Thusnelda

alt=|thumb|Thusnelda statue in Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. thumb|The Wife of Arminius Brought Captive to Germanicus by [[Benjamin West, 1773]] thumb|Hermann and Thusnelda (Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein|Tischbein, 1822) alt=|thumb|241x241px|Thusnelda at the Roman triumph|Triumph of Germanicus, by [[Karl von Piloty, 1873]] thumb|Arminius says goodbye to Thusnelda, Johannes Gehrts (1884) Thusnelda (; 10 BC – after AD 17) was a Germanic Cheruscan noblewoman who was captured by the Roman general Germanicus during his invasion of Germania. She was the wife of Arminius. Tacitus and Strabo cite her capture as evidence of both the firmness and restraint of Roman arms.

==Biography== Thusnelda was the daughter of the pro-Roman Cheruscan prince Segestes. In 9 AD, Arminius, Thusnelda's future husband, who had been given by his father to the Romans as a child and raised as a Roman military commander serving under Publius Quinctilius Varus, switched sides to the Germans, and led a coalition of Germanic tribes that defeated the legions of Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The conflict between the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes continued after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, and Arminius abducted and raped Thusnelda circa 14 AD, likely as a result of a dispute with her pro-Roman father, according to Tacitus.