What happened to the weapons, armor of a defeated legion?

[Anonymous]

hi,<br>
<br>
I always wondered why the romans could find any weapons, armory etc. after they came back to the place of the "Varus Battle". What happened to the weapons and armor? Did the germanics collected them all and used them for themselve?<br>
<br>
In general, did the celts or germanics used roman weapons, armor, etc. to gain any advantage if they could find anything on the battlefield?<br>
<br>
greetings,<br>
sit <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Tradition of the Celts and Germans was to ritually destroy ("kill") those weapons, hang them up on sacred trees, or throw them in sacred lakes or bogs, which is a very good thing since it allowed modern archaeology to recover a wealth of roman wepons in several peat bogs and ancient marshes in northern Europe.<br>
The Romans, like the Greeks, used to pile them up at the foot of a trophy displaying the victorious party's arms and armour.<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Guest]

Salve,<br>
<br>
That depended on the situation and there was no general pattern. In some cases in Celtic and Germanic peoples sacrificed the spoils of war and in other cases captured weaponry was taken into use. See for instance Caesar <em>Bellum Gallicum</em> 6.17, text and translation for reference to dedication of spoils among the Gauls. For use of captured weaponry by Germanics see Tacitus, <em>Annales</em> 2.45 (<em>... spolia adhuc et tela Romanis derepta in manibus ...</em> '... spoils and missiles taken from the Romans in their hands ...'), text and translation.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Sander van Dorst <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=sandervandorst@romanarmytalk>Sander van Dorst</A> at: 12/5/02 4:56:01 pm<br></i>