Publius Quinctilius Varus

Publius Quinctilius Varus was a Roman senator and governor who commanded three legions in Germany. In AD 9 Arminius lured the army into a prolonged ambush in the Teutoburg Forest, where the legions were destroyed and Varus took his own life.

The disaster ended immediate Roman plans for provincial government east of the Rhine and became one of the empire’s most remembered defeats. Earlier sources also criticised Varus’s administration in Syria and Judaea. Publius Quinctilius Varus was born in Cremona and died in Teutoburg Forest.

Lindsay Powell’s Roman Soldier vs Germanic Warrior reconstructs the Roman disaster in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where Arminius’s coalition destroyed the three legions commanded by Publius Quinctilius Varus, and explains why the victory did not immediately produce a Germanic invasion of Roman territory west of the Rhine. In Ben Kane’s Eagles at War, in AD 9, centurion Lucius Cominius Tullus marches east of the Rhine with Governor Publius Varus and three Roman legions. Varus trusts the German chieftain Arminius, an officer and ally of Rome, but Arminius has secretly united the tribes and plans to destroy the occupying army. Further fictional perspectives on Publius Quinctilius Varus can be found in Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s Wolves of Rome. For broader historical treatment of Publius Quinctilius Varus, see Lindsay Powell’s Germanicus.