Germanicus Buries the Legions

In AD 15 Germanicus Julius Caesar, nephew and adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, led a campaign deep into Germania. That year one of the eagles lost with Varus was recovered from the Bructeri. Learning that the battlefield lay close by, Germanicus resolved to bury the dead, and sent his officer Aulus Caecina ahead to scout the forest and build causeways across the marsh.

Tacitus' account in the Annals is among the most haunting passages in Roman history. The army found the remains of Varus' first camp, then a half-ruined rampart where the last survivors had made their stand. In the open lay whitening bones, broken weapons and the limbs of horses. Skulls had been fixed to the trees, and in the groves stood the altars where tribunes and senior centurions had been sacrificed. Germanicus, Tacitus says, laid the first turf of the burial mound himself. Tiberius disapproved, perhaps because a general who held an ancient priesthood was not supposed to touch the dead.