Besides in the Teutoburg Forest, Rome fought the 'barbarian' Germans many other times. What was the long-term purpose of Roman military efforts? There seems to have been no question of a carefully prepared war of conquest or 'Germanic politics'. The situation is reminiscent of that of the United States in Iraq.
Rarely has the Western world lived in such terror of a terrorist threat as it has since “9/11.” The authority of the superpower America was shaken in one fell swoop. As a direct result of the attacks in New York and Washington, the United States, as a champion of freedom and democracy, took up arms against the corrupt and fundamentalist regimes of Afghanistan and Iraq. At the moment the wars in these countries have been going on for seven and five years respectively and it does not look like the Americans will settle them in their favor any time soon. Their on paper much weaker opponents, bolstered by their knowledge of the terrain and the element of surprise, know how to regularly deal sensitive blows to the Americans. These in turn are unable to fully utilize their military-technical surplus. As so often, the present shows historical parallels with the past. The Romans also had a seemingly subordinate opponent whom they could not finally bring to their knees despite repeated attempts:the Germans.
The great trauma
The earliest mention of Teutons in ancient historiography dates back to the first quarter of the first century BC. It concerns a fragment of the Greek geographer, ethnographer and philosopher Posidonius (ca. 135-51), who reports that they eat roast meat for breakfast, while drinking unadulterated wine and milk. This eating behavior made it clear to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean region about the ferocious nature of the Germanic peoples:after all, only barbarians on the edge of the world drank their wine unadulterated!
When Posidonius wrote about the eating habits of the Germans, the Romans had already had some serious confrontations with the Cimbri and the Teutones. These two peoples came from northern Europe and were probably of Germanic origin, although they were not referred to as such by the Romans. They were around 120 BC. moved south and in time threatened southern Gaul, which was already a Roman province at the time. The road was blocked several times by Roman armies, but they were defeated five times by the savage mob. The Romans at this time were clearly not aware of the warlike reputation of the Germans. However, according to the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus (first century AD), this would soon change:“These peoples soon became renowned for the calamity they brought to us and we to them.” It was finally Gaius Marius (c. 157- 86) who definitively called a halt to the Cimbri and Teutones in 102-101. That centuries later there was still talk of the 'Teutonic frenzy' (furor Teutonicus ), shows that the Germans had issued their business card.
Caesar and the Germans
As mentioned, the Cimbri and Teutones were not initially referred to as Germans. This name only became known in the course of the first century BC. in vogue to denote the inhabitants of Northern Europe. In his account of the Gallic Wars (mid-first century BC), Julius Caesar can now repeatedly introduce the northern barbarians without having to introduce them to his readership.
During the first year of his campaigns in Gaul, in 58 BC, Caesar came into conflict with the Teutonic prince Ariovistus. Not long before that, he had received the honorary title of 'friend of the Roman people', but according to Caesar, Ariovistus had turned out to be an arrogant and cruel lust for power. Various Gallic tribes complained about the Germans, who had settled in large numbers on the left of the Rhine. If this continued, they feared, all Gauls would have been driven out of their land by the Germans within a few years.
These pleas offered Caesar an excellent opportunity to intervene in an internal Gallic question. How fondly he compares the Germanic warhorses of Ariovistus with the fearsome Cimbri and Teutones. Ariovistus is depicted in the sources as an unreliable leader who and his people posed a serious threat to the stability of the region and the Roman possessions in southern Gaul and Italy.
The diplomatic joust between Caesar and the Germanic monarch was doomed to fail. In the inevitable battle that took place in September 58 BC. somewhere in the Vosges, the Teutons were wiped out by Caesar's superior Roman legions. According to the Greek writer Plutarch, 80,000 were killed on the Germanic side. Caesar could now devote himself completely to the subjugation of the Gallic tribes.
Although Caesar regarded the Rhine as the border between Rome and the Germans, they did not let this river stop them in their southward raids. In 55 BC. two Germanic tribes, the Usipetes and the Tenctes, ventured across to make a home in Gallic territory. With a disproportionate show of force, Caesar destroyed most of the enemy. The fanatical politician Cato the Younger (95-46) even labeled Caesar a war criminal who should be extradited to the Germans!
Caesar was annoyed at the ease with which barbarian tribes defied Roman rule in the north. That is why he decided to fight his Germanic opponents on their own ground, 'so that they too would one day feel the fear of losing their possessions'. That same year he crossed the Rhine on a punitive expedition. The Teutons, however, immediately withdrew into the woods, scrupulously avoiding any confrontation. Caesar was forced to withdraw his troops after eighteen days, having accomplished nothing of substance. A second Overrijn campaign in 53 BC. was also unsuccessful.
The campaigns under Augustus
Caesar was apparently realistic enough not to be tempted into a protracted and risky war in strange and difficult terrain. After he had left Gaul victorious, things remained at times unsettled in the Rhine area. The climax came when the Roman governor of Gaul, Marcus Lollius, confronted some Germanic tribes in 17 or 16 BC. lost an army standard. When a few more tribes crossed the Rhine a few years later, Emperor Augustus (27 BC-14 AD) had had enough. In 12 BC. he sent his stepson Nero Claudius Drusus to the north with orders to deal with the most aggressive Germanic tribes.
Whether there has ever been a serious policy of conquest in Germania remains to be seen. Roman writers are often inclined to give a very flattering picture of the military progress to the right of the Rhine, but what has actually been achieved is difficult to determine from the sources. In this, campaigns are almost always 'victorious', with Germanic tribes often being 'subdued' or 'crushed'. Velleius Paterculus claims that Germania was founded by the later emperor Tiberius around 7 BC. “was almost reduced to a tributary province.” The writer Florus (2nd century) goes so far as to say that under Drusus “the inhabitants [of Germania] seemed changed… Yes, even the climate was milder and more pleasant than it used to be.”
In reality, diplomatic solutions were regularly chosen. In this context, Germanic tribes were sometimes assigned new habitats and hostages were sent to Rome. It is true that the Romans would have already started to found cities (an excavated settlement at Lahnau-Waldgirmes (Hesse) is scant evidence for this) but we should not imagine too much with the Roman control over the Germanic tribes. The Greek historian Cassius Dio (third century) concludes that after nearly twenty years of struggle on Germanic territory, the Romans controlled only parts of the country, "not total territories, but only those parts that happened to be subjugated." And that is no wonder:the inaccessible landscape with its extensive forests, the bad roads and the unclear Germanic tribal structures offered the Romans few points of departure for a smooth settlement of the Germanic problem. Moreover, the enemy's guerrilla-style combat proved difficult to combat in practice.
September 9 n. BC
After the September 2001 attacks, the world held its breath. Western civilization was heartbroken. These attacks would undoubtedly be followed by more violence in the short term, it was feared. A similar sense of fear and powerlessness must have struck the Roman world in September of the year 9 AD. ch. when three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were wiped out in a Germanic ambush in the Teutoburg Forest. Rumors had it that after the massacre, Germanic tribes had begun a southward advance against Rome.
As a modern world leader, Emperor Augustus would have been completely blown away. Instead of urging his people to calm down, he had all the Gauls and Germans present in Rome expelled from the city in panic. A kind of conscription was also created and the capital was guarded day and night. News of Varus' defeat soon spread throughout the empire. Even the poet Ovid, banished by Emperor Augustus to a desolate place on the Black Sea some years before, had learned the tidings of doom within months, as witnessed by one of his laments (Tristia). ). A true 'code red' for the Romans, but in the end the fear of a barbarian invasion turned out to be unfounded.
The Romans were not deterred by the failure in the Teutoburg Forest. Led by Nero Claudius Germanicus, the son of Drusus, new troops were sent north to teach the insurgents a lesson. If we are to believe the historian Tacitus, Germanicus almost succeeded in subduing the Germans definitively within a few years. With this Tacitus gives a very optimistic picture of the progress under Germanicus. Despite some victories, Tacitus' account of the campaigns between 14 and 16 shows that Germanicus made several mistakes and tactical blunders that cost the lives of many soldiers. Some scholars even believe that these campaigns caused more victims on the Roman side than the ear washing in the Teutoburg Forest.
It is incomprehensible why Germanicus chose to visit the battlefield of Varus, deep in Germanic territory. On their way back from this risky mission, some of the troops were again ambushed by Germanic forces. With the greatest possible effort, Aulus Caecina, a general of Germanicus, was able to guide his troops safely back to their camps.
Germanicus had no luck on his side. In the year 16 a large part of his fleet was lost during a severe southerly storm on the Wadden Sea. He eventually recovered two of the three legionary standards lost under Varus before being recalled from the front by Emperor Tiberius. After twenty-eight years of struggle, this one thought it was enough. The Germans, in his opinion, now had such quarrels that they no longer posed a serious threat to the empire.
The end of the battle
From 12 BC. the Romans tried to create more security in a region by silencing the most rebellious Germanic tribes in the north. The main aim was to stabilize the unsafe situation on the empire's northern borders, but like American action in the Middle East, this was not without a struggle. History teaches us time and again that waging war in strange and inaccessible terrain is an almost impossible task. The Romans saw that complete subjugation of the Germanic tribes could only be achieved with a huge force, and they had little need for it. The risks were simply too great. Moreover, Germania had nothing to offer them that could compensate for the enormous attack on the Roman treasury. It's a lesson that Americans could take advantage of today.
See further
- From the shore into the ditch
- Rebellious Batavians