Arminius

For the Protestant theologian, see Jacobus Arminius.

The Hermannsdenkmal memorial to Arminius' victory in the Teotoburg Forest.

Gaius Julius Arminius, also known as Arminius, Armin or Hermann (b. 18 BC/17 BC in Magna Germania; d. AD 21 in Germania) was a chieftain of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. His influence held an allied coalition of Germanic tribes together in opposition to the Romans but after decisive defeats to the Roman general Germanicus, nephew of the Emperor Tiberius, his influence waned and he was assassinated on the orders of rival Germanic chiefs. Although Arminius was ultimately unsuccessful in forging unity among the Germanic tribes, the loss of the Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest had a far-reaching effect on the subsequent history of both the ancient Germanic tribes and on the Roman Empire. Germanicus' campaign was the last major Roman military effort east of the Rhine.

Biography

Born in 18 or 17 BC as son of the Cheruscan war chief Segimerus, Arminius was trained as a Roman military commander and attained Roman citizenship and the status of equestrian (petty noble) before returning to Germania and driving the Romans out.

"Arminius" is probably a Latinized variant of the Germanic name Irmin meaning "great" (cf. Herminones). During the Reformation but especially during 19th century German nationalism, Arminius was used as a symbol of the "German" people and their fight against Rome. It is during this period that the name "Hermann" (meaning "army man" or "warrior") came into use as the German equivalent of Arminius; the religious reformer Martin Luther is thought to have been the first to equate the two names.

Battle at the Teutoburg Forest

Main article: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

Around the year AD 4, 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 7/AD 8, where the Roman Empire had established secure control of the territories just east of the Rhine, along the Lippe and Main rivers, and now sought to extend its hegemony eastward towards the Weser and Elbe rivers, under Publius Quinctilius Varus, a high-ranking administrative official appointed by Augustus as governor. Arminius soon began plotting to unite various Germanic tribes and to thwart Roman efforts to incorporate their territories into the empire.

In the fall of AD 9, in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Arminius — then 25 years old — and his alliance of Germanic tribes (Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci and Sicambri) ambushed and annihilated a Roman army (comprising the 17th, 18th and 19th legions as well as three cavalry detachments and sixcohorts of auxiliaries) totalling around 20,000 men commanded by Varus. Recent archaeological finds say that the long-debated precise location of the three-day battle is almost certainly near Kalkriese Hill, about 20 km north of Osnabrück. When defeat was certain, Varus committed suicide by falling upon his sword.

Roman retaliation

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 Teutoburg Forest disaster, other Germanic tribes did become more openly hostile to Rome, although the most powerful Germanic ruler, King Marbod of the Marcomanni, in Bohemia, remained neutral even after Arminius sent him the head of Varus. Tiberius ,successor of Augustus, established that Germania, inhospitable and poor land, was not currently relevant to the Roman cause.It would require a commitment too burdensome for the imperial finances and for excessive expenditure of military force for a new achievement.Another problem was that Augustus , in 30 years of his reign, had annexed many territories still at the beginning of the process of Romanization and multiracial integration.Tiberius was therefore orientated to use diplomacy in germanic territories ,so that these primitive people were fighting each other,but an immediate action was necessary to terrorize the germanic enemy to commit new and possible future invasions of the Roman soil. Tiberius was able to rally an army of eight legions during these campaigns. These were the legions:

1. For the front "lower": the legion XXI Rapax, V Alaudae the legion, the legion Legio I Germanica and XX Valeria Victrix;
2. For the "superior" Legio II Augusta, Legio XIII Gemina Legio XVI Gallica Legio XIV Gemina

The Rhine's crossing and the invasion of Germany

The Romans penetrated into the Cesia forest coming to the villages of the Marsi,Germanicus knew that this was a night of partying and celebrations for the germans.Germanicus divided legions into 4 wedges , to increase the radius of destruction within 50 miles.It was a massacre. Neither sex nor age aroused compassion. Even the temple Tanfana, most famous for those people, was set on fire.That horrible massacre did, however, raise the Bructeri, and the Tubanti Usipetes, lurking in the wooded gorges of their territories.The enemy did not move until the Roman legions were not stretched enough, and launched their main attack on the rear.Germanicus himself, urged the XX Legion to erase the memory of the Teutoburg Forest.The courage of legionnaires then heated up, defeating the enemy.

Year 15

Roman Armies quickly penetrated into the territory of the Chatti, where he made horrendous massacres of those who by age or sex did not have the strength to resist, while younger people fled and threw into the river Adrano (the current river Eder), above which the Romans were building a bridge to cross.

Roman armies passed the other side came to the capital of the Chatti, Mattium (near the present Niedenstein) who burnt and looted.

Arminius was informed that his wife and son had been delivered to the Romans, moved to seek more alliances with all possible neighboring Germanic peoples.

Achieved these successes, Germanicus wanted to see the places where three legions were massacred.

Germanicus, once buried the remains of those mangled bodies, decided to pursue Arminius, who escaped in the forests.Germanicus, believing that Arminius was retreating, commanded to cavalry to pursuit him. But Arminius, with clever move, prepared an ambush, Germanicus answered, advancing legions.At the end of the battle, there were no winners or losers.

Battle of Pontes Longi

Germanicus divided Roman army into three columns:one of these columns, led by Caecina,went to the Pontes longi.Arminius preceded the Roman army,placing its armies for a new ambush,Caecina encamped armies near Pontes Longi.The Germans decided to attack, hoping to break somewhere in the Roman battle line ,the Germans got an initial success but came the night, so legions escaped a possible defeat or worse to a new disaster. Caecina,that was not a naive general as Varus,reorganized the army and decided to prepare a counter-attack.The night was difficult for the Romans because they heard celebrate the barbarians sure to have led the legions into a new disaster.The following morning the Germans decided to attack the Roman camp,but legions, with a bypass,rejected the Germans .Arminius was forced to flee the scene of the battle,while while much of his army was massacred by the Romans.Caecina was able to beat Arminius.

Year 16 :The battles of Weser River(or Idistaviso) and Angivarian Wall

Step 1: the plain of Idistaviso

The Germans occupied the plain, behind which there was a dense forest, Cherusci of Arminius settled on the surrounding hills,the Romans adopted a battle line to avoid outflanking.The Roman victory was great, no great loss to the Romans.The battle continued without interruption from 11.00 until late at night, while the enemy Germans killed and their bodies covered the plainfor at least ten thousand steps.Among the remains were also found chains that would be used to chain the Romans,Arminius was sure to defeat Romans.The soldiers of Germanicus erected a mound, on which lay the weapons of the defeated, like a trophy,and an inscription with the names of defeated peoples.

Step 2: the Angivarian Wall

The Germans were already fleeing beyond the Weser,but decided to fight again, despite the massacre,when they saw jubilant Romans were raising a mound with their weapons.Arminius enlisted everyone who could fight. The battle was terrible, but the Romans prevailed once again.Germanicus, after the second battle,raised a second trophy with the inscription:

<<The army of Tiberius Caesar, won the peoples between the Elbe and the Rhine, consecrated this monument to Mars, Jupiter and Augustus>> Tacitus, Annales (ii.22)

End of campaign against the Germans

Although Germanicus ended the year by launching some punitive operations, and also managed to recover 2 of the 3 legionary eagles lost in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Emperor Tiberius denied his request to launch a campaign the following year, as he wished that the frontier with Germania be drawn at the Rhine river. Instead, he accorded Germanicus the honor of a triumph.The third eagle was recovered later under Emperor Claudius.[1][2][3][4]

Inter-tribal conflicts and death

Thereafter, war broke out between Arminius and Marbod, king of the Marcomanni (see above). The war ended with Marbod's retreat, but Arminius did not succeed in breaking into the "natural fortification" that Bohemia is. Consequently, the war ended in stalemate. Arminius also faced serious difficulties at home from the family of his wife and other pro-Roman leaders.

In AD 19, his formidable opponent Germanicus suddenly died in Antioch, under circumstances which led many to believe he had been murdered by his opponents; Arminius suffered this fate two years later, at the hands of opponents within his own tribe, who felt he was becoming too powerful. Tiberius had purportedly refused an earlier offer from a Chatti nobleman to poison Arminius, declaring that Rome did not employ such dishonorable methods.

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 historians, who wrote in his Annales II, 88:

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.

Politics also played a factor; the Emperors could rarely entrust a large army to a potential rival, although Augustus had enough family members to wage his wars;

Another problem was that Augustus , in 30 years of his reign, had annexed many territories still at the beginning of the process of Romanization and multiracial integration.

Tiberius ,successor of Augustus, established that Germania was far less developed land ,possessed few villages, and had little food surplus, and was not currently relevant to the Roman cause.It would require a commitment too burdensome for the imperial finances and for excessive expenditure of military force for a new achievement.

More recently, scholars have pointed out reasons why the Rhine was a much more practical boundary for the Roman Empire than any river in Germania. Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhône and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to have been supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better equipped to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond.

Rome would try to control Germania by appointing client kings, which was cheaper than military campaigns .

Rome, obtaining the final defeat and death of Arminius, chose to no longer rule directly in Germania east of the Rhine and north of the Danube; Rome preferred to exert indirect influence through client kings, so Italicus, nephew of Arminius, was appointed king of the Cherusci; Vangio and Sido became vassal princes of the powerful Suebi, etc.. [5] [6] [7]

Germanic sagas

In the early 19th century, attempts were made to show that the story of Arminius and his victory may have lived on in the Old Norse sagas, in the form of the dragon slayer Sigurd of the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied. An Icelandic account states that Sigurd "slew the dragon" in the Gnitterheide—today a suburb of the city of Bad Salzuflen, located at a strategic site on the Werre river which could very well have been the point of departure of Varus's legions on their way to their doom in the Teutoburg Forest. However, there is no evidence for such a connection.

Martin Luther

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

Another theory regarding Arminius' Latin name is that it is based on the Latin word armenium a vivid blue, ultramarine pigment made from a stone. Thus, Arminius would have been called "blue eyes," and his brother Flavus "blondie" – as references to the stereotype physical features which the Romans assigned to their Germanic neighbors. In that case, the theory goes, "Arminius" does not necessarily have anything to do with the word and god-name "irmin", and his Germanic name could thus have been anything—Siegfried, for instance. Proponents of that theory argue that his father, too, (Segimerus, the modern form of which is "Siegmar") also bore a name with the stem "sieg," or "victorious".

German nationalism

Statue on Hermann Heights 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 finally 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 The Hermann Heights Monument, a similar statue erected in the United States in 1897.

The Hermann Heights monument was erected by the Sons of Hermann, a fraternal organization formed by German Americans in New York City in 1840 and named for Hermann the Cheruscan that during the nineteenth century flourished in American cities with large populations of German origin. Hermann, Missouri, a town on the Missouri River founded in the 1830s and incorporated in 1845, was also named for Arminius.

The German Bundesliga football-club DSC Arminia Bielefeld is named after Arminius.

Modern popular culture

Robert Graves' novel I, Claudius includes a description of Arminius's campaigns, where he is called "Hermann".

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".

In 1945 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, an alternate history novel describing a world in which Nazi Germany did not declare war on the United States in December, 1941, Operation Arminius is the code name for the German plan for the invasion of the United States.

Harry Turtledove's 2009 historical novel Give Me Back My Legions is a fictional retelling of Arminius' story, from the points-of-view of Arminius himself, various Germans, and Varus and the Romans.

Irish Black metal band Primordial recently referred to Arminius in a song off their To The Nameless Dead album named "Heathen Tribes" with the line "Arminius stood tall in Teutoborg" in relation to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

External links

• Terry Jones' Barbarians – The Savage Goths (Google Video) – includes a portion on Arminius
• Template:De icon A description of Arminius and his fight against the Romans

• "They Need a Hero" by Clay Risen, The National, October 9, 2009 – an article on modern German views of Hermann and the 2,000th anniversary of the battle