Caesar\'s bridges across the Rhine

[Epictetus]

I have a couple of questions about Caesar’s bridges across the Rhine. He says:

For the reasons above mentioned Caesar had decided to cross the Rhine; but he deemed it scarcely safe, and ruled it unworthy of his own and the Romans’ dignity, to cross in boats.

Gallic War. IV,17.

Why was it safer to cross on a bridge instead of boats? One would think that speed was important in river crossings. Since the Ubii offered “a large supply of boatsâ€

[M. Demetrius]

You can move many more men on a bridge in much shorter time than by boats. If I recall that situation, the river was at flood stage. That would mean boat crossing would be more dangerous than normal.

Consider the cavalry. Boats full of horses? Nope. Anyway, they finished that bridge so fast the Germanic enemies were utterly surprised. I think they remarked that it had taken them twice the time to cross using boats, or something like that.

Amazingly, the Romans tore the bridge down when they left. Today, they'd charge toll to cross over, and sell postcards and such.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Ditto to that.

[Andrew Brozyna]

Safer or not, wasn't the main point of the bridge to awe the germans? A boat crossing would have been expected. What shock the germans must have felt to know their enemy constructed an entire bridge, used it, and demolished it in such a short time.

[Epictetus]

There are other instances of Caesar using boats to cross rivers in the Gallic War. He didn't build bridges whenever he wanted to move his army from one bank to the other. So crossing the Rhine was different. Perhaps it was its size?

There was also another instance of some bad luck with a boat crossing. In 1.12 he surprises the Helvetti crossing by a bridge of boats and massacres a portion of their army. Caesar then built a bridge (1.13) for himself, but the text doesn't make clear if it is another bridge of boats or one like he would later build over the Rhine.

Here he boasts about speed again. It took the Helvetti 20 days to cross but only 1 day for him.

[Na Saighdiuir]

Safer or not, wasn't the main point of the bridge to awe the germans? A boat crossing would have been expected. What shock the germans must have felt to know their enemy constructed an entire bridge, used it, and demolished it in such a short time.

Yes i heard that too,it was a kind of "shock and awe" tactic to prove their superiority.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Yes, the speed of his building the bridge, running with impunity on the other side of the Rhine, then returning and demolishing the bridge features quite prominently in his commentaries.