The Roman Strategy of Divide and Conquer

The Romans had successfully prevented Arminius from uniting all the German tribes into a single force. The basic Roman strategy of divide and conquer was never on better display than in Germany during the years of the early Principate. As I mentioned while discussing the construction of the Limy's Germanicus, the Roman walls were not built to radically cut off, quote, civilization from, quote, the barbarians. Rather they were designed to control trade, limit available points of entry and exit, and serve as a base from which to project Roman power north and east.