Angrivarian Wall

The so-called Agrivarian Wall (German: Angrivarierwall) was mentioned by the Roman historian, Tacitus (Annals II, 19-21), in connexion with the campaign by the Roman general Germanicus in 16 A.D. which included the Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. It was here that the legions of Germanicus and the army of Arminius had their final conflict.

The relevant text in the annals (II, 19) records:

At last they chose a spot closed in by a river and by forests, within which was a narrow swampy plain. The woods too were surrounded by a bottomless morass, only on one side of it the Angrivarii had raised a broad earthwork, as a boundary between themselves and the Cherusci.

There are conflicting views today about the purpose of this earthwork. One theory is that it was an early historical border fortification between the Angrivarii and the Cherusci. Similar structures from this period have been found in Denmark, for example the Olgerdige (31 A.D.)[1]. It is also conceivable that the Angrivarian Wall was just built during the campaign of Germanicus in order to fulfil a strategic function as part of Arminius' tactics.

Research

Because the location and appearance of the Angrivarian Wall has not been clarified today, the history of the wall is limited to a history of its research. Especially in the period from the 19th century to the 1960s, numerous suggestions were put forward about the location of the Angrivarian Wall, e.g. by Paul Höfer (1885),[2] Friedrich Knoke (1887),[3] Otto Dahm (1902),[4] Carl Schuchhardt u. a. (1926),[5] Otto Kramer (1930),[6] Wolfgang Jungandreas (1944),[7] Erich Koestermann (1957)[8] or Johannes Norkus (1963).[9] In most cases the location and topography of a specific site has been tactically described. From actual or postulated similarities attempts were made to prove that the wall was in the place described and could not have been elsewhere.

Modern historical research has continued such attempts. Important contributions to the literature about the campaigns of Germanicus have been published by Dieter Timpe (1967;[10] 1968[11]) or Reinhard Wolters (2000;[12] 2008[13]), without going into great detail about the Angrivarian Wall, let alone attempting to locate it.

In the last few years, hobbyists have increasingly become involved in the search, perhaps also because of the increased public interest in Roman-Germanic history after the discovery of the Battlefield of Kalkriese and in the course of the anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 2009. In terms of method, they are essentially similar to the attempts made in earlier years.

Location

The most serious attempt to locate the wall was by Schuchhardt in 1926, who placed it archaeologically at Leese. This theory has proved to be very prominent in historical research, partly because of the authority of the author. The Battlefield of Kalkriese has not played a part in the efforts to locate the Angrivarian Wall, at least in established historical research. But the place is seen as a candidate outside of serious historical research circles, not least because of conspicuous topographical similarities with Tacitus' report.

An overview of attempts to find the wall (as well as on other battles of the Germanicus campaigns) is at Google-Maps.[14]

Examples of more recent candidates for the wall are:

References
  1. "Olgerdige". de.Wikipedia.org (in German).
  2. Paul Höfer (1885), Der Feldzug des Germanicus im Jahre 16 n. Chr. (in German), Bernburg und Leipzig
  3. Friedrich Knoke (1887), Die Kriegszüge des Germanicus in Deutschland (in German), Berlin
  4. Otto Dahm (1902), "Die Feldzüge des Germanicus in Deutschland", Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst (in German), Trier, Ergänzungsheft 11, pp. 92ff
  5. Carl Schuchhardt; et al. (1926), "Der Angrivarisch-Cheruskische Grenzwall und die beiden Schlachten des Jahres 16 n. Chr. zwischen Arminius und Germanicus", Prähistorische Zeitschrift (in German) (17), pp. 100–131, ISSN 0079-4848
  6. Otto Kramer (1930), "Der Hauptfeldzug des Germanikus im Jahre 16 n.Chr.", Jahrbuch des Braunschweigischen Geschichtsvereins (in German), 2nd series, Vol. 3, pp. 5–25
  7. Wolfgang Jungandreas (1944), "Der Angrivarierwall", Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur (in German), Vol. 81, H. 1/2, pp. 1–22
  8. Erich Koestermann (1957), "Die Feldzüge des Germanicus 14-16 n. Chr.", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte (in German) (No. H. 4), pp. 429–479
  9. Johannes Norkus (1963), Die Feldzüge der Römer in Nordwestdeutschland in den Jahren 9-16 n. Chr., von einem Soldaten gesehen (in German), Hildesheim
  10. Dieter Timpe (1967), "Zur Geschichte und Überlieferung der Okkupation Germaniens unter Augustus", Saeculum (in German) (18), pp. 278–293
  11. Dieter Timpe (1968), Der Triumph des Germanicus. Untersuchungen zu den Feldzügen der Jahre 14-16 n.Chr. in Germanien (in German), Bonn
  12. Reinhard Wolters (2000), Die Römer in Germanien (in German), Munich
  13. Reinhard Wolters (2008), Johann-Sebastian Kühlborn; et al. (eds.), "Integrum equitem equosque … media in Germania fore: Strategie und Verlauf des Germanicusfeldzugs im Jahre 16 n. Chr.", Rom auf dem Weg nach Germanien. Geostrategie, Vormarschstraßen und Logistik. International Colloquium in Delbrück-Anreppen from 4-6.11.2004 (in German), Mainz, pp. 237–251
  14. "Germanien 16 n. Chr. auf Google Maps – Angrivarierwall.de". Angrivarierwall.de (in German). 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2016-05-21.

Literature
  • Heinz-Dieter Freese: Neues vom Angrivarier-Wall in Berichte zur Denkmalpflege in Niedersachsen 3/97, pp. 138–141. (Online)

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