Germania in the middle of the ^first century BC. AD

Germania is the name given in the ancient world , the region of Europe separated from the central Roman world by the Rhine and the Danube and extending approximately to the east to the Vistula.

The territory of Germany was populated by Celts ^{References historiographical}

The Germania of Tacitus is a major work of historiography Germanic. This paradigm has emerged even at Pangermanism two millennia later ... The author who had never visited Germany, the information available to it are at best second-hand. The historian Ronald Syme has suggested that Tacitus would have copied much of the now defunct Bella Germaniae book written by Pliny the Elder. Syme justifies his hypothesis by a somewhat outdated passages where the tribes of Tacitus presents Danube as allies of the Roman Empire when they defected in '89 when the war against the Dacians had greatly altered the political frontier of the Empire. There are also other possible sources for Tacitus: Julius Caesar with his comments on the Gallic War , Strabon , Diodorus of Sicily , Posidonius and Aufidius Bassus.

The Germanies

Ancient Germany does not correspond to the German present, although some important territories of each other and can overlap.

The name of Germany is used by the Romans , with several names, including territories that are not currently part of a German, and German regions currently without any equivocation, that was not a point Roman administratively in Germany, on the other. The ancients, from the ^second century BC. AD until the influx of peoples Slavs in ^the sixth century , namely Germany's limited space on the north by the Baltic Sea and North Sea , south by the Western Beskid and the northern Alps , on the east by the Vistula River and west by the Rhine.

The term inferior Germania ( Germania Inferior Germania or Low) comprises the German left bank of the Rhine north of Bonn and the Netherlands and Belgium present east of a line from the source of the Oise at the Scheldt estuary or is Antwerp.

The Germania Superior ( Upper Germany or High Germany) includes the Rhine, left bank, south of Bonn (former department of the Rhine and Moselle ), the plain of the Palatinate , the Alsace , the Franche-Comte and, roughly the western half of Switzerland and the eastern half of Burgundy.

Conversely, the remainder of the current German left bank of the Rhine (with Trier ) is located in the Belgica ( Belgium Roman ). Anyway, Belgica and the two Germaniae administratively part of Roman Gaul. Thus, the entire left bank of the Rhine into Gaul is defined by Caesar , and was under Roman rule for about five hundred years (from 50 BC. to 450 AD. approx.).

The Raetia ( Rhaetian ) includes southern Bavaria to the west of the Inn and Baden-Wurttemberg in the south of the Danube with the Austrian Tyrol and eastern Switzerland. The Noricum ( Noricum ) corresponds to the rest of Bavaria south of the Danube and the Austrian. The decumates Agri ( Agri Decumates ) are the parts between the Rhine and Danube ranging roughly from Regensburg to Bonn in the course covering the lower Main , between the Swabian Alps and the Danube they are attached to Rhaetia; west of the Swabian Jura they are the Germania Superior, so of Roman Gaul. The three territories are under Roman rule for two or three centuries (the 80s AD. To 235 for Agri Decumates, and the 50s AD. Rhaetia to 406 for).

Germania magna (Great Germany) and Romans of antiquity, is thus approximately two-thirds of North-East Germany today, roughly the former East Germany , and the former West Germany to east of the Rhine and north of the Danube and the Bonn-line Regensburg, are added the Czech Republic and western Poland. It was zone of influence and supervision of Rome for two centuries (the early Christian era in the early ^third century ), and the part west of the Elbe , under direct Roman control for about two generations (the twenties BC-C to the thirties to the fifties AD).

Germanic peoples

The Germanic people occupying these spaces are all the more elusive they are partly nomadic, especially those based in the North European plain, and that the ancient authors easily confuse the names given to them. The Rhenish Slate Mountains , the Harz Mountains and the Bohemian quadrilateral are almost empty of men. The people of Frisian in the Netherlands today, was submitted in 28. The Salian Franks or Rhine (we used to say Ripuarian) are cited only from the ^third century , we'll talk. For other people, historians agree to locate them, as we shall see, at the beginning of our era, said that with all the caveats as there are many uncertainties involved in their mobility.

Some of these people are fairly well known or because of their number or their proximity to the borders of the Empire or to the ravages they have committed in ^Third or ^Fifth century :

• The Burgundians are perhaps on the island of Bornholm , Burgunderholm at the time, or already in East Pomerania ? Their travels lead them into four centuries in what is now Burgundy which owes its name.
• The Goths , very numerous, have not yet split into two groups, and are installed on the lower valley of the Vistula , Visigoths and Ostrogoths were the first barbarians to settle in a lasting way in the Empire following the defeat of the Emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378. Their journeys lead them to the ^sixth century in Hispania and Italy.
• The Vandals are located between the Vistula and Warta ; also migrate up North Africa in the fifth ^century, when Justinian 's triumph in 535.
• The Lombards , camping among the lower valleys of the Elbe and Weser , do will be introduced into the Empire, Italy, at the ^sixth century, destroying part of the reconquest of Justinian.
• The Swabians between the installed files and Main will follow the path opened by the Alemanni and go up to Galicia.
• The Alemanni meanwhile, will cross the Rhine froze 31 December 406 , but they do not appear until the early ^third century. Presumably they were in Eastern Europe at the time of Augustus?
• The Angles in Schleswig , the Saxons in the Holstein and Jutes in Denmark seem to be quite sedentary, engaged in acts of piracy in the North Sea and English Channel , before moving south-east Britain in the middle ^the fifth century.

Other peoples or Germanic tribes have left a trace in history less striking:

• The Marcomanni and quads are installed in the current Czech Republic , Marcus Aurelius will fight in two wars ( 167 - 175 and 178 - 180 ) and their cause, it seems, enough losses that they are longer a danger.
• The Chatti and Mattiaci them may be submitted or allies, are very restless at the north-west of files, requiring the intervention of Domitian.
• The Cherusci are quite numerous in the northern plain, between the Weser and Elbe.
• There are also many Hermunduri in Saxony and the Palatinate Bavaria today.
• It is even Bastarnae east in the loop of the Vistula River where they will go along for the Carpathians and win the Danube.

Other people still seem smaller or less restless: that is the case of Bructeri along the Lippe ; of Chauques on both sides of the Weser estuary; of Helvcones , low Silesia ; of Lugien occupier the upper valley of the Warta , the Marsi between Ruhr and Lippe of Ruges east of the eastern Pomerania ; of Semnones in the current Brandenburg ; of Turons between sources of the Werra and Fulda.

Some groups are even fewer: The Angrivariens Ansibariens or between the lower Weser and Ems , the Chamavi between Ems and Friesland , and the Writer north of Regensburg ; Osiens in the White Carpathians.

Finally the existence or location of some is so vague that their presence is controversial: The Burien that would be near the headwaters of the Vistula and the Oder , the Lmoviens in Eastern Pomerania, and Varna in the current Holstein?

All these people as they are, and the list does not claim to be exhaustive, living hunting and gathering, maintaining however the herds with which they move if necessary. Their dialects are unknown, their beliefs about supposedly very close to those of the Celts. In reality the Greeks and Romans ignore and despise them even if they fear them. Moreover, they do not call them Germans , but more often barbarians (the word being an onomatopoeia to signify the kinds of rumblings with whom they speak).

Let us return to the Franks that we have mentioned above. This nation occupies a special place, very different from that held by other Germanic peoples. They appear late, even the last mentioned: some words refer to groups of hundreds of warriors who follow the Alamanni after 235 and up to 257 where they are being slaughtered in Spain. Then we find them in the middle of the ^fourth century , installed by the Roman authorities as allies in Toxandrie or Western Belgium and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais today, this facility was intended to repopulate an area of empty men and to protect the Rhine frontier. The Salian Franks will fulfill the mission of protecting the Empire with flawless fidelity. The Roman historian of Greek Procopius , writing in the years 530-560, are called Franks or Germans, but when he speaks of other Germanic tribes (Alamanni, Swabians, Vandals, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Visigoths) he does Never siblings, but the barbarians, for him, the Franks are not barbarians, they are romanized; moreover, Clovis is consul and Patrice Romans.

The attempted conquest by Rome

He will be talking about that the great Germany, the others being treated in the articles on the Roman provinces.

By the conquest of Gaul, within the limits it has set itself, Caesar door west borders of the Empire on the Rhine. Augustus consider him to carry over to the Elbe.

Caesar had everything to gain by conquering Gaul : region very rich and fertile, densely populated and well structured in the seat of its people and especially with an economic frame extremely well organized Pagus (current departments for the most part) each with its own capital : a place of worship, trade fairs, exchange, and therefore Druid symbiosis of cultural cohesion, worship and social economic gain was obvious.

On the political success enables Caesar strengthened his authority against Pompey , and then be the sole master of Rome. Finally, the very fact of its conquest and its incursions across the Rhine and across the English Channel , Caesar becomes a prestige that the halo of military glory and authorizes him to ask the Senate the victory they can not refuse.

However, the reasons why Augustus to want the frontiers of the Roman Empire on the Elbe are difficult to grasp.

In political terms, this conquest did nothing to contribute to Augustus, after his naval victory at Actium in 31 BC. BC , which allowed him to evacuate the claims of Mark Antony and Cleopatra , Octavian (later Augustus) is the undisputed master of the world known to the Romans: that is to say he is the master the world does not need to win, to add a further title, politically speaking he has no interest in conquering anything, anywhere. Conversely, the military campaign to take is difficult if the Gaul of the first half of the ^first century BC. BC is crossed paths more or less stony or reinforced beams that connect the county seats of tribes to each other (that's frame of future Roman roads) it is not the same in the east Rhine. The Germanic tribes did not have urban centers, and no organized axis crosses the great Germany. Military operations should be conducted in a geographic environment naturally hostile. The ambush that allows Arminius massacre the legions of Varus in the year 9 , is a sad example.

Finally, an economic point of view of Germany does absolutely no interest at the time, the tribes are unorganized and unproductive, there is no central core of trading as there were many in Gaul; lowland areas to the north (present Lnder of Lower Saxony in the north of Hanover , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , northern half of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg in Germany , Eastern Pomerania in Poland ) are often swampy and soils are poor; they are siliceous, leached by glaciation, the podzosols who will become productive with the use of chemical fertilizers , and those are the days of land covered moors to the west in the zone of influence of the ocean , to groves of birch or steppe grass to the east in continental areas. The regions of central and south (current Lnder of North Rhine-Westphalia to the east of the Rhine, Hesse , Lower Saxony, south of Hanover, Thuringia , eastern half of Saxony-Anhalt , Saxony , Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria north of the Danube, which must be added the current Czech Republic and Silesia ) are composed of ancient massifs (the north end is the "V" Hercynian : Solid Slate Rhine part is, the Harz Mountains , the Ore Mountains and Sudetes ) of sedimentary basins dislocated (Swabian basin and basin Franconian Basin Bohemia ), or hills and plateaus prealpine ( Swabian , Bavarian plateau). All these regions are difficult to penetrate because of the terrain, and furthermore covered with a tissue extremely dense forest with no way sustainable, infested with wild beasts, just to provide the best circus in lynx , bear and aurochs. The development of this area is, for the time, impossible to contemplate.

However, despite all the uncertainties due to poor knowledge of terrain, vegetation, climate, the movement of tribes, Augustus wanted to conquer the great Germany. Thus fortified camps were built during the organization of the conquest in the decade following the installation to power of Augustus, from Castra Vetera in Birten ( Xanten ) on the left bank of the Rhine to the elbow Elbe near present Magdeburg. It was not just forts, but Roman camps housing a Roman legion. They were active in their creation between 16 and 12 BC. AD until the early 20s , even in the mid '40s when Claude , back from the The Germania and Rome

Regardless of the Roman episodic, major trade routes established in the late ^first century BC. BC remained in operation without major problems during the first two centuries AD It is good to trade routes, not Roman roads paved, drained and maintained. Essentially, these tracks follow the river routes, either along the rivers , or by following a path on a ridge avoiding swampy banks themselves. It goes on and the mouth of the Ems , the Weser , the Elbe , the Oder and the Vistula , to the Danube , bypassing the Harz mountains , crossing the mountains of Bohemia and Beskydy. Roman traders will seek the amber , and furs , feathers and down, hides, leather , hair wigs for women of wealthy Roman fashion, horses, slaves, geese, pigs, fish, dried or salted, a little iron in Beskydy and copper in Thuringia. The merchants sold, bartered or more precisely those products cons wine, oil, glass, ceramics Samian, metal utensils, manufactured objects.

Along these trade routes, there is a number of Roman centers therefore have no military function, but that line the main routes, linking the Kingdom with the Nordic world. This trade with and through the great Germany still remained of modest size, and never reached the intensity of traffic through Gaul, to confine itself to the West.

These centers are remarkable:

• Amisia at the mouth of the Ems, at the opening of a route from Koblenz (confluence)
• Feddersen Wierde at the mouth of the Weser, on the right bank facing the sea and up the river Fulda, we win the Main and Mainz (Mogontiacum).
• Laciburgium west of the mouths of the Oder can join the Beskydy and Vienna (Vindobona) Carnuntum or a little more to the east along this axis is Viritium Oder near the present junction the Mittelandkanal; and Stragona in Silesia (between Legnica and Wroclaw ).
• Rugium in Eastern Pomerania, now Poland, the Baltic Sea , halfway from the mouth of the Oder and the Vistula that is in contact Maritime Commercial or skirting Denmark , or with a break at Laciburgium.
• Calisia (current Kalisz ) on Prosna tributary of the Warta , outside the territories traditionally German, but lived at the time of the Germanic peoples: the Burgundians. The center is located in the middle of the road leading from Carnuntum at the mouth of the Vistula.
• Lichtenfels Menosgada nearly thirty kilometers north northeast of Bamberg , near the source of the Hand , is on the path from Regensburg to the Weser along the Werra.

Thus, the major axes of the business were maintained correctly the ^first century BC. BC to the early third ^century or a little more.

We can say that without being part of the Empire in administrative policy term, the large Germany was part of the empire in economic terms, it was not excluded, it was considered an area of Roman influence, authority who was the only local course according to its use as it saw fit, but the implied condition that the Roman merchants and goods can circulate freely, if abuses were evident, the legions were also occurring, it is the direction of policy of Domitian and Marcus Aurelius. Only the migration of peoples who will surge once the Empire after 235 , permanently disrupt these axes. The Germanic tribes who lived in Germany for large ^I and II ^century AD were the first victims of invasions.

The Germany during the Late Antiquity

From ^sixth-eighth century the Franks gradually impose their rule to other Germanic peoples. This period of Frankish Germany will end in the early Middle Ages , during the dismantling of the Carolingian Empire. The East Frankish born of this split is often called the Kingdom of Germany.

Epitaph of Cheldofrida , found on the lands of Germania

The Germany during the Middle Ages

Kings of Germany

• Charles ^I the Great or Charlemagne ( 771 - 814 )
• Louis ^I the Pious ( 814 - 840 )
• Louis II the German ( 840 - 876 )
• Louis III the Younger ( 876 - 882 )
• Charles II of Germany ( 882 - 887 ), also Emperor of 881 to 887
• Arnulf ^I of Germany ( 887 - 899 ), emperor from 896
• a href = "Louis_IV_de_Germanie" title = "Louis IV of Germany"> Louis IV the Child ( 899 - 911 )
• ^I. Conrad the Younger ( 911 - 918 )
• Said Henry ^I the Fowler ( 876 - 936 ), king of Germany ( 919 - 936 ), Duke of Saxony ( 912 ).
• Otto ^I of Germany said the Great ( 912 - 973 ), king of Germany ( 936 - 962 ), king of Italy ( 951 - 973 ), Holy Roman Emperor ( 962 - 973 ).
• Otto II the Red ( 962 - 973 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( 973 - 983 )
• Otto III ( 983 - 996 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( 996 - 1002 )
• Saint Henry II the Lame ( in 1002 - 1,014 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( 1,014 - 1 024 )
• Conrad II the Salic ( 1 024 - 1027 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( one thousand and twenty-seven - 1039 )
• Henry III the Black ( one thousand and twenty-seven - one thousand and forty-six ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( one thousand and forty-six - 1056 )
• Henry IV ( in 1056 - in 1085 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( 1,085 - 1 106 )
• Rudolph ( 1077 - 1.08 thousand )
• Henry V ( in 1106 - 1,111 ) and Holy Roman Emperor ( one thousand one hundred and eleven - one thousand one hundred twenty-five )

Sources (partial list)

This article draws on work

• Raymond Chevallier ,
• Lucien Musset ,
• Michel Rouche ,
• L. Armand,
• Louis Halphen ,
• and guidance provided by the "Grosser Historischer Weltatlas, Herausgegeben vom Bayerischen Schulbuch-Verlag", the "Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, historical atlases Stock and Cambridge.

See also

• Germanic civilization
• German history
• History of Austria
• Germanic peoples | Germany | Frankish Germany | Kingdom of Germany
• List of emperors of the West | Western Roman Empire
• Holy Roman Empire | Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire | Holy Roman Empire Armorial
• Holy Roman Emperor | Elector | King of the Romans
• List of German emperors

• Portal History
• Germany portal

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