The purpose of this essay is to show that absolute truth does exist and there is a way to find it. This is relevant to understanding our political age. Diligent searching for evidence is the prime strategy for discovering truth.
The solving of a two thousand-year-old mystery illustrates how to determine truth. In the year 9 CE (Common Era), three of Rome’s best trained, best equipped, and formerly never defeated legions, led by the Roman governor of Germany, Varus, marched along narrow forest roads and trails into oblivion. Somewhere in northwest Germany, these soldiers were annihilated. According to ancient historians, Dio Cassius, Tacitus, and Florus, the 15,000-16,000 Roman legionnaires, along with thousands of women and children, were marching westward from their summer camps in central Germany to winter forts along the Rhine River. They never made it, as they were ambushed by Germanic tribesmen under Arminius.
This was one of the most important battles in history. That interpretation is based on the fact that it stopped the expansion of the Roman Empire into central Europe. Germany east of the Rhine was no longer part of the empire. The two-thousand-year-old mystery is, where was the exact site of the battle? Like the actual site of the “Titanic” on the ocean floor, the site of Varus’s defeat fascinated anthropologists, historians, and soldiers.
Solving this mystery shows that objective reality does exist. Not everything is opinion and interpretation. People knew that the battle site was somewhere in the Teutoburger Forest. Over the years a few Roman coins were found in the forest, but that was not conclusive. Searches for the battle site were conducted in 1820, 1822, 1859, 1868, and 1901, but it was never found. Then in 1987, British Major Tony Clunn, using a metal detector while walking on old military road in a forest, discovered about 90 Roman coins.
Within three years, other people found more than 3,000 Roman coins. All the coins bore mint marks dating no later than the time of Rome’s defeat. Most of the coins had special mint marks indicating that they had been given to Roman soldiers. Archeologists soon found about 40 meters of large dirt mounds and ramparts which the Germans built to block the Roman advance. Roman coins were found on only one side of the walls. The coins showed the limits of the Romans’ advance.
Numismatic evidence supported this place as the battle site, but there was to be more evidence. Roman weapons including parts of helmets, swords, daggers, shields, slingshots and the deadly Roman javelins, the pilum, Roman belts and toiletries were also found, along with women’s hairdressing tools. Parts of Roman lamps, boots, and building equipment were discovered also. The skeletons of two mules were found, along with bells that were attached to their harnesses. All finds corroborated the theory that this was the battle site.
Remarkably, the skeletal remains of males between the ages of 20 to 40 were also uncovered. The skeletons revealed violent deaths caused by cutting weapons. Ancient sources stated that, unlike the Romans, the Germans removed their dead and useable weapons from battlefields.
Historians and archeologists now accept that the three legions were wiped out near what is now Kalkriese, Germany. What the search for the missing three legions proves is that objective reality, based on factual evidence, exists. Let’s apply this to the current political environment.
Rick Sirvint lives in Rindge.