Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest

In AD 9 half of Rome's Western army was ambushed in a German forest and annihilated. Three legions, three cavalry units and six auxiliary regiments - some 25,000 men - were wiped out. It dealt a body blow to the empire's imperial pretensions and was Rome's greatest defeat. No other battle stopped the Roman empire dead in its tracks.

Although one of the most significant and dramatic battles in European history, this is also one which has been largely overlooked. Drawing on primary sources and...