ROME - BEYOND THE RHINE 55 BC- AD 16

The figure (above) is a centurion of the 1st century AD. With an earlier style of helmet, he would also be typical of Caesar's day. His rank is denoted by his transverse crest which might be of horsehair or feathers as here. His rank is also signified by his vine "swagger stick", which was sometimes used to administer corporal punishment. His armour is of mail or scales, and, unlike the legionaries' was richly decorated and was sometimes silvered. The centurion carried his gladius on the opposite side to the legionaries, and in battle carried shield and pila like his men.

To Rome the River Rhine presented a significant divide. It provided a highly serviceable frontier line-though in the minds of some this was to be only a temporary solution and it served to mark an ethnic divide between the Celts to the south and the Germans to the north. This, at least, was the view Caesar chose to present, though in reality the situation was far more fluid. In the middle of the first century BC the tribes on both sides of the river were very mixed and it is unlikely that rigid ethnic differences could be recognized, but the creation of a frontier along the river prevented further tribal movement. This meant that the Germanic tribes of the north, in their sporadic movements south, would have little choice but to concentrate on the north side of the river in lands previously occupied by tribes of more mixed origin. Thus the Roman presence was itself a significant factor in intensifying the ethnic differences along the river line.

Something of the nature of Germanic society can be glimpsed through the works of Caesar, completed in 51 BC, and of Tacitus written a century and a half later. Neither provides a systematic account, but both attempt to paint an anecdotal picture of a generalized German way of life to amuse and surprise their readers. Caesar suggests that agriculture was not particularly advanced. Land was held by the tribe and allocated to the individual clans in a system which required an annual redistribution. In this way wealth, derived from constant access to a particularly fertile tract, could be prevented from building up in the hands of any single group. Status could, however, be acquired by acts of bravery and leadership in the pursuance of raiding. 'The Germans', says Caesar, 'claim that it is good training for young men and stops them becoming lazy.' Raids were announced by the chiefs at public assemblies and all those who, in the excitement of the moment, proclaimed their willingness to follow were expected to present themselves when the force was ready to leave, otherwise they were derided by the tribe and lost all prestige. Power at this time, as in classic Celtic society, lay with the elite and was measured by the size of their entourage and their ability to bestow patronage. It was they who formed the tribal council. Only in times of exceptional warfare would members of the aristocracy be elected to lead the confederate army.

By the time that Tacitus was writing, a century and a half later, the social system had changed, at least among the tribes closest to the frontier. Arable land was now distributed in accordance with social status. Two types of leader were recognized, the rex elected for life from among a small group of aristocratic households comprising the royal class, and the dux appointed on the basis of military valour to lead the army in times of stress. Councils of the elite were held regularly as were general assemblies of warriors who met to debate issues submitted to them: it seems they were unable to initiate action of their own. This dual system had evidently evolved to maintain some semblance of social equilibrium. But one major destabilizing feature existed in Germanic society as it did in classical Celtic-the ability of an individual to attract a loyal retinue. The point was neatly summed up by Tacitus:

The chiefs fight for victory, the followers for their chief. Many noble youths, if the land of their birth is stagnating in a long period of peace or inactivity, deliberately seek out other tribes which have some war on their hands. For the Germans have no taste for peace; renown is more easily won among perils and a large body of retainers cannot be kept together except by means of violence and war.

He goes on to say that the boldest warriors prefer warfare to agriculture, they 'have no regular employment, the care of house, home, and fields being left to the women, old men, and weaklings of the family. Germanic society, then, was very much like Celtic society 500 years before: its system of prestige relied on the maintenance of conflict and this inevitably created perpetual instability.

Caesar's crossings of the Rhine in 55 and 53 BC were not serious attempts at conquest, nor was a brief campaign mounted in 38 BC by Agrippa. Throughout this time the Romans were content to develop the river as a frontier line while the affairs of the Empire were put into order by Augustus and his administrators. By 15 BC the situation within the Empire was sufficiently stable to enable the conquest of the Alps to be put in hand and by 12 BC, with the Alps now under control and the north-western corner of Iberia sufficiently subdued to allow troop withdrawals from Spain and Aquitania, the new forward policy across the Rhine could begin.

It seems that Augustus' intention was to make the Elbe-Vltava-Danube the permanent frontier of the Empire, but he seriously misjudged the strength of German resistance. It had been comparatively easy for Caesar to overrun Gaul because the Gauls had become a settled people with a well-developed agricultural base and many tribes were now politically and economically centred on permanent oppida. Moreover, Gaulish society had been softened by the enervating effects of luxury goods from the Mediterranean. The Germans were totally different: mobility and warfare were the keynote, there were no oppida, and few southern luxuries had penetrated the area by this time. It is one thing to destroy a tribe by besieging its oppidum, quite another when its armies simply shrink into the protection of vast unchartered forests.

To begin with, the advance does not seem to have gone too badly for Rome. Annual campaigns from 12 to 7 BC and another in AD 4-5 brought a sufficient degree of control over the area from the Rhine to the Elbe for attention to turn to the conquest of Bohemia-the crucial link between the frontier zones planned for the Elbe and the Danube. Command of Bohemia would also provide the Roman entrepreneurs with a major trading axis leading to the North European Plain and the Baltic, whence came a range of desirable products. At the crucial moment, however, a serious rebellion broke out in Illyricum requiring urgent attention: while the main weight of Roman military effort was tied up in dealing with the situation, the German tribes took the opportunity to reorganize. Arminius, a member of the German elite, who had served as a cavalry officer in the Roman army, was elected war leader with startling effect. Three Roman legions were annihilated in the depths of the Teutenburg Forest and Roman forces were all but driven from German soil. It was a devastating reversal for Rome. The next year, AD 10, the Rhine frontier was strengthened in preparation for a new campaign to regain the German holdings, and in subsequent years there were some notable Roman successes but the Emperor Tiberius, who knew Germany well having fought there himself, eventually conceded that the country was ungovernable. After the final campaign of AD 16, he withdrew Roman troops to the Rhine, thus bringing to an end twenty-eight years of fruitless endeavour.

There is, however, a revealing epilogue. Arminius, as we have seen, was elected war leader by his tribe, the Cherusci, to lead the military revolt against Rome. Success no doubt increased his prestige and thus his retinue, but he was not universally accepted even among his own lineage. His father-in-law, Segestes, and his uncle, Inguiomerus, were both opposed to his policies and were able to galvanize their own, not inconsiderable, retinues against him. Such was the power of the individual aristocrat in German society that personal ambitions and antipathies could overshadow national need. Indeed one wonders if concepts of German national identity were more a construct of Roman historians than a reality. In AD 19, after fighting Romans for twelve years, Arminius lurched towards tyranny. According to Tacitus, the Roman evacuation of Germany and the fall of the pro-Roman king of Bohemia, Maroboduus, persuaded him to make a bid for kingship, but this was anathema to those who believed in traditional values. Conflict broke out and finally 'Arminius succumbed to treachery from his relations'. This incident is a fascinating reminder of the similarities between German society in the early first century AD and the situation in Celtic Gaul nearly eighty years earlier when Orgetorix of the Helvetii aspired to kingship, but was restrained by his people and chose to end his own life.