Advisor to the Dead

Publius Quinctilius Varus was born into an old patrician family, but one which had never possessed much clout or influence. Indeed, the days of the Quinctili Vari had never burned bright and the future promised similar languishing mediocrity. When the first of the Civil Wars began Publius’ father Sextus remained a proud Republican, one who wished to return to the old ways of Roman governance and accountability, when no man stood above the law. Sextus may have even been involved directly in the plot to assassinate the very man who had laughed in the face of Roman republicanism, Gaius Julius Caesar, who was killed on March 15, 44 BC. It is not known the extent of Sextus’ involvement in the resulting war which ensued between Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius, the Liberatores, and the Caesareans, led by Octavian and Mark Antony. What we do know is the future of the Roman state was at the forefront of his thoughts and was a near-constant source of anxiety. After Octavian and Mark Antony’s victory at Phillippi sealed Rome’s fate and ended any hopes of a return to republicanism, Sextus committed suicide. In doing so, he left a four-year-old Publius fatherless.

The details of Publius’ adolescence are practically unknown. Yet many facts can be reasonably guessed. Sextus, having backed the unsuccessful Liberatores against the Optimates probably tainted the name and reputation of his already lowly family even further. Young Publius was no popular figure, and seemed destined, as all Vari seemed to be, to a life of mediocrity. Perhaps to spite his dead father or maybe just a reaction to the much-changed political situation Publius became a supporter of Octavian, the newly crowned Emperor Augustus. Slowly he inched his way into the new ruling family’s inner circle. Eventually he struck up a budding friendship with Octavian’s stepson, Tiberius. In doing so he also guaranteed the success of his political career.

Publius’ first major appointment came in 8 BC when he was given the governorship of the Roman province of Africa. A year later he was moved east to govern Syria, where his rule was typified by harsh treatment of the native peoples and high taxes. The most infamous moment in Publius’ tenure came in 4 BC, when after recapturing Jerusalem from Jewish rebels he had two thousand Jews crucified. For the next few years his rule from Antioch passed uneventfully. Then in 7 AD Publius was given a new appointment. He was to be the first governor of a new province created by the campaigns of his childhood friend Tiberius, in a place called Germania. While Publius had been cracking down on Messianic revolts, Tiberius had been turning the forsaken wildernesses on the frontiers of the empire into Roman terra firma. 

A graphic of a coin depicting Quinctilius Varus, likely minted during his time as governor of Syria or Germania

Publius reached the province just as Tiberius was leaving it. A great revolt had broken out in Illyria. Tiberius was on orders from the Emperor himself to deal with the problem. As he left Tiberius took with him eight of the eleven legions in Germania, significantly reducing Rome’s ability to project power in the region. No matter, Varus was assured Tiberius had thoroughly crushed the Germans' will to resist. The tribes already subjugated would remain so and the others would fall in line without too much trouble. Three legions would be more than enough to deal with what little fight the barbarians had left.

Not long after arriving in Germania the new governor met with his subordinates, a few who were native Germans loyal to Rome. One of his advisors was the son of the chieftain of the powerful Cherusci tribe. His name was Arminius. 

Famous statue of Arminius in north-central Germany

What do we know about this character? Shrouded by the veil of time, very little is certain. We do know that indeed, Arminius’ father was the leader of the powerful Cherusci tribe, and that he allied with Rome, probably less out of willingness than necessity. His sons, Arminius and Flavus, left the tribe at a young age to serve as auxiliary cavalrymen in Rome’s service in 1 AD. Both sons would go on to earn commendable combat records. Not much else is set in stone, but much more can be inferred through what is absent from the historical record. Roman historians were never afraid to show prejudice and disparage their enemies, deservedly or not, and were quick to point out their flaws. Thus, sometimes, omission speaks as loudly as admission. Nowhere in the historical record does Arminius possess any particular vice or seem prone to acts of debauchery or licentiousness. In fact, Arminius, who would soon bring great woe upon Rome, is seldomly scorned. Even Tacitus, who was no fan of the Germanic peoples, begrudgingly admitted his talents. The greatest compliment a Roman could give a man from another race was that they possessed the same qualities that Romans themselves were proud of. And indeed, in his unceasing determination and his unmatched stubbornness, Arminius was as Roman as they came.

His good record of service in the Roman army coupled with his wellspring of knowledge regarding Germanic cultures and peoples made him a shoo-in as an advisor to the Roman authorities in Germania. In 7 AD he was recalled from leading a detachment of auxiliary cavalry in the Balkans to assist in the governance of Germania Superior and Inferior.

Sometime in the years of 7-8 AD our two main characters paths crossed, the Roman whose suicidal father left him desperate for connections, being forced by necessity to use whatever he could to pull himself up from his depressed and unextraordinary background, and the German chieftain’s son who spent his adolescence under the shadow of Rome’s rule and his manhood in its service. It seems the two got along quite well, and soon Arminius was nearly Publius’ right-hand man. Neither would know just how significant a role they would play in each other’s lives.

During his time living in the Roman world Arminius had evinced nothing but an unshifting desire to serve and protect the Roman Empire. The fact that his father had allied with Rome, a deeply unpopular decision with many of the Germanic tribes strongly suggested at least an acquiescence to Roman dominion. Yet, despite all of these facts and tendencies which seemed to demonstrate that Arminius was a trustworthy ally to the Roman people, it would be during his return to Germania that Arminius began to plot against the very people who he had served for so many years.

But this wasn’t to be yet another rebellion. Arminius himself had taken part in the stamping out of one of those. Rebellions were a dime a dozen to the Roman Empire. These rebellions might experience some success at first, but inevitably the might of Rome bore down upon the offenders and ground them to dust. No, this had to be a different affair entirely. It had to be swift and decisive, before the Romans could react, otherwise Germania would just be another Gaul, Jerusalem, Carthage, Illyria, Acquitania, Thrace, Thebais or Mauretania- it would just be another brief spark of revolt, to be followed by an endless period of complete and total subjugation. Vae Victis. Woe to the vanquished.

As Arminius began to contemplate how he could bring this about, he soon realized a major hurdle that lay in his path. The Germanic peoples constituted many various tribes similar to the Native American peoples that inhabited the continent before European colonization. The Germanic peoples widely shared similar culture, religion and conducted trade with each other, but had never been organized into any singular political entity. The tribes acted as separate and distinct societies, bound sometimes by blood and loose alliance, but not political or institutional bodies or central authority. To have the power to carry out a war against Rome, Arminius would have to weld the disparate tribes of Germania into an entity with one purpose. 

For around a year Arminius led a dangerous double life. By day he assisted Governor Varus and advised him regarding a wide range of issues in the service of the people, Senate and Emperor of Rome. By night he slipped away and contacted chieftains of other Germanic tribes: the Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci, Sicambri and plotted the demise of the ones he spent his days with.

Near the beginning of his enterprise many of the chieftains must have thought Arminius, the Governor’s right hand man, had been sent by the Romans to test their loyalty, bait for a trap. Yet Arminius’ message, seeking to put an end to Rome’s influence across the Rhine once and for all, was something the Germanic chieftains had only dreamt of. His words did not fall on deaf ears. Slowly over months of late-night rendezvous and treasonous conversations a coalition began to form, with Arminius and his Cherusci tribe at the center of it all. Importantly, somewhere along the way, Arminius’ father joined the cause. For Arminius to have in his corner such an influential figure was a significant boost to his clout and added credence to his message.

The coalition was building and slowly what was once only whispered under bated breath was now spoken in huts and halls across the land. “The Romans must be stopped, and Arminius is the one to do it, and mighty Tyr at his side, he will do it for us all.” But just as the seeds Arminius had sewn were beginning to bear fruit, other problems entered Arminius’ thoughts. First, it had only been a matter of time before Arminius’ frequent absences from the Roman camp became noticed. Segestes, another Germanic tribesman in Rome’s service, was becoming increasingly suspicious of Arminius. Second, the Illyrian revolt which had carried Tiberius and eight legions away from Germania, was coming to its resolution. Word on the street was only a few pockets of resistance remained and those would soon be mopped up.

Illyrians (right) fighting legionaries in the Great Illyrian Revolt

Both of these ideas forced Arminius to one uncomfortable and irrevocable conclusion. He must act soon, or the chance would be forever gone. If he waited much longer, he could be found out by Roman sympathizers in Varus’ camp, or perhaps even worse, some, if not all the legions from Illyria would return before or during the uprising. This influx of troops would nearly quadruple Rome’s strength in the territory making any confrontation a fool’s errand. No, as much as Arminius would like to wait and secure the involvement of more tribes to boost his numbers and strengthen his position, he didn’t have the time to spare. It was now or never.

For any insurgency to succeed, the first order of business was dealing with Publius Quinctilius Varus and his three legions. But how? Rome’s rise to dominance over the last three centuries might have been indirectly the result of many things: their system of government, charismatic and skillful leaders, the Roman people’s tenacious, stubborn nature. But there was only one entity directly responsible for Roman supremacy: the Roman legion. 

Map depicting the locations of all the legion headquarters in the Roman Empire in 14 AD

The Roman legion was in many respects a revolutionary battle formation. The legionnaire was the first soldier in world history who was both part of a larger unit but also possessed the ability to fight as an individual with his own initiative, as is today the model throughout the armies of the world. The other renowned formations of antiquity: the Greek phalanx and its slightly altered Macedonian cousin, were different in this regard. In a phalanx an individual hoplite or phalangite was both not allowed to act on his own and largely incapable of doing so. The strength of the phalanx was in the fearsome array of long spearpoints it presented to enemies, and as such depended on all of the individuals within the unit performing more or less the same function: point the poky end at the bad guys.

The legion was a completely different beast from the phalanx. Most obviously, the legions’ primary weapon was not the spear, but the sword, or as the Romans called it, the gladius. Thus, the legions power did not come from its ability to keep enemies at a distance, as the phalanxes of Greece did. The gladius was the Roman weapon of choice, but the real hero was the scutum, aka the shield. Beginning as a typical oval shield popular amongst the peoples of Italy, the scutum’s size and shape had evolved over time as Rome had adapted to other fighting styles and environments and learned from its failures. By the first century BC, the scutum had become what is popularly depicted in modern reproductions, a large, semi-cylindrical, rectangular shield. The shield was three to three and a half feet in height and two to two and a half feet in width. Its semi-cylindrical build meant that the shield was not flat, but rather tapered back and inward at the edges. In combat this allowed a Roman soldier to put a good portion of his body almost inside the shield itself. The Roman soldier’s scutum in combination with his accompanying lorica hamata body armor made him the most protected soldier in antiquity. 

The type of combat that Roman legions engaged in and excelled at was not the type of glorified, dramatic, individual combat we see in films like Gladiator; rather, legionnaires were taught to be cold, efficient and safe in how they dispatched their enemies. Every legionnaire was given one to two throwing spears called pila. These weapons were rarely if ever used in melee combat, instead they would be thrown prior to the melee engagement as a missile weapon. Once having thrown his pila, a legionnaire would walk into the fray with his shield always in front of his body and his gladius at the ready. The legion fanned out during combat so that each individual was given about 5 feet or so of his own personal fighting space. This is the most important distinction between a Roman legionnaire from a Greek hoplite or Macedonian phalangite. Greek style phalanx formations were densely packed formations that afforded no room for individuals to maneuver independently of the unit. Roman legionnaires, while fighting within the context of their unit, had their own individual area of responsibility. The Roman legionnaires needed this space to act and maneuver, in order to employ his short-range weapons to their maximum potential. Once coming to grips with his opponent, the legionnaire maneuvered and prodded looking for a weak spot in his opponent's defense. 

In the melee, the heavy scutum shield was invaluable, not only did the shield guard from most angles of attack, the scutum could also be used offensively. A shield-bash forward thrust could stagger opponents and leave them off balance. As he used his scutum to gain an advantage over his opponent, the legionnaire’s gladius came into play. The gladius was rarely used as a hacking or slicing weapon. The Roman legionnaire was no fencing or swordplay master. The gladius was primarily used for one thing: stabbing. Once the legionnaire maneuvered himself into position, he would quickly thrust his gladius forward and then, just as quickly, pull back. In melee combat it is always at the exact moment of attack that a combatant is the most exposed, as they are lunging forward and their body is extended toward the enemy. The Roman legionnaire’s fighting style was entirely premised around the idea of eliminating this risk by only making small and controlled offensive motions, so that the enemy had little to no opportunity to retaliate. It had taken Rome hundreds of years, and many battles lost and won to develop and hone this fighting style, but once its impurities had been burnt off, what remained was a fearsome and consistent art of killing. The legion’s fighting style was not a fanatical or glorious one, but a cold and dispassionate science of murder.

That was what Arminius was up against, and he knew it. However, the Germanic tribesmen themselves were no slouches when it came to warfare. The Germanic style of warfare was completely and totally opposite of Roman warfare. When reading Roman historians’ descriptions of Germanic tactics, the frustration and annoyance practically jumps off the page. The Romans were no fans of how the German tribes fought, but that was mostly because they understood very little of it. Germanic armies rarely faced off in open, set piece battles. Smaller skirmishes and ambushes were much more common and featured more prominently in Germanic warfare. This style of warfare was in part a product of their environment. The bogs, marshes and forests of Germania created unique tactical opportunities that lent themselves to sharp and short encounters. 

The basic unit of strength in Germanic warfare was the warband, a unit led by the tribes’ chief or elected war-time leader and filled with mostly younger, single men of fighting age from that tribe. Warbands varied in size significantly but were usually around fifteen hundred to three thousand men. Warbands could split up into smaller units, and it seems that most of the time the divisions were based on blood. In other words, families within a tribe formed their own military units. This made Germanic warfare an inherently personal and emotional experience. The typical German warrior would be fighting alongside his father, brothers and cousins. Defeat could lead to the extinguishing of an entire family line. Yet these familial bonds did more than just raise the stakes, they also fostered a strong cohesiveness to the unit and laid a foundation of mutual trust, loyalty and accountability that could only be found through their mutually shared history.

The warbands fought in tight formations, and primarily consisted of infantry. Though missile troops and cavalry were present in Germanic armies, until the third century AD, the decisive arm on the battlefield were their foot soldiers. Germanic infantry rarely had much in the way of protection. Only nobles and wealthy commoners could afford even partial body armor. While this lack of armor significantly affected their staying power in a protracted engagement, it also made Germanic troops light and flexible, able to traverse and take advantage of Germania’s unique terrain. Unlike the Roman legionnaire, the average Germanic warrior was more focused on offense than defense. Many Germanic weapons, like longswords and battle axes, were two-handed, completely throwing caution to the wind to maximize offensive potential. The Germans also used a significant amount of blunt force weapons, like maces, clubs and hammers, but the bread and butter of the Germanic weaponry was the spear and javelin. The Germanic spear was a moderate weapon around six feet long. At this length it didn’t have quite the same range as a Macedonian sarissa or a Greek pike, but what it lacked in area of influence it made up for in flexibility and was much better suited to individual combat. Most Germanic warriors also carried several javelins, lighter spears with smaller heads, that were used for throwing. This was the main missile weapon employed by the Germans. Slings were the next most popular missile delivery system, and while some peoples were renowned for their skill with the sling, like the Balearic islanders, the Germans seemed to take to the device more out of reluctance than zeal and the results spoke for themselves.

Overall Germanic soldiers were light and flexible, able to maneuver and utilize their lands’ terrain to their advantage. Their organization was limited and after initial, broad orders were given and carried out most of them fought as individuals. Their style of warfare was typified by brief bursts of tremendous violence, preceded and followed by maneuver to attain and maintain tactical advantages.

To have any chance of defeating Varus’ legions Arminius had to fight a battle that was quick and decisive. Any drawn out slugfest with the Roman legions would be like asking to go nine rounds with Floyd Mayweather. With this in mind, Arminius began to devise an ambush. The important question was: where? 

Until 1987 the site of Arminius’ ambush was unknown. For centuries archaeologists, historians and other interested parties searched and searched for clues as to where one of the most influential armed encounters of world history took place, to no avail. Then in July of 1987, Tony Clunn, a British army officer stationed in Germany, whose passion was ancient coins, contacted local German researchers and began a determined search to assist them in tracking down the location of the long-lost battle. Dr. Wolfgang Schlute pointed him in the direction of hills north of the military base he was stationed at as a site worth investigating. 

Over the course of several months in 1987 it became obvious that indeed, the area was a treasure trove for Roman artifacts. That did not necessarily mean that this was the site of Arminius’ ambush, hundreds of other sites had been excavated in Germany that also had contained impressive collections of Roman accouterments. But then in 1988, a discovery was made that completely changed the nature of the excavation. Three lead balls, the size and shape of small eggs were unearthed. To the average citizen these looked like nothing more than old lumps of metal, but Dr. Schlute recognized them immediately. These were sling stones. Other discoveries of a military character soon confirmed the unimaginable: after nearly two thousand years of searching, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest had been found.

Arminius had selected the site of his ambush well. The site is bounded on the south by the 350-foot high Kalkriese Hill, a northward extension of the Wiehengebirge range, and on the north by damp, low-lying lands that include a large bog complex known as the Great Bog. The largest concentration of archaeological finds so far has been along the southern edge of the hourglass-shaped parcel of land about half a mile wide at its narrowest between the hill and the bog. The brooks that flow northward down the slope of the Kalkriese Hill and across the low-lying land into the Great Bog create narrow, often deep valleys that made passage difficult before modern landscaping. Today the pass is easy to traverse, but in 9 AD only the southern and northern edges were solid ground, all else was sodden and uncertain footing at best. Perhaps the most surprising of the archaeological discoveries was found when excavators unearthed the remains of a two thousand foot long, five foot high, fifteen feet wide wall of sod that ran along the base of Kalkriese Hill.

Kalkriese Hill today

The surprising presence of this wall suggests that the ambush at this exact location had been planned for weeks if not months, for it would have taken significant amounts of time to construct earthworks of this magnitude. The wall had been placed along one of the two sandbanks that provided somewhat dryer ground than the rest of the valley. The wall had probably been disguised by the Germans with leaves, branches and other natural matter to appear as if it was just another terrain feature. This wall afforded the ambushers protection and concealment. Importantly, the wall also diminished the available space the Romans would be able to fight in. To guarantee that the Romans would be forced to walk right by their newly constructed wall, Arminius ordered his men to dig up the track that ran on the northern edge of the valley. As the elevation of the path was decreased by the tribesmen’s labor, the bog swallowed it up, until it would appear to the Romans as untraversable as the rest.

Setting up the place of an ambush is only half the work of a successful ambush. The other half, and arguably the more difficult half, is getting the ones you want to ambush to the sight that you have prepared without them being aware. Even in modern war that has proven difficult. Most famously in 1941, during Operation Crusader, the British hid two armored divisions near an oasis to ambush armored units of Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Months of planning and mass deception had led up to this moment. The British counterintelligence scheme had been so thorough they were quite certain that Rommel had no indication of their armored units' presence in the area. In fact, the British were completely right, they had outfoxed the Desert Fox. Rommel had no idea the British were in the area and so he never ordered units to take an empty oasis. In a hilarious turn of events, the British had set up the perfect ambush without giving their enemy any reason to walk into their trap. 

We do not know exactly how or why the legions walked right into the trap. Modern scholarship believes that this path had been chosen by Varus as a route back to his camp after his summer campaigns. Tacitus states that Arminius told Varus that a revolt had started at a place which, if Varus wanted to put an end to it, would make him seek passage through the valley. Regardless, what is certain is that the German tribes had a distinct advantage over many other ambushes they had attempted over the years. This time they had an inside man. This time they had one of Varus’ closest advisors manipulating his decisions and feeding them information.

The whole plot almost unraveled before it began. Segestes, the German loyal to Rome who had become suspicious of Arminius, was certain something serious was afoot and told Varus directly that he suspected Arminius to be a traitor. Segestes wisely advised Varus to arrest himself, Arminius and all the other chiefs, so that even if he didn’t believe him, whatever they were plotting would not be carried out without the presence of the tribal leaders. We can only imagine the tremendous tension in the moment as Segestes watched Varus considering his words. For a few minutes all hung in the balance. Yet, after his desperate pleading, Segestes’ words fell on deaf ears. Varus dismissed him. After Segestes left, Varus wrapped himself in a bearskin and sat by the fire, to shield his body from the cold September night. It would be the last night of his life.

The next morning at 5:00 AM horns blared, signaling the beginning of the day for the XVII, XVIII, XIX (Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth) Legions. After a short breakfast, the legionaries packed up the camp, formed in columns and began the day’s march. Legionnaires were not the only occupants of these columns. There were supply wagons and quartermasters, surveyors and administrators, a whole range of non-combatants accompanied legions on the march unless the legions were in hostile territory, in which case the fat was trimmed from the lean. Today Varus did not expect any hiccups and so they came along as well.

Roman doctrine stipulated that on the march, auxiliary cavalry units attached to each legion would scout ahead of the main column to warn of any danger or impassable terrain ahead. Perhaps Arminius paid these men off, or perhaps these auxiliaries were native Germans who were also in on the plot. Either way, they did not find or report the trap that lay ahead in the valley. The Romans continued on. Sometime before the legions entered the valley, Arminius stole away unnoticed from the Roman column, and took up his position with the ambushers. Everything was set.

The Roman column of three legions was around 20,000 strong and stretched over two and a half miles on the march as it entered the valley. Arminius’s force probably numbered a similar but slightly smaller number of men, probably between sixteen to eighteen thousand. The largest portion of this force was behind the wall, some being designated to hurl spears, and others to charge into the fray when the Romans were disoriented. Smaller contingents were placed in wooded areas to the east and west of the wall to cut off both the entrance and exit once the killing began.

The Romans slowly trudged into the valley. Then the vanguard suddenly stopped, there was a fork in the road. It did not take long for the advance troops to realize that the path that veered off to the right became inundated not long after entering the valley, unbeknownst to them, the fruit of the ambushers' labor. The path to the left was chosen and the legions continued on. As the Romans neared the wall, the sound of their sandals on the moist valley floor created a rhythm of wet, squeezing noises, becoming louder as the legionnaires got closer. 

The next five to ten minutes were ones of nearly explosive tension for the ambushers. They had been ordered to wait until the signal to attack was given, and so they waited and waited. The anticipation must have been immense as the German tribesmen could hear, and at points, see the Romans on the opposite side of the well. Still, they lay in wait. Arminius himself was watching the scene from above his men stationed at the wall, at a higher vantage point further up the hill. Arminius wanted as many Romans as possible funneled into the narrow path in the valley before he gave the signal.

Suddenly, the Romans heard a horn cry out in the distance. All hell broke loose. First a volley of javelins fell from the sky, and then again and again. A person with experience can throw a javelin with some accuracy every four seconds. Doing some calculations, there were probably at least four to five thousand javelin throwers behind the wall, and their targets were packed together in a mass on a narrow track. Accuracy was not a concern. It is therefore entirely possible that in thirty seconds some twenty to thirty thousand javelins fell on the Varus’ men.

In formation, with their large scuta arrayed in front of their bodies the chance of a javelin doing any serious damage was minimal. The problem was the Romans were not in formation and their shields were not being utilized. Even with their lorica hamata armor, the barrage was devastating.

Screams and cries erupted from end to end of the Roman column. Several hundred were killed instantly in the first volley. Those that weren’t dead looked around in panic to ascertain the direction of the attack, but no enemies could be seen. Legionnaires looked to their comrades for comfort and confidence, but most wore the same shocked faces they themselves bore. Another volley of javelins fell on them, and another. Thousands lay dead or dying, and many were wounded. It was not until a few observant Romans noticed javelins shooting up from behind the long mound of dirt, that the Romans figured out the direction the attack was coming from.

The initial shock and panic that had almost rendered the legionnaires senseless was slightly wearing off. The surviving centurions and other officers began to bark orders, and some small efforts were being made to adjust positions and stir up some confidence in the men.

Just as the Romans were recovering from the aerial assault a mass of Germans appeared on the wall. It must have been an intimidating sight. From end to end of the wall thousands of Germanic tribesmen yelled, screamed and in a collective surge, fell upon the hapless Romans. The first killed in the melee were probably the most able Romans, the centurions, officers and other confident ones who had extricated themselves from the masses to lead the others to the wall. Within seconds the slight calm and confidence the leaders had restored was wiped out. The legions devolved into chaos. 

Some had begun to flee before the second volley had hit the ranks. The majority of those who broke ranks and fled probably headed to the north, in the opposite direction of the wall. Here, their movement became more and more laborious. These legionnaires were wading deeper and deeper into the Great Bog. A minority made it to the other side where they were captured or dispatched by a detachment of men Arminius had stationed there. The majority, weighed down by some eighty pounds of equipment and armor, would have simply sunk into the murky depths or expired out of exhaustion. 

Those that remained did not fare much better. The narrow track the Romans had marched on was now littered with bodies and blood, making cohesive group maneuvers impossible. The Romans were packed like sardines along the edge of the path, making it hard for many legionnaires to even reposition their scuta. Many died without putting up much of a fight. 

Modern studies on the psychology of warfare have confirmed that once a military group experiences cataclysmic losses a sort of sheep-like acceptance of death sets in. This has been found to be true of even modern elite units like SAS or SEAL teams. These Romans were no SEALs. After the Germans' charge wiped out a good portion of the command structure and experienced legionnaires, many of those that remained reached a catatonic state. Only death freed them from it.

It was all over in less than ten minutes. The destruction was total. Along some two and a quarter mile of track almost the entirety of three legions lay dead or captured. Seeing the totality of his defeat, Publius Quinctilius Varus joined his men and his father and took his own life.

The ambush, which became known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, was one of the greatest defeats in the history of Rome. Nearly twenty thousand Romans had ceased to exist in the amount of time a good, long shower could take. To put this into perspective, more Romans died in this ambush on a hillside in the forests of Germany, than the number of Americans that died from combat related deaths in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, Pearl Harbor, and D-Day combined.

Upon hearing of the disaster, Emperor Augustus, a stoic man not known for outbursts, was said to have yelled, “Quintili Vare, legiones redde!”  “Varus, give me back my legions!” In the wake of the disaster, the numbers of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Legions were retired. Never again was a Roman legion to be given those numbers.

Arminius and the Germanic peoples triumphed over the Romans on that September day in 9 AD. Arminius would go on to fight the Romans for another decade, but the damage had already been done. Later Roman campaigns in Germania were only retaliatory in nature; to show the German tribes they wouldn’t take a punch without punching back. Not once after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest did Rome attempt to subdue the territories across the Rhine. Arminius had exacted a terrible price that Rome wasn’t willing to risk paying again. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the battle that stopped Rome.

What if…..Arminius had waited longer before ambushing Varus?

Arminius would have been able to attract more men to his cause and assemble a more powerful fighting force. However, the actions of Segestes lead us to the conclusion that his days in the Roman camp were numbered, and also his ability to influence and be trusted by Varus. Outside the camp, legions from the Illyrian campaign would have returned, making any plan, regardless of execution, unfeasible.

The Hinge Factor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the advisor to the soon to be dead: Arminius. Only with his intimate knowledge of Varus’ plans was such a perfectly executed ambush possible. The Germans had tried similar schemes before. The only resounding success they had was in the Teutoburg Forest, and that victory would change history forever.