"Quintili Vare, legiones redde!"
Today is the anniversary of a dreadful event in which thousands perished, a day that changed the course of history forever.
The three-day Battle of Teutoburg Forest ended today in 9 AD with the utter annihilation of the Roman army under its commander Varus, at the hands of German tribes. The battle helped to establish the Rhine as one of the boundaries of the Roman empire and discouraged further Roman expansion into Northern Europe. The defeat affected the emperor of the time, Augustus, profoundly. The biographer Suetonius describes Augustus' reaction to the news of defeat:
In fact, they say that he was so greatly affected that for several months in succession he cut neither his beard nor his hair, and sometimes he would dash his head against a door, crying: "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" And he observed the day of the disaster each year as one of sorrow and mourning.A sad day indeed.
The amazing thing about this battle is the exact site has been identified by the detritus of the Roman defeat. Pretty cool! I reckon it is only a matter of time before some Tony Robinsonesque metal detectorist finds the site of the Battle of Watling Street. I find the (probably accurately recorded for a change) words of Gaius Suetonius Paulinus cut through the centuries and speak with a immediacy that wouldn't be out of place today from a commander of an outpost of the new Rome surrounded by wild Taliban:
ReplyDelete"Ignore the racket made by these savages. There are more women than men in their ranks. They are not soldiers - they're not even properly equipped. We've beaten them before and when they see our weapons and feel our spirit, they'll crack. Stick together. Throw the javelins, then push forward: knock them down with your shields and finish them off with your swords. Forget about plunder. Just win and you'll have everything."
Got to love those Romans, even if you have to remember they thought feeding humans beings to wild animals represented the very height of sophisticated entertainment.
Anyway, apparently over 90 operas in German have been composed in the last three and a bit centuries celebrating the defeat of Varus and the German nationalist interpretation of the historical impact of the battle is now pretty much the cemented in popular view. The common view, being rooted in 19th century nationalism, is of course largely complete rubbish. Whilst the loss of 20,000 odd men in three legionarii (plus auxillaries) was a stinging blow, the Augustan Roman army was around 300,000 strong. If they had really wanted to, the Romans would have been back in a year or two to finish the conquest. The German tribal alliance that defeated the Romans was simply a particularly large opportunistic gathering, probably attracted by the particularly egregious treachery of Arminius. The battle was unusual because ancient commanders went to enormous lengths to secure the loyalty of the tribes whose territory they were going to traverse (in a pre-industrial world of subsistence agriculture, this was vital to ensure what surplus food was available could be secured). Arminius comprehensively pulled the wool over Varus's eyes, but the alliance he put together didn't last and the chevauchée of revenge conducted by Germanicus in AD15 is more typical of the consequences of opposing Rome, and German response to Germanicus more typical of how effective the Roman tactics of controlling the barbarians on the other side of the frontier actually were.
The Roman Empire had, by the time of Christ, pretty much conquered all the low hanging fruit worth conquering. Britain was a marginal at best proposition and was conquered largely for imperial ego. Germania and its particularly backward and savage Germans was so poor and the people living in such a horrible, dank, cold, infertile and generally wretched place that the Romans were never going to conquer Germania permanently. There was just no money in it. Also, the Roman Empire was always going to settle down on river lines. Simple logistics meant that Roman garrisons were best supplied by using ships. So it Arminius or no Arminius, if the Germans had something the Romans wanted, they would have still conquered Germania. As it was, the Romans didn't see anything they wanted and settled down on the best lines for defence and supply.
Germany 3 - Italy 0.
ReplyDeleteThe Italian defence had no answer to the German strikers down both wings. The German midfield controlled the game, and, after the first goal, the outcome was obvious. Italy was shown to have no game plan to deal with 4-2-4 German line-up, and looked stale after many years at the top. Augustus' 4-4-2 line-up was predictable and tired.
It looks like Italy's hold on the Cup is weakening. And it goes to show that having the best strip isn't everything.
The next fixtures for Italy - the Goths, and then, the Ostrogoths, Vandals and Huns, will be no pushover in the aftermath of the German defeat. And the home game against the Visigoths in 410 looks set to be a difficult game. The bookies are favouring the Visigoths.