Rome's Greatest Defeat

[odanny]

Do you know when it occurred? It happened in 9 AD, under Augustus, as the very start of the Roman Empire, and it was done by treachery, from someone formerly Germanic, taken as a child, and raised as a Roman, to one day become a great military leader for Rome under his "father", Publius Quinctilius Varus.

His name was Arminius.

Some Romans didn't trust him, as he was Germanic, and when he united the tribes, as ordered by his father, thinking they would work for Rome, many of the tribes didn't trust him either, due to his Roman upbringing. His story is fairly fascinating, and there is a great series on all of this on Netflix that succeeds because you can never predict the continual plot turns and are always left surprised by what is happening. The Romans speak Italian (not Latin) and the barbarians speak German, it is German made. If you like ancient history, you'll like this, and even if you don't care for history, you'll still probably like this. It has it all, love, betrayal, treason, courage, violence, compassion, and I could go on.

Make sure you start with season one. There are two seasons.

Barbarians 2020

 

[Esdraelon]

I recently watched a YT documentary on the Teutoburg forest ambush. Yep... Varus was obviously a nepotism or political hire. He was not a soldier or strategist. I imagine he had senior "enlisted" leaders in his command that KNEW he was screwing up in a major way but they had no authority to question him. Arminius is an object lesson in how destructive a traitor can be.

 

[odanny]

I recently watched a YT documentary on the Teutoburg forest ambush. Yep... Varus was obviously a nepotism or political hire. He was not a soldier or strategist. I imagine he had senior "enlisted" leaders in his command that KNEW he was screwing up in a major way but they had no authority to question him. Arminius is an object lesson in how destructive a traitor can be.

"I love treason, but I hate a traitor" - Julius Caesar.