2019 promises to continue, grow, and develop the reception of classics and ancient history in metal, starting with this sneak peak track from the German death/thrash metal band Protector‘s forthcoming album Summon the Hordes. The band now resides in Sweden, but this track is a testament to their German roots.

The song “Three Legions” is about the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 CE, when a coalition of Germanic tribes led by Arminius (aka Hermann the German) ambushed and annihilated three Roman legions commanded by Quintilius Varus. The aging emperor Augustus was said to have reacted to news of the battle by banging his head against the wall and shouting “Varus, give my legions back!” You can hear that exclamation in this song. When the Roman general Germanicus returned to the battlefield several years later, the historian Tacitus reports that he saw human bones strewn everywhere and the skulls of Roman legionaries nailed to trees. The battle effectively ended Roman designs to conquer modern-day Germany, and for most of subsequent imperial history the Roman border remained the Rhine and Danube rivers.

Arminius and the Teutoburger Wald were made into symbols of national pride by modern Germans, as the original “defense of the fatherland.” Not long after Germans formed a united nation-state in 1871, they completed a monument to the barbarian general on the alleged site of the battlefield. The Germans’ successful resistance of, and later invasion of, the Roman Empire were made into foundational elements of German national mythology and identity. In the context of heavy metal culture, it is the equivalent of Scandinavian bands’ embrace of Norse myth and Viking history. Overall, it is part of heavy metal’s tendency to embrace the “barbarian” as a symbol of strength and pride in opposition to contemporary political, cultural, and religious establishments.

Mazes of scrub and morass, trees and thicket
Nights so sombre and dark as a briquet

Days of horror, fear and obscure twillight 
Storm and rain, and an overwhelming fright

(Chorus)
Three legions, lost in the wild
Three legions – The glory of Rome was defiled

Thunder from above and screams on the ground
Thousands of soldiers, slaughtered and downed

(Repeat chorus)

The emperor was shocked and cracked
”Varus, I want my legions back!”

(Repeat chorus) 

The battle raged on for three whole days, the legions disapeared in fog and haze
The ground was littered with corpses and blood, the romans were left to rot in the mud
The mighty eagle fell into the fire, the beginning of the end of the roman empire
The emperor was shocked and cracked – ”Varus, I want my legions back!”

(Repeat foregoing verse)

[Solo]

(Repeat chorus) 

“Varus, I want my legions back!”