Question regarding Germanicus

[Cullhwch]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about (couldn't remember if I had read it in Tacitus or from another source). It just seemed too convenient for Romans to say "Well, we DID kick their asses because we rock, but we lost most of our army due to things beyond our control. Again. Definitely not the Germans though." It makes even more sense when you consider that Tiberius had to recall Germanicus to Rome for his triumph just to pull the hothead off of the frontier.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about (couldn't remember if I had read it in Tacitus or from another source). It just seemed too convenient for Romans to say "Well, we DID kick their asses because we rock, but we lost most of our army due to things beyond our control. Again. Definitely not the Germans though." It makes even more sense when you consider that Tiberius had to recall Germanicus to Rome for his triumph just to pull the hothead off of the frontier.

Perhaps, but Tacitus is notorious for being too honest to pull off his own bias. Even with Nero good stuff comes through after Seneca died, while Seneca and Baurus don't llok like the Republicans Tacitus wants them to be. Without digging out the passages in Latin I can't be sure but I expect it is as Tacitus says, if it were not the defeats would be heroic and it would not be Germanicus' fault. There is really very little evidence that Tacitus falsified facts, or that he was easily taken in by other writers.

He was a Laywer after all.

[Watchman]

Why do overwhelmingly powerful belligerents keep suffering casualties when trying to chase around weaker foes that aren't keen on a stand-up fight? Eh, the list's been about the same since Year Stick and the Sausage Wars.
Ambushes.
Raids.
Skirmishes.
Infected wounds.
Disease.
Logistics (ie. starving - a decent-sized army eats as much as a small city, and there's a reason Germania was rather lacking in urbanisation...)

The usual suspects.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about (couldn't remember if I had read it in Tacitus or from another source). It just seemed too convenient for Romans to say "Well, we DID kick their asses because we rock, but we lost most of our army due to things beyond our control. Again. Definitely not the Germans though." It makes even more sense when you consider that Tiberius had to recall Germanicus to Rome for his triumph just to pull the hothead off of the frontier.

Yes definitely so. Reasons for the Clade Variana for the Romans were

• the notoriously bad German weather, which led the legionnaires to slip on the wet ground and render their scuta useless due to falling apart
• the dense forest and steep canyons where the legions couldn't act as usual
• the treachery of Arminius, led the Romans into the trap
• the incompetency of Varus, who should have known that all barbarians are notorious for treachery

No mentioning that

• Arminius could have simply been the superior general
• Varus simply had no reason not to trust Arminius, a man held in high esteem by all of the Roman staff, a veteran of the Pannonian war and trusted leader of the Cherusci Auxilia
• the legions were using the Hellweg, which provides at least a small road in what was already then an inhabited country used for agriculture, not a wilderness
• since one of the officers half burned Varus' body, the weather couldn't have been that bad - most likely warm and sunny september days.