109 AD
                                   THE ANNALS
                            By P. Cornelius Tacitus
         translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

                        BOOK I, A.D. 14, 15

  ROME at the beginning was ruled by kings. Freedom and the consulship
were established by Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were held for a
temporary crisis. The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two
years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of
long duration. The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief; the
rule of Pompeius and of Crassus soon yielded before Caesar; the arms
of Lepidus and Antonius before Augustus; who, when the world was
wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title of
"Prince." But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people
have been recorded by famous historians; and fine intellects were
not wanting to describe the times of Augustus, till growing sycophancy
scared them away. The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and
Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and
after their death were written under the irritation of a recent
hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus- more
particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all
which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any
motives to which I am far removed.
  When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer
any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and
when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian
faction had only Caesar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of
triumvir, and giving out that he was a Consul, and was satisfied
with a tribune's authority for the protection of the people,
Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap
corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by
degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate,
the magistrates, and the laws. He was wholly unopposed, for the
boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while
the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were
raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by
revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the
dangerous past. Nor did the provinces dislike that condition of
affairs, for they distrusted the government of the Senate and the
people, because of the rivalries between the leading men and the
rapacity of the officials, while the protection of the laws was
unavailing, as they were continually deranged by violence, intrigue,
and finally by corruption.
  Augustus meanwhile, as supports to his despotism, raised to the
pontificate and curule aedileship Claudius Marcellus, his sister's
son, while a mere stripling, and Marcus Agrippa, of humble birth, a
good soldier, and one who had shared his victory, to two consecutive
consulships, and as Marcellus soon afterwards died, he also accepted
him as his son-in-law. Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, his
stepsons, he honoured with imperial tides, although his own family was
as yet undiminished. For he had admitted the children of Agrippa,
Caius and Lucius, into the house of the Caesars; and before they had
yet laid aside the dress of boyhood he had most fervently desired,
with an outward show of reluctance, that they should be entitled
"princes of the youth," and be consuls-elect. When Agrippa died, and
Lucius Caesar as he was on his way to our armies in Spain, and Caius
while returning from Armenia, still suffering from a wound, were
prematurely cut off by destiny, or by their step-mother Livia's
treachery, Drusus too having long been dead, Nero remained alone of
the stepsons, and in him everything tended to centre. He was adopted
as a son, as a colleague in empire and a partner in the tribunitian
power, and paraded through all the armies, no longer through his
mother's secret intrigues, but at her open suggestion. For she had
gained such a hold on the aged Augustus that he drove out as an
exile into the island of Planasia, his only grandson, Agrippa
Postumus, who, though devoid of worthy qualities, and having only
the brute courage of physical strength, had not been convicted of
any gross offence. And yet Augustus had appointed Germanicus, Drusus's
offspring, to the command of eight legions on the Rhine, and
required Tiberius to adopt him, although Tiberius had a son, now a
young man, in his house; but he did it that he might have several
safeguards to rest on. He had no war at the time on his hands except
against the Germans, which was rather to wipe out the disgrace of
the loss of Quintilius Varus and his army than out of an ambition to
extend the empire, or for any adequate recompense. At home all was
tranquil, and there were magistrates with the same titles; there was a
younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium, and even
many of the older men had been born during the civil wars. How few
were left who had seen the republic!
  Thus the State had been revolutionised, and there was not a
vestige left of the old sound morality. Stript of equality, all looked
up to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension for
the present, while Augustus in the vigour of life, could maintain
his own position, that of his house, and the general tranquillity.
When in advanced old age, he was worn out by a sickly frame, and the
end was near and new prospects opened, a few spoke in vain of the
blessings of freedom, but most people dreaded and some longed for war.
The popular gossip of the large majority fastened itself variously
on their future masters. "Agrippa was savage, and had been exasperated
by insult, and neither from age nor experience in affairs was equal to
so great a burden. Tiberius Nero was of mature years, and had
established his fame in war, but he had the old arrogance inbred in
the Claudian family, and many symptoms of a cruel temper, though
they were repressed, now and then broke out. He had also from earliest
infancy been reared in an imperial house; consulships and triumphs had
been heaped on him in his younger days; even in the years which, on
the pretext of seclusion he spent in exile at Rhodes, he had had no
thoughts but of wrath, hypocrisy, and secret sensuality. There was his
mother too with a woman caprice. They must, it seemed, be subject to a
female and to two striplings besides, who for a while would burden,
and some day rend asunder the State."
  While these and like topics were discussed, the infirmities of
Augustus increased, and some suspected guilt on his wife's part. For a
rumour had gone abroad that a few months before he had sailed to
Planasia on a visit to Agrippa, with the knowledge of some chosen
friends, and with one companion, Fabius Maximus; that many tears
were shed on both sides, with expressions of affection, and that
thus there was a hope of the young man being restored to the home of
his grandfather. This, it was said, Maximus had divulged to his wife
Marcia, she again to Livia. All was known to Caesar, and when
Maximus soon afterwards died, by a death some thought to be
self-inflicted, there were heard at his funeral wailings from
Marcia, in which she reproached herself for having been the cause of
her husband's destruction. Whatever the fact was, Tiberius as he was
just entering Illyria was summoned home by an urgent letter from his
mother, and it has not been thoroughly ascertained whether at the city
of Nola he found Augustus still breathing or quite lifeless. For Livia
had surrounded the house and its approaches with a strict watch, and
favourable bulletins were published from time to time, till, provision
having been made for the demands of the crisis, one and the same
report told men that Augustus was dead and that Tiberius Nero was
master of the State.
  The first crime of the new reign was the murder of Postumus Agrippa.
Though he was surprised and unarmed, a centurion of the firmest
resolution despatched him with difficulty. Tiberius gave no
explanation of the matter to the Senate; he pretended that there
were directions from his father ordering the tribune in charge of
the prisoner not to delay the slaughter of Agrippa, whenever he should
himself have breathed his last. Beyond a doubt, Augustus had often
complained of the young man's character, and had thus succeeded in
obtaining the sanction of a decree of the Senate for his banishment.
But he never was hard-hearted enough to destroy any of his kinsfolk,
nor was it credible that death was to be the sentence of the
grandson in order that the stepson might feel secure. It was more
probable that Tiberius and Livia, the one from fear, the other from
a stepmother's enmity, hurried on the destruction of a youth whom they
suspected and hated. When the centurion reported, according to
military custom, that he had executed the command, Tiberius replied
that he had not given the command, and that the act must be
justified to the Senate.
  As soon as Sallustius Crispus who shared the secret (he had, in
fact, sent the written order to the tribune) knew this, fearing that
the charge would be shifted on himself, and that his peril would be
the same whether he uttered fiction or truth, he advised Livia not
to divulge the secrets of her house or the counsels of friends, or any
services performed by the soldiers, nor to let Tiberius weaken the
strength of imperial power by referring everything to the Senate,
for "the condition," he said, "of holding empire is that an account
cannot be balanced unless it be rendered to one person."
  Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators,
knights. The higher a man's rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and
his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at
the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he
mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery. Sextus Pompeius
and Sextus Apuleius, the consuls, were the first to swear allegiance
to Tiberius Caesar, and in their presence the oath was taken by
Seius Strabo and Caius Turranius, respectively the commander of the
praetorian cohorts and the superintendent of the corn supplies. Then
the Senate, the soldiers and the people did the same. For Tiberius
would inaugurate everything with the consuls, as though the ancient
constitution remained, and he hesitated about being emperor. Even
the proclamation by which he summoned the senators to their chamber,
he issued merely with the title of Tribune, which he had received
under Augustus. The wording of the proclamation was brief, and in a
very modest tone. "He would," it said, "provide for the honours due to
his father, and not leave the lifeless body, and this was the only
public duty he now claimed."
  As soon, however, as Augustus was dead, he had given the watchword
to the praetorian cohorts, as commander-in-chief. He had the guard
under arms, with all the other adjuncts of a court; soldiers
attended him to the forum; soldiers went with him to the Senate House.
He sent letters to the different armies, as though supreme power was
now his, and showed hesitation only when he spoke in the Senate. His
chief motive was fear that Germanicus, who had at his disposal so many
legions, such vast auxiliary forces of the allies, and such
wonderful popularity, might prefer the possession to the expectation
of empire. He looked also at public opinion, wishing to have the
credit of having been called and elected by the State rather than of
having crept into power through the intrigues of a wife and a dotard's
adoption. It was subsequently understood that he assumed a wavering
attitude, to test likewise the temper of the nobles. For he would
twist a word or a look into a crime and treasure it up in his memory.
  On the first day of the Senate he allowed nothing to be discussed
but the funeral of Augustus, whose will, which was brought in by the
Vestal Virgins, named as his heirs Tiberius and Livia. The latter
was to be admitted into the Julian family with the name of Augusta;
next in expectation were the grand and great-grandchildren. In the
third place, he had named the chief men of the State, most of whom
he hated, simply out of ostentation and to win credit with
posterity. His legacies were not beyond the scale of a private
citizen, except a bequest of forty-three million five hundred thousand
sesterces "to the people and populace of Rome," of one thousand to
every praetorian soldier, and of three hundred to every man in the
legionary cohorts composed of Roman citizens.
  Next followed a deliberation about funeral honours. Of these the
most imposing were thought fitting. The procession was to be conducted
through "the gate of triumph," on the motion of Gallus Asinius; the
titles of the laws passed, the names of the nations conquered by
Augustus were to be borne in front, on that of Lucius Arruntius.
Messala Valerius further proposed that the oath of allegiance to
Tiberius should be yearly renewed, and when Tiberius asked him whether
it was at his bidding that he had brought forward this motion, he
replied that he had proposed it spontaneously, and that in whatever
concerned the State he would use only his own discretion, even at
the risk of offending. This was the only style of adulation which
yet remained. The Senators unanimously exclaimed that the body ought
to be borne on their shoulders to the funeral pile. The emperor left
the point to them with disdainful moderation, he then admonished the
people by a proclamation not to indulge in that tumultuous
enthusiasm which had distracted the funeral of the Divine Julius, or
express a wish that Augustus should be burnt in the Forum instead of
in his appointed resting-place in the Campus Martius.
  On the day of the funeral soldiers stood round as a guard, amid much
ridicule from those who had either themselves witnessed or who had
heard from their parents of the famous day when slavery was still
something fresh, and freedom had been resought in vain, when the
slaying of Caesar, the Dictator, seemed to some the vilest, to others,
the most glorious of deeds. "Now," they said, "an aged sovereign,
whose power had lasted long, who had provided his heirs with
abundant means to coerce the State, requires forsooth the defence of
soldiers that his burial may be undisturbed."
  Then followed much talk about Augustus himself, and many expressed
an idle wonder that the same day marked the beginning of his
assumption of empire and the close of his life, and, again, that he
had ended his days at Nola in the same house and room as his father
Octavius. People extolled too the number of his consulships, in
which he had equalled Valerius Corvus and Caius Marius combined, the
continuance for thirty-seven years of the tribunitian power, the title
of Imperator twenty-one times earned, and his other honours which
had either frequently repeated or were wholly new. Sensible men,
however, spoke variously of his life with praise and censure. Some
said "that dutiful feeling towards a father, and the necessities of
the State in which laws had then no place, drove him into civil war,
which can neither be planned nor conducted on any right principles. He
had often yielded to Antonius, while he was taking vengeance on his
father's murderers, often also to Lepidus. When the latter sank into
feeble dotage and the former had been ruined by his profligacy, the
only remedy for his distracted country was the rule of a single man.
Yet the State had been organized under the name neither of a kingdom
nor a dictatorship, but under that of a prince. The ocean and remote
rivers were the boundaries of the empire; the legions, provinces,
fleets, all things were linked together; there was law for the
citizens; there was respect shown to the allies. The capital had
been embellished on a grand scale; only in a few instances had he
resorted to force, simply to secure general tranquillity."
  It was said, on the other hand, "that filial duty and State
necessity were merely assumed as a mask. It was really from a lust
of sovereignty that he had excited the veterans by bribery, had,
when a young man and a subject, raised an army, tampered with the
Consul's legions, and feigned an attachment to the faction of
Pompeius. Then, when by a decree of the Senate he had usurped the high
functions and authority of Praetor when Hirtius and Pansa were
slain- whether they were destroyed by the enemy, or Pansa by poison
infused into a wound, Hirtius by his own soldiers and Caesar's
treacherous machinations- he at once possessed himself of both their
armies, wrested the consulate from a reluctant Senate, and turned
against the State the arms with which he had been intrusted against
Antonius. Citizens were proscribed, lands divided, without so much
as the approval of those who executed these deeds. Even granting
that the deaths of Cassius and of the Bruti were sacrifices to a
hereditary enmity (though duty requires us to waive private feuds
for the sake of the public welfare), still Pompeius had been deluded
by the phantom of peace, and Lepidus by the mask of friendship.
Subsequently, Antonius had been lured on by the treaties of Tarentum
and Brundisium, and by his marriage with the sister, and paid by his
death the penalty of a treacherous alliance. No doubt, there was peace
after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood; there were
the disasters of Lollius and Varus, the murders at Rome of the Varros,
Egnatii, and Juli."
  The domestic life too of Augustus was not spared. "Nero's wife had
been taken from him, and there had been the farce of consulting the
pontiffs, whether, with a child conceived and not yet born, she
could properly marry. There were the excesses of Quintus Tedius and
Vedius Pollio; last of all, there was Livia, terrible to the State
as a mother, terrible to the house of the Caesars as a stepmother.
No honour was left for the gods, when Augustus chose to be himself
worshipped with temples and statues, like those of the deities, and
with flamens and priests. He had not even adopted Tiberius as his
successor out of affection or any regard to the State, but, having
thoroughly seen his arrogant and savage temper, he had sought glory
for himself by a contrast of extreme wickedness." For, in fact,
Augustus, a few years before, when he was a second time asking from
the Senate the tribunitian power for Tiberius, though his speech was
complimentary, had thrown out certain hints as to his manners,
style, and habits of life, which he meant as reproaches, while he
seemed to excuse. However, when his obsequies had been duly performed,
a temple with a religious ritual was decreed him.
  After this all prayers were addressed to Tiberius. He, on his
part, urged various considerations, the greatness of the empire, his
distrust of himself. "Only," he said, "the intellect of the Divine
Augustus was equal to such a burden. Called as he had been by him to
share his anxieties, he had learnt by experience how exposed to
fortune's caprices was the task of universal rule. Consequently, in
a state which had the support of so many great men, they should not
put everything on one man, as many, by uniting their efforts would
more easily discharge public functions." There was more grand
sentiment than good faith in such words. Tiberius's language even in
matters which he did not care to conceal, either from nature or habit,
was always hesitating and obscure, and now that he was struggling to
hide his feelings completely, it was all the more involved in
uncertainty and doubt. The Senators, however, whose only fear was lest
they might seem to understand him, burst into complaints, tears, and
prayers. They raised their hands to the gods, to the statue of
Augustus, and to the knees of Tiberius, when he ordered a document
to be produced and read. This contained a description of the resources
of the State, of the number of citizens and allies under arms, of
the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes, direct and indirect,
necessary expenses and customary bounties. All these details
Augustus had written with his own hand, and had added a counsel,
that the empire should be confined to its present limits, either
from fear or out of jealousy.
  Meantime, while the Senate stooped to the most abject
supplication, Tiberius happened to say that although he was not
equal to the whole burden of the State, yet he would undertake the
charge of whatever part of it might be intrusted to him. Thereupon
Asinius Gallus said, "I ask you, Caesar, what part of the State you
wish to have intrusted to you?" Confounded by the sudden inquiry he
was silent for a few moments; then, recovering his presence of mind,
he replied that it would by no means become his modesty to choose or
to avoid in a case where he would prefer to be wholly excused. Then
Gallus again, who had inferred anger from his looks, said that the
question had not been asked with the intention of dividing what
could not be separated, but to convince him by his own admission
that the body of the State was one, and must be directed by a single
mind. He further spoke in praise of Augustus, and reminded Tiberius
himself of his victories, and of his admirable deeds for many years as
a civilian. Still, he did not thereby soften the emperor's resentment,
for he had long been detested from an impression that, as he had
married Vipsania, daughter of Marcus Agrippa, who had once been the
wife of Tiberius, he aspired to be more than a citizen, and kept up
the arrogant tone of his father, Asinius Pollio.
  Next, Lucius Arruntius, who differed but little from the speech of
Gallus, gave like offence, though Tiberius had no old grudge against
him, but simply mistrusted him, because he was rich and daring, had
brilliant accomplishments, and corresponding popularity. For Augustus,
when in his last conversations he was discussing who would refuse
the highest place, though sufficiently capable, who would aspire to it
without being equal to it, and who would unite both the ability and
ambition, had described Marcus Lepidus as able but contemptuously
indifferent, Gallus Asinius as ambitious and incapable, Lucius
Arruntius as not unworthy of it, and, should the chance be given
him, sure to make the venture. About the two first there is a
general agreement, but instead of Arruntius some have mentioned Cneius
Piso, and all these men, except Lepidus, were soon afterwards
destroyed by various charges through the contrivance of Tiberius.
Quintus Haterius too and Mamercus Scaurus ruffled his suspicious
temper, Haterius by having said- "How long, Caesar, will you suffer
the State to be without a head?" Scaurus by the remark that there
was a hope that the Senate's prayers would not be fruitless, seeing
that he had not used his right as Tribune to negative the motion of
the Consuls. Tiberius instantly broke out into invective against
Haterius; Scaurus, with whom he was far more deeply displeased, he
passed over in silence. Wearied at last by the assembly's clamorous
importunity and the urgent demands of individual Senators, he gave way
by degrees, not admitting that he undertook empire, but yet ceasing to
refuse it and to be entreated. It is known that Haterius having
entered the palace to ask pardon, and thrown himself at the knees of
Tiberius as he was walking, was almost killed by the soldiers, because
Tiberius fell forward, accidentally or from being entangled by the
suppliant's hands. Yet the peril of so great a man did not make him
relent, till Haterius went with entreaties to Augusta, and was saved
by her very earnest intercessions.
  Great too was the Senate's sycophancy to Augusta. Some would have
her styled "parent"; others "mother of the country," and a majority
proposed that to the name of Caesar should be added "son of Julia."
The emperor repeatedly asserted that there must be a limit to the
honours paid to women, and that he would observe similar moderation in
those bestowed on himself, but annoyed at the invidious proposal,
and indeed regarding a woman's elevation as a slight to himself, he
would not allow so much as a lictor to be assigned her, and forbade
the erection of an altar in memory of her adoption, and any like
distinction. But for Germanicus Caesar he asked pro-consular powers,
and envoys were despatched to confer them on him, and also to
express sympathy with his grief at the death of Augustus. The same
request was not made for Drusus, because he was consul elect and
present at Rome. Twelve candidates were named for the praetorship, the
number which Augustus had handed down, and when the Senate urged
Tiberius to increase it, he bound himself by an oath not to exceed it.
  It was then for the first time that the elections were transferred
from the Campus Martius to the Senate. For up to that day, though
the most important rested with the emperor's choice, some were settled
by the partialities of the tribes. Nor did the people complain of
having the right taken from them, except in mere idle talk, and the
Senate, being now released from the necessity of bribery and of
degrading solicitations, gladly upheld the change, Tiberius
confining himself to the recommendation of only four candidates who
were to be nominated without rejection or canvass. Meanwhile the
tribunes of the people asked leave to exhibit at their own expense
games to be named after Augustus and added to the Calendar as the
Augustales. Money was, however, voted from the exchequer, and though
the use of the triumphal robe in the circus was prescribed, it was not
allowed them to ride in a chariot. Soon the annual celebration was
transferred to the praetor, to whose lot fell the administration of
justice between citizens and foreigners.
  This was the state of affairs at Rome when a mutiny broke out in the
legions of Pannonia, which could be traced to no fresh cause except
the change of emperors and the prospect it held out of license in
tumult and of profit from a civil war. In the summer camp three
legions were quartered, under the command of Junius Blaesus, who on
hearing of the death of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius, had
allowed his men a rest from military duties, either for mourning or
rejoicing. This was the beginning of demoralization among the
troops, of quarreling, of listening to the talk of every pestilent
fellow, in short, of craving for luxury and idleness and loathing
discipline and toil. In the camp was one Percennius, who had once been
a leader of one of the theatrical factions, then became a common
soldier, had a saucy tongue, and had learnt from his applause of
actors how to stir up a crowd. By working on ignorant minds, which
doubted as to what would be the terms of military service after
Augustus, this man gradually influenced them in conversations at night
or at nightfall, and when the better men had dispersed, he gathered
round him all the worst spirits.
  At last, when there were others ready to be abettors of a mutiny, he
asked, in the tone of a demagogue, why, like slaves, they submitted to
a few centurions and still fewer tribunes. "When," he said, "will
you dare to demand relief, if you do not go with your prayers or
arms to a new and yet tottering throne? We have blundered enough by
our tameness for so many years, in having to endure thirty or forty
campaigns till we grow old, most of us with bodies maimed by wounds.
Even dismissal is not the end of our service, but, quartered under a
legion's standard we toil through the same hardships under another
title. If a soldier survives so many risks, he is still dragged into
remote regions where, under the name of lands, he receives soaking
swamps or mountainous wastes. Assuredly, military service itself is
burdensome and unprofitable; ten as a day is the value set on life and
limb; out of this, clothing, arms, tents, as well as the mercy of
centurions and exemptions from duty have to be purchased. But indeed
of floggings and wounds, of hard winters, wearisome summers, of
terrible war, or barren peace, there is no end. Our only relief can
come from military life being entered on under fixed conditions,
from receiving each the pay of a denarius, and from the sixteenth year
terminating our service. We must be retained no longer under a
standard, but in the same camp a compensation in money must be paid
us. Do the praetorian cohorts, which have just got their two denarii
per man, and which after sixteen years are restored to their homes,
encounter more perils? We do not disparage the guards of the
capital; still, here amid barbarous tribes we have to face the enemy
from our tents."
  The throng applauded from various motives, some pointing with
indignation to the marks of the lash, others to their grey locks,
and most of them to their threadbare garments and naked limbs. At,
last, in their fury they went so far as to propose to combine the
three legions into one. Driven from their purpose by the jealousy with
which every one sought the chief honour for his own legion, they
turned to other thoughts, and set up in one spot the three eagles,
with the ensigns of the cohorts. At the same time they piled up turf
and raised a mound, that they might have a more conspicuous
meeting-place. Amid the bustle Blaesus came up. He upbraided them
and held back man after man with the exclamation, "Better imbrue
your hands in my blood: it will be less guilt to slay your commander
than it is to be in revolt from the emperor. Either living I will
uphold the loyalty of the legions, or Pierced to the heart I will
hasten on your repentance."
  None the less however was the mound piled up, and it was quite
breast high when, at last overcome by his persistency, they gave up
their purpose. Blaesus, with the consummate tact of an orator, said,
"It is not through mutiny and tumult that the desires of the army
ought to be communicated to Caesar, nor did our soldiers of old ever
ask so novel a boon of ancient commanders, nor have you yourselves
asked it of the Divine Augustus. It is far from opportune that the
emperor's cares, now in their first beginning, should be aggravated.
If, however, you are bent upon attempting in peace what even after
your victory in the civil wars you did not demand, why, contrary to
the habit of obedience, contrary to the law of discipline, do you
meditate violence? Decide on sending envoys, and give them
instructions in your presence."
  It was carried by acclamation that the son of Blaesus, one of the
tribunes, should undertake the mission, and demand for the soldiers
release from service after sixteen years. He was to have the rest of
their message when the first part had been successful. After the young
man departure there was comparative quiet, but there was an arrogant
tone among the soldiers, to whom the fact that their commander's son
was pleading their common cause clearly showed that they had wrested
by compulsion what they had failed to obtain by good behaviour.
  Meanwhile the companies which previous to the mutiny had been sent
to Nauportus to make roads and bridges and for other purposes, when
they heard of the tumult in the camp, tore up the standards, and
having plundered the neighbouring villages and Nauportus itself, which
was like a town, assailed the centurions who restrained them with
jeers and insults, last of all, with blows. Their chief rage was
against Aufidienus Rufus, the camp-prefect, whom they dragged from a
waggon, loaded with baggage, and drove on at the head of the column,
asking him in ridicule whether he liked to bear such huge burdens
and such long marches. Rufus, who had long been a common soldier, then
a centurion, and subsequently camp-prefect, tried to revive the old
severe discipline, inured as he was to work and toil, and all the
sterner because he had endured.
  On the arrival of these troops the mutiny broke out afresh, and
straggling from the camp they plundered the neighbourhood. Blaesus
ordered a few who had conspicuously loaded themselves with spoil to be
scourged and imprisoned as a terror to the rest; for, even as it
then was, the commander was still obeyed by the centurions and by
all the best men among the soldiers. As the men were dragged off, they
struggled violently, clasped the knees of the bystanders, called to
their comrades by name, or to the company, cohort, or legion to
which they respectively belonged, exclaiming that all were
threatened with the same fate. At the same time they heaped abuse on
the commander; they appealed to heaven and to the gods, and left
nothing undone by which they might excite resentment and pity, alarm
and rage. They all rushed to the spot, broke open the guardhouse,
unbound the prisoners, and were in a moment fraternising with
deserters and men convicted on capital charges.
  Thence arose a more furious outbreak, with more leaders of the
mutiny. Vibulenus, a common soldier, was hoisted in front of the
general's tribunal on the shoulders of the bystanders and addressed
the excited throng, who eagerly awaited his intentions. "You have
indeed," he said, "restored light and air to these innocent and most
unhappy men, but who restores to my brother his life, or my brother to
myself? Sent to you by the German army in our common cause, he was
last night butchered by the gladiators whom the general keeps and arms
for the destruction of his soldiers. Answer, Blaesus, where you have
flung aside the corpse? Even an enemy grudges not burial. When, with
embraces and tears, I have sated my grief, order me also to be
slain, provided only that when we have been destroyed for no crime,
but only because we consulted the good of the legions, we may be
buried by these men around me."
  He inflamed their excitement by weeping and smiting his breast and
face with his hands. Then, hurling aside those who bore him on their
shoulders, and impetuously flinging himself at the feet of one man
after another, he roused such dismay and indignation that some of
the soldiers put fetters on the gladiators who were among the number
of Blaesus's slaves, others did the like to the rest of his household,
while a third party hurried out to look for the corpse. And had it not
quickly been known that no corpse was found, that the slaves, when
tortures were applied, denied the murder, and that the man never had a
brother, they would have been on the point of destroying the
general. As it was, they thrust out the tribunes and the camp-prefect;
they plundered the baggage of the fugitives, and they killed a
centurion, Lucilius, to whom, with soldiers' humour, they had given
the name "Bring another," because when he had broken one vine-stick on
a man's back, he would call in a loud voice for another and another.
The rest sheltered themselves in concealment, and one only was
detained, Clemens Julius, whom the soldiers considered a fit person to
carry messages, from his ready wit. Two legions, the eighth and the
fifteenth, were actually drawing swords against each other, the former
demanding the death of a centurion, whom they nicknamed Sirpicus,
while the men of the fifteenth defended him, but the soldiers of the
ninth interposed their entreaties, and when these were disregarded,
their menaces.
  This intelligence had such an effect on Tiberius, close as he was,
and most careful to hush up every very serious disaster, that he
despatched his son Drusus with the leading men of the State and with
two praetorian cohorts, without any definite instructions, to take
suitable measures. The cohorts were strengthened beyond their usual
force with some picked troops. There was in addition a considerable
part of the Praetorian cavalry, and the flower of the German soldiery,
which was then the emperor's guard. With them too was the commander of
the praetorians, Aelius Sejanus, who had been associated with his
own father, Strabo, had great influence with Tiberius, and was to
advise and direct the young prince, and to hold out punishment or
reward to the soldiers. When Drusus approached, the legions, as a mark
of respect, met him, not as usual, with glad looks or the glitter of
military decorations, but in unsightly squalor, and faces which,
though they simulated grief, rather expressed defiance.
  As soon as he entered the entrenchments, they secured the gates with
sentries, and ordered bodies of armed men to be in readiness at
certain points of the camp. The rest crowded round the general's
tribunal in a dense mass. Drusus stood there, and with a gesture of
his hand demanded silence. As often as they turned their eyes back
on the throng, they broke into savage exclamations, then looking up to
Drusus they trembled. There was a confused hum, a fierce shouting, and
a sudden lull. Urged by conflicting emotions, they felt panic and they
caused the like. At last, in an interval of the uproar, Drusus read
his father's letter, in which it was fully stated that he had a
special care for the brave legions with which he had endured a
number of campaigns; that, as soon as his mind had recovered from
its grief, he would lay their demands before the Senators; that
meanwhile he had sent his son to concede unhesitatingly what could
be immediately granted, and that the rest must be reserved for the
Senate, which ought to have a voice in showing either favour or
severity.
  The crowd replied that they had delivered their instructions to
Clemens, one of the centurions, which he was to convey to Rome. He
began to speak of the soldiers' discharge after sixteen years, of
the rewards of completed service, of the daily pay being a denarius,
and of the veterans not being detained under a standard. When Drusus
pleaded in answer reference to the Senate and to his father, he was
interrupted by a tumultuous shout. "Why had he come, neither to
increase the soldiers' pay, nor to alleviate their hardships, in a
word, with no power to better their lot? Yet heaven knew that all were
allowed to scourge and to execute. Tiberius used formerly in the
name of Augustus to frustrate the wishes of the legions, and the
same tricks were now revived by Drusus. Was it only sons who were to
visit them? Certainly, it was a new thing for the emperor to refer
to the Senate merely what concerned the soldier's interests. Was
then the same Senate to be consulted whenever notice was given of an
execution or of a battle? Were their rewards to be at the discretion
of absolute rulers, their punishments to be without appeal?"
  At last they deserted the general's tribunal, and to any
praetorian soldier or friend of Caesar's who met them, they used those
threatening gestures which are the cause of strife and the beginning
of a conflict, with special rage against Cneius Lentulus, because they
thought that he above all others, by his age and warlike renown,
encouraged Drusus, and was the first to scorn such blots on military
discipline. Soon after, as he was leaving with Drusus to betake
himself in foresight of his danger to the winter can they surrounded
him, and asked him again and again whither he was going; was it to the
emperor or to the Senate, there also to oppose the interests of the
legions. At the same moment they menaced him savagely and flung
stones. And now, bleeding from a blow, and feeling destruction
certain, he was rescued by the hurried arrival of the throng which had
accompanied Drusus.
  That terrible night which threatened an explosion of crime was
tranquillised by a mere accident. Suddenly in a clear sky the moon's
radiance seemed to die away. This the soldiers in their ignorance of
the cause regarded as an omen of their condition, comparing the
failure of her light to their own efforts, and imagining that their
attempts would end prosperously should her brightness and splendour be
restored to the goddess. And so they raised a din with brazen
instruments and the combined notes of trumpets and horns, with joy
or sorrow, as she brightened or grew dark. When clouds arose and
obstructed their sight, and it was thought she was buried in the
gloom, with that proneness to superstition which steals over minds
once thoroughly cowed, they lamented that this was a portent of
never-ending hardship, and that heaven frowned on their deeds.
  Drusus, thinking that he ought to avail himself of this change in
their temper and turn what chance had offered to a wise account,
ordered the tents to be visited. Clemens, the centurion was summoned
with all others who for their good qualities were liked by the
common soldiers. These men made their way among the patrols,
sentries and guards of the camp-gates, suggesting hope or holding
out threats. "How long will you besiege the emperor's son? What is
to be the end of our strifes? Will Percennius and Vibulenus give pay
to the soldiers and land to those who have earned their discharge?
In a word, are they, instead of the Neros and the Drusi, to control
the empire of the Roman people? Why are we not rather first in our
repentance as we were last in the offence? Demands made in common
are granted slowly; a separate favour you may deserve and receive at
the same moment."
  With minds affected by these words and growing mutually
suspicious, they divided off the new troops from the old, and one
legion from another. Then by degrees the instinct of obedience
returned. They quitted the gates and restored to their places the
standards which at the beginning of the mutiny they had grouped into
one spot.
  At daybreak Drusus called them to an assembly, and, though not a
practised speaker, yet with natural dignity upbraided them for their
past and commended their present behaviour. He was not, he said, to be
conquered by terror or by threats. Were he to see them inclining to
submission and hear the language of entreaty, he would write to his
father, that he might be merciful and receive the legions' petition.
At their prayer, Blaesus and Lucius Apronius, a Roman knight on
Drusus's staff, with Justus Catonius, a first-rank centurion, were
again sent to Tiberius. Then ensued a conflict of opinion among
them, some maintaining that it was best to wait the envoys' return and
meanwhile humour the soldiers, others, that stronger measures ought to
be used, inasmuch as the rabble knows no mean, and inspires fear,
unless they are afraid, though when they have once been overawed, they
can be safely despised. "While superstition still swayed them, the
general should apply terror by removing the leaders of the mutiny."
  Drusus's temper was inclined to harsh measures. He summoned
Vibulenus and Percennius and ordered them to be put to death. The
common account is that they were buried in the general's tent,
though according to some their bodies were flung outside the
entrenchments for all to see.
  Search was then made for all the chief mutineers. Some as they
roamed outside the camp were cut down by the centurions or by soldiers
of the praetorian cohorts. Some even the companies gave up in proof of
their loyalty. The men's troubles were increased by an early winter
with continuous storms so violent that they could not go beyond
their tents or meet together or keep the standards in their places,
from which they were perpetually tom by hurricane and rain. And
there still lingered the dread of the divine wrath; nor was it without
meaning, they thought, that, hostile to an impious host, the stars
grew dim and storms burst over them. Their only relief from misery was
to quit an ill-omened and polluted camp, and, having purged themselves
of their guilt, to betake themselves again every one to his
winterquarters. First the eighth, then the fifteenth legion
returned; the ninth cried again and again that they ought to wait
for the letter from Tiberius, but soon finding themselves isolated
by the departure of the rest, they voluntarily forestalled their
inevitable fate. Drusus, without awaiting the envoys' return, as for
the present all was quiet, went back to Rome.
  About the same time, from the same causes, the legions of Germany
rose in mutiny, with a fury proportioned to their greater numbers,
in the confident hope that Germanicus Caesar would not be able to
endure another's supremacy and offer himself to the legions, whose
strength would carry everything before it. There were two armies on
the bank of the Rhine; that named the upper army had Caius Silius
for general; the lower was under the charge of Aulus Caecina. The
supreme direction rested with Germanicus, then busily employed in
conducting the assessment of Gaul. The troops under the control of
Silius, with minds yet in suspense, watched the issue of mutiny
elsewhere; but the soldiers of the lower army fell into a frenzy,
which had its beginning in the men of the twenty-first and fifth
legions, and into which the first and twentieth were also drawn. For
they were all quartered in the same summer-camp, in the territory of
the Ubii, enjoying ease or having only light on hearing of the death
of Augustus, a rabble of city slaves, who had been enlisted under a
recent levy at Rome, habituated to laxity and impatient of hardship,
filled the ignorant minds of the other soldiers with notions that
the time had come when the veteran might demand a timely discharge,
the young, more liberal pay, all, an end of their miseries, and
vengeance on the cruelty of centurions.
  It was not one alone who spoke thus, as did Percennius among the
legions of Pannonia, nor was it in the ears of trembling soldiers, who
looked with apprehension to other and mightier armies, but there was
sedition in many a face and voice. "The Roman world," they said, was
in their hand; their victories aggrandised the State; it was from them
that emperors received their titles."
  Nor did their commander check them. Indeed, the blind rage of so
many had robbed him of his resolution., In a sudden frenzy they rushed
with drawn swords on the centurions, the immemorial object of the
soldiers' resentment and the first cause of savage fury. They threw
them to the earth and beat them sorely, sixty to one, so as to
correspond with the number of centurions. Then tearing them from the
ground, mangled, and some lifeless, they flung them outside the
entrenchments or into the river Rhine. One Septimius, who fled to
the tribunal and was grovelling at Caecina's feet, was persistently
demanded till he was given up to destruction. Cassius Chaerea, who won
for himself a memory with posterity by the murder of Caius Caesar,
being then a youth of high spirit, cleared a passage with his sword
through the armed and opposing throng. Neither tribune nor
camp-prefect maintained authority any longer. Patrols, sentries, and
whatever else the needs of the time required, were distributed by
the men themselves. To those who could guess the temper of soldiers
with some penetration, the strongest symptom of a wide-spread and
intractable commotion, was the fact that, instead of being divided
or instigated by a few persons, they were unanimous in their fury
and equally unanimous in their composure, with so uniform a
consistency that one would have thought them to be under command.
  Meantime Germanicus, while, as I have related, he was collecting the
taxes of Gaul, received news of the death of Augustus. He was
married to the granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina, by whom he had
several children, and though he was himself the son of Drusus, brother
of Tiberius, and grandson of Augusta, he was troubled by the secret
hatred of his uncle and grandmother, the motives for which were the
more venomous because unjust. For the memory of Drusus was held in
honour by the Roman people, and they believed that had he obtained
empire, he would have restored freedom. Hence they regarded Germanicus
with favour and with the same hope. He was indeed a young man of
unaspiring temper, and of wonderful kindliness, contrasting strongly
with the proud and mysterious reserve that marked the conversation and
the features of Tiberius. Then, there were feminine jealousies,
Livia feeling a stepmother's bitterness towards Agrippina, and
Agrippina herself too being rather excitable, only her purity and love
of her husband gave a right direction to her otherwise imperious
disposition.
  But the nearer Germanicus was to the highest hope, the more
laboriously did he exert himself for Tiberius, and he made the
neighbouring Sequani and all the Belgic states swear obedience to him.
On hearing of the mutiny in the legions, he instantly went to the
spot, and met them outside the camp, eyes fixed on the ground, and
seemingly repentant. As soon as he entered the entrenchments, confused
murmurs became audible. Some men, seizing his hand under pretence of
kissing it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, that he might
touch their toothless gums; others showed him their limbs bowed with
age. He ordered the throng which stood near him, as it seemed a
promiscuous gathering, to separate itself into its military companies.
They replied that they would hear better as they were. The standards
were then to be advanced, so that thus at least the cohorts might be
distinguished. The soldiers obeyed reluctantly. Then beginning with
a reverent mention of Augustus, he passed on to the victories and
triumphs of Tiberius, dwelling with especial praise on his glorious
achievements with those legions in Germany. Next, he extolled the
unity of Italy, the loyalty of Gaul, the entire absence of
turbulence or strife. He was heard in silence or with but a slight
murmur.
  As soon as he touched on the mutiny and asked what had become of
soldierly obedience, of the glory of ancient discipline, whither
they had driven their tribunes and centurions, they all bared their
bodies and taunted him with the scars of their wounds and the marks of
the lash. And then with confused exclamations they spoke bitterly of
the prices of exemptions, of their scanty pay, of the severity of
their tasks, with special mention of the entrenchment, the fosse,
the conveyance of fodder, building-timber, firewood, and whatever else
had to be procured from necessity, or as a check on idleness in the
camp. The fiercest clamour arose from the veteran soldiers, who, as
they counted their thirty campaigns or more, implored him to relieve
worn-out men, and not let them die under the same hardships, but
have an end of such harassing service, and repose without beggary.
Some even claimed the legacy of the Divine Augustus, with words of
good omen for Germanicus, and, should he wish for empire, they
showed themselves abundantly willing. Thereupon, as though he were
contracting the pollution of guilt, he leapt impetuously from the
tribunal. The men opposed his departure with their weapons,
threatening him repeatedly if he would not go back. But Germanicus
protesting that he would die rather than cast off his loyalty, plucked
his sword from his side, raised it aloft and was plunging it into
his breast, when those nearest him seized his hand and held it by
force. The remotest and most densely crowded part of the throng,
and, what almost passes belief, some, who came close up to him,
urged him to strike the blow, and a soldier, by name Calusidius,
offered him a drawn sword, saying that it was sharper than his own.
Even in their fury, this seemed to them a savage act and one of evil
precedent, and there was a pause during which Caesar's friends hurried
him into his tent.
  There they took counsel how to heal matters. For news was also
brought that the soldiers were preparing the despatch of envoys who
were to draw the upper army into their cause; that the capital of
the Ubii was marked out for destruction, and that hands with the stain
of plunder on them would soon be daring enough for the pillage of
Gaul. The alarm was heightened by the knowledge that the enemy was
aware of the Roman mutiny, and would certainly attack if the Rhine
bank were undefended. Yet if the auxiliary troops and allies were to
be armed against the retiring legions, civil war was in fact begun.
Severity would be dangerous; profuse liberality would be scandalous.
Whether all or nothing were conceded to the soldiery, the State was
equally in jeopardy.
  Accordingly, having weighed their plans one against each other, they
decided that a letter should be written in the prince's name, to the
effect that full discharge was granted to those who had served in
twenty campaigns; that there was a conditional release for those who
had served sixteen, and that they were to be retained under a standard
with immunity from everything except actually keeping off the enemy;
that the legacies which they had asked, were to be paid and doubled.
  The soldiers perceived that all this was invented for the
occasion, and instantly pressed their demands. The discharge from
service was quickly arranged by the tribunes. Payment was put off till
they reached their respective winterquarters. The men of the fifth and
twenty-first legions refused to go till in the summer-camp where
they stood the money was made up out of the purses of Germanicus
himself and his friends, and paid in full. The first and twentieth
legions were led back by their officer Caecina to the canton of the
Ubii, marching in disgrace, since sums of money which had been
extorted from the general were carried among the eagles and standards.
Germanicus went to the Upper Army, and the second, thirteenth, and
sixteenth legions, without any delay, accepted from him the oath of
allegiance. The fourteenth hesitated a little, but their money and the
discharge were offered even without their demanding it.
  Meanwhile there was an outbreak among the Chauci, begun by some
veterans of the mutinous legions on garrison duty. They were quelled
for a time by the instant execution of two soldiers. Such was the
order of Mennius, the camp-prefect, more as a salutary warning than as
a legal act. Then, when the commotion increased, he fled and having
been discovered, as his hiding place was now unsafe, he borrowed a
resource from audacity. "It was not," he told them, "the camp-prefect,
it was Germanicus, their general, it was Tiberius, their emperor, whom
they were insulting." At the same moment, overawing all resistance, he
seized the standard, faced round towards the river-bank, and
exclaiming that whoever left the ranks, he would hold as a deserter,
he led them back into their winter-quarters, disaffected indeed, but
cowed.
  Meanwhile envoys from the Senate had an interview with Germanicus,
who had now returned, at the Altar of the Ubii. Two legions, the first
and twentieth, with veterans discharged and serving under a
standard, were there in winter-quarters. In the bewilderment of terror
and conscious guilt they were penetrated by an apprehension that
persons had come at the Senate's orders to cancel the concessions they
had extorted by mutiny. And as it is the way with a mob to fix any
charge, however groundless, on some particular person, they reproached
Manatius Plancus, an ex-consul and the chief envoy, with being the
author of the Senate's decree. At midnight they began to demand the
imperial standard kept in Germanicus's quarters, and having rushed
together to the entrance, burst the door, dragged Caesar from his bed,
and forced him by menaces of death to give up the standard. Then
roaming through the camp-streets, they met the envoys, who on
hearing of the tumult were hastening to Germanicus. They loaded them
with insults, and were on the point of murdering them, Plancus
especially, whose high rank had deterred him from flight. In his peril
he found safety only in the camp of the first legion. There clasping
the standards and the eagle, he sought to protect himself under
their sanctity. And had not the eagle-bearer, Calpurnius, saved him
from the worst violence, the blood of an envoy of the Roman people, an
occurrence rare even among our foes, would in a Roman camp have
stained the altars of the gods.
  At last, with the light of day, when the general and the soldiers
and the whole affair were clearly recognised, Germanicus entered the
camp, ordered Plancus to be conducted to him, and received him on
the tribunal. He then upbraided them with their fatal infatuation,
revived not so much by the anger of the soldiers as by that of heaven,
and explained the reasons of the envoys' arrival. On the rights of
ambassadors, on the dreadful and undeserved peril of Plancus, and also
on the disgrace into which the legion had brought itself, he dwelt
with the eloquence of pity, and while the throng was confounded rather
than appeased, he dismissed the envoys with an escort of auxiliary
cavalry.
  Amid the alarm all condemned Germanicus for not going to the Upper
Army, where he might find obedience and help against the rebels.
"Enough and more than enough blunders," they said, "had been made by
granting discharges and money, indeed, by conciliatory measures.
Even if Germanicus held his own life cheap, why should he keep a
little son and a pregnant wife among madmen who outraged every human
right? Let these, at least, be restored safely to their grandsire
and to the State."
  When his wife spurned the notion, protesting that she was a
descendant of the Divine Augustus and could face peril with no
degenerate spirit, he at last embraced her and the son of their love
with many tears, and after long delay compelled her to depart.
Slowly moved along a pitiable procession of women, a general's
fugitive wife with a little son in her bosom, her friends' wives
weeping round her, as with her they were dragging themselves from
the camp. Not less sorrowful were those who remained.
  There was no appearance of the triumphant general about
Germanicus, and he seemed to be in a conquered city rather than in his
own camp, while groans and wailings attracted the ears and looks
even of the soldiers. They came out of their tents, asking "what was
that mournful sound? What meant the sad sight? Here were ladies of
rank, not a centurion to escort them, not a soldier, no sign of a
prince's wife, none of the usual retinue. Could they be going to the
Treveri, to be subjects of the foreigner?" Then they felt shame and
pity, and remembered his father Agrippa, her grandfather Augustus, her
father-in-law Drusus, her own glory as a mother of children, her noble
purity. And there was her little child too, born in the camp,
brought up amid the tents of the legions, whom they used to call in
soldiers' fashion, Caligula, because he often wore the shoe so called,
to win the men's goodwill. But nothing moved them so much as
jealousy towards the Treveri. They entreated, stopped the way, that
Agrippina might return and remain, some running to meet her, while
most of them went back to Germanicus. He, with a grief and anger
that were yet fresh, thus began to address the throng around him-
  "Neither wife nor son are dearer to me than my father and the State.
But he will surely have the protection of his own majesty, the
empire of Rome that of our other armies. My wife and children whom,
were it a question of your glory, I would willingly expose to
destruction, I now remove to a distance from your fury, so that
whatever wickedness is thereby threatened, may be expiated by my blood
only, and that you may not be made more guilty by the slaughter of a
great-grandson of Augustus, and the murder of a daughter-in-law of
Tiberius. For what have you not dared, what have you not profaned
during these days? What name shall I give to this gathering? Am I to
call you soldiers, you who have beset with entrenchments and arms your
general's son, or citizens, when you have trampled under foot the
authority of the Senate? Even the rights of public enemies, the sacred
character of the ambassador, and the law of nations have been violated
by you. The Divine Julius once quelled an army's mutiny with a
single word by calling those who were renouncing their military
obedience 'citizens.' The Divine Augustus cowed the legions who had
fought at Actium with one look of his face. Though I am not yet what
they were, still, descended as I am from them, it would be a strange
and unworthy thing should I be spurned by the soldiery of Spain or
Syria. First and twentieth legions, you who received your standards
from Tiberius, you, men of the twentieth who have shared with me so
many battles and have been enriched with so many rewards, is not
this a fine gratitude with which you are repaying your general? Are
these the tidings which I shall have to carry to my father when he
hears only joyful intelligence from our other provinces, that his
own recruits, his own veterans are not satisfied with discharge or
pay; that here only centurions are murdered, tribunes driven away,
envoys imprisoned, camps and rivers stained with blood, while I am
myself dragging on a precarious existence amid those who hate me?
  "Why, on the first day of our meeting, why did you, my friends,
wrest from me, in your blindness, the steel which I was preparing to
plunge into my breast? Better and more loving was the act of the man
who offered me the sword. At any rate I should have perished before
I was as yet conscious of all the disgraces of my army, while you
would have chosen a general who though he might allow my death to pass
unpunished would avenge the death of Varus and his three legions.
Never indeed may heaven suffer the Belgae, though they proffer their
aid, to have the glory and honour of having rescued the name of Rome
and quelled the tribes of Germany. It is thy spirit, Divine
Augustus, now received into heaven, thine image, father Drusus, and
the remembrance of thee, which, with these same soldiers who are now
stimulated by shame and ambition, should wipe out this blot and turn
the wrath of civil strife to the destruction of the foe. You too, in
whose faces and in whose hearts I perceive a change, if only you
restore to the Senate their envoys, to the emperor his due allegiance,
to myself my wife and son, do you stand aloof from pollution and
separate the mutinous from among you. This will be a pledge of your
repentance, a guarantee of your loyalty."
  Thereupon, as suppliants confessing that his reproaches were true,
they implored him to punish the guilty, pardon those who had erred,
and lead them against the enemy. And he was to recall his wife, to let
the nursling of the legions return and not be handed over as a hostage
to the Gauls. As to Agrippina's return, he made the excuse of her
approaching confinement and of winter. His son, he said, would come,
and the rest they might settle themselves. Away they hurried hither
and thither, altered men, and dragged the chief mutineers in chains to
Caius Caetronius commander of the first legion, who tried and punished
them one by one in the following fashion. In front of the throng stood
the legions with drawn swords. Each accused man was on a raised
platform and was pointed out by a tribune. If they shouted out that he
was guilty, he was thrown headlong and cut to pieces. The soldiers
gloated over the bloodshed as though it gave them absolution. Nor
did Caesar check them, seeing that without any order from himself
the same men were responsible for all the cruelty and all the odium of
the deed.
  The example was followed by the veterans, who were soon afterwards
sent into Raetia, nominally to defend the province against a
threatened invasion of the Suevi but really that they might tear
themselves from a camp stamped with the horror of a dreadful remedy no
less than with the memory of guilt. Then the general revised the
list of centurions. Each, at his summons, stated his name, his rank,
his birthplace, the number of his campaigns, what brave deeds he had
done in battle, his military rewards, if any. If the tribunes and
the legion commended his energy and good behaviour, he retained his
rank; where they unanimously charged him with rapacity or cruelty,
he was dismissed the service.
  Quiet being thus restored for the present, a no less formidable
difficulty remained through the turbulence of the fifth and
twenty-first legions, who were in winter quarters sixty miles away
at Old Camp, as the place was called. These, in fact, had been the
first to begin the mutiny, and the most atrocious deeds had been
committed by their hands. Unawed by the punishment of their
comrades, and unmoved by their contrition, they still retained their
resentment. Caesar accordingly proposed to send an armed fleet with
some of our allies down the Rhine, resolved to make war on them should
they reject his authority.
  At Rome, meanwhile, when the result of affairs in Illyrium was not
yet known, and men had heard of the commotion among the German
legions, the citizens in alarm reproached Tiberius for the
hypocritical irresolution with which he was befooling the senate and
the people, feeble and disarmed as they were, while the soldiery
were all the time in revolt, and could not be quelled by the yet
imperfectly-matured authority of two striplings. "He ought to have
gone himself and confronted with his imperial majesty those who
would have soon yielded, when they once saw a sovereign of long
experience, who was the supreme dispenser of rigour or of bounty.
Could Augustus, with the feebleness of age on him, so often visit
Germany, and is Tiberius, in the vigour of life, to sit in the
Senate and criticise its members' words? He had taken good care that
there should be slavery at Rome; he should now apply some soothing
medicine to the spirit of soldiers, that they might be willing to
endure peace."
  Notwithstanding these remonstrances, it was the inflexible purpose
of Tiberius not to quit the head-quarters of empire or to imperil
himself and the State. Indeed, many conflicting thoughts troubled him.
The army in Germany was the stronger; that in Pannonia the nearer; the
first was supported by all the strength of Gaul; the latter menaced
Italy. Which was he to prefer, without the fear that those whom he
slighted would be infuriated by the affront? But his sons might
alike visit both, and not compromise the imperial dignity, which
inspired the greatest awe at a distance. There was also an excuse
for mere youths referring some matters to their father, with the
possibility that he could conciliate or crush those who resisted
Germanicus or Drusus. What resource remained, if they despised the
emperor? However, as if on the eve of departure, he selected his
attendants, provided his camp-equipage, and prepared a fleet; then
winter and matters of business were the various pretexts with which he
amused, first, sensible men, then the populace, last, and longest of
all, the provinces.
  Germanicus meantime, though he had concentrated his army and
prepared vengeance against the mutineers, thought that he ought
still to allow them an interval, in case they might, with the late
warning before them, regard their safety. He sent a despatch to
Caecina, which said that he was on the way with a strong force, and
that, unless they forestalled his arrival by the execution of the
guilty, he would resort to an indiscriminate massacre. Caecina read
the letter confidentially to the eagle and standardbearers, and to all
in the camp who were least tainted by disloyalty, and urged them to
save the whole army from disgrace, and themselves from destruction.
"In peace," he said, "the merits of a man's case are carefully
weighed; when war bursts on us, innocent and guilty alike perish."
  Upon this, they sounded those whom they thought best for their
purpose, and when they saw that a majority of their legions remained
loyal, at the commander's suggestion they fixed a time for falling
with the sword on all the vilest and foremost of the mutineers.
Then, at a mutually given signal, they rushed into the tents, and
butchered the unsuspecting men, none but those in the secret knowing
what was the beginning or what was to be the end of the slaughter.
  The scene was a contrast to all civil wars which have ever occurred.
It was not in battle, it was not from opposing camps, it was from
those same dwellings where day saw them at their common meals, night
resting from labour, that they divided themselves into two factions,
and showered on each other their missiles. Uproar, wounds,
bloodshed, were everywhere visible; the cause was a mystery. All
else was at the disposal of chance. Even some loyal men were slain,
for, on its being once understood who were the objects of fury, some
of the worst mutineers too had seized on weapons. Neither commander
nor tribune was present to control them; the men were allowed
license and vengeance to their heart's content. Soon afterwards
Germanicus entered the camp, and exclaiming with a flood of tears,
that this was destruction rather than remedy, ordered the bodies to be
burnt.
  Even then their savage spirit was seized with desire to march
against the enemy, as an atonement for their frenzy, and it was felt
that the shades of their fellow-soldiers could be appeased only by
exposing such impious breasts to honourable scars. Caesar followed
up the enthusiasm of the men, and having bridged over the Rhine, he
sent across it 12,000 from the legions, with six-and-twenty allied
cohorts, and eight squadrons of cavalry, whose discipline had been
without a stain during the mutiny.
  There was exultation among the Germans, not far off, as long as we
were detained by the public mourning for the loss of Augustus, and
then by our dissensions. But the Roman general in a forced march,
cut through the Caesian forest and the barrier which had been begun by
Tiberius, and pitched his camp on this barrier, his front and rear
being defended by intrenchments, his flanks by timber barricades. He
then penetrated some forest passes but little known, and, as there
were two routes, he deliberated whether he should pursue the short and
ordinary route, or that which was more difficult unexplored, and
consequently unguarded by the enemy. He chose the longer way, and
hurried on every remaining preparation, for his scouts had brought
word that among the Germans it was a night of festivity, with games,
and one of their grand banquets. Caecina had orders to advance with
some light cohorts, and to clear away any obstructions from the woods.
The legions followed at a moderate interval. They were helped by a
night of bright starlight, reached the villages of the Marsi, and
threw their pickets round the enemy, who even then were stretched on
beds or at their tables, without the least fear, or any sentries
before their camp, so complete was their carelessness and disorder;
and of war indeed there was no apprehension. Peace it certainly was
not- merely the languid and heedless ease of half-intoxicated people.
  Caesar, to spread devastation widely, divided his eager legions into
four columns, and ravaged a space of fifty miles with fire and
sword. Neither sex nor age moved his compassion. Everything, sacred or
profane, the temple too of Tamfana, as they called it, the special
resort of all those tribes, was levelled to the ground. There was
not a wound among our soldiers, who cut down a half-asleep, an
unarmed, or a straggling foe. The Bructeri, Tubantes, and Usipetes,
were roused by this slaughter, and they beset the forest passes
through which the army had to return. The general knew this, and he
marched, prepared both to advance and to fight. Part of the cavalry,
and some of the auxiliary cohorts led the van; then came the first
legion, and, with the baggage in the centre, the men of the
twenty-first closed up the left, those of the fifth, the right
flank. The twentieth legion secured the rear, and, next, were the rest
of the allies.
  Meanwhile the enemy moved not till the army began to defile in
column through the woods, then made slight skirmishing attacks on
its flanks and van, and with his whole force charged the rear. The
light cohorts were thrown into confusion by the dense masses of the
Germans, when Caesar rode up to the men of the twentieth legion, and
in a loud voice exclaimed that this was the time for wiping out the
mutiny. "Advance," he said, "and hasten to turn your guilt into
glory." This fired their courage, and at a single dash they broke
through the enemy, and drove him back with great slaughter into the
open country. At the same moment the troops of the van emerged from
the woods and intrenched a camp. After this their march was
uninterrupted, and the soldiery, with the confidence of recent
success, and forgetful of the past, were placed in winter-quarters.
  The news was a source of joy and also of anxiety to Tiberius. He
rejoiced that the mutiny was crushed, but the fact that Germanicus had
won the soldiers' favour by lavishing money, and promptly granting the
discharge, as well as his fame as a soldier, annoyed him. Still, he
brought his achievements under the notice of the Senate, and spoke
much of his greatness in language elaborated for effect, more so
than could be believed to come from his inmost heart. He bestowed a
briefer praise on Drusus, and on the termination of the disturbance in
Illyricum, but he was more earnest, and his speech more hearty. And he
confirmed, too, in the armies of Pannonia all the concessions of
Germanicus.
  That same year Julia ended her days. For her profligacy she had
formerly been confined by her father Augustus in the island of
Pandateria, and then in the town of the Regini on the shores of the
straits of Sicily. She had been the wife of Tiberius while Caius and
Lucius Caesar were in their glory, and had disdained him as an unequal
match. This was Tiberius's special reason for retiring to Rhodes. When
he obtained the empire, he left her in banishment and disgrace,
deprived of all hope after the murder of Postumus Agrippa, and let her
perish by a lingering death of destitution, with the idea that an
obscurity would hang over her end from the length of her exile. He had
a like motive for cruel vengeance on Sempronius Gracchus, a man of
noble family, of shrewd understanding, and a perverse eloquence, who
had seduced this same Julia when she was the wife of Marcus Agrippa.
And this was not the end of the intrigue. When she had been handed
over to Tiberius, her persistent paramour inflamed her with
disobedience and hatred towards her husband; and a letter which
Julia wrote to her father, Augustus, inveighing against Tiberius,
was supposed to be the composition of Gracchus. He was accordingly
banished to Cercina, where he endured an exile of fourteen years. Then
the soldiers who were sent to slay him, found him on a promontory,
expecting no good. On their arrival, he begged a brief interval in
which to give by letter his last instructions to his wife Alliaria,
and then offered his neck to the executioners, dying with a courage
not unworthy of the Sempronian name, which his degenerate life had
dishonoured. Some have related that these soldiers were not sent
from Rome, but by Lucius Asprenas, proconsul of Africa, on the
authority of Tiberius, who had vainly hoped that the infamy of the
murder might be shifted on Asprenas.
  The same year witnessed the establishment of religious ceremonies in
a new priesthood of the brotherhood of the Augustales, just as in
former days Titus Tatius, to retain the rites of the Sabines, had
instituted the Titian brotherhood. Twenty-one were chosen by lot
from the chief men of the State; Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and
Germanicus, were added to the number. The Augustal game's which were
then inaugurated, were disturbed by quarrels arising out of rivalry
between the actors. Augustus had shown indulgence to the entertainment
by way of humouring Maecenas's extravagant passion for Bathyllus,
nor did he himself dislike such amusements, and he thought it
citizenlike to mingle in the pleasures of the populace. Very different
was the tendency of Tiberius's character. But a people so many years
indulgently treated, he did not yet venture to put under harsher
control.
  In the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Caius Norbanus, Germanicus
had a triumph decreed him, though war still lasted. And though it
was for the summer campaign that he was most vigorously preparing,
he anticipated it by a sudden inroad on the Chatti in the beginning of
spring. There had, in fact, sprung up a hope of the enemy being
divided between Arminius and Segestes, famous, respectively, for
treachery and loyalty towards us. Arminius was the disturber of
Germany. Segestes often revealed the fact that a rebellion was being
organized, more especially at that last banquet after which they
rushed to arms, and he urged Varus to arrest himself and Arminius
and all the other chiefs, assuring him that the people would attempt
nothing if the leading men were removed, and that he would then have
an opportunity of sifting accusations and distinguishing the innocent.
But Varus fell by fate and by the sword of Arminius, with whom
Segestes, though dragged into war by the unanimous voice of the
nation, continued to be at feud, his resentment being heightened by
personal motives, as Arminius had married his daughter who was
betrothed to another. With a son-in-law detested, and fathers-in-law
also at enmity, what are bonds of love between united hearts became
with bitter foes incentives to fury.
  Germanicus accordingly gave Caecina four legions, five thousand
auxiliaries, with some hastily raised levies from the Germans dwelling
on the left bank of the Rhine. He was himself at the head of an
equal number of legions and twice as many allies. Having established a
fort on the site of his father's entrenchments on Mount Taunus he
hurried his troops in quick marching order against the Chatti, leaving
Lucius Apronius to direct works connected with roads and bridges. With
a dry season and comparatively shallow streams, a rare circumstance in
that climate, he had accomplished, without obstruction, rapid march,
and he feared for his return heavy rains and swollen rivers. But so
suddenly did he come on the Chatti that all the helpless from age or
sex were at once captured or slaughtered. Their able-bodied men had
swum across the river Adrana, and were trying to keep back the
Romans as they were commencing a bridge. Subsequently they were driven
back by missiles and arrows, and having in vain attempted for peace,
some took refuge with Germanicus, while the rest leaving their cantons
and villages dispersed themselves in their forests.
  After burning Mattium, the capital of the tribe, and ravaging the
open country, Germanicus marched back towards the Rhine, the enemy not
daring to harass the rear of the retiring army, which was his usual
practice whenever he fell back by way of stratagem rather than from
panic. It had been the intention of the Cherusci to help the Chatti;
but Caecina thoroughly cowed them, carrying his arms everywhere, and
the Marsi who ventured to engage him, he repulsed in a successful
battle.
  Not long after envoys came from Segestes, imploring aid against
the violence of his fellow-countrymen, by whom he was hemmed in, and
with whom Arminius had greater influence, because he counselled war.
For with barbarians, the more eager a man's daring, the more does he
inspire confidence, and the more highly is he esteemed in times of
revolution. With the envoys Segestes had associated his son, by name
Segimundus, but the youth hung back from a consciousness of guilt. For
in the year of the revolt of Germany he had been appointed a priest at
the altar of the Ubii, and had rent the sacred garlands, and fled to
the rebels. Induced, however, to hope for mercy from Rome, he
brought his father's message; he was graciously received and sent with
an escort to the Gallic bank of the Rhine.
  It was now worth while for Germanicus to march back his army. A
battle was fought against the besiegers and Segestes was rescued
with a numerous band of kinsfolk and dependents. In the number were
some women of rank; among them, the wife of Arminius, who was also the
daughter of Segestes, but who exhibited the spirit of her husband
rather than of her father, subdued neither to tears nor to the tones
of a suppliant, her hands tightly clasped within her bosom, and eyes
which dwelt on her hope of offspring. The spoils also taken in the
defeat of Varus were brought in, having been given as plunder to
many of those who were then being surrendered.
  Segestes too was there in person, a stately figure, fearless in
the remembrance of having been a faithful ally. His speech was to this
effect. "This is not my first day of steadfast loyalty towards the
Roman people. From the time that the Divine Augustus gave me the
citizenship, I have chosen my friends and foes with an eye to your
advantage, not from hatred of my fatherland (for traitors are detested
even by those whom they prefer) but because I held that Romans and
Germans have the same interests, and that peace is better than war.
And therefore I denounced to Varus, who then commanded your army,
Arminius, the ravisher of my daughter, the violater of your treaty.
I was put off by that dilatory general, and, as I found but little
protection in the laws, I urged him to arrest myself, Arminius, and
his accomplices. That night is my witness; would that it had been my
last. What followed, may be deplored rather than defended. However,
I threw Arminius into chains and I endured to have them put on
myself by his partisans. And as soon as give opportunity, I show my
preference for the old over the new, for peace over commotion, not
to get a reward, but that I may clear myself from treachery and be
at the same time a fit mediator for a German people, should they
choose repentance rather than ruin, For the youth and error of my
son I entreat forgiveness. As for my daughter, I admit that it is by
compulsion she has been brought here. It will be for you to consider
which fact weighs most with you, that she is with child by Arminius or
that she owes her being to me."
  Caesar in a gracious reply promised safety to his children and
kinsfolk and a home for himself in the old province. He then led
back the army and received on the proposal of Tiberius the title of
Imperator. The wife of Arminius gave birth to a male child; the boy,
who was brought up at Ravenna, soon afterwards suffered an insult,
which at the proper time I shall relate.
  The report of the surrender and kind reception of Segestes, when
generally known, was heard with hope or grief according as men
shrank from war or desired it. Arminius, with his naturally furious
temper, was driven to frenzy by the seizure of his wife and the
foredooming to slavery of his wife's unborn child. He flew hither
and thither among the Cherusci, demanding "war against Segestes, war
against Caesar." And he refrained not from taunts. "Noble the father,"
he would say, "mighty the general, brave the army which, with such
strength, has carried off one weak woman. Before me, three legions,
three commanders have fallen. Not by treachery, not against pregnant
women, but openly against armed men do I wage war. There are still
to be seen in the groves of Germany the Roman standards which I hung
up to our country's gods. Let Segestes dwell on the conquered bank;
let him restore to his son his priestly office; one thing there is
which Germans will never thoroughly excuse, their having seen
between the Elbe and the Rhine the Roman rods, axes, and toga. Other
nations in their ignorance of Roman rule, have no experience of
punishments, know nothing of tributes, and, as we have shaken them
off, as the great Augustus, ranked among dieties, and his chosen
heir Tiberius, departed from us, baffled, let us not quail before an
inexperienced stripling, before a mutinous army. If you prefer your
fatherland, your ancestors, your ancient life to tyrants and to new
colonies, follow as your leader Arminius to glory and to freedom
rather than Segestes to ignominious servitude."
  This language roused not only the Cherusci but the neighbouring
tribes and drew to their side Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius,
who had long been respected by the Romans. This increased Caesar's
alarm. That the war might not burst in all its fury on one point, he
sent Caecina through the Bructeri to the river Amisia with forty Roman
cohorts to distract the enemy, while the cavalry was led by its
commander Pedo by the territories of the Frisii. Germanicus himself
put four legions on shipboard and conveyed them through the lakes, and
the infantry, cavalry, and fleet met simultaneously at the river
already mentioned. The Chauci, on promising aid, were associated
with us in military fellowship. Lucius Stertinius was despatched by
Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were
burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the
eagle of the nineteenth legion which had been lost with Varus. The
troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and
all the country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia was ravaged,
not far from the forest of Teutoburgium where the remains of Varus and
his legions were said to lie unburied.
  Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the
last honour to those soldiers and their general, while the whole
army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their
kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the
lot of mankind. Having sent on Caecina in advance to reconnoitre the
obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and causeways over
watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful
scenes, with their horrible sights and associations. Varus's first
camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of its central
space clearly indicated the handiwork of three legions. Further on,
the partially fallen rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the
inference that it was a shattered remnant of the army which had
there taken up a position. In the centre of the field were the
whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground,
strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons
and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to
trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars,
on which they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some
survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from
captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell,
how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his
first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he
found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised ground from
which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of gibbets for the
captives, the pits for the living, and how in his exultation he
insulted the standards and eagles.
  And so the Roman army now on the spot, six years after the disaster,
in grief and anger, began to bury the bones of the three legions,
not a soldier knowing whether he was interring the relics of a
relative or a stranger, but looking on all as kinsfolk and of their
own blood, while their wrath rose higher than ever against the foe. In
raising the barrow Caesar laid the first sod, rendering thus a most
welcome honour to the dead, and sharing also in the sorrow of those
present. This Tiberius did not approve, either interpreting
unfavourably every act of Germanicus, or because he thought that the
spectacle of the slain and unburied made the army slow to fight and
more afraid of the enemy, and that a general invested with the
augurate and its very ancient ceremonies ought not to have polluted
himself with funeral rites.
  Germanicus, however, pursued Arminius as he fell back into trackless
wilds, and as soon as he had the opportunity, ordered his cavalry to
sally forth and scour the plains occupied by the enemy. Arminius
having bidden his men to concentrate themselves and keep close to
the woods, suddenly wheeled round, and soon gave those whom he had
concealed in the forest passes the signal to rush to the attack.
Thereupon our cavalry was thrown into disorder by this new force,
and some cohorts in reserve were sent, which, broken by the shock of
flying troops, increased the panic. They were being pushed into a
swamp, well known to the victorious assailants, perilous to men
unacquainted with it, when Caesar led forth his legions in battle
array. This struck terror into the enemy and gave confidence to our
men, and they separated without advantage to either.
  Soon afterwards Germanicus led back his army to the Amisia, taking
his legions by the fleet, as he had brought them up. Part of the
cavalry was ordered to make for the Rhine along the sea-coast.
Caecina, who commanded a division of his own, was advised, though he
was returning by a route which he knew, to pass Long Bridges with
all possible speed. This was a narrow road amid vast swamps, which had
formerly been constructed by Lucius Domitius; on every side were
quagmires of thick clinging mud, or perilous with streams. Around were
woods on a gradual slope, which Arminius now completely occupied, as
soon as by a short route and quick march he had outstripped troops
heavily laden with baggage and arms. As Caecina was in doubt how he
could possibly replace bridges which were ruinous from age, and at the
same time hold back the enemy, he resolved to encamp on the spot, that
some might begin the repair and others the attack.
  The barbarians attempted to break through the outposts and to
throw themselves on the engineering parties, which they harassed,
pacing round them and continually charging them. There was a
confused din from the men at work and the combatants. Everything alike
was unfavourable to the Romans, the place with its deep swamps,
insecure to the foot and slippery as one advanced, limbs burdened with
coats of mail, and the impossibility of aiming their javelins amid the
water. The Cherusci, on the other hand, were familiar with fighting in
fens; they had huge frames, and lances long enough to inflict wounds
even at a distance. Night at last released the legions, which were now
wavering, from a disastrous engagement. The Germans whom success
rendered unwearied, without even then taking any rest, turned all
the streams which rose from the slopes of the surrounding hills into
the lands beneath. The ground being thus flooded and the completed
portion of our works submerged, the soldiers' labour was doubled.
  This was Caecina's fortieth campaign as a subordinate or a
commander, and, with such experience of success and peril, he was
perfectly fearless. As he thought over future possibilities, he
could devise no plan but to keep the enemy within the woods, till
the wounded and the more encumbered troops were in advance. For
between the hills and the swamps there stretched a plain which would
admit of an extended line. The legions had their assigned places,
the fifth on the right wing, the twenty-first on the left, the men
of the first to lead the van, the twentieth to repel pursuers.
  It was a restless night for different reasons, the barbarians in
their festivity filling the valleys under the hills and the echoing
glens with merry song or savage shouts, while in the Roman camp were
flickering fires, broken exclamations, and the men lay scattered along
the intrenchments or wandered from tent to tent, wakeful rather than
watchful. A ghastly dream appalled the general. He seemed to see
Quintilius Varus, covered with blood, rising out of the swamps, and to
hear him, as it were, calling to him, but he did not, as he
imagined, obey the call; he even repelled his hand, as he stretched it
over him. At daybreak the legions, posted on the wings, from panic
or perversity, deserted their position and hastily occupied a plain
beyond the morass. Yet Arminius, though free to attack, did not at the
moment rush out on them. But when the baggage was clogged in the mud
and in the fosses, the soldiers around it in disorder, the array of
the standards in confusion, every one in selfish haste and all ears
deaf to the word of command he ordered the Germans to charge,
exclaiming again and again, "Behold a Varus and legions once more
entangled in Varus's fate." As he spoke, he cut through the column
with some picked men, inflicting wounds chiefly on the horses.
Staggering in their blood on the slippery marsh, they shook off
their riders, driving hither and thither all in their way, and
trampling on the fallen. The struggle was hottest round the eagles,
which could neither be carried in the face of the storm of missiles,
nor planted in the miry soil. Caecina, while he was keeping up the
battle, fell from his horse, which was pierced under him, and was
being hemmed in, when the first legion threw itself in the way. The
greed of the foe helped him, for they left the slaughter to secure the
spoil, and the legions, towards evening, struggled on to open and firm
ground.
  Nor did this end their miseries. Entrenchments had to be thrown
up, materials sought for earthworks, while the army had lost to a
great extent their implements for digging earth and cutting turf.
There were no tents for the rank and file, no comforts for the
wounded. As they shared their food, soiled by mire or blood, they
bewailed the darkness with its awful omen, and the one day which yet
remained to so many thousand men.
  It chanced that a horse, which had broken its halter and wandered
wildly in fright at the uproar, overthrew some men against whom it
dashed. Thence arose such a panic, from the belief that the Germans
had burst into the camp, that all rushed to the gates. Of these the
decuman gate was the point chiefly sought, as it was furthest from the
enemy and safer for flight. Caecina, having ascertained that the alarm
was groundless, yet being unable to stop or stay the soldiers by
authority or entreaties or even by force, threw himself to the earth
in the gateway, and at last by an appeal to their pity, as they
would have had to pass over the body of their commander, closed the
way. At the same moment the tribunes and the centurions convinced them
that it was a false alarm.
  Having then assembled them at his headquarters, and ordered them
to hear his words in silence, he reminded them of the urgency of the
crisis. "Their safety," he said, "lay in their arms, which they
must, however, use with discretion, and they must remain within the
entrenchments, till the enemy approached closer, in the hope of
storming them; then, there must be a general sortie; by that sortie
the Rhine might be reached. Whereas if they fled, more forests, deeper
swamps, and a savage foe awaited them; but if they were victorious,
glory and renown would be theirs." He dwelt on all that was dear to
them at home, all that testified to their honour in the camp,
without any allusion to disaster. Next he handed over the horses,
beginning with his own, of the officers and tribunes, to the bravest
fighters in the army, quite impartially, that these first, and then
the infantry, might charge the enemy.
  There was as much restlessness in the German host with its hopes,
its eager longings, and the conflicting opinions of its chiefs.
Arminius advised that they should allow the Romans to quit their
position, and, when they had quitted it, again surprise them in swampy
and intricate ground. Inguiomerus, with fiercer counsels, heartily
welcome to barbarians, was for beleaguering the entrenchment in
armed array, as to storm them would, he said, be easy, and there would
be more prisoners and the booty unspoilt. So at daybreak they trampled
in the fosses, flung hurdles into them, seized the upper part of the
breastwork, where the troops were thinly distributed and seemingly
paralysed by fear. When they were fairly within the fortifications,
the signal was given to the cohorts, and the horns and trumpets
sounded. Instantly, with a shout and sudden rush, our men threw
themselves on the German rear, with taunts, that here were no woods or
swamps, but that they were on equal ground, with equal chances. The
sound of trumpets, the gleam of arms, which were so unexpected,
burst with all the greater effect on the enemy, thinking only, as they
were, of the easy destruction of a few half-armed men, and they were
struck down, as unprepared for a reverse as they had been elated by
success. Arminius and Inguiomerus fled from the battle, the first
unhurt, the other severely wounded. Their followers were
slaughtered, as long as our fury and the light of day lasted. It was
not till night that the legions returned, and though more wounds and
the same want of provisions distressed them, yet they found
strength, healing, sustenance, everything indeed, in their victory.
  Meanwhile a rumour had spread that our army was cut off, and that
a furious German host was marching on Gaul. And had not Agrippina
prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, some in
their cowardice would have dared that base act. A woman of heroic
spirit, she assumed during those days the duties of a general, and
distributed clothes or medicine among the soldiers, as they were
destitute or wounded. According to Caius Plinius, the historian of the
German wars, she stood at the extremity of the bridge, and bestowed
praise and thanks on the returning legions. This made a deep
impression on the mind of Tiberius. "Such zeal," he thought, "could
not be guileless; it was not against a foreign foe that she was thus
courting the soldiers. Generals had nothing left them when a woman
went among the companies, attended the standards, ventured on bribery,
as though it showed but slight ambition to parade her son in a
common soldier's uniform, and wish him to be called Caesar Caligula.
Agrippina had now more power with the armies than officers, than
generals. A woman had quelled a mutiny which the sovereign's name
could not check." All this was inflamed and aggravated by Sejanus,
who, with his thorough comprehension of the character of Tiberius,
sowed for a distant future hatreds which the emperor might treasure up
and might exhibit when fully matured.
  Of the legions which he had conveyed by ship, Germanicus gave the
second and fourteenth to Publius Vitellius, to be marched by land,
so that the fleet might sail more easily over a sea full of shoals, or
take the ground more lightly at the ebb-tide. Vitellius at first
pursued his route without interruption, having a dry shore, or the
waves coming in gently. After a while, through the force of the
north wind and the equinoctial season, when the sea swells to its
highest, his army was driven and tossed hither and thither. The
country too was flooded; sea, shore, fields presented one aspect,
nor could the treacherous quicksands be distinguished from solid
ground or shallows from deep water. Men were swept away by the waves
or sucked under by eddies; beasts of burden, baggage, lifeless
bodies floated about and blocked their way. The companies were mingled
in confusion, now with the breast, now with the head only above water,
sometimes losing their footing and parted from their comrades or
drowned. The voice of mutual encouragement availed not against the
adverse force of the waves. There was nothing to distinguish the brave
from the coward, the prudent from the careless, forethought from
chance; the same strong power swept everything before it. At last
Vitellius struggled out to higher ground and led his men up to it.
There they passed the night, without necessary food, without fire,
many of them with bare or bruised limbs, in a plight as pitiable as
that of men besieged by an enemy. For such, at least, have the
opportunity of a glorious death, while here was destruction without
honour. Daylight restored land to their sight, and they pushed their
way to the river Visurgis, where Caesar had arrived with the fleet.
The legions then embarked, while a rumour was flying about that they
were drowned. Nor was there a belief in their safety till they saw
Caesar and the army returned.
  By this time Stertinius, who had been despatched to receive the
surrender of Segimerus, brother of Segestes, had conducted the
chief, together with his son, to the canton of the Ubii. Both were
pardoned, Segimerus readily, the son with some hesitation, because
it was said that he had insulted the corpse of Quintilius Varus.
Meanwhile Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied in repairing the losses of the
army, offering whatever they had at hand, arms, horses, gold.
Germanicus having praised their zeal, took only for the war their arms
and horses, and relieved the soldiers out of his own purse. And that
he might also soften the remembrance of the disaster by kindness, he
went round to the wounded, applauded the feats of soldier after
soldier, examined their wounds, raised the hopes of one, the
ambition of another, and the spirits of all by his encouragement and
interest, thus strengthening their ardour for himself and for battle.
  That year triumphal honours were decreed to Aulus Caecina, Lucius
Apronius, Caius Silius for their achievements under Germanicus. The
title of "father of his country," which the people had so often thrust
on him, Tiberius refused, nor would he allow obedience to be sworn
to his enactments, though the Senate voted it, for he said
repeatedly that all human things were uncertain, and that the more
he had obtained, the more precarious was his position. But he did
not thereby create a belief in his patriotism, for he had revived
the law of treason, the name of which indeed was known in ancient
times, though other matters came under its jurisdiction, such as the
betrayal of an army, or seditious stirring up of the people, or, in
short, any corrupt act by which a man had impaired "the majesty of the
people of Rome." Deeds only were liable to accusation; words went
unpunished. It was Augustus who first, under colour of this law,
applied legal inquiry to libellous writings provoked, as he had
been, by the licentious freedom with which Cassius Severus had defamed
men and women of distinction in his insulting satires. Soon
afterwards, Tiberius, when consulted by Pompeius Macer, the praetor,
as to whether prosecutions for treason should be revived, replied that
the laws must be enforced. He too had been exasperated by the
publication of verses of uncertain authorship, pointed at his cruelty,
his arrogance, and his dissensions with his mother.
  It will not be uninteresting if I relate in the cases of Falanius
and Rubrius, Roman knights of moderate fortune, the first
experiments at such accusations, in order to explain the origin of a
most terrible scourge, how by Tiberius's cunning it crept in among us,
how subsequently it was checked, finally, how it burst into flame
and consumed everything. Against Falanius it was alleged by his
accuser that he had admitted among the votaries of Augustus, who in
every great house were associated into a kind of brotherhood, one
Cassius, a buffoon of infamous life, and that he had also in selling
his gardens included in the sale a statue of Augustus. Against Rubrius
the charge was that he had violated by perjury the divinity of
Augustus. When this was known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls
"that his father had not had a place in heaven decreed to him, that
the honour might be turned to the destruction of the citizens.
Cassius, the actor, with men of the same profession, used to take part
in the games which had been consecrated by his mother to the memory of
Augustus. Nor was it contrary to the religion of the State for the
emperor's image, like those of other deities, to be added to a sale of
gardens and houses. As to the oath, the thing ought to be considered
as if the man had deceived Jupiter. Wrongs done to the gods were the
gods' concern."
  Not long afterwards, Granius Marcellus, proconsul of Bithynia, was
accused of treason by his quaestor, Caepio Crispinus, and the charge
was supported by Romanus Hispo. Crispinus then entered on a line of
life afterwards rendered notorious by the miseries of the age and
men's shamelessness. Needy, obscure, and restless, he wormed himself
by stealthy informations into the confidence of a vindictive prince,
and soon imperilled all the most distinguished citizens; and having
thus gained influence with one, hatred from all besides, he left an
example in following which beggars became wealthy, the
insignificant, formidable, and brought ruin first on others, finally
on themselves. He alleged against Marcellus that he had made some
disrespectful remarks about Tiberius, a charge not to be evaded,
inasmuch as the accuser selected the worst features of the emperor's
character and grounded his case on them. The things were true, and
so were believed to have been said.
  Hispo added that Marcellus had placed his own statue above those
of the Caesars, and had set the bust of Tiberius on another statue
from which he had struck off the head of Augustus. At this the
emperor's wrath blazed forth, and, breaking through his habitual
silence, he exclaimed that in such a case he would himself too give
his vote openly on oath, that the rest might be under the same
obligation. There lingered even then a few signs of expiring
freedom. And so Cneius Piso asked, "In what order will you vote,
Caesar? If first, I shall know what to follow; if last, I fear that
I may differ from you unwillingly." Tiberius was deeply moved, and
repenting of the outburst, all the more because of its
thoughtlessness, he quietly allowed the accused to be acquitted of the
charges of treason. As for the question of extortion, it was
referred to a special commission.
  Not satisfied with judicial proceedings in the Senate, the emperor
would sit at one end of the Praetor's tribunal, but so as not to
displace him from the official seat. Many decisions were given in
his presence, in opposition to improper influence and the
solicitations of great men. This, though it promoted justice, ruined
freedom. Pius Aurelius, for example, a senator, complained that the
foundations of his house had been weakened by the pressure of a public
road and aqueduct, and he appealed to the Senate for assistance. He
was opposed by the praetors of the treasury, but the emperor helped
him, and paid him the value of his house, for he liked to spend
money on a good purpose, a virtue which he long retained, when he cast
off all others. To Propertius Celer, an ex-praetor, who sought because
of his indigence to be excused from his rank as a senator, he gave a
million sesterces, having ascertained that he had inherited poverty.
He bade others, who attempted the same, prove their case to the
Senate, as from his love of strictness he was harsh even where he
acted on right grounds. Consequently every one else preferred
silence and poverty to confession and relief.
  In the same year the Tiber, swollen by continuous rains, flooded the
level portions of the city. Its subsidence was followed by a
destruction of buildings and of life. Thereupon Asinius Gallus
proposed to consult the Sibylline books. Tiberius refused, veiling
in obscurity the divine as well as the human. However, the devising of
means to confine the river was intrusted to Ateius Capito and Lucius
Arruntius.
  Achaia and Macedonia, on complaining of their burdens, were, it
was decided, to be relieved for a time from proconsular government and
to be transferred to the emperor. Drusus presided over a show of
gladiators which he gave in his own name and in that of his brother
Germanicus, for he gloated intensely over bloodshed, however cheap its
victims. This was alarming to the populace, and his father had, it was
said, rebuked him. Why Tiberius kept away from the spectacle was
variously explained. According to some, it was his loathing of a
crowd, according to others, his gloomy temper, and a fear of
contrast with the gracious presence of Augustus. I cannot believe that
he deliberately gave his son the opportunity of displaying his
ferocity and provoking the people's disgust, though even this was
said.
  Meanwhile the unruly tone of the theatre which first showed itself
in the preceding year, broke out with worse violence, and some
soldiers and a centurion, besides several of the populace, were
killed, and the tribune of a praetorian cohort was wounded, while they
were trying to stop insults to the magistrates and the strife of the
mob. This disturbance was the subject of a debate in the Senate, and
opinions were expressed in favour of the praetors having authority
to scourge actors. Haterius Agrippa, tribune of the people, interposed
his veto, and was sharply censured in a speech from Asinius Gallus,
without a word from Tiberius, who liked to allow the Senate such shows
of freedom. Still the interposition was successful, because Augustus
had once pronounced that actors were exempt from the scourge, and it
was not lawful for Tiberius to infringe his decisions. Many enactments
were passed to fix the amount of their pay and to check the disorderly
behaviour of their partisans. Of these the chief were that no
Senator should enter the house of a pantomime player, that Roman
knights should not crowd round them in the public streets, that they
should exhibit themselves only in the theatre, and that the praetors
should be empowered to punish with banishment any riotous conduct in
the spectators.
  A request from the Spaniards that they might erect a temple to
Augustus in the colony of Tarraco was granted, and a precedent thus
given for all the provinces. When the people of Rome asked for a
remission of the one per cent. tax on all saleable commodities,
Tiberius declared by edict "that the military exchequer depended on
that branch of revenue, and, further, that the State was unequal to
the burden, unless the twentieth year of service were to be that of
the veteran's discharge." Thus the ill-advised results of the late
mutiny, by which a limit of sixteen campaigns had been extorted,
were cancelled for the future.
  A question was then raised in the Senate by Arruntius and Ateius
whether, in order to restrain the inundations of the Tiber, the rivers
and lakes which swell its waters should be diverted from their
courses. A hearing was given to embassies from the municipal towns and
colonies, and the people of Florentia begged that the Clanis might not
be turned out of its channel and made to flow into the Arnus, as
that would bring ruin on themselves. Similar arguments were used by
the inhabitants of Interamna. The most fruitful plains of Italy,
they said, would be destroyed if the river Nar (for this was the
plan proposed) were to be divided into several streams and overflow
the country. Nor did the people of Reate remain silent. They
remonstrated against the closing up of the Veline lake, where it
empties itself into the Nar, "as it would burst in a flood on the
entire neighbourhood. Nature had admirably provided for human
interests in having assigned to rivers their mouths, their channels,
and their limits, as well as their sources. Regard, too, must be
paid to the different religions of the allies, who had dedicated
sacred rites, groves, and altars to the rivers of their country. Tiber
himself would be altogether unwilling to be deprived of his
neighbour streams and to flow with less glory." Either the
entreaties of the colonies, or the difficulty of the work or
superstitious motives prevailed, and they yielded to Piso's opinion,
who declared himself against any change.
  Poppaeus Sabinus was continued in his government of the province
of Moesia with the addition of Achaia and Macedonia. It was part of
Tiberius' character to prolong indefinitely military commands and to
keep many men to the end of their life with the same armies and in the
same administrations. Various motives have been assigned for this.
Some say that, out of aversion to any fresh anxiety, he retained
what he had once approved as a permanent arrangement; others, that
he grudged to see many enjoying promotion. Some, again, think that
though he had an acute intellect, his judgment was irresolute, for
he did not seek out eminent merit, and yet he detested vice. From
the best men he apprehended danger to himself, from the worst,
disgrace to the State. He went so far at last in this irresolution,
that he appointed to provinces men whom he did not mean to allow to
leave Rome.
  I can hardly venture on any positive statement about the consular
elections, now held for the first time under this emperor, or, indeed,
subsequently, so conflicting are the accounts we find not only in
historians but in Tiberius' own speeches. Sometimes he kept back the
names of the candidates, describing their origin, their life and
military career, so that it might be understood who they were.
Occasionally even these hints were withheld, and, after urging them
not to disturb the elections by canvassing, he would promise his own
help towards the result. Generally he declared that only those had
offered themselves to him as candidates whose names he had given to
the consuls, and that others might offer themselves if they had
confidence in their influence or merit. A plausible profession this in
words, but really unmeaning and delusive, and the greater the disguise
of freedom which marked it, the more cruel the enslavement into
which it was soon to plunge us.

                           BOOK II, A.D. 16-19

  IN the consulship of Sisenna Statilius Taurus and Lucius Libo
there was a commotion in the kingdoms and Roman provinces of the East.
It had its origin among the Parthians, who disdained as a foreigner
a king whom they had sought and received from Rome, though he was of
the family of the Arsacids. This was Vonones, who had been given as an
hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For although he had driven before him
armies and generals from Rome, Phraates had shown to Augustus every
token of reverence and had sent him some of his children, to cement
the friendship, not so much from dread of us as from distrust of the
loyalty of his countrymen.
  After the death of Phraates and the succeeding kings in the
bloodshed of civil wars, there came to Rome envoys from the chief
men of Parthia, in quest of Vonones, his eldest son. Caesar thought
this a great honour to himself, and loaded Vonones with wealth. The
barbarians, too, welcomed him with rejoicing, as is usual with new
rulers. Soon they felt shame at Parthians having become degenerate, at
their having sought a king from another world, one too infected with
the training of the enemy, at the throne of the Arsacids now being
possessed and given away among the provinces of Rome. "Where," they
asked, "was the glory of the men who slew Crassus, who drove out
Antonius, if Caesar's drudge, after an endurance of so many years'
slavery, were to rule over Parthians."
  Vonones himself too further provoked their disdain, by his
contrast with their ancestral manners, by his rare indulgence in the
chase, by his feeble interest in horses, by the litter in which he was
carried whenever he made a progress through their cities, and by his
contemptuous dislike of their national festivities. They also
ridiculed his Greek attendants and his keeping under seal the
commonest household articles. But he was easy of approach; his
courtesy was open to all, and he had thus virtues with which the
Parthians were unfamiliar, and vices new to them. And as his ways were
quite alien from theirs they hated alike what was bad and what was
good in him.
  Accordingly they summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid by blood, who had
grown to manhood among the Dahae, and who, though routed in the
first encounter, rallied his forces and possessed himself of the
kingdom. The conquered Vonones found a refuge in Armenia, then a
free country, and exposed to the power of Parthia and Rome, without
being trusted by either, in consequence of the crime of Antonius, who,
under the guise of friendship, had inveigled Artavasdes, king of the
Armenians, then loaded him with chains, and finally murdered him.
His son, Artaxias, our bitter foe because of his father's memory,
found defence for himself and his kingdom in the might of the
Arsacids. When he was slain by the treachery of kinsmen, Caesar gave
Tigranes to the Armenians, and he was put in possession of the kingdom
under the escort of Tiberius Nero. But neither Tigranes nor his
children reigned long, though, in foreign fashion, they were united in
marriage and in royal power.
  Next, at the bidding of Augustus, Artavasdes was set on the
throne, nor was he deposed without disaster to ourselves. Caius Caesar
was then appointed to restore order in Armenia. He put over the
Armenians Ariobarzanes, a Mede by birth, whom they willingly accepted,
because of his singularly handsome person and noble spirit. On the
death of Ariobarzanes through a fatal accident, they would not
endure his son. Having tried the government of a woman named Erato and
having soon afterwards driven her from them, bewildered and
disorganised, rather indeed without a ruler than enjoying freedom,
they received for their king the fugitive Vonones. When, however,
Artabanus began to threaten, and but feeble support could be given
by the Armenians, or war with Parthia would have to be undertaken,
if Vonones was to be upheld by our arms, the governor of Syria,
Creticus Silanus, sent for him and kept him under surveillance,
letting him retain his royal pomp and title. How Vonones meditated
an escape from this mockery, I will relate in the proper place.
  Meanwhile the commotion in the East was rather pleasing to Tiberius,
as it was a pretext for withdrawing Germanicus from the legions
which knew him well, and placing him over new provinces where he would
be exposed both to treachery and to disasters. Germanicus, however, in
proportion to the strength of the soldiers' attachment and to his
uncle's dislike, was eager to hasten his victory, and he pondered on
plans of battle, and on the reverses or successes which during more
than three years of war had fallen to his lot. The Germans, he knew,
were beaten in the field and on fair ground; they were helped by
woods, swamps, short summers, and early winters. His own troops were
affected not so much by wounds as by long marches and damage to
their arms. Gaul had been exhausted by supplying horses; a long
baggage-train presented facilities for ambuscades, and was
embarrassing to its defenders. But by embarking on the sea, invasion
would be easy for them, and a surprise to the enemy, while a
campaign too would be more quickly begun, the legions and supplies
would be brought up simultaneously, and the cavalry with their
horses would arrive, in good condition, by the rivermouths and
channels, at the heart of Germany.
  To this accordingly he gave his mind, and sent Publius Vitellius and
Caius Antius to collect the taxes of Gaul. Silius, Anteius, and
Caecina had the charge of building a fleet. It seemed that a
thousand vessels were required, and they were speedily constructed,
some of small draught with a narrow stem and stern and a broad centre,
that they might bear the waves more easily; some flat-bottomed, that
they might ground without being injured; several, furnished with a
rudder at each end, so that by a sudden shifting of the oars they
might be run into shore either way. Many were covered in with decks,
on which engines for missiles might be conveyed, and were also fit for
the carrying of horses or supplies, and being equipped with sails as
well as rapidly moved by oars, they assumed, through the enthusiasm of
our soldiers, an imposing and formidable aspect.
  The island of the Batavi was the appointed rendezvous, because of
its easy landing-places, and its convenience for receiving the army
and carrying the war across the river. For the Rhine after flowing
continuously in a single channel or encircling merely insignificant
islands, divides itself, so to say, where the Batavian territory
begins, into two rivers, retaining its name and the rapidity of its
course in the stream which washes Germany, till it mingles with the
ocean. On the Gallic bank, its flow is broader and gentler; it is
called by an altered name, the Vahal, by the inhabitants of its shore.
Soon that name too is changed for the Mosa river, through whose vast
mouth it empties itself into the same ocean.
  Caesar, however, while the vessels were coming up, ordered Silius,
his lieutenant-general, to make an inroad on the Chatti with a
flying column. He himself, on hearing that a fort on the river
Luppia was being besieged, led six legions to the spot. Silius owing
to sudden rains did nothing but carry off a small booty, and the
wife and daughter of Arpus, the chief of the Chatti. And Caesar had no
opportunity of fighting given him by the besiegers, who dispersed on
the rumour of his advance. They had, however, destroyed the barrow
lately raised in memory of Varus's legions, and the old altar of
Drusus. The prince restored the altar, and himself with his legions
celebrated funeral games in his father's honour. To raise a new barrow
was not thought necessary. All the country between the fort Aliso
and the Rhine was thoroughly secured by new barriers and earthworks.
  By this time the fleet had arrived, and Caesar, having sent on his
supplies and assigned vessels for the legions and the allied troops,
entered "Drusus's fosse," as it was called. He prayed Drusus his
father to lend him, now that he was venturing on the same
enterprise, the willing and favourable aid of the example and wi
memory of his counsels and achievements, and he arrived after a
prosperous voyage through the lakes and the ocean as far as the
river Amisia. His fleet remained there on the left bank of the stream,
and it was a blunder that he did not have it brought up the river.
He disembarked the troops, which were to be marched to the country
on the right, and thus several days were wasted in the construction of
bridges. The cavalry and the legions fearlessly crossed the first
estuaries in which the tide had not yet risen. The rear of the
auxiliaries, and the Batavi among the number, plunging recklessly into
the water and displaying their skill in swimming, fell into
disorder, and some were drowned. While Caesar was measuring out his
camp, he was told of a revolt of the Angrivarii in his rear. He at
once despatched Stertinius with some cavalry and a light armed
force, who punished their perfidy with fire and sword.
  The waters of the Visurgis flowed between the Romans and the
Cherusci. On its banks stood Arminius with the other chiefs. He
asked whether Caesar had arrived, and on the reply that he was
present, he begged leave to have an interview with his brother. That
brother, surnamed Flavus, was with our army, a man famous for his
loyalty, and for having lost an eye by a wound, a few years ago,
when Tiberius was in command. The permission was then given, and he
stepped forth and was saluted by Arminius, who had removed his
guards to a distance and required that the bowmen ranged on our bank
should retire. When they had gone away, Arminius asked his brother
whence came the scar which disfigured his face, and on being told
the particular place and battle, he inquired what reward he had
received. Flavus spoke of increased pay, of a neck chain, a crown, and
other military gifts, while Arminius jeered at such a paltry
recompense for slavery.
  Then began a controversy. The one spoke of the greatness of Rome,
the resources of Caesar, the dreadful punishment in store for the
vanquished, the ready mercy for him who surrenders, and the fact
that neither Arminius's wife nor his son were treated as enemies;
the other, of the claims of fatherland, of ancestral freedom, of the
gods of the homes of Germany, of the mother who shared his prayers,
that Flavus might not choose to be the deserter and betrayer rather
than the ruler of his kinsfolk and relatives, and indeed of his own
people.
  By degrees they fell to bitter words, and even the river between
them would not have hindered them from joining combat, had not
Stertinius hurried up and put his hand on Flavus, who in the full tide
of his fury was demanding his weapons and his charger. Arminius was
seen facing him, full of menaces and challenging him to conflict. Much
of what he said was in Roman speech, for he had served in our camp
as leader of his fellow-countrymen.
  Next day the German army took up its position on the other side of
the Visurgis. Caesar, thinking that without bridges and troops to
guard them, it would not be good generalship to expose the legions
to danger, sent the cavalry across the river by the fords. It was
commanded by Stertinius and Aemilius, one of the first rank
centurions, who attacked at widely different points so as to
distract the enemy. Chariovalda, the Batavian chief, dashed to the
charge where the stream is most rapid. The Cherusci, by a pretended
flight, drew him into a plain surrounded by forest-passes. Then
bursting on him in a sudden attack from all points they thrust aside
all who resisted, pressed fiercely on their retreat, driving them
before them, when they rallied in compact array, some by close
fighting, others by missiles from a distance. Chariovalda, after
long sustaining the enemy's fury, cheered on his men to break by a
dense formation the onset of their bands, while he himself, plunging
into the thickest of the battle, fell amid a shower of darts with
his horse pierced under him, and round him many noble chiefs. The rest
were rescued from the peril by their own strength, or by the cavalry
which came up with Stertinius and Aemilius.
  Caesar on crossing the Visurgis learnt by the information of a
deserter that Arminius had chosen a battle-field, that other tribes
too had assembled in a forest sacred to Hercules, and would venture on
a night attack on his camp. He put faith in this intelligence, and,
besides, several watchfires were seen. Scouts also, who had crept
close up to the enemy, reported that they had heard the neighing of
horses and the hum of a huge and tumultuous host. And so as the
decisive crisis drew near, that he ought thoroughly to sound the
temper of his soldiers, he considered with himself how this was to
be accomplished with a genuine result. Tribunes and centurions, he
knew, oftener reported what was welcome than what was true; freedmen
had slavish spirits, friends a love of flattery. If an assembly were
called, there too the lead of a few was followed by the shout of the
many. He must probe their inmost thoughts, when they were uttering
their hopes and fears at the military mess, among themselves, and
unwatched.
  At nightfall, leaving his tent of augury by a secret exit, unknown
to the sentries, with one companion, his shoulders covered with a wild
beast's skin, he visited the camp streets, stood by the tents, and
enjoyed the men's talk about himself, as one extolled his noble
ran