I’m currently debating a person that holds the position that Germanicus was largely a failure in his campaigns against the Cherusci and Chatti (among other tribes, would like to know all the tribes involved). He claims that the Germanic tribes basically won, that Germanicus did no real damage to Germanic coalitions, and that he didn’t really restore the “honor of Rome.”
Now I can understand the arguement that Roman casualties during these campaigns were high and therefore too costly to continue, but how bad were Roman losses compared to Germanic losses?
To my understanding Germanicus was recalled because Tiberius didn’t want to pay the cost of more military campaigns in Germania. It was just too expensive. Someone help me here...I thought Germanicus was basically the “Alexander the great” to romans?
First of all, it would be hard to compare Germanicus (or anyone else for that matter) to Alexander the Great. Only a few Romans were compared to him, such as Pompey Magnus and, though he him disagreed, Julius Caesar.
Secondly, in order to win there needs to be a preset goal. The campaigns by Germanicus were punitive expeditions first, with conquest being a secondary objective; at least at the start.
There is little evidence to suggest that the Romans won anything but a total victory, but Germanicus was a general, not an emperor. The emperor Tiberius stopped the conquest of Germania and various reasons have been given for this decision. Among those is the cost/benefit argument that you mentioned yourself, but others (principally Tacitus) argued that it was jealousy and a fear of Germanicus' popularity that inspired the recall. Tacitus even explicitly says that, had Tiberius given Germanicus more freedom, Germania would have been conquered without any doubt.
As for the honour of Rome, he returned three of the four imperial Eagles that were lost during the Battle of Teutoburg Forest; restoring Roman honour doesn't get more explicit and literal than that. There are no reputable records of the losses incurred by the Germanic tribes, but they are bound to have been very substantial given that for about fifty years; there was little to no serious fighting along the Rhine frontier.