Not sure that the effects of having a domineering mother would be quite the same as having your parents and all your older brothers tried and executed while you're still a child. No way to know either way of course, and the level of inbreeding in the Julian family probably didn't help
The Fall of Tiberius Caesar Augustus
- Thread starter Sciox
- Start date
Not sure that the effects of having a domineering mother would be quite the same as having your parents and all your older brothers tried and executed while you're still a child. No way to know either way of course, and the level of inbreeding in the Julian family probably didn't help
Well, look at Nero, Agrippina and the weight of power turned him into a fragile, paranoid mess, and he was fundamentally a good guy, but you’re right, there’s no way to really tell how things would have gone. It’s just that I struggle to see Gaius as a balanced, nice and decent human being, family tragedy or not, and inbreeding certainly didn’t help his cause.
Inbreeding was almost absent in his case... Germanicus and Agrippina were second cousins as their mothers were daughters of sibling and their fathers were totally unrelated (the only other relevant realtionship is who Agrippina’s mother and Germanicus’ father were stepsibling) and Agrippina will not be a scheming woman by default...
She was ambitious and Augustus’ granddaughter in a world in which the direct discendano of Augustus had lost almost all power plus she was against Livia (and Tiberius)... With her brother, husband or father-in-law in power she will be a different woman
We don’t know that, Agrippina minor was as scheming as ever, and her brother, husband and son were on the throne one after the other. A rift between Agrippina maior and her relatives his entirely possible, her sons could very well come to despise her like Tiberius came to despise Livia and Nero his mother.
Agrippina Minor was never in power and she had suffered the majority of the same hell of Caligula and she had not a very good relationship with her brother. Plus she and Claudius had both sons by their previous wedding so she worked a lot for guaranteed the succession for her son. Agrippina Maior had likely a totally different upbringing and she had a much happier wedding and was destroyed after Germanicus’ death... Agrippina Minor’s personality and scheming likely were inhereited by her paternal great grandmother (aka Livia) who had no blood relation with her mother (and remember who Tiberius also more often than not feared and hated his mother)
Agrippina and Livia did share great cunning and intelligence, but personality wise they were different on a profound level. Livia knew affection and devotion, she loved Augustus and her children, she shared the former’s vision of a unified dynasty ruling the empire, all the scheming she ever did was just to ensure everything would run smoothly. Agrippina never loved anybody, her family members were all tools in her hands to ensure her rise to power, and the things she went through certainly traumatized her, that’s not up to debate, but people don’t change to a fundamental level. All the intrigue, all the ruthlessness and the deceiving, that was all her. She was entirely willing to exploit Britannicus against her own son to keep control over him. Experiences shape you, they don’t make you.
Again, happy upbringing, happy marriage, things are liable to change, Agrippina Maior could have clashes with her relatives, with her sons, and she’d scheme, poorly, once again.
The Conquest of Germania Part 3
There were few Germanics who opposed the Romans near the Rhine, the Marsi had been totally defeated the year before, their warriors defeated in battle and the rest of their tribe massacred during a religious ceremony, while the Tubantes and Usipetes and been made to submit to Rome. The Bructeri sent forth as many men as they could muster but this was only a few thousand, many of their fighting men had been slain fighting the Romans over the last few years and the ravaging of their territory by Lucius Stertinius had made the winter a particularly hard one. When this last army of the Bructeri met the Romans and saw that they were outnumbered more than four to one most opted to quit the field with their lives while a few hundred fanatics preferred dying in battle and charged the Roman line, these men were largely cut down by javelins as they charged with only a handful meeting their fates at the end of Roman swords.
The Bructeri only saw a small part of the army Germanicus had assembled, as the Princeps had anticipated only light resistance near the Rhine and so had had divided him army into two divisions, in the north a force of 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry under the command of Gaius Sillius advanced from Vetera* into the territory of the Bructeri, this was the force that had routed their last army and would go on to ravage their territory a second time, which would lead to the disappearance of the Bructeri as a distinct group, before establishing garrisons in the region. Meanwhile a larger army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavaly under Germanicus’ personal command advanced from Ubiorom** into the lands of the Chatti before marching north and across the Visurgis*** river to ravage the lands of the Cherusci, Arminius’ homeland, in early April. Wells were poisoned, farms and homes burned, temples were looted and desecrated, livestock was taken to feed the army, any fortifications that were of no use to the Romans were torn down or burned, anyone who offered the slightest resistance was put to death and those who offered no resistance were taken captive to be sold as slaves. The only way to survive was to flee, which many Germanics did, with thousands of families packing up and migrating east into the lands of the Semnones on the eastern side of the Albis and some went even further east, moving into the territory of the Slavs who lived in the between the Viadrua**** and Vistula rivers, the land that would become known as Slavica*****. In time this displacement would cause conflict in the region between the Slavs and the Germanics which would disrupt the rich amber road trade route and lead to the rise of the sea trade route between the lands of the Aesti, on the Amber Coast, and Roman Germania.
As brutal as these actions were Germanicus was not acting for mindless vengeance, during the last few years of hit and run fighting the Princeps had learned that if he did enough damage he could force the Germanics to meet him in pitched battle where Roman numbers, discipline and arms would prove decisive. The Princeps also desired to destroy any base of support for further Germanic resistance, either by Arminius, should he escape Drusus and Maroboduus, or by another hostile chieftain.
Whether this strategy would have an effect was revealed at the beginning of May when a detachment of Germanicus’ army, the Legio XXI Rapax, four thousand auxiliaries and some eight hundred cavalry, suffered an attack upon their camp by a group of Germanics armed with bows who fired upon them from a nearby tree line. The detachment had set up their camp and fortifications upon a hill that was bordered on one side by a small river known as the Lagina******, the camp was to serve as a base for the continuing ravaging of the countryside and for the construction of a bridge, the water in the area being too shallow for the Roman ships that had sailed across the sea from Gaul and up river into Germania. It was during the initial construction of the bridge that the Germanics made their first attack, felling a few romans before being driven away by arrows from the auxiliaries and a small group of legionaries that crossed the river on a barge and charged the tree line, however the Germanics escaped without casualties. Work resumed later in the day with a century posted on the far shore to deter another attack but none came and at nightfall the troops were ferried back across the river to the fort for the night. The next day the century was back across the river on watch and the day passed without issue until the afternoon when the Germanics in the trees began firing arrows at the Romans again, again the century charged the trees, and again the Germanics withdrew without the Romans pursuing and when night fell the century was withdrawn to camp. On the third day the bridge was finished early in the morning and a cohort of infantry was dispatched into the woods to hunt down the archers that had been pestering the construction. The Romans only had to march a short distance before they came upon their foe’s camp and the small group of Germanics that had been firing arrows, the cohort easily surrounded the camp but before they could close in they found themselves under attack and not by poorly clothed and bow armed peasants but fearsome warriors armed with swords, shields and clad in mail armour, the Romans attempted a fighting retreat but in the trees they were quickly surrounded and cut down.
The Romans at the bridge could hear the sounds of a battle being fought and sent word back to the camp where the officer in charge, Legatus Silius Duvianus, immediately ordered his infantry to gather up and march to the bridge while he ordered his cavalry to ride swiftly to the aid of his soldiers in the forest and help them retreat to the bridge. But by the time the cavalry set off it was already too late, the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and when the cavalry, two ala of skilled Gallic riders, rode into the woods they themselves fell into the ambush but after a brief skirmish managed to turn and withdraw with few casualties. Upon their return to the bridge the rest of the legion and the auxiliaries had arrived and the Gauls reported that the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and a large number of Germanics were at large amongst the trees. Some of the soldiers pressed their commander to order them into the woods to avenge their fallen comrades but the Legatus recognised that he would face the same fate as Varus if he heeded their requests and so ordered his men to hold firm on the opposite side of the river from the forest. He hoped that the Germanics, now that they had their blood up, would charge across the bridge and be steadily cut down by the Romans but unfortunately for Duvianus the Germanics he faced across the river were only a small part of a much larger force.
The Germanics in the woods were a detached force of from Arminius’ main army, which had crossed over to the western side of the river further upstream that morning and was now marching north. With reinforcements from the displaced Cherusci Arminius had at his direct command some thirty thousand troops, the detached force numbered five thousand under the command of Arminius’ uncle Inguiomer. Arminius had hoped that his uncle would draw the Romans out from behind their fortifications but when his scouts reported that he had a prime opportunity to pincer a substantial, but still outnumbered, Roman army between himself and his uncle Arminius drove his army as hard as he could. Arminius needed a resounding victory in this engagement, not just to defeat the much larger Roman army piece by piece, but to shore up his legitimacy as war leader, and eventually King. The newly recruited Cherusci had brought tales of the Roman atrocities against their people and this combined with the aborted engagement with Maroboduus and the heavy losses suffered in the lost battles with Germanicus and the Romans in the last two years had caused some of the Germanics to start questioning Arminius’ leadership, he could still claim his victory at the Teutoburg but that had been seven years ago and had been achieved via treachery, few believed that Arminius could fool Germanicus the way he’d fooled Varus.
Meanwhile Duvianus, discovering that even berserk Germanics wouldn’t charge straight across a narrow bridge into a killing field, had started marching some of his army across the bridge. He didn’t intend to march into the woods to die, but he hoped that he could perhaps present a more enticing target to the Germanics, unwittingly splitting up his force just as Arminius army appeared in the south. Duvianus, seeing the size of the enemy force and realising he was about to be trapped, immediately ordered a small group of cavalry to ride north as fast as they could to Germanicus’ camp to alert the Princeps that Duvianus was facing what could only be the army of Arminius and instructed the half of his army of the western side of the river to deploy in battle formation while the half on the eastern side withdrew. Although the Germanics had numbers on their side the Romans had the advantage of secure flanks, curtesy of the river and their fort.
About two thousand men remained on the eastern shore when the first blow of the battle was struck, Inguiomer finally ordered his army to leave the cover of the trees and charge the Romans who were outnumbered two to one but the first cohort of the legion formed a solid shield wall and resisted the Germanic assault for a time while the rest of the army continued to withdraw across the bridge.
On the other side Arminius’ army engaged the Romans, a first wave of ten thousand Germanics crashed against the Roman lines in a massive clatter of steel on steel. With the Roman left flank protected by the river Arminius decided to try and outflank them via the camp, presently serving as a superb point for the auxiliaries to rain arrows upon the Germanics from the walls and watchtowers, he sent a small force to try and tear down part of the palisade wall while he himself lead ten thousand around the fort to attack the Roman rear.
By this time Inguiomer’s men had pushed the first cohort back onto the bridge and when this was reported to him Duvianus decided to cut his losses and ordered the bridge burned. As the flames began to eat away at the bridge the first cohort disengaged and ran for the safety of the western side of the river with the Germanics in hot pursuit but one they reached solid ground the Romans turned and once more presented their shields to their foes, trapping them on the burning bridge. The Germanics had been so eager to pursue what they thought was a broken enemy that they had poured onto the bridge in great numbers and were now unable to escape, even as those in the front cried out that the bridge was burning the Germanics in the rear could not hear them and kept pushing forward. To escape the fire the Germanics were forced to leap into the river where many drowned and those who made it to the closest shore found Roman blades waiting for them. In the end half of Inguiomer’s army of five thousand died including their leader, although what exactly became of Arminius uncle varies, some say he was leading from the front and was cut down by the Romans, jumped into the river to save his own skin, burned alive rather than retreat. According to one legend he survived the battle and went into hiding under an assumed name, in this version of events Inguiomer is the true identity of the elderly Germanic man who made an attempt to assassinate Caligula on the eve of the Germanic Revolt.
Arminius’ assault on the Roman fort also went badly, the first attempt to cross the ditch surrounding the camp was a haphazard charge down into the ditch and up the embankment that was repulsed by a hail of arrows and javelins and while a second attempt managed to reach the wall using a testudo formation, before they could cut or pull down part of the palisade a quick thinking group of camp servants brought pots of boiling water up to the wall and dumped them on the attacking Germanics, their formation collapsed and they were quickly picked off by the soldiers manning the walls.
Despite these failures however the main thrust of Arminius’s attack, the ten thousand men he was leading around the fort, managed to reach the rear of the Roman left flank. They were met by a Roman line that was waiting for them but to create this force Duvianus had been forced to use his reserves from across the battlefield and as a result when the left flank, near the charred remains of the bridge, began to collapse he had no troops remaining to plug the gap. The Legatus realised that he was losing the battle but as the fort was still firmly in Roman hands he chose to withdraw behind the fortifications, but soon after he began pulling back his most exposed troops, those who remained fighting the breach of the left flank, Arminius saw the movement of the Romans and ordered his own army to press forward, hoping to shatter the fort side flank, link up with his troops on the other side of the Roman line, and roll up the entire legion outside the fort. By sundown Arminius Germanics overcame the Roman’s discipline and forced a hole in the fort side flank, dividing the Roman army in two, but half of the Romans had already withdrawn to the fort and while dead legionaries littered the field by the time the Germanics had finished slaughtering the men who had been cut off it was hardly the overwhelming victory Arminius had been hoping for. He had lost some four thousand Germanics in exchange for five thousand Romans, which included the cohort that had been ambushed and killed by Inguiomer, crucially his forces had missed a detachment of the Roman cavalry that had slipped away earlier in the day and rode north to bring word of the battle to the Princeps.
Arminius wanted to immediately assault the fort, to finish the job before the Romans had a chance to rest and reinforce their defences but his men had marched since before sunup and gone straight into battle until sundown, they were tired and hungry. Arminius therefor ordered a camp be established to give the indication that they were settling in for a siege but he also gathered a small group of volunteers who, after a quick meal, felt up to continuing the fight through the night. This group put on black cloaks and attempted to sneak up to the palisade to open a hole in the wall but were discovered by the Romans and driven off, not with now quite precious water, but arrows, javelins and stones. With his first attempt defeated Arminius gathered a second group of volunteers and, promising that they would be excused from the next day’s fighting, sent them to the forest to gather wood for ladders to climb the Roman palisade.
The next morning Arminius sent a messenger to the Roman camp to offer terms, if the Romans laid down their weapons and swore an oath to return to Gaul and never return Arminius would let them go in peace. Duvianus refused to surrender, he was behind firm defences and thanks to the casualties suffered the day before the Romans had more than enough food to last until Germanicus arrived to relieve them, not to mention that the Legatus didn’t trust Arminius to not turn around and slaughter the Romans once they were out from behind their walls. Duvianus also realised that the Germanics’ greatest advantage in their war with Rome was their ability to retreat from fighting and flee into the forests where the legions could not follow and if he could keep Arminius tied up in this siege until Germanicus arrived he might just be able to trap the Germanic leader.
However, Arminius was already caught in a trap of his own making. He knew that there could be Roman reinforcements close by so he didn’t have the time to starve Duvianus out, but storming the Roman fort could prove to be a pyrrhic victory, leaving him without enough men to fight Germanicus. Based on that Arminius’ best choice would have been to retreat but with Germanicus’ army spread out across Cherusci territory and Drusus and Maroboduus’ combined army somewhere to the south, dispersing might just be a recipe for his army to be picked apart piece by piece by Roman patrols. Additionally, the battle the previous day had not gone as well as he hoped, his men were anxious about the fates of their families, and the whispers questioning his leadership had not gone away, if he ordered his army to retreat and disperse he might find that his warriors were ready to submit to the Romans to live out the rest of their days in peace, and ready to gift Arminius’ head to Germanicus to get that peace. With the walls, real and imagined, closing in and his olive branch rebuffed, Arminius ordered an assault upon the hill fort.
Just after midday the ladders were ready and the Germanics charged the walls. Well rested, prepared and fighting an enemy they believed trapped the Germanics were in high spirits but the Romans felt equally confident, Duvianus reminded his men that the Princeps was on his way with the rest of the army and he compared their present circumstances to the Spartans at Thermopylae, behind the fortifications the Germanics’ vast numbers would count for nothing. The assault quickly dissolved into a back and forth of the barbarians trying to secure the basic wood ladders to the wall, and the Romans up top throwing them back, occasionally with a few Germanics already on the ladder. During a successful attempt to breach the wall by cutting a hole in the palisade with axes the Legatus’ comparison to the Hot Gates proved accurate, as the Romans where able to bring superior numbers to bear in the area to cut down the barbarians, who could only come through the breach in small numbers.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon Arminius called off the assault, for both sides the dead only numbered in the hundreds but the Romans had won the day, having lost just over a hundred dead, but Arminius’ army had suffered just under a thousand dead and many more heavily injured.
Once again Arminius sent small parties to test the Roman defences during the night and once again they were thrown back however their presence and constant spoiling attacks prevented Roman attempts to repair the breach in the wall, meanwhile the Germanic leader ordered that spare weapons be taken and fashioned into crude hooks to affix to the top of the ladders. Arminius was determined to defeat the Romans the next day and slaughter them to the last man, but the barbarian leader’s preparations were for nought because when dawn broke there were standards on the horizon and they were Roman, Germanicus had arrived for his final battle with Arminius.
***
*Xanten, Germany
**Cologne, Germany
***Weser river
****Oder river
*****North Western Poland/Prussia and parts of Lithuania
******This river is the OTL Leine. Lagina is a name for the Leine I came across on Wikipedia that’s from old saxon. I’ve gone with this for lack of a better option, at least it sounds vaguely Roman
The Bructeri only saw a small part of the army Germanicus had assembled, as the Princeps had anticipated only light resistance near the Rhine and so had had divided him army into two divisions, in the north a force of 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry under the command of Gaius Sillius advanced from Vetera* into the territory of the Bructeri, this was the force that had routed their last army and would go on to ravage their territory a second time, which would lead to the disappearance of the Bructeri as a distinct group, before establishing garrisons in the region. Meanwhile a larger army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavaly under Germanicus’ personal command advanced from Ubiorom** into the lands of the Chatti before marching north and across the Visurgis*** river to ravage the lands of the Cherusci, Arminius’ homeland, in early April. Wells were poisoned, farms and homes burned, temples were looted and desecrated, livestock was taken to feed the army, any fortifications that were of no use to the Romans were torn down or burned, anyone who offered the slightest resistance was put to death and those who offered no resistance were taken captive to be sold as slaves. The only way to survive was to flee, which many Germanics did, with thousands of families packing up and migrating east into the lands of the Semnones on the eastern side of the Albis and some went even further east, moving into the territory of the Slavs who lived in the between the Viadrua**** and Vistula rivers, the land that would become known as Slavica*****. In time this displacement would cause conflict in the region between the Slavs and the Germanics which would disrupt the rich amber road trade route and lead to the rise of the sea trade route between the lands of the Aesti, on the Amber Coast, and Roman Germania.
As brutal as these actions were Germanicus was not acting for mindless vengeance, during the last few years of hit and run fighting the Princeps had learned that if he did enough damage he could force the Germanics to meet him in pitched battle where Roman numbers, discipline and arms would prove decisive. The Princeps also desired to destroy any base of support for further Germanic resistance, either by Arminius, should he escape Drusus and Maroboduus, or by another hostile chieftain.
Whether this strategy would have an effect was revealed at the beginning of May when a detachment of Germanicus’ army, the Legio XXI Rapax, four thousand auxiliaries and some eight hundred cavalry, suffered an attack upon their camp by a group of Germanics armed with bows who fired upon them from a nearby tree line. The detachment had set up their camp and fortifications upon a hill that was bordered on one side by a small river known as the Lagina******, the camp was to serve as a base for the continuing ravaging of the countryside and for the construction of a bridge, the water in the area being too shallow for the Roman ships that had sailed across the sea from Gaul and up river into Germania. It was during the initial construction of the bridge that the Germanics made their first attack, felling a few romans before being driven away by arrows from the auxiliaries and a small group of legionaries that crossed the river on a barge and charged the tree line, however the Germanics escaped without casualties. Work resumed later in the day with a century posted on the far shore to deter another attack but none came and at nightfall the troops were ferried back across the river to the fort for the night. The next day the century was back across the river on watch and the day passed without issue until the afternoon when the Germanics in the trees began firing arrows at the Romans again, again the century charged the trees, and again the Germanics withdrew without the Romans pursuing and when night fell the century was withdrawn to camp. On the third day the bridge was finished early in the morning and a cohort of infantry was dispatched into the woods to hunt down the archers that had been pestering the construction. The Romans only had to march a short distance before they came upon their foe’s camp and the small group of Germanics that had been firing arrows, the cohort easily surrounded the camp but before they could close in they found themselves under attack and not by poorly clothed and bow armed peasants but fearsome warriors armed with swords, shields and clad in mail armour, the Romans attempted a fighting retreat but in the trees they were quickly surrounded and cut down.
The Romans at the bridge could hear the sounds of a battle being fought and sent word back to the camp where the officer in charge, Legatus Silius Duvianus, immediately ordered his infantry to gather up and march to the bridge while he ordered his cavalry to ride swiftly to the aid of his soldiers in the forest and help them retreat to the bridge. But by the time the cavalry set off it was already too late, the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and when the cavalry, two ala of skilled Gallic riders, rode into the woods they themselves fell into the ambush but after a brief skirmish managed to turn and withdraw with few casualties. Upon their return to the bridge the rest of the legion and the auxiliaries had arrived and the Gauls reported that the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and a large number of Germanics were at large amongst the trees. Some of the soldiers pressed their commander to order them into the woods to avenge their fallen comrades but the Legatus recognised that he would face the same fate as Varus if he heeded their requests and so ordered his men to hold firm on the opposite side of the river from the forest. He hoped that the Germanics, now that they had their blood up, would charge across the bridge and be steadily cut down by the Romans but unfortunately for Duvianus the Germanics he faced across the river were only a small part of a much larger force.
The Germanics in the woods were a detached force of from Arminius’ main army, which had crossed over to the western side of the river further upstream that morning and was now marching north. With reinforcements from the displaced Cherusci Arminius had at his direct command some thirty thousand troops, the detached force numbered five thousand under the command of Arminius’ uncle Inguiomer. Arminius had hoped that his uncle would draw the Romans out from behind their fortifications but when his scouts reported that he had a prime opportunity to pincer a substantial, but still outnumbered, Roman army between himself and his uncle Arminius drove his army as hard as he could. Arminius needed a resounding victory in this engagement, not just to defeat the much larger Roman army piece by piece, but to shore up his legitimacy as war leader, and eventually King. The newly recruited Cherusci had brought tales of the Roman atrocities against their people and this combined with the aborted engagement with Maroboduus and the heavy losses suffered in the lost battles with Germanicus and the Romans in the last two years had caused some of the Germanics to start questioning Arminius’ leadership, he could still claim his victory at the Teutoburg but that had been seven years ago and had been achieved via treachery, few believed that Arminius could fool Germanicus the way he’d fooled Varus.
Meanwhile Duvianus, discovering that even berserk Germanics wouldn’t charge straight across a narrow bridge into a killing field, had started marching some of his army across the bridge. He didn’t intend to march into the woods to die, but he hoped that he could perhaps present a more enticing target to the Germanics, unwittingly splitting up his force just as Arminius army appeared in the south. Duvianus, seeing the size of the enemy force and realising he was about to be trapped, immediately ordered a small group of cavalry to ride north as fast as they could to Germanicus’ camp to alert the Princeps that Duvianus was facing what could only be the army of Arminius and instructed the half of his army of the western side of the river to deploy in battle formation while the half on the eastern side withdrew. Although the Germanics had numbers on their side the Romans had the advantage of secure flanks, curtesy of the river and their fort.
About two thousand men remained on the eastern shore when the first blow of the battle was struck, Inguiomer finally ordered his army to leave the cover of the trees and charge the Romans who were outnumbered two to one but the first cohort of the legion formed a solid shield wall and resisted the Germanic assault for a time while the rest of the army continued to withdraw across the bridge.
On the other side Arminius’ army engaged the Romans, a first wave of ten thousand Germanics crashed against the Roman lines in a massive clatter of steel on steel. With the Roman left flank protected by the river Arminius decided to try and outflank them via the camp, presently serving as a superb point for the auxiliaries to rain arrows upon the Germanics from the walls and watchtowers, he sent a small force to try and tear down part of the palisade wall while he himself lead ten thousand around the fort to attack the Roman rear.
By this time Inguiomer’s men had pushed the first cohort back onto the bridge and when this was reported to him Duvianus decided to cut his losses and ordered the bridge burned. As the flames began to eat away at the bridge the first cohort disengaged and ran for the safety of the western side of the river with the Germanics in hot pursuit but one they reached solid ground the Romans turned and once more presented their shields to their foes, trapping them on the burning bridge. The Germanics had been so eager to pursue what they thought was a broken enemy that they had poured onto the bridge in great numbers and were now unable to escape, even as those in the front cried out that the bridge was burning the Germanics in the rear could not hear them and kept pushing forward. To escape the fire the Germanics were forced to leap into the river where many drowned and those who made it to the closest shore found Roman blades waiting for them. In the end half of Inguiomer’s army of five thousand died including their leader, although what exactly became of Arminius uncle varies, some say he was leading from the front and was cut down by the Romans, jumped into the river to save his own skin, burned alive rather than retreat. According to one legend he survived the battle and went into hiding under an assumed name, in this version of events Inguiomer is the true identity of the elderly Germanic man who made an attempt to assassinate Caligula on the eve of the Germanic Revolt.
Arminius’ assault on the Roman fort also went badly, the first attempt to cross the ditch surrounding the camp was a haphazard charge down into the ditch and up the embankment that was repulsed by a hail of arrows and javelins and while a second attempt managed to reach the wall using a testudo formation, before they could cut or pull down part of the palisade a quick thinking group of camp servants brought pots of boiling water up to the wall and dumped them on the attacking Germanics, their formation collapsed and they were quickly picked off by the soldiers manning the walls.
Despite these failures however the main thrust of Arminius’s attack, the ten thousand men he was leading around the fort, managed to reach the rear of the Roman left flank. They were met by a Roman line that was waiting for them but to create this force Duvianus had been forced to use his reserves from across the battlefield and as a result when the left flank, near the charred remains of the bridge, began to collapse he had no troops remaining to plug the gap. The Legatus realised that he was losing the battle but as the fort was still firmly in Roman hands he chose to withdraw behind the fortifications, but soon after he began pulling back his most exposed troops, those who remained fighting the breach of the left flank, Arminius saw the movement of the Romans and ordered his own army to press forward, hoping to shatter the fort side flank, link up with his troops on the other side of the Roman line, and roll up the entire legion outside the fort. By sundown Arminius Germanics overcame the Roman’s discipline and forced a hole in the fort side flank, dividing the Roman army in two, but half of the Romans had already withdrawn to the fort and while dead legionaries littered the field by the time the Germanics had finished slaughtering the men who had been cut off it was hardly the overwhelming victory Arminius had been hoping for. He had lost some four thousand Germanics in exchange for five thousand Romans, which included the cohort that had been ambushed and killed by Inguiomer, crucially his forces had missed a detachment of the Roman cavalry that had slipped away earlier in the day and rode north to bring word of the battle to the Princeps.
Arminius wanted to immediately assault the fort, to finish the job before the Romans had a chance to rest and reinforce their defences but his men had marched since before sunup and gone straight into battle until sundown, they were tired and hungry. Arminius therefor ordered a camp be established to give the indication that they were settling in for a siege but he also gathered a small group of volunteers who, after a quick meal, felt up to continuing the fight through the night. This group put on black cloaks and attempted to sneak up to the palisade to open a hole in the wall but were discovered by the Romans and driven off, not with now quite precious water, but arrows, javelins and stones. With his first attempt defeated Arminius gathered a second group of volunteers and, promising that they would be excused from the next day’s fighting, sent them to the forest to gather wood for ladders to climb the Roman palisade.
The next morning Arminius sent a messenger to the Roman camp to offer terms, if the Romans laid down their weapons and swore an oath to return to Gaul and never return Arminius would let them go in peace. Duvianus refused to surrender, he was behind firm defences and thanks to the casualties suffered the day before the Romans had more than enough food to last until Germanicus arrived to relieve them, not to mention that the Legatus didn’t trust Arminius to not turn around and slaughter the Romans once they were out from behind their walls. Duvianus also realised that the Germanics’ greatest advantage in their war with Rome was their ability to retreat from fighting and flee into the forests where the legions could not follow and if he could keep Arminius tied up in this siege until Germanicus arrived he might just be able to trap the Germanic leader.
However, Arminius was already caught in a trap of his own making. He knew that there could be Roman reinforcements close by so he didn’t have the time to starve Duvianus out, but storming the Roman fort could prove to be a pyrrhic victory, leaving him without enough men to fight Germanicus. Based on that Arminius’ best choice would have been to retreat but with Germanicus’ army spread out across Cherusci territory and Drusus and Maroboduus’ combined army somewhere to the south, dispersing might just be a recipe for his army to be picked apart piece by piece by Roman patrols. Additionally, the battle the previous day had not gone as well as he hoped, his men were anxious about the fates of their families, and the whispers questioning his leadership had not gone away, if he ordered his army to retreat and disperse he might find that his warriors were ready to submit to the Romans to live out the rest of their days in peace, and ready to gift Arminius’ head to Germanicus to get that peace. With the walls, real and imagined, closing in and his olive branch rebuffed, Arminius ordered an assault upon the hill fort.
Just after midday the ladders were ready and the Germanics charged the walls. Well rested, prepared and fighting an enemy they believed trapped the Germanics were in high spirits but the Romans felt equally confident, Duvianus reminded his men that the Princeps was on his way with the rest of the army and he compared their present circumstances to the Spartans at Thermopylae, behind the fortifications the Germanics’ vast numbers would count for nothing. The assault quickly dissolved into a back and forth of the barbarians trying to secure the basic wood ladders to the wall, and the Romans up top throwing them back, occasionally with a few Germanics already on the ladder. During a successful attempt to breach the wall by cutting a hole in the palisade with axes the Legatus’ comparison to the Hot Gates proved accurate, as the Romans where able to bring superior numbers to bear in the area to cut down the barbarians, who could only come through the breach in small numbers.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon Arminius called off the assault, for both sides the dead only numbered in the hundreds but the Romans had won the day, having lost just over a hundred dead, but Arminius’ army had suffered just under a thousand dead and many more heavily injured.
Once again Arminius sent small parties to test the Roman defences during the night and once again they were thrown back however their presence and constant spoiling attacks prevented Roman attempts to repair the breach in the wall, meanwhile the Germanic leader ordered that spare weapons be taken and fashioned into crude hooks to affix to the top of the ladders. Arminius was determined to defeat the Romans the next day and slaughter them to the last man, but the barbarian leader’s preparations were for nought because when dawn broke there were standards on the horizon and they were Roman, Germanicus had arrived for his final battle with Arminius.
***
*Xanten, Germany
**Cologne, Germany
***Weser river
****Oder river
*****North Western Poland/Prussia and parts of Lithuania
******This river is the OTL Leine. Lagina is a name for the Leine I came across on Wikipedia that’s from old saxon. I’ve gone with this for lack of a better option, at least it sounds vaguely Roman
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more please sir!! I had a quick read seems better! I am looking forward to more updates!
Another small edit, I realised I needed a name for Germanicus' and Arminius' battle and the name of the river is the best one. After some searching I found the name Lagina for the Leine that, according to Wikipedia, is from old saxon. So I'm moving forward with that name.
Also update coming soon™.
Also update coming soon™.
The Conquest of Germania Part 4
Germanicus had made his main camp a day’s march to the north and when the riders from the Twenty First Legion arrived in the afternoon he immediately ordered his army prepare to march south along the Lagina river. His men had been up since early morning but Germanicus spurred them on, stressing the need to rescue their comrades and the possibility that they might end the war in one day but unfortunately the army’s departure was delayed as the soldiers that were out ravaging the area were recalled to the camp. The Princeps had no idea whether the army of Duvianus was still alive and he knew for sure that if he didn’t act quickly Arminius’ Germanics would melt away into the trees until he struck again, but Germanicus was wary of marching off half cocked, with half his army against a barbarian force that according to the reports may outnumber his two to one.
The next day Germanicus and his army set off on a quick march, quickly covering the distance but the sun was starting to set before they could cover the last few kilometres and the Princeps decided to avoid fighting a night battle so he ordered the army to make camp, fires were forbidden to avoid alerting the Germanics but the temperature was warm and the soldiers endured without complaint and the next morning the Romans rose before sunup, ate breakfast, and marched the last short distance. Germanicus’ army entered the clearing containing the Twenty First Legion’s camp just as the sun was rising in the east, forcing the Germanics to deploy for battle when they were still drowsy and without breakfast.
Germanicus weakened his centre and eastern flank to stretch out his line and avoid being enveloped by the larger number of Germanics, this area contained mostly veteran legionaries who could be relied upon to hold against the Germanics. The wings of the army contained the auxiliary infantry, the eastern flank was guarded by the river and on the western flank Germanicus placed himself, the praetorian guard and the bulk of the cavalry. Germanicus based this deployment on the reports the cavalry that had brought to him two days before but Arminius’ casualties and the need to keep Duvianus’ army bottled up in the fort meant that the two sides were almost evenly matched, Arminius could bring 20,000 men and 800 cavalry to bear against Germanicus’ 16,000 infantry and 2,400 cavalry. Arminius recognised the danger he was in, his men being tired and hungry and facing the possibility of being flanked by a sally from the fort but committed his forces to the battle for the same reason he had committed to the siege.
Battle was joined and despite the difference in numbers the skill of the Roman veterans began to tell against the hungry Germanics, the centre and eastern flank began to be forced back but they did not break meanwhile the western flank pushed forward, here they had the weight of numbers and the veteran praetorian cohorts, who had first come to Germania with the Princeps two years before to supress the Rhine Revolt. Arminius had concentrated his own well equipped, veteran warriors on the centre to try and break up the Roman army’s formation and create enough chaos to favour the Germanics, due to this most of the barbarian army on the western flank was made up of young and old Cherusci men that had fled their homes with whatever they could carry and this motely group of warriors quickly crumbled before the Roman onslaught.
With the Germanics’ western flank being pushed back Germanicus took the opportunity to ride to the fort and scatter the defenders there and when the Romans within saw the approaching cavalry and sallied forth against Arminius’ guard, many of these barbarians fled at the sight of the approaching cavalry or were trapped between the two Roman forces and were crushed. Germanicus briefly met with Duvianus before the Legatus led his soldiers to join the larger battle, with the twenty first legion and its auxiliaries pressing in from the rear the Germanics’ western flank quickly began to collapse and with the eastern side of the Roman army having been pushed back and Germanicus’ cavalry ready to slam into the rear it seemed that the Princeps had accomplished his goal of trapping Arminius and, as Roman propaganda put it, nothing less than a recreation of the battle of Cannae by trapping a larger army and completely destroying it making Germanicus an equal of Hannibal himself. Later historians would point out that if the victory at the Battle of the Lagina resembled any of Hannibal’s it was the battle of the Trebia river, where the famed Carthigian destroyed a Roman army that only outnumbered his by a few thousand by pinning the Romans against the Trebia river after forcing them to go into battle without breakfast and Germanicus had done it with veteran Legionaries against an enemy that countered many refugees amongst its ranks.
While Arminius was probably ignorant of Hannibal Barca and his achievements he was not blind to the approaching encirclement and decided to escape with a few trusted friends, as the Romans closed in later and began the slow work of butchering the Germanics some of the barbarians would escape by swimming the river but Arminius judged the safer bet to be escaping on horseback before the noose tightened completely. Arminius’ party set off south, travelling along the depression of the river bank, just before the Roman cavalry slammed into the back of the Germanic army, the terrain hid him from view and so he escaped the encirclement. Arminius rode south until he met with the Germanic baggage train where he requested food and water and rested for a time while he considered his next move, but while he planned word quickly spread amongst the camp followers that the battle had gone badly, very badly.
After liberating the Twenty First Legion Germanicus had taken stock of the situation and once he saw that his army was in a perfect position to trap and slaughter the Germanics he ordered his cavalry to attack with delay. Shortly afterwards a group of five unarmed Germanics rode up on horseback to tell Germanicus that Arminius had fled and was now resting just a short journey south, these barbarians had been part of the army left behind to see to the wagons and blamed Arminius for the defeat and now, as the Germanic leader had feared, they offered him to the Romans in exchange for lenient treatment and perhaps a reward, in exchange for their information Germanicus gave them half a talent of gold to be divided between themselves.
Due to the ongoing battle the Princeps only had two centuries of his personal bodyguard (ironically these men were also Germanics) and a century of the Praetorian Guards on horseback led by their Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus. Determined not to let Arminius escape Germanicus took off at once, leaving Silius Duvianus in command of the army until he returned. Arminius for his part was still at the camp, he’d taken the opportunity to rest, eat and consider his few options. Any authority the would be king had once possessed had fled, along with the camp followers who’d abandoned whatever they couldn’t carry with them when they were told of the battle’s outcome, all he had left were a handful of warriors who could be trusted to follow him to the end. When the Romans approached and saw the lack of defenders and camp followers they assumed that the wagons had been abandoned and spread out to begin looting and seeking clues as to where Arminius had gone.
Arminius hid in a tent with his three bodyguards and observed the Romans, perhaps planning to sneak away at an opportune moment, but when he saw one Roman wearing fine armour and a purple cloak, seated upon a white horse, he realised that it must be Germanicus himself and when the Princeps rode a bit too close to his hiding place the Germanics jumped out and attacked the Princeps with swords. The animal panicked and threw Germanicus but before Arminius could take his revenge Sejanus intervened, throwing a spear that killed one and cut down another with his sword before the barbarians counter attacked and killed the Praetorian Prefect’s own horse. But the distraction allowed Germanicus to find his footing and a Batavi bodyguard that had been with the two Romans to also intervene, Arminius’ last companion attacked and killed by the Batavi while the Princeps grabbed a shield off the ground and used it to force Arminius’ sword aside before delivering a blow to the head that broke Arminius’ nose and knocked him to the ground, where he remained until more Praetorians and bodyguards arrived to secure the Germanic.
Meanwhile back at the battle Romans had pressed in and began the butchery and on the Germanics side, once they realised they were trapped, panic set in, some men were so desperate to escape that they leaped into the river still wearing their armour, or clambered over their comrades trying to swim across drowning them in the process, others threw down their weapons and begged for mercy but none was had for most. During the next hour of slaughter, it became clear that Roman victory, both on the battlefield and the campaign, was near total. Over twenty five thousand Germanics lay dead on the field for a paltry three thousand Legionaries and Auxiliaries, the prisoners numbered less than a thousand. The tribes that had stood with Arminius would have taken decades to recover from this blow in ideal circumstances but between the losses of fighting men and the displacements and enslavements of the civilian population most of them never would, the Cherusci and their confederation would from now on be consigned to Roman history books, the only one with a part still to play was their leader and would be king.
To save his life Arminius did not identify himself when he was captured but when the Germanic traitors arrived to see what the commotion was about they identified Arminius and Germanicus realised that he had inadvertently defeated his enemy in single combat and therefor claimed Arminius arms and armour as the Spoila Opima. He ordered his guards to hold Arminius still while he stripped his enemy of his armour and mounted it on a spear. When Germanicus returned north to the Roman army the Princeps paraded about with the Spolia Opima and pulled the bound Arminius behind him with a rope to the cheers of the legionaries, who hailed him as Imperator.
***
I suffered a bit of writer's block with this one but when I got stuck I jumped ahead a bit to flesh out the next few chapters. Next time the consolidation of the conquest and after that we're going back to Rome to check in on the Senate and Claudius.
The next day Germanicus and his army set off on a quick march, quickly covering the distance but the sun was starting to set before they could cover the last few kilometres and the Princeps decided to avoid fighting a night battle so he ordered the army to make camp, fires were forbidden to avoid alerting the Germanics but the temperature was warm and the soldiers endured without complaint and the next morning the Romans rose before sunup, ate breakfast, and marched the last short distance. Germanicus’ army entered the clearing containing the Twenty First Legion’s camp just as the sun was rising in the east, forcing the Germanics to deploy for battle when they were still drowsy and without breakfast.
Germanicus weakened his centre and eastern flank to stretch out his line and avoid being enveloped by the larger number of Germanics, this area contained mostly veteran legionaries who could be relied upon to hold against the Germanics. The wings of the army contained the auxiliary infantry, the eastern flank was guarded by the river and on the western flank Germanicus placed himself, the praetorian guard and the bulk of the cavalry. Germanicus based this deployment on the reports the cavalry that had brought to him two days before but Arminius’ casualties and the need to keep Duvianus’ army bottled up in the fort meant that the two sides were almost evenly matched, Arminius could bring 20,000 men and 800 cavalry to bear against Germanicus’ 16,000 infantry and 2,400 cavalry. Arminius recognised the danger he was in, his men being tired and hungry and facing the possibility of being flanked by a sally from the fort but committed his forces to the battle for the same reason he had committed to the siege.
Battle was joined and despite the difference in numbers the skill of the Roman veterans began to tell against the hungry Germanics, the centre and eastern flank began to be forced back but they did not break meanwhile the western flank pushed forward, here they had the weight of numbers and the veteran praetorian cohorts, who had first come to Germania with the Princeps two years before to supress the Rhine Revolt. Arminius had concentrated his own well equipped, veteran warriors on the centre to try and break up the Roman army’s formation and create enough chaos to favour the Germanics, due to this most of the barbarian army on the western flank was made up of young and old Cherusci men that had fled their homes with whatever they could carry and this motely group of warriors quickly crumbled before the Roman onslaught.
With the Germanics’ western flank being pushed back Germanicus took the opportunity to ride to the fort and scatter the defenders there and when the Romans within saw the approaching cavalry and sallied forth against Arminius’ guard, many of these barbarians fled at the sight of the approaching cavalry or were trapped between the two Roman forces and were crushed. Germanicus briefly met with Duvianus before the Legatus led his soldiers to join the larger battle, with the twenty first legion and its auxiliaries pressing in from the rear the Germanics’ western flank quickly began to collapse and with the eastern side of the Roman army having been pushed back and Germanicus’ cavalry ready to slam into the rear it seemed that the Princeps had accomplished his goal of trapping Arminius and, as Roman propaganda put it, nothing less than a recreation of the battle of Cannae by trapping a larger army and completely destroying it making Germanicus an equal of Hannibal himself. Later historians would point out that if the victory at the Battle of the Lagina resembled any of Hannibal’s it was the battle of the Trebia river, where the famed Carthigian destroyed a Roman army that only outnumbered his by a few thousand by pinning the Romans against the Trebia river after forcing them to go into battle without breakfast and Germanicus had done it with veteran Legionaries against an enemy that countered many refugees amongst its ranks.
While Arminius was probably ignorant of Hannibal Barca and his achievements he was not blind to the approaching encirclement and decided to escape with a few trusted friends, as the Romans closed in later and began the slow work of butchering the Germanics some of the barbarians would escape by swimming the river but Arminius judged the safer bet to be escaping on horseback before the noose tightened completely. Arminius’ party set off south, travelling along the depression of the river bank, just before the Roman cavalry slammed into the back of the Germanic army, the terrain hid him from view and so he escaped the encirclement. Arminius rode south until he met with the Germanic baggage train where he requested food and water and rested for a time while he considered his next move, but while he planned word quickly spread amongst the camp followers that the battle had gone badly, very badly.
After liberating the Twenty First Legion Germanicus had taken stock of the situation and once he saw that his army was in a perfect position to trap and slaughter the Germanics he ordered his cavalry to attack with delay. Shortly afterwards a group of five unarmed Germanics rode up on horseback to tell Germanicus that Arminius had fled and was now resting just a short journey south, these barbarians had been part of the army left behind to see to the wagons and blamed Arminius for the defeat and now, as the Germanic leader had feared, they offered him to the Romans in exchange for lenient treatment and perhaps a reward, in exchange for their information Germanicus gave them half a talent of gold to be divided between themselves.
Due to the ongoing battle the Princeps only had two centuries of his personal bodyguard (ironically these men were also Germanics) and a century of the Praetorian Guards on horseback led by their Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus. Determined not to let Arminius escape Germanicus took off at once, leaving Silius Duvianus in command of the army until he returned. Arminius for his part was still at the camp, he’d taken the opportunity to rest, eat and consider his few options. Any authority the would be king had once possessed had fled, along with the camp followers who’d abandoned whatever they couldn’t carry with them when they were told of the battle’s outcome, all he had left were a handful of warriors who could be trusted to follow him to the end. When the Romans approached and saw the lack of defenders and camp followers they assumed that the wagons had been abandoned and spread out to begin looting and seeking clues as to where Arminius had gone.
Arminius hid in a tent with his three bodyguards and observed the Romans, perhaps planning to sneak away at an opportune moment, but when he saw one Roman wearing fine armour and a purple cloak, seated upon a white horse, he realised that it must be Germanicus himself and when the Princeps rode a bit too close to his hiding place the Germanics jumped out and attacked the Princeps with swords. The animal panicked and threw Germanicus but before Arminius could take his revenge Sejanus intervened, throwing a spear that killed one and cut down another with his sword before the barbarians counter attacked and killed the Praetorian Prefect’s own horse. But the distraction allowed Germanicus to find his footing and a Batavi bodyguard that had been with the two Romans to also intervene, Arminius’ last companion attacked and killed by the Batavi while the Princeps grabbed a shield off the ground and used it to force Arminius’ sword aside before delivering a blow to the head that broke Arminius’ nose and knocked him to the ground, where he remained until more Praetorians and bodyguards arrived to secure the Germanic.
Meanwhile back at the battle Romans had pressed in and began the butchery and on the Germanics side, once they realised they were trapped, panic set in, some men were so desperate to escape that they leaped into the river still wearing their armour, or clambered over their comrades trying to swim across drowning them in the process, others threw down their weapons and begged for mercy but none was had for most. During the next hour of slaughter, it became clear that Roman victory, both on the battlefield and the campaign, was near total. Over twenty five thousand Germanics lay dead on the field for a paltry three thousand Legionaries and Auxiliaries, the prisoners numbered less than a thousand. The tribes that had stood with Arminius would have taken decades to recover from this blow in ideal circumstances but between the losses of fighting men and the displacements and enslavements of the civilian population most of them never would, the Cherusci and their confederation would from now on be consigned to Roman history books, the only one with a part still to play was their leader and would be king.
To save his life Arminius did not identify himself when he was captured but when the Germanic traitors arrived to see what the commotion was about they identified Arminius and Germanicus realised that he had inadvertently defeated his enemy in single combat and therefor claimed Arminius arms and armour as the Spoila Opima. He ordered his guards to hold Arminius still while he stripped his enemy of his armour and mounted it on a spear. When Germanicus returned north to the Roman army the Princeps paraded about with the Spolia Opima and pulled the bound Arminius behind him with a rope to the cheers of the legionaries, who hailed him as Imperator.
***
I suffered a bit of writer's block with this one but when I got stuck I jumped ahead a bit to flesh out the next few chapters. Next time the consolidation of the conquest and after that we're going back to Rome to check in on the Senate and Claudius.
The Conquest of Germania Part 5
Having seen the strength of Roman arms and the greatest figure in the resistance against the Roman conquest defeated and captured, the remaining Germanic tribes that opposed the Roman conquest began to, gradually, lay down their arms. Sporadic acts of violence, disobedience and incursions by foreign barbarians seeking to exploit the instability would plague Germania for the next twenty years but for now the region was recognised by all sides as being under Roman control. A week after the defeat and capture of Arminius, Drusus’ army arrived with Maroboduus and his forces in tow, the king of the Suebi met with Germanicus who declared him a friend of Rome and affirmed the terms of his treaty. For their assistance against Arminius and as a gesture of goodwill Germanicus gave a portion of the war booty to the Suebi, Maroboduus returned home quite satisfied with the outcome of the conflict and he left behind a contingent of Suebi warriors to serve as auxiliaries.
The rest of the campaign season was spent setting up garrisons throughout the territory and accepting the submissions of the surviving tribes. Among these tribes were the Chatti who paid tribute to Rome and returned the third, and last, of the legionary eagles lost at the Teutoburg Forest which caused much rejoicing in the legions.
As summer gave way to autumn Germanicus did not order the legions back to the Rhine but instead to winter quarters throughout conquered Germania and permitted the soldiers who had served more than sixteen years in the army to retire and gave these veterans the gift of two slaves each and land in the newly established Roman colonies in Germania. Drusus wintered at Augusta Treverorum* to gather taxes and recruits from Gaul for the next year, while Germanicus remained at his camp on the banks of the Lagina, overseeing the conversion of palisades and tents to the stone walls and barracks of a permanent castra and attached colony.
After the defeat of Arminius’ coalition the only notable conflict of the conquest was a series of skirmishes fought by the Romans and a tribe called the Langobardi. During the winter of 42 representatives of the Chauci, a tribe who inhabited the northern coast of Germania near the mouth of the Albis, came to meet with Germanicus and requested aid from Rome in their conflict with a hostile tribe known as the Langobardi, who lived in the lands around and north of the Albis estuary. The Langobardi were not launching a true invasion they were merely taking advantage of the chaos caused by the Roman conquest to launch large raids against a seemingly vulnerable neighbour and so were spread out across the region in small bands and unprepared when Germanicus and Drusus took a force of 12,000 soldiers and 3,000 cavalry north to defeat their incursion in March of 43. When the Romans reached Chauci territory they divided, Germanicus took a third of the army and joined with Chauci allies to clear out their land while Drusus took the rest of the army and crossed into the Langobard territory west of the Albis, there he met and defeated a force of 10,000 Langobards under the command of their King, but the northern Germanics withdrew east across the river in good order after suffering only light casualties and Drusus was loath to pursue them into the treacherous marsh land that covered the region so he settled in to wait for the enemy to come to him. When the Langobardi raiders were wiped out Germanicus and his army rejoined Drusus and the Romans spent the rest of March, April and May fending off Langobardi raiding parties trying to slip by. The Germanics did not launch a major attack because they had sent a messenger south to an old ally of theirs, Maroboduus, hoping to gain his aid against the Romans but the King of the Marcomanni quite liked his current arrangement with Rome and sent the messenger back with a firm rejection of their offer.
With no help coming and their forces depleted after the previous fighting the Langobardi sent an envoy to Germanicus and came to terms with the Romans. The Langobardi surrendered control of the western shore of the Albis river to Rome and agreed to provide auxiliaries and tribute in exchange for protection. Despite this initial peace settlement and several years of good relations following it, the Roman-Langobard relationship would continue to be one of conflict until the tribe’s destruction, but the northern peninsula of Germania would come to be known as Langobardia to the Romans after these people.
Between the territory controlled by Germanicus and his Marcomanni allies the entire Albis river was now under Rome’s control and the Princeps began setting up new forts and camps to secure what he considered a fine defensive border for his conquests. Among these settlements was a colony Germanicus established called Germanica Caesaria at the estuary of the Albis, a region called Treva** by the local inhabitants. Bordered by the river and dense marshes but with easy access to the sea Germanicus believed that Germanica Caesaria could be made into an impenetrable fortress that could easily host a fleet and army to patrol the Albis frontier and the North Sea. In addition to its military role Germanica Caesaria would eventually become a centre of trade and administration in the northern Empire.
Throughout the rest of 43 Germanicus’ efforts to pacify the region and ready it for settlement continued. Work continued on the Via Germania and workers and legionaries who had been tied up by the war against Arminius and the Langobardi were sent to work on a second road, the Via Suebia, which would run south to the growing city Augusta Vindelicorum in Raetia and from there to the passes through the Alps to the roads of Italy, connecting Rome’s northern border to the Eternal City. When it was completed messengers traveling on the Via Suebia could convey a message from Rome to Germanica Caesaria, or back, in just over a month, except during winter when snows clogged the Alps and forced messages to go around.
The refugees and bandits that had been plaguing the region since the campaign of 42 were now under control, having either settled down or died in the winters or at the point of Roman steel. The resumption of trade, travel and a general feeling that things were safer earned Rome much goodwill amongst its new subjects.
As the year came to a close Germanicus wrote to his brother Claudius to tell him that this would be his last winter in Germania, as soon as the weather permitted in 44 he intended to return to Rome with Drusus. The Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus would remain in command pending the organisation of Germania into provinces.
***
*OTL Trier, this TL it won’t be a frontier fortress but a wealthy interior city on the Rhine.
**Germanica Caesaria is on the site of OTL Hamburg. I figure the same features that made it a good location for Charlemagne to establish a fort would also apply for Germanicus. It’s got defensible terrain, easily resupplied via the sea and can serve as a secure base for a fleet to move troops and supplies up and down the new frontier with relative ease.
Next time we go back to Rome to check in on Claudius and what he’s been up to.
The rest of the campaign season was spent setting up garrisons throughout the territory and accepting the submissions of the surviving tribes. Among these tribes were the Chatti who paid tribute to Rome and returned the third, and last, of the legionary eagles lost at the Teutoburg Forest which caused much rejoicing in the legions.
As summer gave way to autumn Germanicus did not order the legions back to the Rhine but instead to winter quarters throughout conquered Germania and permitted the soldiers who had served more than sixteen years in the army to retire and gave these veterans the gift of two slaves each and land in the newly established Roman colonies in Germania. Drusus wintered at Augusta Treverorum* to gather taxes and recruits from Gaul for the next year, while Germanicus remained at his camp on the banks of the Lagina, overseeing the conversion of palisades and tents to the stone walls and barracks of a permanent castra and attached colony.
After the defeat of Arminius’ coalition the only notable conflict of the conquest was a series of skirmishes fought by the Romans and a tribe called the Langobardi. During the winter of 42 representatives of the Chauci, a tribe who inhabited the northern coast of Germania near the mouth of the Albis, came to meet with Germanicus and requested aid from Rome in their conflict with a hostile tribe known as the Langobardi, who lived in the lands around and north of the Albis estuary. The Langobardi were not launching a true invasion they were merely taking advantage of the chaos caused by the Roman conquest to launch large raids against a seemingly vulnerable neighbour and so were spread out across the region in small bands and unprepared when Germanicus and Drusus took a force of 12,000 soldiers and 3,000 cavalry north to defeat their incursion in March of 43. When the Romans reached Chauci territory they divided, Germanicus took a third of the army and joined with Chauci allies to clear out their land while Drusus took the rest of the army and crossed into the Langobard territory west of the Albis, there he met and defeated a force of 10,000 Langobards under the command of their King, but the northern Germanics withdrew east across the river in good order after suffering only light casualties and Drusus was loath to pursue them into the treacherous marsh land that covered the region so he settled in to wait for the enemy to come to him. When the Langobardi raiders were wiped out Germanicus and his army rejoined Drusus and the Romans spent the rest of March, April and May fending off Langobardi raiding parties trying to slip by. The Germanics did not launch a major attack because they had sent a messenger south to an old ally of theirs, Maroboduus, hoping to gain his aid against the Romans but the King of the Marcomanni quite liked his current arrangement with Rome and sent the messenger back with a firm rejection of their offer.
With no help coming and their forces depleted after the previous fighting the Langobardi sent an envoy to Germanicus and came to terms with the Romans. The Langobardi surrendered control of the western shore of the Albis river to Rome and agreed to provide auxiliaries and tribute in exchange for protection. Despite this initial peace settlement and several years of good relations following it, the Roman-Langobard relationship would continue to be one of conflict until the tribe’s destruction, but the northern peninsula of Germania would come to be known as Langobardia to the Romans after these people.
Between the territory controlled by Germanicus and his Marcomanni allies the entire Albis river was now under Rome’s control and the Princeps began setting up new forts and camps to secure what he considered a fine defensive border for his conquests. Among these settlements was a colony Germanicus established called Germanica Caesaria at the estuary of the Albis, a region called Treva** by the local inhabitants. Bordered by the river and dense marshes but with easy access to the sea Germanicus believed that Germanica Caesaria could be made into an impenetrable fortress that could easily host a fleet and army to patrol the Albis frontier and the North Sea. In addition to its military role Germanica Caesaria would eventually become a centre of trade and administration in the northern Empire.
Throughout the rest of 43 Germanicus’ efforts to pacify the region and ready it for settlement continued. Work continued on the Via Germania and workers and legionaries who had been tied up by the war against Arminius and the Langobardi were sent to work on a second road, the Via Suebia, which would run south to the growing city Augusta Vindelicorum in Raetia and from there to the passes through the Alps to the roads of Italy, connecting Rome’s northern border to the Eternal City. When it was completed messengers traveling on the Via Suebia could convey a message from Rome to Germanica Caesaria, or back, in just over a month, except during winter when snows clogged the Alps and forced messages to go around.
The refugees and bandits that had been plaguing the region since the campaign of 42 were now under control, having either settled down or died in the winters or at the point of Roman steel. The resumption of trade, travel and a general feeling that things were safer earned Rome much goodwill amongst its new subjects.
As the year came to a close Germanicus wrote to his brother Claudius to tell him that this would be his last winter in Germania, as soon as the weather permitted in 44 he intended to return to Rome with Drusus. The Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus would remain in command pending the organisation of Germania into provinces.
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*OTL Trier, this TL it won’t be a frontier fortress but a wealthy interior city on the Rhine.
**Germanica Caesaria is on the site of OTL Hamburg. I figure the same features that made it a good location for Charlemagne to establish a fort would also apply for Germanicus. It’s got defensible terrain, easily resupplied via the sea and can serve as a secure base for a fleet to move troops and supplies up and down the new frontier with relative ease.
Next time we go back to Rome to check in on Claudius and what he’s been up to.
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At the start of 44 there are only a few colonies and most of them are dots on a map, planned but not to be settled until the road is complete and Germanicus returns to Rome to organise the provinces of Germania. The Roman presence at the moment is mostly military with a few civilians settled near their camps.
Meanwhile at the Senate of Rome
In Germanicus’ absence the running of Rome and the many of the day to day affairs of the Empire had fallen to his brother Claudius the Elder. Although plagued by a stutter and limp throughout his life Claudius possessed a sharp mind and was a prolific writer on a variety of subjects, ranging from his famous historical works, to commentaries on Roman life during the period, to oratory. During the reign of Augustus, Claudius had asked his grandfather permission to begin a public career but was denied on account of his issues with public speaking and his desire to publish an overly critical history of Augustus and the civil wars. But even as he denied Claudius a public career Augustus, having been impressed by the passion and skill of his oratory if not the delivery, encouraged him to take up writing and study by hiring the historian Livi to tutor young Claudius.
During his consulship Claudius always portrayed his decisions as merely conveying the advice of his brother to the Senate, several acts of legislation and reforms bear the mark of a senator familiar with Italy rather than a Princeps fighting in the cold north. Chief among them was the creation of a committee to plan and oversee the draining of the swamps surrounding Rome (an office that would soon expand to cover all of Italy and eventually the entire Empire under the control of a prefect), the construction of a new, much larger, port north of Ostia to service Rome and central Italy and the building of a new aqueduct for the capital, the Aqua Germanica.
When word reached Rome of Germanicus’ triumph at the Trebia river and the capture of Arminius, Claudius had the senate organise a day’s celebration with games and a public feast. This resulted in a tragedy at the Circus Maximus when a stand collapsed and over a thousand people were killed and many more injured. Claudius provided charity to aid the injured and subsequently oversaw a renovation of the Circus, which replaced much of the wood structure with stone, to prevent fires and wood rot that was blamed for the collapse of the stand.
The following year Claudius did not hold the Consulship but still acted as his brother’s representative in Rome which led many to jokingly refer to him as Proconsul. The only official title he took up was Censor which he used to implement what he believed were needed reforms to the Latin alphabet, Claudius introduced two new letters and revived the practice of putting dots between words (Latin at the time was written without spaces). The new letters failed to catch on and died out even before Claudius himself went to the afterlife while the use of dots between words struggled outside Rome even with an official decree promoting its use and would be used intermittently even on official documents and inscriptions until the invention of the first Roman printing press and its use to reproduce texts in the Library of Claudius. Many ancient works were updated to ‘modern’ Latin by the printers and this spread the practice far and wide during the Roman printing boom.*
It was in the year of his censorship that Claudius published his famous history of the civil wars following the assassination of Julius Caesar. He had attempted to publish the work during the reign of the first Princeps but Augustus had forbid it, whether it was because Claudius was too favourable to Antony or too critical of Augustus is unknown. Also unknown is how much of the work was changed in the intervening years before Claudius published the version known to history. Germanicus was a descendant of Mark Antony so portraying him in a positive light would not be so damming now that Germanicus ruled the Empire, but he was still the heir to Augustus’ government and so portraying Augustus negatively could not be allowed. Still modern analysis holds the work to be accurate even when it dips into Augustus’ more unsavoury actions, such as the proscriptions, his forced entry into the temple of the Vestal Virgins, the murder of Caesarion and his accumulation of power following the death of Mark Antony. Whatever the truth of the matter Claudius the Elder’s History of the Civil Wars remains one of the primary historical sources about the civil war period and the subsequent beginning of Augustus’ reign.
During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius it had been considered dangerous to write about the civil wars and the late Republic and therefor most historians focused on ancient Rome, the kingdom or early Republic, or the histories of conquered territories, Claudius exploited his position near the top of the imperial hierarchy to write about the taboo subjects and opened the door for other historians of the period to publish their opinions of the Republic and Augustus, an act some would come to regret.
Things we looking up for Claudius in 43, including his private life as he and his wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, experienced the birth of their first child Tiberius Claudius Drusus better known to history as Claudius the Younger.
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*OTL Claudius attempted to introduce 3 new letters and according to Suetonius he published a book on the subject while still a private citizen, which could mean either before he became Emperor or before he served as Consul alongside Caligula, Suetonius does not elaborate and I haven’t found another source on the matter. Certainly the idea would have been with him earlier and he may have developed the letters during his prodigious writing career.
During his consulship Claudius always portrayed his decisions as merely conveying the advice of his brother to the Senate, several acts of legislation and reforms bear the mark of a senator familiar with Italy rather than a Princeps fighting in the cold north. Chief among them was the creation of a committee to plan and oversee the draining of the swamps surrounding Rome (an office that would soon expand to cover all of Italy and eventually the entire Empire under the control of a prefect), the construction of a new, much larger, port north of Ostia to service Rome and central Italy and the building of a new aqueduct for the capital, the Aqua Germanica.
When word reached Rome of Germanicus’ triumph at the Trebia river and the capture of Arminius, Claudius had the senate organise a day’s celebration with games and a public feast. This resulted in a tragedy at the Circus Maximus when a stand collapsed and over a thousand people were killed and many more injured. Claudius provided charity to aid the injured and subsequently oversaw a renovation of the Circus, which replaced much of the wood structure with stone, to prevent fires and wood rot that was blamed for the collapse of the stand.
The following year Claudius did not hold the Consulship but still acted as his brother’s representative in Rome which led many to jokingly refer to him as Proconsul. The only official title he took up was Censor which he used to implement what he believed were needed reforms to the Latin alphabet, Claudius introduced two new letters and revived the practice of putting dots between words (Latin at the time was written without spaces). The new letters failed to catch on and died out even before Claudius himself went to the afterlife while the use of dots between words struggled outside Rome even with an official decree promoting its use and would be used intermittently even on official documents and inscriptions until the invention of the first Roman printing press and its use to reproduce texts in the Library of Claudius. Many ancient works were updated to ‘modern’ Latin by the printers and this spread the practice far and wide during the Roman printing boom.*
It was in the year of his censorship that Claudius published his famous history of the civil wars following the assassination of Julius Caesar. He had attempted to publish the work during the reign of the first Princeps but Augustus had forbid it, whether it was because Claudius was too favourable to Antony or too critical of Augustus is unknown. Also unknown is how much of the work was changed in the intervening years before Claudius published the version known to history. Germanicus was a descendant of Mark Antony so portraying him in a positive light would not be so damming now that Germanicus ruled the Empire, but he was still the heir to Augustus’ government and so portraying Augustus negatively could not be allowed. Still modern analysis holds the work to be accurate even when it dips into Augustus’ more unsavoury actions, such as the proscriptions, his forced entry into the temple of the Vestal Virgins, the murder of Caesarion and his accumulation of power following the death of Mark Antony. Whatever the truth of the matter Claudius the Elder’s History of the Civil Wars remains one of the primary historical sources about the civil war period and the subsequent beginning of Augustus’ reign.
During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius it had been considered dangerous to write about the civil wars and the late Republic and therefor most historians focused on ancient Rome, the kingdom or early Republic, or the histories of conquered territories, Claudius exploited his position near the top of the imperial hierarchy to write about the taboo subjects and opened the door for other historians of the period to publish their opinions of the Republic and Augustus, an act some would come to regret.
Things we looking up for Claudius in 43, including his private life as he and his wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, experienced the birth of their first child Tiberius Claudius Drusus better known to history as Claudius the Younger.
***
*OTL Claudius attempted to introduce 3 new letters and according to Suetonius he published a book on the subject while still a private citizen, which could mean either before he became Emperor or before he served as Consul alongside Caligula, Suetonius does not elaborate and I haven’t found another source on the matter. Certainly the idea would have been with him earlier and he may have developed the letters during his prodigious writing career.
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