Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest
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The previously untold story of the watershed battle that changed the course of Western history. Kirkus Reviews Important analysis of a fierce first-century surprise attack by German tribesmen that ended Rome's designs on territory east of the Rhine and profoundly altered subsequent history. Wells (Archaeology/Univ. of Minnesota) argues convincingly that both archaeologists and historians must contribute to understandings of long-ago events. (Naturally, he believes the former are less subject to bias since histories are written by the victors.) The site of this little-known battle was not located until 1987. Since then the four-by-three-mile location has yielded a trove of relics; more than 4,000 Roman objects had been recovered by the end of 1999. The author's account of the battle consumes only a single short chapter and is admittedly heavily inferential: the surviving written accounts are scanty (and Roman); the archaeological evidence is still being uncovered and assessed. Still, Wells is able not only to reconstruct a credible analysis of the German strategy—pinning the Romans into a tight area of unforgiving forest and marshy terrain in which they could not execute their customary combat tactics—but also to explore the thoughts and fears of the combatants on both sides as the massacre commenced. In about an hour it was all over but the dying and scavenging, the burying and celebrating, the torturing and sacrificing of prisoners. Three Roman legions, some 20,000 men, were destroyed; a very few survivors escaped to spread the news. The Roman leader, Varus, a trusted ally of Augustus, probably fell on his sword when he saw the imminent defeat. The German leader, Arminius, became a folk hero: though trained by the Romans and granted citizenship, he gave the treacherous intelligence thatled the legions to the slaughter. Wells offers much background on Roman and Rhineland history, politics, anthropology, military strategy, and weaponry, supplying myriad grisly instances of the sanguinary horrors of war. Ultimately, Rome vastly underestimated the "barbarians" they faced. At times repetitive or obvious, but always literate and learned. (16 pp. illustrations, 9 maps, not seen)
List of Illustrations9List of Maps11Important Dates13Preface151Ambushed!252Creation of the Legend303History and Archaeology of the Battle374Augustus: Rome's First Emperor565Varus and the Frontier806Arminius: The Native Hero1057Warfare in Early Roman Europe: Prelude to the Battle1258The Battle1619The Horror: Death on the Battlefield17710The Victors' Celebrations18611The Immediate Outcome20012The Meaning of the Battle213App. 1How an Archaeological Site Is Formed221App. 2Roman Weapons Found at the Kalkriese Battle Site222App. 3Museums, Roman Remains, and Archaeological Parks223Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading227Acknowledgments239Illustration Credits241Index243
