On the war, in general, see the thorough treatment of Koestermann 1953 (c 281) 345-78; also Mocsy 1962 (e 675) 544-8; Wilkes 1969 (e 706) 69-77.
Dio lvi.17.1-3. 'и Cf. Braunert 1977 (c 25 5) 21 j-16.
east.153 Unrest persisted. The years 31 to 28 B.C. witnessed three uprisings requiring Roman military acdon: against the Morini, the Treviri and the Aquitani, each issuing in triumphs or imperial salutations for the victorious commanders.154 Those episodes drove home the lesson that the policing of Gaul could not be divorced from control of Germanic tribes across the Rhine. Caesar had experienced the problem, having faced large scale migrations by Germans like the Sugambri, the Usipetes and the Tencteri who dwelled near the river and who felt the pressure of the potent Suebi.155 It is noteworthy and revealing that Gallic disturbances in the 30s and early 20s b.c. repeatedly involved assistance or provocation from peoples across the Rhine. Agrippa had to fight on the other side of the river; the Treviri got support from trans-Rhenane tribes; and the Suebi came to the aid of the Morini.156 Augustus effected a settlement in Gaul in 27 B.C., conducting a census and perhaps implementing the tripartite division of the land.157 But administrative arrangements did not avert upheaval. The legate M. Vinicius brought an army against Germans in retaliation for their murder of Roman citizens who practised trade in their lands.158 Agrippa returned to Gaul in 20 and 19 b.c. and encountered a familiar scene: conflicts among the Gauls compounded by intervention of the Germans.159 The situation had changed little from the time of Caesar's Gallic Wars a generation earlier. The Rhine was an artificial and largely ineffectual barrier. Germanic peoples dwelled on both sides of the river. It represented at best a frontier zone rather than a demarcated border. And harassment of Roman Gaul by trans-Rhenane intruders was a continual menace.
Diplomatic measures proved unsatisfactory. Rome reached friendly accords with the Chatti and perhaps others, thereby to use them as counter-weight to other peoples who might enter the Roman province.160 To no avail. In 17 or 16 B.C. Sugambri, Usipetes and Tencteri spilled over the Rhine, plundered Gallic territory, ambushed Roman forces, and inflicted an ignominious defeat on the legate M. Lollius.161 The princeps himself hastened to Gaul in 16 B.C. to repair the damage. The cost in prestige outweighed any material losses. By the time Augustus reached Gaul, the Germans had withdrawn and there was no one to fight. A peaceful settlement followed.162 But it is no accident that
,u App. BCiv. v.92; Dio xLvn1.49.2-j; Eutrop. vii.j; Roddaz 1984 (c 200) 66-75.
Dio Li.20.;, Li.21.5-6; App. BCiv. iv.j8; Tib. 1.7.3—12, " i-Ji-6; ILS 893; CIL I2.jo, 77.
Caes. BGall. iv.iff; cf. Timpe 1975 (c 321) 125—9.
154 Dio xlviii.49.2-}, li-20.5f li.2I.6.
157 Dio Lin.22.5; Livy, Per. 134; cf. Drinkwater 1983 (E326) 20-1, 95. 158 Dio Lin.26.4—5.
Dio liv.11.2. On Agrippa's activities, see Roddaz 1984 (c 200) 383-402.
Dio liv.56.3; Timpe 1975 (c 321) 135-9.
Dio liv.20.4-5; Veil. Pat. 11.97.1; Suet. Aug. 23; Tac. Ann. 1.10; Obsequens, 71.
Dio Liv.19.1, Liv.20.6; Veil. Pat. 11.97.1; Suet. Aug. 25.
Augustus appeared in the region, prepared to lead forces in person. A Roman defeat, however minor, could not be tolerated. It was essential to present a bold face to the public. Hence the appearance of the emperor in the field. The image of Roman authority had to be advanced.
Augustus stayed in the West for three years.[363] That period marks the beginning of a more aggressive Roman posture to assure ascendancy in Gaul and to intimidate tribes across the Rhine. It represents a logical time for establishment of legionary forts on the river. Six camps eventually arose on the lower and middle Rhine: Fectio, Noviomagus, Vetera, Novaesium, Oppidum Ubiorum and Moguntiacum.[364] Once again the close association of this development with new administrative arrangements to strengthen Roman governance in Gaul is plain.[365]
The princeps stepson Drusus took over in Gaul when Augustus returned to Rome in 13 B.C.[366] In the following year Drusus launched the first four major offensives against tribes on the far side of the Rhine. The campaigns have stimulated speculation on Roman motives and intentions for conquest to the Elbe or beyond. It would be more prudent to recognize the continued connexion between suppression of Gallic unrest and the terrorizing by Rome of Germanic peoples who had contributed or might contribute to that unrest. The sources make the connexion explicit. Drusus established an altar of Augustus at Lugdunum (see p. 98 above for the view that this was in 10 B.C.), thereby to rally Gallic loyalty to the regime. But his conduct of a census, presumably associated with financial exactions, sparked new upheaval, aggravated by interference from German tribes on both sides of the Rhine.[367] Drusus' campaigns in Germany, therefore, grew out of familiar circumstances. They intensified pressure on the Germans in order to strengthen the Roman dominion in Gaul.
The campaigns spread over four years, gathering in momentum, and displayed might to the barbarian to an extent not previously experienced. Drusus began in 12 B.C. with assaults on the Sugambri whom he caught on the Gallic side of the Rhine and on the Usipetes across the river. He proceeded to an amphibious operation along the North Sea coast, gaining the Frisii as allies and invading the land of the Chauci.[368]Notable advances came in the following year. Drusus subdued the Usipetes, bridged the Lippe, and passed through the land of the
Sugambri into that of the Cherusci as far as the Weser river. The coming of winter again induced him to return to the Rhine, but not before he installed a garrison on the junction of the Lippe and the Eliso, perhaps at Haltern, and another near the Rhine in the region of the Chatti. The achievements earned Drusus triumphal honours.[369]
Augustus himself accompanied Drusus to Gaul in winter i i/io B.C., there to inspect the altar at Lugdunum and to observe the German situation. The linkage between defeat of Germans and consolidation of Gaul remained close. Another season in ю B.C. saw Drusus gain further victories over the Sugambri and Chatti who abandoned lands awarded them in an earlier diplomatic settlement by Rome.[370]
More far reaching successes marked the fourth and final campaign in 9 в.с. Drusus commenced the invasion, it appears, from Moguntiacum, attacked the Chatti once more, defeated the Marcomanni on the upper Main after stiff resistance, turned northward to the realm of the Cherusci, crossed the Weser again, and got as far as the Elbe. That, however, proved to be the terminus. Drusus turned back, suffered the misfortune of a broken leg, and died en route to the Rhine.[371] What stayed his advance at the Elbe is unspecified. But Augustan policy demanded that the best face be placed upon the events. Drusus, like Alexander the Great at the Hyphasis, set up trophies at the Elbe to signify progress rather than setback. And a story conveniently surfaced that Drusus was halted by a vision delivering divine pronouncement about the fate of the mission.[372]The gods, not any Roman failures, accounted for withdrawal. And elaborate honours were showered upon the memory of Drusus and his deeds.[373] Whatever the reality of the situation, Augustus, here as elsewhere, insisted on the appearance of success.
What had been accomplished? Drusus' campaigns had been invasions rather than conquests, the Germans intimidated rather than subdued. But these were more than hit and run raids. Drusus left tangible reminders of Roman power. Cassius Dio reports two garrisons planted in 11 B.C.; Florus, with obvious exaggeration, speaks of numerous forts and guard posts installed all along the Maas, the Weser and the Elbe.[374]Archaeology discloses the existence of important legionary bases at Haltern and Oberaden on the Lippe, and other garrisons elsewhere, but does not permit a precise chronology that would fix them to the time of