The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest

By Stefan Isaksson

The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest
Peter S. Wells
W.W. Norton & Company
256 pages
ISBN: 0393326438

The Battle That Stopped Rome is the story about one of the most important battles that have ever been fought on European soil. And no, it isn’t about the Allies vs. the Germans on D-Day, and it’s not about Napoleon and his misfortunes at Waterloo. Instead it’s about how Arminius and his Germans managed to annihilate three entire Roman legions – about 20000 men – in the year 9 C.E.

Few people outside the worlds academia and archaeology know about this event, and indeed the site of the battle, or actually ambush is the better choice of word here, wasn’t found until late in the 19th century. However, the loss of 20000 elite Roman soldiers resulted in the end of Rome’s expansion in Europe, and you don’t have to be a devoted scholar or archaeology buff to realize that if the Romans had not been stopped, then history would have been VERY different from the way it is today, and yes, today’s world would probably be different, too.

Yeah, well, so what? Is the book still of any interest for all the non-archaeologists and non-scholars out there?

You bet it is. Because Wells has managed to write a book about archaeology that isn’t ONLY about what all the archaeological excavations have found, what the artefacts looked like, and how they were analyzed. Quite frankly, most people really don’t care about that, anyway. What Wells has done is that he’s written a book that will capture the interest of people who don’t know a single thing about archaeology. Because you don’t HAVE to know any archaeology to appreciate this book, and since Wells knows not only how to dig but also how to write, the end result is a book that’s both fascinating and amusing.

We all know that it’s important to know your history and where you come from, and that’s why more of my fellow Europeans should take a closer look at this book. It’s true that it’s written by an archaeologist about archaeology, but that shouldn’t stop ordinary people from giving it a try.

Archaeology in the real world isn’t as exciting as in the movies about Indiana Jones or Laura Croft, but it’s still pretty damn exciting.

And some of this excitement is the result of individuals like Peter S. Wells.