MAJOR PLAYERS IN GERMANIA - EARLY IMPERIAL ROME

The annihilation of General VARUS in 9 A.D. in the TEUTOBURG FOREST

Roman Legionaries on the march AD 14

Senior Roman Officer

AULUS SEVERUS CAECINA. After the death of Augustus, Tiberius ordered a campaign of revenge. We don't know whether this was another attempt to establish Roman hegemony, or simply to erase the stain of defeat with victory. In command of the Rhine Army was a 30-year-old proconsul with impressive family connections. Germanicus Caesar was the grandson of Marc Antony, son of Drusus Germanicus, nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, brother of the future Emperor Claudius, father of the future Emperor Caligula, and grandfather of the future Emperor Nero. Tiberius helped his young son by assigning Aulus Caecina Severus as his second in command. Caecina was a capable officer with forty years of experience campaigning against the Germans, Pannonians and Parthians.

In the spring of AD 15, Germanicus divided his reinforced army into two columns, one under himself and the other under Caecina Severus. Germanicus struck at and ravaged the lands of the Chatti, while Caecina tied down the Cherusci to prevent them from fully engaging. The Chatti chose not to engage Germanicus, instead evacuating what they could save, and melting into the forests.

In the meantime, Caecina again ravaged the Marsi. Hit twice in a row, this tribe was effectively knocked out of the war and adopted a low profile for several years. This ended the spring campaign.

For the summer, Germanicus united the two columns and advanced towards the territory of the Bructeri. On the way, they came to Varus' final camp, which was a haunting and pitiable scene. Whitening bones were scattered unburied on the ground. Skulls were nailed to tree trunks where captives had been executed six years earlier. Surviving veterans of the battle pointed out where the Eagles had been captured, and where Varus fell. Germanicus spoke quietly of the dead, and buried the bones in a great funeral mound, his piety stoking the fury of his legions for revenge.

The Romans moved onward, attempting to engage Arminius, who continued to fall back. The Germanic prince showed a flair for guerilla action, striking at supply groups and flankers, then retiring as the main force came to their aid. He might very well have worn down a weaker or less capable opponent. At one point Arminius lured the Roman cavalry forward and ambushed them with hidden troops. They were nearly wiped out, but as Germanicus rushed forward with the legions, Arminius broke off the action once again.

It appears that Germanicus was frustrated in his attempts to pin down and ravage the Bructeri by Arminius' hit and run warfare. The supply problems steadily worsened as baggage trains from Gaul had to struggle through the dense forests, always vulnerable to sudden attack. Towards the end of the campaign season, he went with half of the army by ship down river to the North Sea bases. Caecina returned via the old "long bridges" built some years earlier by one of the Ahenobarbi. Caecina stopped to repair them. During construction work in swampy terrain, Arminius struck and inflicted some losses. Caecina managed to hold off the Germans and get his men into camp.

Arminius urged that the Germans wait until the Romans made a run for it, chasing them down the same way they defeated Varus. His uncle Inguiomerus argued for storming the camp to take the booty undamaged, and because the Romans were already demoralized. Arminius lost at the council and the Germans attacked the camp. The canny Caecina Severus sortied just as the Germans were coming over the walls and routed them with his swift and violent counterattack. Inguiomerus was wounded and the Germans driven off with heavy losses.

GERMANICUS JULIUS CAESAR (15 B.C.-19 A.D.) Son of DRUSUS (1) the Elder and ANTONIA; a general of great achievement and a noble political figure of enormous popularity. As a grandson of AUGUSTUS, Germanicus was raised in the imperial palace with his brother Claudius, where he received a good education and was the more favored of the two by their mother. After the deaths of Lucius CAESAR (2. A.D.) and Gaius CAESAR (4 A.D.), Germanicus was groomed for high office and became a member of the Senate, and he was adopted by TIBERIUS at the same time that Tiberius was adopted by Augustus. From 7 A.D. onward, Germanicus was on campaign with Tiberius, first in PANNONIA and DALMATIA (7 to 10 A.D.) and then in Germany (11 to 12 A.D.). In the field he showed considerable strategic prowess, and when Tiberius departed for Rome, Germanicus was left in command of the German legions. Because of his popularity, Germanicus was feared by Tiberius and his mother LIVIA. Further, Livia engaged in a long-running feud with Germanicus' wife, AGRIPPINA THE ELDER. However, in 14 A.D., when Augustus died and Tiberius laid claim to the throne, Tacitus wrote that Germanicus simply worked harder for the emperor. He took an oath of loyalty himself and then administered it to all of the surrounding tribes.

A mutiny erupted in the legions of Germany and Illyricum at this time, and Germanicus relied upon the support of his troops to quell it. As proof of the restored discipline, he took to the field again and made war in Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe, all the way to the North Sea, against the Chatti and especially the Cherusci, under the command of the King ARMINIUS. In a series of hard-fought battles, Germanicus did much to restore Roman supremacy and honor among the tribes responsible for the annihilation of General VARUS in 9 A.D. in the TEUTOBURG FOREST. In 17 A.D., Tiberius ordered him back to Rome, where he celebrated a great triumph. Then the emperor, sensing his growing strength among the Romans, ordered Germanicus to the East, granting him the title mains imperium, master of all of the eastern provinces. While he clashed with Gnaeus Calpurnius PISO, appointed by Tiberius governor of Syria, Germanicus achieved numerous successes and was hailed throughout the major cities of ASIA MINOR, SYRIA, PALESTINE and even in EGYPT. CAPPADOCIA was organized into a province with the help of the legate Quintus Veranius. Troubles in Armenia were temporarily eased with the crowning of POLEMO of Pontus as its king. Parthian relations were improved. A famine in Alexandria was relieved. Tiberius viewed all of this with jealously, even censuring Germanicus for traveling through Egypt without imperial permission.

From the start Germanicus and Piso disliked each other, and even the normally generous Germanicus was pushed too far. When he returned from Egypt, he fell ill but recovered, only to collapse again. On October 10, 19 A.D., he died. Antioch went wild with grief, joined soon by the entire Empire. It was generally held that Germanicus had been poisoned (a fact assumed by Tacitus and Suetonius), and Piso instantly received the blame. When Agrippina returned to Italy, she openly charged Tiberius and Livia with the crime, and the emperor sacrificed Piso rather than face even greater public outrage. As an orator Germanicus showed himself gifted and even authored a translation of an astronomical poem by Aratus. His children were nine in number. The six survivors of childhood were Agrippina the Younger, Livilla, Drusilla, Drusus, Nero and, of course, Gaius Caligula, who would be Germanicus' legacy.

ARMINIUS (Hermann) (d. 19 A.D.) Prince of the CHERUSCI and one of Germanic folklore's greatest heroes; responsible in 9 A. D. for one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on the Roman legions. Arminius served as an auxiliary of the Roman army but remained loyal to his own tribe. In 7 A.D., VARUS was placed in command of the three legions posted to Germany, with the intention of Romanizing the entire area. These plans were proceeding successfully when, in 9 A.D., Varus advanced to the Weser River, heading to a Roman fort at Aliso.

Arminius, who had previously voiced no opposition to Rome, suddenly led his people and nearly all of the Germanic tribes in revolt. Varus marched his three legions through the rough, impenetrable terrain of the Teutoburg Forest of Lower Saxony, and there he encountered the determined enemy. Nearly 20,000 men were killed in one disastrous episode. Even in the Punic Wars, Rome had never witnessed such a debacle. Imperial policy over the Rhine territory would never recover, and Germany was lost as a province forever. Six years later the gifted Roman general, GERMANICUS, mounted an expedition against the CHATTI, while Arminius was beset with troubles of his own. The Cherusci were divided into two uneven camps because of a quarrel between Arminius and his father-in-law, Segestes. (Arminius had stolen his daughter, although she was betrothed to another man.) Segestes was subsequently besieged by Arminius, and Germanicus, seizing the opportunity offered to him, marched to Segestes' rescue. The Romans captured Arminius' pregnant wife, Thusnelda, who happened to be Segestes' daughter. Segestes and his household were allowed to settle in Ravenna, with Thusnelda practically a prisoner, and the son of Arminius raised in Roman ways. The loss of his wife and child enraged Arminius, but he remained cold and calculating in his hatred of Rome.

The Roman pursued Arminius, dispatching his deputy, Aulus Severus Caecina, with 40 cohorts, ahead of him. Arminius turned to fight, and a general battle followed, with victory to the Romans. The German leader escaped, but four years later, in an attempt to regain his power, he was killed by treachery. Arminius was intensely popular during his days of victory but was hated in his later years, despite his pivotal role in the liberation of Germania.