The mile-long stretch of track in front of the sod wall was a mass of Roman bodies. Some were intact and some chopped apart, with limbs sliced off, and in a few cases gaping bloody holes where heads had been. Some bodies had been hacked open, and innards poured out onto the blood-soaked ground. About a quarter of the bodies showed signs of movement, as wounded legionaries tried to raise themselves or turn over. The rest were motionless. Thousands of soldiers had fallen here, and in places they lay two and three deep. Everything was covered with blood, streams of which ran northward down into the marsh toward the Great Bog. Severed limbs lay between and on top of bodies, and disembodied heads between corpses. Bent and bloody swords and spears were scattered between, on, and sticking into other corpses. Splintered shields littered the landscape. Legionaries' packs and the men's personal effects were strewn everywhere, and they too were covered with blood. Hacked and bleeding bodies of mules and horses formed gray and brown masses above the rest of the debris.
To the east, where the middle and rear portions of the column had been marching when the attack began, the corpses were more widely scattered. Since the attack there struck a few minutes later, and since they were not yet in the narrow passage bounded by the wall and the marsh, more Romans in those parts of the column had attempted to flee. Many hundreds of bodies were scattered to the north throughout the marsh, some floating in pools, others sprawled on grassy banks above the water. Germans concealed in the bushes by the edge of the swamp raced after them as they fled, hurling spears into them at short range or hacking them to pieces with their swords. Other corpses lay farther east, where men had tried to run away in the direction from which they had come on their march, only to encounter bands of Germans waiting by the edge of the woods east of the Kalkriese Hill.
Altogether some 17,000 bodies littered the track and the southern edges of the marsh, about 16,000 those of Roman legionaries and their auxiliaries. Their equipment was scattered about them—16,000 swords, daggers, helmets, and suits of armor, and nearly 25,000 javelins, most of which had not been thrown. Bronze pans, iron tools, bronze and silver coins, and personal items were strewn everywhere.
After the Battle
As the battle wound down, the victors began their post-battle mop-up operations. These included caring for their own wounded, removing their dead from the battlefield, and killing any Romans who still showed signs of life. Some German warriors who remained alive had suffered terrible gashes to the abdomen or legs that rendered them immobile, and they lay on the battlefield among the Roman dead. They called out for help when their fellows approached. Their comrades bandaged their wounds as well as they could and carried them to the edge of the woods for washing and medical care. A couple of hundred probably suffered these kinds of wounds. Some would recover, while others would die soon of loss of blood, or later of infection.
Like the Roman troops, the German fighters had among them men trained in military medical treatment. They combined traditional practices with techniques learned fTom Roman doctors during their service with the auxiliary forces in the Roman army. As the wounded Germans were carried off the battlefield, they were brought to a few central places behind the wall at the edge of the woods, where their medical specialists examined and aided them. They were practiced at washing gashes and stab wounds with clear, clean water and at setting broken limb bones. They knew how to make bandages of tree bark and leather and how to use herbs to ease pain and to restore the balance of humors—the bodily fluids upon which life and good health were believed to depend.
After removing their wounded from the battlefield, the Germans who were still able returned to retrieve their dead. They dragged some off the track by their arms, others they carried, placing the bodies next to the sod wall or by the edge of the track. They were always careful to collect the weapons next to their fallen comrades. The dead would receive funerary rituals deserved by heroes fighting for their own people; and it was important to include their weapons with them in the grave. Men from the different communities walked along the edge of the killing zone, identifying their own dead for transportation back home for funerary celebrations.
By this time—two hours after the start of the battle, an hour after its conclusion—of the sixteen thousand Romans lying on the site, perhaps a thousand were still alive, though too severely wounded to flee. Many were dying from loss of blood and shock. After they had removed their wounded to be cared for by those skilled in the healing arts, and their dead for funerary rituals, the still-strong Germans returned to the battlefield to finish off any Romans who were still alive and to begin the process of removing weapons and equipment from the enemy dead. Wounded Romans were dispatched with a spear thrust through the neck or heart, or simply left to die in the night from exposure.
The Funerary Rituals
The next day, men from the hundreds of communities that had joined in the battle began the treks back to their homes, carrying their dead on horses, carts, or hastily made litters. In the villages, the returnees were greeted by the women, children, and old men with joy and celebration, tinged with deep sorrow for those lost in the fight. All came to view the bodies of the fallen heroes. The next day, or a day or two later in the case of fighters who had traveled far to join the attack, in every village that suffered the loss of one or more men, funeral pyres were built of branches and logs. The rituals varied somewhat in different communities. In a typical ceremony, the body was placed on top of the pile of fuel, and the local elder or a person especially versed in ritual tradition spoke to the assembled community of the man's sacrifice for his people, as all attending bowed their heads in respect. Then the man's wife or eldest child touched a burning taper to the tinder at the base of the pyre, and the body was cremated in a solemn ceremony.
Treatment of the cremated remains varied. Although every community had rules and customs that were recognized by all, each family was permitted to practice variations on the standard procedures. In many cases, after several hours of burning and smoldering, the burned bones and ashes were gathered up and placed in a vessel, most often an urn of local pottery, but sometimes a bronze cauldron that had been acquired through trade from traveling merchants and treasured by the family.
The weapons of the fallen heroes were important elements in the funerary celebrations and in the creation of the grave. Sometimes the man's sword and a spear or two were arranged next to his corpse on the funeral pyre and thus damaged by the fire, but more often they were placed in the grave unburned. Typically, one of the participants in the funeral bent the sword, so that it could never again be used by anyone—in effect, killing it to go into eternity with its hero. With all members of the community in attendance, the urn containing the cremated remains was lowered into a hole in the ground, and the sword, spearhead, and sometimes parts of a shield were arranged around the urn. Then the soil was slowly pushed back into the hole, covering the urn and the weapons, as the mourners wept.
Sacrificing Prisoners
In the later stages of the battle, when it was clear that the Romans were defeated, the Germans took about fifteen hundred prisoners. It was the custom among the Germanic peoples to sacrifice some of the captured members of the enemy army as offerings to their gods, and with the defeat of the feared Roman legions, this practice took on an especially powerful meaning. But the need to perform this ritual had to be balanced with the practical desire to keep some prisoners as slaves, for retention by warriors who had distinguished themselves in combat. Let us suppose that Arminius and the other leaders agreed to select five hundred men for sacrifice and keep the remaining thousand as slaves. This would have been a high number for sacrifice, but the Roman army was much hated for all of its marching through their lands and for the Romans' presumption that the Germans were easy prey for conquest. Watching and participating in the sacrifice of Roman soldiers—especially centurions—would delight the victorious fighters, and the gods would be greatly pleased with the sacrifices, particularly those of officers.
For the night after the battle, the five hundred Romans to be sacrificed may have been herded into parts of the ditch in front of the sod wall and bound with cords. Guards were posted to be sure none loosened their bonds and escaped. At first light, preparations were made for the celebratory ceremonies of offering.
The Germans believed that their gods liked to see their victims die in different ways, particularly ways that were not quick and merciful. For the varied rituals, some were led into the forest, others down to the marsh.
In the forest, groups of Germans had prepared sacrificial altars—rectangular enclosures about five square yards in area marked out by stones. Some of the Roman officers were dragged, one at a time, into these spaces. In front of a crowd of enthusiastic warriors, a German leader recited an incantation to a particular deity, joined in parts by those surrounding the altar, then slashed the victim's throat with a sharp knife. The victim collapsed, his throat gushing blood. The body was dragged aside, and the next victim was hauled into the enclosure.
Others were hanged from trees, especially oaks. The Germans threw a rope over the lowest branch of a large oak tree, and tied a noose in one end. A Roman soldier was dragged to the base of the tree, and the noose was looped over his head and tightened. Five Germans held on to the other end. After one man said a few sentences of offering to a deity, the five pulled on the rope as they walked away from the tree, lifting the doomed Roman soldier off the ground. The victim writhed wildly and made ghastly gasping and choking noises, to the amusement of the crowd of taunting Germans witnessing the spectacle. After a couple of minutes, the body hung limp. The men on the other end of the rope let the body down. The noose was loosened and lifted over the dead man's head. The body was hauled aside to be left in the woods, and the next victim was dragged forward.
With their long swords, Germans chopped the heads off some of the sacrificed legionaries and fastened them to trees. One held the head against the trunk while another used a wooden mallet to pound a foot-long spike through one eye and the brain and out the back of the skull. These bloody heads nailed to trees created a ghastly and terrifying atmosphere for the Romans who were being dragged to their doom, but for the Germans they decorated a sacred temple of victory in their beloved dark, quiet woods.
Other Roman soldiers were sacrificed in the marshes, in honor of gods who dwelt in the murky waters. Groups of Germans assembled at the edges of dark pools of open water. They hauled bound Roman captives forward, one at a time. One of the Germans might slash the victim's throat, and others held the victim over the edge of the pool, his blood spouting from his neck into the dark water. When the flow of blood slowed, they hurled the motionless corpse into the pool. The Germans stabbed others in the heart, allowing the gushing blood to pour into the pool, then dumped the lifeless body into the water.
The sacrificing of the five hundred Roman officers and legionaries took most of the morning.
Plunder and Offering
As they finished carrying out the other tasks after the end of the battle, the victors began walking across the battlefield and collecting the weapons, armor, bronze vessels, coins, personal ornaments, and anything else they could see and easily retrieve. They felt elated as they twisted swords from dead legionaries' hands, yanked daggers from their scabbards, and wrenched helmets from their heads. These objects were treasured and indeed sacred symbols—prizes that stood as emblems of the martial success of these tribal warriors over the hated Roman legions.
In gratitude to the gods of war from whom they had sought supplication before the battle, and who had abundantly favored them in the action (and also to increase the likelihood that they would favor them again next time), the victors sacrificed most of the booty as their sacred offerings. There was excitement and satisfaction as they gathered their treasures and carried them to great heaps along the edges of the killing zone. As the mounds of
Roman weapons and ornaments grew higher, the German warriors became increasingly excited and jubilant.
The rules of German warfare stipulated that military victories be celebrated by the common sacrifice of some of the weapons of the defeated army—and of surviving members of that army— to the martial gods. But custom permitted the retaining of other captured weapons, to be distributed to the warriors who had contributed to the victory. The fine Roman legionary swords and the ornate officers' daggers were particularly valued. Those honored with these prizes kept them as personal trophies, or used them as high-status items to exchange with trade partners in other communities. During the collecting of weapons and other Roman goods, some men ripped pieces of sheet gold and silver off iron weapons, concealing the precious metal on their persons and depositing the base metal onto the growing piles.
For the Germans of northern Europe, forests and bodies of water had always been especially sacred. These were places where they carried out rituals, and both were inhabited by nature spirits. In forests, groves of trees that were set apart from others were highly attractive for ritual, particularly groves of oaks. Even though all water was sacred, still black pools were deemed most potent, such as those common in great marshes and the isolated ponds in forests. Archaeological evidence shows that these ritual practices were carried out at least as far back as the Neolithic period, before 3000 B. C. By the prehistoric Iron Age, after 600 B. C., these customs were common all over northern Europe.
The Kalkriese depression was a profoundly mystical environment for the Germans, even before their great military success. On the south side of the track was the forest on the slope of the Kalkriese Hill, and on the north side were the marshy lowlands that extended to the Great Bog. The setting was rich in sacred associations, and thus ideal for celebrations of ritual and religion. Perhaps its special ritual potential was a factor in its choice as the spot for the German attack, along with the natural advantages it offered the native warriors over their Roman adversaries.
Besides sacrificing some of the men from the opposing army, the victors had to offer up to their gods some of the weapons and other goods captured. Because of the immense significance of this battle victory, they offered objects in a variety of traditional ways. The depositing ofvalued objects into water was a common means of making offerings to deities, just as the depositing of human sacrificial victims was. In ceremonies that lasted much of the day and were accompanied by incantations to gods of war and nature, groups of Germans threw swords, scabbards, daggers, helmets, coins, and other objects into different parts of the marshland north of the track. From one grassy bank in the marsh, a man threw a precious silver scabbard. At another, a warrior let a leather sack full of silver coins sink into the dark water. These actions were repeated hundreds of times all across the marshy depression. By depositing objects in many different places throughout the marsh, they could sanctify an extensive locale. They could both please the deities and create a special holy place for all of the tribal peoples who had participated in and benefited from this great victory.
Creating a Battlefield Sanctuary
The Germans constructed yet another part of this immense sacred site, in addition to the forest groves sanctified by the sacrifice of Roman officers and the marshy pools made holy by the bloody bodies of Romans and the treasures thrown in. This third part of the sanctuary was the battlefield itself—the site of the heroic deeds and grand accomplishments of the German warriors. To celebrate and commemorate the success of this immensely important event, the Germans wanted to achieve several aims. First and foremost, they wanted to create a memorial that the gods of war would understand as a supreme offering to them. Second, they wanted to construct a place that celebrated their successful resistance to Rome. Third, Arminius and his most devoted followers wanted this monument to serve as a sign of his leadership, as a means of shoring up his position as commander for future political struggles among the German tribes.
That the Germans would leave the Roman dead in place was a foregone conclusion and a first decision toward creating the ritual site on the battlefield. They had no interest in performing funerary ceremonies for the enemy soldiers anyway, and their decaying bodies and bleaching bones would starkly mark the site as the place of the great victory over the Roman legions. In addition, the Germans left some special objects on the site, arranged on the part of the battlefield where the fighting had been most intense—in front of the sod wall. All along the wall, the concentration of Roman bodies and body parts was especially dense. Many mules and horses lay along the wall as well, still wearing their ornamental harnesses, yokes, and bronze bells (see illustration 28).
One of the special objects placed on the edge of the killing zone by the wall was a mask helmet made of iron (illustration 29). Consisting of an iron face with openings for eyes, nostrils, and mouth, it had belonged to an auxiliary cavalryman who was serving with Varus's troops. The object had been specially crafted for him, and, though somewhat stylized, it represented his own facial features. He wore it not in battle but on ceremonial occasions, such as parades and display drills. He had been carrying this treasured possession on his saddle, and in the battle it had come loose and fallen off. A German scavenging the battlefield picked it up. Instead of throwing it into one of the black pools in the marsh, the Germans decided to place this special piece next to the sod wall. They valued it highly as a sign of their victory, because it was an unusual trophy, different from any of the equipment that German soldiers carried or wore. It was almost a portrait of one of their defeated enemies. But before placing it on the site, one of the Germans cut off the sheet of silver that covered the face. Silver was precious and always needed for making ornaments, and the significance of the face mask would not be lessened by removing this second metal.
Remembrance, Visitation, and Transformation
In the following days and weeks, many people came from nearby communities and from farther away to visit the site and pay homage to the Germans who had planned so carefully and fought so hard to defeat these Roman legions. Given their past experiences with the Romans, they expected reprisals, but they nonetheless felt that they had succeeded in delivering a resounding blow to the imperial army and hoped that their victory would have a long-lasting impact in discouraging Rome from continuing its attempts to conquer their lands.
During the next few years, groups of Germans continued to come regularly to the site to pay their respects, to celebrate their peoples' victory, and to express thanks to the war gods who had favored their efforts in the ambush.
Meanwhile, already in the months following the battle, the mammals, birds, insects, and bacteria had reduced the thousands of corpses to bones. What had been the well-worn track around the Kalkriese Hill took on a different appearance. Weeds and wildflowers sprang up everywhere, richly fertilized by the copious blood that had soaked into the ground, but the dominant aspect of the place was tens of thousands of bones, some bleached by the sun, lying on the surface.
Desecration by the Romans
Six years after the battle, during the Romans' final, fruitless attempts to defeat these resistant peoples, the general Germanicus
And his troops visited the battle site. When they came upon the huge mass ofwhitened bones and the weapons that had been left in place or purposely arranged by the Germans when they created their sanctuary, they felt outrage at the disrespectful treatment of their fallen comrades, whose bones lay exposed and uncared for in the open air.
They began to bury the bones out of respect for their dead comrades, unaware that they were destroying a sacred site of the Germans (not that they would have cared even if they had known).The number of bones on the site was enormous and the task overwhelming. Some soldiers dug pits in the ground and placed bones in the holes, covering them with the fTesh soil. Sometimes they picked up nearby weapons and deposited them in the pits as well, as signs of the efforts the dead men had made in the battle. A number of legionaries gathered up large quantities of bones and heaped them into great piles. They then covered them with great mounds of earth. But Germanicus did not want to keep his men for very long on this task, and after half a day he ordered the burial work to stop and his troops to leave the site and undertake the job of conquering the Germans once and for all. They had made hardly a dent in the huge mass of bones covering the ground along the track, but they had succeeded in giving at least some of their countrymen burial, removing their bones from exposure on the surface and sheltering them in the security of the earth.
Reconsecration of the Sanctuary
From the woods beyond the eroding sod wall, some Germans watched the Roman legionaries as they moved bones and weapons on the sacred site. For them, those actions were a sacrilege, desecrating the sacred site that the victorious warriors had created. They told their comrades about what they had seen, and
Groups of Germans came to the site to undo what Germanicus's troops had done. They tore down the mounds the Romans had built, scattering the bones that lay underneath. Where they could identify freshly dug pits, they burrowed into the soft soil, ripping out bones and buried weapons, scattering them again over the surface of the battle site. Although it had been defiled temporarily by the Roman tampering, the place was once again restored to its sanctified status.
Forgetting and Remembering
The site remained sacred to the German peoples of the region for many years after the battle. No community established a settlement on this land, nor were cattle allowed to graze in the wet meadows. Many people made pilgrimages to the site, especially those who had lost sons, brothers, and fathers in the battle, as well as others who wished to honor the achievement of the warriors who had won the decisive victory that broke Rome's will to continue its attempts to expand eastward beyond the Rhine.
After several generations, people's links with the place gradually vanished. The Roman border had been firmly set at the lower Rhine, and there was no indication that Rome would attempt further military ventures eastward. In fact, the whole relationship between Rome and the Germans had changed. Many Germans now served as auxiliaries in the Roman bases on the Rhine, and many others had entered into contracts to produce food, iron tools, leather and textiles, and other goods for the tens of thousands of troops stationed along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Thus the immediate significance of the battle site faded in the memory of most Germans.
But although visits to the sanctuary gradually declined and finally ceased a few generations after the battle, memory of the event remained active in stories and legends among the
Germanic tribes. In the succeeding centuries, few people had any idea where the battle had taken place, when it had happened, or who the leaders and tribal participants had been. But the memory of a great battle against the Romans, which the German warriors had won, lived on in stories, songs, and legends.
World History
