By military organization of the Germanic peoples is meant the set of forces that made up the armies of the Germanic peoples, including the organization of their units, their internal hierarchy of command, tactics, armament and strategy, from the Cimbrian Wars (late 2nd century B.C.) to the Marcomannic Wars (mid-3rd century A.D.). After this period a whole series of confederations of peoples (from the Alemanni to the Franks, Goths, and Saxons) were generated, each with its own internal military organization, which will be analyzed individually and separately.
The area occupied by the Germanic peoples during the Iron Age (c. 500 B.C.-60 B.C.E.). In red, their original homeland, where they crystallized as a people (southern Scandinavia and Jutland), corresponding to that of the Scandinavian Bronze Age; in magenta, the regions affected early by their expansion and where the Jastorf culture developed
In ancient times there was a widespread hypothesis, reported by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, in De origine et situ Germanorum, that the Germani were an indigenous people of Germania itself.[1] Again according to the Roman historian, they considered themselves descendants of Tuisto, deity of the land, from where his grandchildren, offspring of his son Mannus, would be the progenitors of the three Germanic lineages: that of the Ingaevones, the Istvaeones and the Irminones. According to other traditions, however, Tuisto's sons were more numerous, having thus given rise to other tribes: the Marsi, Suebi, Gambrivii, and Vandals.[2]
According to modern archaeological research, the Germani would constitute the result of Indo-Europeanization, of the first half of the third millennium B.C., in southern Scandinavia and Jutland by people from central Europe, which had already been Indo-Europeanized during the fourth millennium B.C.[3] By the mid-eighth century B.C., the Germani are attested along the entire coastal strip from Holland to the mouth of the Vistula. The pressure continued in the following centuries, not as a unified, unidirectional movement but as an intricate process of advances, retrogressions, and infiltrations into regions also inhabited by other peoples. Around 550 BCE they reached the Rhine area, imposing themselves on the pre-existing Celtic peoples[4] and partly mixing with them (the border people of the Belgae are considered mixed).
From the 5th to the 1st century BC, during the Iron Age, the Germani pressed steadily southward, coming into contact (and often conflict) with the Celts and, later, the Romans. In the area of contact with the Celts, along the Rhine, the two peoples came into conflict. Although possessing a more articulated civilization, the Gauls suffered the settlement of Germanic outposts in their territory, which gave rise to overlapping conflicts between the two peoples: settlements belonging to one or the other of these two peoples alternated and penetrated, even deeply, into their respective areas of origin. In the long run, the Germani, who would spread west of the Rhine a few centuries later, emerged victorious from the confrontation. An identical process would occur, to the south, along the other natural embankment to their expansion, the Danube.[5]
Germani and Romans (late 2nd century B.C.-mid 3rd century A.D.).
The expansion of the Germanic peoples into central Europe between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD.
The Germani came into contact with Rome from the latter part of the 2nd century BC, with the incursions of the Cimbri and Teutons into Roman territory. The two Germanic peoples moved from Jutland and penetrated Gaul, pushing first into Pannonia, then into Noricum (where they beat a Roman army at Noreia in 113 BC), and finally into the newly established Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. However, the raids continued for about a decade until, after some failures on the part of the Roman generals who rushed to stop them, the intervention of the consul Gaius Marius was necessary. The two Germanic populations were annihilated in two separate battles at Aquae Sextiae (102 B.C.) and Vercellae (101 B.C.). Rome was now safe from a possible Germanic invasion.
At the time of the conquest of Gaul led by Caesar (58-50 BC), new conflicts flared up along the Rhine, the border between the Celts and the Germani. Since 72 B.C., a group of Germanic tribes, led by the Suebi of Ariovistus, had crossed the river and harassed Gallic territory with their raids, even inflicting a severe defeat on the Gauls near Amagetobria (60 B.C.). It seems that Ariovistus had crossed the Rhine together with the Suebian peoples from the valleys of the Neckar and Main rivers.[6] The Gauls then invoked the help of Caesar, who finally defeated Ariovistus near Mulhouse (58 B.C.).[7]
However, the defeat of Ariovistus[8] was not enough to stop the pressure exerted by the Germanic peoples on the Gauls in those years. A few years later Caesar was also able to build a bridge over the Rhine and cross it, bringing devastation to the German territories east of the river during two different campaigns in 55[9][10] and 53 BCE.[11] The story goes that driven from behind by the pressure of the Suebi, the Germanic tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri had wandered for three years, and had pushed on from their territories, north of the Main River, until they reached the regions inhabited by the Menapii at the mouth of the Rhine.[9] Having defeated the two tribes in Belgic Gaul,[12] the Roman proconsul had penetrated into the lands of the Germani.
Having crossed the Rhine, he carried out raids and looting to terrorize the enemy and induce him to renounce new incursions into Gaul.[10] Caesar, by repelling the Germanic peoples across the Rhine during these years, had in fact transformed this river into what would be one of the most important natural barriers of the Empire for the next four to five centuries. It had, therefore, not only stopped the migratory flows of the Germani, but also saved Celtic Gaul from the Germanic danger, thus giving Rome, which had won the war, the right to rule over all the peoples in its territory.[13]
The actual campaigns began in 12 B.C. by Augustus' stepson, Drusus the Elder,[14] who led the Roman armies until they occupied much of the territory between the Rhine and Weser rivers, although in 9 B.C. he died prematurely.[15]
New Roman operations were undertaken in Germania in the following years, taking the imperial borders as far as the Elbe, mainly through the leadership of the future Emperor Tiberius, who succeeded in permanently occupying all Germanic territories west of the river,[16] with the sole exception of Bohemia in its southern part.
The Lombards, a people even more ferocious than the Germanic ferocity, were defeated. Lastly [...] the Roman army with insignia was led as far as four hundred miles from the Rhine, as far as the river Elbe, which flows between the lands of the Semnones and Hermunduri.
—Velleius Paterculus, Historiae Romanae ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo, II, 106, 2
It was necessary, therefore, to annex the powerful Marcomanni kingdom of Maroboduus as well. Tiberius was thus prepared to attack even the last bastion of free Germania (in 6 A.D.),[17][18] moving simultaneously with two armies (one from Mogontiacum and the other from Carnuntum), and converging on Bohemia.[19] The Roman armies were stopped, however, by the outbreak of revolt in Pannonia and Dalmatia.[20]
All the territories conquered in this 20-year period were compromised when in the year 7 Augustus sent Publius Quinctilius Varus to Germania, who lacked diplomatic and military skills, as well as being unaware of the people and places.
In 9 an army of 20,000 men consisting of three legions and a dozen auxiliary units was massacred in the forest of Teutoburg by Arminius, a Roman citizen of Germanic origin. As luck would have it, Maroboduus did not ally himself with Arminius, and the assembled Germani stopped before the Rhine, where only 2 or 3 legions remained to guard the entire province of Gaul.[21]
The military campaigns that followed by the Romans (A.D. 10 to 16), first under the high command of Tiberius and then of the heir-designate, Germanicus, were aimed both at averting a possible Germanic invasion and at preventing possible uprisings among the populations of the Gallic provinces.
Depiction of Germanicus' military campaigns, which led to Rome's final abandonment of the Germania Magna territories.
Eventually Tiberius, having become emperor himself, preferred to suspend all military activity across the Rhine, leaving the Germanic peoples themselves to settle it by fighting each other. He only made alliances with some peoples against others, so as to keep them always at war with each other;[22] avoiding having to intervene directly, with great risk of incurring new disasters such as that of Varus;[23] but above all without having to employ huge military and economic resources, in order to maintain peace within the "possible and new" imperial borders.
It is said that in 18 Arminius, having grouped under his command numerous Germanic tribes (such as Lombards, Semnones, and some of the Suebian lineages of the kingdom of Maroboduus), waged war on the Marcomanni kingdom of Maroboduus. And contrary to ancient Germanic traditions, both Germanic commanders, now accustomed to following Roman tactics, having both served for years in Roman auxiliary troops, faced each other in an orderly manner and with tactics unusual to them. Tacitus relates that:
Nowhere did a clash between forces of greater magnitude ever take place, nor was the outcome more uncertain. On both sides, having routed the right wing, the battle would perhaps have recommenced if Maroboduus had not placed his camp high in the hills. This was the signal of his misfortune. With the army slowly becoming depleted by continued desertions, he had to take refuge with the Marcomanni, and he sent ambassadors to Tiberius to request Roman intervention.
Tiberius replied to him that he would not intervene in internal affairs of the Germanic peoples, since Maroboduus had remained neutral, when in 9, Augustus had requested his military aid in vain after the defeat of Varus. Maroboduus was thus forced to seek asylum from the emperor Tiberius, who accepted him, allowing him and the remnants of his court to take up residence in Ravenna, where he died a full 18 years later, in 36 or 37.[24]
The following year, in 19, Arminius was assassinated by his subjects, who feared his growing power:
I learn from historians and senators contemporary to the events that a letter was read in the Senate from Adgandestrius, leader of the Catti, in which he promised the death of Arminius if a poison suitable for assassination was sent to him. He was answered that the Roman people took vengeance on their enemies not by fraud or covert plots, but openly and with arms [...] moreover, Arminius, aspiring to the kingdom while the Romans were retreating following the expulsion of Maroboduus, had to his disadvantage the love of his people's freedom, and assailed with arms while fighting with uncertain outcome, fell betrayed by his associates. Undoubtedly he was the liberator of Germania, one who waged war not on the Roman people in their infancy, like other kings and commanders, but on an Empire in its prime. He had alternate fortunes in battle, but he was not won in war. He lived thirty-seven years and was powerful for twelve. Even now he is sung of in the sagas of the barbarians, ignored in the histories of the Greeks who admire only their own exploits, by us Romans he is still not celebrated as he should be, we who while extolling antiquity pay no attention to recent events.
The next sixty years saw relative peace reign along the borders of the Roman Empire and Germania Magna. The client system created by Tiberius gave Rome a period of relative peace, at least until the Batavian revolt of 69-70. Then under Vespasian[25] and Domitian, the Romans again advanced into Germania, albeit in a marginal area called Agri Decumates (between the Rhine and the Danube, with the purpose of joining Mogontiacum with the Danube near Castra Regina).[26]
The Roman client system began to enter a crisis towards the end of the first century, between 89 and 97, when Pannonia was the scene of a war against the Suebian peoples of Marcomanni and Quadi, and Sarmatian peoples of the Iazyges of the middle course of the Danube.[27] This was the first important sign of what would later prove to be the beginning of a long series, first of invasions for raiding purposes (late 2nd century),[28] and then of migrations of entire populations (from the 3rd century onward), by the Germanic tribes gravitating along the Danubian and Rhine limes in the following centuries. During this long period, the last attempt by the Romans to conduct offensive warfare in barbarian territory occurred under Emperor Marcus Aurelius, with the temporary occupation of Marcomannia (around 175).[29] Then came the slow and unstoppable decline, until the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire under the constant pressure of the Germanic peoples, now confederated into Alemanni, Franks, Goths and Saxons.
Unit structure
Infantry
Since Caesar's time, the normal deployment of Germanic infantry (in this case those of the Suebi of Ariovistus) was phalanx-like, as Caesar himself recounts:
With such violence the Romans went on the assault of the Germani, but just as suddenly and quickly the Germani ran on the attack, and there was no room [on the part of the Romans] to throw the pilums at the enemy. Leaving aside the pilums they fought, hand-to-hand, with swords. But the Germani, quickly according to their custom, deployed in phalanx and withstood the assault of the swords.
All this is confirmed by the Latin historian Tacitus in his Germania (late 1st century CE), according to whom the Germanic peoples, unlike the Celts, fought mainly on foot, in "wedge" phalanx formation.[30] From the nomadic tribes of the steppes (Scythians and Sarmatians) they later learned a greater use of horse at the expense of infantry.
[...] the number of these [foot soldiers] is fixed. There are 100 of them in each district, and they call each other thus, so that what was initially only a number is now an appellation of honor.
The backbone of the Catti army was the infantry, which fought with slow actions but firm courage.[31]
Cavalry
Caesar further recounts how the German horsemen (at least the peoples just east of the Rhine) fought normally. From this techno-tactical form, it is believed that the so-called equitate cohorts were later established at the time of the Augustan reform of the Roman army:
Ariovistus [...] every day fought with the cavalry. This was the kind of combat in which the Germani practiced. The horsemen numbered 6,000: there were as many foot soldiers who were very valiant and very fast in running. The horsemen had chosen them from each ward, one by one for their own personal defense. They participated in battles in their own company. The horsemen would retreat to them, and if the fighting escalated, they too would go to the charge. If someone was badly wounded, had fallen from his horse, they would surround him. If they had to make a long advance or a swift retreat, their speed was so great for the exercise that by supporting themselves on the manes of the horses they equaled their run in speed.
The Tencteri especially excelled in mounted combat, on a par with the Catti in infantry.[32]
Mercenaries
Tacitus relates that when the tribe among whom one lives is in a long period of peace, leaving its warriors to live in idleness, many young men of the nobility spontaneously go to other peoples, who at that time are engaged in war, and fight a war that is not their own. This happens because the Germanic peoples are a race that is intolerant of peace, and also because one acquires glory only in the midst of danger, and only with war can one maintain a large following. Only by war and raids can one obtain the means to be liberal and equitable.[33]
Navy
Among the Germanic peoples of the first century CE, the Swedes of the Baltic Sea had powerful fleets. The shape of their vessels differed from other ones, however, in that at both ends the prow gave access to the front of the landing place. They did not have either ships with sails or oars lined up at the sides. The oars, on the contrary, were free as when sailing down a river. They rowed either on one side or the other as needed.[34]
Organization and internal hierarchy
A typical Germanic family in arms.
According to Tacitus, the Germani grow naked and filthy until they attain the solidity of limbs and size of their bodies that arouse the wonder of their adversaries, such as the Romans. Servants cannot be distinguished from masters by any particular upbringing. Both grow up in the same environments, until age separates the free and the valor sets them apart.[35]
The fundamental structure of Germanic society was the clan (Sippe), formed by the union of several related patriarchal families. The clan constituted an entirely autonomous and self-sufficient military (in infantry and cavalry formations) and political entity. Next to the combatants stand their loved ones, so close that they hear the screams of women and the wails of children.[36] The clan leaders gave rise, probably already in very ancient times, to periodic assembly meetings. The higher entity of the Sippen was the "people" (gau or pagus, called civitas by the Romans), that is, a tribe settled in a given territory.
Essentially democratic, Germanic society experienced forms of elective monarchy[37] within which the assembly of free men (allthing or witan) periodically assembled retained de facto all powers, including judicial power. The assemblies expressed the decisions of the people, which thus consisted of the free and voluntary union of different clans.
In case of war the assembly appointed army commanders[37] (whom Caesar called communis magistratus),[38] men of special valor or authority, often fighting at the head of their own ranks;[37] and these, mere "first among equals," were always made accountable to the assembly itself. It was only in later times that elected military commanders began to take on connotations more and more similar to kings (although Caesar in the mid-1st century B.C., had already called Ariovistusrex Germanorum),[39] and with the formation of the Romano-Barbarian kingdoms, after the end of the Western Roman Empire, prestigious royal lineages were established. In any case, the figures of the Germanic rulers at the head of their armies were always limited in their power by the assembly.
Even valiant young men or those of distinguished nobility were in some cases given the powers of a chief. Tacitus relates that in the same retinue there was a hierarchy of ranks, distributed according to the decision of its leader; the subordinates competed with each other to emulate their leader and occupy the rank closest to him; the chiefs in turn, competed to have as numerous, valiant, and strong comrades as possible.[40]
When it comes to battle, it was disgraceful for a leader to allow himself to be surpassed in valor by subordinates, but so was it for the latter not to match their commander in courage. It was also ignominious to save oneself from combat when the leader was killed, since it is the duty of subordinates to protect him, even attributing their own heroic deeds to him.[41]
Tactics and weaponry
Weaponry
Tacitus reports that iron in Germania Magna was scarce, even at the end of the first century, as could also be inferred from the type of their weapons. Few in fact seem to have made use of swords or large spears. Instead, they wielded the spears they called framea, with a narrow, short head, but so sharp and easy to wield that the same weapon served, depending on the circumstances, for hand-to-hand or ranged combat.[42] The mounted warriors also carried shield and spear; the foot soldiers threw many projectiles, and hurled them over great distances; they fought naked or at most lightly dressed in a light tunic. The Germani had no affectation or elegance. They merely adorned their shields with peculiar colors.[43] Few of them wore armor, only one or two (out of 100) wore helmets of metal (cassis) or leather (galea).[44]
Tacitus also tells of the distant populations near the Baltic Sea of the Goths, who used instead, along with the Rugii and Lemovii, round shields and short swords.[45]
Deployment and combat
The battle between Caesar and Ariovistus near Mulhouse in 58 BC. There the commander of the Germanic troops ordered the army by tribe: first that of the Harudes, then the Marcomanni, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusi, and finally the Suebi. Each tribe, then, was surrounded by chariots and carriages, so that there was no possibility of escape for anyone: on top of the chariots were the women, who begged their men not to abandon them to the enslavement of the Romans."The Women of the Teutones Defend the Wagon Fort" (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann
The Germani had a "battle cry" called barditus by Tacitus:
[...] with the barditus [the Germani] ignite the tempers to battle, drawing from the shouts good omen for the final outcome of the clash. They thus frighten the enemy or are themselves frightened, depending on how the shout echoes in the ranks. This yell-song does not seem to be composed of voices, but appears as the expression of a higher sound of courage and valor. Particularly sought after are the harsh sounds, the broken murmur, which are achieved with the shields placed in front of the mouth, so the voice appears fuller and graver.
—Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum, III, 1-2).
According to Tacitus, judging from the whole, the backbone of the army of the Germani lies in the infantry, where the infantrymen are mixed with the horsemen, so that they are well adapted to the cavalry battles, and the speed of the infantry soldiers, chosen from among the young men and destined for the front of the deployment, is harmonized.[47] The army deployed to battle is arranged in a wedge.[48] Tacitus then further adds that:
The Germani do not consider it an act of cowardice, but only a sign of prudence, to retreat, as long as they return to battle. Even when the outcome of the battle has not been too favorable, they bring back from the field the bodies of fallen comrades. It is the utmost shame for them to abandon the shield. Those who are guilty of such a fault are excluded from sacred assemblies and ceremonies, so much so that many who had withdrawn from combat later hanged themselves to put an end to the shame.
Tacitus adds that alongside the ranks of fighters, stand in the rear their families, so close that they hear the cheering cries of their women and children. These are for every soldier the dearest people, whose wounds are cared for by their mothers and wives and by whom they are fed with food, exhorted and encouraged.[49]
It is said that sometimes the ranks that fell back, so much so that they were on the verge of surrendering, were urged to return to the fight by the insistent prayers of women who, by showing their breasts, made their men realize the danger that loomed over them if they fell captive. And indeed, the Germans feared women's captivity more than their own.
—Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum, VIII, 1).
Siege techniques
Depiction of a Roman siege of a Germanic citadel during the Marcomannic Wars. The Germani defend themselves by throwing stones and spears at the Romans (Column of Marcus Aurelius, scene LIV).
Little is known or reported about the siege techniques of the ancient Germanic peoples. Living in small villages that, according to today's archaeological findings, do not appear to have been equipped with high, thick walls (as were the oppida of the neighboring Gauls), they knew no specific siege techniques, perhaps only some defensive techniques. A brief mention is made of a failed attempt by them to besiege a Roman post during the years of the Marcomannic wars. This episode is depicted in Scene XI of Marcus Aurelius' column in Rome, according to which the barbarians prepared a large siege machine that was destroyed by lightning. The episode is said to have been witnessed by the Emperor himself, Marcus Aurelius.[50] Also attributed to this period is another failure by the Germanic coalition of Marcomanni, Quadi and Vandals to besiege Aquileia (in 170): although the barbarian horde was very numerous, once again it proved powerless before the walls of a large Roman city.[51]
The first sieges of any significance to Roman cities, which lasted for a long time and in some cases were successful, would belong to the mid-3rd century, when the northern barbarians began to repeatedly break through the Roman limes. It is said that in 248 the Goths were stopped by Philip the Arab's general, Trajan Decius, future emperor, near the city of Marcianopolis, which had been under siege for a long time. The surrender was made possible by a still rudimentary technique on the part of the Germani in the form of siege machinery and probably, as Jordanes suggests, "by the sum paid to them by the inhabitants."[52]
Since the Scythians [i.e., the Goths, ed.] had brought great destruction to Hellas and besieged Athens itself, Gallienus sought to fight against them, who by then had occupied Thrace.
The great forests and immense swampy areas of Germania Magna[56] enabled these ancient peoples to implement increasingly effectively, against the Roman advance into their territories, the tactic of ambush. The most famous one remains the one implemented by the prince of the Cherusci, Arminius, who near the modern site of Kalkrieser managed to completely destroy an entire Roman army, consisting of three legions, 6 infantry cohorts and 3 wings of auxiliary cavalry. Based on recent excavations of the battle site, modern historians and archaeologists have come to the conclusion that Arminius had very carefully arranged all the details of the ambush:
he had chosen the ambush site, that is, the point where the large swamp to the north came closest to the limestone hill of Kalkrieser, and where the passage was restricted to only 80-120 meters;
caused the normal route of the road to be diverted, with the aim of leading the Roman army into a chokepoint, with no exit;
had an embankment built (about 500-600 meters long and 4-5 meters wide), behind which he could hide part of his troops (concentrating no less than 20/25,000 troops on site), along the flanks of the Kalkrieser hill (about 100 meters high), from which they could attack the left flank of the Roman troops.
This is the description handed down to us by the historian Cassius Dio of the initial Germanic assault on the marching Roman "column":
... the barbarians, because of their excellent knowledge of the paths, suddenly surrounded the Romans with a prearranged action, moving within the forest and at first striking them from a distance (evidently with a continuous throwing of javelins, shafts, and arrows) but later, since no one was defending themselves and many had been wounded, they attacked them. The Romans, in fact, were advancing haphazardly in their deployment, with chariots and especially with men who had not worn the necessary armament, and since they could not regroup (because of the uneven terrain and the narrow spaces of the path they followed) as well as being numerically inferior to the Germani who threw themselves into the fray against them, they suffered many losses without being able to inflict many as well...
Painting depicting the possible sudden attack on the Roman "column" marching through the Teutoburg Forest, where three entire legions were completely annihilated by Arminius' Germani.
Other ancient Roman historians portrayed this massacre as one of the worst in the entire Roman history, comparable only to Cannae and Carrhae:
...nothing could be more bloody than that massacre among the swamps and in the forests...some Roman soldiers had their eyes torn out, others had their hands cut off, one's mouth was sewn shut after cutting out his tongue...
—Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo, II, 36-37
(Germanicus arrived at the battle site and observed) ...in the middle of the field lay piled and scattered bones...scattered all around...on the trunks of trees were stuck human skulls. In the nearby sacred woods could be seen altars on which the Germani had sacrificed tribunes and main centurions....
However, this was not the only episode. Other incidents are recorded of other Roman generals who, through luck and tactical skill, managed to emerge victorious, such as Drusus the Elder during the military "campaign" of 12-9 BC, when he fell into very dangerous pitfalls during a retreat:
The Germani, in fact, with a diversion assaulted him by surprise, and after enclosing him in a narrow and deep place, almost annihilated him. And they would have routed him together with his entire Roman army, if they, in their infinite presumption that they had already practically captured them and only had to make the final attack, had not attacked him in a disorderly manner. And so in the end it was the Germani who suffered a defeat, from which they no longer showed such courage. On the contrary, they kept a sufficient distance from the Romans that they were able to annoy them, but gave up approaching them.
The miracle of rain depicted in scene XVI of Marcus Aurelius' Column, an episode datable to the Marcomannic Wars. There the Romans, surrounded by the Quadi in enemy territory, barely saved themselves from a possible new disaster.
Other incidents include those of Aulus Caecina Severus during the Germanicus expedition of A.D. 14-16;[57] or again during the Marcomannic wars, in the so-called "miracle of the rain" episode, when a Roman "column" trapped among the forests and mountains of Marcomannia was saved by rain, which quenched the thirst of the Roman soldiers, surrounded by the Quadi, giving them renewed energy to emerge victorious from the Germanic encirclement.[58]
Cavalry combat
Caesar describes the equestrian fighting of the Germani in his Book IV of De bello Gallico (55 B.C.):
In equestrian combat they often get off their horses and fight on foot. They have trained their horses and stay on the spot. When they need them they return quickly by intent. According to them, nothing is considered more cowardly than using the saddle. And therefore, only a few have the courage to go to the post of riders with saddle in a certain number.
The Germani, as soon as they saw 5,000 Roman horsemen, although there were not more than 800 [...], decided to attack and quickly beat the Romans, having no fear [...]. When the Romans then tried to resist, according to their custom [the Germani] jumped off their horses on foot: they then unsaddled many Romans by piercing their horses, driving the others away, and so afraid did they pursue them, until they came in sight of [Caesar's] army. In that clash 74 Romans perished.
Tacitus, a century and a half later, adds more detail to the cavalry units, arguing that their horses were neither beautiful to look at nor fast in riding. The Germani did not teach them to perform maneuvers, as the Romans did. They either rode them straight ahead, or made them fall back with one type of turn to the right, so that they would not hinder each other in the event of a retreat, thus preventing anyone from falling behind.[44]
Sarcophagus dated c. 190 (now at the Dallas Art Museum, Texas), representing a clash between Germanic-Sarmatian cavalry and Romans.
Raids and incursions
In Caesar's time, raids carried out outside one's territory did not bring infamy. On the contrary, they were said to represent a way to discipline the youth and diminish laziness and cowardice.[59]
Auguries
The Germani drew auguries in order to predict the outcome of important wars, by having a prisoner belonging to that particular enemy fight one of their champions. Each of the combatants then made use of their own weapons. The victory of either one or the other was regarded as an omen.[60]
Strategy
Each people considers it the greatest glory to have around the borders of their nation uninhabited territories for the largest possible extent. This means for them that a number of nations is unable to resist their force of arms. Caesar relates that one side of the Suebi borders is uninhabited for a stretch of country equal to about 600,000 passes (equal to just under 900 km).[61]
The greatest glory for a people consists in making desert around their borders, devastating the surrounding territories. They consider it a special sign of their worth that neighboring peoples, driven from their territories, retreat, and that no one dares to stop near them. At the same time they believe that such a situation makes them safer, eliminating the fear of sudden invasion.
Caesar recounts in his De bello Gallico that the people of the Suebi, to which Ariovistus belonged, were by far the most numerous and warlike of all the Germanic peoples, and could field to wage war outside the borders of their territories as many as 100,000 armed men (1,000 for each pagus).[62] The coalition of Germanic peoples,[6] which consisted of Marcomanni, Triboci, Nemetes, Vangiones, Sedusi, Suebi and Harudes, seems to have grown to between 100,000 and 120,000 rapidly.[8]
A few years later (in 55 B.C.E.), Caesar again recounts a new incursion into Gaul by the Germanic tribes of Usipetes and Tencteri, who had pushed out of their territories, north of the Main River, and reached the regions inhabited by the Menapii at the mouth of the Rhine. Caesar claims there were as many as 430,000 people, including civilians and armed men.[63]
It is said that Prince Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni of Bohemia, against whom the Roman general Tiberius had deployed his armies in an expedition that was never completed in 6 CE, had a large army:
In short Maroboduus led his military forces defending his kingdom to such high prestige that they were fearsome even to our empire, and he accustomed them, by continuous exercises, to a type of discipline almost similar to that of the Romans. Towards the Romans he behaved in such a way as not to provoke us to battle, but to show that he would lack neither the strength nor the will to resist, should he be attacked by us.... In everything he behaved like a rival, though he tried not to show it, exercising with continuous wars against neighboring peoples, his army consisting of 70,000 infantrymen and 4,000 horsemen...
—Velleius Paterculus, Historiae Romanae ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo, II, 109
In 9 A.D., the prince of the Cherusci, Arminius, succeeded in assembling a coalition of Germanic peoples consisting of Cherusci and Bructeri, as well as probably Sicambri, Usipetes, Marsi, Chamavi, Angrivarii and Catti, totaling an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 armed men.[64] Regarding the large forces that the Germani fielded during the invasions of the third century, they can be summarized as follows:
The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived around the modern Dutch Rhine delta in the area that the Romans called Batavia, from the second half of the first century BC to the third century AD. The name is also applied to several military units employed by the Romans that were originally raised among the Batavi. The tribal name, probably a derivation from batawjō, may refer to the fertile Betuwe, a region today known as the fruitbasket of the Netherlands.
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people who lived close to the border of the Roman empire, north of the River Danube. They were one of the most important members of the powerful cluster of related Suebian peoples in this region, which also included the Hermunduri, Varisti, and Quadi along the Danube, and the Semnones and Langobardi to their north, and they were particularly important to the Romans. They appear in Roman records from approximately 60 BC until about 400 AD.
The Suebi were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names such as the Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones, and Lombards. New groupings formed later, such as the Alamanni and Bavarians, and two kingdoms in the Migration Period were simply referred to as Suebian.
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also called the Varus Disaster or Varian Disaster by Roman historians, was a major battle between Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire that took place somewhere near modern Kalkriese from September 8–11, 9 AD, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus and their auxiliaries. The alliance was led by Arminius, a Germanic chieftain and officer of Varus's auxilia. Arminius had received Roman citizenship and a Roman military education; thus allowing him to deceive the Romans methodically and anticipate their tactical responses.
The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germania in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themselves kin with other Irmino tribes and claimed common descent from an ancestor called Mannus. During the early Roman Empire under Augustus, the Cherusci first served as allies of Rome and sent sons of their chieftains to receive Roman education and serve in the Roman army as auxiliaries. The Cherusci leader Arminius led a confederation of tribes in the ambush that destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest in AD9. He was subsequently kept from further damaging Rome by disputes with the Marcomanni and reprisal attacks led by Germanicus. After rebel Cherusci killed Arminius in AD21, infighting among the royal family led to the highly Romanized line of his brother Flavus coming to power. Following their defeat by the Chatti around AD88, the Cherusci do not appear in further accounts of the German tribes, apparently being absorbed into the late classical groups such as the Saxons, Thuringians, Franks, Bavarians, and Allemanni.
Germania, also more specifically called Magna Germania, Germania Libera, or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic peoples. According to Roman geographers, this region stretched roughly from the Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east, and to the Upper Danube in the south, and the known parts of southern Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these people correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions.
The Belgae were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by Julius Caesar in his account of his wars in Gaul. Some peoples in southern Britain were also called Belgae and had apparently moved from the continent. T. F. O'Rahilly believed that some had moved further west and he equated them with the Fir Bolg in Ireland. The Roman province of Gallia Belgica was named after the continental Belgae. The term continued to be used in the region until the present day and is reflected in the name of the modern country of Belgium.
The Usipetes or Usipii were an ancient tribe who moved into the area on the right bank of the lower Rhine in the first century BC, putting them in contact with Gaul and the Roman empire. They are known first from the surviving works of ancient authors such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus. They appear to have moved position several times before disappearing from the historical record.
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani in defeating their rivals, the Aedui. They then settled in large numbers into conquered Gallic territory, in the Alsace region. They were defeated, however, in the Battle of Vosges and driven back over the Rhine in 58 BC by Julius Caesar.
The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part of Gaul, during the times of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called the Civitas Tungrorum. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" (Germanic), meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in Germania east of the river Rhine, were named after them. More specifically, Tacitus was thereby equating the Tungri with the "Germani Cisrhenani" described generations earlier by Julius Caesar. Their name is the source of several place names in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, including Tongeren, which was the capital of their Roman era province, the civitas Tungrorum, and also places such as Tongerlo Abbey, and Tongelre.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings, later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC, and more. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire in particular and ancient Rome in general in 476.
The Vangiones appear first in history as an ancient Germanic tribe of unknown provenance. They threw in their lot with Ariovistus in his bid of 58 BC to invade Gaul through the Doubs river valley and lost to Julius Caesar in a battle probably near Belfort. After some Celts evacuated the region in fear of the Suebi, the Vangiones, who had made a Roman peace, were allowed to settle among the Mediomatrici in northern Alsace.. They gradually assumed control of the Celtic city of Burbetomagus, later Worms.
The Morini were a Belgic coastal tribe dwelling in the modern Pas de Calais region, around present-day Boulogne-sur-Mer, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The Condrusi were an ancient Belgic-Germanic tribe dwelling in what is now eastern Belgium during the Gallic Wars and the Roman period. Their ethnic identity remains uncertain. Caesar described them as part of the Germani Cisrhenani, but their tribal name is probably of Celtic origin. Like other Germani Cisrhenani tribes, it is possible that their old Germanic endonym came to be abandoned after a tribal reorganization, that they received their names from their Celtic neighbours, or else that they were fully or partially assimilated into Celtic culture at the time of the Roman invasion of the region in 57 BC.
The Battle of Vosges also referred to as the Battle of Vesontio was fought on September 14, 58 BC between the Germanic tribe of the Suebi, under the leadership of Ariovistus, and six Roman legions under the command of Gaius Julius Caesar. This encounter is the third major battle of the Gallic Wars. Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine, seeking a home in Gaul.
The Nemetes E.g. Frederick Kohlrausch "History of Germany. From the Earliest Period to the Present Time". D.Appleton and Company, New York, 1880. were a tribe settled along the Upper Rhine by Ariovistus in the 1st century BC.
The Tencteri or Tenchteri or Tenctheri were an ancient tribe, who moved into the area on the right bank of the lower Rhine in the 1st century BC. They are known first from the surviving works of ancient authors such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus. In December 2015, archaeologists believed they found remains of the Tencteri in The Netherlands.
In classical antiquity, the Triboci or Tribocci were a Germanic people of eastern Gaul, inhabiting much of what is now Alsace.
The Germani cisrhenani, or "Left bank Germani", were a group of Germanic peoples who lived west of the Lower Rhine at the time of the Gallic Wars in the mid-1st century BC.
The Battle of Magetobriga was fought in 63 BC between rival tribes in Gaul. The Aedui tribe was defeated and massacred by the combined forces of their hereditary rivals, the Sequani and Arverni tribes. To secure their victory, the Sequani and Arverni enlisted the aid of the Germanic Suebi tribe led by its king Ariovistus, who would subsequently make increasingly imposing demands upon his Gallic allies. Following their defeat, the Aedui sent envoys to the Roman Senate, their traditional ally, seeking aid. The Roman general Julius Caesar would use the Aedui’s entrities and Ariovistus’ oppression as pretexts for launching his conquest of Gaul.
1 2 These were the peoples of Marcomanni, Triboci, Nemetes, Vangiones, Sedusi, Suebi and Harudes, as reported by Caesar in De bello Gallico, I, 51.
↑ Caesar could therefore have covered in 6 days of march (starting from Vesontio), a distance of about 120-140 km, with an average of about 20-25 km per day (E. Abranson and J.P. Colbus, La vita dei legionari ai tempi della guerra di Gallia, Milan 1979, pp. 30-31), considering that the route from Vesontio to the Rhine is about 150 km and that the site of the battle, according to what Caesar himself has handed down to us, was only 7.5 km from the Rhine River (De bello Gallico, I, 53.1), perhaps confused with the Ill River.
1 2 3 4 Caesar, De bello Gallico, I, 49-53.) Appian (in History of Gaul, fragment 3) speaks of 80,000 Germans killed in the course of the battle between armed men and civilians.
1 2 Caesar, De bello Gallico, IV, 16-19); Cassius Dio, Roman History, XXXIX, 48,3-49,2); Plutarch, Life of Caesar, 22,6-23,1); Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 25); Appian, Celtica, 18); Cicero, Against Piso, 81.
↑ Caesar, De bello gallico, I, 31.10). Ariovistus is also called Rex Sueborum by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia (II, 170). Titus Livy, on the other hand, in his Periochae (104), calls him dux Germanorum.
↑ Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum, XIII, 3-4).
↑ Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum, XIV, 1-2).
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