Arminius

For the Protestant theologian, see Jacobus Arminius.

The Hermannsdenkmal

Arminius (also Hermann, Armin, 16 BC - 21 AD) was a chieftain of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Although later unsuccessful in creating a united German front against the Empire, and was later defeated by Iulius Caesarius Claudianus Germanicus in subsequent Roman punitive operations (Tacitus, Annals 2.22, Suetonius, Caligula 1.4), Arminius' upset victory has since resulted in far-reaching influence throughout Germanic history.

Biography

Born in 17 or 16 BC as son of the Cheruscan war chief Segimerus, Arminius was trained as a Roman military commander and attained Roman citizenship before returning to Germania and driving the Romans out.

Arminius is a Latinized variant of the Germanic name Irmin meaning "great" (cf. Herminones). The name "Hermann" (meaning "army man" or "warrior") came into use as the German equivalent of Arminius in the Reformation period, apparently through the efforts of religious reformer Martin Luther who wanted to use an ancient and heroic figure as a symbol of the Germanic peoples' fight against Rome.

Battle at the Teutoburg Forest

Around the year 4 A.D., Arminius assumed command of a Cheruscan detachment of Roman auxiliary forces, probably fighting in the Pannonian wars on the Balkan peninsula. He returned to northern Germania in the 7/8 A.D., where the Roman Empire had established secure control of the territories west of the Rhine and now sought to extend its hegemony eastward towards the Elbe river, under Publius Quinctilius Varus, the lawyer appointed by Augustus as military governor. Arminius soon began plotting to unite various German tribes and to thwart Roman efforts to incorporate their territories into the empire.

In the fall of 9, in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Arminius — then twenty-five years old — and his alliance of Germanic tribes (Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti and Bructeri) ambushed and annihilated a Roman army (comprising the 17th, 18th and 19th legions as well as three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries) totalling around 20,000 men commanded by Varus. Recent archaeological finds suggest that the long-debated precise location of the three-day battle may have been near the Kalkriese hill about 20 km northeast of Osnabrück. When defeat was certain, Varus committed suicide by falling upon his sword, and the Romans never again attempted permanent conquest of any territory on the right bank of the Rhine, which formed a limes of the Empire for centuries.

Further conflicts with Rome

After his victory, Arminius tried for several years to bring about a more permanent union of the northern Germanic tribes so as to resist the inevitable Imperial counter-offensive. After the Teutoberg disaster other Germanic tribes did become more openly hostile to Rome, but Arminius did not succeed in unifying the Germanic war effort in the face of tribal jealousies.

In 13, the Romans under Germanicus invaded the same area with 50,000 troops, found and buried the dead of Varus' legions, and raided much of the surrounding area. The Romans were not intent on reoccupying territory west of the Elbe. Their prime aim was to re-establish fear of Roman military prowess that had been lost due to the Varus' loss. Germanicus' war began with swift and devastating Roman raids into the Germanic lands, but no garrisons were left behind. Arminius managed to trap a force under Caecina, but the superficially high morale of the Germanics (urged on by Arminius' uncle Inguiomer) led them to plan an assault. This failed when Caecina unexpectedly sallied out, surprised the approaching Germanics, inflicted heavy losses on them and escaped.

In 15, Germanicus again raided Germanic settlements and captured Arminius' wife Thusnelda who was delivered to the Romans by her own father Segestes as an act of revenge on Arminius. Promised by Segestes to someone else, Thusnelda had eloped with Arminius and married him after the victory of Teutoburg Forest. Segestes and his clan were Roman clients and opposed the policy of Arminius, as did Arminius' brother Flavus. Thusnelda was taken to Rome and displayed in Germanicus' victory parade in Rome in 18; she never saw her homeland again and vanished from history. The son she bore Arminius while in captivity, Thumelicus, was trained by the Romans as a gladiator in Ravenna and probably died in the arena.

The last major battle between Germanicus and Arminius, the Battle of the Weser River, took place in 16 at Idistaviso near the Weser river. The account given by Tacitus for the battle is not clear enough to allow for a complete reconstruction. It is however clear enough that in the fighting the Germanics were routed and suffered heavy casualties. Roman casualties were very light. Arminius only escaped by smearing his face with blood , so that he would not be recognised. In a subsequent rear-guard action Arminius was again defeated with heavy losses. Germanicus later organized some punitive operations. The Romans had also managed to recover 2 of the 3 lost legionary eagles. The third eagle was recovered later under emperor Claudius (Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.8)

Inter-tribal conflicts and death

Once Rome had withdrawn behind the Rhine in triumph, war broke out between Arminius and Marbod, the other major Germanic leader of the time, who was king of the Marcomanni in modern Bohemia. Arminius had repeatedly sought to forge an anti-Roman alliance with Marbod (he even sent him the head of Varus after the victory of Teutoburg Forest) (Velleius II 119,5), but Marbod was not willing to play a supporting role to Arminius. The war ended with Marbod's retreat, but Arminius did not pursue him, as he faced serious difficulties at home from the family of his wife and other pro-Roman leaders.

In 19 A.D., the same year his formidable opponent Germanicus died, Arminius was murdered by his chieftains who felt he was becoming too powerful. Earlier in the same year Tiberius refused an offer from a Germanic nobleman to assassinate Arminius, declaring that Rome did not employ such dishonorable methods. It seems the emperor felt the victories of Germanicus were enough to avenge Varus' defeat.

Legacy

Rome

In the accounts of his Roman enemies he is highly respected for his military leadership skills and as a defender of the liberty of his people. Based on these records, the story of Arminius was revived in the sixteenth century with the recovery of the histories of Tacitus by German humanists, who wrote in his Annales II, 88:

Arminius liberator haud dubie Germaniae et qui non primordia populi romani, sicut alii reges ducesque, sed florentissimum imperium lacessieret: proeliis ambiguus, bello non victus. (Arminius, without doubt Germania's liberator, who challenged the Roman people not in its beginnings like other kings and leaders, but in the peak of its empire; in battles with changing success, undefeated in the war.)

Arminius was not the sole reason for Rome's change of policy towards Germania; which in the main did not change significantly. Augustus sought a secure boundary to protect Gaul, and found this in the Rhine river instead of the Elbe (Cornell and Matthews, Atlas of the Roman World 80). The resources for the conquest of Germany may have been lacking after the great Roman civil wars in the Late Republic and loss of three legions in the Teutoberg Forest, but they were not however lacking later on (Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare 122).

Politics also played a factor; the Emperors could rarely entrust a large army to a potential rival. Augustus could rely upon a plentiful supply of family members to wage his wars; Drusus, Augustus' step son, who himself campaigned successfuly against Germanic tribes, is a good example (Cassius Dio, Roman History 54.32). For a period after the Marian reforms (the professionalization of the legions) German tribesmen were beaten by the legions with almost monotonous regularity: Marius' victory at Aquae Sextiae, Caesar's victory over Ariovistus, and Tiberius' and Drusus' campaigns (Tacitus, Germania 37). By the time of the Principate the Romans already believed they had conquered the best parts of the world, and further conquest was unlikely to have been profitable.

Germanic Sagas

The story of Arminius and his victory might have lived on in Germanic sagas, resulting in the dragon slayer Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied (who is called Sigurd in the Scandinavian tradition). This theory is strengthen by the origin of the latin name Arminius that reffer to the latin word armenium a vivid blue, ultramarine pigment made from a stone. They called him Arminius due to his piercing blue eyes, a physical feature which many among the Germanic descendants have to this day.

Martin Luther

In Germany, he was rechristened "Hermann" by Martin Luther, and he became an emblem of the revival of German patriotism fuelled by the wars of Napoleon in the 19th century.

Germanic Nationalism

Statue on Hermann Monument, New Ulm, Minnesota.

In 1808, Heinrich von Kleist's published but unperformed play Die Hermannsschlacht, unperformable after Napoleon's victory at Wagram, aroused anti-Napoleonic German sentiment and pride among its readers.

The play has been revived repeatedly at moments propitious for raw expressions of National Romanticism and was especially popular during the Third Reich.

In 1839, construction was started on a massive statue of Arminius, known as the "Hermannsdenkmal", on a hill near Detmold in the Teutoburg Forest; it was completed and dedicated during the early years of the Second German Empire in the wake of the German victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871.

The monument has been a major tourist attraction ever since, as has "Herman the German", a similar statue erected in the United States. The German Bundesliga football-club DSC Arminia Bielefeld is also named after Arminius.

The Order of the Sons of Hermann, named for Hermann the “Cherusker”, had its origins as a mutual protection society for the protection of German immigrants in New York City during the 1840s. The order promoted the love of German language and preservation of German traditions and customs. Also provided for members was low cost insurance. The order flourished in many U.S. communities where German immigrants settled but was in decline by late 20th century probably owing to thorough acculturation of the immigrants’ progeny.

Modern popular culture

In The Oppermanns by Leon Feuchtwanger, a novel describing the rise of the Nazis to power, a major theme is the struggle between a liberal, half-Jewish pupil and a Nazi teacher - over the student's paper on Arminius which the teacher considers "unpatriotic" and "an insult to German nationalism".

Further reading

• Benario, Herbert W. "Arminius into Hermann: History into Legend", Greece & Rome, Vol. 51, Issue 1 (2004), pp. 83–94.

External links

Terry Jones' Barbarians - The Savage Goths (Google Video) - includes a portion on Arminius