Product Description

In AD 9, a Roman traitor led an army of barbarians who trapped and slaughtered three entire Roman legions: 20, 000 men, half the Roman army in Europe. If not for this battle, the Roman Empire would have expanded to the River Elbe and probably eastward into present-day Russia. But after this defeat, shocked Romans ended all efforts to expand beyond the Rhine. This narrative introduces us to the key protagonists: the Emperor Augustus, the most powerful of the Caesars; his general Varus, who was the wrong man in the wrong place; and the barbarian leader Arminius, later celebrated as the first German hero. In graphic detail, based on archeological finds, the author leads the reader through the mud and blood of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #771355 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
Peter S. Wells is professor of archaeology at the University of Minnesota. He is one of the leading American scholars specializing in the European archaeology of the pre-Roman and Roman periods, and is the author of the award-winning The Barbarians Speak.

Customer Reviews

Poorly written and researched.
From time to time a book come along that reinterprets an element of history and offers a new slant on an old argument. This book does not fall into this category and falls flat at the very first hurdle. Dr Wells borrows heavily from recent works on the Teutoburg battle (and often fails to fully acknowledge his sources). He has decided that contrary to the accepted view that the battle took place over three days, it was all over within one. This would be fine if he at least offered the alternative view and did not disregard a significant chunk of the historical sources in order to bolster his own interpretation.

He also has an awful habit of repeating himself and you will get a terrible sense of déjà vu as you read the same paragraph you know you read a few chapters earlier. For a book on the Teutoburg battle there is woefully little space given over to the event. Wells wastes far too many pages on an amateurish attempt to explain the socio-economic situation in the Roman Empire at the time of the battle. Upon reading these chapters you get the impression Wells has lifted from primary sources without really understanding what he is reading.

At one point he writes a particularly graphic description of the battlefield post-conflict. Sadly his inability read up on the local flora and fauna leads to a rather ridiculous description of local animals, including vultures feasting on the fallen.

If written by a student on Roman history, his text would be worthy of a reasonable grade as it at least shows some evidence that the author has examined the primary sources, but when you take into account the author is supposedly an expert on Roman archaeology and is a professor of Anthropology this book can only be described as an expensive doorstop. If you are interested in the battle , search for texts on the recent archaeological excavations, please, avoid this inaccurate, badly written tome that I very much doubt will ever be regarded as anything other than a joke in the academic world.

The Lost Legion
"The Battle That Stopped Rome" is a very interesting book about the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest, which may have been one of the most important engagements in European history. I had not read a great deal about the battle before picking up Wells' book, but I gather that the author is offering a revisionist history based on his interpretation of the archaeology at the battle site, which was finally located in 1987 at Kalkriese in northern Germany.

The broad outlines of the battle are reasonably well understood. Arminius, a member of the Cherusci tribe who had served in the Roman army and had become a Roman citizen, led three legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus into a trap east of the Rhine. While the legions were on the march in a column that may have been over two miles long, they were ambushed by Germanic warriors. The terrain and the extended column prevented the Roman units from forming up properly, with the horrific result that 20,000 or so men (and possibly a large group of camp followers) were killed on the spot, ritually sacrificed or sold into slavery. The catastrophe cost the Roman army almost ten percent of its effective strength, revived Roman fears of an invasion by northern barbarians, and may have induced the Romans to halt the expansion of their empire at the Rhine River rather than pressing on to the Elbe.

Wells tends to dismiss ancient descriptions of the battle, arguing that classical historians suffered from the fact that they were not present at the battle, were often writing long after the fact, and were burdened by stereotyped and inaccurate notions of how the Germanic tribes fought. He suggests that the battle did not take place over three days (as the writer Cassius Dio claimed 200 years later) but that the slaughter was essentially over in an hour, with the rest of the day devoted to capturing or killing the survivors.

According to the book's chapter notes, Wells bases his description of a short and bloody battle on historical information about Varus and his legions, Roman accounts of the battle, the archaeological and topographical evidence at Kalkriese, and information from other historical battles. Wells' conclusions may be right, but he could have done a better job of explaining why his analysis of these sources led him to reconstruct the battle as he did. Although Wells offers a gripping description of what must have been a gruesome and terrifying encounter for all concerned, I suspect that his book will not be the last word on the subject.

All in all, Wells' book is a perfectly serviceable introduction for a reader who, like me, is just beginning to explore the history of this period. Having said that, I am brought up a bit short by one of the reviews that I see below, which seems to have been written by a reader with a strong (and seemingly well reasoned) negative opinion of the book. Duly chastened, I nonetheless draw two conclusions:

First, as a newcomer to this period, I genuinely enjoyed the book, read it avidly and thought it was fairly well done. I think you will find "The Battle That Stopped Rome" to be interesting and thought-provoking, as long as you have not already formed strong opinions about what happened on that long-ago day in 9 AD.

Second, the seminal work on the archaeology of the battle seems to be Tony Clunn's "In Quest of the Lost Legions,". I have already ordered that book, and I look forward to learning more about this very important battle.

Where's the beef??
Having just read the paperback version of this book I must agree with the reviewer from Norwich with respect to it's poor content and structure. While not having studied Roman history at University I have read all the ancient authors that refer to this incident and I must say that the originals are still the best. I found this book very repetitive - the danger of cut and paste without strict editorial control perhaps? In addition, there was an unacceptable amount of padding in the book. The book was a (ladybird version) history of the Roman Republic/Empire, life of Augustus and his family, socio-economic conditions along with a slight review of archaeological finds in the area. The text covering the battle itself was scanty and too short. Basically I was left after reading the book with the question - where's the beef?? The book did not deliver what it promised and I am just grateful that I bought a paperback and not a hardback copy so I wasted less money than I might have. A disappointing read.