A Survivor Returned to Bury the Legions Lost in the Forest

Servius knelt in a clearing on the edge of a dark German forest and lifted a bone from the wet ground. He turned it in his hands and wondered if it had belonged to someone he knew.

Servius is a Roman foot soldier, one of thousands marching through Germania, a wild region of marshes and forests beyond the reach of the empire's roads. To get here they had marched about 30 kilometers that day, stopping to build causeways and bridges to move forward, work that lately has taken more of their time than fighting. He knows this clearing too well. Six years earlier, three Roman legions, large army units of thousands of men each, were wiped out here.

The Romans had suffered one of the worst defeats in their history in this place, and now, at last, an army had returned to give the dead full military honors.

The disaster had come during the reign of Augustus, the Roman emperor. The legions had been marching along a narrow path near what is called the Teutoburg Forest when Germanic tribesmen under their chieftain, Arminius, struck from the cover of the trees. It was pouring rain, and with escape blocked, the Romans were trapped and destroyed.

Servius was among the handful who escaped alive. For six years he has carried the sight with him. At night he still has nightmares of fellow soldiers lying on the ground where they died.

Now the work is finally at hand. Rank by rank, soldiers gather the scattered white bones for proper burial. Servius forces himself to keep moving. More than once he feels like crying out at what he sees and touches, yet he keeps working.

He lays the bones down, pays the honors due to a fellow soldier, and reaches for the next.