Battle of the Teutoburg Forest halts Roman expansion in Germania
- Date
- September 9 CE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Germania (near Kalkriese)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
Over several days in September 9 CE, a coalition of Germanic peoples led by Arminius — a chieftain who had served as a Roman auxiliary officer and held Roman citizenship — ambushed and annihilated three legions (XVII, XVIII and XIX) under the governor Publius Quinctilius Varus in the forests of northwestern Germania, probably near modern Kalkriese.
Nearly 20,000 Romans were killed. The 'Varian disaster' shattered Augustus's plans to incorporate Germania between the Rhine and the Elbe, and according to Suetonius the aged emperor cried out for Varus to give back his legions. Rome never again seriously attempted permanent conquest east of the Rhine, and the river became a long-term frontier of the empire. The battle thus helped fix the cultural and linguistic divide between Latin-influenced western Europe and Germanic central Europe, making it one of the most consequential military defeats in Roman and European history.
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Empires active in September 9 CE
- Han Dynasty202 BCE – 220 CE
- Roman Empire27 BCE – 476 CE
- Parthian Empire247 BCE – 224 CE
- Xiongnu Confederation209 BCE – 93 CE
- Kan Kingdom (El Mirador)300 BCE – 150 CE
- Indo-Greek Kingdom180 BCE – 10 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Battle of Actium ends the Hellenistic age2 September 31 BCE
- Caesar's Gallic Wars and the Siege of Alesia58–50 BCE (Alesia 52 BCE)
- Battle of Gaixia and the founding of the Han dynasty202 BCE
- Roman Empire reaches its greatest territorial extent under Trajan117 CE
- Bar Kokhba revolt and the renaming of Judaea to Syria Palaestina132–135 CE
- The Kalinga War and Ashoka's turn to Dhammac. 261 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
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