<P> Roman casualties have been estimated at 15,000--20,000 dead, and many of the officers were said to have taken their own lives by falling on their swords in the approved manner . Tacitus wrote that many officers were sacrificed by the Germanic forces as part of their indigenous religious ceremonies, cooked in pots and their bones used for rituals . Others were ransomed, and some common soldiers appear to have been enslaved . </P> <P> All Roman accounts stress the completeness of the Roman defeat . The finds at Kalkriese of 6,000 pieces of Roman equipment (largely scraps), but only a single item that is clearly Germanic (part of a spur), suggests few Germanic losses . However, the victors would most likely have removed the bodies of their fallen, and their practice of burying their warriors' battle gear with them would have also contributed to the lack of Germanic relics . Additionally, several thousand Germanic soldiers were deserting militiamen and wore Roman armour, and thus would appear to be "Roman" in the archaeological digs . It is also known that the Germanic tribes wore perishable organic material, such as leather, and less metal . </P> <P> The victory was followed by a clean sweep of all Roman forts, garrisons and cities (of which there were at least two) east of the Rhine; the remaining two Roman legions in Germania, commanded by Varus' nephew Lucius Nonius Asprenas, were content to try to hold the Rhine . One fort, Aliso, most likely located in today's Haltern am See, fended off the Germanic tribes for many weeks, perhaps even a few months . After the situation became untenable, the garrison under Lucius Caedicius, accompanied by survivors of Teutoburg Forest, broke through the siege, and reached the Rhine . They resisted long enough for Lucius Nonius Asprenas to organize the Roman defense on the Rhine with two legions and Tiberius to arrive with a new army, preventing Arminius from crossing the Rhine and invading Gaul . </P> <P> Upon hearing of the defeat, the Emperor Augustus, according to the Roman historian Suetonius in De vita Caesarum ("The Lives of the Caesars"), was so shaken that he stood butting his head against the walls of his palace, repeatedly shouting: </P>

Did any romans survive the battle of teutoburg forest