The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe inhabiting the Rhine valley and the plains and forests of northwestern Germany (between near modern Osnabrück and Hanover) during the 1st century BC and 1st century CE. They were first allies and then enemies of Rome. They are most famous for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, when an army of allied Germanic tribes (the Cherusci, Bructeri, Marsi, and Chatti) under the Cheruscian war leader Arminius annihilated three Roman legions commanded by Publius Quinctilius Varus. This crushing Roman defeat stopped Rome's advance and compelled the empire, after a few more years of generally indecisive campaigning by Germanicus, to withdraw permanently behind the Rhine and Danube and the Limes fortification which was built as in consequence of the loss at Teutoburg Forest to link the two rivers.