consideration of her little son, born in the camp, nursed in the arms of the legions, and by themselves named Caligula, a military name from the boots which of the same fashion with their own, in compliment to them, and to win their affections, he frequently wore. But nothing so effectually subdued them as their own envy towards the inhabitants of Treves: hence they all besought, all adjured, that she would return to themselves, and with themselves remain: thus some stopped Agrippina; but the main body returned with their entreaties to Germanicus, who, as he was yet in the transports of grief and anger, addressed himself on this wise to the surrounding crowd.
“To me neither is my wife or son dearer than my father and the Commonwealth. But him doubtless the majesty of his name will defend; and there are other armies, loyal armies, to defend the Roman State. As to my wife and children, whom for your glory I could freely sacrifice, I now remove them from your rage; that by my blood alone may be expiated whatever further mischief your fury meditates; and that the murder of the great grandson of Augustus, the murder of the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, may not be added to mine, nor to the blackness of your past guilt. For, during these days of frenzy what has been too horrid for you to commit? What so sacred that you have not violated? To this audience what name shall I give? Can I call you _soldiers_? you who have beset with arms the son of your Emperor, confined him in your trenches, and held him in a siege? _Roman citizens_ can I call you? you who have trampled upon the supreme authority of the Roman Senate? Laws religiously observed by common enemies, you have profaned; violated the sacred privileges, and persons of Ambassadors; broken the laws of nations. The deified Julius Caesar quelled a sedition in his army by a single word: he called all who refused to follow him, _townsmen_. The deified Augustus, when, after the battle of Actium, the legions who won it lapsed into mutiny, terrified them into submission by the dignity of his presence and an awful look. These, it is true, are mighty and immortal names, whom I dare not emulate; but, as I am their descendant, and inherit their blood, should the armies in Syria and Spain reject my orders, and contemn my authority, I should think their behaviour strange and base: are not the present legions under stronger ties than those in Syria and Spain? You are the first and the twentieth legions; the former enrolled by Tiberius himself; the other his constant companions in so many battles, his partners in so many victories, and by him enriched with so many bounties! Is this the worthy return you make your Emperor, and late Commander, for the distinction he has shown you, for the favour he has done you, and for his liberalities towards you? And shall I be the author of such tidings to him; such heavy tidings in the midst of congratulations and happy accounts from every province in the Empire? Must it be my sad task to acquaint him that his own new levies, as well as his own veterans who long fought under him; these not appeased by their discharge, and neither of them satiated with the money given them, are both still combined in a furious mutiny? must I tell him that here and only here the Centurions are butchered, the Tribunes driven away, the Ambassadors imprisoned; that with blood the camp is stained, and the rivers flow with blood; and that for me his son, I hold a precarious life at the mercy of men, who owe me duty, and practise enmity?
“Why did you the other day, oh unseasonable and too officious friends! why did you leave me at their mercy by snatching from me my sword, when with it I would have put myself out of their power? He who offered me his own sword showed greater kindness, and was more my friend. I would then have fallen happy; happy that my death would have hid from mine eyes so many horrible crimes since committed by my own army; and for you, you would have chosen another general, such a general, no doubt, as would have left my death unpunished, but still one who would have sought vengeance for that of Varus and the three legions; for the Gods are too just to permit that ever the Belgians, however generously they offer their service, shall reap the credit and renown of retrieving the glory of the Roman name, and of reducing in behalf of Rome the German nations her foes. Filled with this passion for the glory of Rome, I here invoke thy spirit now with the Gods, oh deified Augustus; and thy image interwoven in the ensigns, and thy memory, oh deceased father. Let thy revered spirit, oh Augustus, let thy loved image and memory, oh Drusus, still dear to these legions, vindicate them from this guilty stain, this foul infamy of leaving to foreigners the honour of defending and avenging the Roman State. They are Romans; they already feel the remorses of shame; they are already stimulated with a sense of honour: improve, oh improve this generous disposition in them; that thus inspired they may turn the whole tide of their civil rage to the destruction of their common enemy. And for you, my fellow-soldiers, in whom I behold all the marks of compunction, other countenances, and minds happily changed; if you mean to restore to the Senate its ambassadors; to your Emperor your sworn obedience; to me, your general, my wife and son; be it the first instance of your duty, to fly the contagious company of incendiaries, to separate the sober from the seditious: this will be a faithful sign of remorse, this a firm pledge of fidelity.”
These words softened them into supplicants: they confessed that all his reproaches were true; they besought him to punish the guilty and malicious, to pardon the weak and misled, and to lead them against the enemy; to recall his wife, to bring back his son, nor to suffer the fosterling of the legions to be given in hostage to the Gauls. Against the recalling of Agrippina he alleged the advance of winter, and her approaching delivery; but said, that his son should return, and that to themselves he left to execute what remained further to be executed. Instantly, with changed resentments, they ran, and seizing the most seditious, dragged them in bonds to Caius Cretonius, commander of the first legion, who judged and punished them in this manner. The legions, with their swords drawn, surrounded the tribunal; from thence the prisoner was by a Tribune exposed to their view, and if they proclaimed him guilty, cast headlong down, and executed even by his fellow-soldiers, who rejoiced in the execution, because by it they thought their own guilt to be expiated: nor did Germanicus restrain them, since on themselves remained the cruelty and reproach of the slaughter committed without any order of his. The veterans followed the same example of vengeance, and were soon after ordered into Rhetia, in appearance to defend that province against the invading Suevians; in reality, to remove them from a camp still horrible to their sight, as well in the remedy and punishment, as from the memory of their crime. Germanicus next passed a scrutiny upon the conduct and characters of the Centurions: before him they were cited singly; and each gave an account of his name, his company, country, the length of his service, exploits in war, and military presents, if with any he had been distinguished: if the Tribunes or his legion bore testimony of his diligence and integrity, he kept his post; upon concurring complaint of his avarice or cruelty, he was degraded.
Thus were the present commotions appeased; but others as great still subsisted, from the rage and obstinacy of the fifth and twenty-first legions. They were in winter quarters sixty miles off, in a place called the Old Camp, [Footnote: Xanten.] and had first began the sedition: nor was there any wickedness so horrid, that they had not perpetrated; nay, at this time, neither terrified by the punishment, nor reclaimed by the reformation of their fellow-soldiers, they persevered in their fury. Germanicus therefore determined to give them battle, if they persisted in their revolt; and prepared vessels, arms, and troops to be sent down the Rhine.
Before the issue of the sedition in Illyricum was known at Rome, tidings of the uproar in the German legions arrived; hence the city was filled with much terror; and hence against Tiberius many complaints, “that while with feigned consultations and delays he mocked the Senate and people, once the great bodies of the estate, but now bereft of power and armies, the soldiery were in open rebellion, one too mighty and stubborn to be quelled by two princes so young in years and authority: he ought at first to have gone himself, and awed them with the majesty of imperial power, as doubtless they would have returned to duty upon the sight of their Emperor, a Prince of consummate experience, the sovereign disposer of rewards and severity. Did Augustus, even under the pressure of old age and infirmities, take so many journeys into Germany? and should Tiberius, in the vigour of his life, when the same or greater occasions called him thither, sit lazily in the Senate to watch senators and cavil at words? He had fully provided for the domestic servitude of Rome; he ought next to cure the licentiousness of the soldiers, to restrain their turbulent spirits, and reconcile them to a life of peace.”
But all these reasonings and reproaches moved not Tiberius: he was determined not to depart from the capital, the centre of power and affairs; nor to chance or peril expose his person and empire. In truth, many and contrary difficulties pressed and perplexed him: “the German army was the stronger; that of Pannonia nearer; the power of both the Gauls supported the former; the latter was at the gates of Italy. Now to which should he repair first? and would not the last visited be inflamed by being postponed? But by sending one of his sons to each, the equal treatment of both was maintained; as also the majesty of the supreme power, which from distance ever derived most reverence. Besides, the young princes would be excused, if to their father they referred such demands as were for them improper to grant; and if they disobeyed Germanicus and Drusus, his own authority remained to appease or punish them: but if once they had contemned their Emperor himself, what other resource was behind?” However, as if he had been upon the point of marching, he chose his attendance, provided his equipage, and prepared a fleet: but by various delays and pretences, sometimes that of the winter, sometimes business, he deceived for a time even the wisest men; much longer the common people, and the provinces for a great while.
Germanicus had already drawn together his army, and was prepared to take vengeance on the seditious: but judging it proper to allow space for trial, whether they would follow the late example, and consulting their own safety do justice upon one another, he sent letters to Caecina, “that he himself approached, with a powerful force; and if they prevented him not, by executing the guilty, he would put all indifferently to the slaughter.” These letters Caecina privately read to the principal officers, and such of the camp as the sedition had not tainted; besought them “to redeem themselves from death, and all from infamy; urged that in peace alone reason was heard and merit distinguished; but in the rage of war the blind steel spared the innocent no more than the guilty.” The officers, having tried those they believed for their purpose, and found the majority still to persevere in their duty, did, in concurrence with the General, settle the time for falling with the sword upon the most notoriously guilty and turbulent. Upon a particular signal given they rushed into their tents and butchered them, void as they were of all apprehension; nor did any but the centurions and executioners know whence the massacre began, or where it would end.
This had a different face from all the civil slaughters that ever happened: it was a slaughter not of enemies upon enemies, nor from different and opposite camps, nor in a day of battle; but of comrades upon comrades, in the same tents where they ate together by day, where they slept together by night. From this state of intimacy they flew into mortal enmity, and friends launched their darts at friends: wounds, outcries, and blood were open to view; but the cause remained hid: wild chance governed the rest, and several innocents were slain. For the criminals, when they found against whom all this fury was bent, had also betaken themselves to their arms; neither did Caecina, nor any of the Tribunes, intervene to stay the rage; so that the soldiers had full permission to vengeance, and a licentious satiety of killing. Germanicus soon after entered the camp now full of blood and carcasses, and lamenting with many tears that “this was not a remedy, but cruelty and desolation,” commanded the bodies to be burnt. Their minds, still tempestuous and bloody, were transported with sudden eagerness to attack the foe, as the best expiation of their tragical fury: nor otherwise, they thought, could the ghosts of their butchered brethren be appeased, than by receiving in their own profane breasts a chastisement of honourable wounds. Germanicus fell in with the ardour of the soldiers, and laying a bridge upon the Rhine, marched over twelve thousand legionary soldiers, twenty-six cohorts of the allies, and eight regiments of horse; men all untainted in the late sedition.
The Germans rejoiced, not far off, at this vacation of war, occasioned first by the death of Augustus, and afterwards by intestine tumults in the camp; but the Romans by a hasty march passed through the Caesian woods, and levelling the barrier formerly begun by Tiberius, upon it pitched their camp. In the front and rear they were defended by a palisade; on each side by a barricade of the trunks of trees felled. From thence, beginning to traverse gloomy forests, they stopped to consult which of two ways they should choose, the short and frequented, or the longest and least known, and therefore unsuspected by the foe: the longest way was chosen; but in everything else despatch was observed; for by the scouts intelligence was brought that the Germans did, that night, celebrate a festival with great mirth and revelling. Hence Caecina was commanded to advance with the cohorts without their baggage, and to clear a passage through the forest: at a moderate distance followed the legions; the clearness of the night facilitated the march, and they arrived at the villages of the Marsians, which with guards they presently invested. The Germans were even yet under the effects of their debauch, scattered here and there, some in bed, some lying by their tables; no watch placed, no apprehension of an enemy. So utterly had their false security banished all order and care; and they were under no dread of war, without enjoying peace, other than the deceitful and lethargic peace of drunkards.
The legions were eager for revenge; and Germanicus, to extend their ravage, divided them into four battalions. The country was wasted by fire and sword fifty miles round; nor sex nor age found mercy; places sacred and profane had the equal lot of destruction, all razed to the ground, and with them the temple of Tanfana, of all others the most celebrated amongst these nations: nor did all this execution cost the soldiers a wound, while they only slew men half asleep, disarmed, or dispersed. This slaughter roused the Bructerans, the Tubantes, and the Usipetes; and they beset the passes of the forest, through which the army was to return: an event known to Germanicus, and he marched in order of battle. The auxiliary cohorts and part of the horse led the van, followed close by the first legion; the baggage was in the middle; the twenty-first legion closed the left wing, and the fifth the right; the twentieth defended the rear; and after them marched the rest of the allies. But the enemy stirred not, till the body of the army entered the wood: they then began lightly to insult the front and wings; and at last, with their whole force, fell upon the rear. The light cohorts were already disordered by the close German bands, when Germanicus riding up to the twentieth legion, and exalting his voice, “This was the season,” he cried, “to obliterate the scandal of sedition: hence they should fall resolutely on, and into sudden praise convert their late shame and offence.” These words inflamed them: at one charge they broke the enemy, drove them out of the wood, and slaughtered them in the plain. In the meanwhile, the front passed the forest, and fortified the camp: the rest of the march was uninterrupted; and the soldiers, trusting to the merit of their late exploits, and forgetting at once past faults and terrors, were placed in winter quarters.
The tidings of these exploits affected Tiberius with gladness and anguish: he rejoiced that the sedition was suppressed; but that Germanicus had, by discharging the veterans, by shortening the term of service to the rest, and by largesses to all, gained the hearts of the army, as well as earned high glory in war, proved to the Emperor matter of torture. To the Senate, however, he reported the detail of his feats, and upon his valour bestowed copious praises, but in words too pompous and ornamental to be believed dictated by his heart. It was with more brevity that he commended Drusus, and his address in quelling the sedition of Illyricum, but more cordially withal, and in language altogether sincere; and even to the Pannonian legions he extended all the concessions made by Germanicus to his own.
There was this year an admission of new rites, by the establishment of another College of Priests, one sacred to the deity of Augustus; as formerly Titus Tatius, to preserve the religious rites of the Sabines, had founded the fraternity of Titian Priests. To fill the society, one-and- twenty, the most considerable Romans were drawn by lot, and to them added Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and Germanicus. The games in honour of Augustus began then first to be embroiled by emulation among the players, and the strife of parties in their behalf. Augustus had countenanced these players and their art, in complaisance to Maecenas, who was mad in love with Bathyllus the comedian; nor to such favourite amusements of the populace had he any aversion himself; he rather judged it an acceptable courtesy to mingle with the multitude in these their popular pleasures. Different was the temper of Tiberius, different his politics: to severer manners, however, he durst not yet reduce the people, so many years indulged in licentious gaieties.
In the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Caius Norbanus, a triumph was decreed to Germanicus, while the war still subsisted. He was preparing with all diligence to prosecute it the following summer; but began much sooner by a sudden irruption early in the spring into the territories of the Cattans: an anticipation of the campaign, which proceeded from the hopes given him of dissension amongst the enemy, caused by the opposite parties of Arminius and Segestes; two men signally known to the Romans upon different accounts; the last for his firm faith, the first for faith violated. Arminius was the incendiary of Germany; but by Segestes had been given repeated warnings of an intended revolt, particularly during the festival immediately preceding the insurrection: he had even advised Varus “to secure himself and Arminius, and all the other chiefs; for that the multitude, thus bereft of their leaders, would dare to attempt nothing; and Varus have time to distinguish crimes and such as committed none.” But by his own fate, and the sudden violence of Arminius, Varus fell. Segestes, though by the weight and unanimity of his nation he was forced into the war, yet remained at constant variance with Arminius: a domestic quarrel too heightened their hate, as Arminius had carried away the daughter of Segestes, already betrothed to another; and the same relations, which amongst friends prove bonds of tenderness, were fresh stimulations of wrath to an obnoxious son and an offended father.
Upon these encouragements, Germanicus to the command of Caecina committed four legions, five thousand auxiliaries, and some bands of Germans, dwellers on this side the Rhine, drawn suddenly together; he led himself as many legions with double the number of allies, and erecting a fort in Mount Taunus, [Footnote: Near Homburg.] upon the old foundations of one raised by his father, rushed full march against the Cattans; having behind him left Lucius Apronius, to secure the ways from the fury of inundations: for as the roads were then dry and the rivers low, events in that climate exceeding rare, he had without check expedited his march; but against his return apprehended the violence of rains and floods. Upon the Cattans he fell with such surprise, that all the weak through sex or age were instantly taken or slaughtered: their youth, by swimming over the Adrana, [Footnote: Eder.] escaped, and attempted to force the Romans from building a bridge to follow them, but by dint of arrows and engines were repulsed; and then, having in vain tried to gain terms of peace, some submitted to Germanicus; the rest abandoned their villages and dwellings, and dispersed themselves in the woods. Mattium, [Footnote: Maden.] the capital of the nation, he burnt, ravaged all the open country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his rear, an usual practice of theirs, when sometimes they fly more through craft than affright. The Cheruscans indeed were addicted to assist the Cattans, but terrified from attempting it by Caecina, who moved about with his forces from place to place; and by routing the Marsians who had dared to engage him, restrained all their efforts.
Soon after arrived deputies from Segestes, praying relief against the combination and violence of his countrymen, by whom he was held besieged; as more powerful amongst them than his was the credit of Arminius, since it was he who had advised the war. The genius this of barbarians, to judge that men are to be trusted in proportion as they are fierce, and in public commotions ever to prefer the most resolute. To the other deputies Segestes had added Segimundus, his son; but the young man faltered a while, as his own heart accused him; for that the year when Germany revolted, he, who had been by the Romans created Priest of the altar of the Ubians, rent the sacerdotal tiara and fled to the revolters: yet, encouraged by the Roman clemency, he undertook the execution of his father’s orders, was himself graciously received, and then conducted with a guard to the frontiers of Gaul. Germanicus led back his army to the relief of Segestes, and was rewarded with success. He fought the besiegers, and rescued him with a great train of his relations and followers; amongst them too were ladies of illustrious rank, particularly the wife of Arminius, the same who was the daughter of Segestes: a lady more of the spirit of her husband than that of her father; a spirit so unsubdued, that from her eyes captivity forced not a tear, nor from her lips a breath in the style of a supplicant: not a motion of her hands, nor a look escaped her; but, fast across her breast she held her arms, and upon her heavy womb her eyes were immovably fixed. There were likewise carried Roman spoils taken at the slaughter of Varus and his army, and then divided as prey amongst many of those who were now prisoners: at the same time appeared Segestes, of superior stature; and from a confidence in his good understanding with the Romans, undaunted. In this manner he spoke:
“It is not the first day this, that to the Roman People I have approved my faith and adherence: from the moment I was by the deified Augustus presented with the freedom of the city, I have continued by your interest to choose my friends, by your interest to denominate my enemies; from no hate of mine to my native country (for odious are traitors even to the party they embrace), but because the same measures were equally conducing to the benefit of the Romans and of the Germans; and I was rather for peace than war. For this reason to Varus, the then General, I applied, with an accusation against Arminius, who from me had ravished my daughter, and with you violated the faith of leagues: but growing impatient with the slowness and inactivity of Varus, and well apprised how little security was to be hoped from the laws, I pressed him to seize myself, and Arminius, and his accomplices: witness that fatal night, to me I wish it had been the last! more to be lamented than defended are the sad events which followed. I moreover cast Arminius into irons, and was myself cast into irons by his faction; and as soon as to you, Caesar, I could apply, you see I prefer old engagements to present violence, and tranquillity to combustions, with no view of my own to interest or reward, but to banish from me the imputation of perfidiousness. For the German nation, too, I would thus become a mediator, if peradventure they will choose rather to repent than be destroyed: for my son, I intreat you, have mercy upon his youth, and pardon his error; that my daughter is your prisoner by force I own: in your breast it wholly lies under which character you will treat her, whether as one by Arminius impregnated, or by me begotten.” The answer of Germanicus was gracious: he promised indemnity to his children and kindred, and to himself a safe retreat in one of the old provinces; then returned with his army, and by the direction of Tiberius, received the title of _Imperator_. The wife of Arminius brought forth a male child, and the boy was brought up at Ravenna; his unhappy conflicts afterwards, with the contumelious insults of fortune, will be remembered in their place.
The desertion of Segestes being divulged, with his gracious reception from Germanicus, affected his countrymen variously; with hope or anguish, as they were prone or averse to the war. Naturally violent was the spirit of Arminius, and now, by the captivity of his wife, by the fate of his child doomed to bondage though yet unborn, enraged even to distraction: he flew about amongst the Cheruscans, calling them to arms; to arm against Segestes, to arm against Germanicus. Invectives followed his fury; “A blessed father this Segestes,” he cried! “a mighty general this Germanicus! invincible warriors these Romans! so many troops have made prisoner of a woman. It is not thus that I conquer; before me three legions fell, and three lieutenant-generals. Open and honourable is my method of war, nor waged with big-bellied women, but against men and arms; and treason is none of my weapons. Still to be seen are the Roman standards in the German groves, there by me hung up and devoted to our country Gods. Let Segestes live a slave in a conquered province; let him to his son recover a foreign priesthood: with the German nations he can never obliterate his reproach, that through him they have seen between the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes, and the Roman toga. To other nations who know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes are also unknown; evils which we too have cast off, in spite of that Augustus now dead and enrolled with the Deities; in spite too of Tiberius, his chosen successor: let us not after this dread a mutinous army, and a boy without experience, their commander; but if you love your country, your kindred, your ancient liberty and laws, better than tyrants and new colonies, let Arminius rather lead you to liberty and glory, than the wicked Segestes to the infamy of bondage.”
By these stimulations, not the Cheruscans only were roused, but all the neighbouring nations; and into the confederacy was drawn Inguiomerus, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long since in high credit with the Romans: hence a new source of fear to Germanicus, who, to avoid the shock of their whole forces, and to divert the enemy, sent Caecina with forty Roman cohorts to the river Amisia, [Footnote: Ems.] through the territories of the Bructerans. Pedo the Prefect led the cavalry by the confines of the Frisians: he himself, on the lake, [Footnote: The Zuyder Zee.] embarked four legions; and upon the bank of the said river the whole body met, foot, horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were taken into the service; but the Bructerans, setting fire to their effects and dwellings, were routed by Stertinius, by Germanicus despatched against them with a band lightly armed. As this party were engaged between slaughter and plunder, he found the Eagle of the nineteenth legion lost in the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of the Bructerans, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia [Footnote: Lippe.] was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report still unburied.
Hence Germanicus became inspired with a tender passion to pay the last offices to the legions and their leader; the like tenderness also affected the whole army. They were moved with compassion, some for the fate of their friends, others for that of their relations here tragically slain; they were struck with the doleful casualties of war, and the sad lot of humanity. Caecina was sent before to examine the gloomy recesses of the forest; to lay bridges over the pools; and upon the deceitful marshes, causeways. The army entered the doleful solitude, hideous to sight, hideous to memory. First they saw the camp of Varus, wide in circumference; and the three distinct spaces, allotted to the different Eagles, showed the number of the legions. Further, they beheld the ruinous entrenchment, and the ditch nigh choked up: in it the remains of the army were supposed to have made their last effort, and in it to have found their graves. In the open fields lay their bones all bleached and bare, some separate, some on heaps; just as they had happened to fall, flying for their lives, or resisting unto death. Here were scattered the limbs of horses, there pieces of broken javelins; and the trunks of trees bore the skulls of men. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars; where, of the tribunes and principal centurions, the barbarians had made a horrible immolation. Those who survived the slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword, related the sad particulars to the rest: “Here the commanders of the legions were slain; there we lost the Eagles; here Varus had his first wound; there he gave himself another, and perished by his own unhappy hand. In that place, too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued; in this quarter, for the execution of his captives, he erected so many gibbets; in that such a number of funeral trenches were digged; and with these circumstances of pride and despite he insulted the ensigns and Eagles.”
Thus the Roman army buried the bones of the three legions, six years after the slaughter: nor could any one distinguish whether he gathered the particular remains of a stranger, or those of a kinsman; but all considered the whole as their friends, the whole as their relations; with heightened resentments against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. In this pious office, so acceptable to the dead, Germanicus was a partner in the woe of the living; and upon the common tomb laid the first sod: a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon every action of Germanicus he put a perverse meaning, or believed that the affecting spectacle of the unburied slain would sink the spirit of the army, and heighten their terror of the enemy; as also that “a general vested, as Augur, with the intendency of religious rites, became defiled by touching the solemnities of the dead.”
Arminius, retiring into desert and pathless places, was pursued by Germanicus; who, as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to advance, and dislodge the enemy from the post they had possessed. Arminius, having directed his men to keep close together, and draw near to the woods, wheeled suddenly about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to rush out: the Roman horse, now engaged by a new army, became disordered, and to their relief some cohorts were sent, but likewise broken by the press of those that fled; and great was the consternation so many ways increased. The enemy too were already pushing them into the morass, a place well known to the pursuers, as to the unapprised Romans it had proved pernicious, had not Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy became terrified, our men reassured, and both retired with equal loss and advantage. Germanicus presently after returning with the army to the river Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet: part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the Rhine. Caecina, who led his own men, was warned, that though he was to return through unknown roads, yet he should with all speed pass the causeway called the long bridges: it is a narrow track this, between vast marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The marshes themselves are of an uncertain soil, here full of mud, there of heavy sticking clay, or traversed with various currents. Round about are woods which rise gently from the plain, and were already filled with soldiers by Arminius; who, by shorter ways and a running march, had arrived there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Caecina, who was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time, and to repulse the foe, resolved at last to encamp in the place, that whilst some were employed in the work, others might maintain the fight.
The Barbarians strove violently to break our station, and to fall upon the entrenchers: they harassed our men, assaulted the works, changed their attacks, and pushed everywhere. With the shouts of the assailants, the cries of the workmen were confusedly mixed; and all things equally combined to distress the Romans: the place deep with ooze sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armour heavy; the waters deep, nor could they in them launch their javelins. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to encounters in the bogs; their persons tall, their spears long, such as could wound at a distance. At last the legions, already yielding, were by night redeemed from an unequal combat; but night interrupted not the activity of the Germans, become by success indefatigable. Without refreshing themselves with sleep, they diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the neighbouring mountains, and turned them into the plains: thus the Roman camp was flooded, the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, and the labour of the poor soldiers renewed and doubled. To Caecina this year proved the fortieth of his sustaining as officer or soldier the functions of arms; a man in all the vicissitudes of war, prosperous or disastrous, well experienced and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, with himself all probable events and expedients, he could devise no other than that of restraining the enemy to the woods, till he had sent forward the wounded men and baggage; for, from the mountains to the marshes there stretched a plain fit only to hold a little army: to this purpose the legions were thus appointed; the fifth had the right wing, and the one-and-twentieth the left; the first led the van; the twentieth defended the rear.
A restless night it was to both armies, but in different ways; the Barbarians feasted and caroused, and with songs of triumph, or with horrid and threatening cries, filled all the plain and echoing woods. Amongst the Romans were feeble fires, sad silence, or broken words; they leaned drooping here and there against the pales, or wandered disconsolately about the tents, like men without sleep, but not quite awake. A frightful dream too terrified the General; he thought he heard and saw Quinctilius Varus, rising out of the marsh all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand, and calling upon him; but that he rejected the call and pushed him away. At break of day, the legions posted on the wings, through contumacy or affright, deserted their stations, and took sudden possession of a field beyond the bogs. Neither did Arminius fall straight upon them, however open they lay to his assault; but, when he perceived the baggage set fast in mire and ditches, the soldiers above it disorderly and embarrassed, the ranks and ensigns in confusion, and, as usual in a time of distress, every one in haste to save himself, but slow to obey his officer, he then commanded his Germans to break in, “Behold,” he vehemently cried; “behold again Varus and his legions subdued by the same fate.” Thus he cried, and instantly with a select body broke quite through our forces, and chiefly against the horse directed his havoc; so that the ground becoming slippery by their blood and the slime of the marsh, their feet flew from them, and they cast their riders; then galloping and stumbling amongst the ranks, they overthrew all they met, and trod to death all they overthrew. The greatest difficulty was to maintain the Eagles; a storm of darts made it impossible to advance them, and the rotten ground impossible to fix them. Caecina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot, and having fallen was nigh taken; but the first legion saved him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy, who ceased slaying to seize the spoil: hence the legions had respite to struggle into the fair field and firm ground. Nor was here an end of their miseries: a palisade was to be raised, an entrenchment digged; their instruments too for throwing up and carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost; no tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded; and their food all defiled with mire or blood. As they shared it in sadness amongst them, they lamented that mournful night, they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand men the last.
It happened that a horse, which had broke his collar as he strayed about, became frightened with noise, and ran over some that were in his way: this raised such a consternation in the camp, from a persuasion that the Germans in a body had forced an entrance, that all rushed to the gates, especially to the postern, as the farthest from the foe, and safer for flight. Caecina having found the vanity of their dread, but unable to stop them, either by his authority, or by his prayers, or indeed by force, flung himself at last across the gate. This prevailed; their awe and tenderness of their General restrained them from running over his body; and the Tribunes and Centurions satisfied them the while, that it was a false alarm.
Then calling them together, and desiring them to hear him with silence, he reminded them of their difficulties, and how to conquer them: “That for their lives they must be indebted to their arms, but force was to be tempered with art; they must therefore keep close within their camp, till the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, advanced; then make a sudden sally on every side, and by this push they should break through the enemy, and reach the Rhine. But if they fled, more forests remained to be traversed, deeper marshes to be passed, and the cruelty of a pursuing foe to be sustained.” He laid before them the motives and fruits of victory, public rewards and glory, with every tender domestic consideration, as well as those of military exploits and praise. Of their dangers and sufferings he said nothing. He next distributed horses, first his own, then those of the Tribunes and leaders of the legions, to the bravest soldiers impartially; that thus mounted they might begin the charge, followed by the foot.
Amongst the Germans there was not less agitation, from hopes of victory, greediness of spoil, and the opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed “to let the Romans march off, and to beset them in their march, when engaged in bogs and fastnesses.” The advice of Inguiomerus was fiercer, and thence by the Barbarians more applauded: he declared “for forcing the camp, for that the victory would be quick, there would be more captives, and entire plunder.” As soon, therefore, as it was light, they rushed out upon the camp, cast hurdles into the ditch, attacked and grappled the palisade. Upon it few soldiers appeared, and these seemed frozen with fear; but as the enemy was in swarms, climbing the ramparts, the signal was given to the cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded, and instantly, with shouts and impetuosity, they issued out and begirt the assailants. “Here are no thickets,” they scornfully cried; “no bogs; but an equal field and impartial Gods.” The enemy, who imagined few Romans remaining, fewer arms, and an easy conquest, were struck with the sounding trumpets, with the glittering armour; and every object of terror appeared double to them who expected none. They fell like men who, as they are void of moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress. Arminius forsook the fight unhurt; Inguiomerus grievously wounded; their men were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. In the evening the legions returned, in the same want of provisions, and with more wounds; but in victory they found all things, health, vigour, and abundance.
In the meantime a report had flown, that the Roman forces were routed, and an army of Germans upon full march to invade Gaul; so that under the terror of this news there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to have demolished the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina restrained them from that infamous attempt. In truth, such was the undaunted spirit of the woman, that at this time she performed all the duties of a general, relieved the necessitous soldiers, upon the wounded bestowed medicines, and upon others clothes. Caius Plinius, the writer of the German wars, relates that she stood at the end of the bridge, as the legions returned, and accosted them with thanks and praises; a behaviour which sunk deep into the spirit of Tiberius: “For that all this officiousness of hers,” he thought, “could not be upright; nor that it was against foreigners only she engaged the army. To the direction of the generals nothing was now left, when a woman reviewed the companies, attended the Eagles, and to the men distributed largesses: as if before she had shown but small tokens of ambitious designs, in carrying her child (the son of the General) in a soldier’s coat about the camp, with the title of Caesar Caligula: already in greater credit with the army was Agrippina than the leaders of the legions, in greater than their generals; and a woman had suppressed sedition, which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.” These jealousies were inflamed, and more were added, by Sejanus; one who was well skilled in the temper of Tiberius, and purposely furnished him with sources of hatred, to lie hid in his heart, and be discharged with increase hereafter. Germanicus, in order to lighten the ships in which he had embarked his men, and fit their burden to the ebbs and shallows, delivered the second and fourteenth legions to Publius Vitellius, to lead them by land. Vitellius at first had an easy march on dry ground, or ground moderately overflowed by the tide, when suddenly the fury of the north wind swelling the ocean (a constant effect of the equinox) the legions were surrounded and tossed with the tide, and the land was all on flood; the sea, the shore, the fields, had the same tempestuous face; no distinction of depths from shallows; none of firm, from deceitful, footing. They were overturned by the billows, swallowed down by the eddies; and horses, baggage, and drowned men encountered each other, and floated together. The several companies were mixed at random by the waves; they waded, now breast high, now up to the chin, and as the ground failed them, they fell, some never more to rise. Their cries and mutual encouragements availed them nothing against the prevailing and inexorable waves; no difference between the coward and the brave, the wise and the foolish; none between circumspection and chance; but all were equally involved in the invincible violence of the flood. Vitellius, at length struggling on to an eminence, drew the legions thither, where they passed the cold night without fire, and destitute of every convenience; most of them naked or lamed; not less miserable than men enclosed by an enemy; for even to such remained the consolation of an honourable death; but here was destruction every way void of glory. The land returned with the day, and they marched to the river Vidrus, [Footnote: Weser.] whither Germanicus had gone with the fleet. There the two legions were again embarked, when fame had given them for drowned; nor was their escape believed till Germanicus and the army were seen to return.
Stertinius, who in the meanwhile had been sent before to receive Sigimerus, the brother of Segestes (a prince willing to surrender himself) brought him and his son to the city of the Ubians. Both were pardoned; the father freely, the son with more difficulty, because he was said to have insulted the corpse of Varus. For the rest, Spain, Italy, and both the Gauls strove with emulation to supply the losses of the army; and offered arms, horses, money, according as each abounded. Germanicus applauded their zeal; but accepted only the horses and arms for the service of the war. With his own money he relieved the necessities of the soldiers: and to soften also by his kindness the memory of the late havoc, he visited the wounded, extolled the exploits of particulars, viewed their wounds, with hopes encouraged some, with a sense of glory animated others; and by affability and tenderness confirmed them all in devotion to himself and to his fortune in war.
The ornaments of triumph were this year decreed to Aulus Caecina, Lucius Apronius, and Caius Silius, for their services under Germanicus. The title of Father of his Country, so often offered by the people to Tiberius, was rejected by him; nor would he permit swearing upon his acts, though the same was voted by the Senate. Against it he urged “the instability of all mortal things, and that the higher he was raised the more slippery he stood.” But for all this ostentation of a popular spirit, he acquired not the reputation of possessing it, for he had revived the law concerning violated majesty; a law which, in the days of our ancestors, had indeed the same name, but implied different arraignments and crimes, namely, those against the State; as when an army was betrayed abroad, when seditions were raised at home; in short, when the public was faithlessly administered and the majesty of the Roman People was debased: these were actions, and actions were punished, but words were free. Augustus was the first who brought libels under the penalties of this wrested law, incensed as he was by the insolence of Cassius Severus, who had in his writings wantonly defamed men and ladies of illustrious quality. Tiberius too afterwards, when Pompeius Macer, the Praetor, consulted him “whether process should be granted upon this law?” answered, “That the laws must be executed.” He also was exasperated by satirical verses written by unknown authors and dispersed; exposing his cruelty, his pride, and his mind naturally alienated from his mother.
It will be worth while to relate here the pretended crimes charged upon Falanius and Rubrius, two Roman knights of small fortunes; that hence may be seen from what beginnings, and by how much dark art of Tiberius, this grievous mischief crept in; how it was again restrained; how at last it blazed out and consumed all things. To Falanius was objected by his accusers, that “amongst the adorers of Augustus, who went in fraternities from house to house, he had admitted one Cassius, a mimic and prostitute; and having sold his gardens, had likewise with them sold the statue of Augustus.” The crime imputed to Rubrius was, “That he had sworn falsely by the divinity of Augustus.” When these accusations were known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls, “That Heaven was not therefore decreed to his father, that the worship of him might be a snare to the citizens of Rome; that Cassius, the player, was wont to assist with others of his profession at the interludes consecrated by his mother to the memory of Augustus: neither did it affect religion, that his effigies, like other images of the Gods, were comprehended in the sale of houses and gardens. As to the false swearing by his name, it was to be deemed the same as if Rubrius had profaned the name of Jupiter; but to the Gods belonged the avenging of injuries done to the Gods.”
Not long after, Granius Marcellus, Praetor of Bithynia, was charged with high treason by his own Quaestor, Cepio Crispinus; Romanus Hispo, the pleader, supporting the charge. This Cepio began a course of life which, through the miseries of the times and the bold wickedness of men, became afterwards famous: at first needy and obscure, but of a busy spirit, he made court to the cruelty of the Prince by occult informations; and presently, as an open accuser, grew terrible to every distinguished Roman. This procured him credit with one, hatred from all, and made a precedent to be followed by others, who from poverty became rich; from being contemned, dreadful; and in the destruction which they brought upon others, found at last their own. He accused Marcellus of “malignant words concerning Tiberius,” an inevitable crime! when the accuser, collecting all the most detestable parts of the Prince’s character, alleged them as the expressions of the accused; for, because they were true, they were believed to have been spoken. To this, Hispo added, “That the statue of Marcellus was by him placed higher than those of the Caesars; and that, having cut off the head of Augustus, he had in the room of it set the head of Tiberius.” This enraged him so, that breaking silence, he cried, “He would himself, in this cause, give his vote explicitly and under the tie of an oath.” By this he meant to force the assent of the rest of the Senate. There remained even then some faint traces of expiring liberty. Hence Cneius Piso asked him, “In what place, Caesar, will you choose to give your opinion? If first, I shall have your example to follow; if last, I fear I may ignorantly dissent from you.” The words pierced him, but he bore them, the rather as he was ashamed of his unwary transport; and he suffered the accused to be acquitted of high treason. To try him for the public money was referred to the proper judges.
Nor sufficed it Tiberius to assist in the deliberations of the Senate only: he likewise sat in the seats of justice; but always on one side, because he would not dispossess the Praetor of his chair; and by his presence there, many ordinances were established against the intrigues and solicitations of the Grandees. But while private justice was thus promoted, public liberty was overthrown. About this time, Pius Aurelius, the Senator, whose house, yielding to the pressure of the public road and aqueducts, had fallen, complained to the Senate and prayed relief: a suit opposed by the Praetors who managed the treasury; but he was relieved by Tiberius, who ordered him the price of his house; for he was fond of being liberal upon honest occasions: a virtue which he long retained, even after he had utterly abandoned all other virtues. Upon Propertius Celer, once Praetor, but now desiring leave to resign the dignity of Senator, as a burden to his poverty, he bestowed a thousand great sesterces; [Footnote: L8333.] upon ample information, that Celer’s necessities were derived from his father. Others, who attempted the same thing, he ordered to lay their condition before the Senate; and from an affectation of severity was thus austere even where he acted with uprightness. Hence the rest preferred poverty and silence to begging and relief.
The same year the Tiber, being swelled with continual rains, overflowed the level parts of the city; and the common destruction of men and houses followed the returning flood. Hence Asinius Callus moved “that the Sibylline books might be consulted.” Tiberius opposed it, equally smothering all inquiries whatsoever, whether into matters human or divine. To Ateius Capito, however, and Lucius Arruntius, was committed the care of restraining the river within its banks. The provinces of Achaia and Macedon, praying relief from their public burdens, were for the present discharged of their Proconsular government, and subjected to the Emperor’s lieutenants. In the entertainment of gladiators at Rome, Drusus presided: it was exhibited in the name of Germanicus, and his own; and at it he manifested too much lust of blood, even of the blood of slaves: a quality terrible to the populace; and hence his father was said to have reproved him. His own absence from these shows was variously construed: by some it was ascribed to his impatience of a crowd; by others to his reserved and solitary genius, and his fear of an unequal comparison with Augustus, who was wont to be a cheerful spectator. But, that he thus purposely furnished matter for exposing the cruelty of his son there, and for raising him popular hate, is what I would not believe; though this too was asserted.
The dissensions of the theatre, begun last year, broke out now more violently, with the slaughter of several, not of the people only, but of the soldiers, with that of a Centurion. Nay, a Tribune of a Praetorian cohort was wounded, whilst they were securing the magistrates from insults, and quelling the licentiousness of the rabble. This riot was canvassed in the Senate, and votes were passing for empowering the Praetors to whip the players. Haterius Agrippa, Tribune of the People, opposed it; and was sharply reprimanded by a speech of Asinius Gallus. Tiberius was silent, and to the Senate allowed these empty apparitions of liberty. The opposition, however, prevailed, in reverence to the authority of Augustus; who, upon a certain occasion, had given his judgment, “that players were exempt from stripes:” nor would Tiberius assume to violate any words of his. To limit the wages of players, and restrain the licentiousness of their partisans, many decrees were made: the most remarkable were, “That no Senator should enter the house of a pantomime; no Roman Knight attend them abroad; they should show nowhere but in the theatre; and the Praetors should have power to punish any insolence in the spectators with exile.”
The Spaniards were, upon their petition, permitted to build a temple to Augustus in the colony of Tarragon; an example this for all the provinces to follow. In answer to the people, who prayed to be relieved from the _centesima_, a tax of one in the hundred, established at the end of the civil wars, upon all vendible commodities; Tiberius by an edict declared, “That upon this tax depended the fund for maintaining the army; nor even thus was the Commonwealth equal to the expense, if before their twentieth year the veterans were dismissed.” So that the concessions made them during the late sedition, to discharge them finally at the end of sixteen years, as they were made through necessity, were for the future abolished.
It was next proposed to the Senate, by Arruntius and Ateius, whether, in order to restrain the overflowing of the Tiber, the channels of the several rivers and lakes by which it was swelled, must not be diverted. Upon this question the deputies of several cities and colonies were heard. The Florentines besought, “that the bed of the Clanis [Footnote: Chiana.] might not be turned into their river Arnus; [Footnote: Arno.] for that the same would prove their utter ruin.” The like plea was urged by the Interamnates; [Footnote: Terni.] “since the most fruitful plains in Italy would be lost, if, according to the project, the Nar, branched out into rivulets, overflowed them.” Nor were the Reatinians less earnest against stopping the outlets of the Lake Velinus into the Nar; “otherwise,” they said, “it would break over its banks, and stagnate all the adjacent country; the direction of nature was best in all natural things: it was she that to rivers had appointed their courses and discharges, and set them their limits as well as their sources. Regard too was to be paid to the religion of our Latin allies, who, esteeming the rivers of their country sacred, had to them dedicated Priests, and altars, and groves; nay, the Tiber himself, when bereft of his auxiliary streams, would flow with diminished grandeur.” Now, whether it were that the prayers of the colonies, or the difficulty of the work, or the influence of superstition prevailed, it is certain the opinion of Piso was followed; namely, that nothing should be altered,
To Poppeus Sabinus was continued his province of Mesia; and to it was added that of Achaia and Macedon. This too was part of the politics of Tiberius, to prolong governments, and maintain the same men in the same armies, or civil employments, for the most part, to the end of their lives; with what view, is not agreed. Some think “that from an impatience of returning cares, he was for making whatever he once liked perpetual.” Others, “that from the malignity of his invidious nature, he regretted the preferring of many.” There are some who believe, “that as he had a crafty penetrating spirit, so he had an understanding ever irresolute and perplexed.” So much is certain, that he never courted any eminent virtue, yet hated vice; from the best men he dreaded danger to himself, and disgrace to the public from the worst. This hesitation mastered him so much at last that he committed foreign governments to some, whom he meant never to suffer to leave Rome.
Concerning the management of consular elections, either then or afterwards under Tiberius, I can affirm scarce anything: such is the variance about it, not only amongst historians, but even in his own speeches. Sometimes, not naming the candidates, he described them by their family, by their life and manners, and by the number of their campaigns; so as it might be apparent whom he meant. Again, avoiding even to describe them, he exhorted the candidates not to disturb the election by their intrigues, and promised himself to take care of their interests. But chiefly he used to declare, “that to him none had signified their pretensions, but such whose names he had delivered to the Consuls; others too were at liberty to offer the like pretensions, if they trusted to the favour of the Senate or their own merits.” Specious words! but entirely empty, or full of fraud; and by how much they were covered with the greater guise of liberty, by so much threatening a more hasty and devouring bondage.
BOOK II
A.D. 16-19.
The commotions in the East happened not ungratefully to Tiberius, since then he had a colour for separating Germanicus from his old and faithful legions; for setting him over strange provinces, and exposing him at once to casual perils and the efforts of fraud. But he, the more ardent he found the affections of the soldiers, and the greater the hatred of his uncle, so much the more intent upon a decisive victory, weighed with himself all the methods of that war, with all the disasters and successes which had befallen him in it to this his third year. He remembered “that the Germans were ever routed in a fair battle, and upon equal ground; that woods and bogs, short summers, and early winters, were their chief resources; that his own men suffered not so much from their wounds, as from tedious marches, and the loss of their arms. The Gauls were weary of furnishing horses; long and cumbersome was his train of baggage, easily surprised, and with difficulty defended; but, if we entered the country by sea, the invasion would be easy, and the enemy unapprised. Besides, the war would be earlier begun; the legions and provisions would be carried together; and the cavalry brought with safety, through the mouths and channels of the rivers, into the heart of Germany.”
On that method therefore he fixed: whilst Publius Vitellius and Publius Cantius were sent to collect the tribute of the Gauls; Silius, Anteius, and Caecina had the direction of building the fleet. A thousand vessels were thought sufficient, and with despatch finished: some were short, sharp at both ends, and wide in the middle, the easier to endure the agitations of the waves; some had flat bottoms, that without damage they might bear to run aground; several had helms at each end, that by suddenly turning the oars only they might work either way. Many were arched over, for carrying the engines of war. They were fitted for holding horses and provisions, to fly with sails, to run with oars, and the spirit and alacrity of the soldiers heightened the show and terror of the fleet. They were to meet at the Isle of Batavia, which was chosen for its easy landing, for its convenience to receive the forces, and thence to transport them to the war. For the Rhine, flowing in one continual channel, or only broken by small islands, is, at the extremity of Batavia, divided as it were into two rivers; one running still through Germany, and retaining the same name and violent current, till it mixes with the ocean; the other, washing the Gallic shore, with a broader and more gentle stream, is by the inhabitants called by another name, the Wahal, which it soon after changes for that of the river Meuse, by whose immense mouth it is discharged into the same ocean.
While the fleet sailed, Germanicus commanded Silius, his lieutenant, with a flying band, to invade the Cattans; and he himself, upon hearing that the fort upon the river Luppia [Footnote: Lippe.] was besieged, led six legions thither: but the sudden rains prevented Silius from doing more than taking some small plunder, with the wife and daughter of Arpus, Prince of the Cattans; nor did the besiegers stay to fight Germanicus, but upon the report of his approach stole off and dispersed. As they had, however, thrown down the common tomb lately raised over the Varian legions, and the old altar erected to Drusus, he restored the altar; and performed in person with the legions the funeral ceremony of running courses to the honour of his father. To replace the tomb was not thought fit; but all the space between Fort Aliso and the Rhine, he fortified with a new barrier.
The fleet was now arrived, the provisions were sent forward; ships were assigned to the legions and the allies; and he entered the canal cut by Drusus, and called by his name. Here he invoked his father “to be propitious to his son attempting the same enterprises; to inspire him with the same counsels, and animate him by his example.” Hence he sailed fortunately through the lakes and the ocean to the river Amisia, [Footnote: Ems.] and at the town of Amisia the fleet was left upon the left shore; and it was a fault that it sailed no higher, for he landed the army on the right shore, so that in making bridges many days were consumed. The horse and the legions passed over without danger, as it was yet ebb; but the returning tide disordered the rear, especially the Batavians, while they played with the waves, and showed their dexterity in swimming; and some were drowned. Whilst Germanicus was encamping, he was told of the revolt of the Angrivarians behind him, and thither he despatched a body of horse and light foot, under Stertinius. who with fire and slaughter took vengeance on the perfidious revolters.
Between the Romans and the Cheruscans flowed the river Visurgis, [Footnote: Weser.] and on the banks of it stood Arminius, with the other chiefs: he inquired whether Germanicus was come; and being answered that he was there, he prayed leave to speak with his brother. This brother of his was in the army, his name Flavius; one remarkable for his lasting faith towards the Romans, and for the loss of an eye in the war under Tiberius. This request was granted: Flavius stepped forward, and was saluted by Arminius, who, having removed his own attendance, desired that our archers ranged upon the opposite banks might retire. When they were withdrawn, “How came you,” says he to his brother, “by that deformity in your face?” The brother having informed him where, and in what fight, was next asked, “what reward he had received?” Flavius answered, “Increase of pay, the chain, the crown, and other military gifts;” all which Arminius treated with derision, as the vile wages of servitude.
Here began a warm contest: Flavius pleaded “the grandeur of the Roman Empire, the power of the Emperor, the Roman clemency to submitting nations, the heavy yoke of the vanquished; and that neither the wife nor son of Arminius was used like a captive.” Arminius to all this opposed “the natural rights of their country, their ancient liberty, the domestic Gods of Germany; he urged the prayers of their common mother joined to his own, that he would not prefer the character of a deserter, that of a betrayer of his family, his countrymen, and kindred, to the glory of being their commander.” By degrees they fell into reproaches; nor would the interposition of the river have restrained them from blows, had not Stertinius hasted to lay hold on Flavius, full of rage, and calling for his arms and his horse. On the opposite side was seen Arminius, swelling with ferocity and threats, and denouncing battle. For, of what he said, much was said in Latin, having as the General of his countrymen served in the Roman armies.
Next day, the German army stood embattled beyond the Visurgis. Germanicus, who thought it became not a General to endanger the legions, till for their passage and security he had placed bridges and guards, made the horse ford over. They were led by Stertinius, and Aemilius, Lieutenant- Colonel of a legion; and these two officers crossed the river in distant places, to divide the foe. Cariovalda, Captain of the Batavians, passed it where most rapid, and was by the Cheruscans, who feigned flight, drawn into a plain surrounded with woods, whence they rushed out upon him and assaulted him on every side; overthrew those who resisted, and pressed vehemently upon those who gave way. The distressed Batavians formed themselves into a ring, but were again broken, partly by a close assault, partly by distant showers of darts. Cariovalda, having long sustained the fury of the enemy, exhorted his men to draw up into platoons, and break through the prevailing host; he himself forced his way into their centre, and fell with his horse under a shower of darts, and many of the principal Batavians round him; the rest were saved by their own bravery, or rescued by the cavalry under Stertinius and Aemilius.
Germanicus, having passed the Visurgis, learned from a deserter, that Arminius had marked out the place of battle; that more nations had also joined him; that they rendezvoused in a wood sacred to Hercules, and would attempt to storm our camp by night. The deserter was believed; the enemy’s fires were discerned; and the scouts having advanced towards them, reported that they had heard the neighing of horses, and the hollow murmur of a mighty and tumultuous host. In this important conjuncture, upon the approach of a decisive battle, Germanicus thought it behoved him to learn the inclinations and spirit of the soldiers and deliberated with himself how to be informed without fraud: “for the reports of the Tribunes and Centurions used to be oftener pleasing than true; his Freedmen had still slavish souls, incapable of free speech; friends were apt to flatter; there was the same uncertainty in an assemble, where the counsel proposed by a few was wont to be echoed by all; in truth, the minds of the soldiery were then best known, when they were least watched; when free and over their meals, they frankly disclosed their hopes and fears.”
In the beginning of night, he went out at the augural gate, with a single attendant; himself disguised with the skin of a wild beast hanging over his shoulders; and choosing secret ways, he escaped the notice of the watch, entered the lanes of the camp, listened from tent to tent, and enjoyed the pleasing display of his own popularity and fame; as one was magnifying the imperial birth of his general; another, his graceful person; and all, his patience, condescension, and the equality of his soul in every temper, pleasant or grave: they confessed the gratitude due to so much merit, and that in battle they ought to express it, and to sacrifice at the same time to glory and revenge these perfidious Germans, who for ever violated stipulations and peace. In the meantime one of the enemy who understood Latin rode up to the palisades, and with a loud voice offered, in the name of Arminius, to every deserter a wife and land, and as long as the war lasted an hundred sesterces a day. [Footnote: 16s. 8d.] This contumely kindled the wrath of the legions: “Let day come,” they cried, “let battle be given: the soldiers would seize and not accept the lands of the Germans; take and not receive German wives; they, however, received the offer as an omen of victory, and considered the money and women as their destined prey.” Near the third watch of the night, they approached and insulted the camp; but without striking a blow, when they found the ramparts covered thick with cohorts, and no advantage given.
Germanicus had the same night a joyful dream: he thought he sacrificed, and, in place of his own robe besmeared with the sacred blood, received one fairer from the hands of his grandmother Augusta; so that elevated by the omen, and by equal encouragement from the auspices, he called an assembly, where he opened his deliberations concerning the approaching battle with all the advantages contributing to victory: “That to the Roman soldiers not only plains and dales, but, with due circumspection, even woods and forests were commodious for an engagement. The huge targets, the enormous spears, of the Barbarians could never be wielded amongst thickets and trunks of trees like Roman swords and javelins, and armour adjusted to the shape and size of their bodies, so that with these tractable arms they might thicken their blows, and strike with certainty at the naked faces of the enemy, since the Germans were neither furnished with headpiece nor coat of mail, nor were their bucklers bound with leather or fortified with iron, but all bare basket-work or painted boards; and though their first ranks were armed with pikes, the rest had only stakes burnt at the end, or short and contemptible darts; for their persons, as they were terrible to sight and violent in the onset, so they were utterly impatient of wounds, unaffected with their own disgrace, unconcerned for the honour of their general, whom they ever deserted and fled; in distress cowards, in prosperity despisers of all divine, of all human laws. In fine, if the army, after their fatigues at sea and their tedious marches by land, longed for an utter end of their labour, by this battle they might gain it. The Elbe was now nearer than the Rhine; and if they would make him a conqueror in those countries where his father and his uncle had conquered, the war was concluded.” The ardour of the soldiers followed the speech of the general, and the signal for the onset was given.
Neither did Arminius or the other chiefs neglect to declare to their several bands that “these Romans were the cowardly fugitives of the Varian army, who, because they could not endure to fight, had afterwards chosen to rebel. That some with backs deformed by wounds, some with limbs maimed by tempests, forsaken of hope, and the Gods against them, were once more presenting their lives to their vengeful foes. Hitherto a fleet, and unfrequented seas, had been the resources of their cowardice against an assaulting or a pursuing enemy; but now that they were to engage hand to hand, vain would be their relief from wind and oars after a defeat. The Germans needed only remember their rapine, cruelty, and pride; and that to themselves nothing remained but either to maintain their native liberty, or by death to prevent bondage.”
The enemy, thus inflamed and calling for battle, were led into a plain called Idistavisus: [Footnote: Near Minden.] it lies between the Visurgis and the hills, and winds unequally along, as it is straitened by the swellings of the mountains or enlarged by the circuits of the river. Behind rose a forest of high trees, thick of branches above but clear of bushes below. The army of Barbarians kept the plain, and the entrances of the forest. The Cheruscans alone sat down upon the mountain, in order to pour down from thence upon the Romans as soon as they became engaged in the fight. Our army marched thus: the auxiliary Gauls and Germans in front, after them the foot archers, next four legions, and then Germanicus with two Praetorian cohorts and the choice of the cavalry; then four legions more, and the light foot with archers on horseback and the other troops of the allies; the men all intent to march in order of battle and ready to engage as they marched.
As the impatient bands of Cheruscans were now perceived descending fiercely from the hills, Germanicus commanded a body of the best horse to charge them in the flank, and Stertinius with the rest to wheel round to attack them in the rear, and promised to be ready to assist them in person. During this a joyful omen appeared: eight eagles were seen to fly toward the wood, and to enter it; a presage of victory to the General. “_Advance_,” he cried, “_follow the Roman birds; follow the tutelar Deities of the legions!_” Instantly the foot charged the enemy’s front, and instantly the detached cavalry attacked their flank and rear: this double assault had a strange event; the two divisions of their army fled opposite ways; that in the woods ran to the plain; that in the plain rushed into the woods. The Cheruscans, between both, were driven from the hills; amongst them Arminius, remarkably brave, who with his hand, his voice, and distinguished wounds was still sustaining the fight. He had assaulted the archers, and would have broken through them, but the cohorts of the Retians, the Vindelicians, and the Gauls marched to their relief; however, by his own vigour and the force of his horse, he escaped, his face besmeared with his own blood to avoid being known. Some have related that the Chaucians, who were amongst the Roman auxiliaries, knew him, and let him go; the same bravery or deceit procured Inguiomerus his escape; the rest were everywhere slain; and great numbers attempting to swim the Visurgis were destroyed in it, either pursued with darts, or swallowed by the current, or overwhelmed with the weight of the crowd, or buried under the falling banks; some seeking a base refuge on the tops of trees, and concealment amongst the branches, were shot in sport by the archers, or squashed as the trees were felled: a mighty victory this, and to us far from bloody!
This slaughter of the foe, from the fifth hour of the day till night, filled the country for ten miles with carcasses and arms: amongst the spoils, chains were found, which, sure of conquering, they had brought to bind the Roman captives. The soldiers proclaimed Tiberius _Imperator_ upon the field of battle, and raising a mount, placed upon it as trophies the German arms, with the names of all the vanquished nations inscribed below.
This sight filled the Germans with more anguish and rage than all their wounds, past afflictions, and slaughters. They, who were just prepared to abandon their dwellings, and flit beyond the Elbe, meditate war and grasp their arms: people, nobles, youth, aged, all rush suddenly upon the Roman army in its march and disorder it. They next chose their camp, a strait and moist plain shut in between a river and a forest, the forest too surrounded with a deep marsh, except on one side, which was closed with a barrier raised by the Angrivarians between them and the Cheruscans. Here stood their foot; their horse were distributed and concealed amongst the neighbouring groves, thence, by surprise, to beset the legions in the rear as soon as they had entered the wood.
Nothing of all this was a secret to Germanicus: he knew their counsels, their stations, what steps they pursued, what measures they concealed; and, to the destruction of the enemy, turned their own subtilty and devices. To Seius Tubero, his Lieutenant, he committed the horse and the field; the infantry so disposed, that part might pass the level approaches into the wood, and the rest force the ramparts; this was the most arduous task, and to himself he reserved it; the rest he left to his Lieutenants. Those who had the even ground to traverse, broke easily in; but they who were to assail the rampart, were as grievously battered from above, as if they had been storming a wall. The General perceived the inequality of this close attack, and drawing off the legions a small distance, ordered the slingers to throw, and the engineers to play, to beat off the enemy: immediately showers of darts were poured from the engines, and the defenders of the barrier, the more bold and exposed they were, with the more wounds they were beaten down. Germanicus, having taken the rampart, first forced his way, at the head of the Praetorian cohorts, into the woods, and there it was fought foot to foot; behind, the enemy were begirt with the morass, the Romans with the mountains or the rivers; no room for either to retreat, no hope but in valour, no safety but in victory.
The Germans had no inferior courage, but they were exceeded in the fashion of arms and art of fighting. Their mighty multitude, hampered in narrow places, could not push nor recover their long spears, nor practise in a close combat their usual boundings and velocity of limbs. On the contrary, our soldiers, with handy swords, and their breasts closely guarded with a buckler, delved the large bodies and naked faces of the Barbarians, and opened themselves a way with a havoc of the enemy: besides, the activity of Arminius now failed him, either spent through his continual efforts or slackened by a wound just received. Inguiomerus was everywhere upon the spur, animating the battle, but fortune rather than courage deserted him. Germanicus, to be the easier known, pulled off his helmet, and exhorted his men “to prosecute the slaughter; they wanted no captives,” he said; “only the cutting off that people root and branch would put an end to the war.” It was now late in the day, and he drew off a legion to make a camp; the rest glutted themselves till night, with the blood of the foe; the horse fought with doubtful success.
Germanicus, in a speech from the tribunal, praised his victorious army, and raised a monument of arms with a proud inscription: “That the army of Tiberius Caesar, having vanquished entirely the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe, had consecrated that monument to Mars, to Jupiter, and to Augustus.” Of himself, he made no mention, either fearful of provoking envy, or that he thought it sufficient praise to have deserved it. He had next commanded Stertinius to carry the war amongst the Angrivarians; but they instantly submitted; and these supplicants, by yielding without articles, obtained pardon without reserve.
The summer now declining, some of the legions were sent back into winter quarters by land; more were embarked with Germanicus upon the river Amisia, to go from thence by the ocean. The sea at first was serene, no sound or agitation but from the oars or sails of a thousand ships; but suddenly a black host of clouds poured a storm of hail; furious winds roared on every side, and the tempest darkened the deep, so that all prospect was lost; and it was impossible to steer. The soldiers too, unaccustomed to the terrors of the sea, in the hurry of fear disordered the mariners, or interrupted the skilful by unskilful help. At last the south wind, mastering all the rest, drove the ocean and the sky: the tempest derived new force from the windy mountains and swelling rivers of Germany, as well as from an immense train of clouds; and contracting withal fresh vigour from the boisterous neighbourhood of the north, it hurled the ships and tossed them into the open ocean, or against islands shored with rocks or dangerously beset with covered shoals. The ships by degrees, with great labour and the change of the tide, were relieved from the rocks and sands, but remained at the mercy of the winds; their anchors could not hold them; they were full of water, nor could all their pumps discharge it: hence, to lighten and raise the vessels swallowing at their decks the invading waves, the horses, beasts, baggage, and even the arms were cast into the deep.
By how much the German ocean is more outrageous than the rest of the sea, and the German climate excels in rigour, by so much this ruin was reckoned to exceed in greatness and novelty. They were engaged in a tempestuous sea, believed deep without bottom, vast without bounds, or no shores near but hostile shores: part of the fleet were swallowed up; many were driven upon remote islands void of human culture, where the men perished through famine, or were kept alive by the carcasses of horses cast in by the flood. Only the galley of Germanicus landed upon the coast of the Chaucians, where wandering sadly, day and night, upon the rocks and prominent shore, and incessantly accusing himself as the author of such mighty destruction, he was hardly restrained by his friends from casting himself desperately into the same hostile floods. At last, with the returning tide and an assisting gale, the ships began to return, all maimed, almost destitute of oars, or with coats spread for sails; and some, utterly disabled, were dragged by those that were less. He repaired them hastily, and despatched them to search the islands; and by this care many men were gleaned up; many were by the Angrivarians, our new subjects, redeemed from their maritime neighbours and restored; and some, driven into Great Britain, were sent back by the little British kings. Those who had come from afar, recounted wonders at their return, “the impetuosity of whirlwinds; wonderful birds; sea monsters of ambiguous forms, between man and beasts.” Strange sights these! or the effects of imagination and fear.
The noise of this wreck, as it animated the Germans with hopes of renewing the war, awakened Germanicus also to restrain them: he commanded Caius Silius, with thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse, to march against the Cattans: he himself, with a greater force, invaded the Marsians, where he learnt from Malovendus, their general, lately taken into our subjection, that the Eagle of one of Varus’s legions was hid underground in a neighbouring grove, and kept by a slender guard. Instantly two parties were despatched; one to face the enemy and provoke them from their post; the other to beset their rear and dig up the Eagle; and success attended both. Hence Germanicus advanced with great alacrity, laid waste the country, and smote the foe, either not daring to engage, or, wherever they engaged, suddenly defeated. Nor, as we learnt from the prisoners, were they ever seized with greater dismay: “The Romans,” they cried, “are invincible: no calamities can subdue them: they have wrecked their fleet; their arms are lost; our shores are covered with the bodies of their horses and men; and yet they attack us with their usual ferocity, with the same firmness, and with numbers as it were increased.”
The army was from thence led back into winter quarters, full of joy to have balanced, by this prosperous expedition, their late misfortune at sea; and by the bounty of Germanicus, their joy was heightened, since to each sufferer he caused to be paid as much as each declared he had lost; neither was it doubted but the enemy were humbled, and concerting measures for obtaining peace, and that the next summer would terminate the war. But Tiberius by frequent letters urged him “to come home, there to celebrate the triumph already decreed him; urged that he had already tried enough of events, and tempted abundant hazards: he had indeed fought great and successful battles; but he must likewise remember his losses and calamities, which, however, owing to wind and waves, and no fault of the general, were yet great and grievous. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by Augustus, and effected much more by policy than arms: it was thus he had brought the Sigambrians into subjection, thus drawn the Suevians and King Maroboduus under the bonds of peace. The Cheruscans too, and the other hostile nations, now the Roman vengeance was satiated, might be left to pursue their own national feuds.” Germanicus besought one year to accomplish his conquest; but Tiberius assailed his modesty with a new bait and fresh opportunity, by offering him another Consulship, for the administration of which he was to attend in person at Rome. He added, “that if the war was still to be prosecuted, Germanicus should leave a field of glory to his brother Drusus, to whom there now remained no other; since the Empire had nowhere a war to maintain but in Germany, and thence only Drusus could acquire the title of Imperator, and merit the triumphal laurel.” Germanicus persisted no longer; though he knew that this was all feigned and hollow, and saw himself invidiously torn away from a harvest of ripe glory.
Decrees of the Senate were made for driving astrologers and magicians out of Italy; and one of the herd, Lucius Pituanius, was precipitated from the Tarpeian Rock: Publius Marcius, another, was, by the judgment of the Consuls, at the sound of trumpet executed without the Esquiline Gate, according to the ancient form.
Next time the Senate sat, long discourses against the luxury of the city were made by Quintus Haterius, a consular, and by Octavius Fronto, formerly Praetor; and a law was passed “against using table-plate of solid gold, and against men debasing themselves with gorgeous and effeminate silks.” Fronto went further, and desired that “the quantities of silver plate, the expense of furniture, and the number of domestics might be limited;” for it was yet common for senators to depart from the present debate and offer, as their advice, whatever they judged conducing to the interest of the commonweal. Against him it was argued by Asinius Callus, “That with the growth of the Empire private riches were likewise grown, and it was no new thing for citizens to live according to their conditions, but agreeable to the most primitive usage: the ancient Fabricii and the later Scipios, having different wealth, lived differently; but all suitably to the several stages of the Commonwealth. Public property was accompanied with domestic; but when the State rose to such a height of magnificence, the magnificence of particulars rose too. As to plate, and train, and expense, there was no standard of excess or frugality, but from the fortunes of men. The law, indeed, had made a distinction between the fortunes of senators and knights; not for any natural difference between them, but that they who excelled in place, rank, and civil pre-eminence, might excel too in other particulars, such as conduced to the health of the body or to the peace and solacement of the soul; unless it were expected, that the most illustrious citizens should sustain the sharpest cares, and undergo the heaviest fatigues and dangers, but continue destitute of every alleviation of fatigue and danger and care.” Gallus easily prevailed, whilst under worthy names he avowed and supported popular vices in an assembly engaged in them. Tiberius too had said, “That it was not a season for reformation; or, if there were any corruption of manners, there would not be wanting one to correct them.”
During these transactions, Lucius Piso, after he had declaimed bitterly in the Senate against “the ambitious practices and intrigues of the Forum, the corruption of the tribunals, and the inhumanity of the pleaders breathing continual terror and impeachments,” declared “he would entirely relinquish Rome, and retire into a quiet corner of the country, far distant and obscure.” With these words he left the Senate; Tiberius was provoked; and yet not only soothed him with gentle words, but likewise obliged Piso’s relations, by their authority or entreaties, to retain him. The same Piso gave soon after an equal instance of the indignation of the free spirit, by prosecuting a suit against Urgulania; a lady whom the partial friendship of Livia had set at defiance with the laws. Urgulania being carried, for protection, to the palace, despised the efforts of Piso; so that neither did she submit; nor would he desist, notwithstanding the complaints and resentments of Livia, that in the prosecution “violence and indignity were done to her own person.” Tiberius promised to attend the trial, and assist Urgulania; but only promised in civility to his mother, for so far he thought it became him; and thus left the palace, ordering his guards to follow at a distance. People the while crowded about him, and he walked with a slow and composed air: as he lingered, and prolonged the time and way with various discourse, the trial went on. Piso would not be mollified by the importunity of his friends; and hence at last the Empress ordered the payment of the money claimed by him. This was the issue of the affair: by it, Piso lost no renown; and it signally increased the credit of Tiberius. The power, however, of Urgulania was so exorbitant to the State, that she disdained to appear a witness in a certain cause before the Senate: and, when it had been always usual even for the Vestal Virgins to attend the Forum and Courts of Justice, as oft as their evidence was required; a Praetor was sent to examine Urgulania at her own house.
The procrastination which happened this year in the public affairs, I should not mention, but that the different opinions of Cneius Piso and Asinius Gallus about it, are worth knowing. Their dispute was occasioned by a declaration of Tiberius; “that he was about to be absent,” and it was the motion of Piso, “that for that very reason, the prosecution of public business was the rather to be continued; since, as in the Prince’s absence, the Senate and equestrian order might administer their several parts, the same would redound to the honour of the Commonwealth.” This was a declaration for liberty, and in it Piso had prevented Gallus, who now in opposition said, “that nothing sufficiently illustrious, nor suiting the dignity of the Roman People, could be transacted but under the immediate eye of the Emperor, and therefore the conflux of suitors and affairs from Italy and the provinces must by all means be reserved for his presence.” Tiberius heard and was silent, while the debate was managed on both sides with mighty vehemence; but the adjournment was carried.
A debate too arose between Gallus and the Emperor: for Gallus moved “that the magistrates should be henceforth elected but once every five years; that the legates of the legions, who had never exercised the Praetorships, should be appointed Praetors; and that the Prince should nominate twelve candidates every year.” It was not doubted but this motion had a deeper aim, and that by it the secret springs and reserves of imperial power were invaded. But Tiberius, as if he rather apprehended the augmentation of his power, argued “that it was a heavy task upon his moderation, to choose so many magistrates, and to postpone so many candidates. That disgusts from disappointments were hardly avoided in yearly elections; though, for their solacement, fresh hopes remained of approaching success in the next; now how great must be the hatred, how lasting the resentment of such whose pretensions were to be rejected beyond five years? and whence could it be foreseen that, in so long a tract of time, the same men would continue to have the same dispositions, the same alliances and fortunes? even an annual designation to power made men imperious; how imperious would it make them, if they bore the honour for five years! besides, it would multiply every single magistrate into five, and utterly subvert the laws which had prescribed a proper space for exercising the diligence of the candidates, and for soliciting as well as enjoying preferments.”
By this speech, in appearance popular, he still retained the spirit and force of the sovereignty. He likewise sustained by gratuities, the dignity of some necessitous Senators: hence it was the more wondered, that he received with haughtiness and repulse the petition of Marcus Hortalus, a young man of signal quality and manifestly poor. He was the grandson of Hortensius the Orator; and had been encouraged by the deified Augustus, with a bounty of a thousand great sestertia, [Footnote: L8333.] to marry for posterity; purely to prevent the extinction of a family most illustrious and renowned. The Senate were sitting in the palace, and Hortalus having set his four children before the door, fixed his eyes, now upon the statue of Hortensius, placed amongst the orators; then upon that of Augustus; and instead of speaking to the question, began on this wise: “Conscript Fathers, you see there the number and infancy of my children; not mine by my own choice, but in compliance with the advice of the Prince: such too was the splendour of my ancestors, that it merited to be perpetuated in their race; but for my own particular, who, marred by the revolution of the times, could not raise wealth, nor engage popular favour, nor cultivate the hereditary fortune of our house, the fortune of Eloquence: I deemed it sufficient if, in my slender circumstances, I lived no disgrace to myself, no burden to others. Commanded by the Emperor, I took a wife; behold the offspring of so many Consuls; behold the descendants of so many Dictators! nor is this remembrance invidiously made, but made to move mercy. In the progress of your reign, Caesar, these children may arrive at the honours in your gift; defend them in the meantime from want: they are the great-grandsons of Hortensius; they are the foster sons of Augustus.”
The inclination of the Senate was favourable; an incitement this to Tiberius the more eagerly to thwart Hortalus. These were in effect his words: “If all that are poor recur hither for a provision of money to their children, the public will certainly fail, and yet particulars never be satiated. Our ancestors, when they permitted a departure from the question, to propose somewhat more important to the State, did not therefore permit it, that we might here transact domestic matters, and augment our private rents: an employment invidious both in the Senate and the Prince; since, whether they grant or deny the petitioned bounties, either the people or the petitioners will ever be offended. But these, in truth, are not petitions; they are demands made against order, and made by surprise: while you are assembled upon other affairs, he stands up and urges your pity, by the number and infancy of his children; with the same violence, he charges the attack to me, and as it were bursts open the exchequer; but if by popular bounties we exhaust it, by rapine and oppression we must supply it. The deified Augustus gave you money, Hortalus; but without solicitation he gave it, and on no condition that it should always be given: otherwise diligence will languish; sloth will prevail; and men having no hopes in resources of their own, no anxiety for themselves, but all securely relying on foreign relief, will become private sluggards and public burdens.” These and the like reasonings of Tiberius were differently received; with approbation by those whose way it is to extol, without distinction, all the doings of Princes, worthy and unworthy; by most, however, with silence, or low and discontented murmurs. Tiberius perceived it, and having paused a little, said “his answer was particularly to Hortalus; but if the Senate thought fit, he would give his sons two hundred great sestertia each.” [Footnote: L1666.] For this all the Senators presented their thanks; only Hortalus said nothing; perhaps through present awe, or perhaps possessed, even in poverty, with the grandeur of his ancient nobility. Nor did Tiberius ever show further pity, though the house of Hortensius was fallen into shameful distress.
At the end of the year, a triumphal arch was raised near the Temple of Saturn; a monument this for the recovery of the Varian Eagles, under the conduct of Germanicus, under the auspices of Tiberius. A temple was dedicated to Happy Fortune near the Tiber, in the gardens bequeathed to the Roman People by Caesar, the Dictator. A chapel was consecrated to the Julian family, and statues to the deified Augustus, in the suburbs called Bovillae. In the consulship of Caius Celius and Lucius Pomponius, the six- and-twentieth of May, Germanicus Caesar triumphed over the Cheruscans, the Cattans, the Angrivarians, and the other nations as far as the Elbe. In the triumph were carried all the spoils and captives, with the representations of mountains, of rivers, and of battles; so that his conquests, because he was restrained from completing them, were taken for complete. His own graceful person, and his chariot filled with his five children, heightened the show and the delight of the beholders; yet they were checked with secret fears, as they remembered “that popular favour had proved malignant to his father Drusus; that his uncle Marcellus was snatched, in his youth, from the burning affections of the populace; and that ever short-lived and unfortunate were the favourites of the Roman People.”
Tiberius distributed to the people, in the name of Germanicus, three hundred sesterces a man, [Footnote: L2, 10s.] and named himself his colleague in the Consulship. Nor even thus did he gain the opinion of tenderness and sincerity: in effect, on pretence of investing the young Prince with fresh preferment and honours, he resolved to alienate him from Rome; and, to accomplish it, craftily framed an occasion, or snatched such an one as chance presented. Archelaus had enjoyed the kingdom of Cappadocia now fifty years; a Prince under the deep displeasure of Tiberius, because, in his retirement at Rhodes, the King had paid him no sort of court or distinction: an omission this which proceeded from no disdain, but from the warnings given him by the confidents of Augustus; for that the young Caius Caesar, the presumptive heir to the sovereignty, then lived, and was sent to compose and administer the affairs of the East; hence the friendship of Tiberius was reckoned then dangerous. But when, by the utter fall of the family of the Caesars, he had gained the Empire, he enticed Archelaus to Rome, by means of letters from his mother, who, without dissembling her son’s resentment, offered the King his mercy, provided he came and in person implored it. He, who was either ignorant of the snare, or dreaded violence if he appeared to perceive it, hastened to the city, where he was received by Tiberius with great sternness and wrath, and soon after accused as a criminal in the Senate. The crimes alleged against him were mere fictions; yet, as equal treatment is unusual to kings, and to be treated like malefactors intolerable; Archelaus, who was broken with grief as well as age, by choice or fate ended his life; his kingdom was reduced into a province, and by its revenues Tiberius declared the tax of a hundredth penny would be abated, and reduced it for the future to the two hundredth. At the same time died Antiochus, king of Comagena, as also Philopator, king of Cilicia; and great combustions shook these nations; whilst of the people many desired Roman government, and many were addicted to domestic monarchy. The provinces, too, of Syria and Judea, as they were oppressed with impositions, prayed an abatement of tribute.
These affairs, and such as I have above related concerning Armenia, Tiberius represented to the Fathers, and “that the commotions of the East could only be settled by the wisdom and abilities of Germanicus; for himself, his age now declined, and that of Drusus was not yet sufficiently ripe.” The provinces beyond the sea were thence decreed to Germanicus, with authority superior to all those who obtained provinces by lot, or the nomination of the Prince; but Tiberius had already taken care to remove from the government of Syria Creticus Silanus, one united to Germanicus in domestic alliance, by having to Nero, the eldest son of Germanicus, betrothed his daughter. In his room he had preferred Cneius Piso, a man of violent temper, incapable of subjection, and heir to all the ferocity and haughtiness of his father Piso; the same who, in the civil war, assisted the reviving party against Caesar in Africa with vehement efforts; and then followed Brutus and Cassius, but had at last leave to come home, yet disdained to sue for any public offices; nay, was even courted by Augustus to accept the Consulship. His son, besides his hereditary pride and impetuosity, was elevated with the nobility and wealth of Plancina his wife; scarce yielded he to Tiberius, and, as men far beneath him, despised the sons of Tiberius; neither did he doubt but he was set over Syria on purpose to thwart the measures and defeat all the views of Germanicus. Some even believed that he had to this purpose secret orders from Tiberius, as it was certain that Livia directed Plancina to exert the spirit of the sex, and by constant emulation and indignities persecute Agrippina. For the whole court was rent, and their affections secretly divided between Drusus and Germanicus. Tiberius was partial to Drusus, as his own son by generation; others loved Germanicus; the more for the aversion of his uncle, and for being by his mother of more illustrious descent; as Marc Anthony was his grandfather, and Augustus his great- uncle. On the other side, Pomponius Atticus, a Roman knight, by being the great-grandfather of Drusus, seemed thence to have derived a stain upon the images of the Claudian house; besides, Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, did in the fruitfulness of her body and the reputation of her virtue far excel Livia, the wife of Drusus. Yet the two brothers lived in amiable dearness and concord, no wise shaken or estranged by the reigning contention amongst their separate friends and adherents.
Drusus was soon after sent into Illyricum in order to inure him to war, and gain him the affections of the army; besides, Tiberius thought that the youth, who loved wantoning in the luxuries of Rome, would be reformed in the camp, and that his own security would be enlarged when both his sons were at the head of the legions. But the pretence of sending him was the protection of the Suevians, who were then imploring assistance against the powers of the Cheruscans. For these nations, who since the departure of the Romans saw themselves no longer threatened with terrors from abroad, and were then particularly engaged in a national competition for glory, had relapsed, as usual, into their old intestine feuds, and turned their arms upon each other. The two people were equally powerful, and their two leaders equally brave; but differently esteemed, as the title of king upon Maroboduus had drawn the hate and aversion of his countrymen; whilst Arminius, as a champion warring for the defence of liberty, was the universal object of popular affection.
Hence not only the Cheruscans and their confederates, they who had been the ancient soldiery of Arminius, took arms; but to him too revolted the Semnones and Langobards, both Suevian nations, and even subjects of Maroboduus; and by their accession he would have exceeded in puissance, but Inguiomerus with his band of followers deserted to Maroboduus; for no other cause than disdain, that an old man and an uncle like himself should obey Arminius, a young man, his nephew. Both armies were drawn out, with equal hopes; nor disjointed, like the old German battles, into scattered parties for loose and random attacks; for by long war with us they had learnt to follow their ensigns, to strengthen their main body with parties of reserves, and to observe the orders of their generals. Arminius was now on horseback viewing all the ranks: as he rode through them he magnified their past feats; “their liberty recovered; the slaughtered legions; the spoils of arms wrested from the Romans; monuments of victory still retained in some of their hands.” Upon Maroboduus he fell with contumelious names, as “a fugitive, one of no abilities in war; a coward who had sought defence from the gloomy coverts of the Hercynian woods, and then by gifts and solicitations courted the alliance of Rome; a betrayer of his country, and a lifeguard-man of Caesar’s, worthy to be exterminated with no less hostile vengeance than in the slaughter of Quinctilius Varus they had shown. Let them only remember so many battles bravely fought; the events of which, particularly the utter expulsion of the Romans, were sufficient proofs with whom remained the glory of the war.”
Neither did Maroboduus fail to boast himself and depreciate the foe. “In the person of Inguiomerus,” he said (holding him by the hand), “rested the whole renown of the Cheruscans; and from his counsels began all their exploits that ended in success. Arminius, a man of a frantic spirit, and a novice in affairs, assumed to himself the glory of another, for having by treachery surprised three legions, which expected no foe, and their leader, who feared no fraud; a base surprise, revenged since on Germany with heavy slaughters, and on Arminius himself with domestic infamy, while his wife and his son still bore the bonds of captivity. For himself, when attacked formerly by Tiberius at the head of twelve legions, he had preserved unstained the glory of Germany, and on equal terms ended the war. Nor did he repent of the treaty, since it was still in their hands to wage anew equal war with the Romans, or save blood and maintain peace.” The armies, besides the incitements from these speeches, were animated by national stimulations of their own. The Cheruscans fought for their ancient renown; the Langobards for their recent liberty; and the Suevians and their king, on the contrary, were struggling for the augmentation of their monarchy. Never did armies make a fiercer onset; never had onset a more ambiguous event; for both the right wings were routed, and hence a fresh encounter was certainly expected, till Maroboduus drew off his army and encamped upon the hills; a manifest sign this that he was humbled. Frequent desertions too leaving him at last naked of forces, he retired to the Marcomannians, and thence sent ambassadors to Tiberius to implore succours. They were answered, “That he had no right to invoke aid of the Roman arms against the Cheruscans, since to the Romans, while they were warring with the same foe, he had never administered any assistance.” Drusus was, however, sent away, as I have said, with the character of a negotiator of peace.
The same year twelve noble cities of Asia were overturned by an earthquake: the ruin happened in the night, and the more dreadful as its warnings were unobserved; neither availed the usual sanctuary against such calamities, namely, a flight to the fields, since those who fled, the gaping earth devoured. It is reported “that mighty mountains subsided, plains were heaved into high hills: and that with flashes and eruptions of fire, the mighty devastation was everywhere accompanied.” The Sardians felt most heavily the rage of the concussion, and therefore most compassion: Tiberius promised them an hundred thousand great sesterces, [Footnote: L83,000.] and remitted their taxes for five years. The inhabitants of Magnesia, under Mount Sipylus, were held the next in sufferings, and had proportionable relief. The Temnians, Philadelphians, the Aegeatans, Apollonians, with those called the Mostenians or Macedonians of Hyrcania, the cities too of Hierocaesarea, Cyme, and Tmolus, were all for the same term eased of tribute. It was likewise resolved to send one of the Senate to view the desolations and administer proper remedies: Marcus Aletus was therefore chosen, one of Praetorian rank; because, a Consular Senator then governing Asia, had another of the like quality been sent, an emulation between equals was apprehended, and consequently opposition and delays.
The credit of this noble bounty to the public, he increased by private liberalities, which proved equally popular: the estate of the wealthy Aemilia Musa, claimed by the exchequer, as she died intestate, he surrendered to Aemilius Lepidus, to whose family she seemed to belong; as also to Marcus Servilius the inheritance of Patuleius, a rich Roman knight, though part of it had been bequeathed to himself; but he found Servilius named sole heir in a former and well-attested will. He said such was “the nobility of both, that they deserved to be supported.” Nor did he ever to himself accept any man’s inheritance, but where former friendship gave him a title. The wills of such as were strangers to him, and of such as, from hate and prejudice to others, had appointed the Prince their heir, he utterly rejected. But, as he relieved the honest poverty of the virtuous, so he degraded from the Senate (or suffered to quit it of their own accord) Vibidius Varro, Marius Nepos, Appius Appianus, Cornelius Sylla, and Quintus Vitellius, all prodigals, and only through debauchery indigent.
About this time Tiberius finished and consecrated what Augustus began, the Temples of the Gods consumed by age or fire: that near the great Circus, vowed by Aulus Posthumius the Dictator, to Bacchus, Proserpina, and Ceres. In the same place the Temple of Flora, founded by Lucius Publicius and Marcus Publicius while they were Aediles. The Temple of Janus, built in the Herb Market by Caius Duillius, who first signalised the Roman power at sea, and merited a naval triumph over the Carthaginians. That of Hope was dedicated by Germanicus: this temple Atilius had vowed in the same war.
The Consuls for the following year were, Tiberius the third time, Germanicus the second. This dignity overtook Germanicus at Nicopolis, a city of Achaia, whither he arrived by the coast of Illyricum, from visiting his brother Drusus, then abiding in Dalmatia; and had suffered a tempestuous passage, both in the Adriatic and Ionian Sea: he therefore spent a few days to repair his fleet, and viewed the while the Bay of Actium renowned for the naval victory there; as also the spoils consecrated by Augustus, and the Camp of Anthony, with an affecting remembrance of these his ancestors; for Anthony, as I have said, was his great uncle, Augustus his grandfather; hence this scene proved to Germanicus a mighty source of images pleasing and sad. Next he proceeded to Athens, where in concession to that ancient city, allied to Rome, he would use but one Lictor. The Greeks received him with the most elaborate honours, and to dignify their personal flattery, carried before him tablatures of the signal deeds and sayings of his ancestors.
Hence he sailed to Eubea, thence to Lesbos, where Agrippina was delivered of Julia, who proved her last birth; then he kept the coast of Asia and visited Perinthus and Byzantium, cities of Thrace, and entered the straits of Propontis, and the mouth of the Euxine; fond of beholding ancient places long celebrated by fame: he relieved at the same time, the provinces wherever distracted with intestine factions, or aggrieved with the oppressions of their magistrates. In his return he strove to see the religious rites of the Samothracians, but by the violence of the north wind was repulsed from the shore. As he passed, he saw Troy and her remains, venerable for the vicissitude of her fate, and for the birth of Rome: regaining the coast of Asia, he put in at Colophon, to consult there the oracle of the Clarian Apollo: it is no Pythoness that represents the God here, as at Delphos, but a Priest, one chosen from certain families, chiefly of Miletus; neither requires he more than just to hear the names and numbers of the querists, and then descends into the oracular cave; where, after a draught of water from a secret spring, though ignorant for the most part of letters and poetry, he yet utters his answers in verse, which has for its subject the conceptions and wishes of each consultant. He was even said to have sung to Germanicus his hastening fate, but as oracles are wont, in terms dark and doubtful.
But Cneius Piso, hurrying to the execution of his purposes, terrified the city of Athens by a tempestuous entry, and reproached them in a severe speech, with oblique censure of Germanicus, “that debasing the dignity of the Roman name, he had paid excessive court, not to the Athenians by so many slaughters long since extinct, but to the then mixed scum of nations there; for that these were they who had leagued with Mithridates against Sylla, and with Anthony against Augustus.” He even charged them with the errors and misfortunes of ancient Athens; her impotent attempts against the Macedonians; her violence and ingratitude to her own citizens. He was also an enemy to their city from personal anger; because they would not pardon at his request one Theophilus condemned by the Areopagus for forgery. From thence sailing hastily through the Cyclades, and taking the shortest course, he overtook Germanicus at Rhodes, but was there driven by a sudden tempest upon the rocks: and Germanicus, who was not ignorant with what malignity and invectives he was pursued, yet acted with so much humanity, that when he might have left him to perish, and to casualty have referred the destruction of his enemy; he despatched galleys to rescue him from the wreck. This generous kindness however assuaged not the animosity of Piso; and scarce could he brook a day’s delay with Germanicus, but left him in haste to arrive in Syria before him: nor was he sooner there, and found himself amongst the legions, than he began to court the common men by bounties and caresses, to assist them with his countenance and credit, to form factions, to remove all the ancient centurions and every tribune of remarkable discipline and severity, and, in their places, to put dependents of his own, or men recommended only by their crimes; he permitted sloth in the camp, licentiousness in the towns, a rambling and disorderly soldiery, and carried the corruption so high, that in the discourses of the herd, he was styled _Father of the Legions_. Nor did Plancina restrain herself to a conduct seemly in her sex, but frequented the exercises of the cavalry, and attended the decursions of the cohorts; everywhere inveighing against Agrippina, everywhere against Germanicus; and some even of the most deserving soldiers became prompt to base obedience, from a rumour whispered abroad, “that all this was not unacceptable to Tiberius,”
These doings were all known to Germanicus; but his more instant care was to visit Armenia, an inconstant and restless nation this from the beginning; inconstant from the genius of the people, as well as from the situation of their country, which bordering with a large frontier on our provinces, and stretching thence quite to Media, is enclosed between the two great Empires, and often at variance with them; with the Romans through antipathy and hatred, with the Parthians through competition and envy. At this time and ever since the removal of Vonones, they had no king; but the affections of the nations leaned to Zeno, son of Polemon, king of Pontus, because by an attachment, from his infancy, to the fashions and customs of the Armenians, by hunting, feasting, and other usages practised and renowned amongst the barbarians, he had equally won the nobles and people. Upon his head therefore, at the city of Artaxata, with the approbation of the nobles, in a great assembly, Germanicus put the regal diadem; and the Armenians doing homage to their king, saluted him, _Artaxias_, a name which from that of their city, they gave him. The Cappadocians, at this time reduced into the form of a province, received for their governor Quintus Veranius; and to raise their hopes of the gentler dominion of Rome, several of the royal taxes were lessened. Quintus Servaeus was set over the Comagenians, then first subjected to the jurisdiction of a Praetor.
From the affairs of the allies, thus all successfully settled, Germanicus reaped no pleasure, through the perverseness and pride of Piso, who was ordered to lead by himself or his son, part of the legions into Armenia, but contemptuously neglected to do either. They at last met at Cyrrum, the winter quarters of the tenth legion, whither each came with a prepared countenance; Piso to betray no fear, and Germanicus would not be thought to threaten. He was indeed, as I have observed, of a humane and reconcilable spirit: but, officious friends expert at inflaming animosities, aggravated real offences, added fictitious, and with manifold imputations charged Piso, Plancina, and their sons. To this interview Germanicus admitted a few intimates, and began his complaints in words such as dissembled resentment dictates. Piso replied with disdainful submissions; and they parted in open enmity. Piso hereafter came rarely to the tribunal of Germanicus; or, if he did, sate sternly there, and in manifest opposition: he likewise published his spite at a feast of the Nabathean King’s, where golden crowns of great weight were presented to Germanicus and Agrippina; but to Piso and the rest, such as were light: “This banquet,” he said, “was made for the son of a Roman prince, not of a Parthian monarch:” with these words, he cast away his crown, and uttered many invectives against luxury: sharp insults and provocations these to Germanicus; yet he bore them.
In the consulship of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus travelled to Egypt, to view the famous antiquities of the country; though for the motives of the journey, the care and inspection of the province were publicly alleged: and, indeed, by opening the granaries, he mitigated the price of corn, and practised many things grateful to the people; walking without guards, his feet bare, and his habit the same with that of the Greeks; after the example of Publius Scipio, who, we are told, was constant in the same practices in Sicily, even during the rage of the Punic War there. For these his assumed manners and foreign habit, Tiberius blamed him in a gentle style, but censured him with great asperity for violating an establishment of Augustus, and entering Alexandria without consent of the Prince. For Augustus, amongst other secrets of power, had appropriated Egypt, and restrained the senators, and dignified Roman knights from going thither without licence; as he apprehended that Italy might be distressed with famine by any who seized that province, the key to the Empire by sea and land, and defensible by a light band of men against potent armies.
Germanicus, not yet informed that his journey was censured, sailed up the Nile, beginning at Canopus, [Footnote: Near Aboukir.] one of its mouths: it was built by the Spartans, as a monument to Canopus, a pilot buried there, at the time when Menelaus returning to Greece was driven to different seas and the Lybian continent. Hence he visited the next mouth of the river sacred to Hercules: him the nations aver to have been born amongst them; that he was the most ancient of the name, and that all the rest, who with equal virtue followed his example, were, in honour, called after him. Next he visited the mighty antiquities of ancient Thebes; [Footnote: Karnak and Luxor.] where upon huge obelisks yet remained Egyptian characters, describing its former opulency: one of the oldest priests was ordered to interpret them; he said they related “that it once contained seven hundred thousand fighting men; that with that army King Rhamses had conquered Lybia, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians, the Bactrians and Scythians; and to his Empire had added the territories of the Syrians, Armenians, and their neighbours the Cappadocians; a tract of countries reaching from the sea of Bithynia to that of Lycia:” here also was read the assessment of tribute laid on the several nations; what weight of silver and gold; what number of horses and arms; what ivory and perfumes, as gifts to the temples; what measures of grain; what quantities of all necessaries, were by each people paid; revenues equally grand with those exacted by the denomination of the Parthians, or by the power of the Romans.
Germanicus was intent upon seeing other wonders: the chief were; the effigies of Memnon, a colossus of stone, yielding when struck by the solar rays, a vocal sound; the Pyramids rising, like mountains, amongst rolling and almost impassable waves of sand; monuments these of the emulation and opulency of Egyptian kings; the artificial lake, a receptacle of the overflowing Nile; and elsewhere abysses of such immense depth, that those, who tried, could never fathom. Thence he proceeded to Elephantina and Syene, two islands, formerly frontiers of the Roman empire, which is now widened to the Red Sea.
Whilst Germanicus spent this summer in several provinces, Drusus was sowing feuds amongst the Germans, and thence reaped no light renown; and, as the power of Maroboduus was already broken, he engaged them to persist and complete his ruin. Amongst the Gotones was a young man of quality, his name Catualda, a fugitive long since from the violence of Maroboduus, but now in his distress, resolved on revenge: hence with a stout band, he entered the borders of the Marcomannians, and corrupting their chiefs into his alliance, stormed the regal palace, and the castle situate near it. In the pillage were found the ancient stores of prey accumulated by the Suevians; as also many victuallers and traders from our provinces; men who were drawn hither from their several homes, first by privilege of traffic, then retained by a passion to multiply gain, and at last, through utter oblivion of their own country, fixed, like natives, in a hostile soil.
To Maroboduus on every side forsaken, no other refuge remained but the mercy of Caesar: he therefore passed the Danube where it washes the province of Norica, and wrote to Tiberius; not however in the language of a fugitive or supplicant, but with a spirit suitable to his late grandeur, “that many nations invited him to them, as a king once so glorious; but he preferred to all the friendship of Rome.” The Emperor answered, “that in Italy he should have a safe and honourable retreat, and, when his affairs required his presence, the same security to return.” But to the Senate he declared, “that never had Philip of Macedon been so terrible to the Athenians; nor Pyrrhus, nor Antiochus to the Roman people.” The speech is extant: in it he magnifies “the greatness of the man, the fierceness and bravery of the nations his subjects; the alarming nearness of such an enemy to Italy, and his own artful measures to destroy him.” Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna, for a check and terror to the Suevians; as if, when at any time they grew turbulent, he were there in readiness to recover their subjection: yet in eighteen years he left not Italy, but grew old in exile there; his renown too became eminently diminished; such was the price he paid for an over-passionate love of life. The same fate had Catualda, and no other sanctuary; he was soon after expulsed by the forces of the Hermundurans led by Vibilius, and being received under the Roman protection, was conveyed to Forum Julium, a colony in Narbon Gaul. The barbarians their followers, lest, had they been mixed with the provinces, they might have disturbed their present quiet, were placed beyond the Danube, between the rivers Marus and Cusus, and for their king had assigned them Vannius, by nation a Quadian.
As soon as it was known at Rome, that Artaxias was by Germanicus given to the Armenians for their king, the fathers decreed to him and Drusus the lesser triumph: triumphal arches were likewise erected, on each side of the Temple of Mars the Avenger, supporting the statues of these two Caesars; and for Tiberius, he was more joyful to have established peace by policy, than if by battles and victories he had ended the war.
Germanicus returning from Egypt, learned that all his orders left with the legions, and the eastern cities, were either entirely abolished, or contrary regulations established: a ground this for his severe reproaches and insults upon Piso. Nor less keen were the efforts and machinations of Piso against Germanicus; yet Piso afterwards determined to leave Syria, but was detained by the following illness of Germanicus: again when he heard of his recovery, and perceived that vows were paid for his restoration; the Lictors, by his command, broke the solemnity, drove away the victims already at the altars; overturned the apparatus of the sacrifice; and scattered the people of Antioch employed in celebrating the festival. He then departed to Seleucia, waiting the event of the malady which had again assaulted Germanicus. His own persuasion too, that poison was given him by Piso, heightened the cruel vehemence of the disease: indeed, upon the floors and walls were found fragments of human bodies, the spoils of the grave; with charms and incantations; and the name of Germanicus graved on sheets of lead; carcasses half burnt, besmeared with gore; and other witchcrafts, by which souls are thought doomed to the infernal gods: besides there were certain persons, charged as creatures of Piso, purposely sent and employed to watch the progress and efforts of the disease.
These things filled Germanicus with apprehensions great as his resentment: “If his doors,” he said, “were besieged, if under the eyes of his enemies he must render up his spirit, what was to be expected to his unhappy wife, what to his infant children?” The progress of poison was thought too slow; Piso was impatient, and urging with eagerness to command alone the legions, to possess alone the province: but Germanicus was not sunk to such lowness and impotence, that the price of his murder should remain with the murderer: and by a letter to Piso, he renounced his friendship: some add, that he commanded him to depart the province. Nor did Piso tarry longer, but took ship; yet checked her sailing in order to return with the more quickness, should the death of Germanicus the while leave the government of Syria vacant.
Germanicus, after a small revival, drooping again; when his end approached, spoke on this wise to his attending friends: “Were I to yield to the destiny of nature; just, even then, were my complaints against the Gods, for hurrying me from my parents, my children, and my country, by a hasty death, in the prime of life: now shortened in my course by the malignity of Piso, and his wife, to your breasts I commit my last prayers: tell my father, tell my brother, with what violent persecutions afflicted, with what mortal snares circumvented, I end a most miserable life by death of all others the worst. All they whose hopes in my fortune, all they whose kindred blood, and even they whose envy, possessed them with impressions about me whilst living, shall bewail me dead; that once great in glory, and surviving so many wars, I fell at last by the dark devices of a woman. To you will be place left to complain in the Senate, and place to invoke the aid and vengeance of the laws. To commemorate the dead with slothful wailings, is not the principal office of friends: they are to remember his dying wishes, to fulfil his last desires. Even strangers will lament Germanicus: you are my friends: if you loved me rather than my fortune, you will vindicate your friendship: show the people of Rome my wife, her who is the grand-daughter of Augustus, and enumerate to them our six children. Their compassion will surely attend you who accuse; and the accused, if they pretend clandestine warrants of iniquity, will not be believed; if believed, not pardoned.” His friends, as a pledge of their fidelity, touching the hand of the dying prince, swore that they would forego their lives sooner than their revenge. Then turning to his wife, he besought her “that in tenderness to his memory, in tenderness to their common children, she would banish her haughty spirit, yield to her hostile fortune, nor, upon her return to Rome, by an impotent competition for ruling, irritate those who were masters of rule.” So much openly, and more in secret; whence he was believed to have warned her of guile and danger from Tiberius. Soon after he expired, to the heavy sorrow of the province, and of all the neighbouring countries; insomuch that remote nations and foreign kings were mourners: such had been his complacency to our confederates; such his humanity to his enemies! Alike venerable he was, whether you saw him or heard him; and without ever departing from the grave port and dignity of his sublime rank, he yet lived destitute of arrogance and untouched by envy.
The funeral, which was performed without exterior pomp or a procession of images, drew its solemnity from the loud praises and amiable memory of his virtues. There were those who from his loveliness, his age, his manner of dying, and even from the proximity of places where both departed, compared him in the circumstances of his fate, to Great Alexander: “Each of a graceful person, each of illustrious descent; in years neither much exceeding thirty; both victims to the malice and machinations of their own people, in the midst of foreign nations: but Germanicus gentle towards his friends; his pleasures moderate; confined to one wife; all his children by one bed; nor less a warrior, though not so rash, and however hindered from a final reduction of Germany, broken by him in so many victories, and ready for the yoke: so that had he been sole arbiter of things, had he acted with the sovereignty and title of royalty, he had easier overtaken him in the glory of conquests, as he surpassed him in clemency, in moderation, and in other virtues.” His body, before its commitment to the pile, was exhibited naked in the Forum of Antioch, the place where the pile was erected: whether it bore the marks of poison, remained undecided: for, people as they were divided in their affections, as they pitied Germanicus, and presumed the guilt of Piso, or were partial to him, gave opposite accounts.
It was next debated amongst the legates of the legions and the other senators there, to whom should be committed the administration of Syria: and after the faint effort of others, it was long disputed between Vibius Marsus and Cneius Sentius: Marsus at last yielded to Sentius, the older man and the more vehement competitor. By him one Martina, infamous in that province for practices in poisoning, and a close confidant of Plancina, was sent to Rome, at the suit of Vitellius, Veranius, and others, who were preparing criminal articles against Piso and Plancina, as against persons evidently guilty.
Agrippina, though overwhelmed with sorrow, and her body indisposed, yet impatient of all delays to her revenge, embarked with the ashes of Germanicus, and her children; attended with universal commiseration, “that a lady, in quality a princess, wont to be beheld in her late splendid wedlock with applauses and adorations, was now seen bearing in her bosom her husband’s funeral urn, uncertain of vengeance for him and fearful for herself; unfortunate in her fruitfulness, and from so many children obnoxious to so many blows of fortune.” Piso the while was overtaken at the Isle of Cooes by a message, “that Germanicus was deceased,” and received it intemperately, slew victims and repaired with thanksgiving to the temples: and yet, however immoderate and undisguised was his joy, more arrogant and insulting proved that of Plancina, who immediately threw off her mourning, which for the death of a sister she wore, and assumed a dress adapted to gaiety and gladness.
About him flocked the Centurions with officious representations, “that upon him particularly were bent the affections and zeal of the legions, and he should proceed to resume the province, at first injuriously taken from him and now destitute of a governor.” As he therefore consulted what he had best pursue, his son Marcus Piso advised “a speedy journey to Rome: hitherto,” he said, “nothing past expiation was committed; nor were impotent suspicions to be dreaded; nor the idle blazonings of fame: his variance and contention with Germanicus was perhaps subject to hate and aversion, but to no prosecution or penalty; and, by bereaving him of the province, his enemies were gratified: but if he returned thither, as Sentius would certainly oppose him with arms, a civil war would thence be actually begun: neither would the Centurions and soldiers persist in his party; men with whom the recent memory of their late commander, and an