Sorry if my English seems a bit wonky, it’s been a while since I’ve written an English text. I‘m a German history student with a focus on antiquity and funnily enough I‘m currently writing a paper about the goths which is why I have access to literature about the Germanic tribes (though the historians are German so I don’t know if they have written anything in English) Varus seems to have been present during the conquest of the alpine region in 15 BCE under Tiberius and Drusus and later became governor (as the historian Hans Ulrich Nuber suspects) of a province in this region (possibly Raetia). This means that he already had some experience fighting alongside Augustus‘ sons-in law which could be one of many reasons for the high standing in the imperial court. As you said we don’t know much about his governance in Africa except that it was an important province for Rome. In 7/6 BCE he commanded three legions in one of the most difficult provinces of his time, Syria, and indirectly influenced the neighbouring kingdom of Judea. After the death of Herodes he acted as a judge to sort out the inheritance between the three sons, sent all of them to Rome and prohibited the procurator of Syria, Sabinus, to loot Herodes‘ treasury, which he did anyway. While Paterculus later accuses Varus of having enriched himself during that time, the historian Ralf-Peter Märtin questions that accusation. The looting of Herodes’ treasury and setting fire to the temple in Jerusalem lead to massive unrests in the already unruly region and Jewish rebels started besieging Sabinus inside the city. Varus lead two of his legions to Jerusalem, crushed the rebellion and crucified around 2000 Jews. How cruel or oppressive you think he was in relation to other roman commanders is up to you. Fact is that he became governor of Germania (it’s questionable if Germania was even a proper province) in 7-9 AD. There he commanded 5 legions, governed the area, built forts and collected taxes until, as you know, he was ambushed in the battle of the Teutobourg forest in 9 AD. Now to your main question: Is he a scapegoat or was he really at fault. Well, we can’t say it for sure and this topic is still being discussed today. But there are certain implications that you’ve already mentioned that play an important part so I will structure my following answer into two parts:

1st: Germania and Varus‘ governance: When talking about the Germanic tribes you have to keep in mind that they were not in any way united. All of our written sources either came from the Romans or from several hundred years later. Tribes could vary in size and were quite dynamic and flexible. Thus the Romans probably didn’t even mention several tribes and it’s already questionable to call every people under some form of leadership in this area a „tribe“ or „kingdom“ and in what way they identified themselves. What we really have to say is that Varus governed an area with several different people that had different leaderships, identities and constantly changing diplomatic relationships. Building forts, collecting taxes and mingling in their wars and alliances most definitely did not sit well the local population who might have already started constantly harassing the Romans only to experience brutal retaliation. An early example before Varus‘ governance is the „immensum bellum“ from 1-5 AD in which most of the tribes between Rhein and Elbe river rebelled against Roman occupation and were bit by bit suppressed and reconquered until only Marbod of the Marcomanni remained (Tiberius started an immense campaign against him with 12 legions which had to be called off) During that war, Rome had built a lot of infrastructure and forts to strengthen their control over the region, a process that Varus continued after the war was over. Varus was probably chosen as governor thanks to his swift response in Judea which implies that a) he was at least a competent governor, b) he was effective as a military commander, ending the Judean revolt in just one year, and/ or c) that even after the pacification of that region during the immensum bellum, Rome did not trust the tribes to not rise up again.

2. Varus‘ decision: As you probably know, Varus followed Arminius‘ advice to take an unknown route through the forest to suppress a „revolt“ while marching back from winter camp. He didn’t listen to the Roman ally Segestes but instead trusted Arminius which resulted in his defeat and the destruction of three Roman legions. So it’s his fault isn’t it? It really depends. One thing that Roman historians liked doing was writing history with a narrative in mind. An example of this sort of thing is the battle of Cannae where Livy was both blaming Varro for the disaster while portraying Paullus as a sort of tragic hero. To achieve that Livy not only belittled Varro’s ancestry but also foreshadowed his ultimately „bad decision“ to attack Hannibal carelessly. Modern historians like Jacob Seibert meanwhile suspect that both Paullus and Varro planned on attacking Hannibal because finally facing him in battle (after Quintus Fabius had stalled and evaded Hannibal for some time) seems to have been the consensus of the senate, the soldiers and both consuls. Portraying Varus as a particularly brutal governor could have been one way to foreshadow the Germanic revolt and give the tribes a reason to betray the Romans without criticising the Roman way of dealing with conquered people itself. This also goes hand in hand with having Segestes warning Varus before the ambush that Arminius is planning to betray him. This means there are two possibilities: If we were to believe our sources (which most historians do in this case) then Varus really trusted Arminius over Segestes. Segestes was an ally of the Romans, but Arminius was raised by the Romans, served in the legion for a long time, was even knighted (maybe by Augustus himself, an honour that no other Germanic person received during that period) and Herwig Wolfram even suspects that Rome maybe groomed him to become a Germanic king to properly control the tribes, something Arminius then tried to do independently without Roman influence (and eventually failed). This, and the fact that he was a reliable officer in the legion and he and Segestes had a known feud with each other, means that there was no reason for Varus not to trust him. The other (not very high) possibility of course is that Cassius Dio did some dramatic and tragic foreshadowing to Varus‘ downfall and let Segestes unsuccessfully warn him.

Conclusion: So, did Varus‘ particularly brutal governance result in the Germanic tribes rebelling against Rome and setting the ambush? It‘s probable that he was harsh but we don’t know if any other governor would have acted differently. The tribes already unsuccessfully revolted in the year 1 AD after a new governor was chosen for Germania and Varus only continued improving on the infrastructure and defenses that were established previously. Like any other governor he collected taxes and acted as a judge but we can’t say for sure how brutal he really was or how brutal he was perceived to be by the locals. But that doesn’t mean we absolutely shouldn’t consider that he in particular was at fault, especially acting as judge and suppressor. Same goes for the decision to lead his legions into the forest. Maybe any other general would have trusted Arminius as well, considering the circumstances of Arminius‘ upbringing and his relationship with Segestes. But since we know how swiftly he responded to a revolt in Judea, it could also be that he wanted to do the same here: Suppress the alleged revolt as quickly and efficiently as possible (as that was maybe even the reason why he became governor of that area in the first place). As I said previously, we don’t really know and this question is still in debate.

The historians I mentioned are: Werner Eck‘s Publication focus a lot on the early principate, Germania etc. Ralf-Peter Märtin: Die Varusschlacht. Rom und die Germanen, Frankfurt 2012. Hans Ulrich Nuber (and his archaeological findings) Herwig Wolfram: Das Römerreich und seine Germanen, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2018.