So lets try to break this battle down some into the technical parts. Is it possible to find the location of the battle, the number involved and the outcome?

Weigand in his Beitrage zur Landes-und Volkskunde von Elsass-Lothringen, vol. III 1887 says that he thinks the battle took place between Hurtigheim and Oberhausbergen, about 10 miles west of the Rhine in the Strasbourg area.

That would have left Julian with only a 16-kilometer march. Not so much I think for troops accustomed to long marches. That seems to me no reason to have your men rest from such a short march. Maybe if it were more like an 18-mile march than that would seem more realistic to me. Weigand even states in his book that Ammianus places the river close behind the Germans though he says this was the Ill river forming an “arm” of the Rhine.

If the disposition of troops is thought of, in a defensive battle line, with ambushes placed, it seems to me that the Alamannie knew that they were in a tight spot with a major river to their backs. If they were outnumbered, than it makes since to try to escape across the river, or to wait for reinforcements to come across (will talk about numbers in a later post).

A last reason that I feel placement very close to the Rhine makes sense is that if the Roman cavalry were driven from the field of battle, the infantry would be the main pursuit force. They had to be near the Rhine for the infantry to be affective on the heels of the Alamanni. It would have only been so if they did not have much distance to cover after such a hard fight.