The son of Segimerus looked down at the body of Quintilius Varus, which had been partly disfigured by the botched attempt to burn it. The general’s expensive armor and fittings had been ripped from his corpse, his gold-decorated helmet taken as a souvenir. Tacitus says that the young Chattian insulted the body. [Tac., A, I, 71] Perhaps this was merely with a kick; more gruesomely, perhaps he attacked the general’s corpse with a knife and gouged out his eyes; or perhaps it was that time-honored insult—urinating on the body. A warrior soon stepped up and swung a blade, severing the head from Varus’ body. That head was raised on the point of a spear. Tens of thousands of German tribesmen roared their approval.
Arminius was to send Varus’ head as a trophy to King Maroboduus of the Marcomanni tribe in Bohemia, which had not participated in the attack on Varus’ army. Maroboduus then sent it to Augustus at Rome. Despite the disgrace that attended Varus’ defeat, Augustus gave permission for Varus’ head to be interred in the family vault outside Rome.
At the battle site, in the immediate wake of his victory, Arminius climbed on to a mound—perhaps the embankment built by the Romans troops. To a tumultuous reception from his warriors, he praised them for their courage, derided the defeated Romans, and spat on the captured Roman eagles and other standards. Heads were chopped from dead Roman officers’ bodies and nailed to tree trunks. Junior centurions were crucified in front of their men. Thin-stripe tribunes and first-rank centurions were dragged away to nearby sacred groves. [Tac., A, I, 61]
These groves were clearings in the forest sometimes surrounded by a high palisade. All had a central altar, and some also contained tables where religious feasts took place. In others, sacred white horses were kept. To avoid offending the gods, women and children and foreign speech were banned. Some tribes required their men to wash as an act of purification before entering their groves.
Julius Caesar had written that human sacrifice took place in the sacred groves of some Gallic tribes, with the victims placed inside giant wicker cages in the shape of a man. These cages were suspended over a fiery altar, where the victims were roasted alive. [Caes., GW, VI, 16] This, it seems, was how the last remaining officers of the 17th, 18th and 19th legions died—a slow, agonizing death, roasted like game on the spit. It is likely that the 18th Legion’s first-rank centurion Caelius would, if he had survived to this point, have been one of those who perished in the flames with his colleagues.
The three legions would have started this campaigning season with fifteen thin-stripers, young officer cadets of 18 and 19 years of age, all of them members of the Equestrian Order and the sons of leading Roman families. Half a century later, the writer and philosopher Lucius Seneca, chief minister to the emperor Nero, was to write to a friend: “Remember the Varus disaster? Many a man of the most distinguished ancestry, who was doing his military service as the first step on the road to a seat in the Senate, was brought low by Fortune.” [Sen., L, XLVII]
After celebratory banqueting and thanks to their gods, the victorious Germans moved on. The spoils from the defeated Roman army were borne away, to be divided among the tribes. The eagles and standards of the annihilated legions were hung up in sacred groves across Germany. The legionary prisoners, chained and dragged away, became slaves of the Germans. The naked, butchered dead of three legions were left where they had fallen.
But there was more fighting to be done. For the Romans still occupied forts on German soil east of the Rhine. Tribesmen, buoyed by their victory in the Teutoburg Forest, swarmed west to deal with those invaders also.
AD 9
X. THE STRUGGLE AT FORT ALISO
Holding out against the Germans
Modern-day archaeologists have identified the locations of several Roman forts that existed east of the Rhine in AD 9. Most are on the Lippe river. Roman merchant vessels had used the Lippe to take trade into eastern Germany from west of the Rhine.
From nearest the Rhine to the east, those forts were at or near the present-day towns of Holsterhausen, Haltern, Beckinghausen, Oberaden and Anreppen. Traces of other, smaller Roman forts have been found further inland, at sites including Sparrenburger Egge, near Bielefeld, but these are thought to have been only marching camps. The permanent camps on the Lippe were extensive. The Roman fort at Haltern, for example, dating from around 5 BC, covered 47 acres (23 hectares) and contained facilities for a wing or more of cavalry. [Wells, 5, 11, & Illustr. 16]
Both Velleius and Dio wrote that the German tribes in revolt were able to surprise and overrun every one of those forts but one, apparently reducing them one at a time. Archaeological evidence at these fort sites indicates that Roman occupation indeed ceased in AD 9, with hordes of coins and other valuable material having been swiftly buried on the sites. There were also the bones of two dozen men found in a pit at the Haltern site, apparently tossed in there by the Germans after they took the fort. [Ibid.]
The lone fort holding out against the attacking Germans was named Aliso. Tacitus states that it was one of those on the Lippe, although he doesn’t indicate its specific location. An altar in memory of Drusus Caesar had been erected at the fort, and it is possible that it was there that Drusus had died in 9 BC. With many present-day German place-names preserving the first letter or sound of the original Latin name, it is tempting to suspect that Aliso was either the fort at Anreppen or the one at Oberaden—literally, “Above Aden.” [Velle., RH, II, CX; Tac., A, II, 7]
While no classical author gives the precise location of the Aliso fort, Velleius identifies its commander, Lucius Caedicius, who was camp-prefect of one of the three legions that had by this point been wiped out in the Teutoburg Forest. Fortune had spared camp-prefect Caedicius from the horrors of the Teutoburg, but now he faced his own dice with death. Fort Aliso was besieged by “an immense force of Germans,” says Velleius. [Velle., II, CXX]
But the tribesmen “found themselves unable to reduce this fort,” said Dio, “because they did not understand the conduct of sieges.” Camp-prefect Caedicius received sufficient warning of the revolt to close his fort gates in time. He was also fortunate to have a cohort of archers stationed at the fort, and they “repeatedly repulsed” the German attackers “and destroyed large numbers of them.” [Dio, LVI, 22]
The Germans surrounded the fort and settled in to starve the Romans into submission. But this delay worked in Rome’s favor. Lucius Asprenas, Varus’ nephew and Roman commander on the Upper Rhine, having heard of the uprising, possibly as a result of the warning from Boiocaulus, came rushing down from Upper Germany to Vetera with his two legions. Velleius was full of praise for Asprenas’ swift reaction. Asprenas’ arrival on the Lower Rhine, he said, strengthened the allegiance of the locals west of the Rhine, “who were beginning to waver.” [Velle., II, CXX]
Dio says that, after maintaining the siege of Aliso for some weeks, Arminius’ warriors came to hear that “the Romans had posted a guard [Asprenas’ legions] at the Rhine and that Tiberius was approaching with an imposing army.” This was enough to frighten off some tribesmen, who pulled out of the siege and returned home. If Arminius had planned to cross the Rhine and invade Gaul—and there is no indication that this was on his agenda—he no longer had the manpower or momentum to mount such an operation. He therefore left a detachment of tribesmen guarding the roads leading to the Rhine at “a considerable distance” from Fort Aliso, “hoping to capture the Roman garrison” after it emerged due to “the failure of their provisions.” [Dio, LVI, 22]
Velleius reported that the garrison at Aliso did indeed end up suffering “difficulties which want [of supplies] rendered unendurable.” Camp-prefect Caedicius was not only having to supply the troops of his garrison, he had many other mouths to feed, for the fort was also crowded with civilians—women and children associated with the men of the garrison, who had been living near the fort, as well as camp followers who had withdrawn from Varus’ column when he had turned north for the Teutoburg several weeks earlier. [Velle., II, CXX]
While they had prov
isions, Caedicius and his multitude, pent up at Aliso, waited for relief to come from west of the Rhine. But as the weeks passed and the weather became wintry, their provisions dwindled to nothing. Unbeknownst to Caedicius, Asprenas had taken the decision not to cross the Rhine, so no Roman relief force was going to appear on the scene. Caedicius decided to break out and make a run for the Rhine, but his would not be a blind charge west. Following his orders, Caedicius’ scouts sneaked from the fort and discreetly observed the Germans camped between Aliso and the Rhine, noting their dispositions and their guard routines. Now Caedicius and his troops “watched their chance.” That chance, said Dio, came with a stormy night. [Velle., II, CXX; Dio, LVI, 22]
It would have been a bleak November night as the storm raged along the Lippe valley. Knowing the Germans would be keeping under cover, Caedicius and the occupants of Fort Aliso crept from the fort and made their way through the darkness. “The soldiers were few, the unarmed many.” Caedicius and his troops led the way, prepared to fight if they had to, but hoping to sneak by the tribesmen. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of women and children fearfully trailed along behind, shivering in the icy conditions as the storm raged about them, toting everything of value they could carry as they strove to keep up with the soldiers. [Ibid.]
“They succeeded in getting past the foes’ first and second outposts,” said Dio. But by the time they reached the third and last outpost, the column was well strung out, and the civilians, cold, exhausted and afraid, had lost contact with the soldiers leading the way. Women and children panicked, and began calling out to the troops to come back for them—calls which the German sentries heard in the night. [Ibid.]
Caedicius and his troops now had to fight their way through the alerted enemy. They cut down the first Germans they encountered, but tribesmen were coming from everywhere behind them. Caedicius had to think fast. He ordered the civilians to drop what they were carrying and run for it. At the same time, he sent his trumpeters ahead and had them sound the signal for his troops to hurry forward at a double-quick march. The Germans, already distracted by the plunder they found discarded by the civilians, thought the trumpets were being sounded by Roman relief units sent by Asprenas, and gave up the pursuit. Some civilians were killed or captured by the Germans, but “the most hardy” managed to escape, [Ibid.] as did Caedicius and his men, who “with the sword won their way back to their friends.” [Velle., II, CXX]
At Vetera, Asprenas, learning that Roman fugitives were making their way toward the Rhine, sent troops across to their assistance, and Caedicius and his party accordingly reached the safety of the western bank of the Rhine. [Dio, LVI, 22] Behind them, the Germans destroyed Fort Aliso. This was the final act of Arminius’ uprising. It had achieved its objective—there was no longer a Roman military presence east of the Rhine.
AD 9
THE REACTION AT ROME
Panic and grief
The emperor Augustus was devastated by the news of what became known as the Varus disaster when he heard of it in October AD 9. He let his hair grow and failed to shave for months, mourning the lost legions as if they were his children. Suetonius says that he was often heard to cry, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” [Suet., II, 23] Eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon was to remark: “Augustus did not receive the melancholy news with all the temper and firmness that might have been expected from his character.” [Gibb., n. I, 1.3]
The immediate dread in Rome was that Arminius and his Germans would flood over the Rhine, sweep down through Gaul, and ravage Italy. Suetonius says the emperor immediately ordered patrols of the city at night to prevent any rising of the populace. He also prolonged the terms of all his provincial governors, so that Rome’s allies would have men they knew and trusted in places of power. And, suddenly mistrusting Germans, he temporarily disbanded his bodyguard, the German Guard. [Suet., II, 23; 49]
Augustus also ordered special cohorts of slaves levied at Rome, and sent them to Germany. “The Roman bank of the Rhine had to be held in force.” Recruited as slaves from the households of well-to-do men and women, these men were officially given their freedom once they joined their cohorts. These special units of freedmen were euphemistically called “Volunteer” cohorts, because the slave owners were forced to volunteer their services. On Augustus’ express orders, the members of these special units were not permitted “to associate with soldiers of free birth or to carry arms of standard pattern.” [Ibid., 25]
As these Volunteer cohorts marched to the Rhine, six of the legions and numerous auxiliary units that had been fighting in Dalmatia, where the Pannonian War had ended just five days before the Varus disaster in Germany, were heading in the same direction. But under no circumstances would Augustus permit his legions to cross the Rhine. The river was now the empire’s borderline.
Augustus did not raise new legion enlistments to replace the Teutoburg dead. He retired the shamed numbers of the destroyed legions, the 17th, 18th and 19th, and left the Roman army numbering twenty-five legions. The Varus disaster was a stinging blow to Roman pride that ranked with Marcus Crassus’ 53 BC defeat at Carrhae. The September day in AD 9 that General Varus’ three legions ceased to exist would never be forgotten by Romans. It was as if the defeat, and the loss of the sacred eagles of the legions, scarred the national soul.
At Vetera, a stone monument 54 inches (137 centimeters) high was raised to Centurion Marcus Caelius of the 18th Legion by his brother. The monument, which survives to this day, shows Caelius, looking fierce, adorned with all his military decorations and holding his centurion’s vine stick, the symbol of his authority. On either side of Caelius are his two servants, Privatus and Thiaminus. Both carry Caelius’ name, indicating that they had become freedmen. In all probability they too perished at the Teutoburg, with thousands of other civilians in Varus’ train.
The monument’s inscription, after giving the details of the centurion’s life, asked that, should Marcus Caelius’ bones ever be found, they be deposited there, at the monument. But Caelius’ whitening bones lay across the Rhine, on a silent, deserted battlefield in the Teutoburg Forest, indistinguishable from those of thousands of his fellow soldiers who had also been left to rot by the victors of the battle. Caelius’ monument and his bones would never be united.
AD 14–15
XI. INVADING GERMANY
Germanicus versus Arminius
Ever since the disaster in the Teutoburg Forest, Romans had thirsted for revenge—for the loss of Varus’ three legions, for the loss of Rome’s foothold east of the Rhine, and for the loss of Roman prestige which the defeat by Arminius and the German tribes had represented. In AD 14, almost by accident, the Roman military was given the excuse and the opportunity to take that revenge.
Augustus, who had refused to send anymore military expeditions across the Rhine following the Varus disaster, died in August AD 14, after reigning since 30 BC. Several years before, Augustus had extended the enlistments of all legionaries from sixteen to twenty years. In the atmosphere of uncertainty that followed the emperor’s death, with his stepson Tiberius not immediately claiming the throne, the extended enlistments and numerous other complaints about service conditions sparked discontent that spread through the legions and ignited the mutinies. In the wake of Augustus’ death, mutinies broke out among the three legions stationed in Dalmatia and the eight legions on the Rhine.
The Dalmatian legions were soon brought to heel by Tiberius’ son Drusus and Praetorian prefect Sejanus, who led elements of the Praetorian Guard and German Guard to Dalmatia where they executed ringleaders. In command on the Rhine was Drusus’ dashing 28-year-old adoptive brother Germanicus Caesar, brother of Claudius, father of Caligula, and the grandfather of Nero. He himself was heir apparent to the Roman throne. Germanicus was collecting taxes in Gaul when his legions mutinied. Hurrying first to the army of the Lower Rhine at the city that became Cologne, he settled their grievances, then did the same with the army of the Upper Rhine at Mogontiacum (Mainz). But w
hen discontent flared again at Mogontiacum, Germanicus’ general Aulus Caecina had loyal legionaries cut the troublemakers to pieces. “This was destruction rather than remedy,” Germanicus lamented. So, to distract his troops, he launched a lightning campaign east of the Rhine. [Tac., A, I, 49]
In October, Germanicus led 12,000 men from four legions, twenty-six allied cohorts, and eight wings of cavalry into the territory of the Marsi, between the Lippe and Ruhr rivers. Surprising and wiping out Marsi warriors while they were celebrating their festival of their goddess Tamfana, Germanicus advanced across a broad front for 50 miles (80 kilometers), destroying every village and every living thing in his path. As he turned his army around and marched back toward the Rhine, Germans from the Bructeri, the Tubantes, and the Usipetes tribes overtook him, but were beaten off the Roman column’s tail by the 20th Legion, acting as rearguard. A day later, the column crossed back to the western side of the Rhine. The Senate voted Germanicus a Triumph for his success. But he had only just begun.
During the winter of AD 14/15, all eight of Germanicus’ Rhine legions prepared for a massive spring offensive in Germany. But when news reached Germanicus that Arminius was clashing with his father-in-law Segestes, king of the Chatti tribe, he seized the opportunity to split the German confederation by striking before the winter had ended. From Mogontiacum, Germanicus led the four AUR (Army of the Upper Rhine) legions and their auxiliary support across the river and into the Chatti homeland. At the same time, Caecina led his four legions of the Lower Rhine army across the Rhine at Vetera, via a bridge of boats.
With this offensive taking the Germans completely by surprise, Germanicus made a rapid advance as far as the River Eder. After burning Mattium, the Chatti capital, he turned for the Rhine. Caecina’s army covered his withdrawal, colliding with the Cherusci and Marsi tribes, who hurried down from the north in support of the Chatti.
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