Cherusci (Germanic tribe)

Evidence of settlement at present-day Wiesbaden dates back to the Neolithic era; historical records document continuous occupancy after the erection in CE 6 of a Roman fort, which houses an auxiliary cavalry unit.

The thermal springs of Wiesbaden, first mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, are famous for their recreation pools for Roman army horses and as the source of a mineral used for red hair dye (which is very fashionable around the turn of BCE/CE among women in Rome).

The emperor Augustus’ stepsons Tiberius and his brother Drusus, together with Drusus’ son Germanicus (an agnomen that he received in 9 BCE, when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honor of his victories in Germania, the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine) had in the opening years of the first century conducted a long campaign in an attempt at a further major expansion of the Empire's frontiers, and a shortening of its frontier line.

They had subdued several Germanic tribes, such as the Cherusci.

The region in CE 7 is declared pacified and Publius Quinctilius Varus is appointed to govern Germania, leading three legions and auxiliary troops.

Tiberius, who will later succeed Augustus as Emperor, leaves the region to deal with the Great Illyrian Revolt.

Varus after serving as  of Syria had returned to Rome and remained there for the next few years.

Following the death of his first wife, he had married Claudia Pulchra, daughter of Claudia Marcella Minor (daughter of consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor and Octavia Minor, elder sister of Augustus) and consul Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (nephew of Triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus).

She is a great-niece of Augustus, which shows that Varus still enjoys political favor.

They have a son, Quinctilius Varus.

Arminius, a member of of the Germanic Cherusci tribe, who had apparently received Roman military training as a legion officer, around the year CE 4 had assumed command of a Cheruscan detachment of Roman auxiliary forces, probably fighting in the Pannonian wars on the Balkan peninsula.

He had returned to northern Germania in CE 7 or 8, where the Romans have established secure control of the territories just east of the Rhine, along the Lippe and Main rivers, and is now seeking to extend its hegemony eastward to the Weser and Elbe rivers.

Having risen risen to chieftainship in the Cherusci tribal structure, Arminius begins plotting to unite various Germanic tribes to thwart Roman efforts to incorporate their lands into the empire.

Rivalry between Maroboduus and Arminius, the Cheruscan leader who inflicts the devastating defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest on the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 CE, prevents a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Maroboduus).

However, according to the first century CE historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus' head to Maroboduus, but the king of the Marcomanni sent it to Augustus.

The lower reaches of the Elbe River, known to the Romans as the Albis, marks the limit of the Romans' farthest advance in Germany in CE 9.

Angered by the governance of the arrogant and tactless Varus, Arminius deceitfully persuades Varus to lead his entire force—composed of the Seventeenth, Eighteeth and Nineteenth legions, plus three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries—into the Teutoburger Wald (Teutoburg Forest) in the late summer of 9, with Arminius as head of a rear guard.

Lying in wait is an allied coalition force of Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci and Sicambri.

Once the supply wagons mire (at a point supposedly near present Detmold, Germany) and the legions break formation, Germanic guerillas, the home advantage lying with their more loosely organized forces in the heavy woods, attack the unsuspecting Romans; the German recruits desert, and the rear guard falls on the legions from behind.

Varus desperately attempts to march west to safety, but the tribesmen annihilate his cavalry by the second day; by the end of the third, twenty thousand Roman soldiers are dead.

Varus, humiliated, takes his own life.

The Roman advance into Germany is thus halted at the Rhine, not the Elbe.

Rome regards Arminius’ destruction of the three legions as a major humiliation: Augustus (according to the historian Suetonius) laments over it, crying: "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

The Senate had appointed Germanicus commander of the forces in Germania after the death of Augustus in 14.

The legions a short time after had rioted on the news that their recruitment terms would not be marked back down to sixteen years from the then standard twenty.

Refusing to accept this, the rebel soldiers had cried for Germanicus as emperor.

Germanicus, preferring to continue only as a general, puts down this rebellion himself.

In a bid to secure the loyalty of his troops and his own popularity with them and with the Roman people, he leads them on a spectacular but brutal raid against the Marsi, a German tribe on the upper Ruhr river, in which he massacres much of the tribe.

Tacitus mentions the Marsi repeatedly, in particular in the context of the wars of Germanicus.

They had been part of the tribal coalition of the Cheruscian war leader Arminius that in 9 CE had annihilated the three Roman legions under Varus in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

Germanicus, seeking revenge for this defeat, invades the lands of the Marsi in 14 CE with twelve thousand legionnaires, twenty-six cohorts of auxiliaries and eight cavalry squadrons.

The Marsi, celebrating the feast of their goddess Tanfana, are too drunk to respond effectively to the Roman surprise attack and are massacred.

According to Tacitus (Annals 1, 51), an area of fifty Roman miles is laid to waste with fire and sword: "No sex, no age found pity."

A Legion eagle from Varus’s Defeat, either from the XVII or XVIII, is recovered.

Several town names today remain as reminders of the ancient Marsi—e.g., Marsberg and Obermarsberg in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia and Volkmarsen in northern Hesse.

Germanicus’ major success is the capture of Arminius' wife Thusnelda in May 15.

He lets Thusnelda sleep in his quarters during the whole of the time she is a prisoner.

He is able to devastate large areas and eliminate any form of active resistance, but at the sight of the Roman army the majority of the Germans flee into remote forests.

The raids are considered a success since the major goal of destroying any rebel alliance networks is completed.

Germanicus visits the site of the disastrous Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and buries the remains of the slaughtered Roman troops, then launches a massive assault on the heartland of Arminius' tribe, the Cherusci.

Arminius initially lures Germanicus' cavalry into a trap and inflicts minor casualties, until successful fighting by the Roman infantry causes the Germans to break and flee into the forest.

This victory, combined with the fact that winter is fast approaching, means Germanicus's next step is to lead his army back to its winter quarters on the Rhine.

The frequently quarreling tribes, enraged by this and other similar bloodbaths (e.g., in the spring of 15 among the Chatti), unite once again to fend back the Roman invaders.

Rome after two more years of warfare will finally abandon its efforts to push its boundaries eastward to the Weser river and retreat permanently behind the Rhine.

The wars fought by the talented Germanicus Caesar on behalf of his uncle Tiberius, emperor of Rome, against the perpetrators of the massacre of three Roman legions in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, in the year 9, had began in the last years of the reign of Augustus, first emperor of Rome, who in the year 14 had died an old but respected man and was celebrated with much pomp and splendor.

Augustus had left a document to be read to the senate posthumously, expressly forbidding extension of the empire beyond the Rhine.

The Germanic tribes had welcomed news of the will, thinking it gave them a free hand in the region.

Germanicus had found it necessary to pacify the border, which he has done by a combination of scorched earth raids and offers of alliance with Rome.

These raids have also kept the army of the lower Rhine distracted from the possibility of mutiny, which had broken out on Augustus's death and only been quelled by concessions and executions.

Germanicus despite doubts on Tiberius's part in 16 manages to raise another huge army and invades Germany again.

He forces a crossing of the Weser River near modern Minden, suffering heavy losses, then …

…meets Arminius' army at Idistaviso, further up the Weser, near modern Rinteln, in an engagement often called the Battle of the Weser River.

Germanicus' leadership and command qualities are shown in full at the battle as his superior tactics and better trained and equipped legions inflict huge casualties on the German army with only minor losses.