Excavating a Battlefield
It was a defeat that shocked the Romans and set the Emperor Augustus to wandering around his palace at night wailing, "Varus, give me back my legions!"
Quinctilius Varus, the Roman general on the Rhine, had ignored the advice of his German advisers - who included the pro-Roman brother of the German leader, Herrman - and marched his three legions deep into the gloomy Teutoberg forest. There his troops, strung out along the narrow path, were ambushed by the Germans who cleverly split the Romans into three groups and, in a three-day battle, annihilated them.
20,000 of Rome's finest troops perished at the hands of mere barbarians and the shock of the defeat caused the Romans to leave Germany strictly alone in future. They withdrew behind the Rhine and the "limes", the fortified border that marked the northern limit of the Roman empire, and left the Germans to their wild tribal ways - a decision that has caused some modern Germans to regard Hermann's victory as a defeat for Germany, because it meant that the benefits of Roman civilisation - baths and roads and strong administration - were denied to the Germans.
Later writers did refer to Roman incursions into German territory in retaliation for German raids into Roman territory, but as they spoke of the Romans marching hundreds of miles into Germany they were dismissed as exaggeration, because everyone knew that after Varus the Romans kept well clear of Germany.
Not for the first time, archaeologists are showing that ancient authors were not the ignorant boobies modern experts claim and their statements, however contrary to modern theories, were nothing more than bare fact.
Metal detectors, searching a patch of forest near Kalefeld, 40 miles south of Hanover and only 90 miles from the site of Varus' defeat, discovered arrow heads with three barbs, a type that was unknown in Germany but was common among the Roman auxillary forces. With unusual honesty, they alerted the local archaeological service to their find and an investigation followed that resulted in a full-scale archaeological excavation of the area of woodland a mile long and a third of a mile wide.
In a remarkable piece of archaeological detective work, the historians combing the site believe that they can reconstruct the battle in considerable detail. For example, the discovery of the heads of large projectiles buried in the ground not only indicate the use of artillery - torsion powered ballistae that could fire three or four heavy bolts a minute - but also showed where the German forces were standing. Furthermore, the angle and direction of the buried heads pointed back to where the Roman artillery was stationed.
On the other hand, the discovery of concentrations of nails from Roman military sandals appear to show where the Roman troops were standing - presumably nervous soldiers shuffling their feet before the battle caused loose nails to fall out. The large area over which these nails have been found give us some indication of the number of Roman troops involved, which some have suggested was as many as 20,000 - the number of troops lost by Varus, so three whole legions with all their attendant auxilleries and support companies. Others have estimated a force of around 1,000, which while perhaps more realistic in terms of objects found is breath-takingly small when one considers how far this force ventured into Germany territory!
However there is something the investigators have not found: they have not found any Roman armour! The recently discovered site of the Teutoberg Forest battle near Osnabruck was littered with Roman arms and armour, so its absence at this site is taken as evidence that the Romans were the winners.
Curiously, no German weapons have been found, leading some to suggest that the German forces were armed with captured or traded Roman weapons. An alternative suggestion is that the Romans were attacking a German hill fort on the Harzhorn hill and the ballistae bolts found are the ones that missed their mark and buried themselves in the earth rather than in the human bodies which were their target.
All told, more than 600 objects, from discarded or lost weapons to horse shoes, wagon-wheel hubs, harness parts and, of course, the sandal nails, have been found. Although the discovery has been publicised in the press, its exact location has been kept secret to avoid an army of metal detectors descending on the site.
The discovery of a Roman coin from the reign of the Emperor Commodus gives an indication of the date of this hitherto unknown battle and, together with other indications, points to the period 180-260 AD. Historians have suggested that there may have been a Roman raid into Germany in revenge for German attacks in 235 AD which temporarily pushed the Romans south of the Limes Germanicus.
Stern magazine has a photo gallery of pictures from the excavations - showing tennis balls of various colours used to mark the places where finds were made - and from the press conference announcing the discovery.
The discovery of this battlefield is causing historians to reassess the received history of Germany. Not only does it show that the Romans could - and did - enter Germany territory in force and at will, contrary to the cherished German belief that a united Germany had skilfully repulsed the dreaded Romans, but it may also support another claim which is less than complimentary to the Germans.
According to the Romans themselves, they abandoned any attempt to conquer Germany because the area was simply not worth having: cold, damp, inhabited by savages and without resources that might attract the Romans. If the Romans could march in and out as they pleased, it may well be that their explanation is the correct one and they did indeed make a conscious decision to stay out of Germany because unlike Britain, it wasn't worth the trouble to conquer it.
© Kendall K. Down 2009
