AMBUSHED!

The early afternoon sun reflected off the gleaming armor of Publius Quinctilius Varus as he rode along the track at the base of the hills that formed the southern edge of the North European Plain. His personal bodyguards surrounded him. At the front and rear of the long column marched auxiliary and cavalry units. Varus and his entourage were in the midst of the thousands of troops that made up his three legions. From his horse, Varus could see only a small portion of the immense column of soldiers as it moved along the track through woods and glades. This was new territory into which he and his legions now ventured, north of the routes that the Roman forces were accustomed to taking on their way to and from summer campaigns in the Germanic wilderness east of the Rhine River.

On this September day in A. D. 9, Varus commanded an army of some eighteen thousand troops. It consisted of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Legions—the crack professional infantry of the Roman army—together with auxiliary forces of three cavalry units and six more cohorts of infantry. This fighting force presented a colorful picture of men, horses, and wagons, as it marched steadily along the beaten, but narrow, path through the northern European wilderness. Each of Varus's three legions proudly displayed its traditions on the tall staff that bore the legions name and number, along with an image of the imperial Roman eagle—the symbol for which the soldiers were willing to fight and die. The shiny helmets, glinting armor, brightly colored uniforms, silver and gold decorations on the garments and weapons of the officers, and richly ornamented harnesses of the cavalry horses created an extraordinary spectacle as the army marched relentlessly forward. The clanking of armor, the pounding of the soldiers' hobnailed boots, and the creaking of the supply wagons produced a cacophony foreign to this sparsely populated region.

They were marching to finish the conquering of a province, just as Julius Caesar had done two generations earlier in Gaul. The catalyst for this march was information provided by a local chieftain known as Arminius, whom Varus trusted and believed to be a strong supporter of the Roman cause. Arminius had served with the Roman military as a commander of an auxiliary unit and had distinguished himself on the field of battle. Days earlier, he had told the Roman commander of an uprising started by a small tribe that lived a day or two's march west of the Roman camp near the Weser River. Segestes, like Arminius a member of the Cherusci tribe, had warned Varus of possible treachery by Arminius, but Varus had grown to trust Arminius and his comrades and discounted Segestes' concerns. The day before, Varus had set out from the Roman camp with his army, heading toward the reported uprising. This was the same direction in which Varus was planning to march anyway, back to his winter base at Xanten (Vetera) on the Rhine, and attending to the small revolt would require only a small detour. Varus departed with the understanding that Arminius would go ahead to rally some of his own tribesmen to join in the quashing of the rebellion. Since Varus expected to encounter no dangers in this now largely pacified region until he reached the territory of the rebellious group, he took no unusual precautions in the marching order of his troops.

The route took the Roman army westward from its summer base near the Weser, along the northern edge of the hills known as the Wiehengebirge. This range of west-east-running hills forms the boundary between the flat sandy landscape of the North European Plain and the hilly countryside of the central European uplands. The Roman troop train marched along the flat terrain on the very southern edge of the North European Plain, with the Wiehengebirge to its left. Varus and his officers were unfamiliar with this route, because all of the Roman campaigning in Germany over the past twenty years had been to the south in the hilly upland territories. In those regions, the passing of earlier units on summer campaigns had resulted in the clearing of substantial tracks through the forests, and in the bridging of numerous streams, so movement of troops was now relatively easy. But the stretches where Varus and his army marched this day had seen no such improvements by the military engineers, and the going was rough. The track they followed was well worn by the local peoples, but in many places the legions had difficulty marching six abreast, as was their custom in such landscapes where the passage was narrow. Often troops in the vanguard had to clear fallen trees from the path and fill deep muddy holes in order to let the wagons pass.

Much of the land through which they marched was covered by woods, mainly mixed oak forest with birch, beech, and alder trees. In some places, the forest was dense and gloomy and the path even narrower than usual. In others, the trees had been cleared away for farmland and meadow, and the Romans felt a sense of relief each time they emerged from the dark forest into the clearings. In the open areas, the track edge was lined with high yellow grasses and late summer wildflowers. The soldiers passed fields of wheat and barley, meadows in which cows had recently grazed, and sturdy farmhouses. Yet they saw hardly a soul along their route. The locals, alarmed at the menacing sounds of the approaching troops, had fled with their cattle into the woods long before any Romans could catch sight of them. Bogs, marshes, and ponds were common in this low-lying region at the base of the hills, and the passing troops often had to skirt these impediments.

When they approached the Kalkrieser Berg, a 3$o-foot-high hill that juts out northward from the range, the troops had to turn north for about two miles to go around it. This route took them into an hourglass-shaped passage barely half a mile wide in the middle and four miles long, just north of the steep hill and along the southern edge of a huge bog (see maps 3, 8, and 9). Even under the best of circumstances, this passage was treacherous. Numerous wide, muddy streams meandered across it, flowing north from the hills into the Great Bog. Pools and swampy areas impeded progress, and in places the forest was so dense that the marching formation had to split as soldiers moved around trees and cautiously avoided exposed roots. Within this passage, most of the ground was saturated with water from the bog and the streams flowing toward it. Only a strip of sandy ground about one hundred yards wide located at the southern edge of the passage, close to the base of the hill, offered somewhat more solid footing. The troops marched along this narrow isthmus through the passage, with the forested slopes close on their left and stands of willows and alders amid the reeds and sedges bordering the Great Bog on their right. Where streams cut through the narrow walkway, managing the supply wagons became particularly difficult. This was not a place in which a Roman commander felt comfortable. But turning around a two-mile-long marching column of troops to seek an alternative route was out of the question at this stage.

Suddenly a chilling yell was heard as attackers on all sides fell upon the struggling Romans. Varus and his army were caught completely off guard and in the worst possible situation. They had not been marching in a formation that permitted rapid transition into fighting mode, nor were they accustomed to combat in forested and marshy environments. They had been lured into a perfect trap. The attackers darted from behind trees, hurling their spears at their victims. Stuck among the trees and ankle-deep in slippery mud, the Roman soldiers had neither room to maneuver nor the possibility of escape. Hundreds of men were impaled by the attackers' iron-tipped spears. Some died instantly; others screamed in agony as they tried desperately to pull the spears from their bodies. When they realized that the Roman soldiers were unable to mount any effective defense, the attackers left the shelter of the surrounding trees and moved in with their swords, stabbing and slashing wildly, cutting down hundreds more victims. The Roman troops were thrown into chaos, as thousands lay dead or dying of their wounds on the muddy and now blood-soaked earth.

The native warriors were not as heavily armed as the Roman legionaries—they had few helmets or sets of body armor—and depended instead upon the effectiveness of their spears and long swords. In the open field, the heavily armed and highly disciplined Roman troops would have prevailed, even if outnumbered by the native forces. But the surprise attack in this confined and marshy environment put the Roman troops at a severe disadvantage. The natives knew the terrain, and their weapons and fighting tactics were much better suited to it than were those of the Romans.

Varus and his commanders quickly realized that they had been lured into a deadly trap. In his fear and desperation verging on panic, Varus felt the full force of Arminius's duplicity.