In A.D. 15 the Roman general Germanicus, adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, crossed the Rhine at the head of eight infantry divisions of the Roman army. His mission was to avenge Rome’s most humiliating defeat, a battle that had taken place six years previously that wiped out three of Rome’s elite legions, possibly as many as twenty thousand men. The effects of that massacre are in some respect still being felt today. What had happened? Over a period of three days the new governor of Germania, three legions, and three cavalry units were massacred in the Teutoburg Forest. The battle is known today as the Varusschlacht, named after the hapless governor and commander of the legions. Publius Quintilius Varus was, nominally at least, a comparatively experienced governor, if not much of a military man. The first-century Roman historian Velleius Paterculus, in his compendium of Roman history, dismisses Varus as “more accustomed to ease in a camp than to action in the field.” Long groomed for high office, he had already held positions in Syria. His rule, however, was characterized by tactlessness and stupidity, and according to another historian, Cassius Dio, “he not only gave orders to the Germans as if they were actual slaves of the Romans, but also levied money from them as if they were subject nations. These were demands they would not tolerate.”

The opposing Germanic leader was a barbarian only in name. Trained in the Roman army, Arminius, the son of Segimer, had not only received Roman citizenship, but had risen to the middle classes with the rank of eques or knight. He knew how the Romans thought, and Varus’s oppression was the catalyst for his revolt. The headquarters of that revolt were naturally around the tribe of which Arminius was head, the Cherusci, who occupied the land around the modern town of Hanover, and they were soon joined by two other tribes, the Chaucii and the Marsii.

Their plan was always to ambush the Roman army, to trick them out from behind their walls and ramparts. Their plan was to send a false report of a revolt north of the Rhine, then a stepping stone rather than the watery barrier it was to become.