Original subtitles

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: The Democratic Roman Republic is no more.

After a relentless drive to seize absolute power,

Julius Caesar is assassinated by aristocrats hoping to maintain

the senate as the center of Rome’s political authority.

\hBut the effort fails, and the age of emperors

begins with the reign \hof Caesar Augustus.

Now, in the first century \h\h\hBC, under the reign

\h\h\h\h\hof the new emperor Augustus, a New Roman Empire

\his on a mission of rapid expansion

\h\hand sets its sights on the savage land beyond the Rhine.

But the latest and greatest conquest

collapses into a bloodbath.

\hGermanic tribes spurn the imperial yoke and defy Roman

authority, hobbling imperial ambitions,

\hredrawing history, and jeopardizing the empire.

[music playing]

\hGaul, first century BC, Rome takes its first steps

to world domination.

\h\h\h\hSpurred on by unprecedented growth,

\hthe empire believes the rest of the world

\hwill eagerly bask in its civilizing light.

\hEmperor Augustus consolidates power

\h\hafter the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar,

\h\hand Rome rises and spreads its influence

across the known world.

THOMAS MARTIN: Augustus was \h\hJulius Caesar’s relative

who became, in our terms, \hthe first Roman emperor.

Augustus saved the Republic in a way

\h\hthat Julius Caesar had been unable to do.

PETER WELLS: This was the beginning of the real peak

of Roman power.

It was rapidly expanding \hits imperial frontiers

\h\hand had had a series of stunning military victories.

\h\hMany in Rome felt that the state was invincible.

NARRATOR: The beloved Augustus has triumphed

\h\h\hin his difficult task of melding the Democratic values

of the old republic under \hthe power and leadership

of an emperor.

THOMAS MARTIN: Augustus \h\h\hsaved the Republic

by becoming its number \hone and sole leader,

in fact, but by saying and \hconvincing other people

that the republic was still \h\hwhat it had always been,

\h\ha cooperation among people up and down the social ladder

for the good of all.

NARRATOR: After 35 years \h\hof successful rule,

\hAugustus sees his greatest achievement

as the massive expansion \h\hof Roman territory.

\h\hTo him it is more than simple military conquest.

There is a higher \hmission as well.

Romans, after all, are superior.

THOMAS MARTIN: The Romans also \hfelt that they had a mission

to take Roman civilization to \hother people who didn’t have

it.

So they thought that they had a cultural mission to bring law,

and as they saw it, \hjustice to people

who were living without it, the people they called barbarians.

NARRATOR: With Gaul successfully becoming a Roman province,

the newborn Roman \hEmpire eyes land

beyond the Rhine in \han area that will

come to be called Germania.

\hThe tribes beyond the Rhine live precariously,

vying for power or turf \h\hthrough bloody raids

against each other.

Some tribes even extend their raiding into Roman territory,

which Rome will not tolerate.

[music playing]

[cries out]

\h\hThe empire sees these barbarians as

savage, unpredictable, \hdangerous, and worth

conquering.

[groans]

PETER WELLS: There has been much debate about what Rome

was doing east of the Rhine.

\h\hThe big question is, was Rome trying

\h\hto establish a new province between the Rhine and the Elba,

\h\h\h\hor was Rome simply conducting punitive raids

to try to stop incursions \h\hthat have been coming

across the Rhine from the east.

\h\hMost scholarly opinion now suggests that Rome was really

trying to establish \h\ha new province.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: By 9 BC, Emperor Augustus sends General Tiberius

on a campaign across the Rhine.

[calling out drill commands]

\h\h\h\h\h\hSTEVEN RUTLEDGE: The relationship between the Romans

and Germans is very problematic.

\h\h\h\hYou have people who are willing to work with the Romans

and people who hate the Romans.

And what this goes back \hto, at times no doubt,

is a jockeying for power among the German tribes

within ancient Germany, \h\h\h\hGermania itself.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Tiberius, a well-connected and effective

soldier, is heir apparent \hto the imperial throne.

\h\h\h\hIn Germania, he courts a leader of the Cheruscian tribe,

seeing a potential ally.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The Romans became allies

of some of these barbarian groups

\h\h\hbecause those groups wanted Roman

\h\h\h\hhelp against their fellow barbarian enemies.

And the Romans wanted to expand their territorial control,

\hand also their, as they saw it, civilizing mission

further north.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The Cheruscian chieftain

welcomes an alliance with Rome.

Though his people have no \hinterest in Roman ways,

they crave the empire’s protection and prestige.

THOMAS BURNS: They had a lot to gain

\h\h\hfrom the relationship with Rome, particularly their ruling

elite.

\h\hEconomically, there is access to Roman products.

What’s more important, is that Roman products enable

a person to show status.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The young Germanic \h\h\hprince happily playing

Roman soldier will learn to be a shrewd player of Roman

politics.

Raised in two worlds under the proud traditions of his people

\hand the might and glory of the empire,

\h\h\hhe will become a Roman officer and a Germanic king.

His name is Arminius.

[music playing]

\hFor more than a decade, the empire

has enjoyed relative peace with the tribes across the Rhine

\h\h\h\h\hthanks to the strong military of Emperor Augustus.

[calling out drill commands]

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: Augustus \h\his a military dictator

\hwho is going to have to fight constantly in order

to establish an empire that’s actually going

\hto be stable for a full two centuries.

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: Arminius, the young Germanic prince now in his 20s,

\hhas become an auxiliary commander in the empire’s

service.

\h\h\h\h\hThese auxiliary troops recruited from Rome’s provinces

are a crucial supplement \hto the Roman army’s 28

official legions.

THOMAS MARTIN: Augustus \h\h\h\hhad to make sure

that people understood that he was doing what

\h\h\htraditional Roman leaders had always done,

\hlead Rome to glorious and profitable conquest in war.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: In 6 AD, Roman general, Tiberius,

travels from Germania to \hquell a violent revolt

\h\h\h\hand the volatile Roman province of Pannonia, roughly

modern Hungary and Austria.

[music playing]

[cries of battle]

\hTiberius directs all his forces in Germany

\h\hagainst the insurgents who are rejecting Rome’s taxation

and intrusion into their way of life.

[cries of battle]

THOMAS MARTIN: When the Romans \h\htried to push Romanization

of the barbarians, to make them live more like Romans at a pace

\h\h\h\hfaster than the barbarians wanted to go,

\h\hthen the barbarians said, we won’t go there.

[cries of battle]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The revolt against Rome

will last three grueling years, stretching the Roman army thin.

Emperor Augustus sends \hin auxiliary troops.

\hArminius fights in this campaign,

mastering the techniques \h\h\h\hof Roman warfare

and distinguishing himself \hto his Roman superiors.

First century Roman historian \h\h\h\hVelleius Paterculus--

ACTOR (AS VALLEIUS PATERCULUS): Brave in action and sharp

\hin mind, Arminius had an intelligence

\h\hquite beyond the ordinary barbarian,

\hand he showed in his manner and in his eyes

the fire of the mind within.

\hNARRATOR: Arminius is also sharp enough

to see how brutally Rome can treat its provinces,

crushing their autonomy.

[cries of battle]

\h\hPETER WELLS: I think he might have seen many

of the native Pannonians in very much the same position

as his peoples back in northern Germany.

\h\hAnd he may well have seen a reflection of his own community

\h\hin some of those places in Pannonia.

[cries of battle]

\hNARRATOR: Still, in service to the empire, Arminius fights on,

mustering his auxiliary forces \h\halongside the Roman troops

of General Tiberius.

As Rome fights to keep Pannonia in line, back in Germania,

the empire building progresses smoothly.

[music playing]

Arminius’s people, constructing roads and other Civil projects

under Roman watch, are beginning to see the benefit of Rome’s

intrusion.

THOMAS MARTIN: For the barbarians, especially

\hthose against the Rhine, who really weren’t living

in a Roman world, they could \hstill see the attractions

of what we call Romanization, \hdeveloping a life more based

on trade and commerce, building larger communities as opposed

to very small separate \hcommunities the way

they had traditionally lived.

NARRATOR: Third century historian, Cassius Dio--

\hACTOR (AS CASSIUS DIO): The barbarians

were adapting themselves \h\h\h\h\hto Roman ways,

were becoming accustomed \h\h\hto holding markets

and we’re meeting peaceably.

They were becoming different \h\h\h\hwithout knowing it.

NARRATOR: In 7 AD, \hEmperor Augustus

\happoints his close friend, Quinctilius Varus to govern

the land east of the Rhine.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: Varus is a relatively capable commander

in a pinch, but there’s \h\h\halso an intimation

that we get from our sources \h\h\hthat he’s not the best

character in the world.

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: His description by historian Velleius Paterculus

is less than flattering.

\h\h\h\h\h\hACTOR (AS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS): Quinctilius Varus

was a man of mild character and of a quiet disposition,

somewhat slow in mind \h\has he was in body,

\hand more accustomed to the leisure of the camp

than to actual service in war.

NARRATOR: The peaceful situation in Germania

suits his relaxed disposition.

[music playing]

Varus has befriended \h\h\hArminius, who

\h\h\hhas returned to Germany and his people

as a respected Roman citizen.

\h\h\hIn Arminius, Rome sees a strong ally and lasting peace.

[music playing]

The Germans play by Rome’s rules,

\h\hbut only to keep the Romans off their backs.

THOMAS MARTIN: The \hGermans weren’t

happy about being forced \hto go to Roman courts

and let a Roman decide their disputes for which they had

\h\hlong standing homegrown ways of solving their problems with.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The resentment \h\h\h\hbegins to build,

\h\heven though the surface looks calm,

according to the Velleius.

\h\h\hACTOR (AS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS): The Germans

are a race to lying born.

By trumping up a series of fictitious lawsuits,

\h\h\hprovoking one another in disputes,

\hand settling quarrels by law rather than arms,

they appear to express their \hgratitude to Roman justice

while pretending their \hown barbaric nature

was being softened.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Varus had experience governing people

\hwho’d been used to being governed.

Nothing could be farther \h\hfrom the experience

and the expectations of \hthe Germanic peoples.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The intrusion, according to historian Cassius

\h\hDio, pushes Arminius and the other tribal leaders to action.

\h\h\hACTOR (AS CASSIUS DIO): Besides issuing orders to them

as if they were actually \hslaves of the Romans,

Varus extracted money as they \hwould from subject nations.

\h\hTo this, they were in no mood to submit,

\hfor the leaders long for their former power

the masses preferred \htheir former ways.

THOMAS MARTIN: So when \hthe Germanic peoples

\halong the Rhine decided they’d had enough of Varus

and his haughty administration, his imposition of Roman ways,

especially in court, they \h\hdecided to fool Varus,

to get rid of him.

\h\hNARRATOR: And no one is in a better position

to do that than Arminius.

[music playing]

[cries of battle]

For three years, Roman \h\hgeneral, Tiberius,

\h\hhas been struggling to crush a violent rebellion

in the province of Pannonia.

[cries of battle]

[music playing]

\h\hAt last, in 9 AD, he is seeing his efforts rewarded

as the insurgents are defeated or surrender.

Victory is within his grasp.

\h\h\hBut as order is restored in Pannonia,

\h\hunknown to the Romans, the situation in Germania

is about to explode into chaos.

In this supposedly peaceful province,

Roman governor-general, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hVarus, has

\hpushed to establish Roman rule and pushed the Germans too far.

[music playing]

The proud German barbarians, under their leader Arminius,

have grown tired of \hpaying Roman taxes

\h\h\hand being treated as slaves on their own lands.

Refusing subservience \h\h\h\hto Rome, they

\h\h\h\hdecide to take up arms against the most powerful army

in the world.

[non-english speech]

Not all of the German chieftains are convinced by the plan.

\h\hOne, a man named Segestes fears the risks are too great.

But Arminius sways the others.

\hTHOMAS BURNS: For a man like Arminius

at this point in his career, \h\h\hand he’s acknowledged

as the dominant person \h\hamong his people,

\hthis is a great honor for him, to become just a client

\h\h\hin some kind of provincial structure,

an unclear category, something \h\hhe just didn’t want to do.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Arminius has fought alongside the Romans

and he knows the Roman army is an army of power, not stealth.

[music playing]

\hSTEVEN RUTLEDGE: So he had the opportunity

\hto learn Roman tactics, and to learn how the Roman

\harmy operated, and what it could and could not do,

\hwhat its capacities and capabilities were,

how it deployed, how it fought.

[cries of battle]

NARRATOR: Arminius \hknows about Rome

\h\h\h\hand he knows the Romans underestimate Germanic resolve.

\h\h\hHe tells General Varus everything he wants to hear.

Historian Velleius Paterculus--

ACTOR (AS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS): Arminius use of the negligence

\hof General Varus as an opportunity

\hfor treachery, wisely seeing that no one could

\h\hbe more quickly overpowered than the man who feared nothing.

\h\h\hHe knew that the most common beginning of disaster

was a sense of security.

PETER WELLS: Part of the problem was Romes bias,

Rome’s overconfidence, that \h\hit could defeat anybody,

that nobody up in these \h\hnorthern regions far

from the Mediterranean \h\h\h\hcould possibly

\h\hMount a successful defense against Rome.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: If the Germans are to strike, they must do it soon.

Their enemy is stretched \hthin by other battles

and completely unsuspecting.

The Germans set their trap in the soggy tree clogged

\hTeutoburg Forest in Northwestern Germany.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: And what \hArminius had done was--

\h\hit must have taken several weeks and several hundred men.

They actually constructed a 5 \hfoot high, 15 foot wide wall

\hcomplete with fences and presumably some camouflage

as well.

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: For Roman general, Varus, it’s business as usual,

\h\hunaware he and his troops of the 17th, 18th, and 19th legions

\hprepare to pull up stakes and make their seasonal move

to their encampment to the west.

\h\h\h\h\h\hThird century chronicler, Cassius Dio--

ACTOR (AS CASSIUS DIO): They \hhad with them many wagons

\hand beasts of burden as in times of peace.

Also, many women, children and servants were following them.

\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Their armor and their equipment

is probably being carried in \ha wagon or by pack animals

\h\hbecause nobody could carry 70 pounds of armor

\h\hand 40 pounds of pack day after day.

\hThey’re chatting with their common law wives,

or arranging for somebody to come and polish their armor

that night, or thinking \h\h\habout the evening

\h\h\h\hthey’re going to have drinking with the prostitutes.

The last thing on their mind \his immediately forming up

into battle formation.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In the midst \hof his preparations,

Varus receives a visitor, \hhis old friend Arminius,

\h\h\hnow in service to Rome, has just returned

with news of a tribal conflict to the west.

Arminius tells Varus \hhis presence there

is needed to restore order.

[music playing]

\hThe supposed uprising is in an unfamiliar territory called

Kalkriese.

\h\hBut it’s only a short detour from the Roman Fort at Haltern,

Varus’s intended destination.

[music playing]

Varus mobilizes the entire \h\hcamp for the journey.

THOMAS MARTIN: So here’s Varus having been drawn

into German territory through his own pride,

\hbut coming, he thinks, on a civilizing law giving mission.

\hHe’s not ready to fight these barbarians so skilled at ambush

and the kind of tactics that could throw a Roman

army into complete disarray.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The long line of soldiers, civilians,

and provisions lumbers through the woody German countryside.

Varus expects no trouble, but this is foreign soil,

so he remains cautious.

\hHe moves his entourage as quietly as possible.

THOMAS BURNS: Archaeologically, one of the things

\hthat has been found in these recent excavations

is a cow bell.

\hAnd the cow bell has been packed with straw

\h\h\hand the straw is still in the cow bell.

NARRATOR: With the cow bell silenced,

\h\h\h\hthe line precedes, keeping military formation

as the Romans head unknowingly \htoward the camouflaged walls

of the trap.

[non-english speech]

\h\h\h\hThe Germanic chieftain, Segestes,

still dreading the deadly plan, tries

to warn Varus about the \htreachery of Arminius.

But he is ridiculed \h\hand driven away.

First century historian \hVelleius Paterculus--

\h\hACTOR (AS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS): Segestes

\h\h\h\h\h\hdemanded that the conspirators be put in chains.

But fate now dominated the plans of Varus and clouded his mind.

THOMAS MARTIN: Even \h\hthough Varus had

been told by other barbarians, \h\h\hdon’t trust those guys.

They’re going to betray you.

But Varus thought he was a judge of character and he could tell

who was his friend \hand who wasn’t.

[music playing]

[cries of battle]

NARRATOR: While Varus leads \hhis legions into the trap,

\hGeneral Tiberius returns to Rome from his hard won success

in Pannonia.

\hFor Emperor Augustus, the victory of Tiberius

proves the supreme might and power of his empire,

\han empire believed to be invulnerable.

[music playing]

As the Roman governor-general, \h\h\hVarus, moves his troops

\h\h\h\h\hwestward to their fortress, he makes a detour

to settle an uprising his friend, Arminius, reported

to him.

[music playing]

In truth, Varus is being \h\hled into a trap deep

\hin the Teutoburg Forest in an area

known as the Kalkriese Woods.

PETER WELLS: They had to stay on a very narrow track of sand

bars with on either side of them marshy forested environment.

\h\hVery difficult places of passage.

\h\h\hIt seems that the Roman column had to become narrower.

Roman soldiers were accustomed \h\h\hto marching six or eight

abreast.

They probably had to change in march, maybe four or two

abreast here.

NARRATOR: The soldiers \hare further hindered

by the burdens of their \h\hwives and families,

who are making the march with \h\hthem to the new fortress.

PETER WELLS: They would’ve had very difficult going.

\hAs the passageway became muddier, it became wetter.

This landscape is penetrated by a series of deep ravines,

streams flowing from the-- the Kalkriese [inaudible]

\h\h\hdown into the swamp to the north.

\h\hTHOMAS BURNS: Varus walked through the worst

possible territory a commander \h\hcould have walked through.

On one side, he has a swamp.

On the other side, he has hills.

\hHe followed the road because Romans didn’t-- couldn’t carry

all this armor they wore.

\h\hOn the long haul, it simply wore too heavily.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The German tribesmen \h\h\h\hhave lured the Romans

\h\hinto the perfect trap, difficult to move forward,

impossible to move back.

THOMAS BURNS: Arminius knew \hhe had Varus in his hands.

It was just how--

how and when.

It’s not if.

And it happened, and it happened in a really complete fashion.

[music playing]

[man yells]

NARRATOR: Third century chronicler, Cassius Dio,

describes the moment of ambush.

ACTOR (AS CASSIUS DIO): The Germans

\h\hcame upon Varus in the midst of forests,

by this time almost \h\h\himpenetrable.

And there at the very moment \h\hof revealing themselves

as enemies instead of subjects, they

wrought great and dire havoc.

[cries of battle]

NARRATOR: The trap is sprung.

The Romans have no way out is \hthe barbarians surround them

on all sides.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: So your bare out there.

You have just your armor on, if that,

and you are going to quickly be decimated

in terms of your ranks.

And the Romans had no room because the path

was too narrow to deploy.

\h\hNARRATOR: The line of troops and their entourage

could have stretched \h\htwo miles long.

\hVarus hemmed in at the middle of the formation

\h\h\h\his unaware of the devastation at the front.

\h\hAll he knows is the line has suddenly stopped moving

and there is no place to go.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: The \hfront of the line

is going to be the \hfirst to get it.

\hAnd there isn’t much communication

\has far as we can tell on this path,

or there couldn’t be \hmuch communication

between the front of the line \h\hand the rear of the line.

So that’s going to render \hthe army more vulnerable

and create a deadly \hsituation as well.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: By the time Varus learns of the attack,

it is far too late.

No time to prepare.

No place to escape.

The exact chain of events \h\h\his lost to history.

THOMAS BURNS: My guess \his this was a battle

that the main engagement took less than an hour.

But the mopping up operation probably

took the rest of the afternoon.

Each man had to reconcile to the inevitable, and I--

I don’t know how a Roman would \h\hhave done that any better

than--

than an American.

Very hard to watch your friends die.

[cries of battle]

\h\hNARRATOR: As the Roman soldiers die like animals,

\h\hmore German warriors join the fray, writes Cassius Dio.

ACTOR (AS CASSIUS DIO): \h\h\hThe enemy’s forces

\h\hgreatly increased as many of those who had first wavered now

\h\hjoined them, largely in the hope of plunder.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In an indignity worse than death, two of the legions

lose their eagle standards \h\h\h\hto the barbarians.

[victory cries]

THOMAS MARTIN: The eagle was \hseen as a religious symbol

by the soldiers.

\h\h\hIt was literally the religious spirit and power

that kept them safe and \hmade them victorious.

To have the eagle fall in battle or to be taken by the enemy,

was literally like having \hyour spirit ripped out.

And without your spirit, you \hwere going to be defeated.

\hBut worst of all, was the disgrace, the loss of honor.

\h\h\hTo have the symbol of your fighting spirit literally taken

by the enemy was the ultimate \h\hin dishonor and disgrace.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Under Varus’s watch, \hthe standards and the battle

are lost in the Kalkriese Woods.

\hThe dishonored general knows what he has to do.

[yells]

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Varus had been fooled so badly

\hby the barbarians, he knew he was responsible for this defeat

because he had marched a Roman \harmy in and not prepared it.

So Rome was going to blame \h\hVarus for this defeat.

Varus blamed Varus.

And for him, the only way out was suicide, even though this

was a disgraceful suicide.

[victory cries]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The Germans under Arminius’s leadership

have recaptured their land.

\h\hAnd in the process, defeated the mightiest army in the world.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNow, it’s time to torment their captives.

Second century Latin writer, Florus, recounts the horror.

ACTOR (AS FLORUS): Never was \htheir slaughter more cruel

than there in the marshes and woods.

Never were more intolerable \h\h\h\h\hinsults inflicted

by barbarians, especially those directed against the lawyers.

\h\h\hThey put out the eyes of some of them,

and cut off the hands of others.

\hThey sewed up the mouth of one of them

after first cutting \h\hout his tongue.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: As Germania celebrates the defeat of Varus,

\h\ha victorious General Tiberius returns to Rome

from his battles in Pannonia.

[music playing]

And in Rome, Emperor \hAugustus joyfully

makes the final preparations to celebrate Tiberius’s triumph.

But all that planning \h\hwill go to waste.

[music playing]

\h\hPETER WELLS: When news arrives in Rome,

Augustus is told of the loss of his three legions in the north,

he is horrified.

And supposedly, he screams \h\hrepeatedly after this,

\h"Varus, give me back my legions."

\h\hThis was a shock because Rome had had a whole series

of military successes.

Rome believed these people in the north

could be easily defeated.

Yet, here comes this news that three entire legions, 15,000,

20,000 men were destroyed in one fell swoop in a totally

unexpected disaster.

[music playing]

[cries of battle]

\hNARRATOR: And now that the Cherusci and other barbarian

tribes have slipped their leash, what can stop them

from destroying Rome?

[music playing]

As Varus’s as Roman legions are destroyed in the north,

\hGeneral Tiberius returns to Rome to celebrate his victory

in Pannonia.

\h\hBut instead, he finds Emperor Augustus shattered

\h\h\h\h\hat the news of the terrible loss in the north.

[music playing]

Barbarians across the Rhine have massacred three entire Roman

\h\h\h\h\hlegions under Governor-General Varus.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Varus’s disaster meant to Augustus

that Augustus’s plan to push the northern frontier of the Roman

Empire further had failed, and that they were always

going to have to deal with \h\hthis ferocious peoples

on their frontiers \hwho at any time

\h\hmight want to come into the Roman Empire,

either to live or to raid.

[victory cries]

NARRATOR: The blow to Rome is a severe one and it cannot go

unanswered.

THOMAS BURNS: Arminius had struck a significant blow

to Roman morale, and Roman \hpride, and Roman honor,

and that had to be avenged.

\hLosing 15,000 to 18,000 men from an-- from a strike force

\h\hof legionnaires of 150,000 it’s similar,

I think, to the United States Army today losing 60,000 men.

We have about 600,000 \h\h\hmen under arms.

\hIf we lost a tenth of them, we lost 60,000 men in one day,

I think it’d make the evening news.

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: To restore Rome, General Tiberius

mobilizes his exhausted troops.

[calling out drill commands]

Tiberius is sent along \h\hwith eight legions

\h\hand auxiliary armies to reinforce the Rhine frontier

and Gaul.

[music playing]

\h\hFortunately, Rome appears safe for now.

The Germans show no sign of \hhostility at the borders.

\hBut the Romans have learned how crafty the Germans can be.

\h\h\hAnd so, they stay vigilant, even at home.

Guards are stationed throughout the city.

\h\hPETER WELLS: And it was a severe blow to Rome as a city,

as a society, to know that these peoples of the north whom it

\h\hhad regarded through the writings of Caesar,

and Tacitus, and others as being far inferior to Rome

militarily were able to deal with this devastating blow.

[music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: Mighty Rome, the apex of western civilization,

suddenly feels vulnerable.

Every foreign citizen \h\hor visitor is now

suspect, a potential terrorist.

Augustus, fearing a sympathetic uprising among the Germans

in Rome, expels them.

[music playing]

While all of Rome quakes with fear,

the Germans beyond the \hRhine are jubilant.

\hArminius celebrates his victory over Rome

by taking a bride, Thusnelda.

\h\hShe is the daughter of rival chieftain, Segestes,

who had tried to warn various \h\h\hof Arminius’s treachery.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Very much against her father’s wishes,

\h\hshe allowed herself to be kidnapped by Arminius.

\h\hBecause German women were strong,

they would kill their men \hif they were retreating

from battle.

They saw themselves \h\h\has worthwhile.

\h\hThey wanted to be allied with the best possible man.

\h\hThusnelda, that was Arminius’s wife’s name,

\hsaw Arminius as the very best man among the Germans

and she wanted nothing \h\hless for herself.

\h\hNARRATOR: The victory against the Roman legions

has earned Arminius \htremendous clout.

Now, as King of the \hCheruscian people,

he forms a coalition \hof tribal leaders.

[music playing]

THOMAS MARTIN: Arminius thought that this spectacular defeat

would give him the purchase, the fame

\h\h\hto be what the Germans had never had, a king over everyone.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The site \hof the massacre

becomes a holy place, left \huntouched to commemorate

\h\hthe victory over the Romans and to please the Germanic gods

that granted it.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: The Germans \h\h\hworshipped in groves,

as far as we know.

They kept images, and-- \h\hand various statues,

and animal totems \hin their forest,

and actually, this \hidea of totemism

\h\h\h\happears to have been something fairly important,

for the Romans too, but more so perhaps for the Germans.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: And so, as Rome staggers,

\h\hthe Germans revel in their barbaric success,

keeping the Roman weapons \h\h\has a sacred reward.

PETER WELLS: Things like swords, and spearheads,

and shields took a lot of time and a lot of material to make.

\hEconomically they were very precious.

\h\hBut it does seem that in many of these circumstances

\htheir ritual value was more important.

And for that reason, these \hwere deposited sometimes

by the thousands.

And we even find weapons \h\h\hwith ornamentation

in silver and gold on them indicating officer status.

\h\hNARRATOR: Through violence and cunning,

\h\h\h\hthe Germans have snatched their land back

from the Roman intruders, \h\h\h\hat least for now.

But Rome is not giving up.

[calling out drill commands]

\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The Romans realized they had a big problem

along the Rhine.

And after they were \h\hable to regroup,

which meant finding \h\h\hmore soldiers,

trying to build new alliances \h\h\h\h\hwith the barbarians,

\hthey began after some time to send expeditions

across the Rhine, both to \htry to pacify the area,

but also to regain \htheir lost honor

because the defeat of Varus \h\hhad been so disgraceful.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: And so, for posterity and for the empire’s

self-esteem, Rome must somehow \h\h\hturn this dire situation

around.

\h13 AD, four years after the massacre,

\h\h\hEmperor Augustus sends the aptly named general, Germanicus,

\hand his troops to engage Arminius and the Cherusci

barbarians.

[music playing]

\hTHOMAS BURNS: It takes a long time

to restore a strike force so \hthat Germanicus has troops

to deal with this problem.

There was no question \h\hit had to be done

or the whole idea of the emperor’s honor

\h\hand perhaps even the emperor himself

was-- was in harm’s way.

This was a disgrace \h\h\hthat could not

be allowed to go unchallenged.

[music playing]

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: The ethos for the Romans

is revenge, hatred, anger.

There’s no idea of compassion, \h\hof overarching compassion

for humanity.

These are very, very \h\hruthless people.

\h\hNARRATOR: Ordering Germanicus to Germany

is one of Augustus’s final acts.

The next year at age \h77 he lies dying,

broken by the consequences \h\h\h\hof Rome’s defeat,

his dream of empire unfulfilled.

With no sons of his own, Augustus names

Tiberius as his successor.

\hTiberius will take his place as emperor

and try to win back honor \h\hfor Rome and Augustus.

\h\h\h\hPETER WELLS: Augustus had gloried

\h\h\h\h\hin a whole series of successful military campaigns.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hHe never recovered psychologically from this blow.

He died a few years later.

And this, in many ways, seems to have destroyed

what he felt was his legacy.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Augustus, who devoted his life to Romanizing

the world, dies a failure.

What was lost in Germania \hcan never be recaptured.

But still, the Germans must \hpay for this humiliation.

[music playing]

[yells]

A bloody and humiliating defeat beyond the Rhine

\h\h\hhas brought glory to the Germanic chieftain, Arminius,

and his barbarians, and has undermined Roman confidence.

But Rome is not finished yet.

Roman general, Germanicus, \h\h\h\hmarches to Germany

in a mission of vengeance, \h\h\hattacking any tribe

sympathetic to Arminius.

[music playing]

In defiance, these tribes \hburn their own villages

to deprive the Romans \hof anything useful.

THOMAS MARTIN: These northern barbarians,

at least across the Rhine, \h\hdidn’t have big cities

to plunder.

They had increasingly \hgrowing settlements,

but they could just fade away and come to fight another day,

and leave you having spent a lot of money

on a campaign that didn’t \hreturn anything to you.

\h\hSo war was becoming a negative cash flow instead

of a positive cash flow.

[cries of battle]

NARRATOR: First century \h\hhistorian, Tacitus--

ACTOR (AS TACITUS): Germanicus dispatched one of his generals

to route the Bructeri \h\h\h\htribe as they

were burning their possessions, and amid the carnage

\hand plunder found the eagle of the 19th Legion, which had been

lost with Varus.

The troops within months to the furthest frontier of Bructeri,

\h\hravaging all the country in between.

[cries of battle]

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: On their campaign, the Romans rescue

Segestes, the rival chieftain \h\h\himprisoned by Arminius.

But the humiliation doesn’t stop there.

Most devastating, the Romans \hseize Segestes’s daughter,

Thusnelda, now pregnant \hwith Arminius’s child.

THOMAS MARTIN: She was captured by the Romans

\hand taken to the capital as proof of how successful

\h\h\h\hthe Romans had been at defeating Arminius and making

his life miserable, \h\h\heven though he

\h\h\hhad been the one who had destroyed Varus and his three

legions.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In 15 AD, six years after the ambush,

the Roman army comes to the \h\hKalkriese Woods massacre

site, now a sacred Germanic \hmonument to their victory.

THOMAS MARTIN: They found the actual site of Varus’s defeat,

at least the ultimate moment, because they were still broken

weapons scattered around.

\hThere were skulls nailed to the trees.

STEVEN RUTLEDGE: Oh, the scene was awful.

It was virtually a plane \h\hfull of white bones

\hexcept for, most likely, the officers who would have been,

\h\h\h\hif they were captured, sacrificed by the Germans, who

did practice human sacrifice by, you know, hanging or slitting

the throat.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: First century historian, Tacitus, describes

what the Romans encounter.

ACTOR (AS TACITUS): In the field were whitening bones scattered

\h\hwhere the men had fled and heaped in piles where they had

stood.

\hLying nearby where broken weapons and limbs of horses,

\h\hwhile the skulls of men were nailed to tree trunks.

\hNot far away as to the barbarian altars

\hwhere they had sacrificed the tribunes, or senior centurions.

\h\hSTEVEN RUTLEDGE: So the scene was pretty emotional.

Certainly for Germanicus’s men, some realized that these could

be relatives, these \hcould be friends,

\hthese could be comrades in arms that I’m burying.

And burial of the dead in antiquity and doing rites

by them is extremely \himportant to keep

\hthe dead in their place, to make sure they don’t come back

to haunt you.

NARRATOR: First century \h\hhistorian, Tacitus--

ACTOR (AS TACITUS): \h\h\hThe Roman army

\h\h\hburied the bones of the three legions, no man knowing

\hwhether he laid to rest the remains of a stranger

or a kinsman.

But with anger rising \h\hagainst the enemy,

all simultaneously mourned and hated.

THOMAS MARTIN: Symbolically, it was really important for Rome

to show that it remembered \h\h\hits fallen veterans

and that it was never going to give up trying to reclaim

the honor that had been taken from them by the incompetence

and arrogance of their commander.

NARRATOR: To the Germans \h\hwho see the killing

\hfield as a holy memorial, the burial is a desecration.

As soon as the soldiers \h\h\hleave, the Germans

\hexhume the Roman bones and resanctify the site

of the massacre.

[music playing]

\h\h\hArminius, believing he had soundly defeated Rome six years

ago, is livid that the Romans have come back and confounded

by the sudden turn of events.

Tacitus recounts his rage.

ACTOR (AS TACITUS): Arminius, \h\hwith his naturally furious

temper, was driven to frenzy \hby the seizure of his wife

\h\h\hand the fordooming to slavery of his unborn child.

He flew into a rage demanding \h\h\h\hwar against Augustus,

war against the empire.

[music playing]

And war did come.

Once again, Arminius’s \h\h\hstealthy forces,

familiar with the landscape \h\hexploit their advantage

over the unwieldy Roman troops.

[cries of battle]

THOMAS BURNS: A legion is overwhelming where

you can choose the battlefield.

\hFlat and expansive, room to maneuver in--

in tightly packed units.

This was none of those things.

\hIt wasn’t flat, there was no room to maneuver,

and you couldn’t even assemble \hyour units in full strength.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: But Germanicus sets a trap,

luring the enemy into the \hopen and then pouncing.

\h\h\hThe Romans win the battle, but not the war.

The incompatible fighting \h\h\hstyles, the expense

of the campaigns, and the \htenacity of the Germanic

barbarians rob Rome of any \hhope of lasting victory.

[cries of battle]

\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: There were several years of punitive raids

\hby the Romans east of the Rhine in which they actually

tried to capture Arminius, they tried to defeat his people.

These were not successful.

[cries of battle]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Neither Arminius nor Germanicus

will live long enough to see where their historic efforts

would lead.

3 years later in 19 AD, \hboth die unheroically.

[music playing]

Germanicus succumbs to \hillness, though some

say he is poisoned by a rival in the bitter political jungle

Rome has become.

\h\hThat same year, Arminius is killed by his own people

when he overstepped \h\h\hhis authority.

\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Arminius was really

devoted to both German liberty and his own self advancement.

Arminius who wanted to be the king of the Germanic barbarian

tribes.

[music playing]

They didn’t want a king.

NARRATOR: They wanted autonomy \hand Arminius had given them

that.

\h\h\hAnd in the process, changed the shape of Rome.

[cries of battle]

PETER WELLS: We could \hthink of this battle

\h\h\has being the battle that truly stopped Roman expansion

at that point.

\h\hHad the battle not happened, who knows how far eastward Rome

might have conquered.

\hThrough all of Germany, into Poland, possibly even eastward

into Russia, we just don’t know.

NARRATOR: After Teutoburg, Rome deems the risks of expansion

too high, the benefits \h\h\hhardly worth it,

\h\hbut soon enough the lure of foreign conquest

becomes too seductive to ignore.

[cries of battle]