November 19, 2025 • 42 mins
Margaret continues her talk with Hazel about how the Romans were stopped from conquering Germania and how a bunch of terrible people are excited about it.
Sources:
https://www.thecollector.com/teutonic-meaning/
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/?c=y&page=3
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-excavation-will-examine-germanys-legendary-founding-battle-180964235/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sculpted-horse-head-complicates-legendary-roman-conquest-german-barbarians-180970077/
https://archaeology.org/issues/online/collection/germany-roman-town-waldgirmes/
https://web.archive.org/web/20110714211343/http://www.nujournal.com/page/content.detail/id/509454.html
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/havoc-in-the-teutoburger-forest/
https://web.archive.org/web/20140428164647/http://www.livius.org/q/quinctilius/varus.htmlhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/3567880
https://the-past.com/feature/arminius-hitlers-barbarian-hero/
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_2#88
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zon Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're
twice a week. Reminder that I introduced the show the
same time every time. It never changes. This is always
the script. My name is Margaret Kiljoy and I'm the host.
I think you probably inferred that I might even even
implied it. But my guest is Hazel Akasha. Hi. How
are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hi'm Margaret. I'm doing okay. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm all right. I'm hungry. I'm always hungry by the
time I'm recording these.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I ate a bunch of hot Scheetos on the break
and now my mouth is on fire.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Excellent. I ate some pretzel chips. They were good. We
also have a producer whose name Sophie, who's not on
the call, and we also have an audio engineer named
Eva who's also not on the call, but he's listening.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hi Eva, Hi Eva.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And our theme music was written for us by un woman.
And this is part two of a two parter about
a story that I wasn't sure I wanted to tell,
but I actually find it a very entertaining story with
lots of interesting information. It's just that I can't run
around and be like I want to claim this man
as a hero. But also that's like one of the
main lessons of the show, right anyway, is that hero
(01:10):
worship is bad. I know, I went on a long
rund about how I love Roger Casement. Maybe things are blurry.
Maybe sometimes it's okay to heroes interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And also we can't let the Nazis have everything, right, Yeah,
the reasons why the Nazis like this guy are not
the reasons why you like this guy.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I know, and they get real mad, and but I
also am, like, I like a thing that this guy did.
That's all I know. I just know a thing that
he did that I think is cool, and it's enough
to have made it into the history books.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It's almost like, you know, we can all agree to have,
you know, a healthy and respectful amount of admiration for
a person. We're not getting weird about it.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, exactly, So probably put down that tattoo gun and
stop getting ourminius tattoos that you started getting at the
top of the apisode. But maybe not, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Whatever, maybe you know way more about him than we do.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's almost certainly true. I would hope that anyone who's
getting arminiaus Tattoos knows more about him than we do.
And actually the Nazis didn't call m Rminius. They called
him Herman the German. They didn't call him Herman the German.
They called him Herman.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That's fucked up. That's not even because it's not his name.
That's just a bad name.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
You don't like Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No, I don't like Herman the German. No funk that. No,
Herman the German is a fucking beije ass name.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It could be the name of like the sergeant in
a World War two movie who's actually on the American
side but like grew up speaking German in Chicago. He
could be Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Or it's the name of like the mean kid in
like a nineteen fifties Leave It to Beaver. Oh, totally
kind of like sitcom.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Totally, that's Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
The mean kid who like never really talks, just sort
of growls that you yeah, and he's like twice as
big as all the other kids. Because it's nineteen fifty
that we're still weirdly scared of German people in kind
of a racist way. Yeah, But like also they did
their Germans so like whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's who Herman the Germans should have been. But you
know how to name that should get him beat up? Oh,
we now have introduced Arminius, Herman's German. But now let
me introduce you to Publius Quintillus Varus.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Oh my fucking god. Sorry, can I get another read
on this name?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Publius Quinticillus Varus.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah what. I can't believe these people had a whole empire.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I know the name of their kids. Publius pabilius. It
might be pabilious, heabilius. Yeah, oh my god, but I
think it's Publius.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, the only saving grace of our empire said, at
least I get to choose my own dumbass name. I
chose this one for myself. You cannot you give that
to my mom?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah? Glad that the non binary empire that will slowly
cock anyway, that's unrelated. So Publius Quintacilius Varus, who I'm
gonna call virus from now on until I get bored
and start calling him Publius to make fun of him.
He's a Nepo baby. I think that probably was implied.
He's a nepo baby Roman administrator.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, that's how they all are.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh, he's not even a general, he's just a fucking
been counter.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So he's kind of both. And he's not good at
being a general, but he's in charge of whole provinces.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So well, I was gonna say, you got a hand
to him for being bad at being a general, but
then you said he was in charge of all provinces.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And the armies therein. Yeah. Yeah, but also it makes
me feeling better. He wasn't very good as an administrator either.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
You know, there's really nothing like having an empire run
by schmucks. There's nothing like having an empire run by schmucks.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Just Nepo, baby is all the way down.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That's really how you that's how it is, your ass
handed to you.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Uh huh. We never learned this, No, we really really don't,
especially like watching modern fascists try to recreate, like yeah,
putting their kids in charge of everything, right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But that's the thing is either trying to recreate the
Roman Empire, the Roman Empire famously.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Phil I know, I know ed, We'll do it again,
do it again. By Jove, one day I'll do the
Goths taken down the Roman Empire. But it's not as
clean and nice of a story as I want it
to be.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You're just a fucking goth. Yeah, wowed that story to
be good. You should write the historical fan fiction that
you desire.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I want to see in the world. That's a good idea,
and then I'll just present it as a nonfiction on
this show and there'll be no ethical problems with that. No.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Have you ever had a guest on the show and
told them an entirely fake story? No?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When I think about it, at least once a week.
That's my Roman Empire is thinking about how I want
to write fiction and present to this fact on cool
people who did cool stuff. But I just can't bring
myself to do it. I love you all too much,
dear listeners, to do what I want to do to you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The only person stopping you is you.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I know. I'm a fucking paladin. It's awful.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I'm ruined, and if you enjoy Margaret being a paladin,
you should go listen too.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Ah, well done.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I know I'm learning.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I play a spite a champion, which is basically a paladin.
But pathfinder.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, back from plugging our other shit.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, like the Scourge of the earth, so old Publius.
He married the emperor's grand niece and so he got promoted.
What good she's probably honestly, he probably didn't care one
way or the other, which is fine, but not in
a respectful way, but in a I just because I
want to do grift. He absolutely just wants to do grift.
(06:43):
This man is driven by one thing.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
How do you think she felt about that arrangement. Do
you think she was like, hell, yeah, now I also
get to do what I want? Or was she like,
I'm a simp who wants a husband who loves me,
but I will never have such a thing because I
have been born into evil nobility.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I guess that's a question of like how good he
was at grift, And there's a period where he seems
to be good at it, but I think it was
just luck. So either she's as incapable as him and
she's totally define with it, or she's competent and pretty
sad she's straddled with such a loser.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, I hope that she was happy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I hope so, uh, well do I I don't know
if I hope, so, I hope she hated him, and
in which case I hope she was happy because he's
the actual bad guy.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
But with a name like Publius, that's a fucking asshole.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I know. It's just you can't win. It's nominative determinism
that you just need to be bullied, and he had
to go to Germania to get bullied. He rolled over
what's now Tunisia for a year or two in like
eight to seven BCE, and then he got sent over
to Syria, which meant he was in charge of the
largest chunk of the Roman army, and he was corrupt
(07:49):
as hell. One of his contemporaries wrote about him, quote,
Varis entered the rich province a poor man, and left
the poor province a rich man. That's a swindler, I know,
and some good wordplay. Yeah, he got sidelined for a while.
People are kind of like, we don't know what happened
to him for twelve years and then in the autumn
(08:09):
of six CE he was named the governor of Germania. Notably,
Germania wasn't really a province at this point, but it
was germanizing, as we were talking about with that town.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Sorry, was it germanizing or was it romanizing?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Romanizing? That's what it was. Doing it was absolutely romanizing as.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Long as it wasn't womanizing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Now, well not very effectively. They were monogamous and only
got married late.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Oh that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
The position of governor in Germania was only like twenty
years old at this point, and the Romans have been
playing softball with the Germans up to this point, lots
of I hate that expression. Softball isn't like baseball is
not a hard, scary sport. What a weird playing softball? Whatever? Okay,
I take it back.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
If softball is for dikes and playing softball should mean
eating a pussy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I think that's true, and also probably why the German
women didn't remarry after their husbands. Oh no, my husband died.
Whatever will I do? Oh you're a widow too. Oh
you're not a widow yet. Here's some poison anyway. So
there's lots of trade going on with Germania and they're
romanizing slowly, and Varus is like, now fuck that, I'm
(09:16):
the fucking boss. Motherfuckers are going to start paying tribute.
I'm gonna treat you like you're basically enslaved. And there's
eleven legions of Romans stationed there. So sixty six thousand soldiers,
just a lot of Roman soldiers, so they can kind
of get away with it for a little while. People
start to grumble, but Varus wouldn't believe the grumblings. He
(09:39):
was utterly convinced. Again, every source agrees on this, but
I'm also like, I don't know, I haven't read his writing,
but whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, all two sources.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, all two sources. Yeah. And then there are like
some other ones like on this. Like it's like like
that guy who said the clever thing about he was corrupt,
you know, right, But he's convinced that his army is
invincible and that his subjects are fine with everything that's
happening to them.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So that's a bad combo.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's a real bad combo. It's especially a bad combo
when eight of your eleven legions are about to leave. Yeah,
because there was some shit popping off in either Bohemia
or Chechia southeast of Germania. They just took all the
old names and added i A to them. Oh my god,
they did. I was about to say, like Britannia, and
I'm like no, yeah, no, that's what they scott Landia, Nedelinzia, Arlandia, Irelandia, Portlandia. Ah,
(10:35):
Portlandia is actually a Roman province. This explains a lot.
So some shit's popping off in Chechia, and eight of
the eleven legions are sent off east and just leaves
Varus with three legions and about a total of twenty
thousand soldiers. Three legions and a bunch of auxiliaries, but
a lot of the auxiliaries are German, and that's going
(10:57):
to come up. Oh sick Arminius. He is down to
play politics and his dad, the chief of the tribe,
start hanging out with Varus, and they just show up
and they come in like just straight bootleguers. They're like, oh, Varus,
you're so good at this, You're such a good administrator.
Oh we're all so grateful that you're here to treat
(11:18):
us like shit. Varus, you're doing so good. And Varus
just eats this shit up. He fucking buys it everything
they're selling. Meanwhile, a coalition of four or five tribes
is coming together to fight the Romans, the Cheruscans, the Marcie,
the Broctarians, and the Chatty.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At least I like the Chatties. I know that's the
one I'd be a part of the chatty Kathys.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I think that is actually probably their full name
is the chatty Kathys.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Oh, and that's where that term comes from.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Everyone. When my elementary school teachers accuse me of being
a chatty kathy, I should have turned them and said,
you mean like the old German tribes.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, that turned and destroyed an empire, or at least
drove an empire out.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Gossip saves lives.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Gossip does save lives, and in this case, gossip tried
to save the Romans lives because they had a problem.
They had this coalition. They're going to lure virus into
a trap and then just like murder or that shit
out of all the Roman legions. That's their plan. Yeah,
but there's a problem with their plan. There's a snitch
because our minius has an enemy and it's his father
(12:24):
in law. But I think not yet. I actually think
he marries his wife after this battle, but it's his
father in law to.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Be Oh shit, can't trust that men laws?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No, absolutely not, especially especially not this one. His wife's
name is Thusnelda, which is a sick name.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
That fucking rules. After my next Pathfinder character, all the
Grimes or whatever, so Sneld is next.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, by most accounts, and again they're gonna get married
later in the story, but I'm not one hundred percent
certain about that, And this is where I wrote it
into the script. By most accounts, the two of them
in love and are close to each other and similar
in temperament. There's like whole things about how she like
doesn't cry because she's so tough, because she's a hard
primitive or whatever the fuck you know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, sure, people got weird opinions.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, but I run across one of the problems with
reading this history when it comes to Thussenelda, because by
and large, people who write about this era are let's
go with conservative, that's the nice way to say it. Yeah,
But here's where we run into an interesting split in
modern types of conservative. Guy. Oh, some fascists love Rome
(13:38):
and they're so pro Rome, and they hate all the
barbarians in this story. Other fascists love Germany and they
love the good and noble Barbarians, not the weak, effeminate Romans,
and therefore our minius can do no wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Oh shit.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And the easiest way to know which soorce' reading is
to read about how they talk about Thusnelda. Yeah, either Arminius,
that dastardly rogue, kidnapped Thusnelda or the two of them
eloped without her father in law's consent. Uh huh. I
believe it's the latter. I believe that people wrote about
(14:15):
it as kidnapping because she was her father's property. Yeah,
Arminius and thusneld are married, but possibly not till later.
And this is either why her dad Segates is really mad.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Sorry Segates, Yes, Segates, Segees Nuts, Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So Segaty's Nuts is really mad about this, and he
goes to Varus and he's all ready to snitch out
and he's like, there's a conspiracy against you, and it's
run by Arminius. But what he didn't know is that
there was a conspiracy. And the conspiracy is all of
the people who are trying to stop you from buying
everything that is sold. There is a conspiracy against you,
(15:00):
dear listener, trying to stop you from hearing what our
advertisers have to say.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
They're the dirty reds. They're trying to destroy the free market.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, and so you can stick it to the
man by no, just don't sports gamble. It's just a
bad idea. Regular gamble if you want to, unless you
have a problem with it. But sports gamble on your phone.
Don't do it. Just no gambling should happen on your phone.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We gamble and casinos like man.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Unlike those weak Romans. Here's ads. So our Minia shows up.
We're sorry, not Arminia, says Segs. It's not name that
his name. Segaties goes to Varus and it's like, there's
a conspiracy against you, and Varus just fucking ignores it. No,
(15:53):
they're like, oh, that guy's just jealous and just straight
up ignores it. Seganies doubles down and is like, look,
I care about Rome. I don't know why I'm a
boot liquor. I just love the taste. Just arrest all
of the German leaders, even me, and then you can
sort out who's guilty later, Like you can arrest me
(16:15):
because I knew about this. And Varus is like, no,
everyone actually loves me. Arminius keeps telling me that everyone
loves me, so it must be true.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What in fucking I hate everybody in the story. I
know none of these people are cool people. These are
all bad people who do sort of cool thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
No, absolutely, Arminius like, yeah, he's gonna get his because
he didn't read talking. But Arminius gets this guy's total trust.
Varus is like, I fucking love you, Arminius, And so
Arminius is like, Varus, there actually is a rebellion brewing,
just not us good tribes. It's the bad tribes. In fact,
(16:57):
we should take all three legions and start putting down
this rebellion. And so our Minius convinces Varus to start
quartering troops in people's houses in the rebellious territory to be.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Like, oh, people famously hate.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That, yeah, and then go on a big long march
and they're actually, well, there is a rebellion, but it's
not the one that they think. Yeah, although ironically it
is actually the rebellious households. We'll get to that. And
then we're gonna go on this big long march where
all twenty thousand troops and all of their like, all
their families and shit come along too, and they have
(17:29):
their families and their servants. And our Minius is like,
you know, it's a long it's a long march. We
go all the way around that forest. What if we
went through Tuttenberg Forest. What if I know a short cut,
you can trust me?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Not a short cut?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And Virus is like, sure, whatever you say, I am
so unintelligent that it'll forever change history. Oh god, and
like like literally, like that's just like unless this story
is being written in a way where Varus is just
being painted as a but everyone is like this is
this guy?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, what happened was that I laughed so hard that
I hiccuped.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And so the shortcut they took was rough going. The
paths were narrow, leaving the army stretched out across miles
and miles of dense forest.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
They had to fell trees and build bridges, and they
also like built roads literally they found like survey steaks
and stuff like that. Later, whoa, and the winds were wild,
and a storm picked up, and the wind and rain
made Roman bows nearly useless. The mud made their armor
an impediment because they're wearing a fucked on of weight, right,
(18:44):
And the narrow path meant that they couldn't form the
formations that made them so legendary and open conflict and
so Arminius and his dad, as well as probably the
German soldiers embedded in the army, like the auxiliaries that
they worked with. They just slip out at some point
to go joined the ambush that's coming. Meanwhile, all those
troops that are quartered in people's houses, all the people
(19:06):
living in those houses just slaughter the troops at.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Night, sick. Yeah, no notes.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, don't quarter people's houses. I don't know what to
tell you.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
It's in our constitution. I don't think we'll be able
to use that one this time.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, if they break that one, we're good.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
This was hammered over my head like several different years
of elementary school histories that they really hated it when
the British Empire put troops in people's homes in the
seventeen hundreds. Yeah, and it was like a feature of
why we broke away from them.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So I don't know, but fascists are dumb and cowardly,
and I hate spending government money for whatever reason. So
who knows, who knows what we're in for.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I think what would work in the modern era is
the like sucking up and being like everyone loves you.
I think that those people would absolutely fall for some flattery.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Absolutely, I'm sure that they are, and I'm also sure
that the people doing that are not necessarily on our team.
I think they're probably just going to continue to strip
the copper wiring out of the proverbial house of the government.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I think you're right, unfortunately, but okay, So all the
people get slaughtered while they're middle of the night wherever
they're quartered, so there's no reinforcements coming for the legions now,
and then the main force while it's spread out over
like I've read four or five miles, I've read like
eight miles. They're spread out over a long way. The
four or five tribes sneak up, throw javelins into the
(20:36):
Romans and then just like harassed and killed them. It's probable,
and this is actually a Roman tactic that they used.
They built a zig zag defensive wall about four feet tall.
And the reason that zigzag is so you have like
two angles of attack at any given time from each
place here around.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh. Interesting, that's good.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I know. Star fortresses are a thing where people were like, oh,
the best defensive system is not a circle, it's a
star fortress.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah. The Trays Italians. Oh shit, this is in that
John Darneil book.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Everyone read Wolf in White
Van if.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You want, If you want, it was a fine book. Yeah,
but uh, pod alum of cool people.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's true. And so basically, archaeologists found this four foot
high wall and it was probably used as cover for
the assault, and later archaeological finds show that the Roman
artifacts like go up to the wall but not over it.
So this is like where they like tried to storm
this four foot wall and just kept getting killed.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, and they didn't like move the bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So I'll talk about what happens to the bodies. Several
people are going to get involved with the bodies in
various ways.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
All right, Yeah. The pop history of this moment, the
one that most people say is that the Germans were
wildly outnumbered, but through sheer barbarian strength and cunning they
beat the Romans. Realistically, the Germans almost certainly outnumbered the
Romans and got constant reinforcements. Or I read that from
someone who was a pro Roman analyst, because again, everyone
(22:11):
has sides here. By and large, the Germans fought only
with short spears, which were excellent in the dense woods.
And it's because like you kin'd have to be rich
to have a sword. Yeah, and the Romans fled as
quickly as they could, and they built a hasty formation
that they defended through the night. Quite possibly that even
the Barbarians were like, we're not going to bother attacking
(22:32):
you in the middle of a wild wind and rainstorm
at night in the woods, because like, we can't fucking
see who we're fighting, you know. Yeah, But as soon
as dawn broke, the Barbarians stormed the Romans camp and
sent them into a wild retreat for three more days.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh shit.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
And it's possible that this was a sort of orderly
thing with the Romans, like marching, and then you know,
they try and get they're trying to get sixty miles
to their nearest formation, and they last another three days
of marching. But it's also possible it probably started that
way and soon enough was just like a three day
route where people are being hunted down and killed in
the woods.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
On the fourth day, some people think it was the
third day, and the Roman historian made a typo I
think this was Tacitus not cashiest day, but I can't remember,
because nothing happened on the third day. It's like on
the first day this and the second day this and
on the fourth.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Day, you know, well the third day he rises from
the grave.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh right, that's actually probably what happened. On the fourth day,
the brave Roman officers like Varas killed themselves to avoid
capture and torture, and so all their soldiers were like, well, fuck,
what do we do? What do we do now? Pretty
much they were all slaughtered. Falling on your sword was
its style and the time for Roman officers. To be clear,
it wasn't like a like they were uniquely cowardly or
(23:43):
noble or whatever. They were doing what they were sort
of told to do, and there were barely any survivors,
and the ones that were simply ran the fuck away.
Like the survivors basically like who fled at the very beginning,
some of them made it to the rhine and like
told what happened?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
No one else survived because remember how sane, how accepting
surrender as a relatively new technology, right?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Who yeah, No, it's twenty thousand soldiers plus a lot
of other people. Six years later, some Romans returned to
the scene of the slaughter and they found again, according
to a Roman historian, so who knows if this is true,
but it probably is. They found that the Roman soldiers
had had their heads nailed to trees and that others
were sacrificed on bloody altars or burned alive. Whoa fuck,
(24:31):
Yeah they were barbarians. Yeah. But also, like again the
thing that you've run across over and over in history
where pro imperial sources will always play up the like
brutality of the people that they want to go genocide,
Because that army that says that they found these things
was literally trying to genocide the Germans. They went back
(24:54):
to kill all of them. They were like, we're just
going to get rid of German me and Germans. It
was a big part of their plan. They're not going
to succeed. We'll get to that. Meanwhile, the Germans find
Varus's body and they cut off his head and they
sent his head to this guy in Checchia, king marrow Baduz,
(25:16):
hoping that he would join in their revolt. But the
Czech king actually just turned around in boot liquor form
and sent Varis' head onto Rome because he's trying to
play nice with Rome at this point.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, as you do.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
But do you know you can get ahead, Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I see what you did there.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Thank you, Thank you. You can listen to ads or
actually can get ahead faster if you just press the
skip ahead button a couple times and we're back. So
this defeat in Tunenberg Forest, twenty thousand soldiers, and no
one bothered to count all of the non soldiers who
(25:55):
were there. Why would anyone count that? Literally no source
even bothered to guess how many civilians in this, Like,
no one even bothered. Fuck anyway, this fucked Rome up.
Rome was like, we are invincible, that's our thing. But
more than ten percent of the entire military had just
been destroyed over the course of four days, which is
(26:16):
literally a decimation. Augustus the Caesar, he lost his fucking shit.
He would apparently, according to some sources, and this is
like his famous quote about this, he would roam around
beating his head against the wall, shouting, Varus, give me
back my legions.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Just so creative. I knew, Wow, they should have. It
was really a good move to put him and control
an entire empire.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I think that one person should be in charge of everything.
I think that's a good plan with no downsides.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I think it's a fine plan. I just think they've
got to have more style, like quote, verus give me
back my allegiance. He can do better. That's the first draft.
Edit it a little more, come back with more flair.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Well, he's also going to invent the rom com trope
of man loses his shit and stops shaving. Oh, because
for months he stops getting his haircut or shaving because
he's so distraught that he can't bring himself to do
basic grooming.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Uh, you know, depression, Queen, I've been there too early.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah. And because fascist governments never change. Back in Rome,
all the Germans and Gauls in the city were thrown out,
as if they had had something to do with it.
German and Gaulish soldiers in the Roman Army were sent
to go protect remote islands so that if they rose up,
it wouldn't be a big deal. Oh yeah, it's like
such a nothing ever changes, fucking nightmare things.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
That town, the trading town, built in four AD, was
deserted within months of the Battle of Tutburg. Someone burned
it to the ground, probably the deserting Romans because they
didn't want it to fall into German hands.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Then someone, presumably the Germans, busted up that bronze, do
you and repurpose the metal and sacrifice the horse head
to the water gods in the well? And if you're
going to sacrifice horses, it should probably be bronze horseheads. Yeah,
that's my hot take.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Right, I mean, the only unethical thing there is wasting
raw material. Bronze is valuable and useful, but you know
you're not killing a horse.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I mean it's like literally the idea of sacrifice, right,
is you take something out of the productive economy. Like
that's like it's like thing as you're saying, like, I'm
going to be unproductive with this. Rome didn't take the
loss of Germania lying down or of three legions. They
sent a general named Germanicus to go conquer Germania, which
(28:42):
feels a little on the nose, I would agree.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Again, scriptwriters, can we just get something a little bit better?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
You would think he inherited the honorific name from his father,
who had tried to extend the Roman border to the north.
And while he's up there marching's Neelda's dad kidnaps his
own pregnant daughter and gives her to Germanicus into slavery.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Fuck that also, I forgot about the Snelda and thank
you for the reminder.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, good fucking name, good fucking name.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Fucked up that her dad did that.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I know. This is part of why I'm like, I
don't think Ourminia is kidnapped, Thusnelda. I think Thusnelda kidnapped
herself away from her fucking dad.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Found like her dad fucking sucks. Yeah, good thing he's dead.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I know.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
That's a nice thing about all of these motherfuckers. Arminius
never saw her again.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You never saw never saw her again.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You also never met his kid. And uh, I think
as Tacitus wrote about the kid being like it was
a boy, and then Tacitus was like, and when he
was three, Well, I'll tell you that in a different book.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh my god, did he write it?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
We don't know. Fuck yeah, there's so many things that
Tastas is like, I'll get to that later. And then like,
there's a lot of books we don't have, and a
lot of books that might not have ever been written.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Oh like they just didn't survive.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah all right, Yeah, so it might not have been
a Georgia R. Martin thing. It might be like, although,
actually mean, what if Georgia R. Martin actually did finish
writing it, and he just finished writing it at the
end of the Iron Age and it was destroyed.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I really wouldn't be surprised if George R. Martin was
secretly somehow transported from the Roman Empire that feels energetically aligned.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, the r RS is Romulus and remiss.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
I believe that canonically to be true if you go
on his Wikipedia page. Yeah, well, I mean that this
is finestly like the crux of a lot of Game
of Thrones. Lare right is like, did ned Stark's sister
get kidnapped by the guy or did she kidnap herself?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Oh? Fuck? Yeah. Like I said, Game of Thrones is
way more ancient world than medieval, despite it being like
technologically medieval. And depending on the bias of your source,
you're gonna get different accounts of Germanicus's fairly long war
in Germany. Most Roman sources are like, we won and
the because they sure killed a lot of Germans, but
(31:05):
it was a stalemate, and a stalemate favors the defenders.
Germanicus eventually goes back across the Rhine, but his whole
thing is that he was like not necessarily there to
conquer Germany. But I don't know. I think Rome wan
in Germany, but he was kind of as captured the
flag thing. Each legion had a gold eagle standard, and
(31:31):
so there's three of them, and they managed to recapture
two of them. And that's the like we did it, guys,
Like he's standing on the aircraft carrier with the like
you know, mission accomplished. But Arminius led a lot of
the revolt against Germanicus and did like really clever shit,
like divert streams and rivers to flood fields so that
(31:54):
the battlefields were like marshy, so that it favors the
barbarians instead of the Roman legions.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Interesting because of the armor and the mud.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, Rome didn't know how to fight a guerrilla war
in the forest and bog They never conquered Germany. Instead,
they kind of stayed happy to let the Germans fight
each other endlessly. Later, Rome figured out a better way
to grow strong. Rather than conquering places directly, You let
immigrants from those places come in, let them become citizens
(32:24):
after serving in the military, and then give them land
in some colony somewhere, So you make your enemy die
for you and expand your empire for you. But Arminius,
I promised you his.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
End, Yes, give it to me.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
He wound up chief of his tribe, and he was
basically trying to be in charge of everyone.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Skeptical.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, it didn't work out for him. Tacitus wrote that
Arminius quote found himself opposed and aiming at the throne
by his countryman's independent spirit. He was assailed by armed force,
and while fighting with various success, fell the treachery of
his kinsmen. So it was literally his own clan was like,
oh shit, not fuck you. You're not fucking in charge of everyone.
(33:07):
We didn't fight this whole ass war against having a
fucking emperor to have a king.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, fuck off, reasonable position, I know.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And yeah, they wanted him when he could drive off
a tyrant, not when he wanted to become one. Yeah,
if he had read Lord of the Rings, he would
have known.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
He would have known.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, for thousands of years, no one knew exactly where
this battle took place. I think we're still not one
hundred percent sure, but I think we're most of the
way there. I read scientific articles that are like, we're
almost ready to know that this is the right place,
But I didn't find the follow up articles. You know, Yeah,
because in nineteen eighty seven, a guy with a metal
(33:45):
detector who was looking for ancient Roman shit. He was
looking for this, but he had a metal Detector's just
a guy with a metal detector. And he found a
fuck ton of coins one weekend, one hundred and five
coins in a week shit, and none of them were
newer than the reign of Augustus.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And then he found all kinds of legions on the
march stuff, like a legion is sixty centuries and a
century as one hundred soldiers. Yeah, although I think later
they move it down to sixty soldiers, but I can't remember.
Don't quote me on that. I just wantly read that
shit so I can write weird dark age's fiction or
iron age fiction. Each century had what was called a signifier,
(34:21):
which is a person who is the standard bearer, and
they look sick as hell. They wear silver face masks
and bear and lion furs.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Oh sorry what yeah? What? Yeah, this is the only
thing of silent substance that I've heard all episode.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah. No, the Roman signifiers looked sick as hell, and
symbols were so fucking important, Like the signifier, I think
didn't even have a weapon. They had like the stick
that like the standard. Yeah, and then they also had
a buckler like a little shield, and they had to
be at the front lines.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
God awful.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And if your signifier died in your century, then like
you suck, your legion is disgraced. So everyone's trying to
defend you at least.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Okay. Is it a job that goes to like the
new guy he doesn't know how to fight yet, or
is a job that goes to like the guy who's
been around for a while and is like the most popular.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I don't know, no, I actually can't remember. But it's
funny because this would matter a lot because the way
that Rome did their legions is you put the new
people on the front line and then this line behind
them is that people have a little bit of experience
and then the people behind them are like the real FETs.
But I actually I don't remember about the signifiers. And
Arminius is considered a national hero in Germany except now
(35:42):
because most people don't want national heroes in Germany.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Again a reasonable position.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
But the people who are using it for German nationalism
are of course doing it wrong. They're like, isn't it
cool that our Manius prove that Germans are like biologically
superior to Romans, gross rather than isn't it cool that
he organized a bunch of groups of people to come
together and kick out an invading force and probably we
shouldn't have invading forces. And also when he reached too
(36:07):
close to the sun, the other barbarians were like, you're
not better than us, bud.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Hellia, No, I like you read a lot more.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, thanks, I.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Don't even think it's like a stretch of like how
to narrate that story?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to be like. No,
it's just like the true barbarian spirit is not letting
Arminius fucking take control, like right. Martin Luther, the older one.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Protestant guy nailed ninety five theieces to a door.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, one at a time. He was really into Arminius
because he's really into fighting the influence of Roman Germany.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And he renamed Arminius with a good German name, German name,
Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh what is that? In German?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
They don't call him Herman the German, and German they
just call Herman. And it's just a way to make
fun of him is to call Herman the German because
it sounds dumb.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, well, because Germans don't call themselves Germans.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Oh yeah, it's Dutsland or something. Yeah, I don't know.
I actually don't know. I should, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So they're saying it's only Herman the German in non yeah,
in non German languages. Right, you've in fact lied to.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Me potentially, but it's still Herman. In the nineteenth century,
you have German unification under Ottovon Bismarck, and that creates
Germany as a thing, and they are really Bismarck and
all those people are really and Arminius yeah, and he's
right wing as fuck. From eighteen seventy five to eighteen
eighty six, the largest statue in the world was an
(37:40):
eighty seven foot high statue of the Mighty Herman.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yuck.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, and the Nazis fucking loved the shit. The statue
is still around. Nazis still go and pilgrimage to this fucking.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Statue eighty feet.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Eighty seven feet yeah. No, it was the largest statue
in the world and it's on an even higher pedestal.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
It wasn't until the Statue of Liberty that there was
a larger statue. Wow, and a statue has inscribed on
its sword to some right wing shit, German unity is
my strength. My strength is Germany's might. Nazis promoted a
version of Herman entirely divorced from reality and use it
to promote racism and nationalism. And like, there's like some
(38:25):
stuff has been written about this. There's other people who
kind of people don't like talking about this. Historians don't
like being like, my cool guy, what did you do
to my boy? You know?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But look how they have massacred my son.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah. When I told what I was covering into, one
of my friends is a history nerd and a theory
nerd that into shit that's over my head. He quoted
to me a Walter Benjumin quote about history where it's
like something like even the dead or not safe about
how like, yeah, they will come even for the dead.
He was actually talking about the Nazis. He was like,
unless we beat the Nazis, even are dead or not
(38:58):
safe from the Nazis.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, I mean, what better motivation? I know.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I remember at one point during an early anti Nazi
rally in a city even more than the like known
anti fascist crew or whatever. The first people at the
demo were the local Heima crew, the local historical European
martial arts group yea, and they were there and they're
like fucking armor and they were like folding signs that
said like Heathen's against hate. Oh yeah, and they like
(39:27):
you know, started making sure to like intentionally flag being
like like yeah, people are like, hey, I'm into Norse
paganism or whatever, but fuck Nazis, like right, yeah, yeah.
The two thousandth anniversary of the battle did not get
much of a celebration in Germany because Nazis ruined everything. Ahhh.
And it's a shame because it was pretty sick that
(39:51):
they tricked all those fucking Romans and then.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Like, yeah, why can't we have nice things?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Nazis that's the answer.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You got to be an ass hat. I know.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Well that's my story.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
It's a good story. Thank you for sharing it with
me today.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, if people want to hear another good yarn, you
got anything?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Uh no, do you?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Oh well, actually people can listen to me alone play
Pathfinder by myself on cool Zone Media. Because according to
the Great Woman of History theory, I actually do everything good.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
That's true. It's funny because if you look deep enough,
you are actually me and I am just a puppet
being operated by your other hand. And you not only
wrote a script today, you also wrote your own guests.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah. Yeah, you're actually a very good actor. I hired
you to read the script that I wrote.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, you've been just lying about when existence entire time.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, and every other guest on the show. That's the
worst part is this entirely scripted show.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, no, wonder people are burning out, not you, but
just people in general.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah. Well, the best secret to avoiding burnout is to
pay a nominal amount of attention to the news and
then lose yourself reading history all the time.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah. I think that's healthy. And I think the other
best way to avoid burnat is to listen to Margaret
and I and some other people who don't matter Playpathfinder. Yeah,
doesn't matter. It's really nice to have stuff that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Actually, that's genuinely actually. Yeah, Like, go Playpathfinder any other
tabletop role playing game, and then if you feel like it,
also listen to us play it on cooles on Media
book Club.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, and go touch some grass.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That's right, especially in states where it's legal. Eh.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I didn't mean it that way.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
No, I know, I just was trying to be clever.
All right, I'm hungry. Bye, everyone, have a good week.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
We'll see you.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website Foalzonemedia dot com or check us out
on you, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Mm hmm
Cool Zon Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're
twice a week. Reminder that I introduced the show the
same time every time. It never changes. This is always
the script. My name is Margaret Kiljoy and I'm the host.
I think you probably inferred that I might even even
implied it. But my guest is Hazel Akasha. Hi. How
are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hi'm Margaret. I'm doing okay. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm all right. I'm hungry. I'm always hungry by the
time I'm recording these.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I ate a bunch of hot Scheetos on the break
and now my mouth is on fire.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Excellent. I ate some pretzel chips. They were good. We
also have a producer whose name Sophie, who's not on
the call, and we also have an audio engineer named
Eva who's also not on the call, but he's listening.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hi Eva, Hi Eva.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And our theme music was written for us by un woman.
And this is part two of a two parter about
a story that I wasn't sure I wanted to tell,
but I actually find it a very entertaining story with
lots of interesting information. It's just that I can't run
around and be like I want to claim this man
as a hero. But also that's like one of the
main lessons of the show, right anyway, is that hero
(01:10):
worship is bad. I know, I went on a long
rund about how I love Roger Casement. Maybe things are blurry.
Maybe sometimes it's okay to heroes interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And also we can't let the Nazis have everything, right, Yeah,
the reasons why the Nazis like this guy are not
the reasons why you like this guy.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I know, and they get real mad, and but I
also am, like, I like a thing that this guy did.
That's all I know. I just know a thing that
he did that I think is cool, and it's enough
to have made it into the history books.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It's almost like, you know, we can all agree to have,
you know, a healthy and respectful amount of admiration for
a person. We're not getting weird about it.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, exactly, So probably put down that tattoo gun and
stop getting ourminius tattoos that you started getting at the
top of the apisode. But maybe not, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Whatever, maybe you know way more about him than we do.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's almost certainly true. I would hope that anyone who's
getting arminiaus Tattoos knows more about him than we do.
And actually the Nazis didn't call m Rminius. They called
him Herman the German. They didn't call him Herman the German.
They called him Herman.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That's fucked up. That's not even because it's not his name.
That's just a bad name.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
You don't like Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No, I don't like Herman the German. No funk that. No,
Herman the German is a fucking beije ass name.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It could be the name of like the sergeant in
a World War two movie who's actually on the American
side but like grew up speaking German in Chicago. He
could be Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Or it's the name of like the mean kid in
like a nineteen fifties Leave It to Beaver. Oh, totally
kind of like sitcom.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Totally, that's Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
The mean kid who like never really talks, just sort
of growls that you yeah, and he's like twice as
big as all the other kids. Because it's nineteen fifty
that we're still weirdly scared of German people in kind
of a racist way. Yeah, But like also they did
their Germans so like whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's who Herman the Germans should have been. But you
know how to name that should get him beat up? Oh,
we now have introduced Arminius, Herman's German. But now let
me introduce you to Publius Quintillus Varus.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Oh my fucking god. Sorry, can I get another read
on this name?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Publius Quinticillus Varus.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah what. I can't believe these people had a whole empire.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I know the name of their kids. Publius pabilius. It
might be pabilious, heabilius. Yeah, oh my god, but I
think it's Publius.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, the only saving grace of our empire said, at
least I get to choose my own dumbass name. I
chose this one for myself. You cannot you give that
to my mom?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah? Glad that the non binary empire that will slowly
cock anyway, that's unrelated. So Publius Quintacilius Varus, who I'm
gonna call virus from now on until I get bored
and start calling him Publius to make fun of him.
He's a Nepo baby. I think that probably was implied.
He's a nepo baby Roman administrator.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, that's how they all are.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh, he's not even a general, he's just a fucking
been counter.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So he's kind of both. And he's not good at
being a general, but he's in charge of whole provinces.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So well, I was gonna say, you got a hand
to him for being bad at being a general, but
then you said he was in charge of all provinces.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And the armies therein. Yeah. Yeah, but also it makes
me feeling better. He wasn't very good as an administrator either.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
You know, there's really nothing like having an empire run
by schmucks. There's nothing like having an empire run by schmucks.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Just Nepo, baby is all the way down.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That's really how you that's how it is, your ass
handed to you.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Uh huh. We never learned this, No, we really really don't,
especially like watching modern fascists try to recreate, like yeah,
putting their kids in charge of everything, right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But that's the thing is either trying to recreate the
Roman Empire, the Roman Empire famously.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Phil I know, I know ed, We'll do it again,
do it again. By Jove, one day I'll do the
Goths taken down the Roman Empire. But it's not as
clean and nice of a story as I want it
to be.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You're just a fucking goth. Yeah, wowed that story to
be good. You should write the historical fan fiction that
you desire.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I want to see in the world. That's a good idea,
and then I'll just present it as a nonfiction on
this show and there'll be no ethical problems with that. No.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Have you ever had a guest on the show and
told them an entirely fake story? No?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When I think about it, at least once a week.
That's my Roman Empire is thinking about how I want
to write fiction and present to this fact on cool
people who did cool stuff. But I just can't bring
myself to do it. I love you all too much,
dear listeners, to do what I want to do to you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The only person stopping you is you.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I know. I'm a fucking paladin. It's awful.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I'm ruined, and if you enjoy Margaret being a paladin,
you should go listen too.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Ah, well done.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I know I'm learning.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I play a spite a champion, which is basically a paladin.
But pathfinder.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, back from plugging our other shit.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, like the Scourge of the earth, so old Publius.
He married the emperor's grand niece and so he got promoted.
What good she's probably honestly, he probably didn't care one
way or the other, which is fine, but not in
a respectful way, but in a I just because I
want to do grift. He absolutely just wants to do grift.
(06:43):
This man is driven by one thing.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
How do you think she felt about that arrangement. Do
you think she was like, hell, yeah, now I also
get to do what I want? Or was she like,
I'm a simp who wants a husband who loves me,
but I will never have such a thing because I
have been born into evil nobility.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I guess that's a question of like how good he
was at grift, And there's a period where he seems
to be good at it, but I think it was
just luck. So either she's as incapable as him and
she's totally define with it, or she's competent and pretty
sad she's straddled with such a loser.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, I hope that she was happy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I hope so, uh, well do I I don't know
if I hope, so, I hope she hated him, and
in which case I hope she was happy because he's
the actual bad guy.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
But with a name like Publius, that's a fucking asshole.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I know. It's just you can't win. It's nominative determinism
that you just need to be bullied, and he had
to go to Germania to get bullied. He rolled over
what's now Tunisia for a year or two in like
eight to seven BCE, and then he got sent over
to Syria, which meant he was in charge of the
largest chunk of the Roman army, and he was corrupt
(07:49):
as hell. One of his contemporaries wrote about him, quote,
Varis entered the rich province a poor man, and left
the poor province a rich man. That's a swindler, I know,
and some good wordplay. Yeah, he got sidelined for a while.
People are kind of like, we don't know what happened
to him for twelve years and then in the autumn
(08:09):
of six CE he was named the governor of Germania. Notably,
Germania wasn't really a province at this point, but it
was germanizing, as we were talking about with that town.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Sorry, was it germanizing or was it romanizing?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Romanizing? That's what it was. Doing it was absolutely romanizing as.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Long as it wasn't womanizing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Now, well not very effectively. They were monogamous and only
got married late.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Oh that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
The position of governor in Germania was only like twenty
years old at this point, and the Romans have been
playing softball with the Germans up to this point, lots
of I hate that expression. Softball isn't like baseball is
not a hard, scary sport. What a weird playing softball? Whatever? Okay,
I take it back.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
If softball is for dikes and playing softball should mean
eating a pussy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I think that's true, and also probably why the German
women didn't remarry after their husbands. Oh no, my husband died.
Whatever will I do? Oh you're a widow too. Oh
you're not a widow yet. Here's some poison anyway. So
there's lots of trade going on with Germania and they're
romanizing slowly, and Varus is like, now fuck that, I'm
(09:16):
the fucking boss. Motherfuckers are going to start paying tribute.
I'm gonna treat you like you're basically enslaved. And there's
eleven legions of Romans stationed there. So sixty six thousand soldiers,
just a lot of Roman soldiers, so they can kind
of get away with it for a little while. People
start to grumble, but Varus wouldn't believe the grumblings. He
(09:39):
was utterly convinced. Again, every source agrees on this, but
I'm also like, I don't know, I haven't read his writing,
but whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, all two sources.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, all two sources. Yeah. And then there are like
some other ones like on this. Like it's like like
that guy who said the clever thing about he was corrupt,
you know, right, But he's convinced that his army is
invincible and that his subjects are fine with everything that's
happening to them.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So that's a bad combo.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's a real bad combo. It's especially a bad combo
when eight of your eleven legions are about to leave. Yeah,
because there was some shit popping off in either Bohemia
or Chechia southeast of Germania. They just took all the
old names and added i A to them. Oh my god,
they did. I was about to say, like Britannia, and
I'm like no, yeah, no, that's what they scott Landia, Nedelinzia, Arlandia, Irelandia, Portlandia. Ah,
(10:35):
Portlandia is actually a Roman province. This explains a lot.
So some shit's popping off in Chechia, and eight of
the eleven legions are sent off east and just leaves
Varus with three legions and about a total of twenty
thousand soldiers. Three legions and a bunch of auxiliaries, but
a lot of the auxiliaries are German, and that's going
(10:57):
to come up. Oh sick Arminius. He is down to
play politics and his dad, the chief of the tribe,
start hanging out with Varus, and they just show up
and they come in like just straight bootleguers. They're like, oh, Varus,
you're so good at this, You're such a good administrator.
Oh we're all so grateful that you're here to treat
(11:18):
us like shit. Varus, you're doing so good. And Varus
just eats this shit up. He fucking buys it everything
they're selling. Meanwhile, a coalition of four or five tribes
is coming together to fight the Romans, the Cheruscans, the Marcie,
the Broctarians, and the Chatty.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At least I like the Chatties. I know that's the
one I'd be a part of the chatty Kathys.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I think that is actually probably their full name
is the chatty Kathys.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Oh, and that's where that term comes from.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Everyone. When my elementary school teachers accuse me of being
a chatty kathy, I should have turned them and said,
you mean like the old German tribes.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, that turned and destroyed an empire, or at least
drove an empire out.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Gossip saves lives.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Gossip does save lives, and in this case, gossip tried
to save the Romans lives because they had a problem.
They had this coalition. They're going to lure virus into
a trap and then just like murder or that shit
out of all the Roman legions. That's their plan. Yeah,
but there's a problem with their plan. There's a snitch
because our minius has an enemy and it's his father
(12:24):
in law. But I think not yet. I actually think
he marries his wife after this battle, but it's his
father in law to.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Be Oh shit, can't trust that men laws?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No, absolutely not, especially especially not this one. His wife's
name is Thusnelda, which is a sick name.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
That fucking rules. After my next Pathfinder character, all the
Grimes or whatever, so Sneld is next.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, by most accounts, and again they're gonna get married
later in the story, but I'm not one hundred percent
certain about that, And this is where I wrote it
into the script. By most accounts, the two of them
in love and are close to each other and similar
in temperament. There's like whole things about how she like
doesn't cry because she's so tough, because she's a hard
primitive or whatever the fuck you know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, sure, people got weird opinions.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, but I run across one of the problems with
reading this history when it comes to Thussenelda, because by
and large, people who write about this era are let's
go with conservative, that's the nice way to say it. Yeah,
But here's where we run into an interesting split in
modern types of conservative. Guy. Oh, some fascists love Rome
(13:38):
and they're so pro Rome, and they hate all the
barbarians in this story. Other fascists love Germany and they
love the good and noble Barbarians, not the weak, effeminate Romans,
and therefore our minius can do no wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Oh shit.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And the easiest way to know which soorce' reading is
to read about how they talk about Thusnelda. Yeah, either Arminius,
that dastardly rogue, kidnapped Thusnelda or the two of them
eloped without her father in law's consent. Uh huh. I
believe it's the latter. I believe that people wrote about
(14:15):
it as kidnapping because she was her father's property. Yeah,
Arminius and thusneld are married, but possibly not till later.
And this is either why her dad Segates is really mad.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Sorry Segates, Yes, Segates, Segees Nuts, Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So Segaty's Nuts is really mad about this, and he
goes to Varus and he's all ready to snitch out
and he's like, there's a conspiracy against you, and it's
run by Arminius. But what he didn't know is that
there was a conspiracy. And the conspiracy is all of
the people who are trying to stop you from buying
everything that is sold. There is a conspiracy against you,
(15:00):
dear listener, trying to stop you from hearing what our
advertisers have to say.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
They're the dirty reds. They're trying to destroy the free market.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, and so you can stick it to the
man by no, just don't sports gamble. It's just a
bad idea. Regular gamble if you want to, unless you
have a problem with it. But sports gamble on your phone.
Don't do it. Just no gambling should happen on your phone.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We gamble and casinos like man.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Unlike those weak Romans. Here's ads. So our Minia shows up.
We're sorry, not Arminia, says Segs. It's not name that
his name. Segaties goes to Varus and it's like, there's
a conspiracy against you, and Varus just fucking ignores it. No,
(15:53):
they're like, oh, that guy's just jealous and just straight
up ignores it. Seganies doubles down and is like, look,
I care about Rome. I don't know why I'm a
boot liquor. I just love the taste. Just arrest all
of the German leaders, even me, and then you can
sort out who's guilty later, Like you can arrest me
(16:15):
because I knew about this. And Varus is like, no,
everyone actually loves me. Arminius keeps telling me that everyone
loves me, so it must be true.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What in fucking I hate everybody in the story. I
know none of these people are cool people. These are
all bad people who do sort of cool thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
No, absolutely, Arminius like, yeah, he's gonna get his because
he didn't read talking. But Arminius gets this guy's total trust.
Varus is like, I fucking love you, Arminius, And so
Arminius is like, Varus, there actually is a rebellion brewing,
just not us good tribes. It's the bad tribes. In fact,
(16:57):
we should take all three legions and start putting down
this rebellion. And so our Minius convinces Varus to start
quartering troops in people's houses in the rebellious territory to be.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Like, oh, people famously hate.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That, yeah, and then go on a big long march
and they're actually, well, there is a rebellion, but it's
not the one that they think. Yeah, although ironically it
is actually the rebellious households. We'll get to that. And
then we're gonna go on this big long march where
all twenty thousand troops and all of their like, all
their families and shit come along too, and they have
(17:29):
their families and their servants. And our Minius is like,
you know, it's a long it's a long march. We
go all the way around that forest. What if we
went through Tuttenberg Forest. What if I know a short cut,
you can trust me?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Not a short cut?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And Virus is like, sure, whatever you say, I am
so unintelligent that it'll forever change history. Oh god, and
like like literally, like that's just like unless this story
is being written in a way where Varus is just
being painted as a but everyone is like this is
this guy?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, what happened was that I laughed so hard that
I hiccuped.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And so the shortcut they took was rough going. The
paths were narrow, leaving the army stretched out across miles
and miles of dense forest.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
They had to fell trees and build bridges, and they
also like built roads literally they found like survey steaks
and stuff like that. Later, whoa, and the winds were wild,
and a storm picked up, and the wind and rain
made Roman bows nearly useless. The mud made their armor
an impediment because they're wearing a fucked on of weight, right,
(18:44):
And the narrow path meant that they couldn't form the
formations that made them so legendary and open conflict and
so Arminius and his dad, as well as probably the
German soldiers embedded in the army, like the auxiliaries that
they worked with. They just slip out at some point
to go joined the ambush that's coming. Meanwhile, all those
troops that are quartered in people's houses, all the people
(19:06):
living in those houses just slaughter the troops at.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Night, sick. Yeah, no notes.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, don't quarter people's houses. I don't know what to
tell you.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
It's in our constitution. I don't think we'll be able
to use that one this time.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, if they break that one, we're good.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
This was hammered over my head like several different years
of elementary school histories that they really hated it when
the British Empire put troops in people's homes in the
seventeen hundreds. Yeah, and it was like a feature of
why we broke away from them.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So I don't know, but fascists are dumb and cowardly,
and I hate spending government money for whatever reason. So
who knows, who knows what we're in for.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I think what would work in the modern era is
the like sucking up and being like everyone loves you.
I think that those people would absolutely fall for some flattery.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Absolutely, I'm sure that they are, and I'm also sure
that the people doing that are not necessarily on our team.
I think they're probably just going to continue to strip
the copper wiring out of the proverbial house of the government.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I think you're right, unfortunately, but okay, So all the
people get slaughtered while they're middle of the night wherever
they're quartered, so there's no reinforcements coming for the legions now,
and then the main force while it's spread out over
like I've read four or five miles, I've read like
eight miles. They're spread out over a long way. The
four or five tribes sneak up, throw javelins into the
(20:36):
Romans and then just like harassed and killed them. It's probable,
and this is actually a Roman tactic that they used.
They built a zig zag defensive wall about four feet tall.
And the reason that zigzag is so you have like
two angles of attack at any given time from each
place here around.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh. Interesting, that's good.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I know. Star fortresses are a thing where people were like, oh,
the best defensive system is not a circle, it's a
star fortress.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah. The Trays Italians. Oh shit, this is in that
John Darneil book.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Everyone read Wolf in White
Van if.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You want, If you want, it was a fine book. Yeah,
but uh, pod alum of cool people.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's true. And so basically, archaeologists found this four foot
high wall and it was probably used as cover for
the assault, and later archaeological finds show that the Roman
artifacts like go up to the wall but not over it.
So this is like where they like tried to storm
this four foot wall and just kept getting killed.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, and they didn't like move the bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So I'll talk about what happens to the bodies. Several
people are going to get involved with the bodies in
various ways.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
All right, Yeah. The pop history of this moment, the
one that most people say is that the Germans were
wildly outnumbered, but through sheer barbarian strength and cunning they
beat the Romans. Realistically, the Germans almost certainly outnumbered the
Romans and got constant reinforcements. Or I read that from
someone who was a pro Roman analyst, because again, everyone
(22:11):
has sides here. By and large, the Germans fought only
with short spears, which were excellent in the dense woods.
And it's because like you kin'd have to be rich
to have a sword. Yeah, and the Romans fled as
quickly as they could, and they built a hasty formation
that they defended through the night. Quite possibly that even
the Barbarians were like, we're not going to bother attacking
(22:32):
you in the middle of a wild wind and rainstorm
at night in the woods, because like, we can't fucking
see who we're fighting, you know. Yeah, But as soon
as dawn broke, the Barbarians stormed the Romans camp and
sent them into a wild retreat for three more days.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh shit.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
And it's possible that this was a sort of orderly
thing with the Romans, like marching, and then you know,
they try and get they're trying to get sixty miles
to their nearest formation, and they last another three days
of marching. But it's also possible it probably started that
way and soon enough was just like a three day
route where people are being hunted down and killed in
the woods.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
On the fourth day, some people think it was the
third day, and the Roman historian made a typo I
think this was Tacitus not cashiest day, but I can't remember,
because nothing happened on the third day. It's like on
the first day this and the second day this and
on the fourth.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Day, you know, well the third day he rises from
the grave.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh right, that's actually probably what happened. On the fourth day,
the brave Roman officers like Varas killed themselves to avoid
capture and torture, and so all their soldiers were like, well, fuck,
what do we do? What do we do now? Pretty
much they were all slaughtered. Falling on your sword was
its style and the time for Roman officers. To be clear,
it wasn't like a like they were uniquely cowardly or
(23:43):
noble or whatever. They were doing what they were sort
of told to do, and there were barely any survivors,
and the ones that were simply ran the fuck away.
Like the survivors basically like who fled at the very beginning,
some of them made it to the rhine and like
told what happened?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
No one else survived because remember how sane, how accepting
surrender as a relatively new technology, right?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Who yeah, No, it's twenty thousand soldiers plus a lot
of other people. Six years later, some Romans returned to
the scene of the slaughter and they found again, according
to a Roman historian, so who knows if this is true,
but it probably is. They found that the Roman soldiers
had had their heads nailed to trees and that others
were sacrificed on bloody altars or burned alive. Whoa fuck,
(24:31):
Yeah they were barbarians. Yeah. But also, like again the
thing that you've run across over and over in history
where pro imperial sources will always play up the like
brutality of the people that they want to go genocide,
Because that army that says that they found these things
was literally trying to genocide the Germans. They went back
(24:54):
to kill all of them. They were like, we're just
going to get rid of German me and Germans. It
was a big part of their plan. They're not going
to succeed. We'll get to that. Meanwhile, the Germans find
Varus's body and they cut off his head and they
sent his head to this guy in Checchia, king marrow Baduz,
(25:16):
hoping that he would join in their revolt. But the
Czech king actually just turned around in boot liquor form
and sent Varis' head onto Rome because he's trying to
play nice with Rome at this point.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, as you do.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
But do you know you can get ahead, Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I see what you did there.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Thank you, Thank you. You can listen to ads or
actually can get ahead faster if you just press the
skip ahead button a couple times and we're back. So
this defeat in Tunenberg Forest, twenty thousand soldiers, and no
one bothered to count all of the non soldiers who
(25:55):
were there. Why would anyone count that? Literally no source
even bothered to guess how many civilians in this, Like,
no one even bothered. Fuck anyway, this fucked Rome up.
Rome was like, we are invincible, that's our thing. But
more than ten percent of the entire military had just
been destroyed over the course of four days, which is
(26:16):
literally a decimation. Augustus the Caesar, he lost his fucking shit.
He would apparently, according to some sources, and this is
like his famous quote about this, he would roam around
beating his head against the wall, shouting, Varus, give me
back my legions.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Just so creative. I knew, Wow, they should have. It
was really a good move to put him and control
an entire empire.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I think that one person should be in charge of everything.
I think that's a good plan with no downsides.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I think it's a fine plan. I just think they've
got to have more style, like quote, verus give me
back my allegiance. He can do better. That's the first draft.
Edit it a little more, come back with more flair.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Well, he's also going to invent the rom com trope
of man loses his shit and stops shaving. Oh, because
for months he stops getting his haircut or shaving because
he's so distraught that he can't bring himself to do
basic grooming.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Uh, you know, depression, Queen, I've been there too early.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah. And because fascist governments never change. Back in Rome,
all the Germans and Gauls in the city were thrown out,
as if they had had something to do with it.
German and Gaulish soldiers in the Roman Army were sent
to go protect remote islands so that if they rose up,
it wouldn't be a big deal. Oh yeah, it's like
such a nothing ever changes, fucking nightmare things.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
That town, the trading town, built in four AD, was
deserted within months of the Battle of Tutburg. Someone burned
it to the ground, probably the deserting Romans because they
didn't want it to fall into German hands.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Then someone, presumably the Germans, busted up that bronze, do
you and repurpose the metal and sacrifice the horse head
to the water gods in the well? And if you're
going to sacrifice horses, it should probably be bronze horseheads. Yeah,
that's my hot take.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Right, I mean, the only unethical thing there is wasting
raw material. Bronze is valuable and useful, but you know
you're not killing a horse.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I mean it's like literally the idea of sacrifice, right,
is you take something out of the productive economy. Like
that's like it's like thing as you're saying, like, I'm
going to be unproductive with this. Rome didn't take the
loss of Germania lying down or of three legions. They
sent a general named Germanicus to go conquer Germania, which
(28:42):
feels a little on the nose, I would agree.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Again, scriptwriters, can we just get something a little bit better?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
You would think he inherited the honorific name from his father,
who had tried to extend the Roman border to the north.
And while he's up there marching's Neelda's dad kidnaps his
own pregnant daughter and gives her to Germanicus into slavery.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Fuck that also, I forgot about the Snelda and thank
you for the reminder.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, good fucking name, good fucking name.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Fucked up that her dad did that.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I know. This is part of why I'm like, I
don't think Ourminia is kidnapped, Thusnelda. I think Thusnelda kidnapped
herself away from her fucking dad.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Found like her dad fucking sucks. Yeah, good thing he's dead.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I know.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
That's a nice thing about all of these motherfuckers. Arminius
never saw her again.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You never saw never saw her again.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You also never met his kid. And uh, I think
as Tacitus wrote about the kid being like it was
a boy, and then Tacitus was like, and when he
was three, Well, I'll tell you that in a different book.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh my god, did he write it?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
We don't know. Fuck yeah, there's so many things that
Tastas is like, I'll get to that later. And then like,
there's a lot of books we don't have, and a
lot of books that might not have ever been written.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Oh like they just didn't survive.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah all right, Yeah, so it might not have been
a Georgia R. Martin thing. It might be like, although,
actually mean, what if Georgia R. Martin actually did finish
writing it, and he just finished writing it at the
end of the Iron Age and it was destroyed.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I really wouldn't be surprised if George R. Martin was
secretly somehow transported from the Roman Empire that feels energetically aligned.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, the r RS is Romulus and remiss.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
I believe that canonically to be true if you go
on his Wikipedia page. Yeah, well, I mean that this
is finestly like the crux of a lot of Game
of Thrones. Lare right is like, did ned Stark's sister
get kidnapped by the guy or did she kidnap herself?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Oh? Fuck? Yeah. Like I said, Game of Thrones is
way more ancient world than medieval, despite it being like
technologically medieval. And depending on the bias of your source,
you're gonna get different accounts of Germanicus's fairly long war
in Germany. Most Roman sources are like, we won and
the because they sure killed a lot of Germans, but
(31:05):
it was a stalemate, and a stalemate favors the defenders.
Germanicus eventually goes back across the Rhine, but his whole
thing is that he was like not necessarily there to
conquer Germany. But I don't know. I think Rome wan
in Germany, but he was kind of as captured the
flag thing. Each legion had a gold eagle standard, and
(31:31):
so there's three of them, and they managed to recapture
two of them. And that's the like we did it, guys,
Like he's standing on the aircraft carrier with the like
you know, mission accomplished. But Arminius led a lot of
the revolt against Germanicus and did like really clever shit,
like divert streams and rivers to flood fields so that
(31:54):
the battlefields were like marshy, so that it favors the
barbarians instead of the Roman legions.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Interesting because of the armor and the mud.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, Rome didn't know how to fight a guerrilla war
in the forest and bog They never conquered Germany. Instead,
they kind of stayed happy to let the Germans fight
each other endlessly. Later, Rome figured out a better way
to grow strong. Rather than conquering places directly, You let
immigrants from those places come in, let them become citizens
(32:24):
after serving in the military, and then give them land
in some colony somewhere, So you make your enemy die
for you and expand your empire for you. But Arminius,
I promised you his.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
End, Yes, give it to me.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
He wound up chief of his tribe, and he was
basically trying to be in charge of everyone.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Skeptical.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, it didn't work out for him. Tacitus wrote that
Arminius quote found himself opposed and aiming at the throne
by his countryman's independent spirit. He was assailed by armed force,
and while fighting with various success, fell the treachery of
his kinsmen. So it was literally his own clan was like,
oh shit, not fuck you. You're not fucking in charge of everyone.
(33:07):
We didn't fight this whole ass war against having a
fucking emperor to have a king.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, fuck off, reasonable position, I know.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And yeah, they wanted him when he could drive off
a tyrant, not when he wanted to become one. Yeah,
if he had read Lord of the Rings, he would
have known.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
He would have known.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, for thousands of years, no one knew exactly where
this battle took place. I think we're still not one
hundred percent sure, but I think we're most of the
way there. I read scientific articles that are like, we're
almost ready to know that this is the right place,
But I didn't find the follow up articles. You know, Yeah,
because in nineteen eighty seven, a guy with a metal
(33:45):
detector who was looking for ancient Roman shit. He was
looking for this, but he had a metal Detector's just
a guy with a metal detector. And he found a
fuck ton of coins one weekend, one hundred and five
coins in a week shit, and none of them were
newer than the reign of Augustus.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And then he found all kinds of legions on the
march stuff, like a legion is sixty centuries and a
century as one hundred soldiers. Yeah, although I think later
they move it down to sixty soldiers, but I can't remember.
Don't quote me on that. I just wantly read that
shit so I can write weird dark age's fiction or
iron age fiction. Each century had what was called a signifier,
(34:21):
which is a person who is the standard bearer, and
they look sick as hell. They wear silver face masks
and bear and lion furs.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Oh sorry what yeah? What? Yeah, this is the only
thing of silent substance that I've heard all episode.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah. No, the Roman signifiers looked sick as hell, and
symbols were so fucking important, Like the signifier, I think
didn't even have a weapon. They had like the stick
that like the standard. Yeah, and then they also had
a buckler like a little shield, and they had to
be at the front lines.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
God awful.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And if your signifier died in your century, then like
you suck, your legion is disgraced. So everyone's trying to
defend you at least.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Okay. Is it a job that goes to like the
new guy he doesn't know how to fight yet, or
is a job that goes to like the guy who's
been around for a while and is like the most popular.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I don't know, no, I actually can't remember. But it's
funny because this would matter a lot because the way
that Rome did their legions is you put the new
people on the front line and then this line behind
them is that people have a little bit of experience
and then the people behind them are like the real FETs.
But I actually I don't remember about the signifiers. And
Arminius is considered a national hero in Germany except now
(35:42):
because most people don't want national heroes in Germany.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Again a reasonable position.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
But the people who are using it for German nationalism
are of course doing it wrong. They're like, isn't it
cool that our Manius prove that Germans are like biologically
superior to Romans, gross rather than isn't it cool that
he organized a bunch of groups of people to come
together and kick out an invading force and probably we
shouldn't have invading forces. And also when he reached too
(36:07):
close to the sun, the other barbarians were like, you're
not better than us, bud.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Hellia, No, I like you read a lot more.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, thanks, I.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Don't even think it's like a stretch of like how
to narrate that story?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to be like. No,
it's just like the true barbarian spirit is not letting
Arminius fucking take control, like right. Martin Luther, the older one.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Protestant guy nailed ninety five theieces to a door.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, one at a time. He was really into Arminius
because he's really into fighting the influence of Roman Germany.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And he renamed Arminius with a good German name, German name,
Herman the German.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh what is that? In German?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
They don't call him Herman the German, and German they
just call Herman. And it's just a way to make
fun of him is to call Herman the German because
it sounds dumb.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, well, because Germans don't call themselves Germans.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Oh yeah, it's Dutsland or something. Yeah, I don't know.
I actually don't know. I should, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So they're saying it's only Herman the German in non yeah,
in non German languages. Right, you've in fact lied to.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Me potentially, but it's still Herman. In the nineteenth century,
you have German unification under Ottovon Bismarck, and that creates
Germany as a thing, and they are really Bismarck and
all those people are really and Arminius yeah, and he's
right wing as fuck. From eighteen seventy five to eighteen
eighty six, the largest statue in the world was an
(37:40):
eighty seven foot high statue of the Mighty Herman.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yuck.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, and the Nazis fucking loved the shit. The statue
is still around. Nazis still go and pilgrimage to this fucking.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Statue eighty feet.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Eighty seven feet yeah. No, it was the largest statue
in the world and it's on an even higher pedestal.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
It wasn't until the Statue of Liberty that there was
a larger statue. Wow, and a statue has inscribed on
its sword to some right wing shit, German unity is
my strength. My strength is Germany's might. Nazis promoted a
version of Herman entirely divorced from reality and use it
to promote racism and nationalism. And like, there's like some
(38:25):
stuff has been written about this. There's other people who
kind of people don't like talking about this. Historians don't
like being like, my cool guy, what did you do
to my boy? You know?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But look how they have massacred my son.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah. When I told what I was covering into, one
of my friends is a history nerd and a theory
nerd that into shit that's over my head. He quoted
to me a Walter Benjumin quote about history where it's
like something like even the dead or not safe about
how like, yeah, they will come even for the dead.
He was actually talking about the Nazis. He was like,
unless we beat the Nazis, even are dead or not
(38:58):
safe from the Nazis.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, I mean, what better motivation? I know.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I remember at one point during an early anti Nazi
rally in a city even more than the like known
anti fascist crew or whatever. The first people at the
demo were the local Heima crew, the local historical European
martial arts group yea, and they were there and they're
like fucking armor and they were like folding signs that
said like Heathen's against hate. Oh yeah, and they like
(39:27):
you know, started making sure to like intentionally flag being
like like yeah, people are like, hey, I'm into Norse
paganism or whatever, but fuck Nazis, like right, yeah, yeah.
The two thousandth anniversary of the battle did not get
much of a celebration in Germany because Nazis ruined everything. Ahhh.
And it's a shame because it was pretty sick that
(39:51):
they tricked all those fucking Romans and then.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Like, yeah, why can't we have nice things?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Nazis that's the answer.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You got to be an ass hat. I know.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Well that's my story.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
It's a good story. Thank you for sharing it with
me today.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, if people want to hear another good yarn, you
got anything?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Uh no, do you?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Oh well, actually people can listen to me alone play
Pathfinder by myself on cool Zone Media. Because according to
the Great Woman of History theory, I actually do everything good.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
That's true. It's funny because if you look deep enough,
you are actually me and I am just a puppet
being operated by your other hand. And you not only
wrote a script today, you also wrote your own guests.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah. Yeah, you're actually a very good actor. I hired
you to read the script that I wrote.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, you've been just lying about when existence entire time.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, and every other guest on the show. That's the
worst part is this entirely scripted show.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, no, wonder people are burning out, not you, but
just people in general.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah. Well, the best secret to avoiding burnout is to
pay a nominal amount of attention to the news and
then lose yourself reading history all the time.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah. I think that's healthy. And I think the other
best way to avoid burnat is to listen to Margaret
and I and some other people who don't matter Playpathfinder. Yeah,
doesn't matter. It's really nice to have stuff that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Actually, that's genuinely actually. Yeah, Like, go Playpathfinder any other
tabletop role playing game, and then if you feel like it,
also listen to us play it on cooles on Media
book Club.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, and go touch some grass.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That's right, especially in states where it's legal. Eh.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I didn't mean it that way.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
No, I know, I just was trying to be clever.
All right, I'm hungry. Bye, everyone, have a good week.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
We'll see you.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website Foalzonemedia dot com or check us out
on you, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Mm hmm
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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