Man’s OTHER Best Friend... the Horse.
Teutoberg Forest... yikes... Arminius and his boys destroyed three Roman legions there.
“Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!”
- Augustus Caesar
I ded.
The Germans make good stuff.
Lord Augustus each time bawling
As he fetched his head a crack,
Varus, Varus, General Varus,
Give me my three Eagles Back!
Lord Augustus tore his bedclothes,
Blanket, sheet, and counterpane.
“Varus, Varus, General Varus,
Give my Regiments back again!”
From I CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves.
Arminius set up an ambush and the Varus wasn’t a military commander (more of a MC in name only). Within a few years Arminius was leading another attack against Roman legions sent after him, and barely escaped. Rome kept a price on his head, and eventually his own family killed him, and sent his head to collect the money.
Whatever Roman withdrawal there was didn’t last too long. Not many years ago a Roman high-status cemetery was found in a rescue dig in Copenhagen Denmark (I suppose they were expecting to find Vikings or something), and just in the past year or so the remains of a barbarian army, defeated by the Romans, was found somewhere a bit SW of Copenhagen. The defeat and aftermeasures by the Romans was so complete that the cleared land went back to forest until the Middle Ages.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/romangermany/index