Note 36 — Chapter IV · A New Interpretation

The siege of Aliso is, of course, abundantly described. The sea coast was not given up at all, as is well known, and whatever castella may have been there were no doubt maintained. A small force was kept among the Chauci, to the remote northwest (doubtless on the sea coast), until after the death of Augustus (Tacitus, Ann., I, 38; Gardthausen, Augustus, I, p. 1227). The Taunus fort is the only other whose location is even approximately known. Germanicus found it a ruin some years later (see references n. 17 above), and it might conceivably have been destroyed at this time, but it is much more likely that the enemy did not appear in sufficient force to do this so far from the seat of the uprising, and so close to the unshaken legions of the upper Rhine. It was no doubt abandoned and dismantled voluntarily by the Romans when they felt constrained to concentrate their strength. Now these three regions are the only ones in which we have any definite record that Roman outposts were stationed. As usually happens when one examines these rhetorical flosculi they are found to be either in flat contradiction to the definite facts, or else improbable in themselves.