But the young lovers defied him and eloped-setting off a string of events that changed the face of the continent. Thusnelda’s father, Segestes, an ambitious noble who saw the benefits of serving Rome, condemned the union and became a bitter foe to Arminius. Their love story is one of the greatest and most unbelievable in history, yet true. Arminius knew the ways of both the Romans and the Germans and became an invaluable advisor-but one torn by his sworn loyalty to Rome and his natural loyalty to his land and kinfolk, with their sense of fair play and justice.Īrminius also met and fell in love with a beautiful German princess, Thusnelda. As a tribal noble and commander of all of the auxiliary forces in Germania, Arminius was assigned to assist the languorous, yet power-consumed governor. Varus was tasked by Augustus Caesar to bring Germania to her knees-in unquestioning servitude to Rome. Justice became as foreign as the new Roman governor, Varus-a privileged, yet lecherous and loathsome tyrant. The Germanic tribes were fiercely independent and racially Nordic and not accustomed to the imposition of unfair laws, physical abuses and taxes without their consent. As a boy, Arminius and his younger brother, Flavus, were taken to Rome and indoctrinated and trained to promote the glory of the ever-expanding Roman empire, this also being a custom of the Romans to “borrow” the sons of “barbarian” chieftains for a time for just this purpose.īut upon return to his homeland in Germania, Arminius witnessed the tyranny and oppression of his own people at the hands of the Roman occupiers. He commanded their first German auxiliary cavalry and achieved the status of Roman citizen and knight (eques). Īrminius was a Germanic prince, who, with the greatest distinction, served the Roman empire. The Romans knew him as Arminius, it being the habit of the Romans to add the suffix “ius” or “us” to names.
The Germanics probably called him Armin, but his name became Hermann in the centuries to follow (generally attributed to Martin Luther). Yet his name, Arminius, or Hermann, or Armin, is seldom heard. TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO A HERO LIVED, a charismatic man who changed the course of global history. Visit the Hermann Monument Society in New Ulm, Minnesota and learn more about Hermann Arminius, German-Americans and German History. Bronze statue of Hermann (Arminius), a Cheruscan chieftain who negotiated an alliance of the Marsi, Bructeri, and Chatti tribes with his own warriors to defend Germania from Roman conquest.
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