The Oppidum of Manching

Abstract

Only a few decades after the conquest of Gaul by Caesar the power of the free Celtic tribes in central Europe collapsed as a consequence of their finding themselves placed, during the course of the 1st century B.C., in an insecure position between the Romans and the Germans pressing down from the North. The victorious Alpine campaign of Drusus and Tiberius in 15 B.C. sealed the fate of, among others, the Vindelicians who occupied the south German area north of the Alps as far as the Danube. Here, still today, mighty hillforts bear witness to the power of those nameless Celtic chieftains who caused them to be erected. Contemporary literary sources tell all too little about the history of this area and about the cultural connections of its inhabitants before the Roman occupation. Therefore modern research relied upon Caesar’s description of the Gallic tribes in drawing parallels between the large late La Tène hillforts in central Europe and the city-like tribal centres of the Gauls in France, which Caesar called ‘oppida’ or even ‘urbes’.