The Romans thought they had seen it all. They had defeated Carthage, crushed Gaul, beaten the Macedonians, and turned the Mediterranean into a Roman lake. Their legions marched across Europe like a force of nature, leaving roads, cities, and tax collectors in their wake. And then, in September of the year 9 CE, three of those legions vanished into the forests of Germania. Not defeated, not scattered, not routed, obliterated. An entire Roman army wiped from the earth by tribes that Rome had dismissed as backward and uncivilized. The story that followed was so traumatic that Augustus himself is said to have pounded his head against a wall, crying out in despair: “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!”