48 As the total number of the communities recorded on the altar at Lyons, Strabo (iv. 3, 2, p. 192) specifies sixty, and as the number of the Aquitanian communities in the Celtic portion north of the Garonne fourteen (iv. 1, 1, p. 177). Tacitus (Ann. iii. 44) names as the total number of the Gallic cantons sixty–four, and so does, although in an incorrect connection, the scholiast on the Aeneid, i. 286. A like total number is pointed to by the list given in Ptolemy from the second century, which adduces for Aquitania seventeen, for the Lugudunensis twenty–five, for the Belgica twenty–two cantons. Of his Aquitanian cantons thirteen fall to the region between the Loire and Garonne, four to that between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. In the later one from the fifth century, which is well known under the name of Notitia Galliarum, twenty–six fall to Aquitania, twenty–four to the Lugudunensis (exclusive of Lyons), twenty–seven to Belgica. All these numbers are presumably correct, each for its time. Between the erection of the altar in 74212. and the time of Tacitus (for to this his statement is doubtless to be referred), four cantons may have been added, just as the shifting of the numbers from the second to the fifth century may be referred to individual changes still in good part demonstrable.

Considering the importance of these arrangements, it will not be superfluous to exhibit them in detail, at least for the two western provinces. In the purely Celtic middle province the three lists given by Pliny (first century), Ptolemy (second century), and the Notitia (fifth century), agree in twenty–one names: Abrincates—Andecavi—Aulerci Cenomani—Aulerci Diablintes—Aulerci Eburovici—Baiocasses (Bodiocasses Plin., Vadicasii Ptol.)—Carnutes—Coriosolites (beyond doubt the Samnitae of Ptolemy)—Haedui—Lexovii—Meldae—Namnetes—Osismii—Parisii—Redones—Senones—Tricassini—Turones—Veliocasses (Rotomagenses)—Veneti—Unelli (Constantia); in three more: Caletae—Segusiavi—Viducasses, Pliny and Ptolemy agree, while they are wanting in the Notitia, because in the meanwhile the Caletae were put together with the Veliocasses or the Rotomagenses, the Viducasses with the Baiocasses, and the Segusiavi were merged in Lyons. On the other hand, instead of the three that have disappeared, there appear two new ones that have arisen by division: Aureliani (Orleans), a branch from the Carnutes (Chartres), and Autessiodurum (Auxerre), a branch from the Senones (Sens). There are left in Pliny two names, Boi—Atesui; in Ptolemy one, Arvii; in the Notitia one, Saii. For Celtic Aquitania the three lists agree in eleven names: Arverni—Bituriges Cubi—Bituriges Vivisci (Burdigalenses)—Cadurci—Gabales—Lemovici—Nitiobriges (Aginnenses)—Petrucorii—Pictones—Ruteni—Santones; the second and third agree in the 12th of Vellauni, which must have dropped out in Pliny; Pliny alone has (apart from the problematic Aquitani) two names more, Ambilatri and Anagnutes; Ptolemy one otherwise unknown, Datii; perhaps Strabo’s number of fourteen is to be made up by two of these. The Notitia has, besides these eleven, other two, based on splitting up the Albigenses (Albi on the Tarn), and the Ecolismenses (Angoulême). The lists of the eastern cantons stand related in a similar way. Although subordinate differences emerge, which cannot be here discussed, the character and the continuity of the Gallic cantonal division are clearly apparent.

49 The four represented tribes were the Tarbelli, Vasates, Auscii, and Convenae. Besides these Pliny enumerates in southern Aquitania no less than twenty–five tribes—most of them otherwise unknown—as standing on a legal equality with those four.

50 Pliny and, presumably here too following older sources of information, Ptolemy know nothing of this division; but we still possess the uncouth verses of the Gascon farmer (Borghesi, Opp. viii. 544), who effected this change in Rome, beyond doubt in company with a number of his countrymen, although he has preferred not to add that it was so:—

The oldest trace of the administrative separation of Iberian Aquitania from the Gallic is the naming of the “district of Lactora” (Lectoure) alongside of Aquitania in an inscription from Trajan’s time (C. I. L. v. 875: procurator provinciarum Luguduniensis et Aquitanicae, item Lactorae). This inscription certainly of itself proves the diversity of the two territories rather than the formal severance of the one from the other; but it may be otherwise shown that soon after Trajan the latter was carried out. For the fact that the separated district was originally divided into nine cantons, as these verses say, is confirmed by the name that thenceforth continued in use, Novempopulana; but under Pius the district numbers already eleven communities (for the dilectator per Aquitanicae XI populos, Boissieu, Lyon, p. 246, certainly belongs to this connection), in the fifth century twelve, for the Notitia enumerates so many under the Novempopulana. This increase is to be explained similarly to that discussed at p. 95, note 2. The division does not relate to the governorship; on the contrary, both the Celtic and the Iberian Aquitania remained under the same legate. But the Novempopulana obtained under Trajan its own diet, while the Celtic districts of Aquitania, after as before, sent deputies to the diet of Lyons.

51 There are wanting some smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Baetasii and the Sunuci, perhaps for similar reasons with those of the minor Iberian; and further, the Cannenefates and the Frisians, probably because it was not till later that these became subjects of the empire. The Batavi were represented.

52 Thus there was found in Nemausus a votive inscription written in the Celtic language, erected Ματρεβο Ναμαυσικαβο (C. I. L. xi. p. 383), i.e., to the Mothers of the place.

53 For example, we read on an altar–stone found in Néris–les–Bains, (Allier; Desjardins, Géographie de la Gaule romaine, ii. 476); Bratronos Nantonicn Epadatextorici Leucullo Suio rebelocitoi. On another, which the Paris mariners’ guild under Tiberius erected to Jupiter the highest and best (Mowat; Bull. épig. de la Gaule, p. 25f.) the main inscription is Latin, but on the reliefs of the lateral surfaces, which appear to represent a procession of nine armed priests, there stand explanatory words appended: Senani Useiloni … and Eurises, which are not Latin. Such a mixture is also met with elsewhere, e.g., in an inscription of Arrènes (Creuse, Bull. épig. de la Gaule, i. 38); Sacer Peroco ieuru (probably = fecit) Duorico v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito).

54 The posting–books and itineraries do not fail to remark at Lyons and Toulouse that here the leugae begin.

55 The second Berne gloss on Lucan, i. 445, which rightly makes Teutates Mars, and seems also otherwise credible, says of him: Hesum Mercurium colunt, si quidem a mercatoribus colitur.

56 Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 16, 4. There king Agrippa asks his Jews whether they imagined themselves to be richer than the Gauls, braver than the Germans, more sagacious than the Hellenes. With this all other testimonies accord. Nero hears of the revolt not unwillingly occasione nata spoliandarum iure belli opulentissimarum provinciarum (Suetonius, Nero, 40; Plut. Galb. 5); the booty taken from the insurgent army of Vindex is immense (Tac. Hist. i. 51). Tacitus (Hist. iii. 46) calls the Haedui pecunia dites et voluptatibus opulentos. The general of Vespasian is not wrong in saying to the revolted Gauls in Tac. Hist. iv. 74: Regna bellaque per Gallias semper fuere, donec in nostrum ius concederetis; nos quamquam totiens lacessiti iure victoriae id solum vobis addidimus quo pacem tueremur, nam neque quies gentium sine armis neque arma sine stipendiis neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queunt. The taxes doubtless pressed heavily, but not so heavily as the old state of feud and club–law.

57 This epigram on “barley–wine” is preserved (Anthol. Pal. ix. 368):

On an earthen ring found in Paris (Mowat, Bull. épig. de la Gaule, ii. 110; iii. 133), which is hollow and adapted for the filling of cups, the drinker says to the host: copo, conditu(m) [cnoditu is a misspelling] abes; est reple(n)da— “Host, thou hast more in the cellar; the flask is empty;” and to the barmaid: ospita, reple lagona(m) cervesa—“Girl, fill the flask with beer.”

58 Suetonius, Dom. 7. When it was specified as a reason, that the higher prices of corn were occasioned by the conversion of agricultural land into vineyards, that was of course a pretext which calculated on the want of intelligence in the public.

59 When Hehn still appeals (Kulturpflanzen, p. 76) for the vine–culture of the Arverni and the Sequani, beyond the Narbonensis, to Pliny, H. N. xiv. 1, 18, he follows discarded interpolations of the text. It is possible that the sterner imperial government in the three Gauls kept back the cultivation of the vine more than the lax senatorial rule in the Narbonensis.

60 One of the professorial poems of Ausonius is dedicated to four Greek grammarians:—

This mention is the more meritorious, seeing that he had learned nothing suitable from them:—

Such thoughts have frequently found utterance, but seldom in Sapphic measure.

61 Romana gravitas, Hieronymus, Ep. 125, p. 929, Vall.

62 This division of a province among three governors is without parallel elsewhere in Roman administration. The relation of Africa and Numidia offers doubtless an external analogy, but was politically conditioned by the position of the senatorial governor to the imperial military commandant, while the three governors of Belgica were uniformly imperial; and it is not at all easy to see why the two Germanic ones had districts within the Belgica assigned to them instead of districts of their own. Nothing but the taking back of the frontier, while the hitherto subsisting name was retained—just as the Transdanubian Dacia continued subsequently to subsist in name as Cis–Danubian—explains this singular peculiarity.

63 The strength of the auxilia of the upper army may be fixed for the epoch of Domitian and Trajan with tolerable certainty at about 10,000 men. A document of the year 90 enumerates four alae and fourteen cohortes of this army; to these is to be added at least one cohort (I Germanorum), which, it can be shown, did garrison–duty there as well in the year 82 as in the year 116; whether two alae which were there in the year 82, and at least three cohorts which were there in 116, and which are absent from the list of the year 90, were doing garrison work there in 90 or not, is doubtful, but most of them probably were away from the province before 90 or only came into it after 90. Of those nineteen auxilia one was certainly (coh. I Damascenorum), another perhaps (ala I Flavia gemina), a double division. At the minimum, therefore, the figure indicated above results as the normal state of the auxilia of this army, and it cannot have been materially exceeded. But the auxilia of lower Germany, whose garrisons were less extended, may well have been smaller in number.

64 At the frontier bridge over the rivulet Abrinca, now Vinxt, the old boundary of the archdioceses of Cologne and Treves, stood two altars, that on the side of Remagen dedicated to the Boundaries, the Spirit of the place, and Jupiter (Finibus et Genio loci et Iovi optimo maximo) by soldiers of the 30th lower German legion; the other on the side of Andernach, dedicated to Jupiter, the Genius of the place, and Juno, by a soldier of the 8th Upper Germanic (Brambach, 649, 650).

65Limes (from limus, across) is a technical expression foreign to the state of things under our [German] law, and hence not to be reproduced in our language, derived from the fact that the Roman division of land, which excludes all natural boundaries, separates the squares, into which the ground coming under the head of private property is divided, by intermediate paths of a definite breadth; these intermediate paths are the limites, and so far the word always denotes at once the boundary drawn by man’s hand, and the road constructed by man’s hand. The word retains this double signification even in application to the state (Rudorff, Grom. Inst. p. 289, puts the matter incorrectly); limes is not every imperial frontier, but only that which is marked out by human hands, and arranged at the same time for being patrolled and having posts stationed for frontier–defence (Vita Hadriani, 12; locis in quibus barbari non fluminibus, sed limitibus dividuntur), such as we find in Germany and in Africa. Therefore there are applied to the laying–out of this limes the terms that serve to designate the construction of roads, aperire (Velleius, ii. 121, which is not to be understood, as Müllenhoff, Zeitschr. f. d. Alterth., new series, ii. p. 32, would have it, like our opening of a turnpike), munire, agere (Frontinus, Strat. i. 3, 10: limitibus per CXX m. p. actis). Therefore the limes is not merely a longitudinal line, but also of a certain breadth (Tacitus, Ann. i. 50; castra in limite locat). Hence the construction of the limes is often combined with that of the agger—that is, of the road–embankment (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 7: cuncta novis limitibus aggeribusque permunita), and the shifting of it with the transference of frontier–posts (Tacitus, Germ. 29: limite acto promotisque praesidiis). The Limes is thus the imperial frontier–road, destined for the regulation of frontier–intercourse, inasmuch as the crossing of it was allowed only at certain points corresponding to the bridges of the river boundary, and elsewhere forbidden. This was doubtless effected in the first instance by patrolling the line, and, so long as this was done, the limes remained a boundary road. It remained so too, when it was fortified on both sides, as was done in Britain and at the mouth of the Danube; the Britannic wall is also termed limes (p. 187, note 2). Posts might also be stationed at the allowed points of crossing, and the intervening spaces of the frontier–roads might be in some way rendered impassable. In this sense the biographer of Hadrian says in the above–quoted passage that at the limites he stipitibus magnis in modum muralis saepis funditus iactis atque conexis barbaros separavit. By this means the frontier–road was converted into a frontier–barricade provided with certain passages through it, and such was the limes of upper Germany in the developed shape to be set forth in the sequel. We may add that the word is not used with this special import in the time of the republic; and beyond doubt this conception of the limes only originated with the institution of the chain of posts enclosing the state, where natural boundaries were wanting—a protection of the imperial frontier, which was foreign to the republic, but was the foundation of the Augustan military system, and above all, of the Augustan system of tolls.

66 The Sugambri transplanted to the left bank are not subsequently mentioned under this name, and are probably the Cugerni dwelling below Cologne on the Rhine. But that the Sugambri on the right bank, whom Strabo mentions, were at least still in existence in the time of Claudius, is shown by the cohort named after this emperor, and thus certainly formed under him, doubtless of Sugambri (C. I. L. iii. p. 877); and they, as well as the four other probably Augustan cohorts of this name, confirm what Strabo also in a strict sense says, that these Sugambri belonged to the Roman empire. They disappeared doubtless, like the Mattiaci, only amidst the tempests of the migration of nations.

67 The fortress of Niederbiber, not far from the point at which the Wied falls into the Rhine, as well as that of Arzbach, near Montabaur, in the region of the Lahn, belong to upper Germany. The special significance of the former stronghold, the largest fortress in upper Germany, turned on the fact that it, in a military point of view, closed the Roman lines on the right bank of the Rhine.

68 The levies (Eph. Epigr. v. p. 274) require us to assume this, while the Frisians, as they come forward in the year 58 (Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 54) rather appear independent; the elder Pliny also (H. N. xxv. 3, 22) under Vespasian names them, looking back to the time of Germanicus, as gens tum fida. Probably this is connected with the distinction between the Frisii and Frisiavones in Pliny, H. N. iv. 15, 101, and between the Frisii maiores and minores in Tacitus, Germ. 34. The Frisians that remained Roman would be the western; the free, the eastern; if the Frisians generally reach as far as the Ems (Ptolem. iii. 11, 7), those subsequently Roman may have settled perhaps to the westward of the Yssel. We may not put them elsewhere than on the coast that still bears their name; the designation in Pliny, iv. 17, 106, stands isolated, and is beyond doubt incorrect.

69 The fourth upper German legion was sent in the year 58 to Asia Minor on account of the Armeno–Parthian war (Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 35).

70 Frontinus, Strat. iv. 3, 14. In their territory the advancing troops must have constructed a reserve station and a depot; according to tiles recently found near Mirabeau–sur–Bèze, about fourteen miles north–east of Dijon, men of at least five of the advancing legions had executed buildings here (Hermes, xix. 437).

71 Under the legate Q. Acutius Nerva, who was probably the consul of the year 100, and so administered lower Germany after that year, there were stationed, according to inscriptions of Brohl (Brambach, 660, 662, 679, 680), in this province four legions, the 1st Minervia, 6th Victrix, 10th Gemina, 22d Primigenia. As each of these inscriptions names only two or three, the garrison may then have consisted only of three legions, if during the governorship of Acutius the 1st Minervia came in place of the 22d Primigenia drafted off elsewhere. But it is far more probable—seeing that all the legions were not always taking part in the detachments to the stone quarries at Brohl—that these four legions were doing garrison–duty at the same time in lower Germany. These four legions are probably just those that came to lower Germany on the reorganisation of the Germanic armies by Vespasian (p. 159 note), only that the 1st Minervia was put by Domitian in the place of the 21st, probably broken up by him.

72 According to the ingenious decipherings of Zangemeister (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, iii. 307 ff), it is established that a military road was already laid out under Claudius on the left bank of the Rhine from Mentz as far as the frontier of the upper German province.

73 The full name c(ivitas) M(attiacorum) Ta(unensium) appears on the inscription of Castel in Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1330; it occurs frequently as civitas Mattiacorum or civitas Taunensium, with Duoviri, Aediles, Decuriones, Sacerdotales, Seviri; peculiar and characteristic of a frontier town are the hastiferi civitatis Mattiacorum, probably to be taken as a municipal militia (Brambach, 1336). The oldest dated document of this community is of the year 198 (Brambach, 956).

74 The accounts of this war have been lost; its time and place admit of being determined. As the coins give to Domitian the title Germanicus after the beginning of the year 84 (Eckhel, vi. 378, 397), the campaign falls in the year 83. Accordant with this is the levy of the Usipes, which falls on this same year, and their desperate attempt at flight (Tacitus, Agr. 28; comp. Martialis, vi. 60). It was an aggressive war (Suetonius, Dom. 6: expeditio sponte suscepta; Zonaras, xi. 19; λεηλατήσας τινὰ τῶν πέραν Ῥήνου τῶν ἐνσπόνδων). The shifting of the line of posts is attested by Frontinus, who took part in the war, Strat. ii. 11, 7: cum in finibus Cubiorum (name unknown and probably corrupt) castella poneret, and i. 3, 10: limitibus per cxx. m. p. actis, which is here brought into immediate connection with the military operations, and hence may not be separated from the Chattan war itself and referred to the agri decumates, which had for long been in the Roman power. The measure of 108 miles is very conceivable for the military line which Domitian planned at the Taunus (according to Cohausen’s estimates, Röm. Grenzwall, p. 8, the later Limes from the Rhine round the Taunus as far as the Main is set down at 137 miles), but is much too small to admit of its being referred to the line of connection from thence to Ratisbon.

75 The Germans (Suetonius, Dom. 6) could only be the Chatti, and their earlier allies, perhaps in the first instance just the Usipes and those sharing their fate. The insurrection broke out in Mentz, which alone was a double camp of two legions. Saturninus was assailed from Raetia by the troops of L. Appius Maximus Norbanus. For the epigram of Martial, ix. 84, cannot be understood otherwise, the more especially as his conqueror, of senatorial rank as he was, could not administer a regular command in Raetia and Vindelicia, and could only be led into this region by a case of war emerging, as indeed the sacrilegi furores clearly point to the insurrection. The tiles of this same Appius, which have been found in the provinces of upper Germany and Aquitania, do not warrant the making him legate of the Lugdunensis, as Asbach (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, iii. 9), suggests, but must be referred to the epoch after the defeat of Antonius (Hermes, xix. 438). Where the battle was fought remains doubtful; the region of Vindonissa most naturally suggests itself, to which point Saturninus may have gone to meet Norbanus. Had Norbanus encountered the insurgents only at Mentz, which in itself seems conceivable, these would have had the crossing of the Rhine in their power, and the contingent of the Germans could not have been hindered by the breaking–up of the Rhine from reinforcing them.

76 The detached notice is found subjoined to the Veronese provincial list (Notitia dignitatum, ed. Seeck, p. 253): nomina civitatum trans Renum fluvium quae sunt; Usiphorum (read Usiporum)—Tuvanium (read Tubantum)—Nictrensium—Novarii—Casuariorum: istae omnes civitates trans Renum in formulam Belgicae primae redactae trans castellum Montiacese: nam lxxx.leugas trans Renum Romani possederunt. Istae civitates sub Gallieno imperatore a barbaris occupatae sunt. That the Usipes afterwards dwelt in this region, is confirmed by Tacitus, Hist. iv. 37, Germ. 32; that they belonged to the empire in the year 83, but had perhaps been made subject only shortly before, is plain from the narrative, Agr. 28. The Tubantes and Chasuarii are placed by Ptolemy, ii. 11, 11, in the vicinity of the Chatti; that they shared the fate of the Usipes is accordingly probable. No certain identification of the other two corrupt names has hitherto been found; perhaps the Tencteri had a place here, or some of the small tribes named with these only in Ptolemy, ii. 11, 6. The notice in its original form named Belgica simply, as the province was only divided by Diocletian, and named it rightly in so far as the two Germanies belonged geographically to Belgica. The specified measurement carries us, if we follow the Kinzig valley to the north–east, beyond Fulda nearly to Hersfeld. Inscriptions have been found here far eastward beyond the Rhine, as far as the Wetterau; Friedberg and Butzbach were military positions strongly garrisoned; at Altenstadt between Friedberg and Büdingen there has been found an inscription of the year 242 (Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1410) pointing to protection of the frontier (collegium iuventutis).

77 What the designation agri decumates (for the latter word is at anyrate to be connected with agri) occurring only in Tacitus, Germ. 29, means, is uncertain. It is possible that the territory regarded in the earlier imperial period certainly as property of the state or rather of the emperor, like the old ager occupatorius of the republic, might be used by the first who took possession upon payment of the tenth; but neither is it linguistically proved that decumas can mean “liable for a tenth,” nor are we acquainted with such arrangements in the imperial period. Moreover it should not be overlooked that the description of Tacitus refers to the time before the institution of the line of the Neckar; it does not suit the latter period any more than does the designation, which doubtless is not clear, but is at any rate certainly connected with the earlier legal relation.

78 This has been proved by Zangemeister (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, iii. p. 246).

79 The fact that here several altars were dedicated, while elsewhere at these central sanctuaries only one is mentioned, may be explained perhaps by the cultus of Roma falling into the background by the side of that of the emperors. If at the very outset several altars were erected, which is probable, perhaps one of the sons caused altars to be set up as well to his father and perhaps his brother as to his own Genius.

80 That the transfer took place shortly before Tacitus wrote the Germania in the year 98, he himself states, and that Domitian was its author, follows from the fact that he does not name the author.

81 This, too, has been documentarily established by Zangemeister (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, iii. 237 f.).

82 This measurement holds for the line of forts from Rheinbrohl to Lorch (Cohausen, der Röm. Grenzwall, p. 7 f.). For the earthen rampart there falls to be deducted the stretch of the Main from Miltenberg to Grosskrotzenburg, of about thirty Roman miles. In the case of the older line of the Neckar the rampart is considerably shorter, since, instead of that from Miltenberg to Lorch, here comes in the much shorter one of the Odenwald from Wörth to Wimpfen.

83 If, as is probable, the statement that Hadrian blocked the imperial frontier–roads by palisades against the barbarians (p. 122) relates in part and perhaps primarily to the upper Germanic, the wall, of which remains are extant, was not his work; whether this may have carried palisades or not, no report would mention these and pass over the wall itself. Dio. lxix. 9, says that Hadrian revised the defence of the frontier throughout the empire. The designation of the pale [Pfahl] or pale–ditch [Pfahlgraben] cannot be Roman; in Latin the stakes, which, driven into the wall of the camp, form a palisade–chain for it, are called not pali, but valli or sudes, just as the wall itself is never other than vallum. If the designation in use from of old for this purpose apparently along the whole line among the Germans was really borrowed from the palisades, it must have been of Germanic origin, and can only have proceeded from the time when this wall stood before their eyes in its integrity and significance. Whether the “region” Palas which Ammianus mentions (xviii. 2, 15) is connected with this is doubtful.

84 In such an one recently discovered between the forts of Schlossau and Hesselbach, 1850 yards from the former, about three miles from the latter, there has been found a votive inscription (Korrespondenzblatt der Westdeutschen Zeitschrift, 1 Jul. 1884), which the troop that built it—a detachment of the 1st cohort of the Sequani and Raurici under command of a centurion of the 22d legion, erected as a thanksgiving ob burgum explic(itum). These towers thus were burgi.

85 The oldest dated evidence for these is two inscriptions of the garrison of Böckingen, opposite Heilbronn, on the left bank of the Neckar of the year 148 (Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1583, 1590).

86 The oldest dated evidence for the existence of this line is the inscription of vicus Aurelii (Oehringen) of the year 169 (Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1558), doubtless only private, but certainly not set up before the construction of this fort belonging to the Miltenberg–Lorch line; little later is that of Jagsthausen, likewise belonging to that line, of the year 179 (C. I. Rh. 1618). Accordingly vicus Aurelii might take its name from Marcus, not from Caracalla, though it is attested of the latter that he constructed various forts in these regions and named them after himself (Dio, lxxvi. 13).

87 As to the distribution of the upper German troops there is a want of sufficient information, but not entirely of data on which to rest. Of the two headquarters in upper Germany, that of Strassburg can be shown to have been after the construction of the line of the Neckar occupied but weakly, and was probably more an administrative than a military centre (Westdeutsches Correspondenzblatt, 1884, p. 132). On the other hand, the garrison of Mentz always demanded a considerable portion of the aggregate strength, all the more because it was probably the only compact body of troops on a large scale in all upper Germany. The other troops were distributed partly to the Limes, whose forts, according to Cohausen’s estimate (Röm. Grenzwall, p. 335), were on an average five miles apart from one another, and so in all about fifty; partly to the interior forts, especially on the line of the Odenwald from Gündelsheim to Wörth; that the latter, at least in part, remained occupied even after the laying out of the outer Limes, is at least probable. Owing to the inequality in size of the forts still measurable, it is difficult to say what number of troops was required to make them capable of defence. Cohausen (l.c. p. 340) reckons to a middle–sized fort, including the reserve, 720 men. As the usual cohort of the legion as of the auxiliaries numbered 500 men, and the fort–buildings must necessarily have had regard to this fact, the garrison of the fort in the event of siege must be estimated on an average at least at this number. After the reduction the upper German army could not possibly have held the forts, even of the Limes alone, simultaneously in this strength. Much less could it, even before the reduction, have kept the lines between the forts even barely occupied with its 30,000 men (p. 119); and, if this was not possible, the simultaneous occupation of all the forts had in fact no object. To all appearance each fort was planned in such a way that, when duly garrisoned, it could be held; but, as a rule—and on this frontier the state of peace was the rule—the individual fort was not on a war–footing, but only furnished with troops, in so far that posts might be stationed in the watch–towers, and the roads as well as the byways might be kept under inspection. The standing garrisons of the forts were, it may be conjectured, very much weaker than is usually assumed. We possess from antiquity but a single record of such a garrison; it is of the year 155, and relates to the fort of Kutlowitza, to the north of Sofia (Eph. Epigr. iv. p. 524), for which the army of lower Moesia, and in fact the 11th legion, furnished the garrison. This troop numbered at that time, besides the centurion in command, only 76 men. The Raetian army was, at least before Marcus, still less in a position to occupy extensive lines; it numbered then at the most 10,000 men, and had, besides the Raetian Limes, to supply also the line of the Danube from Ratisbon to Passau.

88 This is proved by the document of Trajan of the year 107, found at Weissenburg.

89 The investigations hitherto as to the Raetian Limes have but little cleared up the destination of this work; this only is made out that it was less adapted than the analogous upper German one for military occupation. A weaker frontier–bar of that sort may reasonably, even before the Marcomanian war, have been chosen to face the Hermunduri; nor does what Tacitus says of their intercourse in Augusta Vindelicum by any means exclude the existence at that time of a Raetian Limes. Only in that case we should expect that it would not end at Lorch, but would join the line of the Neckar; and in some measure it does this, inasmuch as at Lorch instead of the Limes comes the Rems, which falls into the Neckar at Canstatt.

90 Of the seven legions which at Nero’s death were stationed in the two Germanies (p. 132), Vespasian broke up five; there remained the 21st and the 22d, to which, thereupon, were added the seven or eight legions introduced for the suppression of the revolt, the 1st Adiutrix, 2d Adiutrix, 6th Victrix, 8th and 10th Gemina, 11th, 13th (?), and 14th. Of these, after the close of the war, the 1st Adiutrix was sent probably to Spain (p. 65, note), the 2d Adiutrix probably to Britain (p. 174, note 4), the 13th Gemina (if this came to Germany at all) to Pannonia; the other seven remained, namely, in the lower province the 6th, 10th, 21st, and 22d (p. 147, note), in the upper the 8th, 11th, and 14th. To the latter was probably added in the year 88 the 1st Adiutrix, once more sent from Spain to upper Germany (p. 65 note). That under Trajan the 1st Adiutrix and the 11th were stationed in upper Germany is shown by the inscription of Baden–Baden (Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1666). The 8th and the 14th, it can be shown, both came with Cerialis to Germany, and both did garrison duty there for a considerable period.

91 Traian was sent by Nerva in the year 96 or 97 as legate to Germany, probably to the upper, as at that time Vestricius Spurinna seems to have presided over the lower. Nominated here as co–regent in October of the year 97, he received the accounts of Nerva’s death and of his nomination as the Augustus in February 98 at Cologne. He may have remained there during the winter and the following summer; in the winter 98–99 he was on the Danube. The words of Eutropius, viii. 2: urbes trans Rhenum in Germania reparavit (whence the often misused notice in Orosius, vii. 12, 2, has been copied), which can only be referred to the upper province, but naturally apply not to the legate, but to the Caesar or the Augustus, obtain a confirmation through the civitas Ulpia s(altus?) N(icerini?) Lopodunum of the inscriptions. The “restoration” may stand in contrast not to the institutions of Domitian, but to the irregular germs of urban arrangements in the Decumates–land before the shifting of the military frontier. There is no indication pointing to warlike events under Trajan; that he planned and gave his name (Ammianus, xvii. 1, 11) to a castellum in Alamannorum solo—according to the connection, on the Main not far from Mentz—is as little proof of such events as the circumstance that a later poet (Sidonius, Carm. vii. 115), mixing up old and new, makes Agrippina under him the terror of the Sugambri—that is, in his sense, of the Franks.

92 Not merely the causal connection, but even the chronological succession of these important events is obscure. The account, relatively the best, in Zosimus, i. 29, describes the Germanic war as the cause why Valerian immediately on ascending the throne in 253 made his son joint–ruler with equal rights; and Valerian bears the title Germanicus maximus as early as 256 (C. I. L. viii. 2380; likewise in 259 C. I. L. xi. 826), perhaps even if the coin in Cohen, n. 54, is to be trusted, the title Germanicus maximus ter.