Flavus was a member of the royal family of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who served in the Roman military. He is chiefly remembered as the younger brother of Arminius, who led the Germans to victory over the Romans at Teutoburg Forest in AD 9.
Flavus was a member of the royal family of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who served in the Roman military. He is chiefly remembered as the younger brother of Arminius, who led the Germans to victory over the Romans at Teutoburg Forest in AD 9.
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The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germania in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BCE and CE. Roman sources reported they considered themselves kin with other Irmino tribes and claimed common descent from an ancestor called Mannus. During the early Roman Empire under Augustus, the Cherusci first served as allies of Rome and sent sons of their chieftains to receive Roman education and serve in the Roman army as auxiliaries. The Cherusci leader Arminius led a confederation of tribes in the ambush that destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest in CE 9. He was subsequently kept from further damaging Rome by disputes with the Marcomanni and reprisal attacks led by Germanicus. After rebel Cherusci killed Arminius in CE 21, infighting among the royal family led to the highly Romanized line of his brother Flavus coming to power. Following their defeat by the Chatti around CE 88, the Cherusci do not appear in further accounts of the German tribes, apparently being absorbed into the late classical groups such as the Saxons, Thuringians, Franks, Bavarians, and Allemanni.