Between the years 19-15 a. C. Emperor Augustus concluded the Roman conquest of Hispania, just as three decades earlier Julius Caesar did the same with Gaul, both constituting two of the most important regions of the newborn Roman Empire. But now it was time to protect them, especially the second one, with a weak natural border along the Rhine River, continually crossed by Germanic tribes in search of looting and loot.
The Germans.
Julius Caesar had already warned after his contacts with the Germanic peoples in northern Gaul:They will not be comfortable adversaries, they are fierce warriors who feed on meat, milk and cheese They don't want to know anything about agriculture, and they dress like the most ancient tribes. For the famous Roman soldier, his territorial customs spoke for themselves:The greater the distance that a people achieves with respect to their adversaries, the more important they feel.
Regarding their armies, the main concern for the Romans, it does not seem that they had any type of military structure, beyond the typical warrior headquarters of the Age of the metals. A military leader chosen by the assembly of warriors, was the visible head of both the army and each of the Germanic peoples. Well, as Tacitus described to us:the soldiers went to war without helmets or armor, and against fewer clothes, the better to avoid infections by contact of a wound with dirty clothes. The first row was provided with short spears and rudimentary wooden shields, those who followed him then fought with what they had more at hand, axes, maces, sticks, etc. But yes, they were extraordinarily large, so it was not advisable to face them hand-to-hand. Despite this rudimentary description, we cannot ignore a certain intelligence of the German leaders, they used shouts to frighten the enemy, they were masters in the art of "guerrilla warfare" and they did not hesitate to deceive the contrary in order to surprise them.
A good illustration of what the Roman conquest of Germany could have been.
As regards the Germanic peoples, or tribes, they number in the dozens, evidently of more or less preponderance. There were no big cities, at most the usual “oppida” of the Celtic world. These tribes had an exceptional ally; the Teutonic forests, which gave him shelter and food, and which the Romans came to hate deeply. To highlight some of these tribes, we must name the closest to the Rhine River, and that would be the first to be found by the Romans, that is, the Marcomanni, Quadi, Suevi or Cherusci, among others.
At least this is what the Romans told us about the barbarian peoples, although sometimes archeology gives us some contradictions. Until a few decades before the arrival of the Romans there are great indications of larger populations, which we can compare with the Celts of Gaul, or even with something closer to us that are the Iberian cities. In them there was industry, diversification of the economy, and subsistence agriculture. Although an aspect that archeology does not understand must have happened, the large towns were abandoned and the production of weapons proliferated greatly. In addition to signifying the great migrations both to the West and to the East, where well-organized entities will emerge after a few centuries, without going any further than the Visigoths or Ostrogoths.
The conquest of Claudius Nero Drusus.
Known as Drusus the Elder, he was the son of Livia, the wife of Augustus, but not of the latter since he married the future emperor three months pregnant, shortly after born, the child was sent to his father Tiberius Claudius Nero. But the emperor never gave up on him, making him one of his favorite sons and promoting his equestrian career. In such a way that in the year 12 a. C. he was as quaestor on the borders of the Rhine awaiting orders to intervene against those barbarians, who year after year, year after year, crossed the river for their continuous looting of Gaul.
Druze
That winter must have been especially hard on the border, and in spring the Roman legions were ready to enter German territory. By land it was especially complicated, without the usual Roman roads, everything muddy and without large warehouses or cities where to stock up on food. The troops were forced to carry supplies for the long campaign, without counting the continuous ambushes, so the advance was very slow. Two other means were used by Drusus to enter Germany, the first by barges that went up the tributaries of the Rhine River, the other by the maritime fleet that landed in the North Sea, thanks to the help of a native people, the Frisians, connoisseurs of the tidal regime that allowed the Roman troops not to be stranded and within the reach of their enemies.
Druso led up to four victorious campaigns between the years 12-9 a. C., there is evidence of them in the winter visits to Rome of the godson of Augustus. In some of them after the winter, the emperor himself and his wife Livia, let us remember Drusus's mother, accompanied him, near the front. As in the year 10 a. C. in which Livia could see how her grandson, the future emperor Claudius came to the world in the Gallic city of Lyon. The following winter Drusus was invested as Consul, in addition to appearing as the emperor's favorite for his succession, unfortunately it was not possible. In the summer of the year 9 a. C. the Roman troops arrived at the Elbe river, the maximum extension of the Empire towards the north of Europe. Drusus had achieved his goal, but on his return to Gaul, a fall from his horse caused him a major infection that days later cost him his death, it was September of that year 9 BC. C.
In three years the border had been changed from the Rhine to the Elbe river, now it was time to romanize the conquered territory, and at first glance everything seemed to be going according to plan. The Roman merchants entered German territory, the legions began the work of structuring the territory with the construction of roads and bridges that linked both rivers. The sons of the German nobility were quickly introduced into the imperial structures. But one of them, the son of Segimer, chief of the Cherusci tribe, will star in one of the greatest humiliations suffered by the Roman legions in their history.
Varus, give me back my legions!
Eighteen years had passed since the death of Drusus, a time that Arminius, the son of Segimer, had used to learn the inner workings of the Roman legions. Together with Publius Quintilius Varus he had fought in the eastern part of the Empire and when the latter was assigned to Germania, it was a good time to return to his land. This occurred between the year 7-8 AD. C. immediately was preparing the trap for Varo.
Statue of Varo, seen by the Germans in the year 2003
There are contradictions between the historiography in the way General Varo acted in Germania. While some brand the command of the three legions assigned to the area as repressive and violent, see the XVII, XVIII and XIX, others speak of peaceful Romanization and even distributing them into smaller groups, destined to exercise the public service of the new Roman province, called Germania Ulterior. Be that as it may, in the autumn of the year 9 d. C. Varo decided for reasons of difficult justification, to withdraw them to the limes of the Rhine. At that moment the intervention of Arminio arrived, putting the Roman general on notice of an insurrection in the forests of the southwest of the province, it was best to avoid the area Leaving the incident to resolve it later. So, following the advice of the Teuton, Varo deviated from the most used route on the return to the Rhine from the Elbe.
Recreation of Varo's entry into Teutoburg.
In the ambush all three legions were wiped off the map, death tolls vary from source to source, but at least 20,000 legionnaires left their lives in the Teutoburg Forest. Their leaders were removed alive and their bodies mutilated in strange pagan rites, the banners of the legions did not return to Rome, and their numbers were withdrawn for life. According to Tacitus, Publio Quintilio Varo took his own life, something traditional in his family in the face of adversity. Months later, according to Suetonius, Augustus continued to tour the palace rooms shouting:Varus, give me back my legions! It was the end of the Romanization on the other side of the Rhine river, but not the presence of the Roman legions that had to avenge the greatest humiliation received.
Germanicus, the emperor without a crown.
We don't even know his real name, but we do know that at the age of three he lost his father. Drusus left the day of his death a worthy heir to even wear the purple, something that did not happen due to possibly a fit of jealousy. When Germanicus turned 19, Emperor Augustus ordered his successor Tiberius to adopt him as his son, an unequivocal act of presenting him as a pretender to the imperial scepter. From that moment on his career was meteoric, at the young age of 27 he had already become Consul and evidently his destiny was the Germanic border.
Germanic
In the hot summer of the year 14 AD. C., at the same time that Tiberius succeeded Augustus as emperor in Rome, Germanicus was ready to cross the Rhine limes. The call came Segestes, Arminius's father-in-law, noting that since the Teutoburg massacre relations between the two had worsened more if possible, the first of them had always opted for the romanization of Germania, the second obviously not. Said distress call was a temptation for Germanicus, being able to take control of Arminio could bring him glory in Rome. So, in command of six legions, the outstanding Roman general entered the ancient Germania Ulterior.
He did not manage to hunt down Arminius, but he did manage to hunt down his wife and the child she was expecting, after which, she was sent to Rome seeking humiliation for the Teutonic leader, to see birth to his offspring in the capital of the Empire. Even so, it was not the greatest loot for the Roman troops, this came after locating the place where the Teutoburg massacre had been committed years before. The place was Dantesque, full of bones, skulls embedded in trees, and altars where tribunes and centurions had been dismembered. Germanicus ordered the remains found to be buried and after recovering two of the three imperial eagles, he returned to the Rhine. On the way back, a new ambush by Arminius was controlled by the Roman legions, better prepared to fight against the barbarian tribes than a few years before.
The Ulterior Germania that Drusus conquered and his son his Germanicus
The following campaigns in Germania continued to favor the Roman troops, hence practically in the year 17 d. C. had returned to control the territory to the Elbe. But at that moment came the incomprehensible order of Tiberius from Rome, the legions had to withdraw and stay alone to control the Rhine limes. In addition, Germanicus was "invited" to return to Rome to be received with the honors that should be honored their victories. Germanicus' legions called him to disobedience, lending themselves to making him emperor. But he did not lack the confidence shown years before by Augustus and heeded the call of his adoptive father, in such a way that that summer he paraded through the streets of the imperial capital, accompanied by his trophies; the recovered banners and child of Arminio.
Only a few months later Germanicus left for Syria, with him, his wife Agrippina and a new mission ahead of him. It could not be carried out, he died of poison on October 10, 19 in the city of Antioch. Possibly out of jealousy, of whom? the scapegoat was Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, governor of Syria and rival of Germanicus. Obviously there is speculation about the hand of Tiberius, but the latter also has many defenders, who endorse his mandate for strictly following the guidelines of his predecessor. For these, if he ordered Germanicus to return from the country of the barbarians, he was thinking about the economy of the Empire, the Germans did not want to be Romans, and the war was too costly to continue convincing them.
Conclusions.
In this way Rome lost the last opportunity to conquer northern Europe, from that moment the border was established on the Rhine as Augustus had wished. A real headache for generations of Romans to come. What will that border have, that separates the Latin from the Germanic? and that will be the cause of wars throughout history.
More info:
Césares, Juan Manuel Roldán, Ed. The sphere of books, 2008
Augusto, Adrian Woldswhorty, Ed. The sphere of books, 2014
Annals, Books I-IV, by Cornelius Tacitus.
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Images:
commons.wikimedia