World-changing9 CE

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

Teutoburg Forest, near Kalkriese, Lower Saxony, Germania

Estimated casualties

15K – 20Kestimated dead

Three full Roman legions (XVII, XVIII, XIX) plus auxiliaries were annihilated, roughly 15,000-20,000 men; ancient sources give no precise total. Germanic losses unknown.

SOURCEModern estimates based on three legions destroyed

An alliance of Germanic tribes under Arminius ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus in the forests east of the Rhine. The catastrophe ended Roman ambitions to conquer Germania beyond the Rhine and shaped the empire's northern frontier for centuries.

Belligerents2

  • Roman Empire
  • Germanic tribal coalition

ON THE MAPRoman Empire (Augustus)

Sources

  1. Wikipedia: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
  2. Britannica: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
  3. Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0

Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 9 CE and opens this record.

52.18°N · 8.13°E · 9 CEWARS-ATLAS / CONFLICT / BATTLE-OF-THE-TEUTOBURG-FOREST

Cite as: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/battle-of-the-teutoburg-forest · Sources & methodology