'CHAP. XLII. A. D. 16. A. U. 769. in a mass formidable alike from its numbers and resolution, defied the advance of the conqueror. Here invasion reached its limits. Germanicus indeed led his legions steadily to the foot of the well-manned lines. He made skilful dispositions for attacking them. He forced the mound, entered the narrow area within which the Germans were thronged densely together, with a morass behind, and incapable of retreat. The struggle was furious and bloody: every thing was against the Germans; the closeness of the combat, in which their long swords and even their unwieldy frames were a disadvantage; the recollection of their late defeat; and the consciousness that their last stronghold was stormed before their faces. Even Arminius had lost his gallant spirit; broken by repeated defeats or the wounds he had sustained, he was less decided in his orders and less conspicuous in the medley. Never, on the other hand, did Germanicus more strenuously exert himself. He strove to carry with his own hand the victory his dispositions had brought within his grasp. Throwing his helmet from his head, that no Roman might fail to recognise him, he adjured his soldiers, in the midst of their ranks, to redouble blow on blow, and give no quarter: this, he cried, was no day for making captives, but for utterly destroying the German nation. Multitudes of the barbarians were slain, while the invaders acknowledged but a trifling loss. Nevertheless the legions, we are told, were recalled from the scene of slaughter to their camp for the night, while we hear nothing of the rout or retirement of the enemy. It is СНАР. XLII. admitted that the engagement of the cavalry in another quarter was indecisive. No song of triumph arose on the dispersion of the great A. D. 16. German confederacy, at the abandonment of their A.U. 769. country, or their retreat behind the Elbe; there is no word of their suing for peace or pardon. If Germanicus erected yet another trophy, and emblazoned it with a flaunting inscription, proclaiming that he had subdued all the nations between the Rhine and Elbe, the historian of his exploits himself confesses that the boast was vain and presumptuous. Of all the native tribes the Angrivarii alone offered to capitulate; but the humility of their submission appeased, it is said, the vengeance of the conqueror, and he was willing to accept it as a national acknowledgment of defeat.1 Germanicus Nor was it from any anxiety about his home- Return of ward return that Germanicus acquiesced so easily again unin this pretended pacification. The second month prosperous. of summer saw his legions withdraw from their advanced posts in the country of the Cherusci, and retire, some by land, but a large force on board the numerous flotilla which had wafted them to the mouth of the Ems.2 The vessels were assailed by severe gales, and once more suffered terribly from the violence of the winds and waves, though we may suspect that the fears of the timid mariners considerably magnified the loss and danger. These disasters, however, sufficed to raise the Germans again in arms, so little had they been dispirited by 1 Tac. Ann. ii. 19–22. 2 Tac. Ann. ii. 23.: Adulta jam æstate: thus explained by Servius on Virg. Ecl. x. 74.; Georg. i. 43. СНАР. A.D. 16. A.U. 769. the last of the Varian eagles. the dubious successes of the recent invasion. Germanicus, always prompt and active, however questionable we may think his skill in conducting, or forethought in planning, his expeditions, collected his troops without delay, and by a rapid and furious incursion into the territories of the Marsi Recovery of and Chatti, checked at least the contagion of their revolt. The recovery of the last of the Varian eagles shed a final gleam of glory over the enterprises of Rome in this quarter. Once more the legions were led back to their winter stations. The young Cæsar was assured that the enemy had never felt such consternation and despair, as when they found him prepared to take the field at the moment when his fleet was lying wrecked upon their shores. Never were they so much disposed to entertain counsels of submission, as during the winter that followed. One more campaign, he was convinced, would complete the conquest of the North. But while meditating on his future triumphs, he was admonished by many letters from Tiberius, that it was time to abandon the projects which had reaped in fact nothing but annually recurring disappointments. It was time, the emperor suggested, to change the policy which had hitherto reigned in the Roman quarters, and relinquishing the employment of military force, which had been attended with grave losses both by sea and land, trust to the surer and safer method of engaging the enemy in domestic dissensions. Closely as the German confederates had been bound together under the pressure of foreign aggression, seeds of disunion were still rife among CHAT XLII. A. U. 769. them, and the policy of intrigue, ever patient and watchful, could hardly fail in the end to undermine the nationality of the barbarians. If further ▲ D. 16. laurels, he added, were yet to be gained by arms, it was fair to leave the harvest to be gleaned by the stripling Drusus, for whose maiden sword no other foe but the Germans was left.1 tiers of the bounded by The reasoning of Tiberius was specious, and the The froncourse he suggested required only vigilance and empire perseverance to be completely successful. But in finally laying down a line of traditionary policy, which the Rhine. might demand the care of many years, and of more than one or two generations to effect it, he could give no pledge either of his own or his successors' persistence in it. In fact, the central government ceased from this time forward to take any warm interest in the subjugation of the Germans; and the dissensions of their states and princes, which peace was not slow in developing, attracted no Roman emissaries to the barbarian camps, and rarely led the legions beyond the frontier, which was now allowed to recede finally 1 Tac. Ann. ii. 26. Suetonius (Tib. 52.) adds that Tiberius was generally reputed to have disparaged the glorious successes of Germanicus, as prejudicial to the public interests. It is vexatious, however, to observe how little reliance we can place on the panegyric of Tacitus. His story of the last campaign bears strong features of romance. The interview of the German brothers is an heroic episode. It is not usual with ordinary mortals to converse across a stream an hundred yards in width. The night watch of Germanicus, though not in itself improbable, is suspiciously in unison with the epic colour of the general narrative; and the splendid victories ascribed to him are evidently belied by the results. The account of the shipwreck of the flotilla is a clang of turgid extravagances, amplified perhaps from the statement which Pliny may have founded, with little discrimination, upon the fears and fancies of the survivors. XLII. A. D. 16. CHAP. to the Rhine.1 The conquests indeed of Germanicus had been merely visionary: the language of the historian Tacitus is equally extravagant both in vaunting his triumphs, and in blazoning his disasters; and the almost total silence of Dion, a far more sober authority, upon the exploits of the youthful hero, stamps his campaigns with merited insignificance. Nevertheless there seems no reason to doubt that the discipline of the legions, and the conduct of their officers, even without the mighty genius of a Sulla or a Cæsar at their head, must gradually have broken down the resistance of the northern freemen, and that but little more of toil and patience was wanting to make the Elbe the permanent frontier of the conquests of Italy. This accession of territory would have materially abridged the long line of the national defences, and the garrisons of the Elbe and Danube might have afforded each other mutual support in the peril of a barbarian invasion. It is not impossible that the result of one or two more campaigns at this critical moment might have delayed for a hundred years the eventual overthrow of the Roman Empire. It would be too much to say that the failure of such a result is to be regretted; nor can we venture to lament, for the sake of the Germans themselves, that they were not at this period reduced to a state of subjection to a power of higher and finer organization than their own. But while the gallantry with which the Germans de We shall trace at a later period some further advances of the empire between the upper Rhine and Danube. |