"...for thou art the death of the world."

In legend, St. Christopher is remembered as a giant of a man described as being anywhere from 12 to 18 feet tall and sometimes described as having the head of a dog. These are loaded descriptions to impart attributes of Power, Respect, Geography and Loyalty.

These descriptions also echo aspects of the Greek (giants) and Egyptian (Set, Anubis) pantheons. A legitimizing effect of early Christianity was in comparing it's saints with those ancient preexisting religions. Many accounts describe Caananites (in modern day Lebanon) as doglike or canine. This not unlike the beast headed deities of nearby Egypt.

St. Christopher, himself, was born as Reprobus in Canaan anywhere from 200-225 AD during Roman rule.

Later to be known as the patron saint of travelers, St. Christopher is said to have wandered the ancient world searching for a master. As Reprobus, he first enrolled himself in the court of a fearsome Middle Eastern king. After fighting as a soldier, he left the king's service after he saw his master cross himself at the mention of the Devil's name. Reprobus sought the Devil that this great king feared.

Reprobus came upon a group of bandits whose leader proclaimed himself the Devil. While traveling with the bandits Reprobus watched as the thieves and their leader cowered before a crucifix on the roadside. Reprobus parted company with the Devil determined to find the man who made the Devil himself cower.

"You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king..."

- from The Golden Legend by William Caxton, 1483

Wandering in the wastes, Reprobus met a hermit named Certes who eventually instructed him in the Christian faith. After being baptized as Christopher by Certes he asked the hermit how he could serve Christ, the man whose name was invoked by kings and made thieves and devils tremble.

Certes the hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher replied that he was unable to perform that service. The hermit suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river nearby.

This is a loaded section of the legend. First, river-crossing can apply to obstacles both real and metaphorical. Christopher had crossed many rivers within himself as he traveled searching for a master. Second, there were no city departments in the ancient world. No one was regularly building or maintaining bridges in the hinterland.

Third, there very few official churches in the 3rd Century. This was still an "underground period" for Christianity. A priest had to carry his church with him on his back. Fourth, this tale takes place between the underground period and the proclamation of Christianity was de-criminalized in the 4th Century by Constantine (Edict of Milan February 313 AD)- bridging the gap between the two very different times.

Much help was needed at this point in history... so Christopher accepted.

After he had performed this service for some time, a little child asked him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river rose and the child seemed to grow much heavier. Christopher's strength was tested and he found himself in danger of drowning. When he finally reached the other side of the river, he said to the child: "You've put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were."

The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work." The child then vanished.

Eventually Christopher traveled to the city of Lycia, in the southern coast of Turkey, Christopher spoke with local Christians there who were being martyred by Roman law. He was brought before the local king, called Dagnus, who demanded that Christopher sacrifice animals to the local pagan gods. Not to do so would make him a criminal according to Roman law.

Christopher is said to have replied: "...thou art the death of the world, and fellow of the devil, and thy gods be made with the hands of men." No hidden meanings in the story this time. In no uncertain terms, and facing death, Christopher was true to his master.

"...thou art the death of the world, and fellow of the devil, and thy gods be made with the hands of men."

- from The Golden Legend by William Caxton, 1483

King Dagnus, still trying to ally with Christopher, then tried to bribe him with a promise of riches and two beautiful women. Much to Dagnus's dismay, Christopher converted these women to Christianity and refused the bribe. Finally, Dagnus ordered all three of them to be decapitated.

St. Christopher was martyred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Decius about two-hundred years after Jesus Christ. Decius, himself, would rule the empire for just two years before being killed in battle. During his brief reign, Decius issued edicts demanding the blood of Christians - especially leaders like St. Christopher. According to history, Christopher suffered and died as a martyr in the second year of Decius on July 21^st 251 AD.

References:
Wikipedia, Saint Christopher
Sir Thomas Brownes' Vulgar Errors V.xvi, Of St. Christopher
The Golden Legend, The Life of Saint Christopher

As I See

Boris Artzybasheff (1899 - 1965) was a prolific illustrator who was born in the city of Kharkov in the former Russian province of Ukraine.

As a young man, Artzybasheff fought as a White Russian soldier for the Czars during the Bolshevik Revolution. The October uprising that initiated the Russian Civil War (1917-1923) would eventually bring the Communist Soviet Union to power. The war would leave it's mark on Artzybasheff's work and his work ethic.

In Russia, during the struggle, the monarchist White Russians fought for the survival of the Russian royal family alongside U.S. Marines but were ultimately overwhelmed. The royalists were eventually crushed. Czar Nicholas Romanov's royal family, whose forebears had known assasinations and intrigue for many generations were executed down to the last man, woman and child.

Remaining royalists were summarily imprisoned or executed by the Communists whose revolt was inspired by the bloody domination of the Czars for centuries. The royal families bodies were burned and then buried in Yekaterinburg in Central Russia. After the Czar's four daughters were killed it was discovered that they each bore an amulet or braclet bearing the picture of disgraced monk Grigori Rasputin and a prayer.



The remainder of the 2.4 million man White Army was scattered throughout Europe, Turkey and America. Some would go on to serve as mercenaries, others found their place in Hitler's Reich. Artzybasheff fled Russia in 1919 seeking political asylum after the royal family was killed and 5 years before all of Russian belonged to the Communists.

When Artzybasheff immigrated to New York City he was penniless and without a working knowledge of English. In time, Artzybasheff eventually found work in an engraving shop and his earliest work appeared in 1922 as illustrations for Verotchka's Tales and The Undertaker's Garland. A number of other book illustrations followed during the 1920's.



His graphic style was always fluid and striking. In commercial work, Artzybasheff explored grotesque experiments in anthropomorphism, where toiling machines displayed distinctly human attributes. Conversely, one of his works shows Buckminster Fuller's head in the form of Fuller's geodesic structure.

In his personal work, Artzybasheff explored the depiction of vivid and extreme ranges of human psychology and emotion. Artzybasheff went to on to illustrate 200 covers for TIME magazine and 50 books including his own book entitled As I See (1954). He worked exhaustively in advertising as a graphic designer for Xerox, Shell, Pan Am, and Parke-Davis.

References:
Wikipedia, Boris Artzybasheff
Wikipedia, Russian Religious Sect: Khlystism
ASIFA-Hollywood Archieve, Media: Artzybasheff's Diablerie
BPIB, Boris Artzybasheff
American Art Archives, Boris Artzybasheff

The Rose and the Reich

Munich 1942, from the left: Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christopher Probst.

The White Rose were a group of students, writers and designers from the University of Munich that held weekly discussion groups, painting "Freedom" on brick walls and circulated anti-facist literature in the heart of Nazi Germany during World War II.

From June 1942 until February of 1943, members of the White Rose wrote and distributed newsletters that attacked the brutal policies of Nazi Germany that included the brutal truth about euthanasia of German citizens, genocide of Jews, the practice of concentration camps for opposition leaders, and the draconian punishments for speaking out against the policy of compulsorary military service, beginning as children, in Hitler's armies. The White Rose sent these leaflets across Germany and Europe in an attempt to build a "bridge to the non-Nazi world."^[0]

"- why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you openly and in secret, of your rights until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanized state system presided over by criminals? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget...?"

— From Leaflet #2, 1942

The leaders of the White Rose: Hans and Sophie Scholls, Christopher Probst and the others were not Jewish, Communists or violent dissenters. They were German citizens. As children, the Scholls had been leaders in the Nazi Youth Party. Hans had been a flagbearer at a Party Rally in Nuremberg. Additionally, before entering medical school, Hans Scholls had enlisted in the German Army and fought for Germany in WWII.

One day however, as the war raged, Hans Scholls came upon a young Jewish woman, under forced labor, digging a trench. The whole idea of what the Nazi regime was doing struck his heart, he realized but for the grace of God, he could have been the one there, or his sister.

A series of six leaflets signed by the "Students of Munich" were diseminated until the six core members of the group were captured by the Gestapo in 1943.

The leaders of the White Rose, mostly in their twenties, including the Scholls and Christopher Probst, were tried in the notorious People's Courts and executed by decapitation in 1943. Inge Scholl, one of the few members of the group who outlived the Reich, went on to found a school in Ulm and wrote several books about the resistance group.

Notes:
[0] = "G.39, Ein deutsches Flugblatt (A German Leaflet)", Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Database, Twentieth World War, Psywar.org.

References:
Wikipedia, The White Rose of Munich
IMDB, Die weiße Rose (1982)
Spartacus Education, White Rose: Nazi Germany
Shoah Education, The White Rose
Amazon, The White Rose: Munich, 1942-1943 by Inge Scholl translated by Arthur R. Schultz, Unknown Binding 1983.

The Father of Conan: Robert E. Howard

I. Two-Gun Bob in Cimmeria
Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was different. He was a burly Texan who bore a resemblance to Edward G. Robinson but could write like Edgar Allan Poe on an opium fueled rye whiskey bender. Howard was making a small fortune from his writing as a young man but his parents never acknowledged writing as a serious profession for Howard. Consequentially, he strove well beyond their meager expectations of a what a writer should be by publishing 62 novels and dozens of short stories printed in pulp comics and magazines.

After his death, his characters would live on as new authors took up his heroes - the indestructible Conan the Barbarian, Kull The Conquerer, the vile wizard Thulsa Doom, Red Sonya and the vengeful Solomon Kane.

Where in the brains and talent lottery did Mr. Howard fall? To judge this accurately, look at Howard's contemporaries. Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator Tarzan of the Apes (first published in 1912) and John Carter of Mars, undoubtedly influenced the stories of Howard starting at a very early age. H.P. Lovecraft, the acknowledged master of horror, would influence and engage Howard personally in a lengthy correspondence that would last for the rest of his life.

J.R.R. Tolkien, a world away, was nearly simultaneouslly working in elaborate fantasy worlds. Both Howard's and Tolkien's stories were set in unique and lavishly detailed worlds of distant ages past. Later, Frank Frazetta, an artist in his own remarkable class of fantasy illustration, would pick up Howard's theme of the rugged individual set against a ruthless world of blood-thirsty men, angry demons, dark gods and colossal reptiles. In this kind of company, Howard is thought to have been ranked fairly high as far as the brains department went - right there in the heart of dusty, old Texas.

"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."

— Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword.

However, as all men are all the product of the same even hand, Howard was given a large share of hardship and emotional turbulence to balance out the large measure of talent he was alotted. Howard was a lifelong chronic depressive renowned for his gloominess. His mother, Hester Jane, was sick or bedridden most of his life. He was never engaged, married or had any children. In the end , Howard died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours before his mother would succumb to cancer.

This sad end to his life was a tragic theft of a great writer. His life was just as fascinating as his writing. But, to try to understand Robert E. Howard you must start at the beginning of his life - not at the end.

II. The kid from the dry Texas waste
Robert E. Howard's youth was spent wandering with his traveling country doctor father Isaac Howard and his tubercular mother Hester Ervin Howard. While Robert was growing up, the family moved through a series of small Texas towns tending wildcat oilmen and new and old frontiersmen.

The Howards lived in a long line of cowtowns and boomtowns including: Dark Valley, Seminole, Bronte, Poteet, Oran, Wichita Falls, Bagwell, Cross Cut, and Burkett before settling in Cross Plains. He was an unusually bright child who spoke to aging Civil War veterans and Texas Rangers, listening to the grisly ghost stories told by his grandmother, meeting ex-slaves, and exploring the ruins of old forts and historical sites. These experiences had a strong influence on his personality. By the time he reached his teens, Howard had soaked in the aftermath of the American West through the first hand tales of the people that were part of that history.

The Howards eventually settled in the 1920's in a small town of approximately two thousand residents called Cross Plains. Like much of the Central West Texas region of the era, Cross Plains went through periodic oil-based booms that brought hundreds or even thousands of temporary inhabitants who set up camps just outside the town limits, jammed the hotels beyond capacity, rented rooms, beds and private homes.

The lease men, riggers, drillers and roughnecks who followed the boom were followed by others who sought to make a quick buck off them: from men who set up hamburger stands to feed them, to gamblers and bar whores, to thugs, thieves and con men who simply preyed on them.

An oil boom could make a sleepy little town into a big city in no time - bringing with it social upheaval. The extra hundreds who swelled the population of Cross Plains managed to make it a wilder and rowdier town than usual. Of the atmosphere in boomtown Cross Plains, Howard later wrote: "I’ll say one thing about an oil boom: it will teach a kid that life’s a pretty rotten thing about as quick as anything I can think of."

Howard was given a wide array of characters to draw from his experience even as a young man. These characters shaped the surreal settings he created with realistically brutal dangers. The only kind of man that could survive them was a intelligent, strong hero - the kind of hero that embodied Howard's central theme of rugged individualism.

III. Weird Tales
Howard spent his late teens working odd jobs in Cross Plains: picking cotton, branding yearlings, hauling garbage, working in grocery stores, doing clerical work, serving at a soda counter, public stenography, packing rods for a surveyor, and writing oil-field news, all while taking courses at Howard Payne College in Brownwood (an adjunct of the college) and trying to break into the pulp markets.

After years of rejection slips and near acceptances, he finally sold a short caveman tale titled "Spear and Fang" which netted him the princely sum of $16 and introduced him to the readers of a struggling pulp called Weird Tales.

Howard would create a string of heroes for pulps ahead of Conan the Barbarian. Solomon Kane, a vengeful puritan who roamed through dark, bloody tales of betrayal. Sailor Steve Costigan, a navy boxer with "a head full of rocks and occasionally a heart of gold" who turned up in rough seaport towns across the ocean. Then came Kull, sometimes King Kull or Kull the Conquerer, a Altantis era warrior who lived in a prehistoric age of swords and sorcery. These first heroes, with exception of Kull, immediately found their mark in pulp publications Fight Tales, Action Tales and Weird Tales starting in 1929.

Reworking the Kull storylines into an even and formulatic character Howard came up with a proto-Celtic barbarian. A lone man who wandered cold wastes that were populated only by tribes of subhumans, feral animals, terrifying monsters and evil women. This first came from a story featuring both Kull and Conan called "People of the Dark". This story was published in December of 1932 as "The Phoenix on the Sword" in Weird Tales.

The barbarian who would be king reflected much of Howard's own values of independence, physical and mental strength, adventurousness and self-reliance. Conan's world, the Hyborean Age, reflected the chaos and danger present in the real world in exagerated angles. Battles, duels, lynchings, dry wastelands, warfare, betrayals, lawless metropolises all composed in prose completed the formula. Conan was such a hit that Howard published 17 more Conan stories in Weird Tales for the next four years.

Eager to explore more characters and settings and due to his interest in history and exotic or esoteric subjects Howard published more of his stories featuring his heroes in Oriental Tales, Argosy, Jack Dempsey's Fight Magazine, Marvel Tales, Thrilling Adventures, Strange Tales, Ghost Stories, Top-Notch, Cowboy Stories, Strange Detective Stories and Super-Detective Stories.

IV. "All fled, all done..."
The growing success in his writing career did not offset the bleak darkness in his personal life. In 1934, Howard met a local school teacher named Novalyne Price. Although Novalyne was a smart and unusual woman, she would leave Howard repeatedly before finally deserting him completely to move to Louisiana and attend LSU. Howard also acted as a caregiver to his mother, who struggled with TB and cancer. Howard watched as his mother's health continued to decline.

These factors plus Howard's manic-depression and bipolar tendencies made the real world seem more unbearable. It containing none of the epic themes, the heroic victories or the predestined love that seemed to live only in his work.

At a Brownwood hospital on the morning of June 11^th 1936, after being told by a nurse that his mother would never again regain consciousness, Robert E. Howard walked out to his car in the driveway where he took a borrowed .38 automatic from the glove box and shot himself in the head. His father and another doctor rushed out but the wound was too grievous for anything to be done. Howard lived for another eight hours, dying at 4 p.m. His mother died the following day. They were both buried on June 14^th 1936 in a double funeral in Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood, Texas.

References:
Wikipedia, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Wikipedia, Robert E. Howard
Wikisource, Works of Robert E Howard
Robert E. Howard United Press Association, Biography
Robert Weinberg, My Trip to Cross Plains
The Cimmerian, Thulsa Doom

Varian Disaster: Massacre In Teutoburg Forest

I. Ransomed To Ancient Rome
In the year 9 AD the Roman Empire, long the most feared military power of the ancient world, was dealt a crushing blow by a man who began his life as property of the Roman empire. This one man would single-handedly forge an unsteady alliance of barbarian tribes. He would eventually lead them to an astounding victory in the darkest depths of the primeval Teutoburg Forest 2,000 years ago.

The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, and the seven years of war that followed under the Roman General Germanicus, would define the Rhine as the border of the Roman empire for the next four hundred years.

The leadership of a former Roman vassal against men like Germanicus gave the loose confederation of subjugated barbarian tribes a fearsome name seventy years after Julius Caesar conquered them. They were know as "Germani" and later - Germans.

The man who fought the Romans was known as Gaius Julius Arminius. He was born in 18 BC as Erminaz to the Cheruscan war chief Segimer in the northern Rhine valley.

The Cherusci were a Teutonic people which meant they were a society of free men who practiced democracy and held criminal and civil court. But, against this notion of freedom, they were also the local allies to Rome. As such they were frequently used to make war on the neighboring barbarian tribes in the name of the Roman empire. The Cherusi acted as a kind of auxiliary military force. They subjugated the wild tribes at the Roman frontier and bolstered Roman troops in campaigns abroad.

As a boy, Arminius was taken to Rome. Because of his tribe's status, he was held as a hostage to ensure his people's continued obedience. This was a common tactic employed by the Romans. Arminius demonstrated intelligence and strength as a young man and was trained to become a Roman military commander.

He attained Roman citizenship and the prized rank of Equestrian. The Eques were an order of petty nobles that arose from the Roman calvary. As cavalrymen, they and were installed in military posts within the empire.

By the time of Augustus, from 30 BC - 14 AD, the Equestrians were second in social status only to Roman Senators. Yet to the foreign rulers of Germainia and Gaul, who descended from generations of city-dwelling Italian oligarchies, people from "foreign" tribes like Arminius were no more than glorified savages.

II. The Teutonic Alliance

Ancient Roman map of Germania. Note the positions of Teutono-vari and Cherusi to the northwest. In modern times this is located in Lower Saxony in the Central Uplands.

At the age of 25, Arminius no longer wanted his people to be pawns of a cold and calculating Roman bureaucracy. Arminius advocated breaking his countrymens' allegiance to Rome and declaring their own independence. His father-in-law Segestes, a respected war chief, disagreed and wanted the tribes to remain loyal vassals.

After seeking allies within the northern tribes of Germany and within the Roman empire itself Arminius gained the upper hand among his tribesmen and began to plan for rebellion. Segestes, perhaps ashamed that his son-in-law had risen to higher station than himself among the Cherusi and the Romans, repeatedly warned Publius Quinctilius Varus the newly appointed governor of Germainia that a tribal rebellion was coming. Governor Varus, unaware of the full scope of the turmoil, declined to decisively act until the rebellion had encompassed many northern provinces.

After all it was Varus's own brothers, Drusus and Germanicus, who reported to Rome in 7 AD that Germainia was safely "pacified" and firmly under Roman control.

Governor Varus, himself, was a cruel administrator of the conquered governorships that he oversaw. After the death of Herod the Great, in 4 BC, and acting as Governor of Syria, Varus ordered the crucifixion of 2000 Jewish rebels in the streets of Jerusalem. He was a man who had reached his lofty position through sheer brutality and the prestige of his well-placed family connections including Emperor Augustus.

In Syria, his power was maintained by massacring the peoples of his conquered wards. Varus was accustomed to brutally subjugating an already subjugated people. He was not an experienced campaigner or a soldier in any sense of the word. He was simply a despicable dictator with garrisons of soldiers in close proximity to Rome.

In distant Germania, near the western edge of the empire, governing was something altogether new to Varus.

By September of 9 AD, Varus gathered an immense horde of soldiers^[0] to annihilate the German tribal rebellion. On the 9^th of September, Varus was confident in his imminent victory and personally led three legions^[1] of infantry, three compliments of cavalry^[2] and six battle groups of cohorts^[3]. This legion set out to find and destroy the rebellious tribal alliance - a total of nearly 15,000 soldiers and support staff.

Imagine it. A Rome away from Rome. Full of scribes, washer women, musicians - all to be led into the same wilderness that most Romans had not known since Romulus and Remus. How would they fare?

Varus, never suspecting the leader of the rebellion was among his most trusted advisers, ordered Arminius and his Chersucan warriors to lead him into the stronghold of the anti-Roman alliance.

Arminius, once securing the Governor's permission for him and his men to act as the massive army's chief scouts, gladly agreed.

III. The Battle
Using his position as a guide, Arminius planned to employa multi-pronged attack strategy. Unknown to the Romans, Arminius led the long, winding column of Roman legions deeper and deeper into a series of thick forests, swamps, traps, dead-ends and hidden fortifications.

Did Varus believe that Arminius was a simple-minded slave? Had Varus' ambition blinded him to the danger his column was marching into?

Gathered in the dark reaches of the sprawling ancient woods was the collective might of the tribes Arminius had united: the Cherusci, the Bructeri, the Marsi, the Sicambri, the Chauci and Chatti. These barbarian forces awaited the massive Roman force along each leg of their doomed expedition into the dense Teutoburg forest.

As the massive force trekked through the dense forest it was clear that morale was low among the Roman legionaries. Most of the soldiers were Italian conscripts or former slaves many miles from home. They were forcibly pressed into army service for a period of 16 years. After their term ended, they were promised freedom as Roman citizens. It was a freedom that many would not live to reach.

When the Senate announced that the conscripts’ terms would be extended another 4 years (to 20 years) a series of mutinies began to plague the Roman armies in Germainia and elsewhere. This new policy resulted in desertions, low fighting spirit and lack of combat initiative – not what an army needs to survive an ambush in unfamiliar territory.

As Arminus led these Romans towards his waiting rebel forces their number and their will slowly diminished. The sections of the column were surprised, broken and surrounded before the Romans could respond. Section after section gradually fell to the forest dwelling barbarians. It was like Arminius's forces were patiently quartering a long serpent.

Arminius knew Roman battle tactics very well. After deserting Varus, he personally directed his hoard to counter the Roman phalanx and column strategies quite effectively. His warriors attacked without warning tearing through more clustered formations of the spread-out Roman legions.

The Roman horsemen, usually a valuable asset, were useless in the the muddy bogs and narrow trails that were choked with disheartened soldiers. Often, the Romans would find stone walls at the ends of blind corners where spear-throwing tribesmen cast their weapons by the hundred with deadly accuracy. The Roman archers, a traditional answer to battle fortifications, like the cavalry, were at a severe terrain disadvantage. The archers were, most likely, securely located behind the initial lines of skirmishers. They had little time or space to deploy to get close to the barbarian fortifications. When they did, the barbarians would simply melt deeper into the forests.

The massive numbers of the Roman column worked against Varus. Movement was highly restrictive in the dense forest trails. Varus, unused to giving split-second orders and without a battlefield instinct at all must have been enraged as he watched the terror of the ancient world's greatest strength being used directly against it.

In three days time, the alliance of tribes annihilated all three Roman legions and auxiliaries commanded by Governor Varus. The historical causalities of the battle soared to 15,000 to 20,000 men. According to recent archeological digs, nearly all of those killed were Romans.

Varus, the brutal despot, fell on his own sword rather than surrender to the barbarians. He was the last victim of his own cruelty.

It was an unparalleled victory for the Germanic tribes. In all of recorded history, whether ancient or modern, this victory became a definitive of a rout by a smaller force against a much larger one.

IV. Aftermath

The Hermannsdenkmal (German for "Hermann monument"), built in 1875, is located in Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Germany in the Southern part of the Teutoburg Forest.

The peace won by Arminius would not last. Roman retribution quickly followed. The father of the monstrous Emperor Caligua, Germanicus, sought a bloody vengeance for the horrific losses the Romans had incurred.

General Germanicus was named in honor of Julius Caesar who had given Germania it’s name during his own war campaigns in 58 BC - 70 years prior to Germanicus's offensive. Germanicus, no stranger to warfare like Varus, meant to live up to Julius Caesar’s image to the fullest.

Germanicus fought a series of merciless campaigns that ultimately defeated Arminius’s forces. Six year after the battle, in 15 AD, Roman troops recaptured one of the three legionary eagles lost in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The following year, in 16 AD, a second eagle was retrieved. Emperor Tiberius denied the request of Germanicus to launch an additional campaign in 17 AD. Instead, Tiberius decided the frontier with Germania would stand at the Rhine River. The third Roman eagle would not be recovered until 41 AD by Publius Gabinius under the vile emperor Claudius.

As a result of Teutonberg, Germania was cleanly split into two countries defined by the Rhine: Roman controlled Germania Superior to the south and Germania Inferior to the north. The north remained the realm of the wild tribes of the Cheruscan leader, Arminius.

Despite his heroic efforts in uniting the people of the northwestern lands and his unqualified victory against Varus, Arminius was killed by one his own people - falling due to the treachery of an assassin, who poisoned him, in the year of 21 AD.

Notes:
[0] = A conservative total of Varus's column is 13,900 soldiers minus camp followers who were non-combatants. They were like tailors, blacksmiths, prostitutes, slaves, and cooks. This exact number is unknown but could equal another 400 to 800 people - making the total number of the Roman force led into Teutoberg Forest very close to 15,000.
[1] = An early Roman Empire legion, of 30 BC-284 AD, typically contained 3000 trained infantry typically armed with short swords. Varus had three legions under his command during the battle - an estimated total of nearly 9,000 foot soldiers alone.
[2] = A Roman Cohort is a Roman military unit made up of six groups each containing 60 to 100 individual men that operate under a centurion. A cohort can equal 360 to 600 men each. Varus had 6 cohorts of these men totaling up to 3600 additional skirmishers.
[3] = Roman Calvary were made up of 300 equites each. Varus had three of these groups totaling 900 mounted horsemen. For more information abouted mounted calvary please see: Comitatus.net

References:
Wikipedia, Gaius Julius Arminius
Wikipedia, Germanicus Julius Caesar
Ancient Web, The Ancient Teutonic World
Livius, Germania Inferior
Comitatus.net, Adventures in Roman Calvary
The New American, The Battle That Saved The West