Customer Reviews

The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest

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"The Battle That Stopped Rome" is a very interesting book about the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest, which may have been one of the most important engagements in European history. Wells offers a somewhat revisionist history of the battle based on his interpretation of the archaeology at the battle site, which was finally located in 1987 at Kalkriese in northern Germany.

The broad outlines of the battle are reasonably well understood. Arminius, a member of the Cherusci tribe who had served in the Roman army and had become a Roman citizen, drew three legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus into a trap east of the Rhine. While the legions were on the march in a column that may have been over two miles long, they were ambushed by Germanic warriors. The terrain and the extended column prevented the Roman units from forming up properly, with the horrific result that 20,000 or so men (and possibly a large group of camp followers) were killed on the spot, ritually sacrificed or enslaved. The catastrophe cost the Roman army almost ten percent of its effective strength, revived Roman fears of an invasion by northern barbarians, and may have induced the Romans to halt the expansion of their empire at the Rhine River rather than pressing on to the Elbe.

Wells tends to dismiss classical descriptions of the battle, arguing that ancient historians suffered from the fact that they were not eyewitnesses, were often writing long after the fact, and were burdened by stereotyped and inaccurate notions of how the Germanic tribes fought. He suggests that the battle did not take place over three days (as the writer Cassius Dio claimed 200 years later) but that the slaughter was essentially over in an hour, with the rest of the day devoted to capturing or killing the survivors.

According to the book's chapter notes, Wells bases his description of a short and bloody battle on historical information about Varus and his legions, Roman accounts of the battle, the archaeological and topographical evidence at Kalkriese, and information from other historical battles. Wells' conclusions may be right, but he could have done a better job of explaining why his analysis of these sources led him to reconstruct the battle as he did. Although Wells offers a gripping description of what must have been a gruesome and terrifying encounter for all concerned, I suspect that his book will not be the last word on the subject.

All in all, Wells' book is a perfectly serviceable introduction to the history of this period. Although the book is at times a bit repetitive and has drawn some sharply negative reviews (see below), I can honestly say that I enjoyed the book, read it avidly and thought it was fairly well done (which may explain why it is an Independent Bookseller's BookSense 76 pick).

Having said all this, Wells' bibliographical notes suggest that the seminal work on the archaeology of the battle is Tony Clunn's "In Quest of the Lost Legions," which you can find on Amazon (or on Amazon's UK site for quite a bit less, if you don't mind waiting for a shipment from across the pond). Both the US and UK Amazon sites suggest that Clunn's work is well worth reading, and I look forward to learning more about this important battle.

The complete annihilation of three Roman Legions by Germanic tribesmen under Arminius in A.D. 9 is one of the most important military events in human history. The defeat caused the shocked Romans to give up any plans of further expansion beyond the Rhine, establishing the Rhine as a political and cultural boundary between Latin and Germanic Europe that has existed to this day. It also demonstrated to the world and to the Romans themselves that Rome was not invincible, instilling in them a fear of invasion from the north that became a paranoia, and it provided later German peoples with a source for legend and a national hero in Arminius, corrupted to Hermann.

Mr. Wells has retold the story of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in detail, using information gathered by the latest archaeological efforts as well as contemporary accounts written by the great historians of antiquity. Wells describes the relationships between the protagonists, relating how Arminius had served as an Auxillary Officer with the Roman Army and so had learned their tactics and gained their leaders' trust. Each of the major characters of the book are introduced to the reader, and their life's experiences are delved into, providing a means for understanding their various actions during the battle and it's aftermath. The political and social environment of this period in history is explained, from the regal glory of Imperial Rome to the simple day to day existence of a soldier on the frontier or a Germanic tribesman. Wells vividly recreates the battle itself, describing how the Roman Legions were drawn into the trap, with thick forest on one side and a treacherous bog on the other, denied of room to maneuver and unable to use the tactics they had drilled and trained in, their weapons useless in such close quarters, and the sudden, terrifying attack of the Germans, completely overwhelming and slaughtering the trapped and helpless Romans. Finally, Wells summarizes the effects of the battle, such as halting Roman expansion, shattering the Roman ideology of superiority, and the cultural and economic growth of the Rhineland as the result of thousands of Roman soldiers being stationed along the new boundary.

"The Battle That Stopped Rome" is a well researched and well presented account of a battle in antiquity whose effects can still be seen today, and should be a welcome addition to the library of any interested in history or archaeology.

Roman military history is full of crushing defeats--Allia, Cannae, and Carrhae, to name a few. None of these battles 'stopped' Rome. Neither did the Teutoberger Forest. Although it broke Augustus' spirit, succeeding emperors were undeterred and expansionist. Rome's failure to conquer Germany was due, not to the military acumen of Arminius, but to three things:
1. The decentralized body politic of Germania. The U.S. confronts a similar problem today in the Iraqi insurgency. It's hard to pacify a country which has no central government to surrender and tell its citizens to stop fighting. Rome solved a similar decentralization problem in Spain in the wake of the Second Punic War, but Spain did not present the next problem.
2. The complete unsuitability of the legionary system for waging war in heavy forests. Close order heavy infantry needs lots of level, wide open spaces to maneuver. Think of the caricature of the Minutemen firing from behind trees on the Redcoats marching by with parade ground precision.
3. There is just so much area that a pretechnological government can control, and Rome was near its limit.

Notwithstanding the flawed premise of the book, Wells gives an interesting account. He starts with the biographies of the three protagonists: Augustus, the aging Emperor who wandered the halls of his palace saying 'Varus, Varus, give me back my legions'; Varus, the doomed general who paid the price for the dual sins of overtrust in a treacherous German 'ally' and underestimation of the tactical and logistical problems of marching three legions through such inhospitable terrain; and Arminius, the duplicitous Roman auxiliary soldier who forsook his hard-won Roman citizenship to betray his mentor, Varus. During Rome's long history, it confronted many admirable war leaders: Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Massinissa, Jugurtha, Spartacus, Vercingetorix. Arminius is not one of them.

Wells next describes life on the fringes of Empire, and then gets down to the business of recounting the battle. He gives little credence to the written accounts of the battle, and concentrates on the archaeology of the battle. The general course of the battle may have gone as he describes, but it is implausible to think that it was over as quickly as Wells believes. The German light infantry would not have been able to bowl over seasoned, battle-hardened troops easily. Jugurtha twice caught Marius just as flat-footed as Arminius caught Varus, and Marius was able to fight his way through. Coincidentally, Marius was marching to winter quarters just as Varus was. The Romans should have been able to put up a stubborn enough resistance to draw the battle out to the three days reported in the written histories.

This book was a pleasant surprise in some ways but also reminded me of why I tend to stay away from history books that look like they have been "popularized". It is a quick read of twelve short chapters, four of which give details of what perhaps happened during the battle itself while the other eight provide context.

My major complaint about this book is that, by the author's own admission, the four chapters discussing the battle itself contain "carefully crafted historical speculations" making guesses to fill in gaps where we don't know exactly what happened. Peter Wells says he does this to provide a coherent story for the general public. Historians must always deal with such gaps, and a good historian will frankly acknowledge where the evidence is weak or unclear, discuss competing interpretations, and explain why he favors one explanation over another. Rather than lay this thought process out to the reader, Wells hides it by simply telling his version of the story without any indication of which portions are solidly supported by evidence, which are educated guesses, and which are just plain guesses. He promises that this is all made clear in the bibliographical essay at the end but no such details are given. Perhaps if I read everything in the bibliography, I could reconstruct his thought process, but a reader should not have to do this after a well-written history book. I find it condescending that Wells (or his editor) decided that the educated general public could not handle a discussion of the evidence and opted for a tidy, flashy story instead. The line between history and historical fiction is a little blurry here.

The book feels "dumbed down" in a few other ways as well starting with some claims that feel exaggerated. For example, there is the assertion on the back cover that the battle was a "blow from which the Roman Empire never recovered". To be fair, the book does acknowledge that the Roman Empire continued to exist for 500 more years (!) and explains that the real significance of the battle was to persuade Rome not to continue expansion into Northern Europe. In other places, the narrative gets mired down in a graphic description of battlefield violence:

"The battlefield was a scene of utter horror and human devastation that we can scarcely imagine. Razor-sharp spears careened off helmets and armor, or sliced into the soft flesh underneath the metal protectors. Men screamed, trying to wrench embedded spears from their bodies, at the same time that the surging mass of panicked soldiers crushed against them. Hundreds fell to the damp ground, pierced by spears or simply losing their footing in the chaos. Men shrieked in agony as the spearpoints penetrated their flesh, or moaned in pain as their lives ebbed away. Blood flowed everywhere, spurting from punctured arteries, and oozing from gaping wounds. Some spears tore open men's abdomens, and their intestines spilled out onto the blood-soaked track. The stench of blood quickly enveloped the entire landscape."

I am sure the battle was every bit as horrific as this paragraph from Chapter 9 suggests, but I didn't need to read the book to know that. A good chunk of this chapter is more sensationalistic than informative, and I couldn't resist checking if the book were co-authored by Stephen King.

On a more positive note, the eight chapters that describe the context and aftermath of the battle read much better than the four about the battle itself. Because they survey the culture of the ancient Germans as well as the Romans, there is more material to draw upon, and the book feels like history again. This is the first history book I have read that drew significantly upon archaeological knowledge and has whetted my appetite for more. Descriptions of the layouts of nearby Roman military bases and German villages as well as the everyday life experienced by their occupants are vivid and engaging. There are some real gems in here such as the letters written between Roman soldiers and families that sound eerily familiar (I am sending some new, clean underwear, etc...).

There are enough of these little gems scattered throughout the book to make it worth the quick read that it is. It is unfortunate that the sections about the battle itself are so weak when they should have been the strongest. I recommend this book for anyone new to history reading that wants an easy, entertaining book to try. I also recommend it, with some reservations, to the hard-core history reader as a quick, light read when you need a break after reading three dense 800-page monsters in a row.

In the "Battle that Stopped Rome" Professor Peter Wells brings to light discoveries in the recent find of one of the most famous and influential battles of the ancient world known as the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. This should be a welcome work, the battlefield is the most complete one of its kind ever found, located in a semi-rural area of Germany and undisturbed for two thousand years. Unfortunately rather than stating the discoveries and giving a view to all possible theories, which would have made this a seminal work, Wells misses this opportunity by embarking on an opinionated interpretation of the event. Judicious and balanced this work is not. Perhaps this is possibly explained by his area of concentration in anthropology; his writings are almost exclusively dedicated to the northern barbarians of antiquity. In spite of their victory, Wells seems somewhat defensive of the German tribes in his portrayal of the battle.

Much of the book is quite interesting; Wells does a nice job of describing the lifestyle of the Romans on the Rhine in their garrisons as is the chapter on the anthropology of the German tribes and the background of Arminius, the German leader who lured Varus into the ambush by pretending friendship. While Wells states that Germans engaged in a militarization because of the Roman intrusions, the truth is that they were not peaceful natives conducting tea party's. They were notorious raiders who often preyed on each other and known to both the Gauls and Caesar two generations earlier, as a serious military threat. There is a chapter that describing battle from an individual's perspective and a section that discusses battlefield wounds; both are stimulating and intelligently drawn. It's a tragedy that the most informative and important chapter in the book on the archeology of the battlefield is extremely brief although the eight pages of pictures are helpful and instructive.

Someday someone will adopt a rule for scholars of military history that academics will be prohibited to write about tactical matters without first spending some time as infantrymen. I make the comment only half-jokingly for throughout the "Battle that Stopped Rome" Professor Wells makes assumptions that a 25 year-old infantry squad leader today could correct. While weapons have changed, much of tactical ground movement on foot remains very similar in many ways. Take Wells ambush scenario. He criticizes the Roman view that Varus was to blame for the slaughter, because in his view, this downplays the competency of the Germans. Wells assumes that auxiliary scouts (German) told the Romans the way was clear, yet later on acknowledges auxiliary cavalrymen's spurs interred with Roman bodies indicating they perished along with them (Roman legions under Germanicus buried many of the remains when discovered years later).

Any movement of a unit through a narrow passage in unfriendly or unknown territory is dangerous and for a commander, then or now, not to take precautions is simply irresponsible. Soldiers understand this concept today and the Romans- competent professionals- understood it. Wells seems to misunderstand that this doesn't downplay the competence of German tribes, it acknowledges their ability to conduct serious operations. There was ample evidence of this German tactic as even he states that Drusus and his legions almost succumbed to a similar disaster in 11 B.C. Certainly Varus assumes much responsibility for the disaster.

There are also little quibbles. Unsure, the author speculates on an amazing find, a legion donkey's bell stuffed with grass. Perhaps, he asks, it was to squelch it's sound or was it to allow the soldiers to hear what was happening around them? Some things don't change, ask any infantryman about that bell and he'll understand it immediately. Wells speculates that the Romans fled in panic within minutes, yet there is evidence along the walls in the form of legionary effects, that some attempted a counter-attack on the ambushers (a technique taught today to soldiers caught in ambushes). The garrison at Haltern is singled out because of the large quantity of items buried by the unit stationed at the location, which Wells helpfully points out "fled in terror". Again he seems misses what seems obvious; buried items indicate time to plan. Terror-filled troops don't organize the burial of equipment, money and other personal items, they leave immediately. The alternate answer is the unit knew of the disaster or was called back and in either case intended on returning.

But what may be regarded as the worst criticism is saved for his description of the battle and his unwarranted speculation that it was over in an hour; the legions were annihilated or captured by that time. This is squarely in opposition to Cassisus Dio's written description over a century later that a large part of Romans escaped initial destruction and built defensive works nearby succumbing to the Germans within three days. But Wells gives no reasons for his this major departure and states only in a footnote his agreement with scholars who doubt Dio. While ancient writers must often be taken with a grain of salt, one does so in such a dramatic fashion with peril. Velleius Paterculus, a contemporary of Varus and probably acquainted with him, writing only a few years after the battle says the two prefects survived long enough to speculate on surrender of the remaining forces or death in combat and one Lucius Caedicius may have made it back to a Roman camp with a band of survivors. Tacitus as well, relying on reports from survivors and veteran's of a later campaign, writes that the legions under Germanicus finding the site saw ramparts where it looked clearly like defensive works were built, indicating much more than an hour-long battle (to be fair Tacitus may have mistaken the partially fallen German wall used to cover their ambush for the army's defensive positions). Wells ignores this completely. He ignores that human remains found buried together were almost certainly the result of burial by the legions of Germanicus lending some credibility to Tacitus' version of events. He also ignores physical evidence that shows movement in two columns west of the narrow passage in what seems a fighting retreat, possibly supporting Dio and Paterculus' statements on the battle.

One of the chief archeologists of the site, Suzanne Wilbers-Rost, has said that her own opinion is the number of killed at the immediate battle site was closer to 10,000 than 20,000. That may mean either some troops did not accompany Varus or that a large number survived the initial onslaught and moved off the battlefield, further indicating that the battle took much longer than the one hour Wells speculates. That he chose to write and dictate a chapter based on such a position seems a serious error on his part.

While there is a lot to applaud in "The Battle That Stopped Rome" it ultimately seems a vehicle for a misplaced defense of the German tribes who won and poorly thought out assumptions on the tactical nature of the battle in spite of the dramatic and excellent description of individual combat. Wells spends a lot of ink explaining that the Romans held the Germans in contempt and were loath to think that they could execute an attack with any degree of coordination. He seems to dismiss Drusus' earlier difficult venture into Germany, Tiberius' invasion demanding more than ten legions which (cut short by probems in Illyria) or Varus' assembling of three legions along with cavalry and auxiliaries to counter a perceived threat to believe instead that Rome dismissed German military ability. Being condescending and arrogant of your opponent if you are an ancient Roman writer is one thing, but the legions knew better. While the Germans won due to the duplicity of Arminius, something Wells seems curiously critical of the Romans for pointing out, in the end Varus is as much to blame for his failure to heed warnings given by other Germans and his complete tactical failure in a dangerous crossing. Six years later the Romans returned to Germany under Germanicus exacting retribution of sorts and Arminius' met his end being murdered by his own people. While the battle was a psychological blow to Rome, previous forays into the region had already showed the legions that the conquest of Germany would take a large amount of military resources.

The final answer to the Roman approach to Germany may be that it was simply not worth the serious efforts it would have taken to conquer it. While "The Battle That Stopped Rome" is an interesting and worthwhile read, it contains far too much speculation than should have been included. A comprehensive story of the battle based on the archeological evidence and ancient sources is still to be written.

From time to time a book come along that reinterprets an element of history and offers a new slant on an old argument. This book does not fall into this category and falls flat at the very first hurdle. Dr Wells borrows heavily from recent works on the Teutoburg battle (and often fails to fully acknowledge his sources). He has decided that contrary to the accepted view that the battle took place over three days, it was all over within one. This would be fine if he at least offered the alternative view and did not disregard a significant chunk of the historical sources in order to bolster his own interpretation.

He also has an awful habit of repeating himself and you will get a terrible sense of déjà vu as you read the same paragraph you know you read a few chapters earlier. For a book on the Teutoburg battle there is woefully little space given over to the event. Wells wastes far too many pages on an amateurish attempt to explain the socio-economic situation in the Roman Empire at the time of the battle. Upon reading these chapters you get the impression Wells has lifted from primary sources without really understanding what he is reading.

At one point he writes a particularly graphic description of the battlefield post-conflict. Sadly his inability read up on the local flora and fauna leads to a rather ridiculous description of local animals, including vultures feasting on the fallen.

If written by a student on Roman history, his text would be worthy of a reasonable grade as it at least shows some evidence that the author has examined the primary sources, but when you take into account the author is supposedly an expert on Roman archaeology and is a professor of Anthropology this book can only be described as an expensive doorstop. If you are interested in the battle , search for texts on the recent archaeological excavations, please, avoid this inaccurate, badly written tome that I very much doubt will ever be regarded as anything other than a joke in the academic world.

Sometimes you read a book that clearly was written to make a quick buck. Give it a title that will hook people in and then a few hundred pages of padding. There is no doubt this book was written solely for this reason, a few quick bucks to the author and another title to add to his c.v.

It took some willpower to finish this sorry excuse of a book. The author has little understanding of the history of the event and constantly makes glaring errors in his analysis that are frankly unacceptable for a purported expert on the subject.

He theorises that contrary to the accepted account passed down from the classical period that the battle lasted three days, the three legions and support troops were pretty much destroyed in an hour. He has little to no evidence to back up his theory and is also more than happy to ignore some sources available to us altogether. Admittedly some (if not all) of the classical sources that have survived are based on hearsay and were written a considerable amount of time after the event, but this is no excuse to ignore any source that blows your theory out of the water. As for Wells' theory; it is evidently clear he has absolutely no idea on how a battle would be fought and the description of the site post conflict is lamentably poor and owes more to an old western he watched in his childhood than any research carried out in the area.

Wells has done a great disservice to his academic reputation with this book. Despite being a slim volume, there are very few pages devoted to the actual subject. Of the rest there is an infuriating amount of repetition, sometimes Wells does not even bother to disguise the fact he is trawling over the same information covered a chapter before.

Quite simply, this book offers nothing of note to the Varian disaster. His argument is incredibly flawed and is totally devoid of any supporting evidence. The structure of book and the repetitive nature of the text is so appalling you have to wonder why the publisher would go ahead.

This was a very disappointing book. The author appears to come from the Hans Delbruck school of revisionism
where reversing the historical record is accepted without any new proof? Considering the length, the author
spent little time on the actual title or subject itself. His speculative description of the battle was out of
a Stephen King novel, absurdly gory. He gave ten times as much attention to his speculations than he did on the verifiable facts. He never mentions any dissenting opinions or contradictory beliefs as to why this battle was IMPORTANT. Poorly researched, interpreted, and dull. One star is too many!

I suggest that all readers of this period read the works of German scholars like Rainer Wiegels,
Guenther Moosebauer, & Reinhard Wolters. These men have very in depth research that hotly disputes
the decisiveness of this battle.

Dec-2008, new archaeological finds have come to light that the Romans occupied this part of Germany
in the third century AD. Thus, the myth that the Romans were permanently driven out of Germania
after Hermann{Arminius} lifetime have been totally refuted.

I couldn't wait to start reading this book. The storyline promised great drama and the battle did indeed change the course of history. After about thirty pages, however, I found my attention wandering as I struggled through the muddled, repetitious text. I made it to the end only after a week of reading bite-sized five and ten page chunks of the book. The tedium stems both from Wells writing and the clumsy organization of the chapters. I finished the book still not fully comprehending the layout of the battlefield, as the few maps are crude and confusing. Speculation blends too frequently with fact. And the chapter on the battle itself offers little insight into the nature of such conflicts, with the author preferring to dwell on describing severed limbs, decapitations and rivers of blood. In summary, I'm glad to have read the book, given my earlier ignorance of such an important event, but can summon insufficient enthusiasm to recommend it to others.

This well structured book is attempting to explain the infamous Varian disaster that occured in September of A.D. 9. Three Roman legions with their auxiliaries and family members were massacred in a well planned ambush by Arminius, a young German chief and an unknown number of German warriors in Germany.

The basic problem is that the losers of the battle (the Romans) had historical descriptions, but they were biased. The winners (the German tribes) left no written description behind. The archeological evidence, as amazing as it is to reveal the location of the battle near Kalkriese, Germany is not truly reflecting the battle scene. Both the Germans and the Romans repeatedly altered the scene well after the battle, so it is a free for all to come up with a plausible scenario about how this conflict really happened.

The author's assumptions appear to contradict most earlier theories, claiming the highly unlikely possibility that essentially all Romans were killed in about three hours. Starting with a devastating spear attack, an ensuing panic, then chaos, then good old hand to hand combat and three legions were gone. One should keep in mind that although these are the only legions that have no known unit names (like "Gemina", "Rapax" etc.), they were nevertheless battle hardened professional soldiers marching in battle formation in an enemy territory. Romans were not known to panic that easily. Plus, as there are evidences of at least two campsites (one well built, one hastily), one should consider the existing theory of a three day running battle. How it happened? Nobody knows...