Reassessing Varus and his defeat at Teutoburg Forest

[guy]

 

Here is an excellent video that carefully reviews and reevaluates the ancient literary sources that mentions Varus and his disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[caldrail]

Firstly the imagery is hugely misleading, showing us a wide freeway through the forest that looks dry and well prepared. In reality, it was a forest trail, so nothing like as wide, and Florus tells us it was 'Fearful forest and stinking bog' - it was temperate rainforest after all, and I'm not convinced that area was so well settled. In any case, the Romans suffered an overnight storm. It caused the legions to stumble, their shields to soak and become way too heavy, and reduced morale considerably because the storm was seen as a sign of divine disapproval. Proper cavalry patrols weren't quite as practical, but then, he was operating on information supplied by Arminius. Varus thought he knew where the rebels were.

Secondly, his logic is not as objective as it might seem. There's a clear agenda to revise the narrative and some of the thinking is preconceived.

Varus was by trade a juror rather than a military man. We learn that the Germans had appeared to settle and accept the Roman presence. But more importantly, the video makes no mention whatsoever of the context for Varus' presence as military administrator - he was not a governor - there was no province to govern or advise, and Augustus knew he was a greedy man having left Syria much the poorer for his governorship there. Augustus needed cash to continue his civic bribery. He sent Varus to collect it. And there perhaps we have a much more realistic reason for the success of Arminius in getting the tribes to cooperate and ambush the Roman legions.