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Roman Soldier Germanic Warrior Lindsay Ppowellowell 1st Century AD Roman Soldier VERSUS Germanic Warrior Lindsay Powell © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com 1st Century ad Roman Soldier Germanic Warrior Lindsay PowellPowell © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com INTRODUCTION 4 THE OPPOSING SIDES 10 Recruitment and motivation t Morale and logistics t Training, doctrine and tactics Leadership and communications t Use of allies and auxiliaries TEUTOBURG PASS 28 Summer AD 9 IDISTAVISO 41 Summer AD 16 THE ANGRIVARIAN WALL 57 Summer AD 16 ANALYSIS 71 Leadership t Mission objectives and strategies t Planning and preparation Tactics, combat doctrine and weapons AFTERMATH 76 BIBLIOGRAPHY 78 INDEX 80 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Introduction ‘Who would leave Asia, or Africa, or Italia for Germania, with its wild country, its inclement skies, its sullen manners and aspect, unless indeed it were his home?’ (Tacitus, Germania 2). This negative perception of Germania – the modern Netherlands and Germany – lay behind the reluctance of Rome’s great military commanders to tame its immense wilderness. Caius Iulius Caesar famously threw a wooden pontoon bridge across the River Rhine (Rhenus) in just ten days, not once but twice, in 55 and 53 bc. The next Roman general to do so was Marcus Agrippa, in 39/38 bc or 19/18 bc. However, none of these missions was for conquest, but in response to pleas for assistance from an ally of the Romans, the Germanic nation of the Ubii. It was not until the reign of Caesar Augustus that a serious attempt was made to annex the land beyond the wide river and transform it into a province fit for Romans to live in. Successive explorations had established its boundaries: Germania is separated from the Galli, the Raeti, and Pannonii, by the rivers Rhenus and Danuvius [Danube]; mountain ranges, or the fear which each feels for the other, divide it from the Sarmatae and Daci. Elsewhere ocean girds it, embracing broad peninsulas and islands of unexplored extent, where certain tribes and kingdoms are newly known to us, revealed by war. (Tacitus, Germania 1) However, its scale eluded the geographers of the Ancient World, including the best minds Agrippa had brought together to compile a ‘Map of the World’ (Orbis Terrarum): … the dimensions of its respective territories it is quite impossible to state, so immensely do the authors differ who have touched upon this subject. The Greek writers and some of our own countrymen have stated the coast of Germania to be 2,500 miles in extent, while Agrippa, comprising Raetia and Noricum in his estimate, makes the length to be 686 miles, and the breadth 148. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 4.28) 4 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Such inaccurate measurements made military planning problematic from the outset. When compared to Agrippa’s combined measurement of the three conquered provinces of Aquitania, Belgica and Gallia Comata or ‘Long Haired Gaul’ (420 Roman miles long by 318 miles wide), the whole of Germania was only eight times greater. It had taken the army of Iulius Caesar just nine years to reduce these Three Gallic Provinces (Tres Galliae). Hispania had taken 200 years. On that basis the conquest of Germania seemed an attainable objective. In 17 BC an alliance of Tencteri The land was inhabited by a patchwork of tribal nations (nationes). The and Usipetes nations led by warchief Maelo of the Romans referred to them collectively as Germani, but they identified Sugambri raided into the themselves by tribal names. Some – like the Sugambri – were related to the Roman province of Gallia Iron Age Celts who inhabited Gaul, while others, such as the Cherusci, shared Belgica. Encountering them by a different cultural and linguistic tradition called Germanic. Some nations chance, the governor Marcus Lollius was ambushed and were ruled by kings, while others were collectives that elected their leaders. the eagle standard of Legio V Most people lived relatively independently with their families on farms, rather Alaudae was captured by the than in towns, though at least one is known: Mattium, the capital of the Germans. The event became Chatti (the location of which remains obscure). known as the Clades Lolliana – ‘Lollian Disaster’. It was the During the reign of Augustus (27 bc–ad 14), the basic unit of the Roman trigger for Caesar Augustus to Army (exercitus) was the legion, derived from the Latin word legio meaning embark on a re-assessment of ‘military levy’. Soldiers (legionarii) for the army were recruited exclusively north-western border security, from male citizens principally from Italy, but their numbers were increasingly leading to the conception of a war to annex Germania. augmented by volunteers (volones) from the provinces. There were 28 legions This 19th-century painting by of 5,600–6,000 men each in service at the start of ad 9. Additionally there Friedrich Tüshaus romantically were elite Praetorian Cohorts – initially nine, but rising to 12 in the later part evokes a clash on the banks of Augustus’ principate – perhaps representing 12,000 men in all, located of the Rhine between the Roman Army and Germanic at camps around Italy. To supplement the ranks of the Roman legions, warriors, complete with non-citizen allies from outside the empire were recruited and formed their anachronistic winged own units (alae, cohortes) of 500 or 1,000 men each. These ethnic auxiliary helmets. (Public domain) 5 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com troopst were particularly important for providing specialist infantry, such as archers (sagittarii) from Crete and cavalry (turmae) from the foothills of the Alps. Several Germanic nations served the Roman army in this capacity, often under their own chiefs. Among them were the Batavi, Chauci, Cherusci, Frisii, Sugambri and Ubii. The exact number of auxiliary units in service at the start of ad 9 is not known, but they made up about half of Rome’s total military forces. A permanent fleet of ships (classis) for sea patrols was based at Misenum ono the Bay of Naples to patrol the sea-lanes used by grain ships sailing betwbbetweenetw Italy, Africa, Sicily and Egypt. A fleet was located at Ravenna, which patropatrolled the Adriatic coastline, and another – established by Drusus the Elder Nero Claudius Drusus in 13 or 12 bc – operated from several bases along the Rhine to assist the army (Drusus the Elder) led the first serious attempt at conquering of Germania with its operations. At full strength the combined manpower of Germania for the Romans. In legionary, Praetorian, auxiliary and marine forces may have amounted to preparation for his campaigns 300,000–330,000. In ad 9 about one third were stationed at forts along the in 14 BC he founded legionary Rhine or its tributaries. Rome’s emerging German province and its borderlands fortresses whose locations on the Rhine became permanent were home to a diverse community of many different nations. bases and then important The catalyst for the outright conquest of Germania appears to be a raid cities of the empire, and have by an alliance of German nations under the leadership of Maelo of the survived to our own day. After Sugambri, in 17 bc. By chance they encountered and ambushed the Roman his death following a riding accident in 9 BC, the Senate governor (legatus Augusti pro praetore) and his Legio V Alaudae, taking the posthumously awarded legion’s eagle standard (aquila) as a trophy. The humiliation became known him the honorary war title as the ‘Lollian Disaster’ (Clades Lolliana). The following year Augustus Germanicus, meaning ‘the replaced his governor with his eldest stepson (and future emperor) Tiberius German’ or ‘of Germania’. His Claudius Nero, and joined him in person in Gaul to carry out an assessment sons were permitted to adopt the title. This gold aureus was and lay down plans for war. In preparation for it, in 15 bc Augustus’ youngest minted by his youngest son, stepson, Nero Claudius Drusus (Drusus the Elder), was given command Emperor Claudius. (Harlan J. of an army and with it he annexed the territory of the Raeti in northern Berk. Author’s collection) Italy and the central Alps, and that of the Vindelici in the Bavarian Voralpenland. The next year Drusus the Elder assumed the governorship of the Three Gallic Provinces and with it responsibility for prosecuting the war in Germania. In one of the largest construction projects of the Augustan Age, Drusus’ legionaries spent two backbreaking years building military infrastructure comprising five legionary fortresses and a connecting road along the Rhine, a system of canals (fossa Drusiana) connecting the river to the Lacus Flevo (Zuiderzee/IJsselmeer) and a fleet of tubby barges and troop transports. After months of preparation in the spring of 12 bc the offensive was launched. Drusus led his expeditionary force of seven legions in a series of annual campaigns – including an amphibious landing in the Ems estuary – moving eastwards from the Frisian coast towards the River Elbe (Albis). Only the accidental death of the commander in late 9 bc prematurely ended what had been a successful campaign. His brother Tiberius assumed the task of completing the war. Between 8 and 7 bc he led expeditions, notably achieving the surrender of Maelo and forcible relocation of the Sugambri, but by then it was becoming evident that many of the free people of Germania would not kowtow. The Romans formed alliances with several nations, among them the Cherusci, and received hostages. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus – consul of 16 bc and grandfather 6 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com of the future Emperor Nero – was the first Roman general to lead an army across the Elbe, in ad 1 or 2. As the first governor of the province Germania, he established its administrative capital at Ara Ubiorum (modern Cologne), the town constructed for the Ubii.
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