In 2009 Germany commemorated the bimillennial anniversary of a momentous event from its ancient history, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This terrible Roman defeat saw the complete annihilation of the XVII, XVIII and XIX legions, ranking amongst Rome’s worst military disasters. Some sixteen to twenty thousand Roman soldiers perished in the Teutoburg Forest, a figure unmatched since Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE.
There has been no shortage of books, films and tv series purporting to offer accurate accounts of what happened in the dense forests of Kalkriese-Niewedder Senke over 2000 years ago. Yet it is arguably the mythical aspect of Teutoburg that holds the most resonance. With the discoveries of Tacitus’ Germania towards the end of the fifteenth century and Annals at the dawn of the sixteenth century – and the contemporaneous rise of German nationalism in opposition to the encroaching Papal State – Teutoburg took on a new meaning.
The best embodiment of this was the figure of Herman the German, a post-reformation name for the Cheruscan prince and Roman turncoat Arminius – perhaps coined by Martin Luther, and widely endorsed by German nationalistic propaganda, and a figure whose statue rises above the Teutoburg Forest, southwest of Detmold, Germany.
Teutoburg enters the modern age as an immensely loaded metaphor. It stands as a warning against imperialism (utilised in the context of American incursions into Iraq) and as a symbol of hubris. But if this is how we interpret Teutoburg today, that is only because these are themes that Roman responses enabled to be drawn from the defeat. Arminius’ centrality to German nationalism was facilitated only by his powerful portrayal in Tacitus, just as any discussion over Teutoburg’s imperial significance is made possible only by Roman commentators who sought to locate Teutoburg within the broader context of Augustan foreign policy.
This article departs from most historical works, which explain Varus’ defeat solely in the context of Augustan imperialism. It does not offer any new theories concerning the battle itself – where it took place or how it unfolded, but instead considers how the Teutoburg disaster was received and reinterpreted by Roman society. Under the leadership of the turncoat Arminius, barbarians whose fortunes had depended on Rome’s dispensation of mercy, had claimed the most brutal victory over the flower of the Roman army, shattering the securitas of the Roman people, to whom empire without limits (imperium sine fine) had been divinely ordained.
How the Romans came to terms with this defeat, and the lasting impact of this dramatic role reversal, form the main questions this article addresses. I believe that, although Teutoburg followed similar patterns to other military defeats in how it was received and rationalised, the new political system of the Principate demanded the exaggeration of certain elements, not least the scapegoating of the defeated general. I also believe that the defeat led to a shrewd political drive to create a culturally convenient myth capable of exonerating the principes from responsibility, and of lending credence to an emperor’s imperial programme.
It is in 9 CE in the immediate aftermath of Varus’ defeat that we begin.
I. Rome Reacts to News of the Defeat.
News of Varus’ defeat would have slowly spread throughout the capital. We know that by the time Tiberius returned from his campaign against the Illyrians the entire state was in mourning, compelling Tiberius to defer his triumph. The exact form this mourning took is, unfortunately, lost to time. On an individual level, we might guess that the usual customs applied: those in mourning would show their grief through an ostentatious display of the opposite: wearing dark rather than light attire, displaying a dishevelled rather than ordered appearance, and vocally expressing their emotions rather than showing restraint.
However, two references appear in the history of Cassius Dio which offer some insight into how mourning was conducted on a collective level. Not only did news of the defeat prevent the Romans from holding celebratory festivals for the Illyrian victory; it also prevented business from being carried out as usual (56.24.1).
The significance of this is perhaps made clearer by Macrobius’ Saturnalia – a text that reveals the extent to which military affairs were inextricably linked to the calendar. In his discussion of black days (atri dies), Macrobius lists, amongst others, the fourth day before the Nones of Sectilis as one of the dies nefasti, on which neither war could be declared, ceremonies take place, nor assemblies gather (1.16.25). Macrobius’ explanation is that this day marked the anniversary of Crassus’ defeat at Cannae, citing in support the fifth Book of Quintus Claudius’ Annals (1.16.26).
The ritualistic importance of these dies nefasti cannot be overstated. They serve as what anthropologists term mnemonic practices: participants repeat and reenact past events in a ritual that is institutionalised and implemented annually in accordance with the calendar. In the case of Crassus’ defeat at Cannae, the universal mourning and cessation of festivals described by Livy (22.56) finds continuity in the social restrictions enforced on inauspicious days (atri dies) outlined by Macrobius. It is in this context that we might explain Cassius Dio’s description of responses to Rome’s defeat at Teutoburg, with the interruption of festivals and public business finding a precedent in long-established cultural practices of mourning stretching back to the mid-Republic.
However, there is no evidence that Teutoburg was entered into the calendars as one of the dies nefasti. Veit Rosenberger has noted Teutoburg’s conspicuous absence from the calendars of the Augustan age, explaining its exclusion on the grounds that it was still too soon, and the wound was still raw: “only defeats from a distant past were remembered – they did not hurt anymore.”
The problem with this, however, is that Suetonius tells us that Augustus commemorated the day of the disaster annually:
Such was his distress, we are told, that he let the hair of his head and beard grow for several months, and would knock his head against the door-post, crying out, “Quintilius Varus! Give me back my legions!” And ever after he observed the anniversary of this calamity, as a day of sorrow and mourning.
(Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 23.1)
Adeo denique consternatum ferunt, ut per continuos menses barba capilloque summisso caput interdum foribus illideret vociferans: "Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" diemque cladis quotannis maestum habuerit ac lugubrem.
What this passage suggests is that Augustus, while choosing to mourn the disaster personally, decided not to enter it into the official records: in essence, not to monumentalise it. Such a response should come as no surprise. Augustus had been assiduous in fashioning for himself a public image that was at odds with his ad hoc foreign policy. At every opportunity, Augustus would present interactions with foreign powers as military triumphs. Most famously the Parthian episode, a diplomatic mission undertaken by Tiberius to retrieve the Roman standards lost at Carrhae, was promoted on monuments and coinage as a military success.
However, along with Marcus Lollius’ humiliating defeat in 17/16 BCE, Teutoburg threatened to both undermine this carefully constructed image and to expose the artificiality of the pax Romana (the Roman peace), promoted so ardently throughout his Principate not only in literature but also by his closing of the doors of Janus’ temple and dedication of the Altar of Peace in Rome. Circumventing the defeat by expunging it from his monumental legacy would leave his personal image most untarnished for posterity.
The Romans’ initial responses viewed the defeat at Teutoburg in the broader context of Roman imperialism. According to Dio (our only synoptic source for the disaster’s fallout), Augustus immediately attempted to galvanize the Roman populace for war, expecting an imminent invasion from a confederacy of German and Gallic tribes (56.23.1).
The practical consequences of Varus’ defeat were indeed distressing. Three legions were not easily replaced, and Augustus struggled to raise the levies necessary to bolster the existing legions for future service. Once the hysteria had passed, however, and Rome’s imminent destruction appeared less likely, Augustus had time to reflect on the religious implications of the disaster: “For”, as Dio relates, “a catastrophe so great and sudden as this, it seemed to him, could have been due to nothing else than the wrath of some divinity” (56.24.2).
II. The Teutoburg Diaster as an Act of Divine Retribution
Dio then goes on to list various omens and portents accompanying the disaster (56.24.2-5). We may wish to interpret this as a retrospective literary device, or we could consider the political implications of explaining the disaster in terms of celestial discontentment – a rupture of the divine order. Indeed, according to Peter Swan, by invoking the gods, “Dio manages to absolve Augustus of responsibility… the burden of human guilt fell on Varus.”
Something about this seems off, however. Dio could have shown far more hostility towards Varus than he does. Indeed, as the contemporary writer Manilius shows (1.896-903), immediate responses of this kind did occur at the time, therefore reflecting something of the cognitive apparatus available to the Romans in rationalising such events.
III. Exacting Vengeance for the Teutoburg Diaster
Understanding Rome’s defeat at Teutoburg as an act of divine retribution could certainly help the Romans come to terms with the disaster, but it did nothing to restore order. Hence the need for revenge, justifiably exercised, so Cicero asserts, “to live at peace without injustice” (De Off. 1.35).
Revenge features among those primordial human instincts that transcend time and space. It forms an elemental part of the fait social total discussed by Marcel Mauss; a commodity perpetually engaged in reciprocal and competitive exchange. In the Greek tradition, the theme of revenge manifested itself centrally in the Iliad, concluded the Odyssey, and provided Aeschylus with a structural framework for his Oresteia.
Its locus in Roman culture was just as central, and in the context of a military defeat the prospect of revenge served the particularly important purpose of momentarily transcending the processing of defeat into a stage of liminality, in which the anticipation of future victory mollified the collective sense of loss and despair. Just as vengeance against the Parthians became a prominent motif in Augustan literature after Carrhae, with particular images – namely Crassus’ unburied body, and the lost eagles – being widely recycled, we find the theme of revenge occupying prime position in responses to the defeat at Teutoburg.
A contemporary of the disaster, Velleius Paterculus (2.120.1-2), concludes his narrative of the battle with a description of Tiberius’ punitive, gung-ho, and disproportionately destructive chevauchée against the Germans in 10-12 CE. Tacitus (Ann. 1.36) writes that Germanicus’ campaign (14-16 CE) was undertaken “to erase the disgrace for the army lost with Quinctilius Varus.” Most importantly, however, Rome’s revenge had to be public, spectacular and reciprocally bloody.
On the authority of contemporary senatorial authors, Tacitus (Ann. 2.88) informs us that the Chattan chief Adgandestrius sent a letter to the senate, offering to have Arminius poisoned. Tiberius responded that it was not by deception (non fraude) but openly (palam) and in battle (armatum) that the Roman people exacted revenge on her enemies. Poisoning was insidious. It could be covered up, even confused with another cause, essentially unsuitable for purpose.
Another visible way in which revenge manifested itself was through the spectacle of the Roman Triumph. Strabo provides us with details of Germanicus’ triumph (17 CE), for which an arch was dedicated near the Temple of Saturn “on account of the standards lost by Varus”. Occupying center stage in Germanicus’ triumph was Thusnelda, Arminius’ wife, and her three-year-old son Thumelicus. Germanicus’ avenging of Varus’ defeat was also advertised on a public inscription dedicated posthumously. Lines 13-15 of the Tabula Siarensis read:
“To the eternal memory of Germanicus Caesar, who, with those Germans defeated in war, [afterwards] driven back from Gaul, and the military standards recovered, and the treacherous disaster of the Roman army avenged [the Roman people]…”
casse memoriae Germanici Caesaris, cum {i}is Germanis bello supe[ratis][deinceps] a Gallia summotis receptisque signis militaribus et uindicata frau[dulenta clade] exercitus p(opuli) R(omani)…
As well as monumentalising Germanicus’ punitive campaign, this text also touches upon another significant aspect of the Roman myth of Teutoburg. Revenge alone was not enough. An explanation was still needed as to how the Roman army, at the height of its power (florentissimum imperium) and undefeated in war (bello non victus) could have suffered such a defeat. Thus, the much-emphasised theme of deception came into play.
IV. Claiming a Moral Victory
The deception motif was not innovative. We may look to Dio (40.26.1-3) for an example of how a defeated general – in this case, Crassus – could be acquitted on the grounds of his ignorance. Likewise, in the literature of Teutoburg much noise was made about how the Cherusci, an allied people (gens foederata) had broken their treaty with Varus. Strabo (7.291), writing four or five years after the disaster, bemoans the treaty violation (παρασπονδήσει), as Manilius (1.898) does the foedere rupto.
Velleius (2.118.1) styles the Germans “a race born to mendacity” (natumque mendacio genus) and even Tacitus (Ann. 1.58.2), who elsewhere displays his supposed admiration for Arminius, styles him the “violator of treaties” violatorem foderis vestri. Writing treachery into Germanic characterisations not only enabled rationalisation. It afforded Rome a moral victory.
V. “Quinctilius Varus! Give Me Back My Legions!”
Aside from Augustus’ vocative reproach to Varus’ shade, we find no trace of hostility on the emperor’s part. On the contrary, upon the return of Varus’ head by the Germanic king Maroboduus, Augustus had it honourably interred (honoratum est) in his family’s mausoleum.
This should come as no surprise. Although not of the most aristocratic pedigree, Varus was closely bound to the imperial family through a series of matrimonial ties, as shown by Ronald Syme in his seminal prosopographical work, The Augustan Aristocracy. Furthermore, from the limited evidence we possess, there was much to commend Varus to Augustus’ regime. As governor of Syria, he had proved his mettle, with his suppression of a Palestinian insurrection distinguishing him as pragmatic, strategic, and capable of using his own discretion. Yet this aspect of Varus’ character has been overlooked.
In passing the verdict of incompetency, many scholars are all too willing to lend credence either to the characterisation of Varus we find in Velleius’ work (2.118.2) from the reign of Tiberius, or to the testimony of Segestes, Arminius’ father-in-law and rival, as presented in Tacitus (Ann. 1.58.2). Methodologically this is problematic. Out of political expediency or personal animosity, neither party was likely to eulogise Varus. Ultimately, incompetency is a charge that should not be brought against Varus. He was instead, in Syme’s assessment, unfortunate.
It was only during Tiberius’ reign that Varus was scapegoated, receiving personal culpability on account of his ineptitude. Velleius, who had served under Tiberius and probably knew Varus personally, was the first to condemn him to ‘everlasting obloquy’. Given the hagiographic nature of his work, Velleius was hardly likely to suggest any form of culpability on Tiberius’ part though problematically, both Tiberius and Augustus had politically endorsed Varus. Indeed, Velleius’ eagerness to appease the emperor comes through clearly in his work, with his criticism of Varus’ defects as commander (2.120.5) being echoed in similar terms to Tiberius’ sober assessment as given in Suetonius (Tib. 17): “The Varian disaster occurred due to the recklessness and negligence of the commander.” (varianam cladem temeritate et neglegentia ducis accidisse).
Yet it is not just Varus’ negligence that receives attention. His avariciousness is also held accountable: an evaluation which, from its application also to Crassus and Lollius, seems to fit more into a pattern of post facto invective than accurate biography. Varus’ name was blackened by 30 CE at the latest – the year in which Velleius’ history was dedicated – with Dieter Timpe suggesting that Velleius’ portrayal of Varus would have been possible only after his wife and son fell from grace, tried by Tiberius in 26 and 27 on charges of maiestas.
This seems correct. In his controversiae Seneca records Cestius’ reproach to Varus’ son (ista neglegentia pater tuus exercitum perdidit) was ill received (improvabimus) (1.3.10). Universal hostility, it seems, had not yet taken root.
Of course, Velleius also inveighs against Arminius, though interestingly not as vituperatively as he does against Varus. Arminius’ perfidy is described as being opportunistic, capitalising on Varus’ indolence and arrogance (2.118.2). Nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in Velleius syntactical expression of factors leading to Varus’ defeat: Arminius’ perfidia is confined, hidden, between the negligence of the general (marcore ducis) and the unkindness of fortune (inquitate fortunae) (2.119.2). Presumably, Arminius was too sensitive a subject, his services to Rome prior to his defection still very much a raw wound.
The only redemptive quality afforded to Varus was that he died well, at least superficially, following the example of his father and grandfather. Yet even descriptions of Varus’ death are not accompanied by the virtuous qualities one might expect. While Cicero’s exemplary Epaminondas’ died with a calm mind and honour (Ad. Fam. 5.12.5) Varus’ mind was suited plus ad moriendum quam ad pugnandum (more to dying than to fighting). In Teutoburg’s historiography, Varus by all accounts suffered an ignominious death.
It is around this time of Varus’ damnatio, (though a secure date cannot be established), that we learn from Dio of a curious stipulation concerning the ransoming of Teutoburg’s captives:
“And after this, some of those who had been captured were brought back, ransomed by their relatives. For they were allowed to do this on the condition that they remain outside of Italy.”
Cassius Dio, Roman Histories, 56.22.4
καί τινες μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ τῶν ἑαλωκὸτων ἀνεκομίσθησαν, λυτρωθέντες ὑπὸ τῶν οἰκείων. ἐπετράπη γάρ σφισι τοῦτο ποιῆσαι ἐφ ᾧ τε ἒξω τῆς Ἰταλίας αὐτοὺς εἶναι.
The ransoming of prisoners of war was common enough, though they were apparently afforded little indulgence if the financial burden fell upon the state. Indeed, our evidence suggests that the highly militarised culture of Rome generally showed little sympathy for its captives. A man’s virtus presumably demanded that he fight on until the death. Nevertheless, in this instance, some, (though not all), of the defeated legionaries were ransomed by their families.
Of considerably more interest to us is the condition on which their ransom could be paid – that he should remain in exile, outside of Italy. Examining the captives in the context of the ius postliminii (the Right of Return), Vasile Lica argues that the condition that they not be allowed to enter Italy was judicially unjustified and that Tiberius’ motives for overseeing this legislation must therefore have been political.
This deserves more attention. Tiberius’ application of the ius postliminii to Varus’ men, as Lica suggests, does probably tie in with the general sullying of Varus’ image under Tiberius’ Principate. To not admit them back into Italy, however, requires an explanation. I would suggest that their reintegration into Roman society would have posed a threat to the ‘official’ line of what happened at Teutoburg. It was perhaps deemed safer to condemn Teutoburg’s captives to perpetual exile rather than allow them to share their own experience of the disaster. Eyewitness accounts may have posed a threat to the myth being propagated by Tiberius’ regime: a myth that consigned Varus to condemnation for his ineptitude, making him and him alone responsible for the defeat, and thus exculpating both the princeps and his predecessor. This stage of the myth, as we now turn to consider, is traceable in the naming of the disaster in Roman historiography.
VI. The Clades Variana – “Varus’ Disaster”
Up until now, I have refrained from referring to Varus’ defeat at the clades Variana. This is because I believe the act of naming an event such as this, of attaching to it a discernable label with connotations of culpability, is a highly charged act that inculcates prejudgment. The first instance in literature whereby Varus’ name appears in conjunction with the disaster (clades) is in Pliny the Elder (HN. 7.150). Our epigraphic evidence, however, predates this, with the term bello Variano (the Varian War) appearing on the tombstone of Marcus Caelius, erected by his brother most probably in the immediacy of the disaster and discovered in 1620 in modern-day Xanten in Wesel:
Marcus Caelius, son of Titus, of the Lemonian tribe, from Bononia, a senior centurion of the 18th Legion, aged 53, fell in the Varian War. It is permitted to bring his bones home. Publius Caelius, son of Titus, of the Lemonian tribe, his brother, made this.
M. Caelio T. f. Lem. Bon. | [I] o leg. XIIX ann. LIII s | [ce]cidit bello Variano. Ossa | [lib.i]nferre licebit. P. Caelius T.f. | Lem. Frater fecit.
The consensus has long been that bellum varianum to which this inscription refers would have been understood as meaning the Varian war. This was challenged in 1983 by Ute Schillinger-Häfele who rendered bello Variano as the Krieg der Germanen gegen Varus (the war against Varus). Schillinger-Häfele’s argument was based on research revealing that the Romans tended to name wars not after their commanders but after their enemies. (just think of the Jugurthine War in Numidia, the Boudican Revolt in Britain) or the places where they were fought.
What remains undisputable is that Varus’ name became associated with the battle and that any invocation of his name must have conjured up associations with it. I do not believe this to have come about through chance; after all, clades Teutobergiensis (the Teutoburg Disaster) would have fit with the practice of naming a battle after its location, or clades Germanica (the German disaster) if we adhere to Schillinger-Häfele’s model.
Instead, I view Caelius’ epitaph as a relic in the developmental stage of the Teutoburg myth – a stage at which blame was first laid explicitly at Varus’ feet. A comparison with the naming of previous battles is yet more illuminating. Crassus’ name never explicitly accompanies Carrhae, nor does L. Aemilius Paullus’ and G. Terentius Varro’s appear in connection to Cannae. Trasummenus, likewise, was styled by Livy a populi Romani clades (22.7). Yet from the establishment of the Principate we have the clades Lolliana, first named so in Tacitus (Ann. 1.10), and the clades Variana.
Did placing the blame with individual commanders protect the Romans – specifically supporters of Augustan imperialism – from collective responsibility? Or to put it more bluntly, was it more convenient? I would suggest that it was, but that it also goes further.
VII. Seize Not What You Cannot Consolidate
Tiberius was more of a defensive imperalist than Augustus, who had proved himself quite the expansionist Augustus. And it’s not far-fetched to suggest that may well have fabricated the provision found in Augustus’ will not to expand the territory of Rome (coercendi intra terminos imperii) to justify this.
Indeed, there is little to recommend this provision as a genuine relic of Augustan policy purely on the grounds that it contravenes all we know about the Augustan dream of Empire without limit (imperium sine fine), achievable, he believed, under the capable leadership of Tiberius and Germanicus. The provision instead smacks of Tiberian sentiment, given legitimacy by reference to the divine Augustus.
After all, as Tacitus reminds us regarding the invasion of Britain, “The divine Augustus called it a plan; Tiberius called it a command” (consilium id divus Augustus vocabat, Tiberius praeceptum. The provision not to expand the empire served the purpose not only of sanctifying Tiberius’ own policy of defensive imperialism but also of exonerating Augustus from responsibility, for to even hint at any blame on the part of Augustus for such a disaster as the clades Variana would have been entirely against Tiberius’ political interests as successor.
VIII. Who Was to Blame for the Defeat at the Teutoburg Forest?
Culpability for the clades Variana must ultimately lie with Varus’ superiors, Augustus and Tiberius. It was Augustus who had sanctioned imperial expansion into hostile territory, Augustus who had appointed men such as Varus whom he believed capable of administering his imperium, and Augustus who at great expense had invested in Rome’s ability to conciliate men like Arminius through integration and Romanization.
Fundamentally, it was he who undertook to manage all military affairs of state; accruing for himself the authority to wage wars (auspicium militae) and emphasising his supremacy in all victories, even those in which he did not directly partake. Augustus, the self-fashioned supreme imperator, had understood this. However, he also understood that amongst the triumphal imagery saturating the monuments of Rome, there was no place for defeat.
Old and broken by Varus’ defeat, Augustus mourned the disaster personally but drew no undue attention to it. But for Augustus’ successor, the situation was different. Unable to afford Varus’ shade the same honour that Augustus had afforded his mortal remains, Tiberius systematically blackened Varus’ image in synchronicity with the persecution of his kin. In doing this he not only exculpated himself and his predecessor from blame but could also call upon the clades Variana as a warning against imperial expansion under men of unsuitable ability.
Tiberian authors appear to have followed suit. Any other criticisms, not least of culpability involving the Principate, would have been too subversive. It was against this cultural and political backdrop, therefore, that the defeat at Teutoburg underwent a process of reification and mythologisation to become known to posterity as the clades Variana.
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