Angrivarian wall

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The so-called Angrivarian Wall was mentioned in connection with the campaign of Germanicus in 16 AD by Tacitus ( Annalen II, 19-21) when the battle at the Angrivarian Wall occurred. Here the legions of Germanicus and the army of Arminius fought their last armed conflict.

The relevant passage in the Annals (II, 19) reads:

“The last thing they did was choose a battle site that was surrounded by the river and forest and in which there was a narrow swampy area. There was also a deep swamp around the wooded area, the Angrivarians had only raised one side with a wide dam, which was to form the border line to the Cheruscans. "

There are contradicting views today about the purpose of this structure . It is assumed that this was an early historical border fortification between the Angrivarians and Cheruscans . There are similar buildings from this period in Denmark, for example the Olgerdige (31 AD). It is also conceivable that the Angrivarian Wall was built solely in connection with the Germanicus campaign , in order to fulfill a strategic function within the tactics of Arminius.

research

Since the location and design of the Angrivarian Wall cannot be considered to have been clarified, the history of the Wall must be limited to its research history. In the 19th century and into the 1960s in particular, countless suggestions for localizing the attack wall were formulated, for example by Paul Höfer (1885), Friedrich Knoke (1887), Otto Dahm (1902), Carl Schuchhardt and others. a. (1926), Otto Kramer (1930), Wolfgang Jungandreas (1944), Erich Koestermann (1957) or Johannes Norkus (1963). Usually the location and topography of a certain place were compared to the Tacite description. Based on actual or postulated commonalities, an attempt was made to prove that the wall can be located at the point described and nowhere else.

Modern historical research largely refrains from such attempts. Important contributions to the Germanicus campaigns were made by Dieter Timpe (1967; 1968) or Reinhard Wolters (2000; 2008), albeit without delving into the attacking wall, let alone defining a localization.

In recent years, hobby researchers have started looking again, perhaps also due to the increased public interest in the Roman-Germanic subject area after the discovery of the battlefield of Kalkriese and in the course of the anniversary of the Varus Battle in 2009 Essentially on the attempts of earlier years.

Localization

The most serious attempt at localization is the archaeological location near Leese by Schuchhardt in 1926. This localization has proven to be very effective in historical research, not least because of the author's authority.

The Kalkriese site does not play a role in the location of the Angrivarian wall, at least for established historical research; the location is, however, not least because of conspicuous topographical coincidences with the Tacitus report outside of the research operation as a candidate.

An overview of localization attempts (also for other battles of the Germanicus campaigns) is available on Google Maps.

Examples of recent locations are:

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Paul Höfer: The campaign of Germanicus in the year 16 AD Bernburg and Leipzig 1885.
  2. ^ Friedrich Knoke: The campaigns of Germanicus in Germany . Berlin 1887.
  3. ↑ Otto Dahm: The campaigns of Germanicus in Germany . In: West German magazine for history and art . Supplement 11 Trier 1902, p. 92 ff .
  4. ↑ a b Carl Schuchhardt u. a .: The Angrivarian-Cheruscan border wall and the two battles of 16 AD between Arminius and Germanicus . In: Prehistoric Journal . No. 17 , 1926, ISSN  0079-4848 , p. 100-131 .
  5. ↑ Otto Kramer: The main campaign of Germanikus in the year 16 AD In: Yearbook of the Braunschweigischen Geschichtsverein . 2nd episode, volume 3 , 1930, p. 5-25 .
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Jungandreas: The Angrivarian Wall . In: Journal for German Antiquity and German Literature . tape 81 , H. 1/2, 1944, pp. 1-22 .
  7. ↑ Erich Koestermann: The campaigns of Germanicus 14-16 AD In: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte . No. H. 4, 1957, pp. 429-479 .
  8. ↑ Johannes Norkus: The campaigns of the Romans in northwest Germany in the years 9-16 AD, seen by a soldier . Hildesheim 1963.
  9. ↑ Dieter Timpe: On the history and tradition of the occupation of Germania under Augustus . In: Saeculum . No. 18 , 1967, p. 278-293 .
  10. ↑ Dieter Timpe: The Triumph of Germanicus. Investigations into the campaigns of 14-16 AD in Germania . Bonn 1968.
  11. ↑ Reinhard Wolters: The Romans in Germania . Munich 2000.
  12. ↑ Reinhard Wolters: Integrum equitem equosque… media in Germania fore: Strategy and course of the Germanicus campaign in the year 16 AD In: Johann-Sebastian Kühlborn u. a. (Ed.): Rome on the way to Germania. Geostrategy, roads of advance and logistics. International colloquium in Delbrück-Anreppen from November 4th to 6th, 2004 . Mainz 2008, p. 237-251 .
  13. ↑ Germania 16 AD on Google Maps - Angrivarienwall.de. In: Angrivarienwall.de. March 15, 2016, accessed May 21, 2016 .