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Battle of the Weser River

 

 
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Battle of the Weser River
 
 
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The Battle of the Weser River, sometimes known as a first Battle of Minden, was fought in 16
16

Year 16 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar....
 A.D. between Roman legion
Roman legion

The Roman Legion is a term that can apply both as a translation of legio to the entire Roman army and also, more narrowly , to the heavy infantry that was the basic military unit of the Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire....
s commanded by Emperor Tiberius
Tiberius

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37....
' heir and adopted son Germanicus, and an alliance of Germanic tribes commanded by Arminius
Arminius

Arminius, also known as Armin or Hermann was a chieftain of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest....
.

Ancient sources identify the location as Idistaviso
Idistaviso

Idistaviso is the location on the Weser river where forces commanded Arminius fought those commanded by Germanicus at the Battle of the Weser River in 16 CE, attested in chapter 16 of Tacitus' Annals II....
, but the precise location is unknown, save that it was on the right side of the Weser River, somewhere up between the cities of Minden and Hameln of present-day Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
.






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The Battle of the Weser River, sometimes known as a first Battle of Minden, was fought in 16
16

Year 16 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar....
 A.D. between Roman legion
Roman legion

The Roman Legion is a term that can apply both as a translation of legio to the entire Roman army and also, more narrowly , to the heavy infantry that was the basic military unit of the Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire....
s commanded by Emperor Tiberius
Tiberius

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37....
' heir and adopted son Germanicus, and an alliance of Germanic tribes commanded by Arminius
Arminius

Arminius, also known as Armin or Hermann was a chieftain of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest....
.

Ancient sources identify the location as Idistaviso
Idistaviso

Idistaviso is the location on the Weser river where forces commanded Arminius fought those commanded by Germanicus at the Battle of the Weser River in 16 CE, attested in chapter 16 of Tacitus' Annals II....
, but the precise location is unknown, save that it was on the right side of the Weser River, somewhere up between the cities of Minden and Hameln of present-day Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
. The battle marked the end of a three-year campaign by Germanicus to restore the Roman frontier at the Elbe, lost in 9
9

Year 9 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar....
 A.D.. The Germanic tribes generally avoided open large-scale combat, but at this battle Germanicus was finally able to force them into a major engagement. Both sides suffered severe losses, but the Romans were victorious, even though Arminius himself and Inviomerus, his uncle manage to escape with the bulk of their army intact. According to Tacitus
Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
 with the help of Chauci
Chauci

The Chauci were a populous Germanic tribes that inhabited the extreme northwestern shore of Germany between Frisia in the west and the Elbe estuary in the east....
, who fought on the Roman side as auxiliaries.

Germanicus once again had to withdraw behind the Rhine for the winter. Tiberius saw no point in continuing the costly military campaigns in northern Germania and ordered Germanicus to end his campaign and return to Rome. After this, Rome never again made a serious effort to conquer Germania beyond the Rhine River.

Trivia

In Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was a Russian novelist and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for the novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century....
's The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheism Soviet Union....
, the procurator of Iudaea, Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate was the Roman_governor#Equestrian_procurator of the Roman Empire Iudaea Province from the year AD 26 until AD 36. He is typically known as the sixth Procurator of Judea, but some sources cite him as the fifth....
, states that he had fought in this battle.