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Posted on 05/13/2025 8:35:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
According to an Associated Press report, construction workers renovating a soccer field in the Simmering neighborhood of Vienna uncovered an ancient mass grave containing as many as 150 bodies, probably those of soldiers killed during a violent clash between the Roman army and Germanic tribes. It is the earliest evidence of fighting between the two groups along the Roman Empire's northern frontier. At least one skeleton was confirmed to belong to a Roman soldier and further testing is slated to determine the identities of the other combatants. All of the individuals, who were male and between the ages of 20 and 30, showed evidence of physical injury, either to their head, torso, or pelvic area. Radiocarbon dating, as well as analysis of artifacts found within the grave, suggests that they were hastily buried in the late first or second century a.d. The burial is unique because deceased Roman soldiers were typically cremated until the third century, so the discovery is the first of its kind. "Within the context of Roman acts of war, there are no comparable finds of fighters," said archaeologist Michaela Binder, who led the archaeological dig. "There are huge battlefields in Germany where weapons were found. But finding the dead, that is unique for the entire Roman history." Researchers suspect the soldiers may have been part of the emperor Domitian's campaigns along the Danube River between a.d. 86 and 96.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
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Since they were buried instead of cremated, they may have been mercenaries from other parts of the empire, or they were buried by the Germanic tribes...........................
Yay—more judging people by the color of their skin, not the content of their characters—go Marxist Demolitioncrats, go!!
“… physical injury, either to their head, torso, or pelvic area...”
Muscle- powered warfare… spears, arrows, swords, axes… horrible wounds.
Brutal.
“...probably those of soldiers killed during a violent clash between the Roman army and Germanic tribes.”
Correction: probably those of soldiers killed during a violent clash between the Roman army and BARBARIANS.
Quite a cycle for Germanic people - they start out as Barbarians, get civilized, become some of the smartest, most productive people on the planet, and then, with the help of their version of the 19th Amendment, vote to live under Barbarian rule.
No, they were buried by the Roman army. The piles of dead barbarians were probably piled up and incinerated.
In a battle, the legions began with a long wait for their adversaries to charge in, then they launched their javelins. Thousands of javelins came whistling into the ranks of the attackers, wounding and killing hundreds or thousands, then the generally untrained horde met the disciplined, trained, and generally experienced legions. Ow.
The front rank would fight for 2? 3? minutes, the Centurion would blow a whistle, and the second rank would move into action. The former first rank would fall in at the back of the formation. This kept them able to fight for as many hours as needed to defeat and/or annihilate opponents. One of the spot-on tidbits in the beautiful but otherwise silly "Cleopatra" movie (Taylor-Burton-Harrison) was when the tutor character said "and with so few men". That always struck Roman opponents as odd. For the better part of a year, Caesar held Alexandria with a half legion, got some anticipated reinforcements, then went out and wiped out Ptolemy's (largely ethnically Greek?) army.
After the defeat of Tony and Cleo, Augustus had cut the size of the army in half, to 28 legions, and added 28 auxiliary legions from various conquered tribes (generally specialized skills not part of the Roman methods). All legions were brought up to strength, but the century was reduced from 100 legionaries (which made sense) to 80, and increased the number of Centurions to improve command and probably to slightly improve the career path. The size of each legion was increased from about 4200 to about 5200, with 300 cavalry throughout.
Even the size of a legion wasn't fixed, centuries would be reassigned from quiet spots to places with more activity. The plum place to serve (and to get land upon retirement) was probably Britain. It was rare for more than two legions to be stationed there. The other pretty quiet spots (usually) were Greece, Egypt, and North Africa. I'd imagine that Greece was another popular retirement or vacation destination for higher-end Romans.
A legion didn't typically serve all in one spot (smaller units were spread along the frontier forts and/or walls/limes), and a cohort (varied in size) of a particular legion would be stationed in one or more forts in geographic proximity. One of the best preserved is in Jordan, I think the link is up above. :^)
Wow, what happened, did she kick ya out? :^)
German (and British) women got the vote in 1918.
Awesome write up, thank you…
Always enjoy your posts.
“ After the defeat of Tony and Cleo…”
Tony and Cleo… sounds like a pizza and cheesesteak joint in South Philly…. 😁
:^) Don’t even ask about the place upstairs, Dick and Liz.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’ve been watching “I, Claudius” over the past few days, so seeing this article brought Augustus to mind, raging over the loss of three Legions in the Teutoburgewald due to the treachery of Arminius the Cheruscan….
“Quintillius Varys, bring back my Legions!!!”
Apparently the Cheruscans put the Roman captives in wooden cages and burned them alive.
There’s even a t-shirt!
Germanicus led the hunt and eventually Arminius (clearly believing he was a master tactician) met him somewhere else in the woods, so close they could talk trash to one another.
Inside of an hour the Roman method broke the barbis and Arminius had to flee for his life. He wasn’t a popular guy after that mess, and much of his own family may have been killed in battle and whatnot, but managed to find refuge, living with distant kinsmen.
The Romans found out where, and paid the kinsmen to bump him off. Long, long reach, those Romans. :^)
This whole Varian episode didn’t survive in folklore, mainly because the subsequent wave of ethnic groups wiped out everyone who’d been there before. Some anachronistic interest got revived in “Herman” in the mid-19th century. A kinda homely monument was built to him, a dozens of miles from where (it turns out) the battle was actually fought. :^D
Looks like something from a pretentious cemetery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermannsdenkmal
During the reign of Napoleon III the site of the Roman vs Gauls battle of Alesia was located and excavated with great fanfare. The fact that the French ancestors, the Franks, were zero relation to Vercingetorix and company didn’t trouble Nappy at all. Still not certain he picked the right place to dig:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia#Identification_of_the_site
Analogously, Queen Vicky of 19th-early 20th century Britain revived Boudica as a symbol, despite the fact that the Iceni were probably erased by the Romans, and the rest of the Iron Age tribes were absorbed and/or erased by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes — nothing to do with Victoria at all. What a nutjob.
I’ve got a Boudica topic on deck, probably going up this week.
During Plantagenet times, the King Arthur legend as it’s sort of known today :^) got revived, revised, and invented, and again, same problem — the post-Roman Britons lost the whole works to the A-S-J. And anything that may have been left finally succumbed to the Vikings.
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