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But him doubtless the majesty of his name will defend; and
there are other armies, loyal armies, to defend the Roman State. As to
my wife and children, whom for your glory I could freely sacrifice, I
now remove them from your rage; that by my blood alone may be expiated
whatever further mischief your fury meditates; and that the murder of
the great grandson of Augustus, the murder of the daughter-in-law of
Tiberius, may not be added to mine, nor to the blackness of your past
guilt. For, during these days of frenzy what has been too horrid for you
to commit? What so sacred that you have not violated? To this audience
what name shall I give? Can I call you _soldiers_? you who have beset
with arms the son of your Emperor, confined him in your trenches, and
held him in a siege? _Roman citizens_ can I call you? you who
have trampled upon the supreme authority of the Roman Senate? Laws
religiously observed by common enemies, you have profaned; violated
the sacred privileges, and persons of Ambassadors; broken the laws of
nations. The deified Julius Caesar quelled a sedition in his army by a
single word: he called all who refused to follow him, _townsmen_. The
deified Augustus, when, after the battle of Actium, the legions who won
it lapsed into mutiny, terrified them into submission by the dignity
of his presence and an awful look. These, it is true, are mighty and
immortal names, whom I dare not emulate; but, as I am their descendant,
and inherit their blood, should the armies in Syria and Spain reject my
orders, and contemn my authority, I should think their behaviour strange
and base: are not the present legions under stronger ties than those in
Syria and Spain? You are the first and the twentieth legions; the former
enrolled by Tiberius himself; the other his constant companions in so
many battles, his partners in so many victories, and by him enriched
with so many bounties! Is this the worthy return you make your Emperor,
and late Commander, for the distinction he has shown you, for the favour
he has done you, and for his liberalities towards you?
And shall I be
the author of such tidings to him; such heavy tidings in the midst of
congratulations and happy accounts from every province in the Empire?
Must it be my sad task to acquaint him that his own new levies, as well
as his own veterans who long fought under him; these not appeased by
their discharge, and neither of them satiated with the money given them,
are both still combined in a furious mutiny? must I tell him that here
and only here the Centurions are butchered, the Tribunes driven away,
the Ambassadors imprisoned; that with blood the camp is stained, and
the rivers flow with blood; and that for me his son, I hold a precarious
life at the mercy of men, who owe me duty, and practise enmity?

"Why did you the other day, oh unseasonable and too officious friends!
why did you leave me at their mercy by snatching from me my sword, when
with it I would have put myself out of their power? He who offered me
his own sword showed greater kindness, and was more my friend. I would
then have fallen happy; happy that my death would have hid from mine
eyes so many horrible crimes since committed by my own army; and for
you, you would have chosen another general, such a general, no doubt, as
would have left my death unpunished, but still one who would have sought
vengeance for that of Varus and the three legions; for the Gods are too
just to permit that ever the Belgians, however generously they offer
their service, shall reap the credit and renown of retrieving the glory
of the Roman name, and of reducing in behalf of Rome the German nations
her foes. Filled with this passion for the glory of Rome, I here
invoke thy spirit now with the Gods, oh deified Augustus; and thy image
interwoven in the ensigns, and thy memory, oh deceased father. Let thy
revered spirit, oh Augustus, let thy loved image and memory, oh Drusus,
still dear to these legions, vindicate them from this guilty stain,
this foul infamy of leaving to foreigners the honour of defending
and avenging the Roman State. They are Romans; they already feel the
remorses of shame; they are already stimulated with a sense of honour:
improve, oh improve this generous disposition in them; that thus
inspired they may turn the whole tide of their civil rage to the
destruction of their common enemy. And for you, my fellow-soldiers,
in whom I behold all the marks of compunction, other countenances,
and minds happily changed; if you mean to restore to the Senate its
ambassadors; to your Emperor your sworn obedience; to me, your general,
my wife and son; be it the first instance of your duty, to fly the
contagious company of incendiaries, to separate the sober from the
seditious: this will be a faithful sign of remorse, this a firm pledge
of fidelity. "

These words softened them into supplicants: they confessed that all
his reproaches were true; they besought him to punish the guilty and
malicious, to pardon the weak and misled, and to lead them against the
enemy; to recall his wife, to bring back his son, nor to suffer the
fosterling of the legions to be given in hostage to the Gauls. Against
the recalling of Agrippina he alleged the advance of winter, and her
approaching delivery; but said, that his son should return, and that
to themselves he left to execute what remained further to be executed.
Instantly, with changed resentments, they ran, and seizing the most
seditious, dragged them in bonds to Caius Cretonius, commander of the
first legion, who judged and punished them in this manner. The legions,
with their swords drawn, surrounded the tribunal; from thence the
prisoner was by a Tribune exposed to their view, and if they
proclaimed him guilty, cast headlong down, and executed even by his
fellow-soldiers, who rejoiced in the execution, because by it they
thought their own guilt to be expiated: nor did Germanicus restrain
them, since on themselves remained the cruelty and reproach of the
slaughter committed without any order of his. The veterans followed the
same example of vengeance, and were soon after ordered into Rhetia, in
appearance to defend that province against the invading Suevians; in
reality, to remove them from a camp still horrible to their sight, as
well in the remedy and punishment, as from the memory of their crime.