The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

HERE'S an interesting article on the upcoming Anniversary of the battle of the Tuetoburg Forest....

 

Germany is marking the 2000th anniversary next month of a battle hailed as the birth of the nation

[sylla]

HERE'S an interesting article on the upcoming Anniversary of the battle of the Tuetoburg Forest....

 

Germany is marking the 2000th anniversary next month of a battle hailed as the birth of the nation

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

The article tends to contradict itself at times too, firstly it says.........

 

The hero featured in more than 50 operas and plays and was portrayed as a blonde, muscle-bound warrior in the art and literature of the 19th century. The myth was aided by a lack of known facts

[caldrail]

Some survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death.

Annals (Tacitus)

[Melvadius]

Reading the whole article, although the two extracts appear contradictorary, at base it generally appear to be attempting an unbiased and dare one say honest approach.

 

The writer of the article appears to have listened to what the historians and archaeologists have said and generally accurately reported it look at the repeated references to problems in perception in Germany. They effectively cover most of the problems in perception - the rises in ardent nationalism in Germany and to some extent the reason for the construction of, and even 'veneration' of, the statue of 'Hermann'. I suspect you may have found the only two bits where 'significant' error in that reportage has been made

 

Melvadius

Edited August 20, 2009 by Melvadius

[sylla]

A common overstatement about the battle of Teutoburg (certainly not present in this article) is its numerical impact on the Empire.

Three legions lost (plus cavalry and auxiliaries) implied some 20,000 casualties at most.

After this battle, the Empire had only 25 legions.

But four decades before, immediately after Actium, Octavius inherited no less than 60 legions (excluding auxiliaries), in spite of the immense human losses all along the Civil Wars.

At Carrhae alone, seven legions were lost.

Then, if Augustus didn

[Primus Pilus]

A common overstatement about the battle of Teutoburg (certainly not present in this article) is its numerical impact on the Empire.

Three legions lost (plus cavalry and auxiliaries) implied some 20,000 casualties at most.

After this battle, the Empire had only 25 legions.

But four decades before, immediately after Actium, Octavius inherited no less than 60 legions (excluding auxiliaries), in spite of the immense human losses all along the Civil Wars.

 

Indeed, the more plausible realization is that the conquest was simply untenable, not that the empire was weakened in any measurable or permanent way. (though it didn't stop future punitive and rather successful expeditions by Tiberius/Germanicus)

[sylla]

Indeed, the more plausible realization is that the conquest was simply untenable, not that the empire was weakened in any measurable or permanent way. (though it didn't stop future punitive and rather successful expeditions by Tiberius/Germanicus)

I tend to agree with DJ Breeze; the main incentive for the Roman Emperors for conquering territory seems to have been military prestige, more than any other strategic or economic consideration.

Even after Teutoburg, Augustus still boasted from having subdued Germania in his Res Gestae.

By the time he acceded to the throne, Tiberius was already by far the most military prestigious Emperor until Trajan, with enough glory for sharing it with his nephew Germanicus; therefore, there was no incentive for new conquests.

Caius (aka Caligula) and later Claudius diverted their territorial ambitions from Germania to the British alternative.

Domitian and Trajan eventually did the same, this time at the expense of Dacia.

[GhostOfClayton]

Even if the III Reich was a paramount example of the misguided chauvinistic use of a distorted past, that should be considered a universal lesson, effectively adressed to all humanity and hardly only to the Germans.

 

Obviously, calling Arminius a "German" in the modern gentilic sense would be as anachronic and absurd as calling "Turkish" Herodotus, "Italian" Archimedes or "Tunisian" Augustine and Hannibal.

 

Is there a tentative parallel in the way the BNP seem to hero worship Boudica for giving the Roman Invaders a good kick where it hurts (Colchester)? Does anyone else see the irony that the ancestors of the (presumably predominantly Anglo-Saxon) BNP where likely the ones that kicked Boudica's Celtic descendants out of the country?

[sylla]

Is there a tentative parallel in the way the BNP seem to hero worship Boudica for giving the Roman Invaders a good kick where it hurts (Colchester)? Does anyone else see the irony that the ancestors of the (presumably predominantly Anglo-Saxon) BNP where likely the ones that kicked Boudica's Celtic descendants out of the country?

The line between natural national pride and fanatic chauvinism is frequently rather tenuous.

Like any other passion, chauvinism shows the natural tendency of becoming irrational, and this is especially detrimental for historical research, because chauvinism regularly imposes at least two complementary primordial myths:

- Manichaeism: our ancestors (and only them) were the good guys;

- Pedigree

Edited September 2, 2009 by sylla

[JGolomb]

I just purchased Murdoch's "Rome's Greatest Defeat". The review on UNRV sounded solid and it's not pure academia.

 

Any thoughts on other books about the Battle of Teutoburg? Any good fiction?

[JGolomb]

Happy Anniversary?

 

Apparently yesterday was the day. (Though I've read that the battle may have run somewhere between 9/8 and 9/11.)

 

Two thousand years ago today, one of the most decisive and devastating battles of Roman times was raging at the northern edge of the empire. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest was to have a pivotal effect on Rome's strategy in central and northern Europe and was probably the deciding factor in keeping the empire's boundaries not much further north than the Danube for the following four centuries.

 

 

[sylla]

Happy Anniversary?

 

Apparently yesterday was the day. (Though I've read that the battle may have run somewhere between 9/8 and 9/11.)

Apparently the battle lasted for three full days, so it would still have been ongoing exactly 2000 years ago.

 

Two thousand years ago today, one of the most decisive and devastating battles of Roman times was raging at the northern edge of the empire. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest was to have a pivotal effect on Rome's strategy in central and northern Europe and was probably the deciding factor in keeping the empire's boundaries not much further north than the Danube for the following four centuries.

First; I don't think a masacre in Northern Germania had anything to do with the Danube frontier; in fact, the effect of Arminius' victory over the Rhin frontier itself was probably only secondary. The main reason for stopping all Roman exapnsion was presumably simply physical; the human and material resources of the empire were just no enough to get them any farther (ie, the second stage of Luttwak's scheme for the Imperial military evolution).

 

Then, for a century and a half, the full three Dacian provinces, presumably with around one million people and an extension of more than 200,000 km2 (more or less like contemporary Italy) were kept under the Empire's boundaries, sometimes as far as the Dniester; not to mention Chersonesus Taurica (modern Crimea). That's pretty much north (and east) to the Danube.

Edited September 11, 2009 by sylla

[Kosmo]

Actually Germany is north of Danube.

[sylla]

Actually Germany is north of Danube.

Most of it indeed is (like half of Bavaria is an exception); Gallia Belgica was entirely north of that river, not to mention Britannia and obviously the Roman occupied Caledonia; the northernmost confirmed Roman construction is Stracathro (56

Edited September 12, 2009 by sylla