Cassius Dio on the Teutoburg Forest

Cassius Dio (164-c.235) was a Greek by birth and a Roman by conviction, and one of the great historians of Antiquity. He became a senator during the reign of the emperor Commodus, was made consul by Septimius Severus (204), served as governor in Africa and Pannonia Superior, and had the rare distinction of being made consul twice, together with the emperor Severus Alexander (229).

Dio started his literary activity in the 190's and wrote his Roman History in the years 211-233. It is a marvelous book. Where we can compare it to other historical studies (e.g., the reign of the emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero can be read with Tacitus' Annals), Dio is often better, and for certain periods (e.g., the reign of Augustus and the second century), he is our most important source.

Chapters 18-24 of Book 56 of Dio's Roman History are here presented in the translation by Earnest Cary.

Book
56
5
Chapter
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Section
1
2
3
4
5

Cassius Dio on the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest

[56.18.1] I shall now relate the events which had taken place in Germania during this period.

The Romans were holding portions of it - not entire regions, but merely such districts as happened to have been subdued, so that no record has been made of the fact -

[56.18.2] and soldiers of theirs were wintering there and cities were being founded. The barbarians were adapting themselves to Roman ways, were becoming accustomed to hold markets, and were meeting in peaceful assemblages. They had not, however, forgotten their ancestral habits, their native manners, their old life of independence, or the power derived from arms.

[56.18.3] Hence, so long as they were unlearning these customs gradually and by the way, as one may say, under careful watching, they were not disturbed by the change in their manner of life, and were becoming different without knowing it. But when Quinctilius Varus became governor of the province of Germania, and in the discharge of his official duties was administering the affairs of these peoples also, he strove to change them more rapidly. Besides issuing orders to them as if they were actually slaves of the Romans, he exacted money as he would from subject nations.

[56.18.4] To this they were in no mood to submit, for the leaders longed for their former ascendancy and the masses preferred their accustomed condition to foreign domination.

Now they did not openly revolt, since they saw that there were many Roman troops near the Rhine and many within their own borders.

[56.18.5] Instead, they received Varus, pretending that they would do all he demanded of them, and thus they drew him far away from the Rhine into the land of the Cherusci, toward the Visurgis,note and there by behaving in a most peaceful and friendly manner led him to believe that they would live submissively without the presence of soldiers.