by John Eidsmoe 11 September 2009

September, 9 A.D., Kalkriese Hill, northern Germany: the Germanic warriors

waited in grim silence. Three Roman legions, commanded by General Publius

Quintilius Varus, advanced across the Rhine into Anglo-Saxon territory. The

Romans hoped to expand Roman power, Roman law, and Roman culture. The

Germans hoped to preserve their Teutonic laws and institutions and their way of

life.

Probably neither side realized that the Battle of Teutoburg Forest would decide

the course of Western law and Western civilization for millennia to come.

And now, in the year 2009, the 2,000th anniversary of the battle, very few

Americans have even heard of the battle, and fewer still understand its

significance.

The ancestors of these German warriors had lived in these fields and forests for

centuries untold, possibly arriving with the great Indo-European migrations

around 2000 B.C. They farmed and hunted, living in rural compounds consisting

of several homes, usually occupied by relatives, with other compounds or villages

a few miles away. They worshipped their pagan gods, like Wotan (Odin) and

Donnar (Thor), who represented forces of nature, and they lived by the old

Teutonic virtues: keeping one’s word, valor in battle, loyalty to family and

community, and hospitality to strangers.

And they lived under the ancient Teutonic common law. The Germans practiced

a highly decentralized form of government, with law based on custom and

administered by a local council (witan) composed of all free men, who served

But Rome threatened to change that. They, too, were a Western people, who

probably came to Italy during the same Indo-European migrations. At one time

Rome was a republic, governed by the Senatus Populus Que Romanus (Senate of

the People of Rome, or SPQR) under the Law of the Twelve Tables. But in the

century before the birth of Christ, the Roman republic gradually gave way to the

empire. Power became centralized in Rome, and the Senate was reduced to a

figurehead, rubber-stamping the emperor’s edicts.

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And the Roman Empire was gradually expanding northward. Around 50 B.C.,

Julius Caesar decided to subdue Gaul (France). The various Celtic tribes united

under a chieftain named Vercengetorix; they fought bravely, but their ferocity

was no match for the discipline of the Roman legions.

Rome then turned its attention to Germany. Some of the southern German tribes,

those south and west of the Rhine, succumbed to Roman rule. But those east of

the Rhine, and especially those of Saxony, resisted.

As these Germanic warriors waited for battle, they knew they were facing the

wrath of the most powerful army the world had ever seen. The Roman army was

divided into 28 legions, each consisting of approximately 5,000 soldiers. The

legionnaires were exceptionally well-disciplined, and they were in superb physical

condition. In addition to 70-80 pounds of armor and weapons, each soldier

marched carrying a 40-pound pack. Their primary weapons were spears, but

they also used the gladius, a short two-edged sword that was well suited for

thrusting, slashing, blocking, and parrying. They also carried rectangular shields

that, when locked together in formation, made them almost invulnerable to

attack. They used a battle formation known as the maniple, similar to the

Macedonian phalanx, but looser and more flexible and therefore effective on a

variety of terrains.

The 17th, 18th, and 19th legions had been sent to Germany, and Emperor

Augustus had appointed Publius Quintilius Varus governor of Rhineland. Varus

was a patrician aristocrat and a skilled diplomat who had rendered great service

to Rome on foreign fields, but he had little actual battle experience.

The Germans lacked the discipline of the Romans, and their steel was of inferior

quality. But they possessed more than size, strength, and courage in battle. The

army consisted of all able-bodied freemen, and they fought with shields, spears,

battle-axes, and occasionally large broadswords, more powerful than the Roman

gladius but more difficult to use in close infighting. They commonly attacked

using a wedge formation, and cowardice in battle was punishable by death. They

fought with machine-like efficiency in smaller groups but were unused to fighting

together in large armies.

This time the Germans had a chieftain named Hermann, perhaps better known at

that time by his Latinized name Arminius. Born a prince of the Cherusci tribe,

Arminius had been raised in Rome as a hostage, and he received military training

and became a Roman officer. He learned Latin and received Roman citizenship,

an honor bestowed on non-Romans only for exceptional service. His years of

service to Rome gave him a thorough understanding of Roman military strategy

and tactics, and of the Roman mindset. But he had not forgotten his Germanic

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heritage, and as a young man he returned to his German people. Arminius

managed to unite some of the northern German tribes and instilled in them a

passionate desire to preserve their independence from Roman domination.

Varus, the Roman commander, and Arminius, the German commander, knew

that northern Germany was a tinderbox that needed only a spark to erupt into a

major conflagration. Rome claimed authority over northern Germany; the

German tribes had not accepted Roman rule but had not yet openly revolted.

Arminius devised a brilliant strategy. He caused a rumor to reach Varus that two

German towns east of Teutoburg Forest had openly revolted against Rome. As

expected, Varus decided that a display of force was necessary to suppress this

revolt and prevent it from spreading to other parts of Germany. He led his three

legions, totaling up to 20,000 men, across the Rhine and into Teutoburg Forest.

And Arminius planned his ambush.

East of the Rhine, in Teutoburg Forest, is Kalkriese Hill. A narrow road stretched

from west to east along the northern edge of the hill. For several miles the road

runs between a marsh to the north, known as the Great Bog, and Kalkriese Hill

to the south. The narrowness of the road, as Arminius knew, would force Varus

to march his army only eight men abreast, and therefore he would have to

spread his legions over several miles. Arminius knew his German warriors could

not match the disciplined Roman legions in open battle, but he also knew the

Romans preferred to fight on open terrain and were less effective in woodlands

and marshes.

Arminius and his warriors constructed earthworks on the north side of Kalkriese

Hill. He probably placed 5,000 warriors behind the earthworks, 5,000 in the

woods behind them, 7,000 on the northeast slope of the hill, and 1,000 at

strategic points in the marsh north of the road. As Peter S. Wells wrote in The

Battle That Stopped Rome,

The Germans waited nervously behind the sod wall. Some of the older men, who

had fought against the Roman legions during the campaigns of Drusus,

Ahenobarbus, and Tiberius, or who had lost kinsmen in battles with those armies,

hated the Romans with passion and were eager to attack the troops and to kill

as many as they could. But most were frightened, even terrified, at the prospect

of confronting the dreaded legions in face-to-face combat.

In September of 9 A.D., Varus and his legions entered Teutoburg Forest. At this

point, a torrential downpour occurred. And with the legions and their wagons

bogged down in the rain and mud, Arminius and his warriors attacked.

The attack began with a barrage of spears thrown through the air. Wells

estimates that each of the 5,000 warriors behind the earthworks could have

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thrown one spear with accuracy every four seconds, so within 20 seconds the

Roman legions could have been struck with as many as 25,000 spears. Wells

writes,

Within ten seconds of the start of the spear barrage, the marching units

disintegrated into chaos. The attacked soldiers stopped walking, in order to try to

defend themselves. Since they were marching in close formation and few could

see much beyond the men immediately around them, those behind kept

marching forward and crashed into their fellows. At first, soldiers farther back in

the column were unaware of what was happening toward the front, and they

kept pressing on.… Like a chain-reaction highway crash, men piled into one

another.…

Wounded, dying, and already dead men quickly covered the track, making

movement increasingly difficult for the others. The scene was one of complete

chaos — spears falling like hail, men collapsing and gasping, even those not yet

wounded struggling to remain on their feet, and occasionally frenzied horses and

mules crashing through the swarm of troops. Within minutes, thousands of

Roman soldiers lay dead or dying, pierced by spears, while others struggled to

stay on their feet and to use their shields for shelter.

With a deafening war cry, the German warriors then leaped over the earthworks

and charged into the Roman ranks. “For the first time in their lives,” writes Wells,

“they saw Roman legionaries — representatives of the imperial power that

marched with impunity through their lands, bribing their chiefs and subverting

their politics — powerless and helpless.”

Some authorities believe the battle was over in an hour; others believe it

stretched out over three days. Possibly the outcome was clear after the first hour,

but skirmishing continued for three days as Roman survivors fought their way

back to the Rhine. But this is clear: Arminius and his German warriors had won a

resounding victory. Of the 15,000-20,000 Roman soldiers, fewer than 1,000

survived. German losses were about 500 dead, 1,500 wounded. News of the

defeat caused consternation in Rome. Suetonius, in his Lives of the Twelve

Caesars, wrote that Emperor Augustus banged his head against the palace walls,

shouting Quintili Vare, legions redde! (“Quintilius Varus, give me back my

legions!”) But rather than face the ignominy of defeat, Varus committed suicide

after the battle. And the 17th, 18th, and 19th legions were never restructured,

which is unique in Roman history.

More battles between Rome and the Germans took place in the years that

followed, but the Rhine was firmly established as the northernmost boundary of

Roman expansion. And as a result, northern Germany and Scandinavia remained

free from the influence of Roman culture and Roman law.

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The areas of southern Germany that fell to Roman domination largely adopted

the centralizing features of Roman law. The Code of the Visigoths, governing

what is now Spain and southern France, contained many features of the Roman

Theodosian Code, and on Christmas Day 800 A.D. the Pope crowned

Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor: “Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great

and peace-giving emperor, life and victory!” Although he was a devout Christian

and a great ruler in many ways, Charlemagne governed largely according to

Roman law, combining it with some Christian and some Germanic elements. And

in 911 A.D., after King Charles the Simple of France gave the Normandy

peninsula to the Viking jarl Hrolfr (Rollo), Rollo and his Norman descendants,

including William the Conqueror, likewise adopted French customs and the

Romanized law of France.

But in northern Germany, especially among the Angles and the Saxons, the old

Teutonic common law continued, with its emphasis on individual rights and

decentralized government. And in Scandinavia the Viking law was similar to it, in

some ways even more decentralized than in Germany.

In the late 400s A.D., after the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, the

Angles and Saxons of northern Germany and the Jutes of Denmark migrated to

Britain. After securing the land from the raids of the Picts and Scots, these tribes

established a kingdom based upon the old Teutonic common law. Britain became

known as Angle-land, or England, and in keeping with Teutonic concepts of

decentralized government, the land was divided into seven kingdoms: the

Saxons occupied the southern kingdoms of West Saxony (Wessex), East Saxony

(Essex), and South Saxony (Sussex); the Angles occupied the northern kingdoms

of East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia; and the Jutes occupied Kent in the

southeast. Roughly speaking, each 10 families were led by a tithing-man, each

50 by a vil-man, each 100 by a hundred-man, and each 1,000 constituted a shire,

headed by an eolderman (shortened to earl) and his assistant, the reef. The reef

was a law-enforcement officer, and the term “shire reef” became “sheriff.”

Each shire was governed by a council known as the witan, composed of all

freemen in the shire. The witan at first served as both a legislative body and as a

jury to try civil and criminal cases, but eventually the legislative and jury

functions of the witan were separated. Once a year all of the witans of the

When the Anglo-Saxons first came to Britain, they still retained their pagan

beliefs. But the Celts converted many of them to Christianity, around 597

Archbishop Augustine arrived from Rome to further their Christianization, and by

the late 600s England was a Christian country. The Laws of King Aethelbirht,

baptized by Augustine in 601 A.D., reflect a Christian perspective, as do the Laws

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of King Wihtraed (691-725 A.D.) of Kent and King Ine of Wessex (688-725 A.D.).

King Alfred the Great’s Book of Dooms (890 A.D.) began with a recitation of the

Ten Commandments and was interspersed throughout with Old Testament and

New Testament references.

Viking raids on the British Isles began around 787 A.D., and Vikings soon ruled

large portions of England, Scotland, and Ireland. King Alfred repelled the Viking

advances and entered into a treaty by which the Vikings could rule areas of

northeastern England north of a line called the Danelaw, with the further

requirement that the Viking King Guthrun become a Christian. Viking law and

Anglo-Saxon law developed out of the same Teutonic background and were very

similar. The Viking witan was called the thing and met at the call of any freeman.

A judge or lawspeaker, called the godi, presided and was elected to a three-year

term. Once a year he was required to recite from memory one-third of the Viking

law code, so the entire code was recited over his three-year term.

In 1066 A.D. William the Conqueror (a descendant of Hrolfr or Rollo) of

Normandy defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, and England fell under

Norman rule. William did not try to change everything at once; he left the

witangemot intact and gave it the French name parliament. But he and his

successors worked to centralize government under the Norman monarchy, while

the Anglo-Saxons and their Viking allies struggled to preserve local shire

government.

In 1215 A.D. the English people, particularly the Anglo-Saxons and their Viking

allies, chafed under the tyranny of the Norman King John, and they looked for

leadership to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, of Lincolnshire, a

Viking settlement north of the Danelaw. Archbishop Langton instructed the

barons and bishops on their duty to interpose themselves on behalf of the people

they represented against the tyranny of the higher magistrates. He supervised

the drafting of the Magna Charta and commissioned Robert Fitzwalter as the

Marshall of the Army of God and Holy Church, and together they met King John

at Runnymeade and forced him to sign the Magna Charta, which guaranteed the

ancient God-given rights of Englishmen. But the struggle against the forces of

centralized power continued during the ensuing centuries, culminating with the

Glorious Revolution of 1688, the English Bill of Rights of 1689, and the American

Declaration of Independence of 1776.

Meanwhile, in Germany Arminius had been largely forgotten. But in the 1500s

Martin Luther, who had studied law before becoming a monk, defended the old

Teutonic common law against the usurpations of the Holy Roman Emperor. He

revived the memory of Arminius and called him by the Germanicized form of his

name, Hermann the Liberator, and cultivated him into a national hero.

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In 1839, construction commenced on the Hermannsdenkmal, a large statue of

Hermann atop a pavilion near Detmold in the Teutoburg Forest. A similar statue

and pavilion can be seen on a hill west of New Ulm, a German community in

central Minnesota, called the “Hermann Heights Monument” but better known to

local residents as “Hermann the German.” Standing atop the monument with his

sword held aloft, Hermann defiantly faces east toward Rome (and also toward

Washington, D.C.!). Besides the observances at Kalkriese, Germany, New Ulm

will hold a celebration the 2,000th anniversary of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest

on September 17-20, including a battle reenactment

(www.hermannmonument.com), and the city of Hermann, Missouri, will hold a

Victory Celebration on September 23-27 at which a Hermann statue will be

dedicated (www.historichermann.com).

And well they should. Hermann the Liberator not only preserved the freedom of

northern Germany and Scandinavia, he made possible the transmission of the

common law to England and, eventually, to America.

And what of American freedom in 2009? The land of the free chafes under the

rule of a government that dwarfs that of Rome, under a president who seeks

more power than even King John could imagine. Hermann the Liberator, Alfred

the Great, Archbishop Langton, George Washington, we need your likeness today!

John Eidsmoe is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, pastor with the Association of Free

Lutheran Congregations, professor at the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy, and

counsel to the Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Alabama.