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"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

Octavius Caesar the Princeps Augustus might almost have been delivering the eulogy for the hopes of a unified world State under Roman law and institutions.

Augustus' near madness over the news of the annihilation of three legions in the Teutoburgerwald could not have been diminished by the thought that he was himself, in part, responsible for the debacle. Varus was related by marriage to Augustus, having married his grand-niece, and had a long record of incompetence and sheer stupidity in his administration of the various provinces to which he was appointed. Josephus records Varus' complicity in the "Pentecost Rebellion" that devastated Jerusalem after the death of Herod the Great when Varus was the Senatorial governor of Syria, under which Judea was administratively grouped.

Varus also managed to confuse generations of Biblical scholars by screwing up the census mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. It was common practice for the Senate to appoint a favorite to a governorship in order to reap the rewards of graft. One historian quipped of Varus' tenure in Syria that "he entered a rich province a poor man, and left a poor province a rich man." In order to get the work done, however, Caesar would appoint a "co-" or "junior governor" who reported directly to Caesar. In Varus' case this was usually Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, a personal friend of Tiberius Caesar, who seems to have functioned as general clean up crew for Varus' messes, serving as Consul in 12 BC after Varus' term in 13 BC. Quirinius the "Cyrenus" of the Greekified Aramaic of the New Testament carried out the grunt work of the census while Varus collected the bribes.

Germania, which according to Dio Cassius, was quietly and rapidly becoming "civilized," i.e., adopting Roman law and institutions, seemed a safe place to park Varus. Unfortunately, Caesar's grand-nephew by marriage immediately began treating the Germans as he had the Syrians, "as a conquered people instead of allies," as Dio Cassius put it.

Not unnaturally, this outraged the Germans, who found a Roman officer to lead a revolt: Arminius, a German tribesman who had served in the legions and been granted both Roman citizenship and membership in the Equestrian class, the lowest order of the Patrician class. Arminius continued to give Varus assurances of his loyalty to Rome and his support of Varus, at the same time that he undermined all efforts of such leaders as Segestes to warn Varus what was really

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