Roman Politics in Germania during the Augustan and Early Tiberian Periods

Based on the results from preliminary investigations and excavations, the archaeological finds made thus far in Kalkriese appear to be connected with the clades Variana, the defeat of Varus in the saltus Teutoburgiensis (Teutoburg Forest) in AD 9: the predominance of military articles in the complex of finds made in Kalkriese and the unequivocal dating of coins found there at no later than AD 9 must be taken as weighty and increasingly secure indices for the archaeological proof of extensive and central fighting in connection with the clades Variana. The finds and results can themselves be used merely to document an isolated ad hoc event; however, they are not enough—in keeping with their character as sources—to establish a historical context in which the isolated event in AD 9 could be situated.

For this reason, a proper, clear-cut assessment of the spectacular event of AD 9 can made only in view of its framing historical conditions, which means that the Augustan and early Tiberian phases of Roman politics in Germania, their aims, assumptions, and conditions, must be taken into consideration.

As a result of Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in 58-51 BC, the Rhine River became border between the Imperium Romanum and the areas to the right of the Rhine in which Germanic tribes settled. This border region proved to be particularly explosive and unstable, however, since incessant invasions of the restless Gallic provinces by Germanic tribes from right/east of the Rhine continually jeopardized the security of those provinces. It was only after the Roman governor of the Gallic provinces, M. Lollius, had suffered a crushing defeat in 17 BC at the hands of the tribes from right of the Rhine who had invaded Gaul, that Emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14) responded to these menaces by ordering the systematic organization of the militarily secured defense of the border and the careful preparation of Roman offensive deployments in the areas to the right of the Rhine settled by the Germanic tribes. During these years, the 5-6 legions that had been stationed in the Gallic interior were moved to the Rhine border to military and base camps which were expressly built [for its defense] and, strategically speaking, were excellently placed (e.g., Vetera I/Xanten and Mogontiacum/Mainz across from the mouth of the Lippe and Main Rivers, respectively). When the Sugambri and Usipetri tribes once again invaded Gaul in 12 BC, Drusus, the stepson of Emperor Augustus, began a decisively new phase of Roman politics in Germania. He set out on renewed offensive operations to the right of the Rhine: while the beginning of the Drusus campaigns admittedly did not mean a change in the objective of Roman politics in Germania—namely, to protect Gaul by securing the Rhine border—it certainly did represent a fundamental change in the ways and means chosen in order to achieve this objective.

Thus the security of Gaul was to be assured from now on by means of the efficient supervision and pacification of the territory situated to the right of the Rhine border as well as of the Germanic tribes settled there. In the course of the Drusian campaigns (12-9 BC)—which were concluded temporarily (8-7 BC) after his death in 9 BC by his brother and the later emperor Tiberius—Drusus succeeded in subjugating the stronger West-Germanic tribes between the Rhine and Elbe Rivers, including the Sugambri, Usipetri, Cheruscans, Chauki, Chati, and Markomanns. The interim halt put to further extensive offensives as well as the closure of the camps lying to the right of the Rhine in Oberaden, Rödgen, and Dangstetten during the Drusian offensives makes it clear that Rome believed it had achieved its objectives through the use of military subjugation and political-contractual cooperation, namely, the forceful integration of a zone lying to the right of the Rhine and before the Gallic provinces, a zone in which the tribes [settled there] were pacified by means of territorial allocations and contracts with extremely diverse hierarchies and were bound to Rome as the governing power. A strategic program of occupation according to which all of Germania lying to the right of the Rhine was to have been annexed between 12 and 8-7 BC to the Roman territory as a new province, whereby the territory would have extended to the Elbe River as the new border, must be ruled out.

In the phase of stabilization that was now beginning, Roman troops were still charged with keeping watch over and order in the Germanic tribal regions, and in this capacity, for example, Domitius Ahenobarbus marched to the Elbe River in AD 1. For reasons that remain unclear, unrest broke out at this time which was put down partly by once again subjugating the Brukteri, Chauki, Cheruscans, and Langobardi. Here also a double strategy was employed which included political-diplomatic measures and military subjugation. A potential danger to Roman dominion lay solely in regions belonging to the Germanic tribes (Semnoni, Langobardi, Hermunduri) from the Elbe region, which received political support from the Markomannian Marbod Empire in Böhmen, which had established itself as an increasingly strong, independent marginal power. A large-scale two-pronged attack was directed at the Marbod Empire in AD 6 in order to deprive the Elbe-Germanic tribes of their support. Due to the outbreak of the Pannonian revolt (AD 6-9), however, the military operation had to be stopped, with the result that the Elbe-Germanic problem remained unsolved.

By contrast, the Germanic tribes [from the Rhine and Weser regions] [residing] between the North Sea coast and the Rhine and Weser Rivers had been by and large pacified. This security-order, which reinstated the status quo after the campaigns of 12 through 8-7 BC, was also ensured by military camps situated to the right of the Rhine (Haltern, Anreppen, Bad Nauheim), camps that were charged with the functions of supervision and supply within the regions inhabited by the pacified tribes, and by the majority of the Roman legions. The potential threat posed by the legions garrisoned on the Rhine thereby safeguarded a ruling order that, on the one hand, was established through the parallel employment of military penetration in regions inhabited by Germanic tribes and the direct subjugation or making treaties and cooperating with the tribal leaders and that, on the other hand, was maintained by means of the efficient supervision of the territory situated along the Rhine border. In this phase of peace, which had been secured within the region under his direct command, Publius Quinctilius Varus became the governor (legatus Augusti pro praetore) of the Gallic provinces (Tres Galliae) and, in this function, the supreme commander of the Rhine legions (AD 7-9). 

In AD 9, under the leadership of the Cheruscan nobleman and Roman citizen Arminius, Germanic tribal federations from the Rhine and Weser regions (Cheruscans, Brukteri, Marsari, Chati) crushed the army commanded by Varus, a force that consisted of three legions, three cavalry squadrons, and six cohorts as well as a baggage train. On the basis of the archaeological results and finds obtained thus far, the region of finds making up Kalkriese must be situated within the context of the clades Variana, whereby it remains unclear whether Kalkriese is merely one location connected with or rather the location of Varus’s defeat. Due to the geographic limitedness of the sphere of unrest and of the lack of a ‘national’ consciousness that could have promoted unity and identity, the reasons for the organization of the rebellion are not to be found in a large, ‘national’ uprising of ‘the’ Germanic tribes against the Roman occupying forces, but rather are to be attributed to rivalries for power among the tribal leaders, rivalries that were bound up with the pro- or anti-Roman policies held by the echelons of tribal leadership, since Rome, in its capacity as ruling power, had repeatedly intervened in internal conflicts among Germanic tribal leaders, helped those parties that were willing to cooperate to take over or claim the leadership of the tribes, and gave them privileges, such as making them Roman citizens or knighting them (Arminius!). 

In this sense, it is safe to assume that there was a split in the Cheruscan leadership, whereby Arminius’s ambitions to become the head of the tribes was not supported by Rome and as a result Arminius joined those who were displeased by and indignant about Rome due to the indiscriminant administrative measures (obligations to pay tribute, jurisdiction) initiated by Varus. In view of the security requirements during the critical situation of the Pannonian rebellion in AD 6-9 in which enormously heavy losses were sustained, Varus’s actions hardly reflect a process of transition forced by him from a military to a civil administration and thus the preparation for a comprehensive provincial census and the construction of a corresponding provincial administration. Nor did the supervision of the region to the right of the Rhine by military-political instruments of an efficient, though informal rule over the territory situated before the provincial Gallic realm make it urgently necessary to annex the region swiftly. Rather, longer-term political intentions, a gradual transition of the areas to the right of the Rhine into administrative forms—similar to the Gallic areas immediately following Caesar’s conquest—were envisioned. In any case, a Province of Germania in the sense of an administrative unity was not established by AD 9, although the maintenance of the claim to power as well as the restriction of the area of military operations up to the Elbe River became clear after the campaigns led by Drusus.

There can be no doubt that the defeat of Varus as such did not lead to an abandonment of the fundamental goals of Roman politics in Germania since the Rhine army was now increased to the imposing number of eight legions and the unified supreme command remained in the hands of a member of the imperial family: in AD 10-12 Tiberius sought to consolidate the situation on the Rhine front. High-handedly exploiting the authority given him, Tiberius’s ambitious successor Germanicus then undertook wide-ranging campaigns aimed at the subjugation of the region that sustained heavy losses, even if they were partly successful. These campaigns did not succeed, however, in reinstating the line of control that was in place to the right of the Rhine in the years prior to the clades Variana. Due to the discrepancy between costs and gains and the balanced estimate of what could be achieved in the short-term, Germanicus was relieved of his command in the winter of AD 16-17 by the new emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37).

While – with regard to Roman politics in Germania – the defeat of Varus certainly meant a setback, it was not a turning point. Rather, it was the recall of Germanicus in AD 16-17 that first signaled unmistakably the Romans’ temporary abandonment of Germania to the right of the Rhine – at least for the Tiberian era. However, the claim to power over these areas was nevertheless maintained and Roman politics in Germania was therefore still taken as an open question since it was only in AD 83 that the provisional status of the military districts to the left of the Rhine, which to that point had been assigned administratively to the Gallic provinces, were finally designated as the Provinces of Germania inferior (Lower Germania) and Germania superior (Upper Germania). Of course, the recall of Germanicus was accompanied, at least for the meantime, by a decreased interest in the renewed subjugation of the areas to the right of the Rhine claimed by the Drusian campaigns so that a reorientation of aims of Roman politics in Germania towards the period prior to the Drusian campaigns came into effect: the military securing of the Gallic provinces to the right of the Rhine.