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Germania (also sometimes called Germania Antiqua by Theodore Mommsen and other historians) was a short-lived Roman province for the duration of 16 years under Augustus, from 7 BC to AD 9. The possible capital of this province was Marktbreit (), a castrum (Roman legionary fortification) with a nearby canaba (Roman vicus) from the period of Emperor Augustus, located 70 km east of the "Limes Germanicus" on the River Main.
However, the Roman plan to complete the conquest and incorporate all of Magna Germania into the Roman Empire was frustrated when three Roman legions under the command of Varus were annihilated by the German tribesmen in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9. Augustus then ordered Roman withdrawal from Magna Germania (completed by AD 16) and established the boundary of the Roman Empire as being the Rhine and the Danube.
Under Emperors Vespasian and Domitian, the Roman Empire occupied the region known as the Agri Decumates between the Main, Danube, and Rhine rivers. The region soon became a vital part of the Limes Germanicus with dozens of Roman forts. The Agri Decumates were finally abandoned to the Germanic Alemanni, after the Emperor Probus' death (282).D. Geuenich, Geschichte der Alemannen, p. 23 Some parts of the earlier province were incorporated into either Germania Inferior or Germania Superior in AD 85.
In Tacitus, Germania Antiqua or Germania Barbara, are synonyms of Germania Transrhenana, also Germania Magna, i.e., the part of Germania on the right side of the Rhine.E.B. Williston (ed.), Five Books of the History of C. Cornelius Tacitus: With His Treatise on the Manners of the Germans, and His Life of Agricola (1826), p. 223.
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