Osprey's study of one of the most important battles of the long-elasting
Germanic Wars (113 BC - 439 AD). Arminius, a young member of the
Cheruscan tribe under the Roman Empire felt that Rome could be beaten in
battle and that such a victory would guarantee the freedom of the
Germans as a confederation of independent tribes, led by the Cheruscans,
who would - in turn - be led by him.
Throughout AD 8 and the early part of AD 9, Arminius used his position
under the governor of Germania Inferior well, ostensibly promoting Rome
whilst in reality welding the tribes together in an anti-Roman alliance,
agreeing with his confederates that they would wait until the Roman
garrison had moved to their summer quarters and then rise up against the
invaders. With the arrival of September, the time soon came for the
Roman troops to return to their stations along the Rhine and as they
marched westwards through the almost impenetrable Teutoburg Forest,
Arminius sprang his trap. In a series of running battles in the forest,
Varus' army, consisting of three Roman Legions (XVII, XVIII and XIX) and
several thousand auxiliaries - a total of roughly 20,000 men - was
destroyed.
The consequences for Rome were enormous - the province of Germania was
now virtually undefended and Gaul was open to a German invasion which
although it never materialized, led a traumatized Augustus to decree
that, henceforth, the Rhine would remain the demarcation line between
the Roman world and the German tribes, in addition to which the
destroyed legions were never re-formed or their numbers reused in the
Roman Army: after AD 9, the sequence of numbers would run from I to XVI
and then from XX onwards, it was as if the three legions had never
existed.
