Roman soldiers at Teutoburg Wald

[Goffredo]

Look at geophysical map of roman empire. There are a surprisingly large number of areas that were conquered and along the Limes that were not particularly flat! The roman army faired well there too. It seems to me that the romans kicked "germans" around quite often deep in "german" territory. The myth that the romans were hindered by forests and non flat-battle fields is, in my opinion, simply too simple to be wrong. The romans in the teutoburg lost, the germans won!, because the romans were marching and never wheeled into battle position. Hindered by the terrain that arminius chose for the ambush. How true, but exception too! Hurray for the genius of Arminius to have understood that was the only realistic option to beat 3 legions was to trick Varus into thinking there was no danger, accept dinner invitations, play along as though everything were normal while in the mean time organize with incredible ability the germans into placing themselves along the very long roman column until the various traps could go off. To think the germans always fought that way is simply not true. Maybe they learned they had little or no chance in fighting romans in picthed battles so only ambushes, guerilla or small group warfare gave them some fighting chance. But the romans delt with them successfullyl for centuries, not by defeating them on opne flat ground but by going after them even beyond the limes into forests!<br>
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The germans traditionally fought in formations (ceasar describes in then even forming dense phalanxs) as any too open mob could have been easily beaten. That was the reality of ancient battles. The teutoburg never turned into a battle. Arminius understood the necessity of that. <p></p><i></i>