The Teutoberg Wald

In September of 9 CE, P. Quinctilius Varus, and his command of three Roman legions and a complimentary auiliary force, were annihilated in Germania by a tribal alliance headed by Arminius, a former Roman auxiliary officer. Though the Romans exacted a barbaric revenge in subsequent campaigns, the region between the Rine and the Elbe was rescued from becoming a province of the Empire.

Since the late 1980s, discoveries of Roman artifacts at Kalkriese Hill in Lower Saxony have revealed many poignant details of this battle. Roman coins, weapons, brooches and hairpins have been found, along with the skeleton of a mule. The mule had been wearing a bell that had been stuffed with grass, apparently to muffle the noise - a chilling hint at the adrenaline and horror surrounding this battle.

Arminius was a prince of the Cherusci, and was probably only in his 20s at the time of the battle. He succeeded in uniting not only his people, but their traditional enemies, the Marsi, the Chauci, the Bructeri and others to launch an ingenious ambush on the Roman governor's army. The Romans were slaughtered almost to a man; officers who were taken alive were sacrificed to Germanic gods, common legionaries were reduced to slavery. Varus himself committed suicide, but his body was discovered - his severed head and signet ring were sent to Rome via the allied chieftain Maroboduus.

The legionaries ambushed in the Teutoberg Wald reportedly showed much concern with rescuing their womenfolk; as a result, Augustus banned private soldiers from marrying, a ban that was to remain in place until the reign of Septimius Severus.

Fate was not kind to Arminius himself. The princely victor's bride, Thusnelda, was taken captive by the Romans and their son was forced to fight as a gladiator. Arminius was murdered by jealous tribesmen in 21 CE.

The posthumous legacy of Arminius, however, far outweights what we know about the man. Between the 16th and the 20th Centuries he was the subject of hundreds of German plays. Martin Luther christened him 'Hermann' and helped turn him into a German hero; he later occupied this role during such momentous times as the Franco-Prussian War and the zenith of the Third Reich.

Arminius is also glorified by the enormous statue known as the Hermannsdenkmal, which depicts the Germanic champion wearing a winged helmet, and holding his sword over the modern Teutoberg Wald.