The problem was - how to defeat the Romans? Arminius had seen first hand how the Romans dealt with rebels. His people also knew how vastly superior the Romans were in strategy and tactics. The Germanic tribes were warrior societies - with young men trained to fight from early childhood. But they were primitive compared to the Romans - many warriors fighting with bronze or bone-headed spears or even with fire-harded poles. Few had swords and only the elite wore mail armour or helmets. They stood little chance against the well-drilled, heavily armed and well supplied Roman army.

They were also hopelessly outnumbered. The Cherusci could probably only field about 15,000 warriors - perhaps 20,000 if they were desperate. Varus had five whole legions of elite troops - about 20,000 men - and another 5-10,000 auxiliaries and specialist troops.

But Arminius knew the Roman army from the inside and he knew its weaknesses. It was weakest on the march. And it was weakest when it couldn't maneouver. So he came up with a plan to exploit both these defects.

Varus tends to cop the blame for the Disaster of 9 AD - the Roman sources all say it was due to his incompetence and most modern historians agree. But this is a case of history being written by the losers, and those modern historians tend to see the uprising from a Roman perspective - they see it as Varus' defeat.

I prefer to see it as Arminius' victory. Varus may not have been the greatest general - Roman governors rarely were, that was what their officers were for - but Arminius was a military genius.

As I mentioned, he has risen to the highest rank a non-Roman could hold in the Roman army, and it's likely he did this by winning victories. Now he planned a strategy which would do all the things a great general should do - neutralise his own weaknesses while exploiting those of his enemy.

Firstly, he kept the planned uprising secret. He knew that surprise was essential if his plan was to succeed. This meant being selective about who he confided in. His enemy and father-in-law, Segestes, was deliberately kept out of the loop. Somehow Segestes got wind that something was up and he tried to warn Varus. But Varus knew of the fued between Segestes and Arminius over Thusnelda, so he ignored Segestes' warnings.

This was also because Arminius had now made Varus a friend. By all accounts Arminius was a highly charismatic young man (one that teenage girls would run off with for example), and Varus often had Arminius as a guest at his dinner table and enjoyed his company. Arminius exploited this to lull Varus into a false sense of security.

Arminius' second problem was the fact that the Romans outnumbered his forces. Even with the help of some neighbouring tribes, the Cherusci could only field about 20,000 warriors. So he got Varus to deplete his force - sending vexilliations or detachments to strategic points far from the main occupying army or to bring in supposed rebels in outlying areas.

When he had achieved this, Arminius brought word to Varus of an uprising in the north-west of Cheruscian territory. Varus was marching from his summer quarters near Minden, on the Weser to his winter camps on the Lippe, and turned aside to deal with this (ficticious) rebellion. On the way Arminius and his father left the column with their retinue, saying they were going to raise the bulk of the Cherusican warband to assist them and would return the next day.

Once they had left the column, the signal was given, the trap was sprung and the uprising began ...