What was Varus thinking? - The "Fool" of Teutoburg

the ambush in the todeberg forest is remembered as one of the worst defeats in roman military history the 980 disaster wiped out three entire legions and their auxiliaries within the dark forests of germania and reportedly had emperor augustus pacing the halls of the imperial palace yelling quintilius varus give me back my legions since then much blame has been placed on the commander of the doomed force who literally fell on his sword for the defeat but was varys really the fool of torterberg he's made out to be let's find out this video was sponsored by magellan tv they're an awesome documentary streaming service run by filmmakers with a selection of over 3000 videos to choose from among the categories of history science nature space and more when it comes to history documentaries magellan tv has the richest and most varied content anywhere ancient modern current war biography and even related genres like science and crime which are historical in nature if you like our content i can 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account is entirely comprehensive and it's important to note that each brings a useful but biased perspective on what really happened let's recap our first source is a roman officer by the name of elias peter cullis he was a friend of the general tiberius accompanying him during the illyrian revolt and the retaliatory campaigns in germania our second source is the roman historian cornelius tacitus he was a politician born some 50 years after the infamous ambush who wrote the annals and the histories which examined the string of emperors who followed augustus our third source is publius aeneus flores who was a contemporary of tacitus and who summarized and condensed many works of libby on roman history our fourth source is cassius daio one of the greatest historians of antiquity who lived in the later second century a.d let's talk about the scope and potential bias of these respective narratives for potter cullis the passage on twitterberg is framed as an aside in the greater context of his book roman history a few paragraphs are spent on the character of ferris and the lead up to the defeat with just a couple sentences on the actual battle itself before moving on to the other events of the germanic wars in terms of reliability we know that he had access to many of the key players and potentially even survivors of the disaster with whom to consult which should lend him some substantial credibility however we also know that much of his writing is meant to praise tiberius which risks injecting some bias when it comes to the scapegoating of other leaders for tacitus his passage on toyberg is short as well it's a few quick paragraphs that deal with how the army of germanicus revisited the site several years later and what they found there are certainly some interesting specific snippets in there likely drawn from pliny the elder's history of the germanic wars which is itself suspected to have drawn from the accounts of survivors again however we must be wary of potential bias from an author who often seeks to present history as a moralistic narrative with characters being portrayed in accordance with the desired theme for flores his passage on twitter bird comes in a summarized description of roman german relations he mentions varus and the barbarian revolt briefly states that a slaughter ensued and adds a little flourish on top regarding the fate of rome's captured prisoners and eagles his description is also filled with rhetorical flares but does seem to contain elements derived from eyewitnesses and finally we have cash's dio he gives us the most detailed and complete account starting just before varus arrives in germany and extending to the news of his defeat reaching rome as an ancient historian he is well regarded for judiciously collecting sources and considering subjects with a critical eye yet even so we should accept his story cautiously as we don't have a way to examine what kinds of sources he had access to some 200 years after the event these four sources formed the foundation for our understanding of what happened to toiberg on top of this researchers and archaeologists have worked diligently to build upon our understanding using additional findings and clues this has all helped to shape the story we are left with today so how does this stack up against the common accusation that varys was squarely to blame for the disaster let's now consider the major charges raised against him one he foolishly caused the unrest in germania two he foolishly trusted arminius three he foolishly failed to uncover the ambush and four he foolishly failed to repel the ambush let's now take a look at each of these points one by one the first accusation is that varus basically precipitated the ambush by creating unrest in germania slurs are thrown out by authors like cruel prideful and lucentious but the main thrust of the claims are that he acted in a negligent manner trying to rule the region through laws rather than an iron fist paterkulla states that quote he entertained the notion that the germans were people who were men only in limbs and voice and that they who could not be subdued by the sword could be soothed by the law with this purpose in mind he entered the heart of germania as though he were going among a people enjoying the blessings of peace and sitting on his tribunal he wasted the time of a summer campaign in holding court and observing the proper details of legal procedure flores then goes on to add that varus quote had the temerity to hold an assembly and had issued an edict against the chanti as though he could restrain the violence of barbarians by the rod of elector and the proclamation of a herald so basically the idea to summarize here is that he was a fool for attempting to treat such inherently warlike people with anything but the language of force they best understood it's a point that reeks of roman condescension and is a bit hard to take seriously but let's humor the idea and see whether varys was out of his depth when it came to governing an unruly province well if we look at his track record varys was not some administrative greenhorn his family was well connected politically and he seems to have been plugged into a fair amount of important posts early on for instance it appears that he participated in the campaigns to pacify the alpine regions around 15 bc was made co-consul with tiberius in 13 bc and served as governor to multiple provinces including africa and syria this last post is of note it's here that he commanded three legions in one of rome's most volatile imperial regions when unrest broke out varus moved decisively to crush a rebellion in jerusalem crucifying 2000 insurgents in the process clearly he was not one to treat enemies of rome with kid gloves it's perhaps for this reason and his important political connections that he was appointed as first governor of rome's newly limited province of germania there he commanded several legions and seems to have done what just about any other roman administrator would have he dispensed justice collected taxes built forts and roads and mingled in local affairs to secure the peace admittedly we don't know much about the finer points of his governing methods but it seems likely that the pushback he eventually received from the locals was part of a larger trend of anti-imperial resentment after all germania had only recently been pacified and even then it was really in name only for example just a few years earlier the tribes had risen up in revolt and surely there were many among the defeated who wished to try again when the opportunity presented itself rather than varys himself in particular serving as the spark it seems more likely that the outbreak of the great illyrian revolt and the transfer of most of rome's armed forces out of the area were more to blame for rekindling the dreams of german independence so on this count i'd vote not guilty let's move on to the next charge in this case the claim is that varus mishandled the revolt that ensued by foolishly trusting arminius the story goes that the roman general was making ready to leave his summer headquarters when the traitor brought news of a growing revolt apparently another germanic nobleman named sagestes tried to warn varus of the betrayal but was ignored this seems quite damning however we must remember that hindsight is 20 20. arminius was not some random german he was the son of an allied tribal leader who shed blood sweat and tears in the roman auxiliary learned latin and was granted the prestigious title of equitae making him a citizen of rome in this capacity he was well regarded and above virtually all suspicion from an outsider's perspective that he would go rogue was by no means an assured fact since we know that his younger brother remained loyal to the roman cause even after armenius had betrayed it as for the warning from sagestes this too was not so straightforward after all arminius had a known public quarrel with a man after having married his daughter without consent such bickering between locals was to be expected and could easily have been chalked up to as nothing more than background noise given the same chance it's hard to imagine that your average roman governor wouldn't also have chosen to trust arminius the citizen of our suggestions the barbarian chief sure an exceptional commander like caesar or tiberius may have sniffed out trouble and acted with greater caution but that's raising the bar quite high thus on these charges i also find varus not guilty the next accusation of foolishness comes from the fact that while varus perhaps reasonably trusted arminius he nonetheless failed to uncover the ambush while on the march based on our sources this occurred for a couple reasons the first reason is that varus chose to march against the revolt by taking a shortcut through unfamiliar territory why do this it sums dumb at face value well he was apparently already headed west to encamp for winter along the more secure rhine when word of the supposed uprising reached him deviating immediately to stamp out the threat asap was actually in keeping with rome's standard operating procedure according to historian adrian goldsworthy quote when an uprising did occur the roman reaction was always the same all the troops which could be mustered at short notice were formed into a column and sent immediately to confront the perceived center of their rebellion ideally a show of force even if it was a facade regained the initiative and prevented a rebellion from developing and growing stronger the willingness of even greatly outnumbered roman forces to attack the enemy displayed a contempt for them and an unwavering belief in rome's inevitable victory it was a gamble since the roman column was only capable of defeating relatively weak opposition and risk disaster if it encountered a well-prepared and strong enemy end quote as examples of this risk goldsworthy goes on to point out the roman loss against buddhica at the battle of kumalodinum in 60id and the loss against jewish rebels at the battle of haron in 66 a.d note here though that both of these case studies occurred after the battle of totterberg and would not have served as a precedent for a commander in 980 to reflect on so perhaps in this regard we can excuse ferris for wanting to immediately take the short path towards the supposed threat despite the risks however i think it's still reasonable to fault him for not scouting the path properly as we discussed in our video on roman exploratories this normally would have involved deploying both close and far rings of cavalry patrols to clear the area ahead unfortunately in this case though arminius the germanic auxiliary cavalry and likely even the locals were in on the deception and prevented varus from realizing that the revolt was already upon him rather than several days march ahead this in turn led him to take a more lacks approach than usual in what was thought to be still friendly territory but come on you might say it doesn't take a military genius to know that one should be on guard walking right into a dark scary forest well actually as it turns out the battlefield we have identified archaeologically does not appear to have been located off the map at the edge of the world as is commonly depicted yes there were some woods and marshals present but this was still an area of germania under active cultivation with open areas and several villages in the close vicinity of the site which even housed legionary detachments so on this count it's a bit easier to see why varys acted the way he did and failed to uncover the ambush i'd hesitate to condemn him unambiguously here without additional information on how the scouting unfolded that being said i think it's fair game at this point to at least start to question whether your average roman commander would have done the same once again it's easy to imagine a caesar or tiberius figure being better prepared this now gets us to the final charge against ferris that he was a fool for failing to repel the ambush once it had been sprung the idea here is that an able commander should have been expected to better martial as forces to escape the disaster sure this sounds practical enough on paper but let's consider some of the practical realities that got in the way we know for instance that the roman army was attacked on the march and was less arranged in a long column from josephus we know roughly how the troops would have been grouped and from other sources we learned that soldiers most likely would have been spaced out six men or so apart put together researchers have estimated that a single legion would have been about two kilometers long while its associated support and baggage train was another three kilometers long consider then that varus had three legions in total and was not advancing under ideal conditions we're told that the column was slowed by a variety of factors including road clearing activities the presence of numerous camp followers and the arrival of a sudden violent rainstorm all of these together conspired to greatly stretch out the army to somewhere around 20 kilometers as is estimated for context that distance would take about four hours to walk across in person it should be no wonder then how confusing things would have been once the barbarians struck given that people at other ends of the army may very well have had no idea what was happening for quite some time word of mouth or writers would have been sent by varus to attempt to coordinate a top-down response but these would have also been disrupted by the disjointed nature of the roman force which was only worsened by german attacks along the front archaeological findings seemed to indicate that the legions were ultimately split in at least two major groups thus it was up to the local officers the trusted centurions to get the job done in this capacity they seem to have done a pretty good job and held the army together at first usually such enemy assaults could be expected to dissipate and the roman position to strengthen as time went on however in this case arminius had done an excellent job with his preparations that ensured that the barbarians could keep pouring on the pressure while the legions were robbed of the ability to retaliate effectively all in all it was just a brilliant ambush i think most roman commanders dumped into this same encounter would have found the situation equally untenable thus it seems a bit unfair to fault varys here for not coming out on top after all legions in a similar ambush at the volcano marshes during the great illyrian revolt had almost been wiped out as well even though they had the advantage of being in a fortified camp taken together i hope the discussion has shown why we should not unanimously condemn varys as the fool of toyberg on many accounts he seems to have performed as well as your typical commander and fell victim to circumstances outside of his control however i think the point of criticism where he is most at fault comes in his failure to properly detect the ambush or at least to adopt a marching stance better suited for the possibility of such an event but that's just my opinion let me know what you think in the comments below see you in the next one you

Channel: Invicta

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Keywords: battle of teutoburg forest, battle of teutoburg forest barbarians, roman history, roman history documentary, teutoburg, varus, roman army, roman army documentary, military history, teutoburg forest, roman military, legions, tiberias, germanic wars, roman germanic wars, tacitus, dio, fool, publius quinctilius varus, varian disaster, arminius, arminius documentary, arminius barbarians

Id: zHZW3cOFEfI

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021