Note 23 — Chapter IV · A New Interpretation

For the literature on these see Gardthausen, Augustus, II, p. 763 f. Nothing definite is known about them. If very significant for the “conquest” of Germany, why was their construction deferred to the period of Domitius, years after Drusus and Tiberius had been engaged in carrying on the most extensive campaigns? The very fact that these early incursions into Germany had been repeatedly made without the erection of any elaborate network of solidly constructed roads, is the clearest evidence that no permanent occupation of the country was intended. For the purposes of the occasional demonstration mere “war-paths”, supplemented here and there with some light, temporary construction were entirely adequate. It is a striking fact that of permanent road construction not a trace has been found in Germany, not in the lower Lippe valley, where, if anywhere, the highways of armies must have been solidly constructed if Germany was to be held as a province, nor even before the very gates of the camp at Haltern (cf. Koepp, Die Römer in Deutschland, 2nd ed., p. 136). Yet along the limes roads were regularly constructed, and were an essential part of the system of defense. Tiberius seems to have begun a limes in the silva Caesia, but not to have completed it (Tacitus, Ann., I, 50: “limitemque a Tiberio coeptum”). It was obviously a slight undertaking.