"In this place, a poverty-stricken tribe lives on high terps and
hand-built platforms, which raise their homes above the known high water
mark. When the waves wash over the surrounding land, the inhabitants
look like seafarers, but when the water subsides they have the
appearance of shipwrecked people."
That's how a Roman officer described the people living on the shores of
the North Sea. To him and his comrades, this was the edge of the world.
In the sea, he expected to find fabulous monsters, and on land, savage
barbarians.
Every ancient author writing about the Low Countries, was preoccupied
with the complete contrast between the civilized people of the Roman
Empire and the tribes of noble savages or barbarians living outside it.
Julius Caesar exploited this preconception to enhance his own
reputation, boasting that he had overcome the "bravest of all Gauls";
Tacitus employed the same stereotypes when he described the Batavian
Revolt; and, in Late Antiquity, the Franks were still described as
resembling monsters.
The reality was different. The presence of the Roman army along the
River Rhine radically changed the way of life in the small Roman
province of Germania Inferior, and the need to maintain and feed this
large army became a significant incentive for economic change. The
tribes living along the lower reaches of the Rhine and close to the
North Sea gradually began to resemble their occupiers.
Historian Jona Lendering and archaeologist Arjen Bosman have combined
their considerable expertise to create a successful synthesis of
historical and archaeological evidence, in this history of Rome's Lower
Rhine frontier. Their award-winning book is now available in English for
the first time.
