Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 78 - The Battle of Teutoburg Forest

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

Join Joe and Nick as they dive into one of the worst military defeats in history. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/notifications Buy some merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Follow us on twitter: @lions_by Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-726367 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/teutoburg/teutoburg.html 36/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/roman-empire-greatest-defeat-teutoburg-forest-who-was-arminius/

we're back we just started we did just the lights lit by doggies podcast i ruined that opening uh i'm joe and with me as always or mostly mostly always, is Nick. Yeah, what are we recording? A podcast. Oh, okay. Ooh. The inevitable sex tape. I taste the crayon. So, we are, I forgot where I was going with this.

Well, you said sex tape. Yeah. I also got to stop. So, I was wondering too. The donkey sex tape. Film specifically, Dijuana. Anyway, for the first time.

Donkey ropes. So we spent all day preparing for this podcast by gorging ourselves on gas station tacos and beer. Good tacos. For people who are unfamiliar with the fine city of yelm washington and why the fuck would you be familiar with it

the best restaurant in town is a taco stand that is attached to a gas station so good uh which we go to so often that the guy who owns it knows nick by name yes i guess that's not so hard because there's like 10 people in town. It's very true. Yeah. So for the first time in podcast history, I think, we're going to talk about Romans. We've never talked about Romans. No.

Actually, I don't know if I've talked about this before. I've talked about a gladiator that had to do with Russell Crowe. No, I've talked about gladiator. Yeah. Yeah. Which is close enough. Well, we did record an entire episode about a book about Rome that we read,

which was scrapped because the episode with the shit, uh, I don't know if I've ever talked about on the show before, maybe a bonus. I don't know. I feel like I have Joe Rogan brain cause I'm just, I've destroyed my brain so much. I just don't remember what I've talked about before. I just keep repeating myself uh but anyway have you ever listened to podcasts on

DMT but uh no uh we read uh Mike Duncan's book The Storm Before the Storm and we were gonna do a book review of it and every time we mispronounced the name we were supposed to eat one of those oh god Bernie Bob's every flavored beans. Yeah, every flavored beans. That ruined it for me, to be honest. The whole episode was fucking terrible. Actually, that's the only episode we've ever done that we've never aired. Really? I never even sent it to Nate.

It's like trash. We need another bonus episode this month. What happened to the other one? It's gone. It went to a farm up north. So we have a board in our office slash recording room slash where I cry at night that lists random battles, which we've always wanted to do episodes on. And there's only a couple battles that have been on there since the very beginning which we have not covered yet. You've got Battlefield 5 on there. Yeah, and that's something we'd all like

to forget. Very. And this is one battle that's been on there since day one and that is the Battle of Tudorburg Forest. It has. Now, before we get to the legendary battle of the Tudorburg Forest, we have to understand our timeless

hero and star of the story germanic badass arminius which is not actually his real name nobody really knows what his real name is but that's that's what he went by uh so we'll get into it uh he was born into a germanic tribe called the churisky i'm probably butchering that uh sometime around 18 BC to his dad, Sigmarius, who was the tribal chief. That made Arminius the prince in high standing. Now,

it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that Arminius' tribe, like so many others, had been subjugated by the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire was doing all it could to Romanize the people under its control. One of the ways it did that was by picking hostages. Nice. Barbarian leaders would be forced to give up their children to the Roman state.

The reason for this were many, and it kind of makes sense if you have a broken brain that wants to just destroy people and make them Roman, which was like a construct. Like Rome was a collection of tribes in the first place. Yeah. But that's one of the things that always bothers me about like statue Twitter. I know you're not as insufferably online as I am, but there's a large group of people on the internet. They're mostly Nazis.

Oh, okay, cool. Who always have like Twitter avatar pictures of like Roman emperors, like statues that you'd see in like a museum because that's supposed to be the pinnacle of Western culture. like Twitter avatar pictures of, of like Roman emperors, uh, like statues, uh, that you'd seen like a museum because that's supposed to be the pinnacle of Western culture. And, uh,

they like to think of the, like the barbarization of the Roman empire, which is, uh, uh, something that didn't actually really happen. Um, I maybe I wrote an entire,

uh, research paper on that. I might put it on the website whenever that gets up and going, which is actually something we're working on. But, uh, they, they believe that like the Roman empire was the like the last of the best empires because it

was one homogeneous race that subjugated all the barbarians that's why it was so great and they there was they seem to forget there's there was no such thing as romans right that exists just absorbed everybody oh yeah yeah they're like the ben shapiros of the world that think like athens and rome are the pinnacle of human civilization uh in short they they really support boy fucking and slaves uh but yeah uh so that they would take hostages uh and they would be treated really really well most of the time um so like if it was leverage if say arminius's dad was like fuck the romans like we're gonna kill your son and he's like romans are cool uh we're all friends here it's good he likes his son like that uh well it wasn't

that as much as his heir there probably wasn't a whole lot of father-son love there um especially because he left home at a pretty young age um and this is super widespread through pretty much all of roman history from when they started becoming an empire all the way until their collapse uh for instance uh famed uh rome plunderer attila the hun was a hostage when he was little really yeah uh and like yeah that that's it has a double-edged sword as we'll find out um the goal is to spread roman influence um you see the being the hostages of the romans wasn't such a bad deal once you got over the crippling fear of being torn away from the only people you know and love and thrown into a totally foreign place with i'm going to assume having no ability to speak the local language so it's just like big it's actually a lot like what's happening now are people who are born and raised in the united states being thrown into

foreign countries yeah they don't speak a single i'm assuming most of the germanic tribes like if they've spent a lot of time around romans they kind of had a grasp in the language. I'm assuming five-year-old Arminius did not. Yeah. The hostages were generally pretty well cared for. You'd be raised by a prominent Roman family, attend Roman schools, and be drafted into the Roman military where they learned the art of Roman warfare.

The idea, of course, that when their time in captivity was over, they would return home, bring all their love of Rome and everything they learned back with them with the eventual goal of training their local customs out of them eventually. Also, eventually, I mean, because these are all

princes and shepherds. Right, I see what they're doing. So the idea is like, well, dad's eventually going to die. He's going to become king. He's going to be really friendly to us. Yeah. Now, obviously, this is not a new thing. Ancient Egypt did the same thing. Many reasons why they wanted the highborn sons of kings as hostages

so they could ascend to the throne and become client states. And they'd be much more friendlier to whatever empire happened to control them at the time. And hilariously, this sometimes kind of happened to Romans as well. Not for the same thing. It was more of a ransom.

In one case, the Roman emperor himself ended up in captivity. How? Who fucked that up? Emperor Valerian went into person to talk to the Sasanians because they kind of pinky promised that, like, totally this isn't going to be an ambush. And he believed it like that. They were like, yeah,'t bring any bodyguards or bring the army we'll just hash out like bros do you think he did the whole fucking like fingers crossed behind the back totally dude like sir uh this is this is awfully a double cross like no no

no you see i have my fingers crossed it makes it okay ah genius uh now when he did show up he of course was captured enslaved and uses a human footstool whenever the king went anywhere uh whenever he mounted on horse uh the former emperor valerian would be brought over whipped back whipped out onto his uh hands and knees and then the king would climb on top of him onto his horse really yeah uh i can't think of a way to not do that i don't even know what I would do. That's like, that's only like, it's a level of villainy that's in a comic book.

Like you'd think like Frank Miller would have put that in 300 for the Persian emperor. He was eventually skinned alive and placed in the temple of the gods. Yeah. Now you'd probably think like, how the fuck did- They turn his skin into a jacket. What'd they do with the skin?

They just kind of hung it up We have the emperor of Rome skinning up this motherfucker It's like the It's our drapes for the kitchen It's the Dave Chappelle show of cribs When like He's like oh you're getting a motherfucking dinosaur egg Chop and he cuts his fucking head off Except it's the skin of the Roman emperor a motherfucking dinosaur egg. A dinosaur egg. It chopped and it cut his fucking head off, except it's

the skin of the Roman emperor. The kitchen drapes, I'm telling you. You'd probably be thinking how would Rome just sit back like, the emperor was kidnapped, we better rally some army to get him back. Nobody even gave a fuck. Really? Yeah. Why? Was he just like a piece of shit?

I assume so. Most emperors are. True, yeah. Anyway, back to... Oh, you took him. They're just high-fiving in the back. No, not the emperor. Anybody but him. Bitch is gone.

Because you know all of his aides. Like, yeah, you should totally buy the king. He's probably trustworthy. You should totally go. They threw a rager. Yeah. Once he left, bitch actually believed us.

So anyway, back with Arminius, Arminius and his brother Flavus were sent to the Roman authority. You say Favus? Flavus. Flavus. Also a Latin name. So also a flaccid penis.

When I don't think that's the same thing. That's Flavus. That's very similar. Flavus. That's very similar. Floppus Odikus. That's a gladiator name, yes. Somehow he's also Irish. Floppus Odikus. Choose your weapon, Floppus Odikus.

He chooses the helicopter. There's a reason why I say nobody knows their names. Because when they left the tribe, they had to pick a Roman name. Or one was assigned to them either way. So these are Latin names. What would be yours? I think Flavus is a solid one. Arminius is pretty close.

Arminius is fucking cool as shit. I like it a lot. Yeah, it's Arminius. There, it's mine now. Mine would be like, hey, bitch boy, come here. What? Nicholas. Oh, come here. What? Nicholas. Oh, that sucks.

Yeah, they show up and they just choose your name, not first impressions alone. I'll call you Limp Handshake. Fuck! Breath that smells faintly like coffee. Damn it. Yeah, so they were kind of their slave names, I guess you could say, because they're hostages And then the Romans picked their names

And those are the names that are in history books I'd be a hostage I mean their life sound pretty good For the time yeah I mean if you're going to be kidnapped Being kidnapped by the Roman Empire is the way to go So they were given Because they were nobles in their tribe

They were given the treatment they were nobles in their tribe they were given the treatment of roman nobles as well um they began to adopt the roman way of life over the course of several years and the two brothers did really well in school and during military training they learned latin and both became roman citizens soon they were made equestrians which is low ranking no roman nobility um the two brothers go on to serve as esquites, which I'm also pronouncing incorrectly. That is the closest thing you can compare to a knight in Roman society.

In a lot of sources, they're just like, yeah, they were made knights, but Rome didn't have knights. Yeah, fuck that. They were land-owning nobility, and only one rank removed from the senatorial class. So these guys climbed pretty goddamn high. They would serve asowning nobility, and only one rank removed from the senatorial class. So these guys climbed pretty goddamn high.

They would serve as cavalry and scouts, but also military commanders. According to Plutarch, the equest focused on heroic ethics and personal glory, with their main goal of stripping the armor and weapons from their dead enemy in order to enrich themselves. This was done in order to advance their political uh their political lives within the roman social circle uh because rome had kind of turned into a martial society which is why you saw a lot of politicians leading armies to further their senatorial runs this is exactly like when every single time the one of those navy seals writes a book and then runs for congress except at least these guys died when they're 36 from cholera. I still remember the meme that I showed you earlier of the fucking seal trident,

but he's fucking typing out a book. The fucking eagle. This one time I killed that guy. Yeah. So we all look forward to the future Senator Eddie Gallagher. Please don't kill me in my sleep. I have a family and at least two people that love me. Your dog.

Yeah, two dogs. Now, if you thought the Romans were going to waste all their time and money training these guys and never send them to war, you'd be very wrong. Arminius was sent to the Balkans to take command of a detachment of Roman auxiliary troops, which were non-Roman citizen troops, to help put down rebellions in various tribes that rose up against the Roman Empire. Arminius turned out to be so good at stomping down rebellions, he just kept getting promoted. And then he was sent back home under the command,

back home to Germania under the command of one Publius Quintilius Varus. I don't know if I said that correctly or not. Yeah, yeah. You can tell he's really fancy because how many Iliases are in his name. This is a guy that is definitely somebody's Twitter avatar.

Also, he may have been in the latest Fallout playing the Kaiser. No, that wasn't Fallout 4. That was Fallout 3. Or was it New Vegas? I don't remember. When they had a whole bunch of people LARPing as Romans.

Oh, fuck. I know what you're talking about. Oh, fuck. God, Fallout's so good. I need to play Outer Worlds. It's really good. Really? Yeah, within like 20 minutes

of playing the game, I killed a company town, rerouted power to a workers' commune, and murdered the managers of a local factory and gave it to the workers it's one in minutes yeah it did not take long

and I beat a cop to death with a cinder block it's great actually you know what's way more entertaining than this podcast Outer Worlds you should play it I have it downloaded I need to play it. It's so good. I've been sweating

over Call of Duty. It's so bad. I suck at that game so much. Varus was a patrician. Patricians are so they had once been the ruling class, like the elite class of Rome during the time of the kingdom and the republic.

Since then they had kind of fallen from their great standing. It's like the Kennedys, but they're all pedophiles and they're dying. As such, even though Varus' family was nobility, they had somehow managed to be dirt fucking poor. I don't even know how you suck that bad. So you happen

to be high class, but not high class? He was high class in title. But like his family... Oh, okay, he just didn't have shit. His family was broke as fuck. Which, there's nothing I like more than nobility that's poor. I'm glad he

was poor. I don't know anything about his early life other than what is in like Plutarch and stuff, but I assume he's a huge piece of shit. he was poor. I don't know anything about his early life, uh, other than what is in like, uh, Plutarch and stuff, but I assume he's a huge piece of shit. That's about most people we talk about. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. Uh, I would say, uh, Varus very well be, might be the most historical donkey we've ever talked about. Uh, simply because, uh,

like there is statues older than most societies talking about how much this guy sucked really yeah yeah that's awesome uh his father sextus uh may have yeah yep yep just to go on and talk about how how much this family sucked his father sexist may have very well been involved in the plot to kill Gaius Julius Caesar, uh, who kind of sort of was the first Roman emperor, but he was also the first Roman leader to really give a shit about the plebs. So your name is way cooler than you are sexist. Yeah.

Uh, I imagine he's probably so fucking annoying. And then in the, uh, the ensuing civil war after Caesar was, was assassinated, he killed himself after losing a battle. Because if there's one axiom we can get behind

in the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast, it's at first you don't succeed, kill yourself so it doesn't happen again. You suck. By the way, we will be talking about a lot of Romans killing themselves during this episode. Which is something I always support. If you are a member of Romans killing themselves during this episode, which is something I always support.

If you're, if you are the member of, of, uh, a horrible empire, suppressing others, just, just,

just go ahead and die. Do they do it after every battle they lose or just various ways? Oh, we'll get to that. Okay. Uh, also don't read into that too much. Otherwise Nick and I have to kill ourselves.

Uh, not today, Satan. So while Varys may have been doomed to a life of failure and poverty like his dad, he changed that by marrying far above his standing and managing to hook up with the daughter of a council. Nice. Yeah, solid. Because that's what I plan on doing. That's my only hope of getting out of poverty

is that I somehow marry someone who is like a hedge fund manager and then i end up in a lifetime movie for stealing all their money or you die i'll definitely end up dying yeah i i my career arc's gonna end being some weird being someone's insurance scheme murder. Who would play you? It'd probably be some no-name and it'd be really bad. In a movie? I hope Serge Tanki from System of a Down. That'd be sweet.

He's the only Armenian I can think of off the top of my head. Yeah, that'd be fucking awesome. Or Robert Kevorkian, but he's dead already. I like the System of a Down. He married the daughter of aul and weaseled his way Into politics Which is kind of how it always happens in Rome People like to talk about

The empire killed Roman democracy There was never any such thing As Roman democracy It was all intertangling family trees And rich people kind of like today Except at least they didn't lie about it Like everybody knew it was corrupt It was all intertangling family trees and rich people. Kind of like today. Except at least they didn't lie about it. Like everybody knew it was corrupt.

So he supported Caesar's heir, Octavian, and eventually got into the good graces of future emperor Tiberius. So he liked the glad hand. He didn't really have anything else going for him. Because as you'll find out, he was a huge piece of shit. i wonder what he did to fucking marry her uh start getting into paul i mean start getting into politics be i mean he was from a noble family so that was more important than having no money maybe he was the hairdresser no i mean his family name was more important than his wealth because like uh i mean obviously her dad had to agree to marry her off because this is

a horrible horrible society right uh so he knew he was marrying his daughter into a good name and he's like whatever i have money yeah it's just for the name yeah yeah because you weren't gonna marry a fucking plebe or a merchant who had money that just wasn't gonna happen um so while you think coming from i hope girls do is they marry me for the name and not me. Well, your last name is Casanova. That's pretty baller. Yeah. It's definitely not for the money, that sweet E5 salary.

Yeah. Hey, honey, you want a Camaro with 30% interest? Sorry, sorry. Charger. Yeah. Oh, my bad. I'm a bit behind the times in the newest barracks i'm sorry i just don't like camaros i'm not i'm not a fan of any car that's in the barracks

parking lot every barracks parking lot is the sea of mustangs camaros and uh chargers there's boats in these parking lots how i need to send you pictures of my barracks parking some of it's living in the barracks like that's myacks I saw a fucking boat the other day I was like what the fuck That's just some E7 who doesn't want to pay To store it somewhere Like what how much is storing a boat Fuck that I'm putting this in the barracks

Meanwhile if somebody in the barracks Car like has something slightly wrong With it for two weeks and doesn't move He's like tow that bitch So if you thought Varus growing up from nothing wrong with it for two weeks and doesn't move like toe that bitch so if you thought of Varus growing up from nothing and fighting his way to respectability

in the noble scene would have maybe made him like sympathetic to the common man or like someone who has to work for a living but you'd be very very wrong before Varus would go on to govern Germania, he would take control of the Roman area of Africa and Syria at various parts

while he was in political power. And he did his best to be yield Assad for the most part. Yeah. He quickly cultivated a reputation for being a massive dickhead. For instance, in Judea, he rose taxes at a crippling rate, and when people got pissed off about it,

he crucified 2,000 people. When they were pissed? Yeah. He said, eh. Well, there was a bit of an armed uprising, but they rose their taxes to the point they couldn't eat. So it's like, well, I guess we have to fight him because we're all going to starve to death.

Oh, fuck. So he crucified them along a road that covered miles. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah, so it's like Bashar, he gets the Bashar al-Assad thumbs up of approval when it comes to rule in Syria. Yeah. This actually caused the famous Jewish boycott of Roman pottery,

which seems really passive-ag someone who's good at a mass crucifixion against you, but you know, do your, do your thing guys. So during his time in Syria, he once rose taxes and used four legions under his command to kill anybody who even looked at him wrong.

It was after this, he went back to Rome and took part in the same operation as Arminius against the Illyrian revolt in the Balkans, where he he committed some of those brutal slaughters of the war in order to put down one of rome's biggest challenges since the punic wars this war would uh this uprising eventually spiral out of control uh so badly that would require half of every roman legion to take care of uh and yeah a lot of the awful shit that varus did definitely helped end the war uh because people didn't want to fight someone who's literally bathing in your children's blood and crucifying thousands of people like maybe this isn't worth it guys uh in 7 a.d emperor augustus eventually

appointed varus to be the first governor of the newly created Roman providence of Germania. After years of bitter warfare, the various tribes of the area had been momentarily crushed, giving the Romans hope they could not only pacify the area, as they have done for a lot of tribes, but turn it into an actual providence of the empire. Varus

may have been chosen for this job specifically because of his brutality. Really? Yeah, his actions while governor and during the Illyrian revolts had spread far beyond the borders of the Roman Empire to the point that he was like the boogeyman for neighboring tribes. You're such a dickhead, we need you to come do this.

Yeah, they're like, hmm, we have a lot of tribes who historically fight us. How can we get them to stop doing that? Have we tried sending in the genocidal maniac that we have down in Africa? Brilliant! Yeah, he wears their dicks as necklaces. Yeah, yeah.

It's gross. Flavus is like, I dig it! He's like, that's my shit! This is my jam! And there's a good reason I believe it would work uh even though varus was not a soldier he had shown himself able to put the fear of rome and god into people he was not a classically trained even for a roman commander a soldier like he had never been a

soldier he had never even played soldier as a lot of roman nobles do he was just a politician who really liked to kill a lot of people that will become important later because the dude had no fucking idea what he was doing like in charge of multiple legions and actually fighting people he had no idea what he was doing he only could like his command only worked when uh his legions were stabbing unarmed people as long as they're not fighting back, we're good. Yeah, it's like the Italian Army of World War II. We're only good if we're

shooting unarmed black people. Like the LAPD. Very true. You know, I dog on the LAPD a lot when Seattle's just down the street, and I can just as easily shit on them. I like the whole LAPD thing because it's more my territory.

Yeah. That's definitely my jam. And I've never had my ass beat by Seattle PD and I assume you've had a few run-ins. My brother has. Oh man. My dad was working for him too and made no sense. Your dad's one of the good ones. Your son on the other hand.

Yeah. Now, more than that, the tribes were not really up for a fight at the time. For instance, in order to resist Roman power, the various Teutonic tribes of the area would have to unite. But they had long fallen into bitter infighting after getting their shit stomped in by the Roman general Sateranius for the last few years. Now, this is kind of like the ebb and flow of tribal uprising against the ebb and flow, not even flow. It's different. Yes.

Thank you for sending me that today. That was awesome. I was going to do it, but I didn't. That took courage. So the normal ebb and flow of tribal uprising against the Roman Empire was like one powerful chieftain would reunite, or chieftain or king or whichever, would unite all the surrounding tribes, and then together they would resist Rome until the alliance kind of fell apart. They'd all kill each other, and then Rome would move in. Okay.

Yeah. That sounds like a solid. It's kind of like every insurgency ever. Yeah. Like the Lebanese Civil War. Yeah, it's just fight each. Yeah, they're like, we'll unite until these motherfuckers go away,

and then they'll all just massacre one another. I mean, fucking Arminius' own dad was declared a coward for bending his knee to the Romans and then executed. So, yeah. How? It doesn't say. I believe

he had his head cut off, which was then boiled. What? Okay. Yep. Yeah, that's something they do a lot. Gotta get that cheek meat. What is face meat called again? Barbacoa? Yeah. They made man barbacoa. This Arminius is

awfully tight. And that was when the first street taco was made out of arminius's dad's face tastes like bitch tastes like sweet sweet coward uh so virus is pretty much like everyone else and like he he thought the same way as everybody else and he was mostly correct in his idea that they were they weren't really gonna be doing a whole lot of fighting. They didn't have a unifying factor. They're busy fighting each other. Standing up against Rome wasn't really going to work.

There was going to be localized fighting where like individual tribes, but Hey, fuck the Romans, but they'd get crushed. Right? So that those were normally the ones that you can nap your chieftain son and then they fall in line. And then your chieftain son then gets redeployed back against you in a

couple of years. That's insane still. Yeah. God. Yeah. Now Varus is in command and was given a trusted assistant, which he had come to know

and really like during his fighting in the Balkans. That assistant was none other than Arminius. Second command into subjugating his own family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, as unknown, how loyal to the Roman emperor or empire that Arminius was at this point in his life. He never wrote anything.

He didn't keep a diary. His MySpace has been really hard to track down. He had a jamming playlist. Yeah. People want to be on his top ten friends. You know his quote was a fallout boy lyric sugar we're going down god damn it arminius his background is just flashing geocities um now he had served that was a sweet skull with flames i was a kid you're way before the punisher

arc you should just put like a line over it and started making an apparel yeah yeah sweet yeah instead you had to go enlist and i went dumb shit yeah it fucked up yeah way to go matt best now arminius had served in the roman military and helped secure its borders from rebellion for years but no that's no real i mean there's you can take that as loyalty because he didn't like fuck off and run because remember his brother's also in service so if he would have ran his brother probably would have been executed right and he probably didn't know his dad was dead because it's not like he could like shoot him a text yeah he was thousands of miles away um they had bad phone service at the

time yeah the cell towers in germany are notoriously shitty yeah um he was out of minutes i believe he also had cricket his dad definitely had cricket i need the big buttons i had jitterbug he had jitterbug um now there there's no evidence of disloyalty but i mean it seems like it's like a bittered loyalty like what the fuck else am i gonna do i can't go home it's true because i've been hanging out in rome for so long um now there's some historical evidence to show that arminius had some long harbored dreams about becoming the king of his tribe which i mean fair enough he was the prince when he left uh though it is unknown if he meant to be as king as a roman client or not or if he wanted to be an independent king. He's going to be king.

What changed, however, what tipped his loyalties definitely was Varus. You see, Arminius might have been fine crushing, slaughtering, and subjugating other people with Varus. I mean, they're not my tribesmen. But once

Varus was let loose on his own people, uh, and the, the Germanic tribes started getting the Varus treatment, his loyalty, the Rome quickly began to vaulter. He quickly set out on a mission to unite the tribes.

Once again, this time around himself, because it's not like he's like, yeah, my brother's really cool. Uh, but he would do so carefully tribal hatreds and uh hatreds and generations of war were not quickly going to be forgotten i wonder how he would prove that he was

he's the prince like he is the true heir well everybody knew that uh his dad his dad's like prince his oldest son had gone to rome so So he's like, yep, I'm him. But I feel like they'd still need something like a secret handshake that their tribe had. Yeah, it was definitely like a fist bump followed by an explosion noise. Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap. Oh, you're good. There was many Germanic tribes who hated Rome,

but by no means did they want to invite death and destruction back into their fields and families by fighting them. Because if you fought Rome, your tribe was most likely going to cease to exist. They would burn your crops, take your women, kill all the men.

Yeah. They weren't cool. Normal stuff. Others may have been Roman clients and fully bought into fuck it if you can't beat them you'll join them type attitude uh while being a foreign subject to the roman empire was never a great time the tribal leaders had grown rich and powerful trading things like food iron and luxury goods with the empire so like maybe in some yield form of trickle down economics there like the kings of these tribes would trade all these things with Rome and

then give them to people he liked. And then still the bottom rung of his tribe would starve and be poor because, because this trickle down economics doesn't work. Back then just sucked. It wasn't like hang out in the woods. Nothing I want to do. Until you die from whatever disease makes you shit blood. Yeah, nothing I really want to do.

You're either going to shit blood and die, or someone's going to shove a sword into your face, or you're going to be stoned to slavery, or then you'll die of shit-blooding disease. I might do something stupid that I didn't know. Like, I might get cut by a branch and die. Yeah. Oh, that's an infection.

Yeah. You might drink like, oh, time to get some water from the well oh cholera yeah fuck like a piece of pork will kill your ass like this this fucking sucks i have no idea how human humanity continued to advance when simply existing would kill you yeah i mean i know now everything gives me cancer but at least i'll die of cancer in my 50s yeah i don't plan on going past my 50s. Yeah, it's all downhill from there. I'll lose what's left of my hair.

I'll get fat. My joints will hurt more. Actually, the 50s sounds a lot like 31 for me. Oh, God. Yeah, the 30s are great. How do you plan on going out? Suicide bombing? Okay.

I was going to go out. I plan on going full Shahid. I was going to plan on having my hopefully wife at the time suffocate me, sit on me. I mean, if that's going to be your kink, suicide bombing is mine. I'm really into vests. What kind of vest would it be? Would it be like a fishing vest? It'd be a tasteful cardigan, but it's full of C4.

Like Mr. Rogers. Yeah. Just like myself, Mr. Rogers. Yeah. Just like myself, Mr. Rogers is also a Shaheed. So I wonder, before your suicide bomb and you just sing to them, they're like,

oh, this is nice. And then just fucking like, oh, no, no, I'm not going to kill other people. I'm going to like, just go out to a field somewhere and blow myself up. Oh, okay.

I thought you were going to kill something. No, I, because like, I want to, I want my. No, I want my remains to be sprinkled through Disneyland. I don't want to be cremated. I feel like blowing myself up is the best way to facilitate that. Just put body parts everywhere in Disneyland. It's a small world after all, and there's my leg.

Not only do I get to ruin some farmer and yelms crops by blowing myself up, I get to scar children for the rest of their lives. Nice. Yeah, it's a twofer. It's a lot like my dad. I like when he gets brought up in this. He's actually the fourth co-host after the CIA. Yeah.

Well, really, he's the ultimate co-host, because if it wasn't for breaking my brain at a very young age, I wouldn't find military history so funny. It would be tragic like everybody else treats it. Now, like I was saying, some of these tribes may very well have been loyal to Rome. And like I had talked about before, the barbarization of Rome. Now, this is far, far down the line. They had the best haircuts at the time.

Barbarization. The barbar surgeons of Rome. Now, like a lot of people blame the Germanic tribes diluting the Roman army, which led to the downfall of Rome, which is largely been disproven. But a lot of people of Germanic descent were in the Roman army. So there was a fair amount of loyalty there,

at least loyal enough to collect a paycheck and a pension, which is really the only way a commoner could get that back then. Also today. Very true. Either way, Arminius began to build up his alliance slowly but surely, as several of the chieftains immediately...

So he got a lot of chieftains to to uh agree to his plan or at least agree to follow him for the time being but a lot of the chieftains he talked to her like holy fuck this guy's gonna bring war to our neighborhood and immediately ran and told varus about his new second command being a turncoat what a fucking snitch i know right yeah i'm pretty sure uh there's a there's a latin saying which is snitches get stitches um yeah that was how the this translates worldwide yeah yeah it's timeless um when the chieftains who came forward was arminius's own father-in-law really yeah what a fucking ass which admittedly is like as old as in like people their in-laws in their wars yeah it's as old as people, their in-laws hating their kids. Oh, the in-law wars? Yeah, it's as old as

time itself. It's like, I kinda don't like Rome, but fuck that guy. Puts his dick in my daughter? I think not. Now, there's a couple ways you can take this. Either Varus totally trusted his second command, and why wouldn't you?

Because there's a good, there's a fair amount of evidence that people didn't see Arminius as a barbarian anymore. He had been Roman for years. And he totally bought in. He was assimilated. He was one of the good ones. If you are Varus. Or Varus overthought the whole thing.

And he thought that the chieftains were simply coming forward to rat on Arminius was because they were his tribe's rivals, which was also true. But also, both of those things were true? Like, yes, but also no. This is so juicy. Yeah.

This is so cool. It's Game of Thrones if it wasn't so dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I saw one of Thrones if it wasn't so dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I saw one of the best Halloween costumes ever. It was just some lady wearing a trash bag with a sign that said, the last season of Game of Thrones.

I feel that inside me. That's awesome. But either one of those excuses, Varys didn't believe any of these. Like, not my boy boy my boy Arminius got my back you're just a snitch punk bitch yeah somebody slash that man um as Arminius

his coalition grew began to lay a trap Arminius knew that goading the Romans into open combat would be suicide no matter how many tribes he got he wasn't gonna be like yep let's stand toe to toe with the Romans and we'll win this. Instead, he'd have to take them out of their element a bit.

Arminius began to spread a rumor. Battle them at Dance Dance Revolution. Yeah, it's like, bring out the pads, get on the sticks, motherfucker, let's do this. 1v1. The fucking Heaven Song comes on. Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

That's going to be the intro to this fucking episode. Fuck yeah. That was my favorite fucking song at DDR. The fact that you played DDR with your clumsy fucking feet. Oh man, my brother. So my brother was a DDR master. Oh, was he the guy that grabbed the platform from the back and like... No, no, no.

He didn't need no motherfucking platform. He'd do a fuckload of coke and then play DDR for hours until the point that he lost a lot of weight. On second thought, it may have been all the coke. But he lost like 80 goddamn pounds. Are we talking about the brother

that used to beat your ass? Yeah. What? Yeah, he was fat as shit. But then he did a lot of coke and did DDR and he lost a lot of weight. Starvation is a diet. Starvation and instead of working out, you just do coke. I mean, the starvation

helped because he had no money. Because he spent it all on coke. Yeah. Dinner. That's dinner. Tastes an awful lot like coke. I Coke. Yeah. Mmm, dinner. That's dinner. Tastes an awful lot like Coke. I love dinner powder. Now, so Arminius is starting to make a plan, and that plan was spreading a rumor.

And that rumor was not the fact that some far-off barbarian fucked Varys' sister. Dude, this is so fucking Mean Girls-esque. It's fucking awesome. It's so gossipy. Who here has not been victimized by Regina Varys? He doesn't even go to this Legion!

Of all the things that I thought would be quoted on this show, never Mean Girls. But it happened. We've gone there. Mean Girls is fucking great. I don't care what anybody says. It's the only good movie that Lindsay Lohan was ever in. And much like my brother, Coke and DDR ruined her life too. Oh, man.

She's like, if I just do the Heaven Song one more time, my dad will love me again. Now, so he's began to spread rumors of a far-off rebellion taking place out where else? But in the middle of the goddamn woods where the Romans have never been before. I could have sworn this was a movie. I think I've seen this movie. They did, yeah. I think it's The Eagle. It's either The Eagle or The Legion

or something like that. Yeah, it has some actor that I know that's in it. That's pretty bad fucking. It was a nameless white guy with blue eyes. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Someone's gonna be like, oh, there's this movie, dumbass. But like every time, leave me alone i have brain damage if it's not the script i can't remember it

um so it's important that like varus knew that nobody had ever been there before because like that shit he had been doing this like oppression shit for so long but he was so used to dealing with like unarmed like weak civilians or in the case of judea they weren't soldiers used to fighting for generations like the barbarians were right um so he's like yeah fuck it let's go and everybody's like in the middle of the woods like all everybody under him other than varus like into the middle of the woods where we've never been before that sounds like a really bad idea and and arminia's like nah dude we should totally go let's go fuck these dudes up and so we all know who varus listened to right

so he jumped at the chance to go in some glory for himself so he rallied up his legions all 20 000 odd man of them, and started marching. Now Varus knew he had never been to these woods, or in that part of Germania at all. So he decided to ask the only person he could trust to make a battle plan and a route of marching.

Arminius! Really? Yep. He's second command! Oh man, this is great. Arminius told the Romans he knew of a shortcut. Yes! Detour. It would cut several days off the army's march. That just sounds terrible.

Fuck. The problem was, of course, it was a very, very thick forest, not interspersed with anything you could consider roads, even for the time, which is like, I mean, so the Romans, when they normally march places that were rough,

they would have to build roads as they went because they have their supply carts and everything falling after them. They didn't even have that. This required the Romans to spread out over miles and slowly hack their way through the forest and labor and build roads so their pack animals

and carts could get through. Yeah. That's too much work. To make matters worse, the army was not alone. This is not an army built for the march. Rather, it was an army marching between its summer and winter quarters when Arminius told them what the rebellion was going on.

And rather than get to the winter quarters and then deploy the legions, Varus brought everybody with him. This meant that during the march, when Arminius told Varus about the rebellion that needed immediate attention, hence diverting his march towards summer quarters, the Roman army included thousands of camp followers.

Camp followers were soldiers' kids, spouses, tailors, sex workers, and all the things that keep an army going on the campaign. These decidingly not soldiers did not know how to march or do manual labor and instead strung out the army even further. Bastards. Yeah. Build the road,

kid! I'm going, dad! You get like a five-year-old building road next to a sex worker and like an 80-year-old tailor like, my fingers hurt. Yeah. That reminds me of fucking,

what is it? Oh, it's where Ben Stiller's the shitty. That is a happy Gilmore. Yeah. Oh man. You stop sewing. I'll give you gardening detail for a week.

As Arminius led the Legion further and further into the forest, which by the way, he is literally Leading them he's like only I know the way I imagine he's like holy fuck it's working God these guys are so stupid They crossed Fields pastures and swamps

Further complicating things Progress came such a bitch that the legions were stretched out Over eight miles Fuck as they're building roads by hand In swamps Nobody's like this seems like a trap This is trappy right miles. Fuck. As they're building roads by hand in swamps, nobody's like, this seems like a trap. This is trappy, right? Are you sure this is a shortcut? Meanwhile,

Legionnaire fucking... God damn it, I can't remember the guy's name from Star Wars now. Ackbar. The Legionnaire Ackbar is like, I don't see a trap either. And he's the only alien in the Legion. He's clearly an alien. Everybody thinks he's a trap either. And it's the only alien in the Legion. Like, he's clearly an alien, but everybody thinks he's a Legionnaire.

It's a trap. Shut up, Ackbar. You think everything's a trap. So just when Varus was thinking the situation probably couldn't get any worse or dumber, a torrential downpour began to turn their small trail into a mudslick. Yeah.

This is all going his way. Yeah. If you could going his way. Yeah. If you could roll the dice and everything comes up bad during a march, he found it. Why is there a part of the dice that's my second in command turning traitor? Weird.

Probably shouldn't believe these. He's just loading the dice. Simba's train was coming down so fast and so hard that the tops of the trees broke off and fell onto the legionnaires. Oh, fuck. Their heavy armor became waterlogged and heavy as they tried to walk. They slipped and fell and got

injured and some of them drowned. What? While marching? Like they fell into low water crossings. Like that fucking idiot that dies every August in Texas. Oh, if it rains at Fort Hood, just five minutes of raining, somebody's going to die. Yeah, for people who are unaware, in low water crossings on Fort Hood, there's like signs that say turn around, don't drown because it happens so often.

Yeah, so horses fell in the mud. Pack animals were hurt and had to be left on the side of the road and carts got stuck. Fun. This is what I like to think that so this is around the time when Arminius realized that this is about as good as it's going to get and he ran off into the woods. This is going too good.

Yeah, and this is where I like to think that it was the Homer Simpson meme of him slowly backing away into the hedges. backing away into the hedges and he just cut he backs into the hedges as a roman and comes back as a barbarian king that's fucking awesome this guy's awesome but he really did show up with tens of thousands of barbarian soldiers a new set of armor uh now the legions virus brought with him were not battle hardened uh some some sources say that there's battle hardened legions Varus brought with him were not battle hardened some sources

say that there's battle hardened legions but they weren't most of them were new soldiers on their initial contract and on their first and what would turn out to be their last campaign this is probably why when the barbarians laid into them with javelins nobody really

did anything they were like oh we better wait for orders. And then they didn't come. I guess we should just stand here. Those are long poles outside the officer's hedge. Huh. The praetor has a spear in his face. That's probably not good.

So orders weren't given. Formations couldn't be formed in the very thin roads. And nobody had any idea of really what to do. Yeah, because people are still drowning in the mud. Yeah. And like the thing is, is everybody stretched out so far. Like it's almost 10 miles of soldiers. So like when the front part of the army got ambushed, the people in the back had no fucking idea they were even under attack.

They're just still being drowned by their own fucking armor. I think of Chief Wiggum when he got stuck in the printer, the roller with his tie. He's like, oh boy, I got my own issues here. That's what they were thinking in the back. Like, this turned into like a 10, 15, 20 mile long rolling ambush, not because the barbarians were clever which arguably they were but because the romans were so fucking dumb and so deep into a trap

oh man that's great they're like up to their neck and like fucking quicksand and someone's like here take my hand oh a little too far now grab this. It just hits him in the head. Thanks. Bitch ain't got no hands. Bite it. So like the people in the back had no idea it was going like, yeah, we should probably

keep walking and then they'd get ambushed and then the next people a couple miles back. They just see the dead bodies and they're like, oh, they drowned. That's a javelin

sticking out of their fucking body. There's way more dead bodies on this show than I expected. That's probably fine. The whole draft is look insane uh virus struggled to get his forces uh together and keep moving because that was the things like fuck we're getting ambushed well we just have to keep pushing forward we can't fight here i mean which posted the kill zone so yeah somehow admittedly

this is what the u.s army does like we're getting ambushed. Gotta keep driving. The roads were so narrow that the Romans couldn't put a formation together to resist whatsoever. So the barbarians are like, this is going really well. This is going great. We should just keep hanging out and assaulting these guys. Varus knew the closest Roman outpost was a full 60 miles away at Haltern. Close enough. So he decided, fuck fuck it that's my only option so they just started marching that's not an option that's 60 miles 60 miles i don't want to drive 20 miles and so a lot of historical sources um say that like the small plucky band of barbarians but it was almost an equal size force it's almost it's like

15 that's a lot yeah it's like 15 to 20 000 against 15 to 20 000 it wasn't like this plucky band of of outlaws like the a lot of people that tell the story like like so she's like it was a fucking the sanalot of the barbarians no it was the closest thing to a peer force the romans could have fought at the worst time possible. So even if he would have ran a full 60 miles away, there'd been 60 miles of getting fucking ambushed, which then he got to a Roman garrison, which is significantly smaller than himself, which he then would have just put under siege by the 20,000 barbarians. You brought him here? Yeah. Go fuck yourself.

Dude, what the fuck? You killed us. Boris, I the fuck? You killed us. Boris, I thought you were cool, man. What are we gonna do? So the Romans just kept marching as barbarians on countless hit and runs attack on the column. God, that sucks. Like, fuck, we have to walk how far?

Oh, shit, you killed Frank. I would just pretend I'm dead in the streets. Or on the road. I would probably be like Time to fall over and be a slave I drowned I'm in danger I'm in danger

Every Roman conscript How fast can I run the other way The rain continued to fall And rendered the Roman bows worthless. So, according to Suetonius, the sinew strings, the particular strings that they strung their bows with, would get waterlogged when they got wet.

Yeah. So they couldn't fire them. What? They just become slack. It's like your dick after you drink too much whiskey. Except most people don't try to defend themselves through dick uh that mind disappointing so like imagine you're a roman archer and you're like haha fuck yeah and it should be noted like the the barbarians

knew that which is why they only brought javelins. That's awesome. It didn't take long for individual Romans to throw the javelins that they had, because most of them carried, like, pilums. They'd have javelins they'd throw before battle, and then engage with, like, their gladiases, because I believe they're still using gladiases at this time. So I want to bring up this whole javelin thing. My commander likes to bring... He used to throw javelins in college.

Yeah, I know. I already like where this story's going. So he's, for Halloween and all that, javelin thing my commander likes to bring he used to throw javelins in college yeah i know i already like where this story's going so he's for halloween and all that he wants everybody dressed up at the company i'm still wearing my costume i'm my commander because this is what he wears on the normal even at work it should be noted he's just wearing a long sleeve black shirt and pants but he has this always going on because i don't own patagucci he has a lot of patagucci stuff yeah he's he's an officer and he can afford it exactly so i got what close shit i could resemble to it i wore flip-flops and i took his javelin from his office and i started carrying it around the company today so you just dressed up like a shit bag i dressed up as him and he

loved it of course someone that dresses up like that and let me guess he's be special forces or in a special forces unit yeah yeah anybody someone who already thinks of himself like that and let me guess he's be special forces or in a special forces unit yeah anybody someone who already thinks of himself like that there's no greater like flattery than like haha he dressed up like me even though I because he's too dumb to realize he's being mocked fucking idiot I just wanted to throw the

javelin in the PT field was my whole thing that's my only reason for wearing so Nick how'd you get demoted I threw a javelin i hit somebody's wife i didn't get into throwing it so um so yeah uh where was i yeah so um the romans threw all the javelins uh and at that point they had nothing left to defend themselves and they pretty much just had to wait till the barbarians got close. That sucks. Now, Arminius' troop pressed their attacks, but they didn't attack large bodies of Roman troops at once.

Do you think they tried throwing the arrows like javelins? Somebody's like, that's worth a shot. I mean, they tried to use some, I think they had some slings, but there wasn't a whole lot of rocks. David versus Goliath. I mean, slings were a pretty revolutionary weapon when, uh, Athens and Sparta feel of them.

Yeah. Because they were to use them all the time in the game. Yeah. Uh, so like the Romans, like small groups of Romans, like a cohort or whatever would, uh,

try to like square up. Uh, they would, they would put formations together in small groups, like just a band together to defend themselves a little bit better. Arminius didn't attack them. He sent his barbarians to effectively

mug people. He'd only target single troops or small groups and then run back into the woods. So he'd target the single soldiers? The fucking barrack soldiers? So one Roman soldier would be running and like four of our barricades would pop up, hack them to death

and run back into the woods. I thought you meant like take his fucking wallet like shake him down a little bit like Run you shit bitch! Give it up! Fuck you're gonna have my sandals! Holding him by the ankles. Just a whole bunch of fucking barley falls down. They pay me in weed!

Yeah like they would only attack when they absolutely knew they could overwhelm the Romans they were attacking. That's terrifying. And they did that all the way up and down the columns until...

Oh, God. So like, slowly but surely, the Roman army is being whittled away. I imagine like, you'd be by yourself, like, quick,

he's by himself, get him. Oh, God. Did that bush just talk? Yeah. And like, remember this he's by himself. Get him. Oh, God. Did that bush just talk? Yeah. And like, remember this string of people is like almost 10 miles long. It's really easy to pick apart this group of soldiers. I wonder if while you're getting attacked by yourself,

if you just act like you like it, they'll stop. Maybe smile at them. Yes. Slash me again. Oh, this is weird. Or like if you pop up, like the barbarians pop up and kill again in front of you,

you're just like, yeah, kill that motherfucker. And then just start pretending to be a barbarian. Yeah, and start jerking it a little bit. Oh, God. Don't make it weird, man. Yeah. Is he making eye contact?

Now, remember Arminius picked the battlefield and he picked the direction of march where the romans were going so he knew exactly where each turn they were gonna go this one guy fucked over so many people tens of thousands of people yeah so each time the romans are like fuck it we have to turn this way well arminius knew that that was the only way they could have gone so they'd run to another trap. It's like Home Alone. Arminius is Kevin McAllister. The Roman just bumbling, like,

tripping over toy cars and getting hit with paint cans. Whoa! Running into Javelin. In one case, they march into a giant bog that was only 60 feet wide, compressing the column even more and slowing them down as they slog through a giant bog that was only 60 feet wide, compressing the column even more and slowing them down as they slog through a swamp.

Barbarians began cutting off larger and larger parts of the column and then slaughtering them, leaving them unable to defend themselves. After three days of tripping over their dicks into continuous ambushes, Varus decided to say fuck it and led his men

on a forced night march in a desperate bid to escape the death trap they had wandered into. Wanna guess what happens next? I'm gonna wait for it. Another ambush! Yes! Arminius is the Oprah of ambushes. And you get an ambush!

And you get an ambush! I don't want this prize! Please stop killing my friends. Trenches and obstacles had been laid out all around the path, ensuring this would be the end of the road. To make things worse, the barbarians had built giant berms

on both sides of the trail, which is only about 100 foot wide at this point. This allowed the panicked Romans to literally pack themselves into a corner, have nowhere to go, and the barbarians would sit behind the berms and just stab and slash at them from cover. It sounds horrifying.

It is the closest thing to actually shooting fish in a barrel I think we've ever talked about. Oh my god, that's horrifying. At this point, all order and discipline that had managed to survive the last three days in the Roman forces... Three days? What the fuck? ...was gone.

Romans dropped their weapons and ran for their lives while others stood and were slaughtered. Varus, seeing no other way out, literally pulled out his sword and fell on it. What? Time to go out like gentlemen. One legatus named Pneumonius Valla abandoned his men and attempted to escape but was cut down by the barbarian cavalry. Fearing enslavement

and torture, or both, a lot of Romans gave up trying to fight and frantically began to kill themselves before the barbarians came to close. This is fucking terrible. You can't kill me if I kill myself. This is the I can't, you can't fire me, I quit of. This is the, I can't, you can't fire me.

I quit. I'm ancient warfare. My whole thing is like, time to go out like brave gentlemen. Just falls on his shit. I mean, that's, that's where the saying comes from.

Fall on your sword. He quite, I mean, I don't know if he actually did, but every, maybe he tried fighting. He's like, follow me,

man. He tripped. Oh, he killed himself. benny hill music i mean both suetonius and plutarch both note that he fell on his sword and i don't know if that's like them having respect i feel like they were just joking or like roman nobility like yeah he was an honorable man who fell on his sword or like nope he just hacked at his own throat until he died but he didn't like

have enough balls to fully commit so it took like eight tries oh that sucks yeah uh but yeah I mean just imagine I don't know like the keystone cop song playing as Romans running away from the barbarians while trying to kill themselves before the barbarians kill them

yeah yeah it's I don't know how long that went on for but hours god that sucks in the end around 20 000 romans lay dead is there a way to pretend to be a barbarian at this point like maybe if there's a barbarian laying dead you put on his shit really quick like i'm one of you guys what's your name uh carl oh yeah i remember carl It's a school of color words. Holy shit, thank god I took that barbarian class. I speak German. This is exactly like Windtalkers.

Where he paints himself to look like a really bad Japanese soldier and then learns one Japanese word. Like, you know he only learned one word of ancient German. It's just like, dicks, penis, fuck. The only thing anybody ever learns is the swear words true that's like if if any of the time ever comes up i'm gonna have a stash of uniforms in my house when i grow up in case anybody ever invades exactly and then

when they come and clear my shit i'm gonna put on the same uniform before they come in bro you start clearing the same shit that they're clearing you live in california when the next war comes it's gonna be a civil war and they're gunning for your skin not your uniform oh yeah i guess you're right you no matter how hard you slick your hair back and wear overalls you can't be white you're gonna be fucked and i'm gonna be fucked because i'm a race traitor so it's very true you are you know real podcast co-hosts get lynched together. So that's nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what we call lines led by donkeys team building is being war crime together. Oh, man. So according to Suetonius, upon hearing the defeat, the Roman Emperor Augustus began slamming his head against the wall and shouting quintilius varus give me back my legions which has since gone down in infamy I thought he was trying to do a spell because I remember watching that one movie with you guys I think it was Harry Potter I've haven't seen Harry Potter yet I'm just letting everybody know that now it quintilius

varus is the spell that you cast when you just want to evaporate. You just want to like vaporize 20,000 of your own soldiers. Just imagine like the sovereign of a vast sprawling emperor just smashing his head against the wall after getting news. That's awesome. The few Romans to survive the battle and make it back to friendly territory brought stories with them that terrified people so badly that they claimed that they couldn't have lost the barbarians. They had simply pissed off a god which destroyed the legions. I can imagine the survivors at the VFW legion

that they got. Wearing a Roman legion vet bro hat which probably already exists. You don't even have to imagine how insufferable these guys were because the seals write books about it I didn't slaughter

Gauls so you could marry your boyfriend t-shirt but that was a small minority of Romans that managed to survive many fell into the hands of the barbarians where

this is true, the lucky ones were made slaves. I'd do it. Fuck. Well, it's not like you had a choice. You know what? That's like the Kanye thing. Slavery is a choice.

It'd be a choice for me because I'd show my worth before they killed me. Look, I'm really good at digging. Just look at it. Look at it. No fingernails. Look, look how smooth my hands are.

I can do things that will blow your mind. Nick, we don't have to do this. Let's just die. I'm cleaning their brass. What are you thinking? Just polish their sandals so they don't slaughter our families. And because history never changes. I'll show how good of a magician I am.

The ones that were pressed into slavery were mostly enlisted men. Yes! I live! I'm a magician in their slavery. So according to Tacticus, officers were ritually sacrificed, their bodies boiled in giant pots.

I put on an enlisted uniform as an officer. But then the enlisted went out the officer. But then the enlisted without the officer. Yeah, fuck that guy. That's my lieutenant right there. That's him. That's the guy. He gave me extra duty.

This motherfucker got lost on his way to slavery. Boil that bitch. And then their bones were turned into tools. Oh, for the slaves to use. Now, this may be slightly factually dubious

as a lot of effort is put into ancient texts to make the Romans look really, really good to use. Now, this may have, this may be slightly factually dubious, as a lot of effort is put into ancient texts to make the Romans look really, really good, and the barbarians to look like barbarians. But it very well could have happened in ancient

Germanic pagan religions in the area. They did do, like, way back in the day human sacrifices were a thing. But it's not known if they ritualistically boiled hundreds of people and made them into tools. But I like to believe they did.

Because I like to use somebody's hand as a rake. I mean, I don't know what tool I would want to be boiled off of a Roman lieutenant. Not the brain. Skin coat? For some nice leathers? That'd be cool. Yeah, brain. Skin coat. For some nice leathers. That'd be cool.

Yeah, some nice leathers. Maybe a nice cereal bowl. I like your jacket. Thanks, his name was Paul. Oh, cool. This defeat was so complete that the Legion numbers that the Legions were destroyed by,

that were destroyed by Arminius. So every Legion had a number, Legion 1, Legion 2, all the way up to 50. I had a weird teacher back in high school that was all fucking dicks about the Legionnaires. It's weird because

when you study history, everybody falls into certain camps. And with a few outlying things, with a few outliers, like Mike Duncan's a good example. Like Mike Duncan's a good example. Patrick Wyman's another good example that are amazing sources on, on Roman history, but don't buy into the Romans were great.

Like these guys were fucking psychos. He's just like the legions. Like he can name off where each one of these guys were at. Like Legion one is here. Do you fucking bad-ass? You're like, yeah. And it's,

well, this happens a lot in Rome and in Roman studies I've fallen for this myself I've fallen into rabbit holes because they had kept very detailed written records so like you'll find like payroll

paperwork and like enlistment records all the way until they just kind of vanish and then you'll find uh like grave sites where like an entire legion was slaughtered like well that's why the paperwork stopped being found and like you can find all the way up until like the last known like last two years of recorded uh roman history before like the final end of the of the segmented uh empires they're like they were keeping enlistment records and shit.

That's kind of cool. Which leads me to believe they kept their leave forms. They kept track of it. They were given... It was metal at first and then it was like a metal plate at first and it turned to ceramic as the empire grew poorer and poorer.

You're 214. You served. This is your honorable slate. You get land. You get this. You get your pension. There's a metal plate. Well we're kind of poor now so it's clay. Don't drop it. Yeah we found, people have found

a lot of them. Which leads me to believe in like a thousand years like I unearthed this 214 and it was a pogue really good thing my clay DD 214 protects me yeah

you know what people are going to find way more of an actual military paperwork is a ton of vet bro apparel we are the entire US military culture is based upon Punisher skulls so a lot of these legions that were annihilated their numbers were never we are the entire U S military culture is based upon Punisher skulls. Uh, so a lot of these legions that were annihilated,

their numbers were never used again. Um, uh, it was considered like a bad omen because rather than buying into the idea, like we lost the battle, like we displeased the gods. We can never use those Legion numbers again. I,

uh, one or two of them were used again and then they were probably destroyed. So maybe they're, maybe they really didn't piss off the gods i don't know uh as word of the defeat spread panic set into the people of rome as because such a large force had never just been wiped out before by barbarians the entire northern frontier of the empire is now wide open for germanic plunder no No, that never happened. For a very simple reason. Kind of what we talked about before. The

ebb and flow of tribal politics. Arminius was hugely triumphant, but the infighting between his loyal tribes and the pro-Roman tribes never end. Soon, his tribes that were loyal to him would decide they didn't want to be so loyal to him anymore and start fighting one another. Ah, dicks. Yeah. This is besides the that uh arminia sent varus's head to a

fellow king marabotus as a peace offering which was probably rejected what the fuck yeah it's like the you know severed heads are like the friendship bracelet of uh germania yeah buddies look at this head dude i mean what brings two buddies together over one given the other head very true fellas is it gay is it gay if you give your friend a head i don't think it is no that's just politics also a good time uh so yeah mara botis uh promptly rejected that which was kind of funny because mara botis was like a well-known roman loyalist so i think it was equal parts like hey i know we've been stabbing each other for a while now but like look i look at all these romans i killed maybe let's be friends now because your friends are

gone marbo's like i'm good uh roman general germanicus launched a war of revenge against the germanic tribes um though arminius and his soldiers tried to resist there would be no victory this time around and if to twist the knife a little bit more flavi or arminius's own brother flavus served alongside germanicus oh that fucking bastard taking part in crushing his own people he didn't do the same thing nope which leads me to believe Germanicus knew that like, I don't know. I buy into like, they all believe that they pissed off the God's narrative,

which is why he was fine with bringing his brother along. The brother, his brother who killed his friend. So many layers here, but either that or Flav is like, no, I always hated my brother. This is fine. This is fine.

This is fine. Probably. That old brotherly rivalry. Yeah. While Germanicus would largely break the Germanic tribes, a Roman conquest back into the area would never happen. And the Rhine River would become something of a northern border of the empire. Direct control would never be attempted again. Instead, they would rely on puppet

kings with punitive military campaigns being used if that didn't work out so like if uh nicicus is is the is the king of some germanic tribe who's cool with the romans and you die and your kid takes over he ends up being kind of a dick and he's like fuck the romans the romans

would invade kill your son and then put another king in the front like you're cool with us, and they'd go back across the river. That's about all they... So you're saying I'd raise a piece of shit. I mean, we both would. I mean, look at our dogs. That's true. As for Arminius, he'd be forced out of power

and later poisoned by his political opponents. What the fuck? His brother would remain loyal to Rome, with his brother's son Italicus becoming king of the tribe Italicus cousin of Metallicus because sometimes you just have to tell your uncle

that he sucks even when he's dead because Italicus would become a very loyal Roman client until he died like you said yeah there's shit ton of layers. Holy shit. Oh,

now we go to our question from the Legion. Cue the theme music that we don't have. Now this one comes from squeaky snake, which is, I don't know. I don't even know what to make that. Squeaky snake. Squeaky snake sounds like when you take a dump and then you

look back. Into a condom? What? No. God, no. It's just like... Okay. I don't know. Oh, God. Moving on. Question. Joe, while researching the Soviet-Afghan War series, did you find any of the Kasabians living in the USSR had fought there?

I didn't find during my research into the conflict about that. I already knew about it. But yeah, I had several distant cousins and various family members who fought in Afghanistan. One, I believe, who died. But complete records for the Soviet SSR,

for the Soviet Armenian SSR is kind of missing because they didn't like to keep track of their client state's casualties because they're racist. Yeah, several Armenian Kasabians Kasabians from Armenia

had fought in the conflict, but they were pretty extended family members up to that point because my direct grandfather had fled to France, uh, and joined the Legion by that point. Uh, and he had already fought in,

uh, Indochina and Algeria and attempted to overthrow the French government by then. So yeah. Uh, whoops. Good name. Good name.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, they were very, very distant, distant enough where several family members defected to, to Western Europe and they didn't end up in camps. So that's good. Yeah.

But that is our episode this week. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for supporting the show. I think what we do is worth a dollar. Throw it to us on Patreon. We will put it to use in ways like donating to the Kurdish Red Crescent, paying our bills,

and paying our producer, who is the long-suffering man of this podcast. We enjoy him. Until next week. Later. Don't get ambushed by barbarians you think are your friends.