The Defeat of Varus and the German Frontier Policy of Augustus

by W. A. Oldfather; H. V. Canter

[113] Studia Romana, 1859, P. 130.

[114] Röm. Gesch., V, p. 23 f.

[115] In Germanische Politik, etc., p. 13, Mommsen suggests that these terms, Upper and Lower Germany, later and improperly applied to the small territory on the left bank of the Rhine, were probably original designations for Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. For the correct status, see Riese’s view as given below, [p. 73 ff.]

[116] “Die Verwaltung der Rheingrenze,” etc., Commentationes philologae in honorem Th. Mommseni, p. 434.

[117] Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I (1881), p. 271.

[118] Op. cit., p. 212.

[119] p. 219.

[120] p. 229.

[121] p. 233. Pelham, “The Roman Frontier in Southern Germany” (in Essays on Roman History, 1910, p. 179 f.), while speaking repeatedly of Upper and Lower Germany, limits his discussion for the most part to the period after Augustus’ time and specifically to the territory lying along the left bank of the Rhine. He says, referring to Tacitus’ statement (Germ., 29) to the effect that a stretch of territory beyond the Upper Rhine had been annexed by Rome and made a part of the province, that Upper Germany must be the province meant; that the land annexed to it was in reality “debatable land” (dubiae possessionis of Tacitus), and had been so for more than 150 years. The last sentence clearly indicates that, in the writer’s view, Rome had never had the land organized as her own territory.

[122] Forschungen zur Gesch. der Rheinlande in der Römerzeit, p. 5 f. See also Riese in Westdeutsche Zeitschrift f. Gesch. u. Kunst, Korrespondenz-Blatt, xiv (1895), p. 156 f. He shows here that the two provinces, Upper and Lower Germany, were not established until the time of Domitian, some time between 82-90 A. D.: “Vor dem Jahre 90 gab es also ... nur eine Germania, in der ein exercitus Germanicus als superior und inferior unter zwei zu gegenseitiger Hülfe verbundenen Heereslegaten standen; dagegen gab es keine Germania superior und keine Germania inferior.... Auch ist jene Germania keine Provinz, sondern der Heeresbezirk der gallischen Provinzen.”