The Romans in our home

First, there would be significant the so-called „Battle of the Teutoburg Forest“ in nine AD, in which Arminius smashed the Romans and prevented them from fixing themselfes between Rhine, Weser and Elbe and occupying our freedom-loving ancestors. For our area is significant that the tribe leading the resistance against the Romans, the Cheruski, inhabited the region on both sites of the middle and upper Weser. Their tribal area joined our area.

For centuries it has been arguing about where the battlefield is to be sought. A majority of people interested in this topic preferred the area around the Hermannsdenkmal. Beyond that a whole “legion of researchers” believed to have each found “their” place where Hermann, or Arminius as the Romans called him, devastatingly defeated general Varus and his three legions (with baggage about 20,000 people). Meanwhile the majority of the historians favor Kalkriese in the Osnabrücker Land as the place where the battle took place. Proponents of Kalkriese argue that all mintage of Roman pay coined after nine AD are absent at the find spot of Kalkriese. Whether Kalkriese, Grotenburg near Detmold, or anywhere else – the search for a possible battleground will continue. In the context of the analyses of this book it can not be reported in more detail about this topic.

For our region far more important is the campaign of revenge executed by Roman general Germanicus in the years 14 to 16 AD. He and his legionaries should and wanted revenge their comrades who lost their lives in barren Germania in nine AD, bury the remains of the fallen Romans honorably resp. stack them up to a Tumulus.

In this campaign Germanicus applied a scorched earth policy: While passing through Germania to reach the battleground of nine AD, far and wide the Romans ravaged the homes and the land of the Germanic tribes on their route. By using this tactic of war they wanted to cover themselves in case they would need to reach their strongholds (castra) on the Rhine. In several marching columns they went on different paths towards Weser. Their way we can track well because on it they constructed camps for resting surrounded by ramparts. Troves of objects left by Roman legionaries giving news from Germanicus’ campaign of revenge and his troops in our area.

Supposedly this Roman general has found the arena of the Varus battle near Weser, recaptured an aquila, the standard of a Roman legion, and buried the bones of the fallen Romans from the so-called Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, thereby largely cancel the pity of defeat.

In this campaign Germanicus and his formations have been repeatedly attacked by Germanic warriors, including Hermann and his Cherusci. However the Cheruscian prince was at once wounded and could assist his countrymen only limited.

The campaign brought to no head. At most, one can speak of a draw. At the most, one can speak of a draw. But the area east of the Rhine and north of the Main was avoided by the Romans for all future. They have never been able to incorporate it into the Roman Empire. So wrote the Roman historian Tacitus, who was carefully to provide an objective view of history, about Herrmann the Cheruski: Assuredly he was the deliverer of Germany, one too who had defied Rome, not in her early rise, as other kings and generals, but in the height of her empire’s glory, had fought, indeed, indecisive battles, yet in war remained unconquered.