Rome's Greatest Defeat

by Adrian Murdoch

  Around this time, Arminius divided the eagles among his allies, rewarding those who had supported his campaign and supplied troops. In a last-ditch attempt to save one of the eagles, a Roman standard-bearer had wrenched it out of the ground, concealed it in the folds of his belt and thrown it and himself into the marsh. It was a futile gesture. All three eagles were captured. That of Legion XIX was given to the Bructeri, the Marsi were given a second and the Chauci received the third.

  What is often ignored is the strong element of jihad in Arminius’ crusade. The blood sacrifice of war captives has long played a prominent role in ritual and it was particularly prevalent in Germany. At the very end of the second century BC, the Cimbri were known for their dedication to sacrifice. They destroyed everything that they had captured. Clothing was torn to shreds and cast away, gold and silver were thrown into the river, any enemy armour was cut into pieces, the tack of the horses was broken up, the horses themselves were drowned in the river, and enemy soldiers were hanged from trees. ‘No booty was allowed to the conqueror and no pity to the conquered,’ writes the commentator. This practice continued for centuries thereafter. Around fifty years after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, towards the end of the 50s AD, so Tacitus tells us, the Hermunduri and the Chatti went to war over ownership of a river that bordered their territories. Both sides vowed to sacrifice the enemy’s army, ‘a vow which consigns horses, men, everything indeed on the vanquished side’, he concludes.25

  Excavations in northern France at Ribemont-sur-Ancre and Gournay-sur-Aronde support these literary accounts and give an unpleasant insight into tribal sanctuaries. Although animal sacrifice was by far the most common ritual offering of the Gauls, the interior of the sanctuary at Ribemont-sur-Ancre revealed the skeletons of around 1,000 men. After their bones had been crushed to expose the marrow (it was believed that a man’s soul lived in his bones), they were burned in open-topped ossuaries. A further element to this was the decapitation of the corpse so that the head could be kept as a trophy. Not one skull has been found at the site. If these were sites of ritual that placated and honoured the gods, they were also places that had a secondary role in warning off enemies. At Gournay-sur-Aronde, 2,000 iron weapons and pieces of armour have been uncovered, which were originally arranged as 500 suits of armour and displayed as trophies.

  Although the above finds date from the fourth or early third centuries BC, similar cultic and martial elements are apparent in the way that the hapless Roman captives were treated after the battle. It was clear that the site of the victory was an appropriate spot for religious reverence even before the sacrifices. Although not architecturally formalised in the same way, with the construction of a temple, other elements do emerge, particularly in the details of the mutilation. The eyes of some legionaries were put out and then after their deaths, the Germans nailed their heads prominently to the trunks of trees. One of the legionary’s last sights was seeing a German soldier cut his tongue out before holding it in his hands with the words, ‘At last, you viper, you have ceased to hiss.’ He then had the further ignominy of having his mouth sewn shut. It is one of two grotesque vignettes preserved by Florus. Despite the chronicler’s love of tall tales, there is the sense that these anecdotes were passed down by one of the survivors. The other is the final heroic act performed by Caldus Caelius. Having witnessed the above, rather than suffer the same indignity himself, he seized a section of the iron chain with which he was bound and brought it down with such force upon his own head as to cause his instant death. His comrade who reported the story back mentioned that his brains and his blood gushed from the wound.26

  Any hopes that Ceionius and other senior officers might have had that they would be spared or ransomed were soon dashed. In the adjacent groves the Germans soon set up their barbarous stone altars on which they had immolated tribunes and the first-rank centurions. That was the fate that awaited Marcus Caelius and Fabricius, if they were not already dead.

  What was going on was the construction, or rather the reinforcement, of what was already a holy site in all likelihood to the Germanic god Donar. Though he was later to become Thor, at the time of the battle Roman authors associated him with Hercules and his cult was centred in the Weser basin. Kalkriese was being constructed as a memorial, as a spot to remember the defeat of the Romans. This is something that Arminius would have encouraged. He would also have been aware that this localisation of the battle would mean that he would be remembered as the leader. It is in this light that we should see the discovery of Kalkriese’s best-known find, the 17cm-tall iron cavalry face mask that has become the logo of the museum and site. It stares blankly out of every book on the subject. Originally covered with silver leaf and belonging to auxiliary cavalry from Gaul or Thrace, it is the oldest preserved mask of its kind found so far, compared with other fine examples found in Vechten and Nijmegen in Holland. The feeling of intimidation experienced by every viewer who sees it is deliberate. It was almost certainly leant against the wall. The Germans would have no use for such a ceremonial piece of armour and, after removing the valuable silver leaf, placed it there as a memento mori.

  Today there is no trace of this ritualistic aspect of the battleground. It must always be borne in mind that the archaeologists have found the detritus, damaged items, pieces too small to scavenge or simply missed. The most valuable archaeological treasures have been found either because they lay protected, under the collapsed wall where scavengers could not get them for example, or where paleobotanical analysis has suggested that the grass was too long and they were hidden from German eyes.

  Even though most of what has been found has been smaller items, they still give a sense of the scope of the disaster: helmets, bosses of shields, random pieces of armour or of belts. And of course there are the weapons themselves. The sheer variety highlights the number of troops that were involved: arrowheads and swords, slingshot and spears. Yet the anonymity of the battlefield is occasionally lifted. One fastener for armour is identified as ‘Belongs to Marcus Aius, Cohort I, Century of Fabricius’. His name is punched into one fastener with a sharp implement and scratched on to its partner, which was found nearby.

  But for all the military objects, it is the domestic and personal items that really have the power to move and give a sense of place: an iron ring carried for luck, its carnelian gem engraved with two full cornucopias crossed over the staff of Mercury, surrounded by ears of corn; a bronze wine strainer; toiletries like a pair of iron scissors and the bronze ring on which a soldier carried the strigil he used to clean himself in the baths; a small silver spoon with a tubular handle; brightly coloured, round, glass pieces, part of a set from a Roman board game; and a bronze hairpin, 13.5cm long, one of few such female items found, reminds us that women are likely to have been among the fallen.

  In the days after the battle, all Roman settlements east of the Rhine were overrun. It was not just military sites that bore the brunt of Germanic fury. Civilian ones like Waldgirmes were either abandoned or burned. The rapidity with which events spiralled out of control can be seen in the north-eastern corner of Waldgirmes, where renovation work on four houses was broken off. It is easy to imagine workers downing tools and running for safety. There was no attempt at German inhabitation of the site. Native tribes viewed cities as ‘tombs surrounded by nets’.27 It was as if the Germans were trying to erase every possible trace of the hated invaders and of their civilisation.

  Virtually all of the land that Varus had tried to turn into a province had been reclaimed; all of the Roman strongholds ‘except one’, that is.28 As Cassius Dio pointedly notes, it was the actions and defence of one camp which prevented the Germans from either crossing the Rhine or invading Gaul. It does not matter that it is distinctly doubtful whether Arminius would have ever considered pushing into the west. At a time of disaster like this, the Romans needed a hero and they found him in Lucius Caedicius, the camp commander of Aliso.

  The modern site of Aliso has never been identified definitively,
though it has cautiously been equated with the Roman camp at Haltern on the River Lippe since 1900. Certainly Haltern was assaulted and burned to the ground that autumn. It is an issue that may never be resolved unless some further epigraphic evidence is found. Even if the most definite statement that can be made is that current thought tends towards it, the literary evidence of Aliso and the archaeological analysis of Haltern do appear to back each other up. There is no reason to disagree with Colin Wells’ comment that ‘no other suggestion deserves serious consideration’.29

  By the time that Varus had made his last stand, Caedicius might already have heard from scouts or refugees about what had happened to his commander and to his colleagues Lucius Eggius and Ceionius. The only point worth pondering is how long the camp commander of Haltern had before the Germans arrived, or whether he was already under attack by Arminius’ allies by the time the news reached him.

  Caedicius was not the kind of man to panic. He was a primus pilus, the commander of the first cohort and the legion’s most experienced and senior soldier. Although the literary sources do not mention which brigade he was from, it is possible that he was from Legion XIX. We surmise that the legion was stationed there after the discovery of an ingot with ‘CCIII L.XIX’ carved into the lead – 203lb Legion XIX. The crude letters on the metal are still quite clearly visible to the naked eye through the glass case in the Haltern museum.

  Caedicius appears to have had enough time to get the civilian encampment settled in the safety of the 18-hectare camp, but not all preparations were in place before the hordes arrived. He and his men had not brought in and stored away all of the wood that they had collected. Concerned that the Germans would use the wood to fire the walls of the fort, he pretended to be in need of firewood and sent his men out to steal it, whereupon the Germans removed the stacks of wood.

  Initial attacks were repulsed by archers who lined the wooden walls of the fort, supported by ballistae, artillery which could throw bolts and stones. The largest of these, what were in effect giant crossbows, were powerful launchers that could fire a 25kg missile up to 500m. The archaeological evidence suggests that, despite this aerial bombardment, the double ring of ditches which protected Haltern – 2.5m across and 3m deep – was soon to fall to the Germans. They seem to have attacked the south gate, filling up the ditches with hastily cut turfs. That the remains of what is clearly a hastily erected barricade have been found suggests that the Romans were able to fight off even this onslaught and push the Germans back.

  After the initial attacks had failed, it was apparent to the German soldiers that they had little chance of taking the camp by normal means. Certainly Cassius Dio comments that ‘they found themselves unable to reduce this fort, because they did not understand how to conduct sieges’.30 With what they must have presumed was a Roman relief force on its way, the Germans partly withdrew, deciding instead to guard the road to Xanten, hoping to catch Roman refugees in an ambush as they left. Food soon began to run low in the isolated camp, which is hardly surprising as it was now holding a large number of both military and civilian personnel. Caedicius tried a desperate trick. He led German prisoners round the storehouses in the camp, then cut off their hands and set them free. As he had hoped, they reported back to their tribal compatriots that there was little chance of starving the Romans out as they had enough food to last them.

  If Caedicius was not above psychological trickery, neither were the Germans. To try and demoralise further (if that were possible) what were presumably by now the last surviving Romans to the east of the Rhine, the heads of those the Germans had killed were brought up to the walls of the fort.31

  Inevitably, perhaps, given their isolation and with no sign of assistance coming from Xanten, Caedicius waited for an autumn storm, then crept out, past the gruesome warnings of what would happen if they were caught. The difficulty was that the civilian population that was living within the walls had to be evacuated too. The Romans were discovered when they were passing the third German outpost. In the darkness and the confusion, the Germans were first distracted by the thought of plunder in Haltern. Then, to stop them following, some of the Roman soldiers who were furthest away from the camp sounded the signal for a double-quick march on trumpets to make the Germans think that they were the force that had been sent up from Mainz to save Caedicius and those under him. When the advance guard got to Xanten, some 54km away, help was finally sent and an escort went out to bring in the civilians.32

  Haltern itself went up in flames. The excavations show how rapidly the Romans had to move. Individually, they add little; taken together they provide a montage of the disaster that befell the town. The arsenal was found with unused arrowheads and a thousand ballistae bolts. A coin horde was found of 185 silver denarii and one gold aureus – the savings of a legionary. It had clearly been hidden and never recovered. A cellar was found with some thirty pots left untouched. A doctor may have survived, but he left his medicines behind. The lead lid of a jar has been found, the words ‘ex radice Britanica [sic]’, ‘from the British root’, still clear to see, even if we are not sure what it was used for.33

  Most poignant of all is the graffiti on Roman Samian earthenware. Although mass-produced, this famous red, polished pottery, more accurately called terra sigillata and familiar from almost every museum, was expensive and was often personalised. The names of their owners leap out from the cabinets in the Roman Museum of Westphalia in Haltern. There is Felix, Lucilius and Lucius Varo. These are real names scratched through the glaze by real hands. Most intriguing of all is a shard with the name Fenestela scraped into it – an uncommon name. The grave of Marcus Crassus Fenestela, a veteran of Legion XIX, was found at Fréjus, though the stone has since been lost. Did Fenestela survive? It is tempting to think that he followed Caedicius back to Xanten, leaving his favourite drinking cup behind, and that he then retired to the south of France, trying to forget the loss of his comrades, and about the missing three legions.34

  FIVE

  Give Me Back My Legions!

  A jubilant Rome was preparing for celebrations marking the triumphant conclusion of the Pannonian revolt. The man of the moment was Tiberius. But why had Augustus vetoed the suggestion that he be given an honorific? If Drusus could have become ‘Germanicus’, then why could his brother not be called ‘Pannonicus’, ‘Invincible’ or even ‘Pius’? The political pundits were kept noisily busy.

  But after only five days, this gossip was overtaken by the news from Germany. Tiberius postponed his triumph while Rome scrabbled to confirm details of what actually happened. The emperor was distraught. He went into mourning for several months, tearing his clothes and letting his hair and his beard grow. His austere private residence on the Palatine Hill echoed with the now famous cry of ‘Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!’

  Imperial reaction to the disaster was extreme. When the news broke, Augustus declared a state of emergency: the streets were patrolled, the German troops that made up the emperor’s personal guard were reassigned to postings on islands away from the capital, and diplomatic and business visitors from the general region were simply asked to leave Rome.1

  This response may seem an overreaction. But traditionally the emperor’s guard was made up from Germans who had been recruited from the lower Rhine; some might even have been acquired as slaves. Augustus feared further rebellions as Arminius and his army began to move against legionary camps on the Rhine frontier. The Roman command was understandably concerned that the emperor’s guard might find its loyalty tested, especially as Arminius had been so successful in tempting other tribes to revolt. A brief period of exile would ensure that any divided loyalties could do no damage. As it turned out, this was a sensible move. The allegiance of these Rhine tribes, writes Velleius Paterculus, was indeed ‘beginning to waver’.2

  In the end there was no uprising in Rome and the guards remained loyal, but the threat to homeland security posed that autumn and winter cannot be exaggerated. Romans were still haunted by
nightmare memories of how one of the Gaulish tribes had conspired with the rebel Catiline to overthrow the Republic seventy years previously.

  Augustus’ priority first and foremost was to contain any threat and to ensure the security of the rest of the empire. Popular perception, thanks in large part to imperial propaganda and misinformation, had the provinces of Gaul and Germany as virtually Romanised. As news spread of the defeat, panic in other parts of the empire had to be contained. Cassius Dio’s descriptions of lightning striking the temple of Mars on the Campus Martius, plagues of locusts, the appearance of comets, and a statue of Victory in Germany that turned to face Rome may be disregarded as fictional, but they do reflect the general unease.3 To halt this hysteria, one of Augustus’ first acts was to extend governors’ terms of office to ensure as much continuity as possible in the provinces.

  Some sense of the confusion can be seen in the first reports of the disaster that have survived. Shivering in his Black Sea exile, the poet Ovid complained that ‘only faint rumour’ of the disaster could reach him, yet he heard about it the following year when the sea lanes opened once more. It is hard to imagine the sailors talking about anything else. All he could do was hope that ‘rebellious Germany’ had at last lowered its ‘sorrowing head beneath the foot of our leader’. By AD 11, more details had got through to him. Arminius was a ‘traitor, who hides his face in his shaggy hair’ and who had ‘trapped our men in a treacherous place’. One of his poet contemporaries, the earnest Marcus Manilius, refers to ‘stealthy treachery’, ‘broken promises’ and fields ‘stained with the blood of three legions’. What links the two accounts from very different writers is the emphasis on treachery and shock.4