Salve,

One of the subjects that has not yet been discussed to a great extent is the appearance of the Germanic warriors, whose not quite authentic appearance in Gladiator has been remarked on in other threads. While part of them are to be portrayed as Roman auxiliary troops, not all of the Cheruscans and their allies are likely to have been fully equipped to Roman standards.

Taking literary sources first there is the extensive description of the German armament and equipment in the [i]Germania[/i]. Besides the literary sources, all of them from the other side and possibly not fully reliable, one can turn to . The method used by M. Todd to reconstruct the 'typical' range of equipment available to Germanic warriors during the ages has drawn criticism for it is not known to what extent one can consider grave - and votive deposits representative.

What would be the good or bad sources to use and avoid in order to reconstruct the appearance of the Roman opponents ?

Limited bibliography

Raddatz, K., 'Die Bewaffnung der Germanen vom letzten Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis zur Voelkerwanderungszeit' in: ANRW 2.12.3 (1985), 281-361.
Thompson, E.A., 'Early Germanic warfare' in: E.A. Thompson, The early Germans (Oxford 1965), 109-149.
Todd, M., The early Germans (Blackwell 1992).
Wilcox, P., Rome's enemies I: Germanics and Dacians MAA 129 (London 1982) 48p.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

Sander raises some very good points here. The short answer is that the evidence for the weaponry and armour of the Germanics in this period is scant and often difficult to interpret.

The literary material, especially Tacitus, gives us some idea, but it can be uncertain on many points. In the Annals Tacitus has Germanicus assuring his men that the long, unweildy spears of the Germans put them at a disadvantage and saying the Roman method of close combat would serve them well in heavily wooded country. In the Germania however, the same author writes:

Only a few of them use swords or large lances: they carry spears - called frameae in their language - with short narrow blades, but so sharp and easy to handle, that they can be used, as required, either at close quarters or in long range fighting.

(Germania:6)

In the same chapter Tacitus tells us that iron is scarce in Germania, though Todd gives plenty of archaeological evidence which shows this was not really the case.

Todd's calculations of the ratios of swordsmen to spearmen in early Germanic forces are problematic, but I'm sure he would not consider them to be more than a guide. Grave goods can certainly skew our impressions of these matters, but I'd argue that votive deposits such as the one at Thorsbjerg do give us some indication on this matter. If nothing else, they give us a good indication of the kinds of weapons being used.

In summary of the evidence regarding these matters, I'd say most Cherusci warriors would have fought with spear and shield - probably with several of the former, some for throwing and one for fencing with overhand. A knife or proto-sax would likely have served as a sidearm. Richaer warriors or members of a chieftain's comitatus may have had some form of body armour - probably late La Tene or Roman style mail shirts - and possibly a helmet - again La Tene or Roman in design. On the whole however, both swords and body armour would be rare and highly prized and most likely found on nobles and their retinues.

This site gives some information on the weaponry found in the Illerup deposit, which is Third Century, but gives some indication of the weapons used in the ancient north at this time - they seem to have come from Norwegian raiding party which came to a sticky end in Denmark. I'd be very interested in any similar resource on the Thjorsberg deposit, since it's much closer to the period of the Clades Variana.

Oh, and they all wore filthy wolfskins. And grunted a lot. ;>

Salve,

The long spears described in the Annales have their counterpart in the lancea maior referred to in the Germania. Some warriors may have had cumbersome spears while the rest carried the framea.

One of the things I am curious about is the appearance of the Germanic warriors. Greek and Roman sculpture habitually depicts the northern barbarians (Celts, Germans etc) as being nude. This seems to be confirmed by literary sources, who sometimes refer to warriors stripping before combat. However, one may argue that this may have been peculiar to fighting in areas surrounding the Mediterranean, one source explicitly describing Celtic warriors stripping because of the heat. Though nudity does appear in Germanic art, eg the warrior with the horned helmet on one of the decorative Vendel plaques, judging by other representations most appear to be clothed. Is it correct to assume that the Germanic warriors would shed their clothes depending on temperature or should one assume that warriors stripped for combat as a rule even up north?

Additional reading

Ferris, I.M., Enemies of Rome. Barbarians through Roman eyes (Stroud 2000) 214p.

These books on the Roman army also have chapters on Germanic opponents.

Elton, H., Warfare in Roman Europe AD 350-425 (Oxford 1996) 312p.
Goldsworthy, A.K., The Roman army at war 100 BC-200AD (Oxford 1996) 311p.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

That the early Germanics used both long spears and shorter frameae is fairly clear, but my point was that Germanicus' speech in Tacitus is sometimes cited as evidence that these longer spears were the norm, while the Germania passage actually indicates quite the opposite.

The question of whether the naked or half-naked appearance of Germanic (and Celtic) warriors is a Classical topos is an interesting one. There are certainly many Classical descriptions of Celtic warriors fighting naked or half-naked, as these descriptions from Polybius, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo show. And these are describing Celts in Gaul and the Alps, so I doubt this nakedness is due to the warmth of the weather. Depictions of Celts on Roman coins (eg a denarius of L. Hostilius Saserna) and other iconographic evidence also supports the idea that the early Celts sometimes fought in this way, so it's not unreasonable that their Germanic neighbours did as well.

In the later North Germanic tradition there was the concept of the berserkr - a name which may mean 'bear shirt', ie a shape-shifter who takes the form of a bear in battle, or 'bare-sark' or someone who goes into battle without a shirt due to battle rage.

Images of humans are relatively rare in Germanic art and even then they are usually stylised to the extent that details, such as whether they are clothed or not, are hard to discern. But this sixth century helmet plate die from Torslunda apparently depicts the god Tyr/*Tiwaz in his encounter with the wolf Fenris and shows him half-naked:



Given the descriptions in Tacitus of Germanic warriors fighting only in a cloak and various depictions of naked and half-naked Germanics on Roman monuments - Trajan's Column springs to mind - I'd say this concept has its origin in observation rather than literary convention.

Tim O'Neill
<a href=

Salve,

Thanks for your answer, I had been wondering whether it was just a Roman and Greek convention.

BTW have you by any chance found out more about the facemask said to display warpaint?

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

I was having some problems with my e-mail when you sent me the picture of that mask Sander, so I only just found it in my in-box. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get any more information on the 'war paint' found on it.



This site on Batavian dress mentions it and gives some other interesting information on the appearance of the early NW Germanics. It also mentions a similar depection of a Batavian warrior on a cup, but gives no further information.

The detail of Roman-style helmets decorated native-style with feathers and marten-fur is also interesting - a bit like Amerindians in the 18th and 19th centuries decorating their European-made rifles with native art. A colour illustration of the helmet this site mentions can be found in Simon MacDowell's The Germanic Warrior: 236-568 AD (Osprey: 1996, London) on page 33.

Cheers Sander,

Tim O'Neill

Salve,


Apart from the cut down helmet from just across the border in Germany, a similar helmet bowl with its neck guard removed was found in Nijmegen (NL) though without traces of a covering. This type of adaptation seems to be a local preference. The feathers at the front of the helmet look like the decoration worn by a soldier on the arch of Constantine which has been identified as one of the Cornuti, a regiment which was originally recruited along the Rhine frontier.


Regards,

Sander van Dorst

AFAIR The Ejsbøl deposit contains material from around
the birth of Christ - and the material is from Northern Germany.

Cheers
Wagnijo

Are there any resources regarding this find on the web? The only information I have on it is in Todd and some old messages on Gothic-L.

I've found a thesis in English on the deposits on the web, although it is principally to do with runic inscriptions it does make some mention of the Roman related finds. The thesis is in pdf format and can be found at this address:

http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/arts/j.h.looijenga/thesis.pdf

Any other references to Ejsbøl on the web only appear to be in Danish so I didn't pursue them.

Melvadius

Salve,

Yesterday I bought a copy of Schlueter, W. and R. Wiegels (eds.), Rom, Germanien und die Ausgrabungen von Kalkriese (Osnabrueck 1999). It contains an interesting article (P. Pieper, 'Die taciteischen Annalen und die Holzfunde vom Bohlenweg XXV (PR) zwischen Damme und Hunteburg) on wooden clubs and asymmetrically gripped one edged wooden swords, some showing fighting damage, from about 50BC to 15AD. This seems to be an indication of the weoponry used by the poorer warriors who could not get hold of iron tipped or iron weapons.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

Thanks Sander - interesting stuff (and yet another German work which I should be reading but can't!)

Are there any illustrations of the clubs? Indications of length and style? A sword length shaft with a lumpy bit at the end or something more sophisticated than that? What wood are they made of? Are they fire hardened? Sorry for all the questions.

The wooden swords are even more interesting. I'm wondering how effective these would be as club-like weapons. Is it possible that they are (i) training weapons or (ii) votive objects placed in grave in lieu of real swords?
Cheers,




Tim O'Neill
'Clades Variana' Webmaster.

I have been in contact with Jørgen Ilkjær(The chap who was in charge of the latest Illerup dig and is doing the publishing) and he confirmed that the 'new' Ejsbøl
material is dated to the time around Clades Variana.
Regrettably is the material not published yet and he had no idea of when publishing would come about.
OTOH did he recommend the weapongraves from:
Hamburg Langenbek, Putensen and Hamfelde if one was
interested in germanic equipment from around the time of CV. I have no knowledge of these graves. Anyone?

BTW I gave Jørgen Ilkjær the URL to the CV site and
that did not put him of - sort of an indirect compliment

To those who don't know. There is a new fiction book
on Arminius out:
http://www.angelfire.com/ia/BryanCorcoran/Hummel.html
I do not think Tim needs to be too worried about the competition


Cheers
Wagnijo

There are also wooden swords in the war booty offerings from Thorsbjerg
and Vimose.

Wiell 1999 suggests that they were training weapons.
Pieper 1999 suggests that they were combat weapons.

My source for these ctations are:
'Military aspects of the aristocracy in barbaricum in the Roman and early
migration periods' Copenhagen 2001


They might as well be dummies representing real weapons in the sacrifice.
In Thorsbjerg a dummy representing a warrior in full clothing was found.
I doubt he was used for combat.


Cheers
Soren Larsen

While I'd need some more information on these wooden swords to be sure, I do think it's more likely they are either votive substitutes for sacrificial deposit or training weapons rather than combat weapons. Even a fire-hardened wooden blade is unlikely to be sharp enough to use as a slashing weapon (though they could possibly be used as a stabbing weapon, as fire-hardened spears were).

I'm interested in the wooden dummy warrior though. Perhaps they were used in combat - Arminius could have had lots of them made to make it look as though his army was bigger than it was - Hollywood would love that ! (yes, I'm joking)

Thanks for the extra info on the CV-era finds, I'll see what I can track down.
Cheers,



Tim O'Neill
'Clades Variana' Webmaster.

Salve,

The wooden weapons were made of a type of oak. The clubs consist of a length of wood with a heavier clubhead, the swords are similar to one edged slashing blades (cf the later long sax blades), though with a pronounced point. The objects were found in the Great Moor area near the site of the clades Variana and the author enthusiastically jumped on the carbon/dendrochronology dating for a range of 50BCE-15CE to associate them with the battles between Caecina and the rebels. There was some damage on the swordlike objects, though these knotches could conceivably have been a result of training fights as well as real combat, though the author does not consider the former possibility in his interpretation. For the lenghts of the weapons I will have to lookup the data tonight.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

Salve,

The club lengths were 71, 67.5, 76, 53, 44, 64 and 70 cm, the sword lengths were 104.5, 101, 99 and 83 cm. Reconstuctions of the weapons were a couple to a couple of dozen centimeters longer depending on the state of preservation and damage.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

Thanks for the extra information Sander. The fact these items were found at roughly the time of the CV and not too far from the battle site makes them particularly interesting, though I think it would be going too far to attribute them to any of Arminius' campaigns.

The lengths of the wooden 'swords' are comparable to those of real swords from this period, but I don't we're any closer to resolving the issue as to whether they are combat weapons, training batons or votive substitutes.

I recall that Trajan's Column shows auxilia with Suebian knots, naked to the waist and carrying wooden clubs, so it seems the Roman army respected the combat ability of Germanic chaps armed with lumps of oak.
Cheers,




Tim O'Neill
'Clades Variana' Webmaster.

I think another factor involved with the Celtic\Germanic habit of going naked during battle was the intimidation it aroused. It's a sign of contempt and it also shows a lack of care and fear. From what I remember on the topic I don't believe this was practiced during nor after the late Republic.

A very good source for German (and Roman) appearance,
in my opinion, would be "The Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome" by Phil Parker.

It's Phil Barker, not Parker

Wooden swords of Germanic warriors are nonsense. They turn up in Tacitus in a propaganga speech of the caesar to his demoralized troops! Pieper is not an archeologist. His "swords" are wooden nails from an artificial pre-Roman wooden path through a bog near Bremen (type: pons longa).
The problem with weapons of western Germanic tribes of this period is, that they have not yet adopted the originally Celtic custom of body burials with arms. So armour finds are of this period are usually Suebic (Elbe tribes). But they can perhaps be used as a parallel. There was an interesting exhibition at Hamburg (cataloque unfortunately in German) which shows a number of weapons from the Elbe region.
I have done some research and drawn a number reconstructions of warriors I could send to those interested.
Yours, Friedrich

Avete,
I have written a short paper on "Die Krieger des Arminius" (The Warriors of Arminius). At the moment I am translating it into English, but that will take some time (about a fortnight). If you are interested in it just contact me.
Salvete,
Fridericus

I only have a rudimentary understanding of Rome's battles with the Germanic forces across the Rhine but, with regard to the appearance of the 'barbarians', maybe we should allow them to look as demonic as possible as it is unlikely that the every extra playing a legionary will be 5'4".

There is little evidence of the native dress of the Batavian, but what little there is can be compared to the Gallic Celts of the time. Physically the two races resembled each other. Both were of vast stature. The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pygmies. The Germanic tribesman excited astonishment by his huge body and muscular limbs. Both were fair, with fierce blue eyes, but the Celt had yellow hair floating over his shoulders, and the German long locks of fiery red, which he even dyed to heighten the favorite colour, and wore it twisted into a 'Suebian' war-knot upon the top of his head. (see fig.2) Here the Germanics love of finery ceased. A simple tunic fastened at his throat with a thorn, while his other garments defined and gave full play to his limbs, completed his costume. The Gaul, on the contrary, was so fond of dress that the Romans divided his race respectively into long-haired, breeched, and gowned Gaul; (Gallia comata, braccata, togata). He was fond of brilliant and parti-colored clothes, a taste which survives in the Highlander's costume. He covered his neck and arms with golden chains. The simple and ferocious German wore no decoration save his iron ring, from which his first homicide relieved him.

As for the facepaint on the mask,

Naturalis Historia 28.51
Potest et sapo, Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis. Fit ex sebo et cinere, optimus fagino et caprino, duobus modis, spissus ac liquidus, uterque apud Germanos maiore in usu viris quam feminis

"Sapo ('soap') is also useful, an invention of the Gauls to dye hair red. It is made from tallow and ash, the best from goat fat and beechwood ash, in two manners, one solid and one liquid, both of which are in greater use among the Germanics by men than women".

It is quite possible that the indelible properties of the beech bark ash/goats tallow 'sapo' would indeed stain the face, particularly around the hairlines of the forehead, beard and moustache areas.

Novantico

I have always taken the northern germanic tribes to have been of a saxon style
or prototype of them,

Saw a documentary on digs on the site of the battle and all sorts of interesting stuff was found. Including wooden swords.

Arminius knew how the Romans fought with the Galdius - he had been with them on three campaigns over many years. The Gladius was all about the point. The targets were 1 the face, 2 the throat, 3 the groin, 4 the femoral artery and 5 the armpit of the man before the legionary to your right.

A wooden sword used as a stabbing weapon would be effective in close quarter combat. Recently a psycho tried to hijack a plane in Australia with a dagger made of wood. He did a lot of damage with that weapon before being subdued. The wood was not picked up by the metal detector all passengers pass through.

I think the Cheruskers used wooden swords for stabbing - why else were they found at the site?

It was a long time later and half a world away, but Miyamoto Musashi used a wooden sword the last half or so of his career and had no trouble dispatching any enemy that attacked him.

Merlinius
LEGXF

Salve,

Of interest with regard to this subject is:

Speidel, M.P., Ancient Germanic Warriors: Warrior Styles from Trajan's Column to Icelandic Sagas (Routledge 2004) 313p. ISBN 0415311993. £55.00

A full review of the title will be forthcoming once I have done enough checking of sources and references.

Regards,

Sander van Dorst

During a research on the internet i stumbled over this discussion.
Next to the work of Klaus Raddatz, there is a wide variety of publication concerning the bog deposits, which may give you a better idea what a germanic warrior may have looked like.

"Illerup Ådal" by Jørgen Ilkjaer (published in 10 volumes), a shorter english summary of this bog deposit can be found in "Illerup Ådal - an archaeological magic mirror" by the same author.

"Der Opferplatz vo Nydam" by Güde and Jan Bemmann.

"Ejsbøl 1" by Møgens Orsnes.

Also you could try to get your hands on the first Publications concerning bog deposits by Conrad Engelhardt from 1863 (reprint in 1970). There are many remarkable drawings of germanic weapons and other material.

In search for the bog deposits the internet is not very helpful. So do not bother looking for information there (i did this for the last few years) and stick with the good old paper publications.
To help you find some information in the library of your choice here is a list of bog deposits which contained better preserved material:

Nydam
Illerup Ådal
Ejsbøl
Kragehul
Thorsberg
Vimose

There are many more, but these are the best published concerning your topic.

Another book which might be helpful is "Sieg und Triumpf" publishes by the national museum in Kopenhagen, there should be an english version available.

Speaking about english, excuse my rusty english writing, but i have not written english for several years now.

Greetings from Kiel (Germany)

Hello,

We are french association. His name is Limitis. We study people living near the roman limes.

Actualy, we are working about german people between first and second century.

Our site is:
http://limitis.free.fr/index.htm

We can found articles (in french) about german, african, roman and photos about us.

Articles:
-L'équipement militaire des guerriers germaniques au début du Ier siècle de notre ère.
-L'équipement militaire des auxiliaires africains dans l'armée romaine.
-Les auxiliaires africains dans l'armée romaine.

My e-mail is
cedric_chadburn@hotmail.com

Regards

Hi,

We are looking for informations about "2000th aniversary of the Varrian Disaster".
have you got information about it ? Contact ?

Arminius was the greatest Germanic hero that ever lived!
Think about it...the Germanic languages (including English) as we know them today would probably not exist without this man.
There is one thing that should not happen to this story of our independence from the roman empire:
Metro sexual Hollywood twigs like Brad Pitt or Leonardo di Caprio in machine sown uniforms,shiny white teeth,chrome blades and gel in their hair!
IT WON'T WORK!
Consider some men for the part of Arminius please...like Till Schweiger or Daniel Craig


Thank you