| mweaver | 05 Jan 2009 2:25 p.m. PST |
CNN story. link Apologies if already posted somewhere – I didn't see it around, though. |
| mweaver | 05 Jan 2009 2:33 p.m. PST |
More detailed story, with a few pictures: link |
 Parzival  | 05 Jan 2009 2:36 p.m. PST |
Yep. Discussed here: TMP link But still a cool find! |
| mweaver | 05 Jan 2009 2:47 p.m. PST |
Ah – further back than I looked. |
 Der Alte Fritz | 05 Jan 2009 3:00 p.m. PST |
That is a cool story. I hope that they can track the battle down through surviving Roman accounts and archives and tell us more. It sounds very interesting. |
| Der Alte Fritz | 05 Jan 2009 3:04 p.m. PST |
Somewhere I have a book that includes a map of Germany, and it has marked all of the locations were Roman buildings/ruins have been found. The Romans built settlements even north and east of the Elbe. They really got around. |
| Gaijin79 | 05 Jan 2009 8:24 p.m. PST |
I just saw this story tonight. Always good to see we had it wrong all this time. |
| Mapleleaf | 05 Jan 2009 9:15 p.m. PST |
The battle may not equate to settlement or control. It was Roman practice to launch punitive raids across the Rhine particularly if a German tribe had raided Roman territory or attacked Roman traders. There are records of these as late as the 5th century. The article suggests that the Romans were on their way home and numbered about a thousand men which would again suggest a raid. |
aecurtis  | 05 Jan 2009 9:23 p.m. PST |
"We" only had it wrong if "we" ignored the literary references that the site enthusiasts are now seizing upon. I seem to be able to find plenty of references on my bookshelf which mention Maximinus Thrax's campaign in Germany. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm over the site is generating sufficiently "diverse" (probably a better term than "bat-  crazy") theories that specialists have to weigh in to recommend caution: link Murdoch's earlier blog entries on the subject are worth reviewing, as well. "The battle may not equate to settlement or control." Exactly. Allen |
| Ulenspiegel | 06 Jan 2009 5:32 a.m. PST |
@Mapleleaf How far would a Roman force of 1000 soldiers march into German territory? The large distance of the battlefield to the limes suggests that this Roman force was only a small part of a larger force, i.e. this was part of a large scale operation with march camps and regular logistics. It is undisputed that Maximinus Thrax campaigned in Germany, but most historians assumed a TOW near the limes, not far in the north, so the implications are quite interesting. Ulenspiegel |
| Ulenspiegel | 06 Jan 2009 5:56 a.m. PST |
@aecurtis Most historians are more cautious than the journalists :-) The found coins indicate that the battle took place after 192 AD. The historians I know assume the period of time 192-250 AD. The arrow tips are eastern models, which would point to the campaingn of Maximinus Thrax, who had a lot of easterm units. I have found no historian who really claims, that this battle site implies a Roman settlement or permanent control of the aereas east of the limes, only the ability to perform large scale operations in the first half of the third century deep in German territories, an aspect that was IIRC disputed by most historians.
Ulenspiegel |
