January 5, 2009

Romans In Hannover

Archaeologists have found the remains of a major set-piece battle from the second century between a tribe of Germans and a Roman legion. This is really interesting because it has been widely assumed that the Romans stopped major combat operations in the lands east of the Rhine after the massacre at the Teutoberg Forest in the year 9.

Hannover is pretty far in to Germany. At that time, they would very likely have been based out of what is today Trier. Those boys were a long way from home. That's about 220 (modern) miles away; at top speed, that's still nearly a month's march away from home base. And according to the preliminary analysis (the find was so rich the archaeologists think they can find the battle lines) it looks like they won.

And we're going to have to re-write the history books a little bit. That's pretty cool.

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