[3] The mother of Varus is unknown; Syme notes that "no relatives on either side of the family can be discovered or surmised.

[5] Around 15 BC, Varus spent a year or more serving as the legate of the 19th Legion while it was stationed at Dangstetten, as evidenced by a luggage-tag bearing his name and position excavated from the site.

[6] When Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa died in early 12 BC, Varus delivered the funeral eulogy alongside the future emperor Tiberius.

[15] She was a daughter of Claudia Marcella Minor and the Roman consul of 12 BC, Marcus Valerius Messalla Appianus.

The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus mentions the swift action of Varus against a messianic revolt after the death of the Roman client king, Herod the Great in 4 BC.

[19] After occupying Jerusalem, he crucified 2000 Judeans, making him one of the prime objects of popular resentment against Rome in Judaea .

[citation needed] Per archeological evidence, the people of Judaea begun en masse a popular full-scale boycott of Roman pottery (red slip ware), in protest of Varus' cruelty.

[21][22] Between 10 BC and 6 AD Tiberius, his brother Drusus, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Germanicus conducted long campaigns in Germania, the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, in an attempt at achieving a further major expansion of the Roman Empire together with a shortening of its frontier line.

Augustus made Publius Quinctilius Varus the first "officially appointed" governor of the newly created Roman province of Germania in 7 AD.

In September 9 AD Varus was preparing to leave his summer headquarters in Vetera (today Xanten) and march three legions – the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth – with him to Moguntiacum (modern-day Mainz), when news arrived from the Germanic prince Arminius (a Roman citizen and leader of an auxiliary cavalry unit) of a growing revolt in the Rhine area to the West.

Arminius and the Cherusci tribe along with other allies, had skillfully laid an ambush, and in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in September at Kalkriese (East of modern Osnabrück), the Romans marched right into it.

Tacitus and Florus report that the victorious Germanic tribes tortured and sacrificed captive officers to their gods on altars that could still be seen years later.

According to the biographer Suetonius, upon hearing the news, Augustus tore his clothes, refused to cut his hair for months and, for years afterwards, was heard, upon occasion, to yell, "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

[29] Gibbon describes Augustus' reaction to the defeat as one of the few times the normally stoic ruler lost his composure.