jugurtha Posted December 7, 2003 Report Share Posted December 7, 2003 The legendary Roman strategist / emperor Julius Caesar has probably suffered humiliating defeats in the Venlo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted December 8, 2003 Report Share Posted December 8, 2003 Cool Jug, thanks allot, Funny that the Romans didnt describe this in more detail. Maybe it didn't fit into the glory of Caesar, and would have affected his status? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jugurtha Posted December 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2003 Obviously ! I think it's a well-known fact that Caesar wrote his De Bello Gallico as a means to help his political career and create his own myth. Because of this he mentions the fallbacks of his campaign only briefly and elaborates on his successes. Nevertheless, we should be glad he wrote it altogether. It's our task to siff through the propaganda and get all that wonderful information, which we wouldn't have otherwise, from underneath it. - JUG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlapse Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Some things never change, I guess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 I'm a bit confused. I think all the historian is claiming is that the location of the defeat may have been different. Caesar clearly mentioned the defeat of the 14th Legion under the command of Sabinus to the Belgae and the Eburones. He never mentioned place names but Belgica has always been widely accepted. The important factor here is that Caesar wasn't present, and there were very few survivors who made it to the camp of Labienus. Difficult at best to describe in any detail under these circumstances. He described what he knew: the legion was slaughtered. He didn't avoid the defeat at all. What he did do however was to put a bit of treachery spin on it. He acknowledged the defeat of Sabinus but then claimed that when he tried to surrender to Ambiorix, that Sabinus and all of the officers were executed. A brilliant move by Caesar to keep his image from being tarnished and also to motivate the Roman people for vengeance. We can read through that and see there is some political motivation and understand that we will likely never know the whole truth. But its important to also understand that Caesar didn't avoid the topic at all. I think the article does a disservice in that it makes it seem that this battle is a newly discovered defeat. That's clearly not the case at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 ah, good we have the professor, I didnt't know about the battle before, and i must have misread the article from Jug then, so thanks for clearing this up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jugurtha Posted December 9, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Well, you're richt there PP, that is what the article says. What this article really shows is that scholars have had their doubts of the exact location and that many of the scholars start to acknowledge that the location might've been misinterpreted in the past. As a matter of fact, don't go too wild on this! They're just moving the battlefield a bit to the north (Venlo is right across the border with Belgium). However, if they do find the exact spot we might be in for some exciting archaeogical finds. PS: If I'm not mistaken the term Belgica applies to present day Netherlands as well. PS2: I have to admit one could interpret this article as a defeat unknown until now. Maybe I should rephrase some of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Could be I just misread it. Or maybe it was just my zeal to jump to the defense of Caesar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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