Roman Battlefield found in Germany

[Michael]

HANOVER, Germany (CNN) -- Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarians in the third century, long after historians believed Rome had given up control of northern Germany.

"We have to write our history books new, because what we thought was that the activities of the Romans ended at nine or 10 (years) after Christ," said Lutz Stratmann, science minister for the German state of Lower Saxony. "Now we know that it must be 200 or 250 after that."

Source (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/05/germany.battlefield/index.html)

This is very interesting stuff. Seems like the Roman Army was active deep inside Germany hundreds of years after we 'assumed' they were not.

[Americano]

Source (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/05/germany.battlefield/index.html)

This is very interesting stuff. Seems like the Roman Army was active deep inside Germany hundreds of years after we 'assumed' they were not.

Very interesting.

If agreed to by academia, a huge event for historians.

[Greendruid]

Interesting but not terribly surprising. The fact that writing about this activity didn't seem to survive further supports my contention that the Romans were a lot like modern Americans in that they never made a movie or wrote a treatise about a war they didn't win. I'm gonna guess the Germanic tribes gave them a hell of a lot of trouble at that time in history when the Charlemagnes were still hundreds of years away in the future. The Germanic tribes, like the Celts, struck me as generally irreverent towards Roman rule. The Celts decided to occupy Rome from within becoming citizens and politicians. The Germanics seemed to prefer the outsider status until the Dark Ages. Neat stuff.

[Greendruid]

... oh, and you gotta love that opening scene from Gladiator, fiction or no. The Germanic tribe sending back the headless Roman messenger is precisely the way the Romans described this irreverence.

[Michael]

Interesting but not terribly surprising. The fact that writing about this activity didn't seem to survive further supports my contention that the Romans were a lot like modern Americans in that they never made a movie or wrote a treatise about a war they didn't win. I'm gonna guess the Germanic tribes gave them a hell of a lot of trouble at that time in history when the Charlemagnes were still hundreds of years away in the future. The Germanic tribes, like the Celts, struck me as generally irreverent towards Roman rule. The Celts decided to occupy Rome from within becoming citizens and politicians. The Germanics seemed to prefer the outsider status until the Dark Ages. Neat stuff.
Yes, a good reminder that history is generally recorded by the victor. And in some cases, the victors were illiterate - and thus often not recorded at all.

Btw, one of the very best history courses I ever took was one on the rise of western civilization from the ashes of the Roman Empire (western half). It was all about the triple combination of Roman Law, Christian religion and Germanic-barbarian-warlord culture. Europe has three parents.