Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the ancient warfare podcast.

An in-betweener this month and with me is Joe Ball.

She's the author of Publius quintilius virus, quincilius virus, the man who lost three Roman

legions in the Tudorborg disaster, out from

Pen and Sword, or only a month or two ago.

September, is that?

Yeah, at the start of September, it came out.

Nice.

So your book on Varus is out now.

What do we need to know about Varus before we go in to your book?

Well, the thing that really drew me to writing about Varus is he's a character who, I think

his name will be quite familiar to anybody with an interest in the early Roman imperial period,

but in quite a negative way most of the time, I mean, it immediately

conjures up images of the disastrous defeat in the Tudorberg Forest. And that's really what

he is mostly known for. And so what I wanted to do with this book was drill down a bit more

into his history and examine the question of if varus is such

an incompetent, why is he in position that he is in Germany of such authority and power?

And alternatively address the question, should we look at if he's in that position of authority

and power in Germany,

maybe we need to re-examine his career to assess whether he is such a terrible general

as the world has often seen him since.

I think it's one of those things, you know, because the Claudais Variana, you know,

...