Qualla: Vetera

Vetera: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ziegelbrenner, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is a tombstone in the museum at Xanten. It was carved for Marcus Caelius, son of Titus, fifty-three and a half years old, first centurion of the Eighteenth Legion. The inscription notes that he died in the war of Varus - the catastrophe in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE in which three Roman legions and their auxiliaries were annihilated by Germanic tribes under Arminius. His body was never recovered. His brother Publius set up the stone at Vetera, the legionary fortress on a sandy hill above the Lower Rhine where Marcus had served. The stone adds, almost casually, that there is room beneath it should the bones of his freedmen ever be brought home.

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Image: Ziegelbrenner | CC BY-SA 3.0

Vetera: A Hill Above the River

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cristiano64, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Fürstenberg sits on the west bank of the Rhine near what is now Xanten in the German Lower Rhineland. It is flat-topped, flood-free, and from its rim a Roman sentry could see far up and down the river. The first camps here date to about 13 or 12 BCE, in the months before Drus...

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Image: Cristiano64 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Vetera: Sixty Hectares of Stone

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Juschki, CC BY-SA 4.0. Over the next half-century Vetera grew into something extraordinary. By the mid-first century it covered around sixty hectares - the largest known Roman legionary camp of its kind. The walls were three metres wide, built of timber framework filled with mud brick and faced with pl...

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Image: Juschki | CC BY-SA 4.0

Vetera: The Year of Four Emperors

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jorge Láscar from Australia, CC BY 2.0. In the year 69 CE the Roman world came apart. Nero was dead. Galba, his successor, antagonised the Rhine legions and was murdered in Rome. Otho ruled for three months and killed himself. The Lower Germanic army proclaimed Vitellius emperor in January and marched on Italy, taking ...

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Image: Jorge Láscar from Australia | CC BY 2.0

Vetera: The Siege of Vetera

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hermann Ewich (1601-1673), Public domain. Civilis raised the Batavi and the neighbouring Cananefates and Frisians, initially claiming to act for Vespasian against Vitellius. When the eight Batavian cohorts marched back north and joined him in autumn 69, the rebellion became open war. The depleted Vetera garrison - perhap...

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Image: Hermann Ewich (1601-1673) | Public domain

Vetera: What You Can See Today

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AmaG, Public domain. Later that summer, Roman troops under Petillius Cerialis crushed Civilis's revolt in a great battle fought before the smoking ruins of the fortress. A new camp - Vetera II - was built around a kilometre to the east on what is now the Bislicher Insel; the Rhine has since shifted c...

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Image: AmaG | Public domain