CHERUSCI, ke-rils'se the most celebrated of all the German tribes. It is difficult to deter mine their exact position, owing to the fact that ancient writers sometimes confound the national league formed by the Cherusci with the tribe, properly so called. It seems prob able, however, that the tribe was situated in that part of Germany lying between the Weser and the Elbe, and having the Harz Mountains on the north and the Sudetic Range on the south. This tribe was known to the Romans before 50 B.C. and it is mentioned by Caesar as a people of equal importance with the Suevi. Their territory was first entered by the Romans under Drusus, the stepson of Augustus; and a year or two later they entered into an alli ance with the Romans, and served in armies. But when Varus attempted to make them tributary to Rome, and subject them to the Roman laws, they formed a confederation with many smaller and having decoyed Varus into the forest of Teutoburg, destroyed his whole army in a battle which lasted three days, and in which he himself was slain (9 A.B.). Upon this the Cherusci became the chief
object of the attacks of the Romans. German icus, victorious over the Marsi and Chatti, marched against the Cherusci, whose leaders, Segestus and Arminius (the latter of whom bad carried off the daughter of the former), were at war with each other. Segestus, pressed by Arminius, called Germanicus to his aid, who delivered him, indeed, from his. danger, but was obliged to return after several campaigns without having obtained any permanent advan tages. In the end the Cherusci were overcome by the Chatti in the second half of the 1st century of our era; but this seems to have been owing more to internal dissensions among themselves than to any natural supe riority in their opponents. Before the end of the 4th century they appear as members of the great confederation of the Franks, and after that they are lost sight of.