Germania Inferior

Domitian's companion province along the lower Rhine, centered on Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), one of the great cities of Roman Germany. Frankish raiding intensified through the 4th century, and the province had slipped from effective Roman control by the mid-4th century as Frankish settlement advanced across the lower Rhine. Colonia Agrippina had begun as a legionary base and grew, under the patronage of the Empress Agrippina the Younger (born there), into a full Roman colonia with the rights and grandeur that status implied -- city walls, an aqueduct, and a governor's palace. The Batavian Revolt of 69-70 CE, led by the Romanized Batavian nobleman Julius Civilis during the chaos of Rome's Year of the Four Emperors, briefly drove Roman authority out of much of the lower Rhine before being suppressed -- a warning of how thin Roman control over supposedly loyal frontier auxiliaries could prove under stress. The province's proximity to the Rhine mouth made it a crucial hub for grain and goods moving between Britain, Gaul, and the German frontier garrisons. Frankish confederations absorbed the province gradually rather than through a single conquest, with Roman and Frankish authority overlapping and coexisting uneasily for decades before Roman control there effectively ended.

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