From wikipedia:
His paternal grandfather was senator Sextus Quinctilius Varus. Varus was a patrician,
born to an aristocratic but long-impoverished and unimportant family in the Quinctilius gens. His mother was a daughter from Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor's first marriage.
His father was Sextus Quinctilius Varus, a senator aligned with the conservative republicans in the civil war against Julius Caesar. <snip>
Between 9 and 8 BC, following the consulship, Varus was governor of the province of Africa. After this, he went to govern Syria, with four legions under his command. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions the swift action of Varus against a messianic revolt in Judaea after the death of Rome's client king Herod the Great in 4 BC. After occupying Jerusalem, he crucified 2000 Jewish rebels, and may have thus been one of the prime objects of popular anti-Roman sentiment in Judaea, for Josephus, who made every effort to reconcile the Jewish people to Roman rule, felt it necessary to point out how lenient this judicial massacre had been.
(doesn't mention that he took Syria from a region that was strong economically to one that was very poor economically)
<snip>
The disaster at Teutonberg Forest (equivalent to Iraq today - a powerful military out of place, with Ahmed Chalabi playing the role of Arminius)
In A.D. 9, Varus had stationed his armies near the Weser River with his three legions, the Seventeenth, the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth, when news arrived of a growing revolt in the Rhine area to the west. Despite several warnings, Varus trusted Arminius, the man who appealed for his help, because he was a Romanised Germanic prince and commander of an auxiliary cavalry unit.
Not only was Varus' trust in Arminius a terrible misjudgement, but Varus compounded it by placing his legions in a position where their fighting strengths would be minimized and that of the Germanic tribesmen maximized. Arminius and the Cherusci tribe, along with other allies, had skillfully laid an ambush, and in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in September (east of modern Osnabrück), the Germanic tribes ambushed the vulnerable Roman column.
<snip>
So great was the shame, and the ill luck thought to adhere to the numbers of the Legions, that XVII, XVIII and XIX never again appear in the Roman Army's order of battle. The Battle of the Teutoburger Wald (or Teutoburg Forest) was keenly felt by Augustus, darkening his remaining years. 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 moan, "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!" ("Quintili Vare, legiones redde!"). Gibbon describes Augustus's reaction to the defeat as one of the few times the normally stoic ruler lost his composure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Quinctilius_VarusAnother source:
The occasion, and the character of the leader, demand some attention. Quintilius Varus was born of a noble rather than illustrious family, was of a mild disposition, of sedate manners, and being somewhat indolent as well, in body as in mind, was more accustomed to ease in a camp than to action in the field.
How far he was from despising money, Syria, of which he had been governor, afforded proof; for, going a poor man into that rich province, he became a rich man, and left it a poor province. http://www.sawneybean.com/horrors/roman.htm
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