There have a been a lot of Netflix originals related to ancient history recently. One such show is the German historical drama series Barbarians, which was first released on Netflix on 23 October 2020. The show is very loosely based on the historical events leading up to and surrounding the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, in which an alliance of several Germanic tribes won a crushing victory against the Romans and destroyed three whole Roman legions.
A lot of people have commented on Barbarians’ similarities to the History channel series Vikings, but there are a couple factors that differentiate it. One is that Barbarians is set about eight hundred years earlier than Vikings in the world of antiquity rather than the world of the Middle Ages. The other factor is that Barbarians is overtly a German show that is clearly made for a German target audience with German concerns; whereas Vikings was clearly made with British and North American target audiences primarily in mind.
Barbarians is mostly fiction, but, so far at least, it does generally stick more closely to the broad outline of historical events than Vikings. (There are, for instance, no bizarre scenes in which historical figures who actually lived centuries apart are portrayed as meeting in person.) In this article, I want to talk about aspects of the show that are historically accurate and other aspects where the makers of the show have taken some creative license.
The basic outline
The most detailed surviving contemporary account of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest comes from the Roman historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus in his book Roman History 2.117–120, which he wrote in around the year 30 CE. This information is supplemented by details mentioned in other sources.
Velleius writes that Arminius was born the son of Sigimer, a prominent nobleman of the Cherusci, a Germanic people that lived in northwestern Germany, in the region of what is now Niedersachsen and Nordrhein-Westfalen. When Arminius was only a small child, his father Sigimer sent him and his brother Florus as tributes to Rome, where they grew up and were given a Roman education. The name Arminius is Roman; no one knows what Arminius’s original Germanic name was because it is not mentioned in any surviving source.
As soon as Arminius came of age, he was recruited into the ranks of the Roman army. He served as a Roman soldier for many years, was granted Roman citizenship, and even attained the rank of equestrian. Then, he was sent to his home region of northwestern Germany to assist the Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus, who was working to force the peoples of the region into submission.
ABOVE: Illustration from a 1714 edition of Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft’s Antiquitates Germanicæ, showing how the artist imagined a meeting between Varus and Germanic leaders might have looked
At this point, Arminius secretly betrayed the Romans. He took advantage of Varus’s trust and secretly organized an alliance composed of the most prominent Germanic tribes that lived in the region. None of the ancient sources specifically list all the tribes that took part in this alliance, but it certainly included Arminius’s native Cherusci, and probably included at least the Marsi, Chatti, and Bructeri.
A Cheruscan nobleman named Segestes, who supported the Romans and did not like Arminius, warned Varus that Arminius was convincing the local tribes to form an alliance against the Romans. Varus received his warning, but refused to believe him and continued to trust Arminius.
In around September of the year 9 CE, Arminius fed Varus false reports about a small, local rebellion and lured him into the Teutoburg Forest, accompanied by three Roman legions, three cavalry units, and six auxiliary cohorts. Then, Arminius deserted the Romans and led the Germanic forces in a brutal ambush. The Romans were taken totally by surprise by both the suddenness of the attack and the surprisingly large numbers of the attackers.
Over the course of a battle lasting approximately three full days, the Germanic forces utterly annihilated all three of Varus’s legions. It was one of the most devastating defeats the Roman Empire ever suffered. Varus himself committed suicide. The Germans desecrated his body, chopped off his head, and sent the severed head to Maroboduus, the king of the Marcomanni, who sent it to the emperor Augustus.
Unfortunately, Velleius doesn’t give us very detailed information about what actually happened during the battle and more detailed accounts found in later sources—such as in the writings of the Greek historian Kassios Dion (lived c. 155 – c. 235 CE)—are probably more-or-less fiction.
Pretty much everything that happens in the show Barbarians aside from what I have described here is made up, including the entire character of Folkwin Wolfspeer and all the subplots involving Thusnelda.
ABOVE: Heavily romanticized scene of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, painted in 1909 by the German artist Otto Albert Koch, showing how he personally imagined the battle might have looked like
Modern political background of the show
Before I go on to discuss specific inaccuracies in the show, I think I should talk a little bit about some of the political history involved here that viewers who haven’t studied modern German history may not be aware of.
Until the nineteenth century, there was no unified nation-state of Germany. The push for German unification only began in earnest after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Over the course of the nineteenth century, supporters of German unity portrayed Arminius as a proponent of their cause, claiming that he had “united” the Germanic tribes—totally ignoring the fact that his “union” was just a temporary alliance that only included tribes in one relatively small region of northwest Germany.
Between 1836 and 1875, the German nationalist architect and sculptor Ernst von Bandel designed and built a monument to Arminius in the Teutoburg Forest. This monument, known as the Hermannsdenkmal, still stands today and bears a colossal statue intended to represent Arminius himself at the top.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the Hermannsdenkmal in the Teutoburg Forest, constructed between 1838 and 1875
Unfortunately, Arminius and his victory over the Romans in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest have been used as symbols of much more than just German unity; they have also been used extensively as symbols of supposed Germanic racial supremacy.
Historically speaking, we really have very little idea what Arminius looked like. There are no verifiable surviving ancient depictions of him. Since the late nineteenth century, however, he has been widely depicted as an enormous, muscle-bound man with long blond hair, a full blond beard, blue eyes, and pale skin. These depictions are clearly coded to emphasize the notion of Arminius as a supposed defender of Germanic racial purity.
As most people are probably already aware, the Nazis were absolutely obsessed with ancient Germanic peoples. They were particularly fascinated with the figure of Arminius, whom they saw as some sort of proto-Hitler. One school textbook published in Germany in 1939 claims that, as a result of Arminius’s victory in 9 CE, “the purity of German blood was saved from the danger of ethnic poisoning, saved through the action of the first great political leader in German history.”
In the midst of all this racial mythologization, the Nazis deliberately obscured the fact that Arminius was actually a trusted, high-ranking officer in the Roman military and that he achieved his victory by deceiving his superior officers.
The association of ancient Germanic peoples with the Nazis was so complete that, after World War II, in West Germany, schools moved away from teaching about ancient Germanic tribes altogether.
ABOVE: Arminius Saying Goodbye to Thusnelda, painted in 1884 by the German painter Johannes Gehrts
The creators of Barbarians decided to go in a very different direction. An article titled “Reclaiming, on Netflix, an Ancient Battle Beloved of Germany’s Far Right,” published in The New York Times on 28 October 2020, discusses how the makers of the show deliberately cast Laurence Rupp, an Austrian actor with black hair and a slightly darker complexion, to play Arminius, rather than a different actor who might more closely resemble the more explicitly racialized depictions of Arminius from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
While the Nazis chose to emphasize Arminius’s Germanic ancestry, the makers of Barbarians instead chose to emphasize his Roman upbringing and military training. Instead of portraying him as a long-haired, full-bearded Germanic warrior, they chose to portray him as short-haired and clean-shaven, since this was the fashion for Roman men in the first century CE.
At the beginning of the show, Arminius is portrayed as a Roman soldier, still loyal to the Roman Empire. It is only when Arminius sees the cruelty that the Romans are inflicting against his own people that he decides to betray them. This emphasis on Arminius deciding to turn against the people for whom he has fought for his entire adult life not only makes the show somewhat more historically accurate, but actually makes for much better storytelling in my opinion.
The makers of the show also impose some fictional elaborations in order to distance themselves from the Nazis. They do this especially through their portrayal of Arminius’s relationship with Varus. In the show, Varus is portrayed as Arminius’s adoptive father, but he is also as a chauvinistic Roman imperialist who sees all other cultures as inferior.
In sharp contrast, the show sets up Arminius as an ardent believer in modern German Multikulturalismus. This point is made explicitly in the final episode of the season, when, after the big battle, Arminius speaks to Varus’s severed head, saying:
“Du hast nie verstanden, dass man anders leben will als du. Anders glaubt, anders fühlt, und anders denkt als du.”
This means:
“You never understood that some people want to live different from you. They believe different, they feel different, and they think different than you.”
Historically speaking, we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that Arminius was Varus’s adoptive son or that Arminius ever saw Varus as any kind of father figure. The first time the two men ever met was probably when Arminius was sent to serve Varus in Germany. It is extremely probable that Arminius hated Varus from the beginning and was not especially reluctant to betray him.
Likewise, historically speaking, we have no evidence of any kind to suggest that Arminius was really a multiculturalist. It’s clear that the writers for the show have made these changes to the story in order to make an explicit statement about the vision they have for modern Germany. In their version of the story, Arminius is still a nation-builder, but not a nationalist in the traditional sense.
I don’t have a problem with the writers of the show making these changes to the story; after all, they’re writing fiction. Nonetheless, I also think it is important for people like me who have studied these areas of history to talk about what’s made up and what isn’t so that ordinary viewers can have the opportunity to learn.
ABOVE: Screenshot of Arminius, as he is portrayed by the Austrian actor Laurence Rupp in the Netflix series Barbarians
Some obvious inaccuracies in Roman material culture
Now that I’ve talked about the broader picture of what the Battle of Teutoburg Forest was and how the show Barbarians fits in with modern politics, I’m going to focus in on a few specific aspects of the show that particularly stood out to me. I’ll start out with some really small details about Roman material culture and work my way up to some of the bigger things.
In the show, when Roman officers ride on horseback, they are portrayed as using stirrups. This is inaccurate; the Romans in the first century CE never used stirrups because stirrups didn’t become used in Europe until the late sixth century CE at the very earliest. Instead, when the ancient Romans rode on horseback, they always rode with their feet hanging loose—even when they were riding into battle.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman carving of a cavalry battle dated to around 40 BCE. Notice the lack of stirrups.
In general, the show does a fairly accurate job of representing the different kinds of Roman armor. There are few things that aren’t very accurate, though. For one thing, throughout most of the series, Arminius is portrayed wearing a solid steel breastplate with rippling pectoral and abdominal muscles clearly outlined on it. We do know that breastplates of this kind certainly did exist in the first century CE, because there are surviving statues depicting Roman deities, emperors, and generals wearing them. Nevertheless, I have a few complaints about the one Arminius is wearing.
ABOVE: Screenshot from Barbarians, season one, episode four, of Arminius wearing an absurdly inaccurate breastplate
My first complaint is that the abdominal muscles are over-exaggerated. In surviving Greek examples of muscle breastplates from earlier time periods, there is emphasis on the pectoral muscles and some slight contouring to the abdominal muscles, but there generally isn’t a well-defined six-pack like we see on Arminius’s armor in the show.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Greek muscle breastplate dated to between c. 340 and c. 330 BCE
In Roman depictions of muscle breastplates from around the time Arminius was alive, we see even less emphasis on the abdominal muscles, which are often completely obscured by the often quite elaborate decorations covering the armor.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman statue of a general wearing a muscle breastplate
Furthermore, I think it is unlikely that Arminius would have worn this kind of breastplate at all, since, although muscle breastplates seem to have been more common in earlier times, by the first century CE, they seem to be almost exclusively worn in artistic depictions by emperors and generals—not by ordinary cavalry officers.
Instead, I think that a Roman equestrian in the first century CE would have most likely worn a tunic of lorica squamata, or scale armor, which doesn’t look nearly as impressive as the muscle breastplate, but would have been less expensive and far more practical.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a reconstruction of how a Roman equestrian in the first century CE might have dressed
ABOVE: Detail from Wikimedia Commons of a surviving fragment of ancient Roman scale armor
While the representation of Roman armor is generally quite good, the same cannot be said for the representation of Roman architecture and art, which is, to put it mildly, rather poor. For instance, about halfway through season one, episode two, there is a scene in which Arminius and his brother Florus are seen as children in Rome being taught by Varus to speak Latin. The building they are in is portrayed as having generic, white marble columns and a generic, white marble floor.
In historical reality, the columns would have most likely been at least partially painted and the floors would have most likely been decorated with some kind of patterns or mosaics. Contrary to how they are usually portrayed in popular culture, the Romans loved color and they hated to leave any space undecorated.
You can get a good sense of what the floor of a real Roman temple might look like by looking at the floor of the Pantheon in Rome, which still has its original ancient Roman marble flooring. You’ll notice that it’s not just white marble; there is a simple, but visually interesting pattern of different-colored circles and squares.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the marble floor of the Pantheon in Rome
On a similar note, at the very beginning of season one, episode three, there is a scene in which Arminius is portrayed as praying to a white, unpainted marble statue of the Roman god Mars. This is not accurate. All Roman marble statues were originally painted with vibrant, lifelike colors. Although most Roman statues appear white today, this is only because the original pigments have all worn away.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern reconstruction of what the famous Augustus of Prima Porta might have originally looked like
Roman cruelty
Barbarians portrays the Roman army as a brutal occupying force demanding excessive tribute and enforcing horrific punishments against the local population. In season one, episode two, there is a scene in which Varus punishes the Cherusci by having a large number of them crucified and declaring that anyone who takes down the bodies to bury them will be crucified as well.
I have personally argued before that some specific kinds of depictions of Roman cruelty in modern television shows are probably not historically accurate. Notably, in this article from December 2019, I object to the portrayal of Roman civilian life in the HBO series Rome.
At one point in the first season, the series portrays two of the main characters torturing and murdering a Roman citizen in the sewers. Another one of the main characters, Lucius Vorenus, murders his wife (a free citizen) and doesn’t get in any kind of trouble. In the second season, the character Atia, a Roman noblewoman, brutally tortures another Roman noblewoman named Servilia in her basement.
I think that all these examples of civilian violence portrayed in Rome are probably not reflective of what civilian life in ancient Rome was actually like. Violence against enslaved people was probably common, but violence against free Roman citizens outside warfare was taboo and illegal and, when it did happen, it was rare and shocking. Individually, each of the incidents portrayed in Rome could have really happened at some point or another, but, combined together, they create a misleading impression of how common civilian violence really was.
In Barbarians, though, we have a completely different scenario because, instead of having Roman civilians torturing and murdering other Roman civilians right and left, the series portrays Roman soldiers inflicting acts of callous violence and cruelty against foreign Germanic tribespeople. I actually think that the portrayal of the violence of the Roman military against foreign peoples in Barbarians is probably fairly accurate.
ABOVE: Screenshot from the HBO series Rome showing Titus Pullo and the young Octavian torturing and murdering Evander in the sewers beneath Rome. Torturing and murdering fellow citizens in sewers was not a normal thing in ancient Rome.
The Romans could be extremely brutal to the peoples they conquered. The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (lived c. 56 – c. 120 CE), for instance, famously records the cruelty that the Romans inflicted on the Iceni people in Britain in his Annals 14.31, as translated by J. Jackson:
“The Icenian king Prasutagus, celebrated for his long prosperity, had named the emperor his heir, together with his two daughters; an act of deference which he thought would place his kingdom and household beyond the risk of injury. The result was contrary — so much so that his kingdom was pillaged by centurions, his household by slaves; as though they had been prizes of war. As a beginning, his wife Boudicca was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated: all the chief men of the Icenians were stripped of their family estates, and the relatives of the king were treated as slaves.”
“Impelled by this outrage and the dread of worse to come — for they had now been reduced to the status of a province — they flew to arms, and incited to rebellion the Trinobantes and others, who, not yet broken by servitude, had entered into a secret and treasonable compact to resume their independence.”
“The bitterest animosity was felt against the veterans; who, fresh from their settlement in the colony of Camulodunum, were acting as though they had received a free gift of the entire country, driving the natives from their homes, ejecting them from their lands, — they styled them ‘captives’ and ‘slaves,’ — and abetted in their fury by the troops, with their similar mode of life and their hopes of equal indulgence.”
The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus (lived c. 37 – c. 100 CE) records how, during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Roman commander Titus had his soldiers crucify thousands of Jewish civilians. He says that they crucified so many that they couldn’t even find space for all the crosses. He writes in The Jewish War 5.11.1, as translated by H. J. Thackeray:
“Meanwhile the earthworks of Titus were progressing, notwithstanding the galling fire from the ramparts to which his men were exposed. The general, moreover, sent a detachment of horse with orders to lie in wait for any who issued from the town into the ravines in quest of food.”
“These included some of the combatants, no longer satisfied with their plunder, but the majority were citizens of the poorer class, who were deterred from deserting by fear for their families; for they could neither hope to elude the rebels if they attempted to escape with their wives and children, nor endure to leave them to be butchered by the brigands on their behalf.”
‘Famine, however, emboldened them to undertake these excursions, and it but remained for them if they escaped unobserved from the town to be taken prisoners by the enemy. When caught, they were driven to resist, and after a conflict it seemed too late to sue for mercy. They were accordingly scourged and subjected to torture of every description, before being killed, and then crucified opposite the walls.”
“Titus indeed commiserated their fate, five hundred or sometimes more being captured daily; on the other hand, he recognized the risk of dismissing prisoners of war, and that the custody of such numbers would amount to the imprisonment of their custodians; but his main reason for not stopping the crucifixions was the hope that the spectacle might perhaps induce the Jews to surrender, for fear that continued resistance would involve them in a similar fate. The soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves by nailing their prisoners in different postures; and so great was their number, that space could not be found for the crosses nor crosses for the bodies.”
These are obviously both extreme examples, but they do illustrate the cruelty that the Roman army was capable of inflicting. I think that the acts of Roman cruelty depicted in Barbarians would probably have been quite typical.
ABOVE: The crucifixion of Jesus and suicide of Judas Iscariot depicted on a Roman ivory panel dated to between c. 420 and c. 430 CE—a rare early depiction of crucifixion
The Germanic peoples
Those are some of the accuracies and inaccuracies I noticed on the Roman side of things. Now let’s talk about the Germanic side. Unfortunately, our knowledge about how ancient Germanic peoples lived and dressed in the first century CE is extremely limited compared to our knowledge of the Romans, because there are a lot fewer depictions of Germanic people in art and a lot fewer written sources about them.
Unfortunately, a great deal of our information about ancient Germanic peoples in the first century CE comes from Tacitus, who wrote a treatise titled De Origine et Situ Germanorum in which he purports to describe the customs and lifestyles of various Germanic tribes. Tacitus was a reputable historian and he did at least try to make his reports as accurate as possible. Nonetheless, he never actually visited Germania himself and all his information is therefore second-hand at best.
Furthermore, Tacitus was writing with an explicit political agenda. He believed that the Roman Empire was corrupt and he therefore constructs the so-called “barbarians” north of the Roman borders as “noble savages” for the Romans to pay heed to and imitate. He deliberately emphasizes their qualities that he perceives as virtuous and “manly” while also portraying them as generally unsophisticated and uncorrupted by the evils of civilization.
Tacitus also has a frustrating habit of using Roman names and concepts to describe the Germanic peoples and their beliefs. For instance, he tells us that the chief god of the Germanic peoples is “Mercurius” and that they also worship “Hercules” and “Mars.” Modern scholars have surmised that by “Mercurius” Tacitus really means Odin, by “Hercules” he really means Thor, and by “Mars” he really means Tíw.
In other cases, modern scholars are still trying to figure out what Tacitus is talking about. For instance, Tacitus tells us that the Suebian peoples of northwestern Germany worship “Isis,” but scholars still aren’t sure which Germanic goddess he’s really talking about.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern Neoclassical statue outside the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna, intended to represent the Roman historian Tacitus
Germanic clothing and hairstyles
Barbarians generally does an admirable job of authentically portraying the sorts of clothing that ancient Germanic peoples generally seem to have worn. In a lot of older films and television shows, Germanic peoples are inaccurately portrayed wearing nothing but tattered rags or furs. Barbarians, however, much more accurately portrays them wearing tunics, cloaks, and trousers of various colors.
We see people wearing greens, blues, and other colors aside from just brown. They dress and wear their hair in distinctive ways. They occasionally wear furs, but they wear other clothes too. For the most part, this portrayal seems to be in line with what we know about how ancient Germanic people dressed historically.
ABOVE: Screenshot from the beginning of Barbarians, season one, episode one, of the characters Segimer and Segestes
The makers of the show have even incorporated some very specific historically authentic details into their portrayal of ancient Germanic peoples. For instance, you may have noticed a few male characters in Barbarians wearing their hair in a weird-looking knot on the front of one side of their scalp. This is actually a real hairstyle known as the “Suebian knot” that was traditionally worn by free, adult members of the Suebian Germanic tribes who lived in the region of northwestern Germany in the first century CE.
This hairstyle is extremely well-attested. Tacitus describes it in his De Origine et Situ Germanorum 38. He writes, as translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb:
“I must now speak of the Suevi, who are not one nation as are the Chatti and Tencteri, for they occupy the greater part of Germany, and have hitherto been divided into separate tribes with names of their own, though they are called by the general designation of ‘Suevi.’ A national peculiarity with them is to twist their hair back, and fasten it in a knot This distinguishes the Suevi from the other Germans, as it also does their own freeborn from their slaves.”
“With other tribes, either from some connection with the Suevic race, or, as often happens, from imitation, the practice is an occasional one, and restricted to youth. The Suevi, till their heads are grey, affect the fashion of drawing back their unkempt locks, and often they are knotted on the very top of the head. The chiefs have a more elaborate style; so much do they study appearance, but in perfect innocence, not with any thoughts of love-making; but arranging their hair when they go to battle, to make themselves tall and terrible, they adorn themselves, so to speak, for the eyes of the foe.”
In addition to Tacitus’s description, there are also dozens of surviving Roman depictions of Germanic peoples wearing the Suebian knot and there are even a couple extraordinarily well-preserved heads that have been found in bogs that still bear this hairstyle.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman bronze figurine depicting a Germanic man wearing a Suebian knot
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman figurine depicting a Germanic captive wearing a Suebian knot
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the head of an ancient Germanic man discovered in a bog at Osterby in northern Germany, dating to the first or second century CE
Languages
One thing that I personally found very interesting about the show is its use of languages. All of the dialogue spoken by the Germanic characters is dubbed in Modern High German and all of the dialogue by the Roman characters is dubbed in Classical Latin. The fact that the Germanic peoples and the Romans speak different languages plays an important role in the storyline; there are multiple points in the first episode alone where characters are surprised to discover that Arminius speaks German.
The Latin is, in general, extremely accurate. All the Roman characters in the show speak using the reconstructed classical pronunciation, which is exactly the pronunciation that modern scholars believe Roman people would have used in the first century CE. The makers of the show clearly consulted extensively with experts to make sure their Latin was correct.
The German used in the show is obviously modern, not ancient. I was curious, however, to find out what language the Cherusci would have spoken in historical reality. It turns out that the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (lived c. 23 – 79 CE) records in his Natural History 4.28 that there were five Germanic nations and that the Cherusci were members of the nation of the Irminones or Hermiones.
Modern scholars have hypothesized that each of the five Germanic “nations” listed by Pliny probably spoke a different dialect of the Proto-Germanic language. The Irminones are hypothesized to have spoken an “Irminonic” or “Elbe Germanic” dialect, which is hypothesized to be ancestral to all the later High German languages.
Thus, Arminius and the Cherusci probably would have been speaking a dialect of Proto-Germanic that is ancestral to the language they are portrayed as speaking in the show, but not the language they are speaking in the show itself. Meanwhile, the other Germanic tribes in the show would have probably spoken other dialects of the Proto-Germanic language.
ABOVE: Map from Wikimedia Commons showing the dialects of Proto-Germanic that are hypothesized to have been spoken in the first century CE. “Irminonic” or “Elbe Germanic” is shown in yellow.
“Folkwin Wolfspeer”?
One of the main characters in Barbarians is a Cheruscan warrior named “Folkwin Wolfspeer.” In the first episode, he helps Thusnelda steal the standard of one of Varus’s legions, thereby setting the plot of the story into motion. Throughout the later episodes, he serves as an important ally of Thusnelda and Arminius, but, at the end of the final episode of the first season, it is implied that he may be thinking about murdering Arminius and that he may be a major antagonist of the second season.
He’s also totally made up. There was never a real person by the name “Folkwin Wolfspeer”—as you might have guessed by his name. Folkwin has the distinction of being the only Germanic character in the show with a surname and the only character in the show whose name is perfectly intelligible in both Modern High German and Modern English:
- The first component of his surname is the Modern High German word Wolf, which is derived from the Proto-West Germanic word *wulf, which is derived from the Proto-Germanic word *wulfaz. The English word wolf is a cognate.
- The second component of his surname is the Modern High German word Speer, which is derived from the Proto-Germanic word *speru. The English word spear is a cognate.
It seems like the writers for the show just took the first two words that came to mind when they thought of a Germanic warrior and smashed them together to create the character’s name.
ABOVE: Screenshot from the show Barbarians of the characters Thusnelda and Folkwin Wolfspeer
Female Germanic warriors?
Another one of the central characters in the show is Thusnelda, the daughter of Segestes, who is portrayed as fighting as a female warrior in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Unlike Folkwin, Thusnelda was actually a real historical figure. In historical reality, she was the daughter of Segestes whom Arminius married against her father’s will. That part of the show’s portrayal is accurate.
We have no evidence, however, to suggest that Thusnelda ever fought in battle as she is portrayed as doing in the show and it is very unlikely that she did so, since, if she did, it’s almost certain that Roman sources would have mentioned this. This does open a broader, more interesting question, though: Were there female Germanic warriors in ancient times?
Unfortunately, there is no direct evidence for the existence of Germanic warrior women in the first century CE. Nevertheless, our information about Germanic peoples during this period is so fragmentary and incomplete that I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that it didn’t happen.
ABOVE: Screenshot of Thusnelda fighting as a warrior in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, as portrayed in Barbarians, season one, episode six
Tacitus specifically records in his De Origine et Situ Germanorum, sections 7–8, that Germanic women often accompanied their men to battle. He, however, says that they did not fight in battle themselves, but rather stood on the sidelines to give the male warriors encouragement and tend the wounded. He writes, as translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb:
“And what most stimulates their courage is, that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being formed by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of families and clans. Close by them, too, are those dearest to them, so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants. They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his bravery—they are his most generous applauders. The soldier brings his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting or even demanding them and who administer both food and encouragement to the combatants.”
“Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way have been rallied by women who, with earnest entreaties and bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of captivity, which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a state can be bound is the being required to give, among the number of hostages, maidens of noble birth.”
“They even believe that the sex has a certain sanctity and prescience, and they do not despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. In Vespasian’s days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divinity. In former times, too, they venerated Aurinia, and many other women, but not with servile flatteries, or with sham deification.”
The fact that Tacitus says nothing about the existence of Germanic women warriors strongly suggests that, if there were women warriors, they were very rare. At the same time, though, he does tell us that there were Germanic women on the battlefield.
Not everything Tacitus says about the Germanic peoples is trustworthy, but, in this particular instance, there is good reason to believe that he isn’t just making this up. The Romans frequently encountered Germanic peoples in battle and, of all the things Tacitus says about Germanic peoples, the information he gives about their battle practices is therefore most likely to be accurate.
Once you have women on the battlefield, it literally only takes a few seconds for one of those women to potentially pick up a weapon and start fighting. We know that, in much later times—centuries after the time when Tacitus was writing—there were Norse warrior women. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (lived c. 1160 – c. 1220 CE) writes in his Gesta Danorum 7.6, as translated by Peter Fisher:
“In case anyone is marveling that this sex should have sweated in warfare, let me digress briefly to explain the character and behavior of such females. There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating soldiers’ skills; they did not want the sinews of their valour to lose tautness and be infected by self-indulgence.”
“Loathing a dainty style of living, they would harden body and mind with toil and endurance, spirits to act with a virile ruthlessness. They courted military celebrity so earnestly that you would have guessed they had unsexed themselves. Those especially who had forceful personalities or were tall and elegant embarked on this way of life.”
“As if they were forgetful of their true selves they put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not lips, sought the clash of arms rather than the arm’s embrace, fitted to weapons hands which should have been weaving, desired not the couch but the kill, and those they could have appeased with looks they attacked with lances.”
Saxo Grammaticus’s account has now apparently been confirmed by archaeological evidence. In 1889, archaeologists excavated the grave of an elite warrior in Birka, Sweden. The burial dated to around the tenth century CE. Among the grave goods, archaeologists found a sword, a battle knife, a spear, a battle ax, two shields, and a set of arrows designed for piercing armor. They also found the skeletons of two horses that the warrior might have ridden into battle.
For a long time, the skeleton was assumed to be that of a male warrior. Later, osteological and genetic analysis, however, proved that the owner of the skeleton was biologically female. Various explanations have been offered to explain this, but I think the most parsimonious explanation is that the skeleton is that of a female warrior.
We should be very careful not to conflate tenth-century CE Norsefolk living in Denmark and Scandinavia with first-century CE Germanic tribes living in Germany along the Roman border. Nonetheless, I think it is not totally implausible that, at least in some rare instances, some Germanic women during the early centuries CE may have potentially fought in battle.
ABOVE: Illustration of the grave of the Birka female warrior, published in 1889
Germanic peoples wearing warpaint?
In Barbarians, the Germanic characters paint their faces and bodies before going into battle. This may strike some people as a historical inaccuracy, but it is actually supported by the ancient sources. Roman writers mention the fact that some Germanic warriors wore body paint into battle on several occasions. For instance, Tacitus, in his De Origine et Situ Germanorum, section 43, describes the Harii as attacking their enemies under the cover of night, with black shields and painted bodies. He writes, as translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb:
“The Harii, besides being superior in strength to the tribes just enumerated, savage as they are, make the most of their natural ferocity by the help of art and opportunity. Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance. For in all battles it is the eye which is first vanquished.”
As I mentioned before, Tacitus’s description of the Germanic peoples is probably most reliable when he is describing their battle practices. It therefore seems hard to avoid the conclusion that some Germanic peoples did indeed wear some kind of warpaint.
Unfortunately, the Roman writers don’t give us any more detailed information. We therefore have absolutely no indication of what the warpaint worn by Germanic warriors in the first century CE might have looked like, so there is no way for anyone to tell whether the kind of paint depicted in Barbarians is accurate.
ABOVE: Screenshot from Barbarians showing some of the Germanic warriors wearing warpaint into battle
Ancient Germanic religion
Barbarians offers an extensive portrayal of ancient Germanic religion. For the most part, however, it’s hard to say how accurate this portrayal is, because, quite frankly, we know very little about what sorts of religious beliefs Germanic peoples held in the first century CE or what kinds of ritual practices they were engaging in. Our main source on the subject is Tacitus, who, as I noted before, isn’t always reliable and is probably even less reliable than usual when it comes to his descriptions of Germanic religion.
At several points in the show, characters are portrayed as praying the gods and cutting their hands to make offerings of blood. It’s certain that Germanic peoples in this time period really did conduct ritual sacrifices, but I’m not presently aware of any evidence that they cut their own hands in the manner depicted in the show. Instead, they would have mostly sacrificed animals and occasionally other humans—usually enemy foreigners who had been captured in warfare. (For more information about the reasoning behind human sacrifice, you can read this article I wrote in November 2019.)
An important point is made in the show about the god Wodan, who, in the show, is said to have cut out his own eye in order to have the gift of sight. In the final episode, right before the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, Thusnelda imitates Wodan by cutting her own right eye. This purportedly allows her to see a vision of the coming victory, which she describes to the other Germanic leaders to convince them to fight.
In historical reality, all we can say is that Germanic peoples in the first century CE were probably worshipping Wodan in some form or another. The whole story about Wodan cutting out his eye comes from the fact that, many centuries later, Norse people told stories about their god Óðinn, whose name is cognate to Wodan, having sacrificed his eye in exchange for wisdom. We genuinely have no way of knowing whether people in northwest Germany had any kind of similar story to this one in the first century CE.
We certainly have no evidence to suggest that Thusnelda ever cut her right eye or that she was ever thought of as any kind of seer. These are the sorts of things that our sources would be likely to mention if they were true. The fact that the sources are silent therefore strongly indicates that Thusnelda had both her eyes intact and that she was not viewed as a seer.
ABOVE: Detail of a depiction of a figure riding an eight-legged horse, probably Odin riding Sleipnir, from the Tjängvide image stone, an eighth-century CE stone from Sweden
Did the Battle of Teutoburg Forest really “stop” the Roman Empire?
In popular culture, including in Barbarians, the Battle of Teutoburg Forest is routinely portrayed as the battle that “stopped” the Roman Empire from expanding its territorial control into northern Europe. Even that article from The New York Times that I referenced earlier claims that the battle “put an end to the Roman Empire’s aspirations of controlling much of what is now Germany.”
I think that this portrayal is wildly overblown.
There’s no doubt that the Battle of Teutoburg Forest was an absolutely devastating loss for the Romans and that the catastrophic defeat lived long in Roman memory. The Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (lived c. 69 – after c. 122 CE) gives a very vivid sense of how the Romans remembered the battle through his description of the emperor Augustus’s supposed reaction when he heard the news of the defeat in his Life of Augustus 23.1–2. He writes, as translated by J. C. Rolfe:
“He [i.e., Augustus] suffered but two severe and ignominious defeats, those of Lollius and Varus, both of which were in Germany. Of these the former was more humiliating than serious, but the latter was almost fatal, since three legions were cut to pieces with their general, his lieutenants, and all the auxiliaries.”
“When the news of this came, he ordered that watch be kept by night throughout the city, to prevent outbreak, and prolonged the terms of the governors of the provinces, that the allies might be held to their allegiance by experienced men with whom they were acquainted. He also vowed great games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, in case the condition of the commonwealth should improve, a thing which had been done in the Cimbric and Marsic wars.”
“In fact, they say that he was so greatly affected that for several months in succession he cut neither his beard nor his hair, and sometimes he would dash his head against a door, crying: ‘Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!’ And he observed the day of the disaster each year as one of sorrow and mourning.”
I, however, don’t buy the notion that a single battle in 9 CE really stopped the Roman Empire from ever expanding substantially north of the Rhine in all the subsequent centuries of its existence. I think there are clearly other factors at play.
I think that the primary reason why the Romans never expanded their empire into northern Germany, Denmark, Poland, or Scandinavia is simply because they weren’t particularly motivated to conquer those areas to begin with. After all, in this time period, those areas were cold, relatively sparsely populated, and generally not very wealthy. They weren’t exactly prime targets for conquest.
Furthermore, from Augustus’s reign onwards, the Romans became more reticent about trying to conquer new territories generally. By this point, they already controlled the Mediterranean and they knew that trying to conquer northern Germany would be extremely costly—both in terms of the resources they would have to spend and the lives that would inevitably be lost.
ABOVE: Map from Wikimedia Commons showing the territories of the Roman Empire in relation to Greater Germany in the second century CE
It’s also worth noting that the Romans did make something of a comeback in the years after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. In 14 CE, the Roman general Germanicus led a punitive expedition to attack Arminius and avenge the Romans who had been killed in the battle five years earlier.
According to Tacitus, Germanicus fought Arminius to a draw in the Battle of Pontes Longi in 15 CE. In that same year, Germanicus recovered one of eagles that the Germans had seized in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and captured Arminius’s wife Thusnelda, who was pregnant at the time with a son.
In 16 CE, Germanicus defeated Arminius in the Battle of Idistaviso. Shortly thereafter, he defeated Arminius again in the Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. He recaptured one of the other two eagles that had been lost in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and declared that the battle had been avenged.
In May 17 CE, Germanicus held a triumph in the city of Rome in which he paraded Thusnelda and her young son Thumelicus through the streets in chains so they could be mocked by the crowds. Thusnelda’s father Segestes watched her humiliation from the stands. Tacitus records in his Annals 1.58 that Thumelicus was raised in Ravenna, where there was a gladiator school, and that he later “came into derision.” Modern historians generally assume that he was forced to become a gladiator, although Tacitus does not clearly say this.
ABOVE: Thusnelda at the Triumph of Germanicus, painted in 1873 by the German Academic painter Karl von Piloty, showing how he imagined Thusnelda’s humiliation might have looked
In 21 CE, a group of Cheruscan nobles formed a conspiracy and murdered Arminius. Tacitus eulogizes him, writing in his Annals 2.88, as translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb:
“Assuredly he was the deliverer of Germany, one too who had defied Rome, not in her early rise, as other kings and generals, but in the height of her empire’s glory, had fought, indeed, indecisive battles, yet in war remained unconquered. He completed thirty-seven years of life, twelve years of power, and he is still a theme of song among barbarous nations, though to Greek historians, who admire only their own achievements, he is unknown, and to Romans not as famous as he should be, while we extol the past and are indifferent to our own times.”
Apparently, Barbarians has been renewed for a second season, but I genuinely have no idea what they’ll do with it, since everything only goes downhill for the Germanic peoples from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest onwards.
Are they seriously going to try to try to make a patriotic narrative out of Arminius being soundly defeated by the Romans multiple times, Thusnelda being captured and paraded in chains through the streets of Rome, and Arminius being ultimately murdered at the hands of his own countrymen? Who knows.
Good article. Years ago, following the success of *Gladiator* I began work on a screenplay of the Varus and Arminius story which I should probably have finished. It meant I read everything I could get my hands on about the battle and its context, though several house moves and computer replacements since then means I have lost most of my notes. A couple of quibbles though:
“He took advantage of Varus’s trust and secretly organized an alliance composed of seven of the most prominent Germanic tribes that lived in the region, including his native Cherusci, along with the Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Angrivarii, Chauci, and Sicambri.”
In my recollection, no source gives us any list of tribes involved in the uprising and the whole idea that it involved some alliance at all is far from certain. The fact that two of the Eagles captured in the battle were recovered from the Marsi by Germanicus and, years later, from the Chatti under Claudius implies they fought in the battle, though the latter could have won the Eagle they held in fighting with the Cherusci in the intervening decades. Unless you have a source or references I’ve forgotten, I don’t think the list above can be said to be more than speculation.
“Thus, pretty much the only interest the Romans had in the region was making sure that the peoples who lived there stayed in line and didn’t attack them.”
Sorry, but this is contradicted by both sources from the time and archaeology. The Romans were interested in expanding into the region east of the Rhine and were in the process of colonising the territory between the Rhine and the Weser. And this came to a sudden and catastrophic end in 9 AD. Several sources refer to colony towns being established in the region and roads and causeways had been built there for several decades. Some historians used to think the references to colonisation was exaggeration, but the excavations at Waldgirmes and elsewhere show they are not. At Waldgirmes – a full 125 kms east of the Rhine – there was a town, with streets, a forum, stone buildings, civilian artefacts and a substantial equestrian statue of Augustus. It was sacked and burned, with a destruction layer dating to the time of the Varian Uprising. And it was abandoned.
The Romans *came* to see this region as not worth the effort of colonising, but this was clearly a direct consequence of Arminius’ successful rebellion. Tacitus’ hagiography of Germanicus also puts some very positive spin on the latter’s punitive campaign over the Rhine after the uprising, but reading between the lines shows it was not the walk in the park the source tries to make it out to be. At one point Arminius pins down one of Germanicus’ sub-commanders and another three whole legions in a marsh and comes very close to inflicting a second disastrous defeat on the Romans. Idistaviso is painted as a crushing defeat, yet somehow the Germanic forces were able to fight another substantial battle just days later. Then Germanicus withdraws, with Arminius still in the field. This is not the decisive campaign Tacitus makes it out to be.
Yes, the Romans decided to keep the Rhine as the frontier and use their usual tactics of divide and conquer and occasional punitive expeditions to the keep the tribes in check. But this was after Arminius had convinced them that their former policy of occupation, colonisation and Romanisation was not worth the effort. To say Arminius “stopped Rome” is not actually an exaggeration.
Thank you very much for the corrections! I’m coming to this from the perspective of a classicist who knows the ancient sources, but who is not an expert on this particular battle, so you probably know more than I do about this subject. I have therefore revised my article in response to your criticisms here.
The list I gave of Germanic tribes was mostly based on the tribes that were in the region and that Germanicus’s forces later targeted as part of his punitive campaign. I should not have assumed that they were all involved in Arminius’s alliance. I have now revised the paragraph.
I appreciate the information you have given here about Roman colonization in Germany. I was, of course, vaguely aware that the Romans were moving into the region between the Rhine and the Weser, but I will admit that I was not aware of the full extent of the archaeological evidence. I have now revised the final section of my article in light of what you have said here.
I still don’t buy the idea that the Battle of Teutoburg Forest single-handedly put an end to Roman expansion in Germany, though. I still think there are other factors at play. I certainly don’t buy the idea some people have been pushing that the Romans would have conquered all of continental Europe, but they were stopped by this one battle. The fact is, I don’t think there was ever any decent likelihood that the Romans were going to conquer all of continental Europe. Even if they had conquered Germany, I don’t think there’s any reasonable chance they would have successfully expanded into Scandinavia, the Baltic, or northeastern Europe.
Of course, I’m coming to this from a particular perspective. I personally have an intense disliking in general for the idea that the course of world history has been primarily determined by the outcomes of a small handful of Great Battles. I generally tend to think that such battles are often not nearly as important as they are typically made out to be and that other factors—including non-military factors—play a much greater role in shaping events.
I am particularly leery when it comes to the Battle of Teutoburg Forest because of the intensely nationalistic mythology that surrounds it. I mean, it’s hard to convey just how obsessed the Nazis were with this battle. Honestly, when I started watching Barbarians, I was half expecting it to be a poorly disguised Nazi propaganda film and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t.
I’m as sensitive as anyone to the simplistic narrative of the “great man/decisive battle/monocausal thing that changes the course of history”. But sometimes there are events that … do. Of course, there were a whole slew of factors that contributed to the Romans halting their expansion eastward and I agree with you that the idea of an Empire that stretched to the Vistula is an unlikely scenario in any circumstances. But the territory up to the Weser does seem to have been seen as a good acquisition until the Varian Disaster and that setback was clearly a major factor in the decision that the gains were not worth the cost.
One of the problems with any historical topic that has been skewed by political agendas is it can be hard to get the subsequent correctives into the right balance. The idea that the mighty blonde Aryan hero Arminius (badly Germanicised as “Hermann”) defeated the inferior southmen, defended the *Heimat* and singlehandedly changed history was a load of Pan-German/Volkish/Nazi twaddle. But I’ve seen some readings of the Varus story which seem to work too hard to go the other way. Downplaying the strategic impact of the disaster is one. A particularly silly one – by a German friend of mine who was thus *highly* sensitive to anything with so much as a whiff of Nazis about it – painted the battle as a terrible massacre of innocent Roman civilians (and some soldiers) by the cruel barbarians. As though the hardened legionaries of Varus’ legions were hippies on a field trip with flowers in their hair. We can be aware of the way this story has been misused in the past while still acknowledging that it was a very significant event with real long term consequences.
ps: “Honestly, when I started watching Barbarians, I was half expecting it to be a poorly disguised Nazi propaganda film and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t.”
You’ve got a strange view of contemporary Germany… oO
My apprehension that the show would turn out to be a piece of poorly disguised Nazi propaganda wasn’t really shaped by my view of contemporary Germany and was far more shaped by my awareness of similar screen productions that have come out in recent years that have promoted blatant fascism. The movie 300, which twists the story of the Battle of Thermopylai into a hate-filled, pro-fascist, pro-white supremacist propaganda piece, is a prime example. Thus, I went into Barbarians thinking “Dear Goodness, please don’t let this be the German equivalent of 300.”
“My apprehension that the show would turn out to be a piece of poorly disguised Nazi propaganda […] was far more shaped by my awareness of similar screen productions that have come out in recent years that have promoted blatant fascism.”
Fair enough. I admit that a few German productions with partial public funding have struck a somewhat odd tone these past few years. Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, for example, was quite divisive, and so was the ‘remake’ of Petersen’s Das Boot.
Awesome research; enjoyed your unbiased knowledge.
“The movie 300, which twists the story of the Battle of Thermopylea into a hate-filled, pro-fascist, pro-white supremacist propaganda piece”
“300” was an overly pro-masculine fetishized movie that very loosely based itself around a historic battle and added in some greek mythology along the lines. It never claimed to be historically accurate, as it was very obvious that 99% of the movie was fiction.
If you think that this makes it a “white supremacist propoganda” movie, than the way you watch entertainment is tainted to say the least.
I am not even white, and even I didn’t see nor anyone else I know (mostly all non-whites) the movie as a propoganda piece.
I’m sorry, but if you think 300 is pro-fascist white supremacist propoganda because the greeks were white, than you more than likely just hate yourself for being white too…
Historically speaking, there was significant variation in skin color among both the Greeks and the Persians. There were some Persian people with darker skin than some Greek people, but there were also some Greek people with darker skin than some Persian people. Neither group of people tended to be significantly darker-skinned than the other and it would not have been possible to accurately determine who was a Greek and who was a Persian based on skin color. The movie 300, however, consistently portrays all the Greeks as pale-skinned and all the Persians as dark-skinned. The reason the movie does this is to send the message that people with dark skin are evil and people with pale skin are good.
Moreover, the film fixates on the false notion of that the Greeks saved so-called “western civilization” from the supposedly evil, “barbaric” easterners. This notion is not only inaccurate, but also inherently racist, because it portrays the so-called “west” as inherently good and the so-called “east” as inherently evil. How you fail to see this is genuinely a mystery to me.
The areas the Germans seem to have defended most successfully seem to have been in Denmark, southern Sweden, and along the Vistula. The tribal areas seemed to have been fighting a proxy war with the Romans, through the western Germans and refugees from the Roman conquest of Gaul. These societies had enough technology to fight the Romans, but they needed people, a lot more people, to resist the Roman advance. How the accumulated enough people would be an interesting story.
Great piece Spencer!!! I always enjoy reading your works. Just one thing to note is in regards to the stirrups point.
The reason the show used stirrups was due to insurance reasons. They wouldn’t be insured for the horses unless stirrups were used. Besides that, great piece Spencer.
Ah, that makes sense. I figured it was probably something like that. I don’t really blame them for using stirrups, since they weren’t especially noticeable anyway. I only saw them because I was specifically looking for them.
“Are they seriously going to try to try to make a patriotic narrative out of Arminius being soundly defeated by the Romans multiple times, Thusnelda being captured and paraded in chains through the streets of Rome, and Arminius being ultimately murdered at the hands of his own countrymen? Who knows.”
Following your reasonable points about the series’ attempt at undermining or at least avoiding German right-wing instrumentalisation, this last paragraph doesn’t make sense to me.
Surely, this programme is no excercise in patriotic storytelling. Why then should the narrative downhill development in season two be a problem? In fact, most modern German films and television programmes about war tend to tell stories of futility, senselessness, and inhumanity, hence their classification of ‘anti-war’.
Dear Mr. McDaniel,
I have been seeking your email-address, but not having been able to find it, I will post my question here 🙂
I am very sincerely impressed with ALL your articles. As a theologian & church historian I “know” about some topics you write on quite well: I have found you to be well-informed, knowledgeable about the details – and you have a distinctive clarity of style. So, I assume that your articles on topics I am not so well-informed about, are of similar informative thoroughness.
Thank you very much!
==> Is there a complete list of your articles somewhere?
God bless you (Our Lord also can bless the non-believers 😉 )
your
GW Oberman
Hi,
Could you do this on Spartacus Blood and Sand as well?
If you havent catched the show, i recommend it.
I have not watched Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I may watch it at some point and decide to write about it, but I do not currently have plans to do so. I mostly decided to write about Barbarians because it just came out a few weeks ago and I found it really interesting when I heard that the show was partly in German and partly in Latin. I’ve studied both languages, so I figured watching the show would be an amusing opportunity to test and improve my language skills.
Generally speaking, I tend to be more interested in Greek history than Roman history. Unfortunately, there are a lot fewer shows and films based on Greek history than there are based on Roman history and the few that exist are mostly really terrible.
There is an extensive archaeological dig in Alexandria which contains among others the remains of a Roman villa, with several pieces of floor mosaic intact. Even considering the ages of wear, the colourful mosaics of birds are quite striking. I visited in 2018 and have the photographs: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fMWKJC4C9gw5VLQt8 and the next two give a good impression.
(also funny, the remains of the Roman college. The large auditorium and small lecture halls are immediately recognisable to anyone with the slightest whiff of an academic background)
Oops, that links only to a single photo. Stupid Google UI.
Here’s the full album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Yl1FMfm32LXuft2h2
Great piece Spencer, thanks for taking the time to enlighten us 🙂
I’m no expert but your comment on stirrups practically made me fist-pump the air; it was the first inaccuracy I noticed too, albeit an understandable one. Having actors learn to speak Latin must be hard enough, let along crying it from an (inaccurately portrayed) saddle atop a horse with no stirrups!
A couple of other things I noticed relating to the battle, was that the Romans were said to have been marching in very lose order, with their shields bound, wrapped and hung on their backs for travelling, thus rendering their shields useless for combat. They had no scouts, and were marching without caution as if in safe territory, not on the frontier in hostile country!
It also vexed me that the Romans weren’t portrayed as trying form any kind of shield-wall, shields sheethed or otherwise, but rather chose to charge at the oncoming warriors, or stand in lose formation. This is something often mis-portrayed in Roman and post-Roman combat on the screen, for dramatic effect I assume, but perhaps, given the chaos that must have surrounded such a sudden ambush, it is more accurate in this case.
One final thought about the impact of the battle, and this is only going from memory; but wasn’t Germanicus’ campaign curtailed by a political need to return to Rome, where he was ultimately assassinated before his planned return north? Also, weren’t the northern legions then decimated by an outbreak of the plague, which would have hampered their offensive ability?
Political change back home, with in-fighting and internal power struggles, depleted legions on the frontier, a public that was against further potential loss. It was all very easy and convenient for Rome to ‘declare victory’, save face and get the hell out of there. I’ve always thought that Teutebourg did have the significance afterall; that it was one of those turning-point battles.
Anyway, it’s nice to have something like Barbarians on the TV so that those with an interest in history and a predeliction for getting excited about spotting small and mostly irrelevant things, such as the absence of stirrups, can get online and rant about it!
Thanks again for all your insight, it was a very enjoyable read! 🙂
Just a few brief thoughts:
There may have been valid reasons to push the expansion of the Roman Empire further than the borders that SEEM to have been set at the Teutoberger Wald. Just the simple idea that expansion is one way to justify continued military expense, coupled with the booty that could have been gained (at the very least, in the form of the slaves that at that point were almost essential to the large scale farms of Italy) may have been sufficient. There is also the possibility that gaining access to reasonably lucrative amber resources might have been an incentive, albeit one that might not have had any strategic value.
But yes, certainly there was not going to be any “Drang nach Osten”, pushing the borders to the Baltic (even if in later years, the control of the herring fisheries might have been an inducement for the Hanseatic League). The Romans seemed to have been reliant upon the wine trade as a way of extending their influence, and most of the lands they extended into have been distinguished by viniculture as one of the lingering cultural artefacts of their presence- perhaps something the Americans and Europeans took advantage of with their use of distilled alcohol as a trade good to the American Indians (it seems that some peoples, throughout history will sell the literal farm for a few nights of drinking). And if you look at a map of contemporary German wine producing regions, they are largely in the lands that were at the time already under Roman influence.
As an aside: Having very recently reorganized my library, I find it difficult to locate a few texts, but if memory serves, one of the factors that may well have contributed to the Roman defeat was that the terrain they were traversing at the point they were attacked seems to have been not very conducive to their customary battlefield tactics- a book I acquired a few years ago (and can not at the moment locate) makes an excellent case that the battle may have taken place along a narrow valley where they might not have been able to form up in proper battle order and thus had the disadvantage of terrain (Arminius might have purposefully led them into exactly that ambush). Apparently the archeological record supports this.
And just a final thought, unformed, really- Dien Bien Phu may just have been exactly the sort of decisive battle for French fortunes in Vietnam that Mr. McDaniel deplores as being a “game-changer” (but I freely admit I am simply riffing, rather than making any sort of coherent argument). All told, though, an interesting discussion, and one I hope I did not disrupt.
“The movie 300, which twists the story of the Battle of Thermopylai into a hate-filled, pro-fascist, pro-white supremacist propaganda piece.”
I laughed pretty hard when I read that comment! In the 14 years since “300” was released, I have NEVER heard such a radical criticism of the film.
Overall, excellent insight into Netflix’s “Barbarians”. I don’t know why you had much fear of the show possibly being a pro-Nazi entertainment, while also being happy that Arminius isn’t a blonde bearded & long-hair beefcake. Isn’t Thusnelda’s blonde-hair, blue-eye beauty just as “bad” as a blonde Arminius…??
In no way does the show promote Multiculturalism ideology; to draw any parallels with this late-20th-century (CE) political ideology is ridiculous. Arminius simply rejects his Roman upbringing and points out the DIFFERENCE in his people & culture from Rome is a GOOD thing; Multiculturalism ideology says the exact opposite, which is that all cultures are of equal merit and deserving of equal respect (we can all live side-by-side in perfect harmony). Regardless, Angela Merkel declared that Multiculturalism has been a failure, nearly a decade ago. The ultimate irony for Arminius is that modern Germany looks and is structured incredibly Roman,… incredibly European.
Although Germanicus claimed to have defeated the German alliance, the supply fleet on the North Sea and the internal rivers obviously met with some type of disaster, which was accredited to a storm. However it was much more likely caused by the hit and run tactics of the Baltic Sea naval peoples.
Although Roman accounts claim Arminius was defeated, after the alleged defeats he nonetheless formed a pro Roman alliance which mainly over awed the Marcomanni, and sent their former chief to Ravenna as a captive.
The Gothic and Norse areas remained unconquered and gradually extended their connection to the Black Sea and beyond.
The German tribes preserved the standards of the Legions, and eventually returned them, following the example already established between the Parthians and Augustus.
The Romans under Tiberius were mostly likely dealing with negotiators that were more sophisticated and literate than history recorded. I suspect some of them had seen the world maps begun by Agrippa and completed by Augustus.
The Iron Age was very good to the German/Norse area. Iron tools and weapons were better and cheaper and bog iron was accessible in these areas. This probably had more impact on changing the outcome of German/Norse society than the single battle.
As for the show, they portray Arminius as very aware that the small German tribes could not defeat the might of the Empire permanently. Some type of peace would have to be negotiated.
The series can take their story in any direction they want. Perhaps the tribal leaders became suspicious that Arminius would betray them as he had betrayed Varus, which is a possible story line.
But perhaps Arminius discarded his Roman identity, and as Arminius he existed no longer. In the process he assumed a German name, and his deeds passed into legend.
But the series should not feel bound to depict the Roman history of the German tribes, and could easily emphasize that from the north German area between the Rhine and the Elbe, the Angles, Saxons and Franks, as well as the Germans, persisted and reoccupied large areas that had once been Roman.
I think the Romans under estimated two things. The Etruscan influence northwards before the Celtic invasion of Europe, and the number of people who became refugees when Caesar finally conquered Gaul.
Thanks for the great article and the excellent comments.
I was looking for a historical analysis of the show before watching as my familiarity with Roman (and German) history is only partial. This piece was an informative analysis and I found it to be a very entertaining read. Glad to discover your perspective on this page!
Mr. Spencer Alexander, I really enjoyed reading your very informative historical analysis with regards to The Barbarian series. Just a couple of thoughts. 1st: The 300, a horrible movie was populous entertainment. Its purpose was nothing more than to make money. I really don’t think there was any insidious racist intent. 2nd: I think the Roman Empire still exists in its modern western civilization manifestation. Since WW-II the U.S. Constitutional Republic is currently its center. Americanization, especially in modern Germany is stark. The modern evolution of Rome is what ancient Rome was in the sense they can be compared to the Borg in Star Trek – The Next Generation. The Borg, ancient Rome, the new modern Rome are great absorbers, assimilators and in turn influencers of other human cultures globally. Thus, Rome’s political and culture influence never stopped expanding.
I believe that the claim that Thumelicus became a gladiator derives entirely from a novel in which this happens, by Walter Heichen. Tacitus says that Thumelicus was brought up in Ravenna and there was a gladiatorial school in Ravenna, but putting the two facts together is speculation, for there were gladiator schools elsewhere, and plenty of people in Ravenna *weren’t* gladiators. Tacitus does say that Thumelicus “ran into derision” and says he will write more at the appropriate point in his history, but we hear nothing more about him from Tacitus – although two years of Tacitus’ history have been lost to us, so perhaps they say more about Thumelicus. Or perhaps Tacitus just forgot. We don’t know.