In an ambush led by Arminius (later known as Hermann), three Roman legions were destroyed in Germania in 9 CE. The event, one of Rome’s worst defeats, was seized upon by nationalists in the 19th-century, and later by the Nazi Third Reich, as the mythological origin of the German state. Paintings such as “The battle of Hermann in the Teutoburg Forest,” (1840) by Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder, helped popularize Hermann as the father of the German nation.

Germania

Havoc in the Teutoburger Forest

By Michael D. Greaney

One of the most devastating events to shake the early Roman Empire was the defeat of Legate Publius Quinctilius Varus and his army at the hands of Arminius in the Battle of Teutoburgerwald in 9 ad. Read more

Germania

Teutonic Fury

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

As part of tribal obligations to appease Rome, Segimer, the powerful Cherusci chief, surrendered his sons Arminius and Flavus to the Roman emperor Augustus. Read more

Germania

Drusus the Elder: Hero of Rome

By P. Lindsay Powell

On a sultry summer night in 9 BC, 29-year-old commander of Augustus Caesar ’s army in Germania bolted upright in his cot, dripping with sweat. Read more