Showing posts with label Battle of Kessel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle of Kessel. Show all posts

Thursday, July 7, 2016

It was discovered the site of a famous battle in antiquity described in Book IV of the work of Bello Gallico.






















The battles were given at the confluence of the rivers Meuse and Rhine, in what is now the Netherlands

Dutch archaeologists claim to have found the place where Julius Caesar and the Roman army managed to decimate two of the many Germanic tribes. Following the Battle of Kessel, they killed 150,000 warriors, women, elderly and children. (430,000)  Scientists studying for more than 30 years the site where battles were given and found numerous skeletons and gun parts, but until now could not correlate the objects identified with the battle won by the Roman Triumvirate troops.


The findings to date from Kessel to the site have been dated by radiocarbon technique. The results showed that the samples belong period century BC "This is the first time the presence of Caesar and his troops is known in this area in a manner so precise," said Nico Roymans, an archaeologist at the University of Amsterdam.

The two engaged in battle Germanic tribes were known at the time as the tencteri and usipeti. These populations come from an area east of the Rhine River and tried to convince Caesar that want to settle in the Republic. Triumvirate has consistently rejected the intentions of the German population, and in 55 BC ordered eight of his legions destroy tribes and usipetilor tencteri































Caesar wrote about the Battle of Kessel notes in his famous War Comments Bello Gallico. Although the leader of Rome provides some details about his struggles with Germanic peoples, until the moment it is not known exactly where the famous battle took place on the current territory of the Netherlands.

Combining the results of several studies, we could tell that the massacre caused by the Roman armies was held in Kessel. Here were uncovered many clues that we can associate with decimated tribes tencterilor and usipetilor" added Nico Roymans.


In Book IV of the work of Bello Gallico Comments, Julius Caesar described the attack which led him in the spring of 55 BC against the two Germanic tribes. Roman general was at the head of eight legions, numbering some 40,000 soldiers.




 According to notes of Caesar, Meuse and Rhine rivers confluence, his troops massacred both populations, including women, elderly and children. Although the estimated number of those killed was 430,000, historians say that the realistic figure would be 150,000.