A sustainable frontier? The establishment of the Roman frontier in the Rhine delta. Part 1: From the end of the Iron Age to the death of Tiberius (C. 50 BC-AD 37)

Abstract

This is the first of a series of three papers synthesising the results of an interdisciplinary study of the chain of small forts built c. AD 40 on the southern bank of the Rhine between Vechten (prov. Utrecht / NL ) and the North Sea coast. The project focused on the reasons for the establishment of these military installations and on the efforts required to build and maintain them. These questions were addressed by a team of researchers from diverse 
backgrounds: archaeology, geomorphology, palaeobotany and zooarchaeology.
Whereas the project was formally restricted to the period c. AD 40-140 this first paper discusses the preceding era:the transition from the Late Iron Age into the early principate. The events from AD 40 onwards cannot be properly assessed without a basic understanding of what preceded: the pre-Roman landscape and habitation of the lower Rhine delta, Rome’s conquest of Gaul and its struggles with the Germanic peoples from the right bank of the Rhine. The narrative is embedded in the historical sources and therefore essentially chronological, but there are several digressions on the landscape and its use, with the Rhine and its delta as a prominent element, and on military supply, which is of vital importance in a period of conquest. It appears that the political rivalry of the late Roman Republic was the key factor in the expansion to the Northwest, but once set off there was no way back. Each conquest induced new threats demanding further actions, as far as the natural landscape and the military supply network allowed.
Eventually the Roman troops advanced to the Elbe, and there remains little doubt that Augustus intended to turn most of the annexed territory between the Rhine and Elbe into a Roman province. Although this goal came within reach once Tiberius subjected all Germanic peoples between Rhine and Elbe in 8 BC , its full achievement was time and again frustrated. It is generally assumed that the abortion of the Roman military campaigns after AD 16 marks the definite abandonment of the imperial dream of a German provincial territory east of the Rhine, but the continuing tributary status of the transrhenane Frisii and the potential of the area for military supply – including cereals, meat, leather, metal ore, stone and army recruits – shed doubt on that conclusion.
At the death of emperor Tiberius in AD 37 Germania was not necessarily considered lost, and it may not be a coincidence that his successor Caligula crossed the Rhine when he needed a quick military success to secure his grip on the imperial throne.