handicapped by long
baggage trains which had to be defended. The supply of baggage animals from
Gaul was exhausted – an indication of
the effort Rome was putting forth, with
one third of its military forces concentrated on the Rhine. Germanicus decided the next campaign in AD 16 would
be launched using the fleet, both to
transport part of the Army and to bring
up supplies. Strategic surprise could be
obtained by launching into Germany
from the sea, rather than across the
Rhine. Unfortunately the strategic surprise did not come off, because of an
error in the landing site, which meant
much time was wasted building bridges. Germanicus eventually came faceto-face with Arminius across the Weser
River. The Roman prudently decided he
needed to secure bridges before crossing and fighting. The cavalry were sent
across various fords, with the Batavians
under their chief Chariovalda crossEvery time an eagle was recovered, it
was an opportunity for the reigning emperor to display his prowess. Augustus ordered the
return of Crassus’ standards by the Parthians displayed on the cuirass of
his, now famous, Prima
Porta statue. Having little military experience
himself, Caligula, son
of Germanicus, had this
coin struck to show off the
return of the third of Varus’
eagles, proudly proclaiming
signis receptis (“return of the
standards”).
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© The P. Lindsay Powell Collection, photo Michael V. Craton.
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© Carlos de la Rocha
Aftermath
© Karwansaray BV
Germanicus Julius Caesar (15 or
16 BC – AD 19) was adopted
by Tiberius in AD 4. He
served under Tiberius in
Pannonia and Germany
before commanding
the great expeditions
to re-establish order
among the tribes.
After his triumph of
AD 17, he was sent east
where he died, a very
popular member of the
Imperial family, in AD
19. Now in the Louvre,
Paris.
ing where the current was
strongest. The Cherusci feinted a
retreat and lured them into an
ambush on a level space, surrounded by wooded hills. The
Batavians, outnumbered, and
surrounded, were inspired
by Chariovalda who personally led an escape attempt,
but was killed along with
many of his chieftains and
retinue while doing so. The
breakout succeeded however, and the arrival of other
Roman cavalry saved the day.
Germanicus duly crossed the
Weser, and was advised by deserters
that Arminius had chosen his battleground, and meant to fight.
Furthermore, a surprise night attack
was planned on the camp. Arminius
tried primitive psy-ops by having a
Latin speaker ride up to the camp and
promise a wife, money and land to any
who deserted. There were no takers –
the Romans shouting back that they
would help themselves to those things
after beating the Germans. Shortly
after midnight, the expected ‘surprise’
attack materialised, but the ramparts
were fully manned.
Battle with Arminius
The next day, the Germans marched to a
level area which Tacitus calls Idistaviso,
(which some translate as ‘Valley of the
Maidens / Valkyries’) within a broad
bend of the Weser, near modern Rinteln.
The river was their left boundary, and
they were bounded on their right by a
forest, which had clear ground beneath
the trees. The Roman army consisted
of some 2,000 Praetorians, detachments of eight Legions amounting
to some 28,000 men, perhaps 20,000
Auxiliaries, plus something like 5,000
German allies, including Batavians.
There were also some 6,000 heavy
cavalry, again including Batavians and
perhaps 1-2,000 horse archers. The
army thus numbered over 60,000 less
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Aftermath
into the front line of Auxiliaries, but
could not break through to the bowmen, in Tacitus’ words again (ibidem):
“..and it would have broken
through if the standards of the
Raetian, Vindelician and Gallic
Auxiliary cohorts had not barred
the way.”
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It was all over in an hour or two.
Arminius, though wounded, contrived to escape on horseback, having
smeared blood over his face to avoid
recognition.
Tacitus words again (Annals 2.18):
“It was a great victory, and
it cost us little. The
slaughter of the
enemy continued
from
midday
until dusk. Their
bodies and weapons were scattered
for ten miles around.”
Silent testimony to the disastrous journey back across the Wadden Sea. A Coolustype helmet found on the beach of the Dutch island of Texel. Like many helmets,
it has been marked on the neckpiece by its former owner: “VI.HIR.#.FIRON.PI”. The
text is mystifying to say the least, however. The usual explanation is that VI HIR
should be read as VI Hirundo, which would indicate a ‘six’ (a hexere-type warship)
named “swallow”. That would be the only example of a Roman warship named
after a bird and only the second known ‘six’ from the entire imperial era. Perhaps
alternately then, VI is a marker for the unit to which the soldier belonged.
a camp-guard and detachments.
Arminius commanded a coalition of
tribes, the largest three of which were
his own Cherusci, the Langobardi and
the Semnones. We do not know their
numbers, but we might guess that they
were fewer than the Romans from their
care to guard their flanks, but sufficiently numerous to make Arminius
believe he could challenge Germanicus
in open battle. At a guess then, he may
have had as few as 30,000 men, or as
many as 40,000. The Cherusci occupied
the centre, on a low hill. Due to the
cramped battlefield, Germanicus drew
his army up in three lines, the first
consisting of Auxiliaries and allied /
levied German tribesmen, with a line
of archers behind. They were backed
by the Praetorians and four Legions,
flanked by the pick of the cavalry on
their left stretching into the wood and
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a third line, consisting of the remaining four Legions and the remaining
auxiliaries, flanked by more cavalry and
horse-archers on their left.
The Germans charged impetuously
with a roar. Germanicus ordered his
first line of cavalry to outflank them
through the trees, and the second line
were to ride around and attack the
rear. The left and right of the German
line quickly broke and as Tacitus tells
us (Annals 2.17):
“Two enemy forces were fleeing
in opposite directions, those from
the woods into the open and
those from the open toward the
woods.”
The Cherusci in the centre, making
the most of their downhill impetus,
and inspired by Arminius, slammed
Many drowned trying to escape
across the Weser, others, having taken
shelter from the cavalry by climbing
trees, were shot by the archers for sport.
It may be that Tacitus exaggerated the
Roman success, for Arminius was able
to regroup, and gather fresh troops. He
had learnt now that he was no match
for the Romans in open battle, and so
reverted to ambush tactics.
Sometime later, Arminius selected
a site on the boundary of Cherusci and
Angrovarii territory, which was marked
by a raised earthwork. He picked a spot
having similarities to the Kalkriese site
– a narrow space between river and
forest. The infantry manned the earthwork, while the cavalry took cover in
the woods, so as to take the Romans in
the rear when they met the obstacle of
the earthwork. But Germanicus was no
Varus, as Tacitus says (Annals 2.20):
“He knew their plans, positions,
their secret as well as their visible
arrangements.”
This was doubtless due to light
cavalry reconnaissance, and the local
knowledge of his Batavian and German
allies. The Roman infantry split up,
part entering the wood and driving
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the German cavalry off, the other part
attacking the earthwork. These were
initially rebuffed, so Germanicus withdrew the legions, and ordered the
archers and slingers to provide covering fire, along with bolt-throwers.
A second assault took the earthwork.
Germanicus personally led a charge of
the Praetorians into the wood.
Tacitus again (Annals 2.21):
“Either Arminius had been through
too many crises, or his wound was
troubling him: he did not show his
usual vigour”
Germanicus tore off his helmet
to be recognised, ordering his men to
spare none. No prisoners. They were
to kill and kill. Once again, a massacre ensued until nightfall, but again
Arminius escaped.
The Romans continued on their way
back to winter quarters, part embarking once more by ship, but a storm
ravaged the fleet and caused many
casualties. Some were even carried to
Britain. Rumours that the entire fleet
was lost encouraged more fighting,
repressed by Germanicus with harsh
measures. A second eagle was recov-
The campaigns end
Varus was now well and truly avenged,
some seven years later. Germanicus felt
one more summer campaign would
recover the trans-Rhine province. But
it was not to be – Tiberius pointed
out that he himself had achieved more
by diplomacy than force. If there had
been great successes, there had also
been costly misfortunes. The chastened
Cherusci could be left to their own internal disturbances. When Germanicus
still protested, Tiberius added that he
must leave something for his brother
Drusus to have a chance to earn a
Triumph – he was to return to Rome
and celebrate his own.
This represented a turning point in
© Karwansaray BV
Cast of the ‘Gemma Augusta’, a cameo celebrating the victories over the Germans.
Tiberius sits togate with Victoria, while Germanicus stands next to them wearing armor. On the lower half, Roman soldiers set up a victory monument among
defeated barbarians. Cast in the Glyptothek, Munich, original in Vienna.
ered and ultimately, later still, the third
would be too.
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Aftermath
Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus,
known to history as Caligula (AD 12 41), accompanied his popular father on
his campaigns. His terrible reputation
with the senatorial elite ensured that
his military accomplishments were
downplayed and ridiculed. Now in the
Louvre, Paris.
Rome’s policy on its northern frontier.
Perhaps, as Tacitus said, it was jealousy of Germanicus’ military glory that
prompted this change, but it is unlikely
that this was the motive of the cool and
calculating Tiberius.
Tacitus offers the explanation that
Germany simply was not worth the sustained effort required to permanently
subdue it. That cannot be entirely true,
however. The Taunus mountains had a
goldmine and both the Lippe and Main
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valleys were very fertile. But
Germania lacked the developed agriculture of Gaul
or the massive minerals
of Iberia. It is true that
long campaigning with
fully one third of Rome’s
military might had
brought very little actual
gain. Perhaps Tiberius
decided that indirect control was just as efficient as
boots on the ground.
The Rhine was to
become the ‘de facto’ frontier, but not entirely. The
Legions came back to the Rhine
it is true – two at Cologne, in
the territory of the Ubii, two
at Xanten, two at Mainz,
and further south one
each at Strasbourg and
Windisch.
However,
beyond the Rhine, forts
were maintained in
the Main-Wetter
area and further
north,
beyond
the
Rhine mouth,
Velsen remained
occupied
and
used down to
at least Claudian
times. Among the Frisians,
in the northern Netherlands,
Drusus had imposed a tribute in 12
BC, which was continued – proof of
indirect control – provoking a rebellion
in 28 AD, and a Roman fortress, probably Velsen, was attacked. Regardless,
the frontier remained relatively quiet
while the German tribes bickered and
fought one another. Arminius, having
eluded the Romans, and after also having defeated Maroboduus and driven
him into Roman exile, was murdered
amidst internecine power struggles.
For the rest of Tiberius’ reign, the Rhine
frontier remained relatively quiet.
A new policy
Our sources unfairly ridicule the military efforts of Tiberius’ successor Gaius
“Caligula”, son of Germanicus. He found
it necessary to visit the Rhine frontier to
put paid to a plot to overthrow him, but
his visit to the frontiers where he spent
his childhood are derided, with him
ordering the troops to gather sea-shells
as symbols of his ‘Triumph’ over Ocean
itself. However, tombstones from the
Mainz area suggest serious fighting
on the Upper Rhine took place and it
would appear that serious preparations for the invasion of Britain were
undertaken. The logistics route, as ever,
was dependent on river systems, in
this case the Rhone, Saone and Rhine
route. Bases at the Rhine mouth area
were needed and built at Albaniana
(Alphen aan de Rijn) and Praetorium
Agrippinae
(Valkenburg),
with
increased activity at Fectio (Vechten)
– all in the Netherlands. These were
previously attributed to Claudius, but
archaeology has now established they
were constructed by Caligula around
AD 40. It now appears Claudius took
over invasion plans which were well
advanced, and profited from his predecessor’s plans – acceding to the throne
in AD 41, he was able to launch a full
scale invasion in AD 43.
Later, around AD 47 a new commander, the celebrated disciplinarian Corbulo, settled the fractious Frisii,
built a fort in their territory to ensure
obedience and started to reduce the
area to a province until the Emperor
Claudius, who had his mind on Britain,
and not distractions across the Rhine,
ordered him to desist. During Claudius’
reign and after, the two-legion fortresses, launching platforms for offensive campaigns, gradually transformed
into more spread out and defensive
single legion bases, and forts and fortlets sprang up every 7-8 kilometres/5
miles along the lower Rhine especially.
Various Emperors tried different frontier fortification systems, but they were
all defensive in nature.
The Rhine had transformed from
a springboard for further conquest, to
the defensive outer limits of the Empire,
but, unlike Hadrian’s wall in Britain,
the frontier had not been planned and
built, but rather evolved over a century or so from the first watchtowers in
Augustus’ time, to the chain of stonebuilt forts of Flavian and later times.
Nor was the Rhine merely a boundary,
but rather a central highway for middle
Europe. The defences controlled traffic
into the empire, but perhaps even more
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Aftermath
Legio XXI Rapax was moved north to Xanten after AD 9 and remained there for
three decades when it was relocated back south. Though his full name is now
illegible, this memorial to a soldier of that legion is the only epigraphic evidence
for its presence in the area. Now in the Römermuseum, Xanten.
to this day, for the peoples of Europe
east of the Rhine speak ‘Germanic’ languages, while those west of it speak
‘Romance’ Latin based languages. n
ensured western Germany, if no longer
a province, remained quiet for 50 years.
Peace would be disturbed in AD 69 –
the year of the four Emperors – when
the Batavii, allies of Rome and hence
still strong, sought to take advantage of
Rome’s civil wars and rebel. They were
ultimately unsuccessful and Germany
would pose Rome no more problems
until new confederations arose a
hundred years later in the 160’s – the
Marcomanni and Alamanni - to trouble the soldier-philosopher Emperor
Marcus Aurelius not just on the Rhine,
but along the Danube too, in wars of
even larger scale.
In the longer term, northern tribes
migrating southward such as the Goths
and Vandals would cross the river frontiers of the Rhine and Danube and
play their part in the downfall of the
Western Roman Empire, and it may
be said that the Clades Variana echoes
Paul McDonnell-Staff is an Australian
and English lawyer who has also had a
lifelong passionate interest in ancient
warfare. He has researched, travelled
extensively, and written professionally
about the subject since the 1970’s and is
currently writing The Roman Conquest
of Spain for Pen & Sword books.
important, they controlled traffic along
the great river. It never lost its great
logistical role.
Conclusion
The immediate aftermath of the ‘Varian
disaster’ had been understandable
shock – no-one, bar Romans themselves,
had succeeded in destroying a Roman
army of several legions since Carrhae
in 53 BC when the Parthians destroyed
Crassus. In the short term Arminius’
success simply led to a great deal of
bloodshed among the tribes of western
Germany - the Cherusci and Chatti, and
the lesser tribes of Marsi and Bructeri,
Angrivarii and so on until Tiberius’
change of heart in AD 17, and afterward
internecine warfare between German
tribes ensured that in the medium
term their names would disappear
from history, significantly enough. The
destruction wrought by Germanicus
Further reading
- G. Webster, The Roman Imperial
Army 3rd ed. Oklahoma 1998
- L. Keppie, The making of the
Roman army London and New
York 1998
- Y.Bohec, The Imperial Roman
army 2nd ed. London and New
York 2000
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THE BATTLEFIELD
Looking for Varus
The quest for the Teutoburg forest
When Tacitus’ Annals and Germanica first appeared in print
around AD 1500, these writings brought about a new interest.
Contemporary Germans desired to know about their ancient
ancestors and their fight against mighty Rome. Very quickly the
battle of the Teutoburg Forest became a symbolic mark in German
history that was studied, used and abused for all manner of purposes. It goes without saying that this attention raised one big
question: where exactly had these events taken place?
© Peter Nuyten
By Jasper Oorthuys
Bird’s eye view of the battlefield:
pushed forward by the mass of the
Roman column behind it, forward elements of Varus’ army are thrust into
the narrows between the hills, and the
swamp on the other side. Attacked by
German warriors from behind their
wall, the column is overwhelmed and
torn apart.
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The bATTlefield
route with the story of a revolt among
the Angrivarii.
Unsurprisingly, theories about the
location of the battle abounded – some
750 locations were proposed at one
time or another – from the moment
the historical events caught the public
eye. In the 19th century, one theory
gained the upper hand and the location seemed settled. The area around
Detmold, Germany, got the official
stamp of approval in the shape of a
50m tall statue of “Hermann”, completed in 1875.
A noble coin collection
There was very little to go on. As Jona
Lendering argues elsewhere in this volume, some of the geographical descriptions in the narrative sources pertaining
to the battle are downright undependable. Those that aren’t, are just vague.
The former problem was not always
recognized, while the latter is unhelpful. What is left, is the Latin name given
by Tacitus: Saltus Teutoburgiensis, usually but possibly incorrectly translated
as Teutoburg Forest. It may be misleading if you’re looking for a geographical
feature, but the name has come into
common usage so much so that it now
is the de facto name of the battle.
The other clue was that the battle
must have taken place somewhere
between the site where Varus spent
the Summer of AD 9 and the fortresses
on the Rhine and Lippe. The former was
somewhere on the Weser, probably at
or near Minden (see text-box). With a
possible beginning and a known end
and with knowledge of local geography
a likely Roman route could be reconstructed. Frustratingly, there are several
possibilities. The question is whether
the Romans would have marched down
the Weser and then crossed to the closest point on the Lippe, or would they
have taken the shortest way and cut
across, straight to Haltern? However,
even if the standard route were known,
that would only have limited use in this
quest. After all, Varus was induced to
change his course, away from his usual
Still, not everyone was satisfied. In
fact, the German historian Theodor
Mommsen, one of the most important ancient historians ever, pointed
to a series of coins found on the estate
of a German nobleman some way
to the west. The Von Bar family had
owned large areas of land to the east
of Osnabrück for almost 1,000 years.
The farmers who worked their lands
had found Roman coinage with some
regularity, which had ended up in the
family’s collection. Unfortunately, the
family did not know exactly where the
coins came from, or at least, they kept
Mommsen in the dark. He, therefore,
was not able to found his theory on
any firm evidence. What was important to note, was the proportion of
the denominations in the collection.
They consisted largely of silver denarii
– in other words: army pay – some gold
aureii and some copper coinage. Also
they all dated to the reign of Augustus.
Without more information about
the find spots of these coins, even
Mommsen could not prove anything
other than that these were traces of an
Augustan era Roman army. Considering
the history of northwestern Germany
in that period, that is hardly a surprising conclusion. Fortunately, the coins
were fully described and catalogued
before they went missing, probably stolen, at the end of WW2.
Enter Major Tony Clunn in the 1980s.
An amateur archaeologist serving with
the British army garrison in Osnabrück,
Clunn decided to contact the regional
archaeological authority to ask about
promising areas to explore and inform
them of his plans. Having thus gained
their confidence, he was told of the
Von Bar collection and brought into
contact with the finder of the latest
coin. Clunn now had one fixed location. Another tip from Dr.Schlüter, the
regional archaeologist, gave him a line
along which to search: an old military
route running east-west to the northeast of Osnabrück, the Alte Heerstrasse.
That last coin had been found near a
crossroads on that road. Clunn established an area to examine with his
metal detector and soon found more
silver coins.
Some time later, and having found
many more coins, it appeared that the
proportions of the denominations were
the same as in the missing Von Bar collection. Moreover, they matched in their
division along types of coinage – date,
obverse and reverse. Further research
showed that this matched the coin
finds of the camp at Haltern. Obviously,
the units that made up the Augustan
era garrison of that fort, had been in
the area. Continued research showed a
large spread of finds, still consisting of
coins, but no indication of a battle yet.
That changed with a later find. Clunn
described it himself as follows:
“Basically, it was the finding of
three Roman lead sling shot pieces in three separate fields around
the area of the crossroads in late
1988. Having spent an inordinate
amount of time during 1987 and
1988 investigating not only the
fields in Kalkriese but other Roman
sites in northern Germany having
a link with the possible movement
of Varus during AD 9, it was obviously a revelation to finally find
some militaria, in reality weapons
in this case, to support the theory
that this area was indeed the site
of an historic Roman battle. By the
time I had finished the majority of
my surveys of the Kalkriese area in
1989, Professor Schlüter was now,
based on my thoughts and observations of the small hill and narrow
pass on the edge of the Kalkrieser
Berg, moving his start point of proper archaeological investigations to
that key area. The results of those
first archaeological excavations in
1989 are now a huge marker in
German history, and the deluge of
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THE BATTLEFIELD
artifacts that were recovered from
those early forays into the hill and
out onto the eastern side of the
feature quickly confirmed that we
were indeed sat on the site of the
Varusschlacht. The finding of so
many artifacts, so much positive
dating, so many coins with what is
believed to be Varus’ own personal
mint-mark, all lent testimony to
proving the site.”
Probable candidate
Reconstructing Varus’ route from his Summer encampments on the Weser to
the Rhine began with the question of where the starting point was exactly. It
was always expected to be near Minden on the Weser. In fact, in 2008 local
archaeological explorations indeed found a Roman settlement, although it
is as of yet too early to confirm that it was definitely Varus’ camp of AD 9.
Varus’ camp was expected to be at Minden because of its strategic
location. At Minden, the Weser cuts a narrow, deep swathe through the
highlands bordering the North German Plain. This so-called ‘Minden Gap’
provides both access to and overview of the areas behind. Its strategic
importance was confirmed by the battle of Minden in 1759 and codified in
NATO strategy during the Cold War.
“Heerstrasse” in Europe often do indeed
reflect old military routes. It would be
logical to expect such a road along the
northern side of an east-west ranging
range of hills and mountains. It also
fits the narrative. If Varus marched in a
south-western direction from Minden
to his forts at Haltern and Xanten and
was diverted in the direction of the
Angrivarii to the north-west, he would
have ended up on this route.
If Arminius prepared his revolt carefully, and it seems he did, he could hardly have found a better location for an
ambush than the narrows at Kalkriese.
In AD 9, the extent of the area between
the foot of the hill and the swamps
to the north was barely 100 meters
wide. A Roman army would be severely
limited in its options for deployment.
The wall found at Kalkriese strengthens
this supposition, protecting the warriors and denying the use of the hill to
the Romans.
The finds at Kalkriese are many and
varied. A large number of bones were
found, belonging both to mules – the
pack animal of choice for the Roman
© Karwansaray BV
What makes Kalkriese a more convincing candidate than any of the other
proposed sites?
The first and weakest argument
of all, is that the location of a narrows between a swamp and a mountain matches the translation of Saltus
Teutoburgiensis just as well as does
“Teutoburg Forest.” Also, it is not necessarily the case that the name Tacitus
gave to the events of AD 9 has a bearing on the final site. The area to the
southeast of Kalkriese, where the battle begun and Varus’ temporary camp
should be, was forested.
More importantly, routes named
The Minden Gap
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THE BATTLEFIELD
Two views of the reconstructed wall at
Kalkriese. These earth, turf and timber
walls closely hug the outline of the
mountain. In front small ditches had
been dug. Water running off the mountain would have collected there. Thus,
the wall itself was safe from water
logging, while the area in front would
have become even more drenched.
army – and human males of military
age. Interestingly, most of those bones
were found completely intermixed,
indicating they had been slowly covered as time passed, instead of being
buried where they had fallen. Some
skulls showed clear evidence of a violent death. Others had been carefully
stacked in burial pits, ostensibly proving
Tacitus’ story that Germanicus’ troops
had buried the dead where they found
them, though the legionaries had obviously not been too diligent in locating
each and every skeleton. Further examination of those bones showed that they
had lain above ground for several years
before interment.
Under and among these skeletons,
archaeologists discovered the remains
of plants and flowers. Not very spectacular; until it was found that they’d
been in bloom when they were crushed
by caligae. Plant research showed
that these particular plants bloom in
September, the right time of year for
the Clades Variana.
There were the mules, as mentioned in Adrian Murdoch’s article, with
muffled bells. Heavy bronze keys have
been found without a single trace of
the strongboxes they were supposed to
fit. Were those perhaps left behind in
the camp, buried in the hope of being
able to dig them back up later?
Then finally, there is the trail of the
finds themselves. Laid out on a map, it is
almost arrow shaped, coming from the
southeast, leading to Kalkriese. There
the concentration is highest – but of
course the exploration has been most
intense there as well – and it then splits
into two prongs leading southwest and
northwest that peter out very soon.
In other words, it seems as if the final
assault was made on the remaining
Roman troops at Kalkriese. A few broke
out and escaped west in two groups.
The conclusion is obviously that
Kalkriese is definitely the site of an
ancient battlefield and is, for now, the
best candidate for the site of the ‘end
of the line’ for Varus’ legions.
It should be noted, however, that
there have always been detractors
of Kalkriese’s status. Some say that
Kalkriese is simply too small to be a
battlefield for Varus’ entire army. That
argument can be countered by the fact
that it was simply the end for those
that remained, very likely fewer than
half of the original 20,000 or so men.
A potentially larger problem looms
around the coinage that was so essential for the discovery of this site in the
first place. Many of the coins found in
Germania Inferior and Kalkriese have
been countermarked (i.e.: stamped)
“VAR”, which has been taken to indicate Varus. The validity of this hypothesis was corroborated by the fact that
no coins had ever been attested with
this countermark that date after AD 9.
There are now some reports of (single)
coins of the emperor Tiberius with this
countermark. That would mean a different identification is required, someone
other than Publius Quinctilius Varus.
And that, in turn, might have consequences for the dating of the Kalkriese
site, possibly to a later date than AD
9.n
Jasper Oorthuys
Further reading
Tony Clunn published a diary of
his quest, interspersed with a dramatized account of the campaign
of AD 9 in The quest for the lost
Roman legions. An updated edition was released by Savas Beatie
in 2009.
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The battlefield
Valkhof Museum, Nijmegen
In Varus’ footsteps
Tips for visiting the area
Do not travel to Germany if you want to see sites associated to
Varus’ campaigns AND expect to see traces of fortifications. Most
Roman sites in this area have seen continual habitation since
The Nijmegen Hunerberg and Kops
Plateau are among the most thoroughly examined archaeological sites
in Europe. Many of the items on display
here derive from the late 1st century AD
base of Legio X Gemina, and the Batavian
recruiting fortress from the middle of
that century. However, you’ll also find
an excellent collection of Roman helmets here some of which definitely do
date to the German campaigns.
www.museumhetvalkhof.nl
ancient times. Moreover military construction from this era was
almost always in wood. Excavations are usually built over, as they
are usually in, or close to, a modern city center.
A few exceptions exist. Anreppen and
Waldgirmes are currently being excavated; on both sites, the archaeologists
have erected explanatory signs. If you
are in Nijmegen, do go to the Kops
Plateau area. It is now a park and if you
peek through the trees on the edge of
the natural hill, its strategic location
becomes immediately and abundantly
clear. Similarly, if you go to Kalkriese,
do not just visit the museum, but walk
through the park. Though somewhat
evened out and the swamp has been
The mask now used by the Kalkriese
museum in its logo. It was originally covered in silver foil, which was
removed by Germanic warriors. The
mask was then discarded near the wall.
Often thought to have been worn by
a standard bearer (as seen on some
tombstones), it may simply have
belonged to a Roman cavalryman.
© VARUSSCHLACHT im Osnabrücker Land GmbH.
Foto Christian Grovermann
74
drained, it is an evocative place and the
geographical funnel is still visible.
Museums
There simply is no central spot to see
all relevant finds relating to the Varian
Disaster. Anyone who wants to visit the
area and see some of them will have to
make a selection. With an eye on military history, we recommend the following in no particular order. n
Rheinisches Landesmuseum,
Bonn, Germany
The provincial capital of Germania
Inferior was in nearby Cologne and its
Römisch-Germanisches museum is certainly worth a visit although its focus
is more civilian-administrative. The
Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn
has a wonderful collection of Roman
and Germanic artifacts from all over
this Bundesland, a large collection of
tombstones and militaria among them.
Under normal circumstances, it is the
home of the Caelius cenotaph.
www.rlmb.lvr.de
Römermuseum, Xanten,
Germany
Landesmuseum, Mainz,
Germany
Museum und Park Kalkriese,
Kalkriese, Germany
Westfälisches Römermuseum,
Haltern, Germany
This recently renovated museum has
an excellent collection of Roman militaria on show and, coupled with the
archaeological park next door, is definitely worth a visit. Note however that
some of the most famous finds – for
instance the so-called Lauersfort set
of phalerae or the cenotaph of Marcus
Caelius – are elsewhere. The famous
memorial, however, is in Xanten in
2009 for a special exhibition.
www.apx.lvr.de/roemermuseum
At the time of writing, this museum
was in the final stage of completing a new extension. Just outside
Osnabrück, this museum shows the
famous finds from the battlefield.
Here you’ll find the famous mask,
mules and skeletal remains from the
battlefield, as well as the partially
reconstructed Germanic wall.
www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de
Just outside of Germania Inferior, the
Landesmuseum is currently under renovation, but once reopened in 2010, will
be a must. It has one of the most impressive collections of Roman military tombstones in Europe, mostly dating to the
1st century AD. It also contains a host
of artifacts related to the long military
occupation of this site, which was the
main base for the Roman route along
the Main river.
www.landesmuseum-mainz.de
Though not as large as some of the
other museums in this list, this museum
has a fine collection of artifacts that
all date to the period of the Germanic
campaigns. Haltern, after all, was abandoned at the latest when Germanicus
was through with revenge. You will also
see some of the finds from the camp at
Oberaden on display here.
www.lwl-roemermuseum-haltern.de
Ancient Warfare
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