The reasons for the battle in the Teutoburg Forest
The history of events is this. Shortly before the Battle of Teutoburg, the sensible viceroy, Sencius Saturnin, was succeeded in Germany by Quintilius Var, a man of limited intelligence, who for nine years had been ruling a pampered Syria, accustomed there, with the servile obedience of the population, to carefreely indulge in his inclination to a quiet, luxurious life and to satisfy his greed. According to historian Wellay Paterkul, he arrived in a rich country as a poor man and left the impoverished country as a rich man. When Varus became the ruler of Germany, he was already a very old man and thought to lead the carefree, pleasant life in his new province, to which he was accustomed in the luxurious, obedient East. This culprit of the forthcoming catastrophe in the Teutoburg forest was soon eliminated from all trouble, carelessly neglected the difficulties. They think that the magnificent silverware found in Guildesheim belonged to him; if so, we can make a clear notion of the luxurious environment of Varus' life from it. But he was an experienced administrator. Emperor Augustus considered Varus to be a man capable of turning the conquered part of Germany into a Roman province and, together with his superiors, entrusted him with the civil administration of the province. Thus, Varus was, in fact, the first Roman ruler of Germany.
In the years before the battle in the Teutoburg forest life of the conquered part of Germany has already received such a calm character that it was easy for Varus to imagine that the Germans are located without resistance to obey their new position: they showed a desire to learn the habits of educated life, willingly went to serve in the Roman army, accustomed to Roman life. Varus did not understand that the Germans want to learn only the forms of foreign life, but do not want to give up their nationality and independence. He had the recklessness to impose Roman taxes on the Germans, the Roman court, acted arbitrarily, opened a wide space of oppression of secondary rulers, their employees, buyers, loan sharks. Varus himself, a noble family member, a relative of the emperor, a rich man, attracted the German princes and nobles with the splendor of his court, a luxurious way of life, secular courtesy, and his assistants, Roman lawyers and tax collectors forcibly oppressed the people.
Shortly before the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, it seemed that nothing foreshadowed the looming events to come. Northwestern Germany began to resemble other Roman provinces: Varus introduced Roman administration and Roman legal proceedings. In his fortified camp on the Lippe River in the land of the Cherusks, he sat in the judge's seat, as a praetor in Rome, to deal with quarrels between the Germans, with Roman soldiers and merchants, not by German customary law, which knew and considered fair every free German, but by Roman law and the decisions of legal scholars, unknown to the people, in a foreign language to him Latin. Aliens-Romans, servants of the ruler, executed his sentences with inexorable severity. The Germans saw what they had not heard of until then: their fellow tribesmen, free men, split their horns; they also saw other things unheard of until then: the heads of the Germans fell under the axes of liquors by the sentence of a foreign judge. Free Germans were subjected to corporal punishment for minor offenses, which in their opinion dishonored a man for life; the foreign judge pronounced death sentences, which according to German custom could be decreed only by the free assembly of the people; Germans were charged with money and natural duties, completely unknown to them before that. Princes and nobles were seduced by Varus' magnificent dinners, refined forms of Roman life, but commoners, without a doubt, endured many resentments from the arrogance of Roman administrators and soldiers.
German Chief Arminius
This was the main reason for the uprising, which ended in the battle in the Teutoburg Forest. It took all the oppression of the rule of a greedy foreign despot, so that the Germans could find the Roman dominion shameful for themselves and so that the love of freedom would awaken in them. Under the guidance of the brave and careful prince of the Cherusks, Arminius, the Cherus, the Brookers, the Hutts, and other Germanic tribes formed an alliance to overthrow the Roman yoke. Arminius served in the Roman army as a young man, where he learned from the Roman martial arts, was granted the right of Roman citizenship and the rank of rider. This future leader of the Germans in the Battle of Teutoburg was then in the color of years, distinguished by the beauty of his face, strength of his hand, insight, was a man of fiery courage. Arminius' father, Segimer, and his relative Prince Segest enjoyed the trust of Varus; Arminius himself enjoyed it. This made it easier for him to fulfill his plan. Devoted to the Romans, jealous of the glory and influence of Arminius, Segest warned Varus; but the Roman governor remained careless, considering his notices a slander. The gods blinded Varus to free Germany.
Terrible was the anger with which the Germans were avenging their enslavement. Many noble Romans, military tribunes and centurions were slaughtered on the altars of the German gods; Roman judges were tortured to death. The heads of the dead were hanged from the trees of the Teutoburg Forest, around the battlefield, like victory trophies. Those who were not killed by the victors were condemned to shameful slavery. Many Romans horsemen and senators have spent their whole lives as workers or shepherds in the vicinity of German villages. Vengeance did not spare the dead. The barbarians dug the body of Varus from the grave, buried by Roman soldiers, and sent his head cut off to the mighty German prince of Bohemia Maroboda, who then sent it to Rome to the emperor.