A remarkable yet mostly obscure part of the Roman naval story concerns the fleets of the inland frontier. I know of no other case in history where a large scale power deployed a navy for the control of rivers. By accident or design, the northern boundary of the empire would be marked by the great rivers of Europe; the Rhine and the Danube, so a naval force was required to act in support of the army. The Rhine was the western boundary of the empire from the time of Julius Caesar with the Danube following during the time of Augustus, who sought to move the boundary north to avoid attacks emanating from the Alps. Augustus had Drusus and his brother Tiberius push east from the Rhine as far as the Elbe, but following reverses like the Massacre at Teutoburg, Rome retreated to its
old boundary on the Rhine.
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