When Arminius's warriors poured out of the forest in their massive surprise attack on Varus's legions, the two armies applied their distinctive military approaches to the ensuing battle. The Roman legions that campaigned east of the Rhine between 12 B. C. and A. D. 9 were the product of centuries of development in organization, tactics, and weaponry. They were the most powerful military force in the world at the time, and the men who served in the legions were proud of the traditions they embodied.
Their Germanic adversaries had behind them just as long a tradition of military activity, but it was different. Because they had no writing, we lack the descriptions of changes in organization that we have for the Roman legions. But from the archaeological evidence, we can examine weapon technology and military activity going back millennia before the encounters with Rome.
The meeting of the two armies in the forest and marshland of northern Germany was not as unusual an incident as the Roman accounts might suggest. It was characteristic of the confrontations between Romans and native peoples, especially during the Roman campaigns between 12 B. C. and A. D. 16. In fact, the historian Cassius Dio reports that Drusus came very close to suffering a similar disaster in 11 B. C., and Germanicus had some close calls in A. D. 15 and 16 (see chapter 11).What made this battle unusual was its outcome—the annihilation of three legions and a devastating blow to Roman self-confidence and imperial ambition.
Roman Warfare
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN ARMY In the early days of Mediterranean warfare, from the late Bronze Age, starting about 1300 B. C., down to the sixth century B. C., wars were small in scale. Military groups consisted of men who temporarily left their farms and villages to follow a local chief in a raiding expedition or to defend their territory from invasion. Organization depended upon social relationships between the men who served as soldiers and their chiefs, and rewards included personal honor and booty captured from defeated enemies. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer describes this kind ofwarfare, although the Trojan War was an event on a much larger scale than most conflicts—and hence the subject of Homer's epic poem.
During the sixth century B. C., the hoplite form of warfare was introduced into Italy from Greece, where the style had recently developed. Hoplites were heavily armed troops, with helmets, body armor, shields, spears, and swords, and they fought in tightly packed units. Swords and spearheads were made mostly of iron by this time, but helmets, shields, and body armor were of the more malleable bronze. This new technology and organization of warfare accompanied the growth of towns and cities, and it represented a more centralized and powerful military force. Hoplites were part-time soldiers. Typically they were land-owning men who were responsible for purchasing their own equipment and for being ready when called to defend the interests of their homeland. During the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., warfare became increasingly important for Rome. When bands of marauding Gauls from beyond the Alps defeated a Roman army and sacked Rome in 387 B. C., Romans responded with determination to establish a larger military force to defend the city and its territory. This experience also created in the Roman mind a fear of northern barbarians that loomed large in Roman thinking and action over the next eight centuries.
In the fourth century B. C., Rome increased the size of its military, devised means to enable the army to remain in the field for longer periods, and created the first professional fighting force to begin to replace the part-time warriors. The legions of the late fourth century engaged in some larger-scale warfare aimed not just at defense or capturing booty but at territorial gain for the expanding state. The legion consisted of three main categories of troops—heavy infantry, light infantry, and cavalry. The cavalry had the highest status and comprised wealthy men able to afford the horse and required equipment. The heavy infantry consisted of citizens who could afford the armor of that category. The light infantry represented the less affluent citizenry. The total number of troops in a legion was between 4,500 and 6,000, the great majority infantry, with some 300 to 400 cavalry.
As Rome defeated its Mediterranean enemies, such as Hannibal and his Carthaginian army at the end of the third century B. C., and expanded its domain in Europe, Asia Minor, and North Africa during the second century B. C., ever larger numbers of soldiers were required to make longer commitments to serve in bases far from the capital. By the first century B. C., the great majority of legionaries were professional soldiers, drawn from less affluent groups, both in Rome and in the rest of Italy. For many, a military career was an attractive option, promising adequate food and shelter, a cash income, and a social and legal status better than they would have had otherwise. To enjoy those benefits, they had to subject themselves to the often brutal discipline of the army.
Participating in a mutiny or deserting one's unit was punishable by death, as was failure to follow orders, though, at least by the time of Augustus, extenuating circumstances often spared a man. Minor offenses frequently led to flogging. When an entire unit disgraced itself by cowardly or insubordinate behavior, the infamous punishment of decimation could be carried out. The soldiers in the unit had to draw lots, and soldiers in other units killed every tenth man in the guilty cohort, typically by stoning, clubbing, or beheading. Although this punishment was rarely applied during and after the time of Augustus, numerous instances are mentioned in the written sources, and soldiers knew that the threat was always present if their performance wavered. And of course, even if a soldier followed orders perfectly and distinguished himself in battle, he always ran the risk of being killed or seriously wounded in combat.
Augustus made important changes in the Roman army and presided over new conquests of territory in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. His decisions regarding the deployment of Rome's twenty-eight legions were critical for conquering new lands and maintaining peace in the provincial territories. He stationed the greatest number of legions on the Rhine and the Danube, because those frontiers were the most important to his overall plans for Rome. At different times, five or six were based on the Rhine and six or seven on the Danube. Five were in Spain, three or four in Macedonia. Three were in Egypt, three or four in Syria, and one in Africa.
Augustus established pay and pension standards and set the period of service for the different categories of troops. By the first decade A. D., the usual term of service for legionaries was twenty years in active duty, plus five in the reserves as a veteran. Soldiers with the naval forces served in active duty for twenty-six years. Augustus's attention to the well-being of the soldiers, both during their service and in their retirement, was important for a number of reasons. It meant that Augustus could build the
Roman military into a large permanent fighting force of some 300,000 men, about half of them legionaries and half auxiliaries. He could count on them to provide good service when he ordered legions into action in different parts of the imperial frontiers. Since the soldiers were aware that they owed their good fortune in the army—attractive pay, relatively comfortable living conditions, a secure retirement—in large measure to Augustus, the emperor could rely on the majority of the army to support him in the event of any serious uprising or revolution. For his policy of imperial expansion, the good organization and high morale of the army were critical.
Supplementing the legions were the auxiliary troops—nonci-tizens from the Roman provinces and from lands beyond the frontiers. Auxiliaries served as light infantry and as cavalry alongside the legions, but in smaller units, typically about five hundred or a thousand men in a unit. Their pay was slightly less than that of the legionaries. The great advantage for the Roman generals was not only the added numbers but also the special skills, such as horsemanship, archery, or use of the sling, that the auxiliaries often possessed to counter the enemies against whom Rome was fighting.
Most auxiliaries were probably recruited in one of two ways. In some cases, rulers of native peoples who inhabited lands along the frontiers of the Empire, known as client kings, were obliged through their treaties with Rome to supply a certain number of auxiliary soldiers to serve in the Roman army, usually in Roman territory near their homelands. In other instances, native kings and chiefs in the unconquered lands chose to serve the Roman cause, and brought with them their warrior bands, in order to advance their own personal and their tribes' causes. Service in the auxiliary units of the Roman army brought considerable wealth and status. In the lands east of the middle and lower Rhine, Rome first introduced a cash economy, and many people were eager to participate by earning the wages paid to auxiliary soldiers. The leaders of auxiliary units, and sometimes the soldiers as well, stood to gain Roman citizenship at the end oftheir term of service and, if they won success in battle, heightened status among their own people. For many, leaders and warrior followers alike, service in the auxiliary forces of the Roman army offered various attractions.
From 15 B. C. on, Augustus's principal concern in imperial policy was the two-part goal of securing the Rhine and Danube frontiers and expanding Roman territory, or at least the Roman peace, beyond those frontiers into Germany. Accordingly, he concentrated his legions along those frontiers. Beginning with Tiberius and Drusus's Alpine campaign of 15 B. C. and continuing with Drusus's and later Tiberius's incursions eastward across the Rhine, Augustus oversaw more than two decades of aggressive campaigns into the heart of Germany.
ON CAMPAIGN
When Rome attempted to conquer the peoples of a new territory north of the Mediterranean, the generals led their legions on campaigns preferentially during the summer months, when the weather was driest and movement therefore easiest. Campaigns were carefully organized, and they followed a standard framework.
When they left their permanent bases, such as Xanten and Haltern, the legions marching into unconquered territory had to carry with them everything they would need in the field. The campaigns east of the Rhine typically involved two or three legions at a time. Together with auxiliaries, the total number of men was between ten and twenty thousand in each campaign. Soldiers marched with their own weapons, tools such as pickaxes for building camps, and personal gear in their packs. The legion's food supply, tents, artillery, and other equipment were hauled in wagons drawn by mules.
The arrangement of the units on the march was critical. Ease of movement was important, but in enemy territory defense was paramount. Marching order varied according to the terrain as well as to the disposition of the peoples who lived in the region. We have only a few descriptions of the order in which the different troops marched and do not know exactly what formations were employed in different contexts. One typical arrangement in enemy territory was to place auxiliary troops and cavalry at the front and rear of the column, and the legions in the central part, protecting the baggage wagons. Depending upon the width of the road or track along which the troops marched, the column could extend for a couple of miles. Under ideal conditions, the troops might march eight abreast, but when the track was constricted, hemmed in by forest or bordered by marsh, the column had to be narrower and thus longer.
On campaign, a typical day might have been something like this. At around 5:00 A. M. (when it already gets light in Europe in the summer), horns woke the sleeping troops. After a quick breakfast of bread and water, the soldiers took down their tents and then loaded them and other equipment onto the wagons. When everything was ready, soldiers and mule drivers fell into formation and marched out of camp.
After a morning of marching, in which they might cover as much as fifteen miles under optimal conditions, the scouts looked for a new site on which to pitch camp early in the afternoon. With their pickaxes and shovels, the soldiers hastily dug a ditch to form a rectangular enclosure, piling the dirt around the inside perimeter of the enclosure to form a wall. An attacker would first have to descend into the ditch and then climb up the far side of the ditch and scale the wall in order to get into the fort. Soldiers usually constructed a palisade of pointed stakes on top of the wall to create an additional impediment to anyone attempting to enter. After an hour or two of building, the soldiers pitched their tents inside the enclosure, following a standard pattern for each unit, looked after the animals, and began preparing their evening meal. After supper, there was time for relaxation, playing games, gambling, and fixing equipment, before bed. Soldiers had to share guard duty throughout the night.
The main food of the soldiers on campaign was wheat, dispensed from the supplies carried on the wagons and ground to flour by each eight-man unit. They usually baked the flour into bread or made a porridge, to which they might add small amounts of salted meat and vegetables. Soldiers carried an emergency ration of a three-day supply of hardtack (hard, flat bread made of flour and water), cheese, and salted meat. They drank water, sometimes mixed with a little wine.
At the time of Augustus, legionary soldiers were not permitted to marry; officers, by contrast, were allowed not only to marry but also to house their families in their quarters on the military bases. As has always been the case around army bases, Roman soldiers fraternized with local women, and we know that they often began unofficial families that lived in communities close to the bases. When the army left the bases to go on campaign, some of the women and children accompanied them en route. We have very little textual information about this subject, since the women and children were not officially part of the army and were of no direct concern to the officers, as long as they did not distract the soldiers from their jobs.
BATTLE TACTICS AND STRATEGY
The Roman army had developed, like the armies of other states in the Mediterranean region during the final centuries B. C., as a heavily armed fighting force designed for action on the open field of combat. The different categories of troops had their specific roles to play in the complex battlefield strategy, and everything had to be arranged precisely before the engagement began. The thousands of infantry troops lined up before an assault, they prepared their weapons, and cavalry troops took up their positions. These arrangements of soldiers, equipment, and artillery pieces such as catapults took hours to get into place. After the general was sure that everything was ready, the assault began with an extended barrage of arrows and large projectiles launched from catapults. Only after the front line of the enemy had been seriously weakened and thrown into disorder by the long-distance projectile weapons did the legionary troops move forward into battle.
Hand-to-hand combat between thousands and even tens of thousands of troops is difficult for us to imagine, because we have never experienced or even seen such a thing, though films and television programs provide vivid images of heroes slashing and stabbing their way to victory. Every battle situation was unique, and generalizing about the character of battles in which the Roman legions were engaged is difficult. From available descriptions and archaeological finds, however, we can piece together a picture of what battles may have been like. The ongoing excavations at Kalkriese are likely to provide much new information about Roman battle tactics, but more about that later.
The Roman legions relied on intimidating their enemies, with artillery barrages and other means, before a battle even began. Roman army units were often larger than those of the enemies they encountered, they were heavily armed, and they were highly trained. They offered a frightening prospect to their opponents. The vision of thousands of Roman soldiers, moving steadily forward in tight formation, all outfitted with sturdy helmets, huge body-covering wooden shields with ominously projecting metal bosses that could be thrust into a man's chest, stopping to hurl their javelins, then rushing headlong forward to stab at their opponents's abdomens with their swords, must have terrified most enemy soldiers. It is likely that many opposing armies broke ranks and fled, if not at the sight of the advancing legions, then at the first volley of projectiles or at the charge of the heavily armed troops. The advancing legionaries threw their javelins at the front lines of enemy troops from a distance of twenty-five yards or so, in an effort to frighten the enemy into fleeing, or at least to cause further disruption in the ranks before the two lines met.
Surviving written accounts of battles suggest that most Roman commanders were not notable for clemency toward their enemies. By the time of the German campaigns, the Roman army had developed into a highly efficient machine for killing large numbers of enemy soldiers. The use of long-distance projectile weapons at the start of a battle meant that substantial numbers of enemy troops could be killed without much loss to the Roman force. During and after battle, the legions' opponents were shown little mercy. They were usually killed rather than captured. Women from enemy communities were typically sold into slavery, but not the men. Roman commanders did not hesitate to order the slaughter of unarmed people. Tacitus describes the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children of the Marsi tribe in their settlements and the destruction of everything in their territory: "eager legions... for fifty miles around, wasted the country with sword and flame."
What would seem to us to be the Roman troops' extreme violence and cruelty toward their opponents reflects an attitude shared by many Romans and fostered by public events such as gladiatorial spectacles. The Roman writer Cicero, who says that he finds gladiatorial combat "cruel and brutal," suggests that the shows in the arenas served the purpose of inuring the Roman public to extreme violence and bloodshed, the better to support the legions' campaigns beyond the frontiers.
WEAPONRY
By the time the major Roman campaigns into Germany started, in 12 B. C., the legions' weaponry was highly standardized. We have good information about this subject, especially from representations of soldiers on gravestones and from archaeological finds at military bases, now richly supplemented by the discoveries at Kalkriese. Roman weapons belonged to three main categories: projectiles launched at the enemy from a distance, stabbing and slashing weapons used in close combat, and defensive weapons intended to protect the user from the weapons of enemy soldiers.
The most important projectile weapon of the legions was the javelin, or pilum. It had a small four-sided point at the end of an iron shaft that could exceed a yard in length. This shaft was set into the end of a wooden spear that was also about a yard long. The javelin was heavy and its momentum - concentrated in a very small point relative to its total weight. It easily penetrated shields and armor, and when it stopped, the iron shaft bent from the weight of the entire weapon, making it extremely difficult to extract.
Many auxiliary troops used spears with leaf-shaped socketed points. Bows and arrows were also auxiliary troops' weapons, and arrowheads are common on Roman bases. Slingstones made of lead, stone, or baked clay were other auxiliary weapons that are well represented on bases, as at Haltern. A soldier skilled in the use of the sling could hit a small target at two hundred yards without difficulty, with a small, but very fast-moving and deadly, weapon (see chapter 3).
Besides the projectiles that Roman soldiers launched directly with their own muscle power, the army also used artillery (powered by torsion, not by gunpowder). Wooden catapults shot iron-tipped bolts, and ballistas threw large stones, especially at the walls of defending enemies' fortresses. But the Roman troops were unable to make effective use of any artillery pieces at Kalkriese. Even if they had had such weapons with them, in a surprise attack in difficult terrain, there would have been no time to set up, load, and fire such machinery. It is unlikely that Varus's legions even hauled the heavier, more cumbersome kinds of artillery on this summer campaign. The Germanic peoples between the Rhine and the Elbe did not construct fortified set-dements against whose walls the stone-throwing ballistas would have been effective.
After the troops had launched the various missiles, they moved forward to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. The most important weapon at this stage was the two-edged short sword known as the gladius, employed by legionaries as well as auxiliaries. Its blade was up to twenty-four inches in length, and it had a long and specially strengthened point. The grip was made of wood or bone, and the scabbard of thin wood covered with sheet bronze. Scabbards could be decorated, and they had rings for attaching them to a belt worn over the shoulder. Officers' scabbards often had ornamental parts made of silver instead of bronze or iron, and sometimes they were inlaid with cut stones. Short-bladed daggers were carried by legionaries and auxiliaries as well. Both the sword and the dagger, in their scabbards, were suspended from a leather belt decorated with bronze ornaments. Long swords, more than thirty inches in length, were used by cavalry troops, which also relied on large lances, with points over twelve inches long.
For protection from enemies' weapons, the Roman legionaries wore helmets and armor and carried shields. Helmets in this period were most often made of iron, though some were bronze. They consisted of the bowl that fit on the head and a neck guard that projected from the back. Cheek protectors, attached separately at the sides, were hinged so that they could move freely. A band of metal across the brow helped strengthen the helmet against downward slashing strokes from enemies' swords. Officers' helmets had crests that held colorful plumes of feathers or animal hair, and these were supported by forked holders that attached to the top of the helmet. The crests made the officers easily identifiable on the battlefield to the men under their command.
Over garments that could include, depending upon the location and the season of the year, a linen undergarment, a wool tunic, and a leather vest, the soldiers wore one of four types of armor. Chain mail took the form of a shirt. Fragments of mail and the fittings that fastened the shirt together are commonly found by archaeologists on military bases. Scale armor consisted of small sheets of iron attached to the vest. Segmented armor was made of slabs of sheet iron fastened to leather straps. Full metal cuirasses— so-called muscle armor, because the sheet metal took the form of the body musculature—were reserved for officers and were sometimes decorated with elaborate figures and designs.
Legionaries carried heavy rectangular shields, curved in the shape of almost half a cylinder. The shields were made of layers of wood and covered with leather. Over the hand was a round iron boss that could be thrust at an opponent's face or chest. The large size of the shield offered considerable protection to the soldier, and the expansive front was often decorated with symbols of his unit. Around the rim of the shield was a narrow frame of iron or bronze to keep the wood from splitting. Officers' shields often had silver or gold trim.
Hand-to-hand combat was exhausting. The legionary's weapons, including what he threw and thrusted and what he wore for protection, weighed around seventy pounds. Effectively stabbing and slashing at enemy soldiers with a sword while simultaneously fending off blows with the shield could have lasted only fifteen or twenty minutes in active engagement before complete exhaustion set in. When we read about battles lasting for hours, we need to reckon with advances and withdrawals, and renewed advances, not with constant clashing. It is difficult to imagine what it was like to be in the thick of hand-to-hand combat, with fellow soldiers falling around you and your own end likely at any instant.
Along with his weapons, the soldier also depended upon other equipment on the march. On his feet, he wore thick leather sandals strengthened on the bottom by about 120 large-headed iron nails (see illustration 20). Although today we think of sandals as lightweight, casual footwear, the Roman soldier's sandals were heavy, tough footgear, comfortable on long marches. Besides keeping the feet open to the air, they permitted the soldier to march through streams and shallow rivers, because, unlike boots that would fill with water, they dried quickly as the march continued. In addition, the soldier carried a pack that contained rations, a cooking pot, and personal items such as games and ornaments. The loaded pack weighed about forty pounds. Combined with the seventy pounds of weapons, the soldier's load was a heavy one. Although soldiers did not wear their packs when they moved into battle position, if they were ambushed on the march, they might have difficulty removing them to defend themselves.
Officers carried some of the same weapons as the legionary soldiers, but their helmets were more ornate and their swords and daggers often trimmed with silver and gold. They did not carry as many weapons as the soldiers, nor did they carry heavy packs of gear. They relied on the baggage wagons to transport much of their equipment.
Cavalry troops were outfitted differently from the legionary soldiers. Their weapons were spears and long swords, and their shields were lightweight and oval in shape. The horses were often decorated with bronze and silver ornaments attached to the harness, and these included luck-bringing charms and bells. The Roman army used horses for pulling supply wagons and as pack animals as well. Mules, oxen, and donkeys also pulled wagons when troops were on the move.
MORALE
The men who served in the Roman legions were trained for a career of fighting, and their occupational and cultural worlds differed greatly from most of ours. They were highly motivated to stand their ground in combat and to perform their assigned duties. The centurions were directly responsible for guiding the troops in battle, and they earned their positions of command through their own heroism and effectiveness in combat. The soldiers respected them and did not want to let them down. Neither did they want to let down their fellow soldiers. As in most armies, the legionaries shared a strong sense of belonging to a community of soldiers. It was better to die fighting for the unit than to be among a handful of survivors in a lost conflict.
In addition to these values, which helped keep the soldiers loyal and obedient, more direct sanctions could be brought to bear. In the Roman army of the second century B. C., according to the author Polybius, there existed the practice of beating to death soldiers who failed in their assigned tasks. The harshest collective punishment for a unit that disobeyed orders was decimation (see above).
Most important in guiding the combat behavior of the individual soldier and of the unit was the set of values—bravery and loyalty— inculcated into the legionaries during their training and service. Individual soldiers, and units within legions, were sometimes singled out for special honors for meritorious behavior and rewarded with crowns, medals, or cash bonuses. These values were represented materially by the standards that every legion carried.
In every legion, a member of the esteemed first cohort carried a pole that had at its top an eagle of gilded silver or of solid gold, symbolizing Rome. In its claws the eagle often gripped thunderbolts, and in most cases its wings were spread as if it were about to take flight. Another member carried a standard with the emblems of his particular legion, usually including an animal, such as a bull, ibex, lion, or ram, that identified it. The bases of the poles had pointed metal tips so that the poles could be stuck easily into the ground. Every military base had a sacred place— a shrine within the principal administration building—where the standards were kept. Over their uniforms, the standard-bearers wore animal skins, especially those of bears or lions, to distinguish them from the other troops. The legion's standards were treated as religious objects and even worshiped; they embodied the spirit of the legion. The loss of a legion's standards to an enemy, especially of the eagle standard, was a profound disgrace to the legion and to every man in it. Such a loss could be grounds for the dissolution of a legion.
THE ROMAN TRIUMPH
When the legions achieved decisive victories, the whole of Rome celebrated a triumph (see illustration 21). By the time of Augustus, this ceremony was a well-established tradition. Like most public celebrations of accomplishments, the triumph served both to glorify the achievements of the victorious general and his troops and to reassert ideals that Roman society held dear. The triumph took the form of a grand procession in which the victorious general rode through the streets of Rome in a chariot decorated with gold and pulled by four horses to the temple of Jupiter. He was accompanied by officials bestowing honors upon him, marching soldiers of the victorious legions—one of the few occasions when Roman soldiers were allowed in the city—wagons bearing captured booty, and prominent enemy captives, in some instances prepared for public execution as part of the ceremony. The triumph was a grand celebration of Rome's martial values and of its confidence in its superiority over all of the peoples it encountered.
The Native Peoples THE ROMAN VIEW
The Roman writers were not as well informed as we are about the military technology and organization among the peoples of northern Europe beyond the lower Rhine River. They judged the native warriors in terms of Roman ideas about military organization and practice. This fundamental lack of understanding of their northern enemies was one of the factors that kept the Roman legions from ever being able to conquer them.
MILITARY TRADITION IN IRON AGE NORTHERN EUROPE
The archaeological evidence makes clear that the traditions of warfare in northern Europe differed from those of Rome. Roman military organization was the product of an urban, literate Mediterranean society. During the time of Augustus, when the city of Rome had a population of about a million people, communities in northern Europe were much smaller and had no system of writing. Not until the Roman legions threatened them did these peoples organize military units of a size commensurate with the Roman army's.
The evidence suggests that when Rome was developing a hoplite-style system of heavily armed infantry, during the sixth century B. C., there was no warfare of such magnitude in northern Europe. Not until the time of the Hjortspring deposit, around the middle of the fourth century B. C. (see chapter 6), do we have evidence of concerted group military action, and even then the number of combatants indicated by the weapons was not more than eighty. Organizing, outfitting, training, and transporting eighty armed troops for military engagements attests to a certain level of political organization, but on a scale much smaller than that of Roman Italy. At Hjortspring and other weapon deposits of the time, the weapons are mostly of iron, no longer bronze. But bone was still much used for spearheads. The weapon assemblages of this period indicate that the great majority of warriors carried only a lance, usually made of ash, and a shield. The iron lance heads were up to sixteen inches in length. The wooden shields ranged in shape from narrow oval to almost square. Chain mail is well represented, with about twenty suits in the Hjortspring deposit. Short, one-edged thrusting swords, present in much smaller numbers than lances, spears, and shields, were probably the distinctive weapon of leaders of the warrior bands.
By the time that the armies ofArminius and Varus clashed in A. D. 9, the blacksmiths of northern Europe had further refined their weapon technology. Many examples of weapons and of warriors' clothing are unusually well preserved in ritual deposits of northern Germany and Denmark from a couple of centuries after the time of the great battle (illustrations 22-26).
Just as warfare in the Roman tradition was closely linked to ritual, as is apparent in the behavior surrounding the legionary standards and the ceremony of the triumph, so too in Iron Age northern Europe there was a close connection between war and ceremony. Many Bronze Age finds of weapons are in deposits believed to have been offerings to gods. The Hjortspring site is one of a group of such weapon deposits from the pre-Roman Iron Age, and many more are known from the Roman period, including Nydam, Thorsberg, and Vimose. An important change in ritual practice in northern Europe signals a response to Roman encroachments.
CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO ROMAN ADVANCES During the final century B. C., important changes took place in weaponry, fighting techniques, and burial practices among the peoples of northern Europe. Many weapons of this period were considerably larger than those of earlier times, and the quality of the ironworking tended to be higher. Swords and lance heads were more often decorated. Long two-edged swords, up to forty inches in length, were designed as slashing rather than as stabbing weapons, indicating a change in fighting technique, adapted to combat between larger units of fighters. Lance points varied in form and size, with some as long as twenty inches. Shield bosses were made of iron instead of wood, and many were shaped with a point that could be thrust at the enemy or used to parry oncoming swords and lances. One-edged slashing swords, barbed spearheads, battle-axes, and thin thrusting swords were all in use.
Spurs are frequently associated with weapons, indicating the development of a cavalry.
As we noted in chapter 6, at this time the placing of sets of weapons in men's graves became common practice. To some extent, we can attribute this new emphasis on martial activity and military symbolism to the service of many young men from regions east of the Rhine with Caesar's forces in Gaul. Presumably the majority returned home after their mercenary service was completed. In addition, however, the societies east of the Rhine were becoming increasingly militarized in response to the growing threat of Roman aggression, brought home to them by Caesar's forays across the Rhine in 55 and 53 B. C. Their responses are apparent in new technologies of weaponry, larger quantities of weapons manufactured, and the increasing role of military hardware in ritual. The ever larger proportion of graves that contain weapons suggests that more men were becoming involved in military preparation and, hence, that larger military units were being developed. Since some of the men had served with Caesar, they brought with them personal knowledge of Roman tactics and weaponry.
MILITARY ORGANIZATION
Most of the weapon graves of the late Iron Age contain one or two lances and a shield, but about 30 percent of them also have a sword. Those with a sword frequently include other special objects, such as spurs and Roman bronze vessels. Thus a status distinction is evident in the weapon burials, reflecting the command structure in the military units. If we hypothesize that the men buried with just a lance and a shield were infantry soldiers, those with swords may have been leaders of units, and those buried also with spurs, Roman bronze vessels, and sometimes gold and silver ornaments were the higher-level commanders of the military forces. As with any organization, as the size of the units increased, more levels of command were required.
Slightly later weapon deposits in northern Germany and Denmark provide another source of information about organization. During the Roman Iron Age, it was common practice for the victors in military confrontations to deposit the weapons of their defeated enemies in bodies of water, especially lakes, as offerings to deities who had aided them, as at the earlier site of Hjortspring. At Vaedebro, in eastern Jutland, around the time that Drusus and Tiberius were conducting their campaigns east of the Rhine, weapons were deposited together with skulls and other bones from more than twenty humans. Some of the skulls and other bones show wounds inflicted by weapons.
Around A. D. 200, thousands of weapons were dropped into a lake at Illerup, in central Jutland. In the parts of the deposit excavated so far, 749 lance points, 661 spearpoints, 225 swords, 430 shield bosses, axes, arrowheads, and harness equipment for ten horses have been recovered. Of the 430 shield bosses, 11 are made of materials other than iron; 5 are made of silver and 6 of either bronze or iron with gold sheet ornament on them. The precious-metal decoration on these 11 shields, together with fittings for a small number of horses, are clear signs of status distinction within the military units. If we use the number of shield bosses as a guide, 11 specially crafted objects out of 430 may represent commanders, who constituted about 2.5 percent of the fighting force.
Environment and Warfare
Roman weaponry was greatly influenced by the army's contacts with the Iron Age peoples of Europe, particularly those of the southern parts of temperate Europe whom the Romans knew as Gauls. The helmets that Roman soldiers wore were derived from helmets created earlier in temperate Europe. The form of the long swords that the Roman cavalry and many of the auxiliary troops used was based on the La Tene sword developed north of
The Alps. At the same time, the peoples of northern Europe borrowed ideas from Roman weaponry for the creation of new forms of their own—for example, in swords. Much of this exchange resulted from the mercenary service of Europeans in the Roman army. By the time the Roman legions clashed with the native warriors east of the Rhine, much in the weapon technologies of the two sides was very similar.
But in the realm of tactics, Roman and native militaries remained fundamentally different. The Iron Age Europeans did not adopt the open-field tactic of combat upon which the Roman legions relied, nor did they make use of heavily armed troops comparable to the legionaries. Their practice of warfare was adapted to the environment of northern Europe, with its extensive forests, marshes, and bogs.
The texts make clear that Roman commanders found the Germans' tactics immensely frustrating. The accounts of Drusus's campaigns between 12 and 9 B. C. refer to tribal groups' leaving their territories at the approach of the legions, allowing Drusus to march through unopposed, but depriving him of possible victories (see below). Roman writers observe that barbarian warrior bands attack ferociously, but retreat quickly, often in apparent disorder. The Roman commentators attribute these behaviors to the natives' inherently inferior abilities and their lack of organization. But it is apparent that the Germanic warriors knew exactly what they were doing. Their strategy and tactics were precisely adapted to their environment and to their enemy. Although derided by the Romans as inferior fighters, they frustrated Rome's efforts to achieve decisive victories east of the Rhine.
Rome's Military Expansion
The mythological date of Rome's founding is 753 B. C., by the brothers Romulus and Remus, who as infants had been nursed
By a wolf. Archaeological evidence traces Rome's origins back into the Bronze Age, well before 1000 B. C., when farming villages occupied the hills of the later city. During the seventh and sixth centuries B. C., the communities there interacted increasingly with other peoples in Italy, including Etruscans to the north and Greek colonies to the south. Rome became an urban center, with a population of perhaps about 25,000, and another 100,000 in the lands around the small city.
From the latter part of the fifth century B. C. on, Rome began its expansion, first to the south into Latium, then northward into southern Etruria (now Tuscany). During the third century B. C., Rome undertook conquests beyond Italy. In the First Punic War, Rome unexpectedly defeated Carthage and won Sicily, which became Rome's first province. Through other wars, Rome gained parts of Iberia, Illyria, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, and North Africa. After the Second Punic War (218-201 B. c.), Carthage ceased to be a Mediterranean power, and Rome dominated the western Mediterranean region.
These advances were interrupted by setbacks. Two in particular were to play highly significant roles in how Romans thought about the peoples north of the Alps and how they pursued their military policies against them. According to tradition, early in the fourth century B. C. the city of Rome was sacked by invading Gauls, or Celts, from the north. The story is presented in greatest detail by Livy, who was writing late in the first century B. C. According to his telling of the event, the invaders came across the Alps, defeated Etruscan cities in the Po Plain, in the north of Italy, and marched south toward Rome.
As they marched swiftly and noisily on, the terrified cities armed in haste, and the peasants fled; . . . they signified with loud cries... that Rome was their goal... the Gauls... their wild songs and discordant shouts filled all the air with a hideous noise.
They attacked the city, rampaged through the streets, and set fire to buildings. Romans who had sought refuge in the citadel above the city witnessed the destruction.
Wherever the shouting of the invaders, the lamentations of the women and children, the crackling of the flames, and the crash of falling buildings drew their attention, trembling at each sound, they turned their thoughts and their gaze that way, as though Fortune had placed them there to witness the pageant of their dying country.
Livy's account was based on oral tradition concerning events 350 years before his time, and he surely added colorful details to the basic story. In writing his history of Rome, Livy aimed to warn Romans to be alert and to guard against dangers that might threaten their city. His story about the Gallic invasion emphasizes that Rome is vulnerable to outside enemies and must always be vigilant. His work shows how Romans during Augustus's reign remembered such events from their past and used the memories to fashion their responses to circumstances of their own day.
A similar threat developed late in the second century B. C. Roman historians record migrations southward of north European peoples whom they called Cimbri and Teutones. According to the texts, in 113 B. C. these peoples confronted and soundly defeated a Roman army at a place called Noreia, somewhere in modern Austria or Slovenia. Over the next twelve years, these marauding groups migrated westward into Gaul, then south into the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, plundering the landscape and repeatedly defeating the Roman forces sent against them. Finally, at Aix-en-Provence, the Roman general Marius was able to contain them and in 101 B. C. to defeat them for good at Vercellae, a place in northern Italy that has not yet been identified in the modern landscape.
The essence of these two historical traditions is the same— dangerous peoples live in the north of Europe, and they pose a threat to Rome that can burst forth at any time. This theme was important to the way Romans thought about the peoples of Europe beyond the Alps. Both Caesar between 58 and 51 B. C. and Velleius Paterculus in his remarks about the Teutoburg Forest battle in A. D. 9 compare their subjects with the danger posed by the Cimbri and Teutones.
Julius Caesar, the Gallic War, and Forays across the Rhine
In 58 B. C., Julius Caesar began an eight-year campaign of conquest in Gaul (see map 6). In his annual reports on the progress of the war, Caesar indicates that he intervened to aid tribes allied with Rome that requested help in repulsing incursions into their lands. But his quest for political supremacy in Rome played a key role in his decision to intervene. In his account, Caesar mentions the Cimbri and Teutones no fewer than five times, drawing explicit comparisons between that earlier threat to Rome and the disorder in Gaul that he set out to quell. It is not clear whether Caesar actually believed that peoples in Gaul were a threat to Roman Italy, or whether he was playing upon the longstanding Roman fears about invasions from the north in order to win support for his military adventures.
Caesar began his campaigns in Gaul with four legions totaling around twenty thousand men, together with auxiliary troops hired from allied peoples in Gaul and Spain and even German cavalry troops from across the Rhine. By 51 B. C., he commanded ten legions, plus auxiliaries. The conquest of Gaul did not entail massive attacks on huge tribal armies. With troops from allied Gallic peoples, Caesar led his army in attacking the tribal capitals one by one. His campaigns culminated in a battle against the unified remaining resistance under the command of the Gallic leader Vercingetorix at the fortified hilltop town ofAlesia in 52
Map 6. Map showing places mentioned in chapter 7 associated with the migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones and with Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
B. C. After that hard-fought conflict, Caesar put down the last scattered remnants of resistance in 51, thereby adding this large and rich new territory to Rome's expanding domain (see illustration 27).
During the campaigns in Gaul, Caesar made forays across the Rhine, in the years 55 and 53. He wrote that German groups from east of the river had conducted raids into Gaul, and he wanted to destroy those groups, or at least discourage future incursions into Gaul.
His crossing of the Rhine into Germany had relatively little direct military or political effect, as far as we know. Caesar did not engage troops on that side of the Rhine in battle, let alone conquer any territory.
In 55, Caesar had his troops build a bridge across the Rhine, perhaps near the modern German city of Cologne, because, he wrote, it was beneath Roman dignity to cross the river in boats. The construction took his troops ten days to complete. After leading his army across the bridge, Caesar was met by representatives of several Germanic tribes who had come to establish peaceful relations with him. He treated other peoples less well. He led his forces into the territory of the Sugambri, who had abandoned their villages before his arrival and taken their possessions with them. The Romans burned the settlements they found and destroyed the crops (an action that would surely be remembered by the Sugambri and other groups), but did not encounter a local army. Caesar interpreted this fleeing before the advancing Roman legions as a sign of cowardice on the part of the German peoples, just as Drusus did later. This behavior on the part of the natives can alternatively be understood as a strategy to avoid direct confrontation with the heavily armed Roman legions on the open field of battle, trying instead to lure the Romans into situations in which the German warriors would have a tactical advantage. Caesar goes on to inform us that during his eighteen-day sojourn east of the Rhine in 55, warriors from different communities gathered to face the Roman legions in battle. But Caesar decided to retreat back across the Rhine instead of being drawn into a battle in the German forests, where his troops would have been at a severe disadvantage. His second expedition across the Rhine, in 53, appears to have had similar results. This time, he reports that although a force of Germanic warriors had gathered to confront the Roman legions, word of the strength of the Roman forces caused the native warriors to disband rather than engage the legions. Again, Caesar led his troops back across the Rhine to Gaul.
The aggressiveness and wanton destructiveness of the Roman army during Caesar's expeditions across the Rhine frightened and angered the indigenous peoples. Even before Caesar's first crossing, in 55 B. C., the groups east of the Rhine were well informed about the progress of Rome's conquest of Gaul. Throughout the Iron Age, peoples inhabiting the lands west and east of the Rhine interacted regularly. The river was not a dividing boundary, but a route of transport and communication. Boats had long been in use in Europe by the Iron Age, and it was easy for experienced boaters to cross the river. The incursions across the river that prompted Caesar's bridging and crossing of the Rhine indicate that those contacts were maintained, even with the Roman army in Gaul.
Caesar's description of the peoples whom he calls Germans is the earliest account of those groups that survives. He writes that the Germans do not have towns like the Gauls, or even settled agricultural villages, and that they do not practice any elaborate rituals. They are simpler and wilder than the peoples of Gaul with whom Caesar was becoming acquainted. He writes, "Their whole life is composed of hunting expeditions and military pursuits; from early boyhood they are zealous for toil and hardship. ... For agriculture they have no zeal, and the greater part of their food consists of milk, cheese, and flesh." Caesar's statements of the 50s B. C. formed the basis for the subsequent Roman view of the peoples east of the Rhine. Later writers, including Strabo, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio, derived their ideas about those peoples from Caesar's, as did political and military leaders such as Augustus, Drusus, Tiberius, and Varus. Caesar's representation of the Germans had a very long life in the Roman imagination, and it still influences many modern historians.
Yet the Roman attitude toward these peoples was complex and varied. Despite his uncomplimentary characterizations,
Caesar hired German cavalry troops and light infantry to serve with his legions in Gaul. He considered Germans expert horsemen, known for their loyalty and trustworthiness as well as for their equestrian skills. Roman armies continued to employ German cavalry auxiliaries in different parts of the Empire long after the time of Caesar.
The Contested Rhine Frontier
Between the final phases of Caesar's conquest of Gaul, in 51 B. C., and the beginning of Rome's major offensives against the Germans east of the Rhine, in 12 B. C., the written sources about the Rhine frontier in Gaul are relatively sparse. Roman observers were largely preoccupied with other concerns, particularly the political struggles that followed Caesar's success in Gaul and the civil war that erupted after his assassination, in 44 B. C. But some important events were recorded. In 39 B. C. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was appointed governor of Gaul, and in 38 he successfully put down a rebellion in the southwestern part of the region. At the end of 38 or early in 37, he had to confront uprisings along the Rhine. In this connection, he crossed the Rhine into German territory, but we do not know either the reason or the immediate effects. In 29, the Treveri in the western Rhineland staged an uprising and called in Germans from across the Rhine for help, but Nonius Gallus, who was probably a legate in Gaul at the time, quelled the rebellion. In 25, Marcus Vinicius crossed the Rhine from Gaul to punish Germans on the other side, allegedly for killing Roman merchants. Agrippa was again appointed governor in Gaul in 19 and again had to contend with local uprisings, some perhaps aided by Germans from the other side of the Rhine. The frequent mention in the written sources of uprisings suggests that there was considerable unrest in Gaul during these decades and that many groups were not submitting peacefully to Roman administration.
A new phase in these conflicts began in i6 B. C. when invaders from east of the Rhine killed some Romans who were in their lands (we do not know why), and then crossed the Rhine to plunder. They ambushed a Roman cavalry unit, confronted and defeated the Roman Fifth Legion under the command of Marcus Lollius, the legate of Gaul, and captured the legion's eagle (see chapter 4). This defeat of the Roman legate and his legion, following several decades of internal uprisings and incursions by groups from across the Rhine, led the emperor Augustus from Rome to reorganize the defenses on the frontier.
Roman writers disagree about the significance of Lollius's defeat in i6 B. C. Cassius Dio represents the battle with Lollius as a disaster for Roman interests in Gaul. Suetonius portrays the event as serious, but not as significant. Some modern researchers view it as the turning point in Augustus's policy in Europe, when a fundamentally defensive approach to protect Roman Italy became an imperialistic policy of expansive conquest. Others, persuaded that Augustus had already made up his mind about conquering more territory in Europe, view the Lollius defeat as one of many events that hastened the execution of that policy.
Rome's Campaigns East across the Rhine
Augustus spent the years 16-13 B. C. in the Rhineland, Gaul, and Spain, directing the construction of military bases on the west bank of the Rhine and preparing the troops for campaigns across the river into Germany (see chapter 4). In the summer of 15, Augustus's stepsons Tiberius and Drusus conducted a successful campaign that resulted in the conquest of peoples within and around the Alps. Whereas we know about developments in Gaul from Caesar's commentaries, we possess no detailed information about the Alpine campaigns. That these seem to have taken only a single season suggests that the Roman armies met little effective resistance. Tiberius led his army eastward from Gaul along the northern edge of the Alps, while Drusus marched his from northern Italy through the central Alpine passes into southern Bavaria. Archaeological evidence for this campaign includes a Roman military base at Dangstetten, on the upper Rhine on the German-Swiss border, excavated in the 1960s, and the recently investigated site at Dottenbichl, near Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps. At Dottenbichl, archaeologists have found hundreds of Roman military remains, all dating to around 15 B. C. They include three daggers, twenty catapult bolt points, over 350 arrowheads, numerous boot nails, and eight coins. Of special interest are three catapult bolt points marked with the stamp LEG XIX (see chapter 5), indicating the presence of one of the three legions destroyed in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest twenty-four years later and never reconstituted.
The success of the Alpine campaign of 15 B. C. was of great importance to Augustus for propaganda purposes. He had a coin series minted to publicize this achievement. It shows the two victorious generals, Tiberius and Drusus, handing laurel branches to the enthroned emperor. In the summary of his accomplishments, the Res Gestae, Augustus stated that he had conquered the Alps from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea. On the main road between Italy and Spain, along the Mediterranean coast of southern France, the Senate sponsored construction of an enormous monument to the Roman victories over forty-five peoples of the Alpine regions. At the apex of the 150-foot-high stone structure was a bronze statue of Augustus, with two figures representing captives beneath his feet. The inscription—the largest known from the Roman world—read in part, "To the Commander and Emperor, son of the deified Caesar. . . the Senate and people of Rome dedicate this monument, because under his leadership and planning all Alpine peoples from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic were brought under Roman rule."
In 12 B. C., another uprising is reported in Gaul, this one in response to the Roman census and taxation policy. Under Augustus, Rome established the practice of conducting regular censuses in the conquered provinces and assessing taxes based on both number of people and holdings of land. The taxes went to the city of Rome and were used to support the military, among other purposes. Not surprisingly, some groups resisted the Roman imposition of taxes.
As one means toward quelling discontent in Gaul, Drusus hosted a gathering of Gallic leaders at the Roman center of Lyon (Lugdunum) in southern Gaul to dedicate the Altar of Augustus in that city. The event highlighted Lyon as the Roman capital of the province and was a political gesture to win the acquiescence of the Gallic leaders. Later that year, Drusus repulsed new incursions across the Rhine by Sugambri and Usipetes and then crossed the Rhine into their lands. This action by Drusus marked the beginning of Rome's twenty-eight years of campaigns across the lower Rhine.
In the spring of 11 B. C., Drusus campaigned again in Germany, first attacking and defeating the Usipetes, then marching eastward to the Weser River (see map 7). Drusus was the first Roman commander to lead troops that far east in northern Europe, and he won great personal glory for this feat. While the purpose of the march to the Weser may have been to display Roman power, the action had an important unintended effect: it galvanized the Germanic peoples into organizing defensive strategies to fend off the intruders. On the march back from the Weser to the Rhineland, Drusus's troops were frequently attacked. In one place, they were trapped in a valley by the enemy and almost destroyed. Cassius Dio writes, "The enemy harassed him everywhere by ambuscades, and once they shut him up in a narrow pass and all but destroyed his army. ..." The Roman legions maneuvering in this unfamiliar north European landscape were no match for local warriors who knew the coun-
Map 7. Map showing locations of German tribal groups named by Roman authors, according to modern interpretations of those writers' geographical descriptions.
Tryside. Yet, somehow, Drusus was able to escape narrowly with the majority of his troops.
Drusus built two camps east of the Rhine, one at the confluence of the Lippe and a river that the Romans called the Elison, the other near the Rhine. The first is believed to be the base discovered and excavated by archaeologists at Oberaden. Recent study of the tree rings on wooden timbers that lined wells and on oak posts in the outer wall indicates that the trees from which those timbers were fashioned were cut down in the late summer or fall of 11 B. c.—just when Drusus would have returned from the Weser region and been preparing winter quarters for his troops. Excavations at Oberaden revealed a large, multiroom commanders headquarters building at the center of the base, perhaps the residence designed for Drusus.
Again in 9 B. c., Drusus moved against peoples east ofthe lower Rhine. Roman historians mention his attacks on the Chatti, the
Main Suebi, and the Cherusci. The Roman forces encountered tough resistance and lost many men. In following the retreating Cherusci across the Weser River, Drusus marched on eastward to the Elbe, "pillaging everything on his way," as Cassius Dio puts it. This demonstrated anew Rome's power and ability to move freely beyond the Rhine frontier. But the fact that Drusus led his entire army back westward rather than leaving a garrison at the Elbe indicates that Rome had not actually gained control of any territory through these campaigns. On the return march, Drusus fell from his horse and was severely injured, and he died of his wounds.
World History
