Celts and Germans in the Rhineland -
administration. In the next twenty years, at least four Roman generals earned
triumphs or imperatorial salutations for successes against rebellious tribes or
invaders from across the Rhine, and Agrippa in his second governorship (19 BC)
was again required to take military action. In 17, Marcus Lollius as governor suffered
a defeat in a German raid, in which one Roman legion temporarily lost its eagle,
but again order was restored, and over the next three years Augustus himself was
in Gaul, supervising preparations for the great advance across the Rhine into
Germany, which began in 12 BC under the command of his stepson Drusus. It was
probably during these years, if not earlier, that semi-permanent legionary bases were
established at key points on the left bank of the Rhine, and at least some advance
supply depots were created, like the one already referred to at R6dgen in the
Wetterau. In four years of operations, Drusus reached the Elbe and tried unsuccess-
fully to cross, but on his way back towards the Rhine he broke his leg in a riding
accident and died a month later, 'to a great extent the conqueror of Germany'.44
The conquests, consolidated by Drusus's brother, Tiberius, and others, were starting
to be administered as a Roman province when in AD 9 a rebellion led by Arminius,
a chief of the Cherusci, himself a Roman citizen, destroyed three Roman legions
under the command of the governor, Quinctilius Varus, and wiped out the Roman
garrisons between the Rhine and the Elbe. The territory thus forfeited was never
reconquered.^45
The Rhineland thus remained a perpetual frontier zone. It was linked to the rest
of Gaul by Agrippa's road network and to Italy via Helvetia and over the Alps, and
the road network was paralleled by a system of water transport using the rivers. The
Rhine itself was a major artery, and goods from the south came up the Rhone and
the Saone and then crossed a relatively short portage to descend the Mosel. Latin
inscriptions recording guilds of boatmen (nautae) and shippers (negotiatores) show
from the nomenclature that the men concerned were mostly of Gaulish origin, and
north of Lyons the Belgae and especially the Treveri seem to predominate (Figure
31.2).46 After the Varian Disaster, there were eight legions plus auxiliary troops
stationed on the Rhine, making a total of between 80,000 and 100,000 men, who had
to be kept fed and supplied, who spent their pay and sought their entertainments
locally, and who often started families, retired, and settled just down the road
from where they had spent their service. Their economic impact was enormous.^47
Civilian settlements grew up under the shelter of the bases, to such an extent
that when civil war broke out in AD 69, 'The Year of the Four Emperors', the build-
ings which had been allowed to grow up during half a century of peace under
the walls of the legionary base at Vetera, near Xanten on the lower Rhine, had to be
torn down in a hurry in order to put the base into defensive order.^48 There were
other legionary bases on the Rhine at Strasbourg (Argentorate), Mainz, Bonn
(Bonna), Neuss (Novaesium) and Nijmegen. Regular municipalities developed, and
Roman colonial status was conferred upon the most important towns, Cologne
(Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) and Trier (Colonia Augusta Treverorum).
There were native villages and villas on every scale, from humble farms to such grand
establishments as the villa at Nennig, probably the home of some local Treveran
notable, and on some sites there are hints of continuity from Late La Tene into
Roman times (Figure 31.3).49
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