Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
Germanic tribes led by Arminius ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus; Rome gave up the conquest of Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe.
- Date
- September 9month known
- Place
- Kalkriese (probable site)approximate locationtoday: Kalkriese, Bramsche, Lower Saxony, Germany · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Roman Empire, Arminius, Publius Quinctilius Varus, Augustus
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Varusschlacht; Clades Variana; Varian disaster; Поражение Вара
Arminius, a chieftain of the Cherusci who had served as an officer of Roman auxiliaries, lured Varus’s army — the XVII, XVIII and XIX legions with auxiliaries and camp followers — into a trap on the march through wooded, marshy country. The fighting went on for several days in September AD 9; some 16,000–20,000 Romans died, and Varus took his own life. Augustus is said to have cried out: “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!”
Germanicus led punitive campaigns in 14–16 and recovered two of the lost eagles (the third was retrieved in 41), but the Rhine remained the frontier of the empire. Since 1987 finds at Kalkriese near Osnabrück have usually been taken to mark the battlefield, although the identification is still debated.
Connections
Related events
- Death of Augustus19 August 14 · Western and Central EuropeAugustus’s last advice was to keep the empire within its frontiers
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Zarubintsy culturec. 200 BC – c. 200
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
- Wikipedia (Russian): Битва в Тевтобургском Лесу
- Wells P. S. The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest. — New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
- Wikidata: Q87779