Publius Quinctilius Varus

Publius Quinctilius Varus (46 BC Cremona, Roman Republic – Sept. 9 AD near Kalkriese, Germany) was a Roman general and politician under the first Roman emperor Augustus. Varus is generally remembered for having lost three Roman legions when ambushed by Germanic tribes led by Arminius in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, whereupon he took his own life.

Varus was born into the gens Quinctilia. Although he was a patrician by birth, his family, though aristocratic, had long been impoverished and was unimportant. His paternal grandfather Sextus Quinctilius Varus was a senator. His father, also named Sextus Quinctilius Varus, was a senator who had served as a quaestor in 49 BC. This Sextus aligned with the Senatorial Party in the civil war against Gaius Julius Caesar. Although Sextus survived the defeat, it is unknown whether he was involved in the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar. Sextus committed suicide after the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. The mother of Varus is unknown. Varus had three sisters. They were probably all younger based on when they started having children, so it seems likely he was born at least four years before his father’s suicide.

Despite Varus’ father political allegiances, he became one of the supporters of the heir of Julius Caesar, Octavian. When Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa died in early 12 BC, Varus delivered his funeral eulogy. His political career was boosted and his cursus honorum finished as early as 13 BC, when he was elected consul with Tiberius, the stepson and successor of Augustus.

Varus married Vipsania Marcella Agrippina, a daughter of Agrippa, at an unknown date before 13 BC. Varus became a personal friend to Marcus Agrippa and Tiberius. The historian Josephus says (in a section of his Antiquities whose manuscript tradition Walther John believed to be corrupt) that the son of Varus served under him during his command in Syria. If true, that son would have to be a son by a prior marriage and not the son by his last wife, Claudia Pulchra.

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