In the densely forested north of Europe, there lived more people than could be nourished by the primitive agriculture techniques. It is thus understandable that the fertile farmlands and pasture grounds of the south and the west were attractive to the Barbarians: To battle for these areas was by far easier and more worthwhile than the hard work of clearing their own forests with iron axes. Up to the 1st century B.C. the Germanic tribes had been spreading out deeper and deeper into the west and south. At the same time they displaced the Celts up to the Rhine and the Danube, which now would be the borders to Celtic Gaul (todays France) and to Celtic Rhetia (todays South Germany and Switzerland). In 58 B.C. Julius Caesar, governor of the Roman province of Southern Gaul, conquered the remainder of Gaul, which had been free until then: Thus, for the first time, the powerful Roman Empire moved into immediate vicinity to Germania, and further expansion and colonization on part of the Germanic tribes were blocked. Caesar defeated Germanic warlord Ariovist, who had tried to conquer Gaul himself, and he pushed back the Germanic Tencterians, who had crossed the Rhine from Upper Hesse. He had a 400-meter bridge built over the Rhine in 10 days, marched to the Germanic right bank of the Rhine, showed off the power of his army, won over the Germanic Ubians as allies and forced some other tribes into peace
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:48:07 +0000
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