Arminius and the Romans
Arminius (circa 18 BC – 19 AD) was a German leader of the Cherusci tribe who committed one of history’s most momentous double-crosses, transforming him into a Roman villain and a German national hero. His gigantic statue and memorial, the Hermannsdenkmal, stands today near Detmold in Westphalia, close to the site of his double-cross.
Arminius was a Romanized German who rose to command an auxiliary cohort. He won the admiration and confidence of the Romans, who granted him their citizenship and high social status, enrolling him in the equestrian, or knightly, class. He was posted to the Rhine, where he served under Publius Quinctilius Varus, a Roman general related by marriage to emperor Augustus, who tasked Varus with completing the conquest of Germania up to the Elbe river.
Varus’ approach was heavy-handed, however, worsened by the imposition of onerous taxes on the German tribes, which incited them to revolt. That was when Arminius realized he was more loyal to his fellow Germans than to his Roman employers. In 9 AD, acting as Varus’ guide, he lured him and his army into an ambush, known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, in which three legions were annihilated, and Varus was forced to commit suicide to escape the ignominy of capture.
The catastrophe shocked Rome, and in its aftermath, Augustus took to roaming his palace, banging his head against the wall and wailing “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Aside from ruining the tranquility of Rome’s greatest emperor in his twilight years, the disaster halted Roman plans for expansion into Germania and deep into Central Europe.
The impact of Germania’s remaining outside the Roman empire went beyond its becoming a future springboard and highway for the waves of barbarians who eventually destroyed the empire: the region was not Latinized in the way Gaul was, and the resultant cultural and political differences were reflected in the centuries of antagonistic relations between the French and Germans, which played a significant role in shaping Europe.