Note 20 — Chapter I

As Germanicus, coming from the Ems, lays waste the territory between the Ems and Lippe, that is, the region of Münster, and not far from it lies the Teutoburgiensis saltus, where Varus’s army perished (Tacitus, Ann. i. 61), it is most natural to understand this description, which does not suit the flat Münster region, of the range bounding the Münster region on the north–east, the Osning; but it may also be deemed applicable to the Wiehen mountains somewhat farther to the north, parallel with the Osning, and stretching from Minden to the source of the Hunte. We do not know at what point on the Weser the summer camp stood; but in accordance with the position of Aliso near Paderborn, and with the connections subsisting between this and the Weser, it was probably somewhere near Minden. The direction of the march on the return may have been any other excepting only the nearest way to Aliso; and the catastrophe consequently occurred not on the military line of communication between Minden and Paderborn itself, but at a greater or less distance from it. Varus may have marched from Minden somewhat in the direction of Osnabrück, then after the attack have attempted from thence to reach Paderborn, and have met with his end on this march in one of those two ranges of hills. For centuries there have been found in the district of Venne at the source of the Hunte a surprisingly large number of Roman gold, silver, and copper coins, such as circulated in the time of Augustus, while later coins hardly occur there at all (comp. the proofs in Paul Höfer, der Feldzug des Germanicus im Jahre 16, Gotha, 1884, p. 82, f.) The coins thus found cannot belong to one store of coins on account of their scattered occurrence and of the difference of metals, nor to a centre of traffic on account of their proximity as regards time; they look quite like the leavings of a great extirpated army, and the accounts before us as to the battle of Varus may be reconciled with this locality. As to the year of the catastrophe there should never have been any dispute; the shifting of it to the year 10 is a mere mistake. The season of the year is in some measure determined by the fact that between the arrangement to celebrate the Illyrian victory and the arrival of the unfortunate news in Rome there lay only five days, and that arrangement probably had in view the victory of 3d Aug., though it did not immediately follow on the latter. Accordingly the defeat must have taken place somewhere in September or October, which also accords with the circumstance that the last march of Varus was evidently the march back from the summer to the winter camp.