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The Most Deceitful Events that Played Out In History

Khalid Elhassan March 27, 2022 37 min

14. A Roman Villain, and a German Hero

Arminius, also known as Hermann (circa 18 BC – 19 AD), was a German leader of the Cherusci tribe. A Romanized German, Arminius began his military career in Roman service, and eventually rose to command an auxiliary cohort. He then committed one of history’s greatest double-crosses. It was a momentous deceit that transformed him into a loathed Roman villain and a celebrated German national hero. His gigantic statue and memorial, the Hermannsdenkmal, stands today near Detmold in Westphalia, close to where he pulled off his grand betrayal.

Arminius had won the admiration and confidence of the Romans, who granted him their citizenship and high social status, and enrolled him in the equestrian, or knightly, class. He was posted to the Rhine, where he served under Publius Quinctilius Varus, a Roman general related by marriage to Augustus. Rome’s first emperor tasked Varus with the completion of the conquest of Germania up to the Elbe River. Varus’ approach was heavy-handed, however, worsened by the imposition of onerous taxes on the German tribes. So the Germans rose up in revolt.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.