The cult of Hermann continued to grow during the 19th century and was evoked impressively by a gigantic monument to him erected near the northwestern town of Detmold. The figure came to epitomize the power of a young nation striving to be united and free. Hermann, portrayed as a blond, muscle-bound warrior, featured in more than 50 operas and plays during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as "The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest" written by German poet Heinrich von Kleist in 1808 as a call to arms against Napoleon's occupation. They were helped by a severe shortage of facts because the ancient Germanic tribes had no written culture and no Roman eyewitnesses survived the slaughter. The playwrights, writers and political leaders of the 18th and 19th centuries didn't let the facts get in the way of a good story. Everyone who needed this myth regarded it as the turning point of history. "We know that this was one battle among many and that there was a range of factors behind Rome's eventual retreat to the Rhine. "It's typically German to say world history was shaped on German soil," said Bendikowski. Kalefeld south of Hanover, testifies to Roman military presence deep in hostile Germania as late as the third century AD. The discovery last year of an ancient battlefield some 100 kilometers east of Kalkriese, near the town of Roman legions were back in force six years after the battle, wreaking havoc and winning major battles. The popular notion that Arminius drove the Romans out of Germania east of the Rhine is a fallacy, though. The entire Roman Empire stretching from northern England to Egypt only had 28 legions at the time. Three Roman legions were wiped out in four days of fighting on the narrow forest paths a few miles from what is now the city of Osnabrück. Some 10,000 to 12,000 highly trained and battle-hardened legionnaires are believed to have been slaughtered at Kalkriese in an ambush orchestrated by Arminius. It was one reason why Rome abandoned plans to turn Germania east of the Rhine into a province. However, there's little doubt that the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest sent shockwaves through the Roman Empire.
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