Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

In the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9), an alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius (also known in German as Hermann), the son of Segimerus of the Cherusci, ambushed and wiped out three Legions of unsuspecting Roman allies.

The battle established the Rhine as the boundary of the Roman Empire for the next few hundred years, until the decline of the Roman influence in the West.

1 The defeat of Varus
2 Aftermath
3 The Detmold memorial
4 Site of the battle
5 Literary Sources
6 Portrayal in fiction
7 References
8 External links

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The defeat of Varus

The Roman force was led by Publius Quinctilius Varus, a noble from an old family, inexperienced in battle, a diplomat who had been named the governor of the new province of Germania in AD 7. The battle is thus also known in German as the Varusschlacht ("Battle of Varus"). His force was made up of three legions (Legio XVII, Legio XVIII, and Legio XIX), six cohorts and three squadrons of allied cavalry. Those legion numbers were never used again by the Romans after this defeat.

His opponent Arminius had lived in Rome as a hostage in his youth, where he had received a military education and had even been given the rank of Equestrian. After his return, he was expected to be an ally of Rome, and behaved accordingly towards Varus. In secret, he forged an alliance of Germanic tribes that had traditionally been enemies (the Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, and Bructeri), but which he was able to unite due to outrage over Varus' arrogant style of governing the nascent province.

While Varus was on his way from his summer camp to the winter headquarters near the Rhine, he heard reports of a local rebellion, fabricated by Arminius. Varus decided to quell this uprising immediately and take a detour through territory unknown to the Romans. Arminius, who accompanied Varus, most likely directed him deliberately to a route that would faciliate an ambush and then left under some pretext or other, to meet his troops who must have been waiting in the vicinity.

The Roman force appears to have been poorly organised during the difficult march, and as they passed into a forest they found the track narrow and marshy; according to Dio Cassius a violent storm had also arisen. In passing through the forest the Roman forces had lost their structure as the line of march stretched out perilously long, and they were ambushed by the Germans repeatedly over two or three days. Arminius knew Roman tactics very well and could direct his troops to counter them effectively, using local superior numbers against the spread-out Roman legions. Finally the remaining Romans stood their ground, and as the rains continued in the ensuing assault they were slaughtered almost to the last man, according to Velleius Paterculus. Around 20,000 Roman soldiers died; Varus is said to have taken his own life by falling on his sword in the approved manner. Upon hearing of the defeat, the emperor Augustus, according to Roman author and historian Suetonius, shouted "Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" ('Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!')

Six years later, a Roman detachment first sent to reconnoiter the site, according to Tacitus, found heaps of bleached bones and severed skulls nailed to trees, which they buried, "looking on all as kinsfolk and of their own blood".

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Aftermath

Though the shock of the slaughter was enormous: the Romans did not give up their plans to subdue the German tribes during the next years. In AD 14 they sent in an large army (estimated at 50,000 men) backed up by vast naval forces under the command of Germanicus to northern Germany and achieved several victories over the German coalition, but failed to break it up. In AD 16 emperor Tiberius decided to stop all operations against the German tribes mainly due to the enormous costs.

Nevertheless the Battle was an important milestone in the Roman attempt of taking Germany which seriously started in 14 BC by Drusus. This had long term historical consequences as it set the boundary between Romance languages and Germanic languages and hence the borders between the future France and Germany near the Rhine.

Due to the actual nature of the battle, the lack of a written German language at the time, and the lack of Roman survivors it has long been realised that contemporary reports are almost all hearsay. For Roman historians to say "Lucius Eggius gave as honorable an example of valor as Ceionius gave of baseness" or "Numonius Vala… [was] guilty of abominable treachery" is unverifiable.

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The Detmold memorial

Main article: Hermannsdenkmal.

The legacy of the Germanic victory was resurrected with the recovery of the histories of Tacitus in the 15th century, when the figure of Arminius, rechristened "Hermann" by Martin Luther, became a symbol of a new sense of Germanness. In 1808 Heinrich von Kleist's published but unperformed play Die Hermannsschlacht aroused anti-Napoleonic German sentiment and pride. As a symbol of unified German Romantic nationalism in 1875, the Hermannsdenkmal (Hermann's monument), a statue paid for largely out of private funds, was erected in Detmold to commemorate the battle; similar statues also exist outside of Germany in German-founded communities including one in New Ulm, Minnesota.

In 1847, Josef Viktor von Scheffel wrote a lengthy song, "Als die Römer frech geworden" ("When the Romans Started to Misbehave"), relating the tale of the battle with somewhat gloating humour. Copies of the text are still found on many souvenirs available at the Detmold monument.

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Site of the battle

For almost 2,000 years, no one knew for certain where the battle took place. The main hint as to its location was an allusion to the saltus Teutoburgiensis in section 1.60-62 of Tacitus's Annals.

During the 19th century, theories about the true site of the battle abounded, and the followers of a particular popular theory even managed to have the region around their chosen site south of Osnabrück in the state of Lower Saxony renamed Teutoburg Forest in popular usage; the monument was erected there, at Detmold.

However, late 20th century research and excavations, among them freshly-minted coins no later than the reign of Augustus, and the discovery of some ovoid leaden Roman sling shot by a British amateur archaeologist, off-duty Major Tony Clunn, who was casually prospecting with a metal detector in hopes of finding "the odd Roman coin", led to the discovery of what is now perceived to be the actual site of the battle. It is located at Kalkriese (part of the city Bramsche), at the fringes of the Wiehengebirge hills north of Osnabrück, some 50 km from Detmold, the site preferred by 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen.

While the initial excavations were done by the archaeological team of the Kulturhistorisches Museum Osnabrück under the direction of Prof. Wolfgang Schlüter, after the dimensions of the project became apparent, a new foundation was created to organize future excavations, erect and run a new museum on the site, and centralise publicity work and documentation. Since 1990 the excavations have been directed by Susanne Wilbers-Rost.

The Varusschlacht Museum ("Varus' Battle Museum") and Park Kalkriese include a large outdoor area with trails leading to a re-creation of part of the earthen wall from the battle, and other outdoor exhibits. An observation tower allows visitors to get an overview of the battle site. Most of the indoor exhibits are housed in the tower. A second building includes the ticket center, museum store and a restaurant. The museum houses a large number of artifacts found at the site, which include fragments of studded sandals legionnaires lost in flight, spearheads, a Roman standard-bearer's silver face-mask. Coins minted with the legend VAR, distributed by Varus, clinch the identification of the site. Excavations have revealed battle debris along a corridor almost 15 miles from east to west and little more than a mile wide. A long zig-zagging wall constructed of peat turves and packed sand apparently had been constructed beforehand: concentrations of battle debris before it, and a dearth of finds behind it, testify to the Romans' inability to scale the defense. (Smithsonian, p 81)

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Literary Sources

The following is a list of all known references to the battle from the literary sources of classical antiquity. Though the account provided in the Roman History is the most detailed of these, Dio Cassius' almost two century removal from the time of the event, as well as his use of detail mentioned by no earlier author, makes his account highly suspect as an accurate record of the battle, rather than a literary re-imagining of it.

Ovid, Tristia (Sorrows), poetic verses written in 10 AD and 11 AD
Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, poem written in early 1st Century AD
Strabo, Geographia (Book 7, Section 1.4), geographic-themed history written in perhaps 18 AD
Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Roman History (Book 2, Chapters 117-120), history written 30 AD
Tacitus, Annals (Book 1), history written 109 AD
Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Beliorism omnium annorum DCC Libri duo (Section 2.30), history/panegyric written in early 2nd Century AD
Dio Cassius, Roman History (Book 56, Chapters 18-24), history written in the first half of 3rd Century AD
Fergus M. Bordewich, The Ambush that Changed History, Smithsonian, September 2005, p. 75-81.

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Portrayal in fiction

The battle and its aftermath are featured in both the novel and miniseries, I, Claudius.

The battle is featured as a historical mission in the game, Rome: Total War, although as the player assumes the role of Varus, Germanic victory is not assured.

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References

Peter S. Wells: The Battle That Stopped Rome. Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the slaughter of the legions in the Teutoburg Forest. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY 2003, ISBN 0-393-02028-2 (strong on archaeology, but extremely weak on the ancient sources)
Fergus M. Bordewick, "The ambush that changed history" in Smithsonian Magazine September 2005 pp74–81.

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