Rhine-Danube Limes: Rome's Permanent Germanic Frontier
Augustus died in AD 14 having fixed the Roman frontier on the Rhine, and it stayed broadly there for four centuries. The original plan had been to advance to the Elbe. Drusus and Tiberius had campaigned across the Rhine from 12 BC, and by AD 5 Roman forces had reached the Elbe, a fleet had sailed round Jutland, and the region between the rivers was being organised as a province with assizes, tribute and a forum. Varus lost three legions in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, and the Roman answer to that was not what a defeat usually produced. Germanicus campaigned across the Rhine from AD 14 to 16, recovered two of the three lost eagles, buried the bones of Varus's army, and beat Arminius at Idistaviso. He then asked for one more year to finish it. Tiberius recalled him and gave him a triumph instead. The reasoning is preserved in Tacitus and in the advice Augustus left: that the empire should be kept within its existing boundaries. Germania was forested, without cities to take or a state to negotiate with, produced no tax revenue worth the cost, and had already consumed the strategic reserve. The Rhine and Danube were defensible lines with roads and river transport behind them. Rome kept its influence beyond by subsidy, trade and the manipulation of tribal politics, and let Arminius be murdered by his own relatives in AD 21. The Germania that Tacitus wrote about eighty years later was the frontier's other legacy.
- Year: 14 CE
- Category: Political
