A quiz question · hard
What did Rome do with the numbers of the three legions destroyed in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD?
Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX vanished from the army list permanently — a retirement unique in Roman practice. Augustus reportedly cried 'Varus, give me back my legions!'
Read the full story →From the story
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, Where Rome Lost Three Legions and Stopped at the Rhine In September of 9 AD the Roman-trained Cheruscan noble Arminius led Varus's three legions into an ambush in the German forests and annihilated them — some 15,000-20,000 dead. Augustus reportedly cried 'Varus, give me back my legions!'; their numbers were never used again, and the Rhine hardened into Rome's permanent frontier. The battlefield itself was lost until 1987.
Related questions
- In September 31 BC two Roman generals fought a naval battle off western Greece that decided whether Rome would be ruled by a republic or by a single man. The losers fled to Egypt and killed themselves the following summer. Who won the battle?
- Cleopatra VII killed herself in Alexandria on 10 or 12 August 30 BC, after Octavian had captured the city. The traditional method was?
- Cleopatra and Mark Antony's only daughter survived her parents' suicides in 30 BC. Augustus brought her to Rome, raised her in his sister's household, and at fifteen married her off to a Numidian-Roman scholar-king and gave them a kingdom of their own to rule. Which one?
- Who killed Archimedes during the Roman sack of Syracuse in 212 BC?