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The dream lasted two years and then came to a bloody end with thousands of dead Romans and the annihilation of every camp and marketplace east of the Rhine. Even today, charred remains give testimony to the lost dream.

And Varus? Historians never celebrated Varus as the honored founder of a “Romana Germania,” but instead condemned him for his dishonorable death. He was called clumsy, lazy, and corrupt. It has become proverbial that, as Syrian proconsul, Varus had arrived poor at a wealthy province and had left wealthy from a poor province! In greed and folly, he had underestimated the Germanic tribes. He believed that the people that he found in the Germanic territories had nothing in common with real human beings except language and appearance. Accordingly, he thought that those who could not be tamed by the sword could be kept quiet by an application of justice. He treated them not only as subjects, but as inferiors who could be subjected to tribute whenever it was needed. In this way Varus quickly angered the Germani so much that their patience wore thin and a catastrophe became inevitable.

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