Romanized Germans?

I'm not gonna quote everything now as I am in school and have like 10 minutes left before my class ends, but i just want to touch on the "they never tried to conquer it again part".

I don't see how you missed these parts but meh:

Marcus Aurelius campaigned extensively in the massive Marcomannic Wars during the 160’s-170’s A.D., and planned the annexation of Sarmatia and Marcomannia as imperial provinces.


As late as the early third century Caracalla conducted a massive campaign in the Agri Decumates and in Germania Magna against the Alammani that involved a large-scale concentration of troops, and was accompanied by widespread construction of colonial outposts, and by a major extension of Roman garrisons and fortifications across the Rhine and Danube rivers.

Maximinus Thrax also conducted large scale operations in Germany, and even planned the annexation of the entirety of Magna Germania.



Significantly, evidence found on the Kalefeld battlefield indicates the Roman forces were marching from a north-eastern direction, indicating even deeper advances.
 
I'm not gonna quote everything now as I am in school and have like 10 minutes left before my class ends, but i just want to touch on the "they never tried to conquer it again part".

I don't see how you missed these parts but meh:

Marcus Aurelius campaigned extensively in the massive Marcomannic Wars during the 160’s-170’s A.D., and planned the annexation of Sarmatia and Marcomannia as imperial provinces.

Bit of a wall of text effect (not intentional I presume) and my eyes skimmed.

But to respond here:
Marcus Aurelius might count as planning something, but hardly all of Germania.

As late as the early third century Caracalla conducted a massive campaign in the Agri Decumates and in Germania Magna against the Alammani that involved a large-scale concentration of troops, and was accompanied by widespread construction of colonial outposts, and by a major extension of Roman garrisons and fortifications across the Rhine and Danube rivers.

That's hardly "all of Germania".

Maximinus Thrax also conducted large scale operations in Germany, and even planned the annexation of the entirety of Magna Germania.

And where is this from? (Not pressing for an immediate answer)

Significantly, evidence found on the Kalefeld battlefield indicates the Roman forces were marching from a north-eastern direction, indicating even deeper advances.


"deeper advances"=/= "campaigns of conquest".

You can fight in Germania without taking it over.
 
@Elfwine: I can confirm the bits about Marc Aurel's and Maximinus Thrax' expansion plans. Read about both in Ivar Lissner's book.

Also, I'd like to remind you of Dacia. It was conquered under Trajan and stayed Roman for less than 200 years. Still, Romanian is a Romanic language.

A Romanized German might look so different from our German that we wouldn't recognize it, and as far from Italian as Romanian is. Sorry for not providing details.

And I also think that a better governor than Varus (shouldn't be that hard to find, even Tiberius would have proved more competent) could have defeated Arminius. This won't stop the Germanics forever, but it might suffice for a Romanization a la Dacia.
 
@Elfwine: I can confirm the bits about Marc Aurel's and Maximinus Thrax' expansion plans. Read about both in Ivar Lissner's book.

Also, I'd like to remind you of Dacia. It was conquered under Trajan and stayed Roman for less than 200 years. Still, Romanian is a Romanic language.

Dacia is considerably more valuable than Germania, so its worth considerably more effort.

And I also think that a better governor than Varus (shouldn't be that hard to find, even Tiberius would have proved more competent) could have defeated Arminius. This won't stop the Germanics forever, but it might suffice for a Romanization a la Dacia.

It might. I'd be willing to accept it being a beginning, but not the end of the struggle.
 
Bit of a wall of text effect (not intentional I presume) and my eyes skimmed.

But to respond here:
Marcus Aurelius might count as planning something, but hardly all of Germania.



That's hardly "all of Germania".
I should have clarified. I wasn't really saying they tried to conquer all of the area up to the Elbe (at least nobody but thrax that I know of), just that they were still interested in conquering parts of it.

And where is this from? (Not pressing for an immediate answer)




"deeper advances"=/= "campaigns of conquest".

You can fight in Germania without taking it over.
The second part was referring to maximinus thrax as well.
 
Ok so I looked more into this, and I found a great read on it: http://www.wou.edu/las/socsci/histo... Papers HST 499/2007/thesis07/Nolan Doyle.pdf

So the big problem here is the Great Illyrian Revolt. It lasted from 6-9 AD and took 15 legions (out of Rome's 28) to suppress. Rome's manpower situation was so precarious that Augustus was resorting to the old tactic not used since Cannae of forcibly purchasing slaves and conscripting them into the army.

"This was a dangerous revolt not only because ofthe vigor of the rebels but
because of the amount of manpower required to put down the rebellion. At the height of the rebellion fifteen legions were involved in Pannonia out of a total of twenty-eight legions in the army as a whole. It was not until 9 AD that the Romans pacified Pannonia.

As troops were withdrawn from other provinces it left Rome’s borders undefended, leading to a Dacian attack against Moesia in 6 AD. The Romans did not want to have that problem occur elsewhere, especially in Germany."

"...Cassius Dio wrote that the German Rebellion had two main causes. The first was that Varus was treating the Germans as he would slaves, and secondly that Varus extracted money from them as if the Germans were a subject nation. The money problem probably had more to do with the revolt than anything else. The Germans did not have the money based economy that was prevalent around the eastern half of the empire and in Italy. The taxes that the Romans required of the Germans would have been onerous to the Germans.Small German uprisings started to take place in areas only nominally under Roman control. As Varus marched to subdue these uprisings the three legions under his command; XVII, XVIII, and XIX along with accompanying auxiliary and cavalry forces were ambushed and destroyed by a confederation of German tribes led by Arminius."

Here's the important part...
"...News of the loss at Teutoburg Forest reached Rome at the same time preparations was underway to celebrate victory in Pannonia. The Roman population of Italy wasthrown into a panic. Dio writes that Augustus rent his clothing and feared for the safety of Gaul and Germany. He also thought that Italy would be invaded by the Germans, calling up old fears of the northern barbarians. Augustus posted guards to maintain order in Rome in case of an uprising of German residents in the city. Augustus also removed all German soldiers serving in the Praetorian Guard, in case their loyalties were divided.42

Dio makes a small statement, easily overlooked, which provides us with a very
clear view of the Roman military situation in 9 AD. He writes that there were no more men available in reserve. The Roman armies had reached the point of breaking, between the rebellions in Pannonia and Germany the losses could not be easily replaced anymore. Augustus had to resort to conscriptions of men and nobody wanted to be conscripted. Augustus made the men draw lots with twenty percent of those under the age of thirty-five and ten percent of those older conscripted into the army. When people still
were not excited enough to be conscripted Augustus had several men executed. Augustus also called up veterans and conscripted freedmen and put them into service. He sent the whole group to Germany with Tiberius to reinforce the border..."
 
" The money problem probably had more to do with the revolt than anything else. The Germans did not have the money based economy that was prevalent around the eastern half of the empire and in Italy. The taxes that the Romans required of the Germans would have been onerous to the Germans."

On the issue of manpower in reserve: I find it interesting how few that indicates the men in "reserve" were, given the size of the Roman Empire.
 
" The money problem probably had more to do with the revolt than anything else. The Germans did not have the money based economy that was prevalent around the eastern half of the empire and in Italy. The taxes that the Romans required of the Germans would have been onerous to the Germans."

On the issue of manpower in reserve: I find it interesting how few that indicates the men in "reserve" were, given the size of the Roman Empire.
If you get the time, read the whole thing. It puts it more into context. There's also a large bibliography at the end if you care to look further into it.
 
If you get the time, read the whole thing. It puts it more into context. There's also a large bibliography at the end if you care to look further into it.

I'm not sure what kind of context can make "the Germans resented Roman taxes" into something other than that. Or did you mean the military part?
 
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