Varus, General at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

427, Lot: 378. Estimate $150. Sold for $400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PHOENICIA, Berytus. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (21mm, 6.71 g, 12h). P. Quinctilius Varus, legatus Syriae. Struck 6-4 BC. Bare head right / Two aquilae between two signa. Sawaya Series 18 (uncertain dies); Rouvier 493; RPC I 4535. Near VF, brown surfaces with patches of red and green deposits, minor roughness.

Up until his final battle, Publius Quinctilius Varus was one of the most celebrated of Augustus’ generals. He had been consul in 13 BC (along with the future emperor Tiberius), governor of Syria from 7-4 BC, where he had sent two legions into Judaea to quell local unrest after the territory was converted to a Roman province, and subsequently governor of Germania.

By AD 9, Augustus had decided to straighten (and thereby shorten) Rome’s borders by conquering the vast region of Germania beyond the Rhine. He assigned Varus to develop the region without war, but the mixed Gauls and Germans living there were not prepared to accept Romanization. The Cherusci, along with other allies, ambushed Varus in the Teutoburg Forest of northwest Germany, and there annihilated the XVII, XVIII and XIX Roman legions in a pitched battle that lasted for three days. Varus, sensing doom, committed suicide, and when Augustus heard of the disaster, he tore his clothes and screamed, “Varus, give me back my legions.” No further attempts were made to subdue the Germans beyond the Rhine until the reign of Domitian, and Varus was blamed for the collapse of imperial policy in Germany.