Obsidio Veterae
About
Batavian rebel leader Julius Civilis, a former Roman auxiliary commander, besieged two full legions inside the fortress of Vetera for an entire autumn and winter until starvation forced their surrender. The garrison that marched out under truce was then ambushed and slaughtered anyway. It was the most dangerous native uprising Rome faced along the Rhine frontier. Roman forces crushed the revolt within a year and rebuilt Vetera as a stronger fortress.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
In ancient writing
- Tacitus, Histories 4.22–23, 4.58–60
The winter siege of the double fortress on the Rhine, the failed relief, and a surrender under terms that were broken as the column marched out.
Sources
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