Note 21 — Chapter IV · A New Interpretation

Ritterling (op. cit., p. 181) suggests the possibility that these “hiberna” are the same as those that were occupied the preceding winter, while others speak without reserve of a second winter in Germany (e. g., Gardthausen, Augustus, I, p. 1168). But Velleius uses “reduxit”, which distinctly implies that the legions were being led back across the Rhine. Besides, “in hiberna reducere” was a phrase which any one acquainted with the conduct of the German wars would at once understand as implying the recrossing of the Rhine. For “hiberna” alone as meaning the Rhine forts, see Velleius, II, 120, 3: “ad inferiora hiberna”; see also §2 of the same chapter: “in hiberna revertitur”, of the campaign of Tiberius in 10 A. D., where there is no doubt that the Rhine forts are meant (see Zonaras, 10, 37 ex.). Compare also Tacitus, Ann., I, 38: “reduxit in hiberna”; ibidem, I, 51: “miles in hibernis locatur”; II, 23: “legionum aliae ... in hibernacula remissae”; and II, 26, “reductus inde in hiberna miles”; and finally, Dio, 55, 2, 1, where Tiberius with the corpse of Drusus comes from the interior of Germany “as far as to the winter camp”, i. e., across the Rhine. It is clear that “hiberna” or the equivalent, when used without a special qualifying phrase, as in Velleius II, 107, 3, means the Rhine forts and nothing else. In order to make clear that these “hiberna” were in the interior of Germany it would have been necessary to add some special note calling attention to that fact. Finally, as the spending of the preceding winter in Germany is told with such a flourish (“in cuius mediis finibus ... princeps locaverat”), the repetition of the same deed, as enhancing its significance, could not have failed to be emphasized.