The Ancients - Massacre at Teutoburg Forest

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

2000 years ago, in the year 9 AD, a Roman Army walked into a trap deep in wilds of Germania. Over 15,000 men were massacred at Teutoburg Forest, making it one of the bloodiest ambushes in history. But what happened next? Today's episode of the Ancients continues the terrifying story we began last week, as Tristan Hughes is joined by a host of leading experts to analyse the moves that played out on the battlefield, and the earth-shattering consequences that came after.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. 2,000 years ago, deep in the forests of Germany, a Roman army was walking into a trap, set by a man they thought was their friend. Three Roman legions had marched into the Teutoburg forest. More than 15,000 men strung out for miles along a narrow route, unprepared for battle and unaware of the danger that lurked between the trees. The stage was set for one of the most devastating ambushes in history.

It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and welcome to part two of our special mini-series on the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. In the previous episode we explored the build-up to this great clash, how the Romans brutally established a foothold in Germania over two decades. They're quite brutally reshaping the ethnographic map of Germany. The basic idea that Romans have is that they are the only properly civilized individuals on the planet, and the Roman vision of civilization is that the rational mind controls the irrational body. This is what barbarians are, they're people whose body controls the mind.

We explored how the Romans went from invasion to consolidation, visiting sites key to them creating the Roman province of Germania Magna east of the River Rhine. This fort would have required 25,000 oak trees to be felled just to build the palisade walls. And then inside the fort you have potter's workshops and blacksmiths forges and granaries and a medical hospital and all sorts of crafts and trades and industries that are gradually transforming the area in the wake of the Romans. And we introduced the two characters central to our story.

On one side, the Roman statesman and first governor of this newly created province, who was campaigning with an army of three legions in Germania in 9 AD. Publius Quintilius Varus. What I think, again, that he's trying to do is he's just trying to make the Roman presence more obvious and to promote it in further reaches of the German territories. And just maybe to get more alliances, more people aware of the benefits of Roman presence and maybe of the dangers of non-compliance with the Romans as well. A bit of carrot and stick.

And on the other side, we have Varus' scheming, supposed German ally Arminius, who was actually assembling a massive coalition of Germanic tribes to resist the Romans one last time. He's able to shape his advice to Varus in a way that's going to create maximum advantage for the tribal alliance that Arminius has managed to put together. So he gives Varus misleading advice as to where the threat lies and is able to push Varus to move his forces in precisely the direction that Arminius wants where the traps have been laid.

We ended the last episode with Varus's army entering this dense Teutoburg forest in early September 9 AD, unaware that Arminius had laid his deadly traps ahead for his former friend turned foe. Now we're going to explore the terrifying story of what happens next, one of the bloodiest ambushes in history. ambushes in history. The Teutoburg Forest is situated in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Today, much of this dense ancient forest has been cleared, either for agriculture, towns or road networks. But 2,000 years ago, this forest covered a huge area more than 1,000 kilometers squared. Much of it was located in the ancient lands of a people called the Cherusci,

the powerful Germanic tribe that Arminius belonged to. To tell the story of this forest's namesake ancient battle, we must turn to both the surviving archaeology and the literature. We'll explore the archaeology as we go on, so let's start with the literature. Our best source for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is a Roman historian called Cassius Dio. That is a bit of a problem. He's writing two centuries after the events. It's like someone today writing about the Battle of Waterloo. They would have to use earlier sources and surely Cassius Dio did the same. Some of the details of the battle are either obscure or embellished with stereotypical Roman ideas of the German countryside as this wet, windy, horrible place 24-7,

very different to their beloved Mediterranean climate. So we have to be cautious when reading Dio. Regardless of these issues, his account is the best one we have, and it's interesting how he states the battle began, not long after Varus and his army of 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers had entered the Teutoburg forest, one day in early September 9 AD. At that time, the Romans still believed that they were in friendly territory, on their way to crush a small revolt much further to the northwest. Little did they know that their supposed Cherusci ally Arminius, and the scouts he had provided them with, had walked them into a trap. The Roman column was being watched by hundreds of unfriendly Germans hidden within the trees. The facade that they were in friendly territory was about to be brutally ripped away.

Cassius Dio describes how the ambush began. The Germans came upon Varus in the midst of forests, by this time almost impenetrable. And there, at the very moment of revealing themselves as enemies instead of subjects, they wrought great and dire havoc. The mountains had an uneven surface broken by ravines, and the trees grew close together and very high. Hence the Romans, even before the enemy assailed them, were having a hard time. Stretched out for more than 10 kilometres along a narrow track, Varus's army had been struggling with this rugged landscape even before Arminius sprung his trap.

They were trying to slog through mature ancient woodland. It was autumn, it was raining, there were branches falling on their heads, there were tree roots, they were tripping over. It was really dense, unnavigable, difficult terrain for them. That's Dr Matthew Nicholls from St John's College, Oxford. He's here to paint a vivid picture of the chaos that erupted when the ambush began. But where it's hard is they're trying to move not just a few soldiers, but the entire baggage train of three legions. 15,000 to 20,000 men, wagon trains, carts drawn by beasts of burden, pack animals, women and children mixed

in with it. So they were trying to move thousands of people through terrain with no roads. They had to cut their own paths, fell the trees, skirt around forest pools, bridge over ravines and gullies. So they were moving very slowly through terrain that was physically hostile to them, topographically hostile and difficult. And what they didn't know was also they had enemies waiting in the woods around them. Unseen eyes had been following this unwieldy Roman column for days, waiting for the moment to attack. In early September, Arminius unleashed his first strike. A hail of missiles, spears and slingshot suddenly rained down on the unsuspecting Roman column before a horde of bloodthirsty Germanic warriors descended from the treeline,

attacking their foe from all directions. Oh, it'd be complete bedlam, I would have thought. Not least because legionaries rely on heavy infantry tactics and drill. They're almost unbeatable if they're in battle order and open ground. But here they're not in battle order and they're not in open ground. They're in little clumps and gatherings. They're preoccupied with trying to clear a road. Night's coming. They're cold. They're hungry.

And suddenly the tribesmen pop out the woods, pick off a few of them. Before they can muster themselves and get into order, they've gone again. They've got wounded to take care of now. And this is happening at multiple points up and down the line. It'd be very confusing. So the first attacks by the Germans, do you think that they're attacking at different parts of the line at the same time? Is that the idea?

That's how I would have done it. I suspect that's what we're reading in our sources, that the Germans can't muster 5,000 men like a legion, but they can get a few score or a few hundred together, hit one part of the line, inflict some damage and carnage, and run away before the Romans can regroup and chase them. And this is a thin column, so we're thinking this, once again, to repeat, this is miles long,

so some parts of the line, maybe even Varus himself, they wouldn't have any idea that this was happening. couldn't know i mean they can call to each other by trumpets but not over 12 miles of line so it would be runners moving up and down the line but then they're getting in the way of the pack animals and the troops and it's muddy and slow and all their stuff was waterlogged so very hard to communicate up and down that line i've also got to ask when they have these initial attacks why don don't the Romans then decide, let's turn around? Maybe we're not in friendly territory as we expect. Why don't we head back and then go back to the Lippa? Well, they should have done that. They should never have set out. Varus was warned. People told Varus, don't trust everyone around you. Maybe this Arminius is

not as friendly as you think he is. But he ignored those warnings. And once he'd struck his camp and set out, there was no back to go to. All of the permanent fortresses on the Lippa and the towns on the Rhine, they're that way. Behind you, there's just the camp you've just demolished and miles and miles of unfriendly territory. So it's hard to go back. Walking through this forest with Matthew today, it's hard to imagine how scary it must have been for Varus and his army some 2,000 years ago. Not just for the soldiers,

but also the women, the children, the slaves that were all in the baggage train with them. But these soldiers, they were the greatest of their age, described by the contemporary Roman writer Valleius Perturculus as making up the bravest of all armies. Discipline and training quickly kicked in, weapons ready to receive their ambushing foe. If they were to survive, they had to fight. Varus had in his army both heavy infantry and cavalry. At its heart were the legionaries, the professional Roman citizen soldiers equipped with heavy iron body armour, either newly introduced banded segmentata cuirasses or the long-used but effective chainmail. As for their weapons,

their primary melee weapon was a short stabbing sword called a gladius, designed to puncture flesh. But this sword could also be used as a slashing weapon if the need arose. Alongside the gladius, these soldiers also carried at least two iron-tipped javelins called pila, the singular being pilum, which could also be used as spears if required. Both the gladius and the pila were effective against heavily armoured opponents, but less ideal against their German enemies. Because the German attackers at Teutoburg were mostly lightly armoured, with their main defence usually being a simple shield. against their German enemies. Because the German attackers at Teutoburg were mostly lightly armoured, with their main defence usually being a simple shield.

Some of the wealthier attackers would have also had chainmail. Their main weapon was a light thrusting spear. These spears were good for causing gaping wounds in lightly armoured opponents. However, they weren't very ideal for puncturing armour, like the iron protection worn by Varus' troops. So in a funny way, both sides of this battle, well they had less than ideal weapons for the enemy that they were fighting. What Arminius and the Germanic forces under his control had on their side was surprise. Their carefully planned trap gave them the early advantage. But three heavily armed and battle-hardened legions would not give up easily.

Arminius' plan was to lure the Roman army deeper into the forest, towards another German rebellion, and whittle the legionaries away bit by bit. His men knew the terrain, and they planned to take full advantage with deadly hit and run tactics. All the Romans could do was press on. It's fascinating to think what went through the Roman commander Varus' mind when he heard news of these unexpected opening attacks. Did he suspect treachery was afoot? From his friend and ally Arminius, who was then supposedly gathering his Cherusci troops to aid him in the fight ahead. Fortunately, Dr Joe Ball, Varus's 21st century biographer, is on hand to give us an idea. When the ambush comes, it must have been an absolute shock to them and it must have been very difficult for Varus to gain his bearings and to decide what to sy'n sylweddol i'w ddweud ac mae'n rhaid bod yn anodd iawn i Varys

gael ei ddodd a penderfynu beth i'w wneud. Yn unig, mae'r hyfforddiad yr arweinyddol yn ymwneud â chyflwyno'n gyflym ac mae'n dechrau ymwneud â chyflwyno ordrefi i'w trwbwyr ac maen nhw'n dechrau eu sefydlu i geisio adeiladu'r ordref yr oeddent wedi'i ddim ar y march ac i geisio gwrthdaro'r hyfforddiad hwn fel y gallent. Felly maen nhw'n dechrau ceisio cynnal fformiad bwyd, maen nhw'n dechrau had been lacking on the march and to try and repel this ambush as best they could. So they start to try and adopt battle formation. They start to rearm themselves and start deciding what they're going to do in terms of pushing

forward and starting to build an overnight camp so that they can shelter. Now, whether Varys knew from the first moment that this was the plot of Arminius that he had been warned about a short time before, or whether he thought that this was something else, is difficult to say. None of the sources tell us whether Arminius was present in the first wave of attacks, or indeed if Varus was present or if it happened on a different part of the marching column. We don't know if Varus saw Arminius at this stage on the battlefield. It's entirely possible that Varus initially thought that this attack came from the rebelling Germans that he was traveling to go and engage with and

that they had potentially advanced into Cheruscan territory unknown themselves and that this was the attack that he was facing. But at some point, it becomes obvious to him that Arminius is behind this attack. But whether this happened at this early stage is impossible to say. We don't know how many Romans were killed in the initial attacks, but these opening German gambits, well, they were a sign of what was to come. Night soon descended on the forest. The Romans erected a fortified marching camp, a temporary fort protected by a ditch and rampart,

standard procedure for a Roman army in unknown territory. There Varus and his leading military commanders gathered, reflecting on the unexpected mayhem that had erupted earlier that day. The first night after the ambush begins, Boris and his army are probably in quite a good place, both psychologically and in terms of their feeling about their situation. Boris has successfully managed to keep the troops together. They haven't disintegrated into kind of a chaotic mob

that's just running in any direction to try and survive. He's kept them as an integrated military unit. He's managed to get them to a place where they could construct an overnight camp. One of the priorities when you get attacked out in the open is where you have half of your soldiers will throw up a camp as quickly as possible, while the other half defends them from attacks, so that you can get everybody inside and you can start to plan with a little bit more security and safety what your next moves are going to be and within that camp I think that first night the mood would have been relatively optimistic given the situation that they were in there's no real indication that they won't be able

to fight their way out of this uh of this situation or fight their way out or just outpace their attackers there doesn't seem to be any suggestion of hopelessness or that the troops are kind of giving way to despair. In other situations where you have Roman armies that are attacked or ambushed out in the wild and they manage to fall back to a temporary camp or enclosure that they've managed to either construct or reoccupy, you get the sense that the troops fall into hopelessness and despair quite quickly. During the Gallic Wars, a couple of decades earlier than this, a Roman legion that had been caught in a comparable situation in Gaul had actually committed mass suicide overnight

in despair of ever being able to escape the situation. And they were actually in a more positive situation than Varus and his men were. So I think Varus himself probably has a lot of responsibility for this. He manages to keep his troops quite optimistic. He's probably quite positive about their chances of escaping. And the mood seems to be relatively positive. And there's no suggestion at this point that the troops have anything other than an expectation of being able to escape this situation. Nevertheless, Arminius' strategy was working. Not only were his men likely feeling confident after doing some serious damage to part of the Roman column during the day, but he had many more traps planned for these isolated Roman soldiers.

The Germans could afford to play a patient game. The unexpected ambush had caused confusion for the Romans. Their enemy had brutally ripped off the facade that they were marching through friendly territory. Dyer records the Roman reaction that night. They encamped, and afterwards they either burned or abandoned most of their wagons and everything else that was not absolutely necessary to them. In other words, for Varus and his men, it was now about forcing their way through the ambush as quickly as possible. Any extra baggage they left behind, speed was of the essence.

Did Varus already suspect Arminius as being the man behind this attack? Maybe. But for him, his one and only mission was to save his army. So, I mean, one of the options for Varus must have been, when this ambush launched, would be just to turn around, to retrace the steps that they had taken to this ambush point, to go back to their summer camp, and then from there go towards the safety of the Rhine

and just completely abandon what he must have felt by now was a fictitious rebellion reports further northwards. But potentially this isn't an option for him because they don't actually know where they are. They've been guided from their summer camp through the Cheruski territory by scouts and guides that have now turned against them. They potentially don't know where they are. They could try and retrace their steps in terms of looking at their physical impacts on the landscape.

But I think the potential there is greatly there for getting lost and for ending up in a situation that's just as bad, if not worse, as the one that they're in now. But from where they are when they get ambushed, they're going to be fairly aware that as long as they just keep heading southwest, they will eventually hit the Rhine and they will hit safety. And so I suspect that from the position they're in, advancing forwards and trying to outpace the ambush to them at that point seems a more sensible option than trying to retrace where they have been and

potentially getting lost in doing so. Morning came, and as the sun rose, the Romans were already on the march, advancing forward and hoping to get a head start over their foes. For a time, they enjoyed marching through a large, clearing, open ground where the Roman juggernaut could fight more easily against their German foes. But this joy, it didn't last long. Before long, dense, unavoidable forest lay ahead of them once more, full of even more Germans. Varus and his men entered the woodland, where they were greeted by further German attacks. Desperately, the Romans attempted to counter. You can imagine the chaos as men and horses attempted in vain to chase down these swift warriors, who expertly harassed the column

before melting back amongst the trees. Roman frustration and despair was mounting as they struggled to counter the enemy's tactics in this damned terrain. The Romans were constrained to a narrow path, the Germans were funnelling them along it towards prepared defensive positions along the Romans' line of march at strategic points where they rained death upon the column. One such place is believed to be the extraordinary site of Calcreasa, not far from Osnabrück. Archaeological excavations conducted here have not only revealed a wealth of Roman artefacts dating to the time of the battle, but they have also revealed really interesting information

about the landscape and how Arminius' Germans transformed it into a killing zone. I caught up again with Matthew on the ground at Calcrisia to get a real sense of this landscape and how much of a death trap it was. The site today, it's quite expansive, it's quite open, almost what a Roman would have wanted to fight in. So how different did the terrain look some 2000 years ago? It would have been rather more forbidding. Up there is a hill, Dio calls it a mountain, but very thickly forested,

gullies cut by the rainwater. Down there is a marsh, that's been drained for agriculture, but that also isn't passable. If they went in there, they'd drown in the heavy iron. So what they had to do is cut by the rainwater. Down there is a marsh. That's been drained for agriculture, but that also isn't passable. If they went in there, they'd drown in the heavy rain. So what they had to do is go up the middle where there's a narrow sandy track. And Arminius and the Germans know they have to go that way. And they prepare almost like a trap for them.

It's a bottleneck. And they probably still got wagons at this point too. So they do have to go that way. Well, they've got heavy transport with them. We don't know quite when this site was part of the battle. They might have burned their wagons by this stage, but we did find here, or they did find here, a mule bell stuffed with grass to keep it quiet.

They've got some transport with them. They're trying to get out down that way. I love that. So they've got that straw in the bell to try and make sure that they're as quiet as possible as they're moving. They're trying to break out and trying to get past without being seen, but that's not going to work. No, it's not.

Well, let's keep going. The Romans were forced to march around the thickly forested Calcreasa Hill. They were funnelled down into a narrow pathway less than 50 metres wide. To the south would have been the forested slopes of Calcreasa Hill. To the north, an impassable bog. Right across the Roman line of march, the Germans transformed this thin track into a killing zone. At the centre of the Calcreasa battle site, archaeologists have recreated what this killing

zone looks like based on the archaeology, including on the side nearest Calcreasa hill, the remains of a very striking urban rampart that stretched on for several hundred metres. This was a prepared defence built by Arminius' Germans. So there's a breastwork, a parapet, they've dug a ditch, they've piled up the soil, then discolouration in the soil found by the archaeologist shows that wooden posts are rammed down through that ridge and between the wooden posts we can imagine a kind of palisade, a wicker fence woven with forest branches. So there's an earthen mound on top of that, a wooden fence. Behind that, the Germans can hide and can pop up and throw their

spears and duck down again as the Romans try and file through this very narrow gap. File through, you know, boots everywhere, thousands of people. And because of just how narrow this is, there is no escape. The Germans, they've got spears, they've got slingshots. They are throwing down all of these dangerous missiles on the Romans. And there's nowhere to hide. They can't go back because there's a whole train of people behind them. It's very hard to go forward. We know they were trying to sneak past quietly.

But really, there's no way of evading the Germans here. The Germans know the landscape too well. And they've clearly prepared the ground here, ready for what they know is coming. And of course, for these Romans, it's either fight or die. Still a very powerful military force. Do we know if they tried to take the rampart? Yeah we think they must have done. They had to do that to get past this narrow spot and carry on with their journey because they've got miles to go to get to any kind of safety. They have to get past here and we found in the ground here, other archaeologists found in the ground here, for example the head of a Roman tool, not a weapon but like an axe that they would use for for cutting wood and we think that probably they were trying to pull down

this wicker work fortification on the top over the axe but didn't work so whoever was holding this thing got killed and dropped the axe for archaeologists to find to think so maybe thousands of people got killed here maybe that's an exaggeration but this was an ideal killing field for the germans it absolutely was a killing, and the density of finds here make it very clear that this is where a large part of the battle happened. There's a lot of death and destruction here. And also, if they're trying to get to safety, they have to go that way. How far would they have still got to go if they got through here? If they want to get back to one of the big camps like Aliso, Halton, that's another 60 miles or so

from here, and then further from there to get to real safety on the Rhine. So a long way to go through hostile country. The archaeology so far unearthed at Calcreasa does suggest that part of the Teutoburg forest battle happened at that spot. From coins, to fragments of armour, to entrenching tools, and much more. We'll get back to that in a bit. There is another theory that these finds and the site belonged to a later Roman army that came this way, but I think the argument that this battle site belonged to the 9 AD ambush is still very much the dominant view and the most convincing. Visiting Calcreasa makes you realise just how prepared the Germans were and how difficult the task was for Varus and his soldiers if they were to force their way through this death trap. We don't know when during the battle the fighting at Calcrese occurred, but what Cassius Dio does

tell us is that it was the second day of fighting that really brought the Romans to their knees. This was the day that they suffered their heaviest losses, as they were harried along a narrow woodland path and struggled to fight in unfavourable terrain, as the archaeology at Calcreasa seems to exemplify. The coming of night that evening was merely temporary respite for the Romans that remained. Exhausted and huddled around campfires, their chances of survival were incredibly slim. By the second night of the ambush, some real realities of the situation that the Romans were in must have been starting to hit home and to hit home pretty hard to them. By the second evening, we hear that the weather is beginning to take a massive turn, that it's very rainy, that it's becoming very windy,

turn, that it's very rainy, that it's becoming very windy, and that the Romans are struggling with the physical conditions of the weather as much as they are from the attacks by the Germans. I imagine that the mood is beginning to turn. They're still optimistic, potentially, of being able to perhaps get out of the ambush, but I imagine as a whole day had passed and they hadn't managed to break out into the open, they haven't managed to break out into the open they haven't managed to outpace their attackers they're going to be tired they're going to be hungry they're going to be sleep deprived and the mood is beginning to take a bit of a turn for the worst. Baris probably isn't immune to this himself not least because by this point he's probably worked out if he hadn't done before that Arminius is behind this attack

not least because if Arminius hadn't been part of this attack then where is he? Just before the attack had started Arminius had ridden off with some of his troops ostensibly to go and do something that would help Varus but actually so that they could take part in the attack. Had they still been on the Roman side, well, by this point, Arminius would have returned with his men and tried to help the Romans break out of this ambush. So I think even if Varus hasn't seen Arminius by this point on the ambush ground or on the battlefield,

he's probably worked out by this point exactly who is behind this attack. And he's probably got an awful lot of his officers and maybe his ordinary men thinking, if maybe not daring to say at this point, I told you so. And probably starting to feel a bit of shame and humiliation and a huge amount of guilt that potentially he's brought this disaster on them

by refusing to heed the warnings that he had been given. The Germans could sense victory was coming. More and more warriors had flocked to their ranks, having heard about the successful ambush and wanting to get a piece of the victory pie against the hated Romans. As Arminius' forces grew stronger, the Romans were crumbling. Here's Dr Peter Heather explaining the confident mood the Germans were likely feeling at that time. I think the Germans are always confident because I think they know exactly what the plan is.

They know they can't confront this army head on. The Romans are simply too strong and too well organised and too professional. So they need to wear it down, they need to exhaust the individuals, they need to inflict casualties, and they need to reduce Roman morale. And this is what the extended ambush is designed to do. Arminius knows perfectly well that in a head-on confrontation,

the Roman army will make mincemeat of even his assembled coalition forces. What he has to do is wear the Romans down and get them into a position where they're expecting to lose. That's the only point at which Arminius can actually win. And the whole setup of this long extended ambush is about destroying Roman morale and creating the

conditions that will lead to the final catastrophe. After two days of almost constant fighting, maybe even three days, the sources are unclear, this final catastrophe occurred. The Roman chain of command came crashing down entirely. Senior commanders had fallen across the length of the battlefield, and not only that, but the three eagle standards, the most prized possession of each legion, where they had all fallen into German hands and become their trophies. For those soldiers still alive, any remaining order evaporated. It was every man for themselves. any remaining order evaporated. It was every man for themselves. Some attempted to flee,

others fought to the last in isolated pockets of resistance, others still surrendered, hoping in vain for mercy. Spare a thought also for the women and children caught up in the carnage. For them, it was to be a life in captivity that almost certainly awaited them. As the Romans fell, the battle site was looted by the Germans who picked the field for valuables. But luckily for us, some objects escaped the looting, especially at Calcreasa, where excavations have unearthed thousands of artefacts. The archaeological items discovered there vary from Roman arms and armour, including the earliest surviving example of banded iron armour, lorica segmentata, to hundreds of Roman coins, some of which have Varus's stamp on them, to two beautiful gold

rings. These rings, which also have semi-precious stones in them, likely belonged to either a woman or a child child given their small size, once again showing how Varus's army consisted of much more than just military men. You can see these rings and many more artefacts we looked at with the Kalkriza team in their laboratory in our Teutoburg Forest documentary series on History Hit. Simply type in historyhit.com slash Teutoburg. History Hit, simply type in historyhit.com slash jutebug. All of these items are today kept at the Calcreasa Museum, alongside one particular artefact that has come to symbolise this ancient battle more than any other. It's an iron face mask, coated in silver. Discovered at Calcreasa, Roman cavalrymen

wore masks like this to make themselves look scary on parade grounds. They probably weren't used in actual battles as they would greatly impair vision. However, this stunning mask, which you can see on display today, is a unique survivor from the battle that gives us a literal face from antiquity. Pretty cool. The fates of Roman soldiers who were captured alive by the Germans are recorded in gruesome detail in the surviving Roman sources. There's the story of one Roman soldier who, seeing the torture his comrades were suffering, opted to bash open his skull by forcefully hitting his head on the shackles that bound him. Dastos talks about centurions and high-ranking officers being mutilated and sacrificed by the Germans on

altars in the forest, not far from the battlefields. Pretty gruesome stuff. Some Roman soldiers escaped these brutal executions and were instead enslaved. The Romans would rescue the last surviving few of these captives three decades later. But what of Varus? and what of Arminius? So by the late stages of the battle Varus is carrying what is probably a fairly serious injury by this point and it's becoming clear to him that he is potentially not going to escape this ambush as he had hoped to just a few days earlier and so he just makes the decision that if he can't escape this battlefield, then he's not going to be taken prisoner by the Germans either. And he makes the decision to kill himself

on the battlefield. Exactly how he does it, we don't know. The sources don't record it, but they tell us that along with many of the other members of the high command, Boris kills himself to avoid any further danger on the battlefield. Now some of the sources are quite damning of Varus for doing this. They suggest it was an act of cowardice, especially because it leaves so many of his men still alive as part of the army being ambushed and that he's abandoned them. But other sources, particularly later ones, are a lot more sympathetic to Varus, recognising that as the commander of this army, that he would have been in a really bad situation had he been captured, that it would be humiliating for Rome

if he could be taken into captivity, and that he likely would have been tortured, imprisoned and then potentially publicly executed as part of the ongoing humiliation of Rome. And to avoid all of this, he kills himself before he can fall into German hands. Only a few days earlier, Arminius had looked Varus in the eyes, still pretending to be a loyal Roman ally. Now he looked over this commander's mutilated remains and ordered his head to be severed from his body. The battle was finally over. This is the most extraordinary outcome. I mean, the Germans presumably went into it expecting to win,

but on the other hand, no one has defeated a three-legion Roman army for as long as anyone can remember. has defeated a three legion Roman army for as long as anyone can remember. The real feelings of the Germanic fighters engaged in this must have been absolutely terrified, yet they win this extraordinary victory. The plan works, you know, Arminius' plan actually works. He gets the Roman army and territory that nullifies all of its tactical advantages. They do actually win. They destroy this Roman army. Varus commits suicide and they end up killing or capturing virtually the entirety of this

force. At that point, the sense of triumph and relief must be absolutely extraordinary within this Germanic force. And you see this kind of extraordinary process of sacrificial bloodletting as they kill off the vast majority of the remaining prisoners. There are records that this is a pretty normal response to major victories. Tacitus records a fight between two Germanic groups where the victorious group kill off all the males of the defeated enemy. And I think this is what they thought was the right thing to do.

You've won this extraordinary victory. The gods have been smiling. You need to show that you're properly grateful and make the proper offerings in return. In the blink of an eye the Roman presence east of the Rhine had disintegrated. The fledgling province of Germania Magna

which had taken more than two decades to create was no more. All thanks to the cutthroat brilliance of Arminius. It would be amiss not to highlight here that a few lucky Romans did manage to escape the Teutoburg disaster and made it back to Roman territory,

bringing stories of the devastating defeat with them. Later on, authors tell us stories about the battle that sound like survivor accounts, right? So someone got away to tell the tale, we think. Part of the body of troops, whatever was left, is trying to get to safety. And that's the forts in the Lippa Valley, like Aliso at Halton. Aliso is besieged by the Germans. There's a tomb that's found there. A mass grave is found at Aliso that suggests something violent happened there. And Tacitus

later, in a different context, talks about there being a tomb of the virus survivors at that place. So maybe some of them got that far and then were killed in the breakout or died of wounds, something like that. So some of them seem to get that far and maybe some further again. And then there's stories about captives being ransomed a bit later on as well. So gradually, the story of what happened there filtered out.

News of the disaster soon reached border towns along the Rhine, such as Cologne and Zanten. From there, it spread even further to the heart of the Roman Empire, to Rome and the Emperor Augustus, who was supposedly so distraught when he heard the news that for months on end, he bashed his head against a door and uttered the now famous words, Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions. So when Augustus receives news of what happened in Germany at the Teutoburg, it came as a real shock to him. And it was particularly badly timed because he was probably at that point

still celebrating the news that had come through a couple of days earlier about the end of the Great Illyrian Revolt. And so just as he is celebrating the security of his empire and this great conflict they've been fighting being over suddenly he gets hit with this news from Germany that his long-term friend and protege has been killed and three of his legions have been destroyed almost to a man along with him and it must have been a devastating piece of news. And Augustus, who's in his 70s by this point and aware that he's coming to the end of his reign and already concerned

about kind of the legacy that he's going to leave behind, reacts really poorly to this. He takes it as both a state problem and also as a personal grievance as well. So personally, he acts as if it's a personal loss that he has sustained. He goes into full mourning. He allows his beards to grow. He allows his hair to grow. He runs around the palace screeching, banging his head against doors and imploring, Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions. He goes into a really strong mood of despair. And for the rest of his reign, admittedly only a few years, but for the remainder of his reign, he takes this always as a day of mourning and sorrow. So he takes this quite hard. And I suspect this is partly not just for the legions that he's lost and the implications that this has for the imperial regime,

but also as a personal loss because of Varus. Varus, as we know, he's known Varus for over 30 years. They've been heavily involved in each other's lives. At the point where Varus dies, he's actually even related by marriage to Augustus, having married Augustus's great-niece Claudia Pulchra a few years earlier. It's not just the army and the situation in Germany that Augustus is mourning. He's actually mourning a friend and a relative, and it's important to remember that it's personal grief as well as professional. But after a while, alongside this personal grief, Augustus, the

statesman, emerges again and starts to make preparations to try and keep Rome safe from any wider political and military consequences that are going to result from this. He starts strengthening the army. He calls up troops. Well, he tries to call up levies of men to bolster what he thinks is going to be an army that's called on very soon to defend the Germanic frontier. he thinks is going to be an army that's called on very soon to defend the Germanic frontier. Unsurprisingly, he finds it difficult to find people who are willing to come and enlist in this emergency army. He ends up having to try and conscript people, and even then some of them refuse to serve, and he ends up executing some people because they refuse to go and serve in his army. He also takes some other precautions, So he dismisses any Germans that are in his private bodyguard.

He sends them off to serve on islands for the time being, rather than being in the center in Rome. And there is an order that goes around that any civilian Germans who were living in Rome at the time have to evacuate the city. So he takes these precautions in Rome. He also dispatches his stepson and adopted son and likely heir Tiberius up immediately to the Rhine frontier to go and shore up the Roman

defences there and try and stop Arminius from what they expect to be an advance towards the heart of the empire. Augustus feared that Varus's humiliation in the Teutoburg forest was just the beginning. That a horde of Germanic warriors would once more sweep across the Rhine and invade Roman Gaul, what is largely today France. In reality, the chances of such an invasion was next to nothing. Arminius, he didn't have the numbers or the strength, the cohesion to do such an act. Regardless, the paranoid elderly Augustus hastily ordered the reinforcing of the Rhine with extra legions. Soon enough, the Romans would return to Germania and exact some revenge on Arminius in a series of punitive campaigns led by the future Emperor Tiberius and then by his adopted son Germanicus. However, these punitive campaigns would prove just that. It would be the Rhine that the Romans established

as their permanent frontier, and it would remain so for the next 400 years. But who was to blame for the epic Roman defeat in the Teutoburg Forest? History has focused on the leader himself, Varus. The battle has become known as the Varian Disaster. It's very easy to blame Varus for the disaster. And indeed, this blame was placed on him from a very early stage. It's referred to as the Clades Variana or the Varian disaster from a very early stage of the Roman historiography of the battle. And this is because it's much easier to put this down as a

defeat that's due to an incompetent commander who shouldn't be in position than to Germanic excellence, a barbarian who has taken on the might of the Roman Empire, has worked out the way that a Roman army operates in the field and has found a way to nullify Roman power and to take them on in the field and to wipe out an experienced three legion army. It's a much happier prospect for the Roman world if it's down to an incompetent Roman commander than a genius German one.

Arminius had inflicted a terrifying defeat on the superpower that many believed to be invincible. His legacy defined by three days of slaughter and the defeat of a mighty invader. Although, alas, to sum it up briefly, the rest of his life, well, it wasn't a happy one. So Arminius, he achieved strategically what he wanted. He pushes the Romans back across the Rhine. They never really get a foothold there afterwards. So a great victory, but it doesn't work out terribly well for him personally. He sends Varus' severed head off to another German warlord called Mariboduus

and said, let's make common cause and really kick the Romans out once and for all. But Mariboduus says, no, I don't think I'll do that, thank you. And he sends the head on to Rome and says, I want no part of this. So that grand alliance doesn't work out. And then Arminius has family problems. At one point, his father-in-law tries to denounce him to the Romans and his brother is always loyal to the Romans. So it's kind of not happy families.

And there's continual squabbling and infighting among the German tribes. That temporary unity that he'd forged only lasts as long as it takes to administer this defeat to Varus, and then it all falls apart again. So he carries on in combat against the Romans, against Germanicus a bit later, but he dies in the end in tribal infighting, I think in AD 21. And Tacitus gives him quite a generous obituary and says, this is the man who kind of rallied the Germans together as one. But actually, it's not quite clear that that unity really took hold. Despite the many problems that emerged for him in Germania after Teutoburg,

Arminius would ultimately go down in history as the liberator of Germania, as the man who halted Roman expansion east of the Rhine, who stopped this massive juggernaut in its tracks. Songs would be sung about him, statues would be erected, most famously a towering statue that overlooks the Teutoburg forest near the town of Detmold today, the Hermannsdenkmal. So it's early morning this February day in Germany. I am at Detmold and I've just walked up this small slope at the top of this hill either side of me there is forest dense forest part of the Teutoburg forest where it was originally believed a large part of the battle had taken place hence the name the Battle of the Teutoburg forest however the more recent finds from Calcreza throws a bit of a spanner in the works and suggests the large part of the battle occurred

near there however the Battle of the Teutoburg forest of course it occurred over three or four days so it probably occurred over quite a large area so maybe part of it happened near here too but what I've come here to see as I walk up this slope towards the top of the hill is an absolutely astonishing monument it is huge off, you have this colonnaded base with a dome-shaped top. And above that, you have a monumental limestone green-looking statue today of Hermon, of Arminius, the great resistor of Rome, the leader of the forces at the Teutoburg forest. He is standing upright with a sword in the air, holding his right hand with a sword, pointing it into the sky. He has a winged helmet. He is wearing a tunic and he is resting his left arm on a long kite shield. So quite a medieval looking

shield, not very historical i must admit and also when you look closer under his left foot he is crushing an eagle now what does that represent of course ancient rome the romans the most prized possession of a legion was their eagle standards so on one level this is emphasizing arminius defeating the Romans in the Basque of the Teutoburg Forest. However, there is another level to that too, and this entwines with Arminius' legacy, a more infamous part of the story, because in the 19th and 20th centuries, his legacy as a great resistor of antiquity, it was twisted to suit more nefarious propaganda purposes. Now, when this great monument was built in the 1870s, the Prussians and the French were at war,

the Franco-Prussian War. And in the French army, a key symbol for them, like the Romans, was the eagle. So Arminius stomping on an eagle not only refers to his defeat of Rome, but also the Prussian defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian war. And that also explains why Arminius is looking out in the direction he is, because he is looking out across a valley, a very misty valley today, towards France, towards Germany's great enemy in the late 19th century. There's also a story that Arminius is looking right at the statue of Vercingetorix at Alesia, this great French resistance hero against the Romans, although

the truth of that I'm less clear on. Regardless, it is an extraordinary monument, but it would be amiss of me not to also mention how it was infamously used for nefarious propaganda purposes once again in Germany in the 20th century by the Nazis. Arminius has had a rather checkered recent history, a symbol of radical nationalists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Groups of the military right, including Hitler and the Nazis, manipulated Arminius' legacy for their own aims and would come to the Hermannsdenkmal to celebrate him as a uniquely German figure who won against invading empires. But Arminius' infamous past misappropriation does not need to continue down into the present day. I think in the 21st century we're in the middle of thinking again about what Arminius means. In the 19th and early 20th century, then he's the great

symbol of German nationalism. And this is why the huge monument is built in the wrong place. They didn't know where Calcutta was at that point. But never mind, they build that huge monument because he is one of the first German resistance leaders against oppressive outside domination. leaders against oppressive outside domination. That, of course, is historical nonsense in reality. We're less confident that nationalism is such a positive force. And we're certainly quite clear that nationalism is not reflecting ancient realities in any kind of way. This Germanic world is deeply divided amongst itself, which is why Arminius eventually ends up killed by some of his fellow Germani. What he means for us in the 21st century, that I think is a more interesting question. And for me, I think, as a historian, the way I situate him is that actually you see start in his career,

a very good example of the beginning of a process, which will eventually create a kind of map of Europe as we understand it. Because at the start of the first millennium, the European landscape is incredibly diverse in developmental terms. You have quite developed economies in the South and the West. But as soon as you get over the Rhine, there's hardly anybody.

It's all trees. And if you go further east over the Vistula, there's nobody at all. There's nothing but trees, more or less. By the end of the first millennium, we see a sort of similar types of states and much more even levels of development across the European landscape. And it's this kind of interaction but reaction against imperial domination which starts that process off. I can think of a whole series of analogous figures to Arminius responding to and exploiting the example of empire across the first millennium, who between them generate this kind of political and economic process,

which will see the emergence of Europe as a set of interacting and much more similar societies by the end of the first millennium, which simply didn't exist at the beginning of it. Even the Romans couldn't help but acknowledge Arminius' achievements. A hundred years after the events of 9 AD, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote this praiseworthy eulogy for this long-deceased enemy of Rome. He was without doubt the liberator of Germany, one who had challenged the Roman

people not at its beginnings like other kings and leaders, but when the Roman Empire was at its zenith. While he had varied success in battle, in the war he was undefeated. Well there you go, you've made it to the end of our special double header all about the battle of the Teutoburg forest in 9 AD and how Arminius and his Germanic allies halted Roman expansion east of the Rhine in its tracks. To this day it remains one of the most important significant military defeats that the Romans ever suffered. Really delighted that we were able to release this episode, that we were able to edit it and share it with you. Huge thanks to our editor Aidan

for making this episode a reality with beautiful sound effects and music and putting it all together. The episode was produced by yours truly. Do check out our recent documentary series all about the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. It is on History Hit TV. You can find it by simply searching historyhit.com forward slash Teutoburg,

where you can sign up for either a monthly or annual subscription and get access to our huge range of documentaries. Don't forget, you can sign up with code ANCIENTS and get 50% off your first three months membership. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour.

Now that is enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.