[Stephan Hall]

First of all this is a very nice theme. yesterday evening was a nice film on tv about Arminius and the similarities in his life with
Siegfried(siegurt) of the Nibelungen Saga. They speculated that the Sword Balmung could have been a roman officers Gladius, wich was at that time and place the best swords one could get. That Balmung was something so special could be explained by lack of swords before the Battle of the Teuthoburgerwald there semed only two ways to get a Sword, to go into Roman service like Arminius or as loot . Both ways were very seldom . And about that Germans fought naked is Roman propaganda to show how stupid and barbaric the Germans were.

[Harry Amphlett]

[David Huggins]

[quote="Harry Amphlett"]A potential problem with the weapons sacrifices is that they reflect the weapons of the defeated and not the victors. An additional problem is that the more valuable weapons, eg. swords, may have escaped sacrifice and the 'value' made up by increased deposition of less valuable weapons, shields, spears etc. (Michael Gebühr)

As I'm sure Harry will agee although deposits reflect the weapons of the defeated this does not distract from the thought that imported weapons, in particular sword blades, where also available to both the vanquished and victor. The Illerup Adal deposits reflect internecine power struggles between regional populations, in this case the western area of the scandinavian pennisula (present day Norway) and the Jutland pennisula.

best
Dave

[Harry Amphlett]

No I wouldn't disagree with that but the sacrificial deposits of the 3rd cent are not very helpful when answering the question as to the nature of arms at the start of the 1st millenium. It's a bit of a red herring in that respect. Of course, a wide area around the Baltic and Scandinavia was influenced by Rome. We see from the sword at Kraśnik - Piaski that locally made copies of Roman swords had begun by the end of the 2nd century AD, in this particular case a sort of Mainz type gladius but longer in most departments.

The arms, where used by Germanic tribes around AD 1, the original question, are more likely to have been 'Celtic' than 'Roman' in some areas however. It rather depends on which Germanic tribes of AD 1 we consider. Swords however, are still relatively few in number. Tacitus (Annals 2:10) relates a speech made by Germanicus on the eve of one battles in AD 16, near the Elbe in the years after the Varusschlacht:

"The German has neither cuirass nor helmet; even his shield is not strengthened with leather or steel, but is of osiers woven together or of thin and painted board. If their first line is armed with spears, the rest have only weapons hardened by fire or very short."

This is similar to the statement by Caesar posted earlier in this thread. The nature of the Cheruscan armament may be understated by Germanicus here to boost morale but the number of spears is the key point.

Piotr Łuczkiewicz writing about the weaponry of the Vandals in the pre roman iron age in the Przeworsk culture (last 3rd of the 1st cent BC) found that metal weapons are much more abundant amongst the eastern tribes. Spears and lances predominate and whilst some had bone or antler tips many were of metal. The tips are of celtic form, but longer, some 50 cm long and 8 cm wide though there are a great number of shorter tips of between 20-30 cm. Swords too are of La Tene types, again at first imported and later modified copies were made locally, reflecting increased lengths. Single edged short swords start to appear at the beginning of the 1st cent BC in the Oksywie Kultur on the southern shores of the Baltic. At the start of this period, these are few and far between. Their numbers increase markedly in the latter half of the 1st cent. BC. These finds support Tacitus' statement about the Rugians.

From a total of some 250 sites, Łuczkiewicz puts together what he considers a typical warrior group of 160 men. His calculations give:

16 warriors fully equipped, ie. sword, lance and shield.
11 warriors fully equipped but with additional spear or lance.

This 'elite' grouping, based on 3 having spurs, includes 3 officers.

A further 15 men carry a sword and shield, again commanded by one mounted officer.
7 men equipped with lance and sword, two of which have an additional lance or spear. This group is also commanded by a mounted officer, based on the spurs.
13 warriors carry only a sword.
33 men carry a lance and and a shield, including one officer.
9 reserve warriors appear to have no metal weapons but may have wooden spears with bone or antler tips.

The 'ranks' are poorly armed, 44 men with lances and 14 with both a lance and a spear.

Łuczkiewicz's paper, Die Bewaffnung der Vandalen Während der Vorrömischen Eisenzeit is one of 12 papers on the Vandals which are, along with 4 other papers about their neighbours, the Goths, the Balts, the Burgundians and the Heruls published in Die Vandalen. Die Könige - Die Eliten - Die Krieger - Die Handwerker, a compilation for the museum exposition which was held at Schloss Beversen in 2003. It has a lot of photos of the exhibits and many line drawings but, it is only available in German and the detail is in the text. There are no tables from which information can be gleaned and the indexing for the line drawings are not helpful.

best

Harry A

[David Huggins]

Thanks for sharing that information with us Harry, always frustrating when you are aware there is a lot of work and publications in languages you are unable to read, which makes the few that are published in english the more valuable, even if you are not always able to glean a complete picture. Suffice to say, the main armament of any germanic warrior,, both elite and 'line' warriors are the spear and shield .

I know we are wandering of track again from the original question, but of general interest is the evidence for mail from the Hjortspring Bog , perhaps again an import.

The cremation graves from at Simbelgard, Bornholm , said to be pre-roman iron age, also had a number of short single edge swords not unlike those from the later bog deposits.

best
Dave

[Harry Amphlett]

[David Huggins]

Harry

If you look back on the thread Harry you will see that I also gave the link to Danish National Museum web pages covering
'The Spoils of Victory' exhibition, whose accompanying publication by the museum both Arne and myself initially recommended in answer to Ken's original question.

Further information on Hjortspring can be found in the book, which covers many of the bog offerings from Hjortspring through to the late Roman Iron Age, as well as Roman/Germani relationships and their impact.

Also of the many individual contributors to the publication in the sub-chapter 'Weapons graves and regional groupings of weapon types and burial customs in Denmark 100BC - 400AD', Magrethe Watt states that in North Jutland and Bornholm
that most of the Late Pre Roman Iron Age weapon graves contain single edged swords, and on Bornholm the graves are completely dominated by single edged swords. She also believes these weapons are produced in local or regional armouries. The blades are very different from the double edged swords of the bell hilted La Tene type to the south of the peninsula and North Schleswig, and appear vey much like the more familiar sword/seax from the later Vimose deposits.

My apologies if I gave the impression that single edged swords where found at Hjortspring, perhaps my poor grammer.

There is however no reason to believe the warriors from present-day Denmark took part an active part in the Varus battle, so like you said it is very much a case of which tribe/tribal confederation and at which time.

I would highly recommend the book as a primer for those interested in the martial aspects of this period.

best
Dave

[Harry Amphlett]

[Mrak E.Smith]

Hello Guys,I happen to have this book Ancient Germanic Warriors, Warrior Styles from Trajan's Column to Icelandic Sagas by Michael Speidel,but haven't read it thoroughly 'cause time is limited and this isn't the field I'm interested in most ,but maybe it helps~

[David Huggins]

Hi Mark,

I also have a copy of Speidal's book, which I was looking forward to when I first caught a whiff of it's publication.a a couple of years ago . When I did receive it and read it I must admit I was left with mixed feelings on it's content.

While I found his view on the discipline of the Germanic troops contrary to the generally accepted view of a mass charge refreshing (see also Harry's comment of the Germani encountered by Caeser during his Gallic campaign where they actually form a 'phalanx' or a shield berg) and his attempt at a reconstruction of the barritus, and it's relevance to maintaining a cohesive unit discipline when manoeuvering, other point he raises I found to be highly conjectural; the use of crested open basket construction helmets prior to the appearance of the Roman ridge helm perhaps been the most significant theory that I pesonaly had difficulty with and even though I wanted to believe it I would still go along with Paul Mortimers comment to me that Speidal stretches the meaning of the word conjecture. But all in all still worth the purchase.

best
Dave

[Mrak E.Smith]

David,thank you for your brief review on this book,I must confess that when I skimmed through this book ,all the exotic warrior types listed in the content at first made me consider it as a fantastic book~I Now it seems that I should someday read it seriously.

Regards,
Marc

[William Carew]

[C. Gadda]

[Arne Focke]

[Ken Speed]

Bill Carew said, "And there's certainly nothing wrong with javelins, spears and a shield as a combat system. It worked for the Thracian peltasts, who managed to do a lot of damage to more heavily armoured hoplites. Seemed to work ok for the Germans against the Romans in the Teutoburger Wald too! "

I've read two really excellent books about the massacre of the Roman Legions in Teutoberger Wald and you're right, the light weapons and maneuverability seemed to help the tribesman slaughter the Romans although the tribesman also had prepared positions (earthen walls built in a zig zag manner which also helped them defeat the Romans. What I found curious in the books is that ( if I remember correctly) there is a lot of evidence that many of the Romans were killed or wounded by swords and yet the description of the tribal warriors of the area seems to indicate that they didn't have a lot of swords. So did the proto German warriors carry more swords or sword like weapons than we think or did they turn the weapons of the dead legionaries against the survivors or did Arminius' command take an even more active role in the butchery than was previously thought.

Ken

[Myles Mulkey]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Shhh. Don't tell anyone--Arminius's Germans might have been heavily Romanized to begin with!

[Ken Speed]

Gee Lafayette, you think so? Let's see...Three legions were virtually wiped out over a period of.......ummm..........three days.
Arminius' troops must have been busy as beaver!

The point of the discussion as it pertains to the Teutoberg massacre is that the archeological forensic evidence seems to be in some disagreement with the accepted idea of the arms the proto -Germanic tribesmen were carrying. Maybe weapons were stolen or quartermasters were bribed; after all people knew how to carry on unconventional warfare before Mao and Che came on the scene. Almost certainly the tribesmen used weaponry dropped by killed or panicked Legionaries.

[Arne Focke]

There is a new set of books out, to "celebrate" the 2000 year anniversary, those might help.
http://www.imperium-konflikt-mythos.de/katalog/

I haven't found time to read them yet, but at first glance they look very promising.

There should be an english version as well.

[Michael Matthys]

Can you get hold of a copy of 'The Secret History of the Sword'? There is a very interesting section about wooden weapons found in a north German bog. Those weapons have been dated to around 16 AD if I remember correctly.
Wooden 'swords' and an enormous quarterstaff like wooden spear!