Roman conquest:


"The conqueror always has justice on his side."
(Voltaire)


The early Roman empire was situated around the Mediterranian sea and the Roman senate had no desire to conquer the cold "barbarian" lands to the north, this changed when Julius Caesar became the consul of southern Gaul (Gallia Narbonensis); southern Gaul was a small strip of land along the French south coast that connected Italy to Spain, the Romans had signed alliances with the Celtic tribes to the north who protected the Roman provinces against invasions, the Romans would in exchange protect the Celts when they were attacked.
Both parties fared well with this agreement but this changed when Julius Caesar invaded Gaul and made it a Roman province.
After the conquest of Gaul the Roman policy towards northern Europe changed, before the conquest of Gaul Germania was a far away land that rarely posed a threat to the Roman empire because the Celts functioned as a buffer between them, after the conquest of Gaul Rome and Germania became neighbours, the warlike Germanic tribes were less cooperative than the Celts, were too unreliable to form alliances with, and were to keen on their freedom to accept Roman rule withouth a fight; this forced the Romans to take precautionary measures to defend their new borders, a Dutch saying says;"Offence is the best defence", this was also the slogan of the Romans who decided to invade Germania to defeat their dangerous neighbours:

Offence: During their conquest of Gaul the Romans had much difficulties in the north, especially against the Nervians and the Belgae, when they had finally managed to defeat this tribes the Romans crossed the river Rhine into what is now the Netherlands and tried to take the Rhine delta, they did not succeed in this and were driven back over the Rhine by the Frisians.
During the reign of Augustus the Romans tried to conquer Germania for a second time; general Drusus crossed the river Rhine and conquered many Germanic territories, for this victory he was named "Germanicus" and the new Roman border became the river Elbe.
Drusus is also known for constructing the Drususcanal and the Drususwall; the Drususcanal is thought to have been the river Vecht (Latin: Vectio) in the Dutch province of Utrecht and the Drususwall was a river dam that was destroyed during the Batavian rebellion in 70AD, archeologists have found the remains of the Drususwall in the river Rhine near the Dutch city of Lobith.
The Romans did not stay in Germania for long; in 9AD the Roman general Varus suffered a horrible defeat at the battle of Teutoburg forest which forced them to retreat to the Rhine, in the Rhinedelta (which is now the Netherlands) they kept a certain influence over the tribes but the heavy losses at Teutoburg made them decide never to expand their territory over the Rhine again.

Lîmes Defence: The Romans decided to maintain the river Rhine as the final frontier and prepared some permanent defences to keep the Germans from crossing the river.
The tactic the Romans used to defend their borders against attacks was forming alliances with certain Germanic tribes and allowing them to settle in the border areas, the Romans allowed their Germanic allies to keep their own religion, culture, and army; in exchange the allies became "foederati", which was the name the Romans used for allied tribes who defended the Roman borders.
The Romans also constructed Lîmes, which were defensive lines along natural borders like rivers and mountains, on some places this lîmes consisted of wooden pallisades and ditches while on other places it was only a psychological border formed by a line of wooden poles, along this lîmes the Romans built border-fortresses to keep an eye on both their enemies and their allies...
This border-fortresses served as barracks for Roman soldiers though it often happened that those fortresses grew into small cities because merchants and traders settled around the Roman camp to trade their goods with those of the Romans, this military camps were then elevated to the status of "Colonia" (a city under Roman influence) if you look at a modern map of Europe you can still see that many big cities are situated along the old Roman borders like the river Rhine; the name of the German city of Cologne (Köln) is even derived from the word "colonia" (Colonia Agrippina).
The average Roman fortress/city was built according to a predefined plan; it was build in a square and was crossed by straight roads; this can still be seen in the city cores of many modern cities like Maastricht (Mosae Trajectum) where the Romans once built a small fortification because that was the only place where the river Meuse (Maas) could be crossed without a boat.
The Romans also recruited many young men from local communities, lots of Germanic warriors joined the Roman army which allowed the Romans to form entire legions of them, especially tribes who had signed an alliance with Rome supplied lot of soldiers; for example the 10th Roman legion (Legio X Gemina) was formed almost exclusively out of Batavian and Cananefatian warriors, it can even be said that many Roman victories were gained by Germanic legionaries.
The Romans began to rely more and more on this foreign conscripts which eventually undermined the Roman army; the Germanic conscripts did not feel any connection to the Roman empire and only fought for money and glory, during the last days of the empire many of this foreign legions defected to the invading Germanic tribes.
The defensive plan of building lîmes and appointing foederati held out against invasions for centuries to come, but eventually the economical regression also affected the border defences; many fortresses were poorly guarded and during the beginning of the Great Migrations the Germanic armies could cross the lîmes without any resistance; most of the times they weren't even noticed...

Life in the occupied territories: Most of the power the Roman empire had over its subjects was the result of the Romanization of this subjected peoples, by mixing the Roman culture through the native cultures of this peoples they began feeling Roman, another reason was that they were almost totally dependant on the Roman empire for their protection and luxury items; if they would cut themselves off from Roman rule they would not only lose a powerful "friend" and gain a powerful enemy in return, but they would also lose their wealth and other benefits the Roman empire had to offer.
The subjected peoples also traded with the Romans, the areas around the North Sea and the East Sea were rich with Amber which was very popular amongst the Romans, the Romans also payed lots of money for animal hides and slaves.
To keep the subjected population calm the Romans offered "bread and games", especially arena fights were popular; this fights were derived from the Etruskian custom of organizing a two-men swordfight at funerals, this fights quickly became popular and were held throughout the Roman empire, the word "gladiator" is derived from Latin "gladius", which meant "sword".

Gilded helmet showcover of a Roman cavalry officer who died during the cold winter of 320AD (Helenaveen, the Netherlands) When the Roman emperor or another important person was present the two combatants greeted him by raising their hands and saying "Morituri te salutant" (Those who are about to die greet you), they then started fighting and when one of the two gladiators was heavily wounded the crowd cheered "habet! habet! habet!", ("habet" means "he got him!") and the emperor or noble who was present in the arena could then decide whether the gladiator was allowed to live or had to die, this decision depended on how brave he had fought and on the opinion of the crowd, the noble then raised his fist as a sign of mercy or pointed his thumb downwards when he wanted the loser to die; the victor would then finish his victim.
Every time the local population was unruly the Romans organized games and gladiator fights to keep them calm, the problem with this tactic was that it eventually became routine, this may sound very weird to our modern ears but in those times so many games were held that the people began to find them boring; the Romans had to make them more and more spectacular to gain the same effect and this eventually caused the games to become downright cruel and perverse; Christians were thrown into the pit and were devoured by lions, women were raped in front of the audience and innocent bystanders were tortured to please the crowd, when the Germans invaded the Roman provinces during the Great Migrations they were horrified by the Roman games and in most places the games were ended, the Goths even changed many Roman theaters into military barracks because they never made use of them, eventually the Roman games were banned by the Christian church.

The Romans have been one of the most influential peoples in European history, they built bridges, roads, and aquaducts, created laws, and were one of the most advanced civilizations during that time.
However, we must not exaggerate their role too much; many history books begin with the arrival of the Romans, something that I find very unfair towards all the peoples who existed before them, many history books, teachers, and movies give us the impression that our ancestors were stupid barbarians who were "liberated" from ignorance by the Romans who tought them a lesson in civilization while that is of course totally ridiculous, when I was a little boy my schoolbook started with a quote from the bible book of Genesis (leaving out everything pre-Homo Sapiens including the Neanderthals) and after that came a whole line of 10 words(!) in which our Germanic ancestors were mentioned together with a picture of a dumblooking caveman-like man wearing an animal hide, after that the book immediately continued with the Romans as if civilization started with their arrival, maybe this pathetic excuse for learning material is one of the reasons why I have eventually created this site ;)
Despite their overestimation by modern teachers the Romans are still one of the most interesting peoples of history and I love reading about them, though I do hope that we will one day understand that civilization was not limited to the Romans alone.