[74: The accounts of this war have been lost; its time and place admit of being determined. As the coins give to Domitian the title _Germanicus_ after the beginning of the year 84 (Eckhel, vi. 378, 397), the campaign falls in the year 83. Accordant with this is the levy of the Usipes, which falls on this same year, and their desperate attempt at flight (Tacitus, _Agr._ 28; comp. Martialis, vi. 60). It was an aggressive war (Suetonius, _Dom._ 6: _expeditio sponte suscepta_; Zonaras, xi. 19; λεηλατήσας τινὰ τῶν πέραν Ῥήνου τῶν ἐνσπόνδων). The shifting of the line of posts is attested by Frontinus, who took part in the war, _Strat._ ii. 11, 7: _cum in finibus Cubiorum_ (name unknown and probably corrupt) _castella poneret_, and i. 3, 10: _limitibus per cxx. m. p. actis_, which is here brought into immediate connection with the military operations, and hence may not be separated from the Chattan war itself and referred to the _agri decumates_, which had for long been in the Roman power. The measure of 108 miles is very conceivable for the military line which Domitian planned at the Taunus (according to Cohausen's estimates, _Röm. Grenzwall_, p. 8, the later Limes from the Rhine round the Taunus as far as the Main is set down at 137 miles), but is much too small to admit of its being referred to the line of connection from thence to Ratisbon.] [75: The Germans (Suetonius, _Dom._ 6) could only be the Chatti, and their earlier allies, perhaps in the first instance just the Usipes and those sharing their fate. The insurrection broke out in Mentz, which alone was a double camp of two legions. Saturninus was assailed from Raetia by the troops of L. Appius Maximus Norbanus. For the epigram of Martial, ix. 84, cannot be understood otherwise, the more especially as his conqueror, of senatorial rank as he was, could not administer a regular command in Raetia and Vindelicia, and could only be led into this region by a case of war emerging, as indeed the _sacrilegi furores_ clearly point to the insurrection. The tiles of this same Appius, which have been found in the provinces of upper Germany and Aquitania, do not warrant the making him legate of the Lugdunensis, as Asbach (_Westdeutsche Zeitschrift_, iii. 9), suggests, but must be referred to the epoch after the defeat of Antonius (_Hermes_, xix. 438). Where the battle was fought remains doubtful; the region of Vindonissa most naturally suggests itself, to which point Saturninus may have gone to meet Norbanus. Had Norbanus encountered the insurgents only at Mentz, which in itself seems conceivable, these would have had the crossing of the Rhine in their power, and the contingent of the Germans could not have been hindered by the breaking-up of the Rhine from reinforcing them.]