No More Learning

Open and honourable is my
method of war, nor waged with big-bellied women, but against men and
arms; and treason is none of my weapons. Still to be seen are the Roman
standards in the German groves, there by me hung up and devoted to our
country Gods. Let Segestes live a slave in a conquered province; let him
to his son recover a foreign priesthood: with the German nations he can
never obliterate his reproach, that through him they have seen between
the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes, and the Roman toga. To other nations
who know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes are also
unknown; evils which we too have cast off, in spite of that Augustus now
dead and enrolled with the Deities; in spite too of Tiberius, his
chosen successor: let us not after this dread a mutinous army, and a boy
without experience, their commander; but if you love your country, your
kindred, your ancient liberty and laws, better than tyrants and new
colonies, let Arminius rather lead you to liberty and glory, than the
wicked Segestes to the infamy of bondage. "

By these stimulations, not the Cheruscans only were roused, but all the
neighbouring nations; and into the confederacy was drawn Inguiomerus,
paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long since in high credit with the
Romans: hence a new source of fear to Germanicus, who, to avoid the
shock of their whole forces, and to divert the enemy, sent Caecina with
forty Roman cohorts to the river Amisia, [Footnote: Ems. ] through the
territories of the Bructerans. Pedo the Prefect led the cavalry by the
confines of the Frisians: he himself, on the lake, [Footnote: The Zuyder
Zee. ] embarked four legions; and upon the bank of the said river the
whole body met, foot, horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering
their assistance, were taken into the service; but the Bructerans,
setting fire to their effects and dwellings, were routed by Stertinius,
by Germanicus despatched against them with a band lightly armed. As this
party were engaged between slaughter and plunder, he found the Eagle of
the nineteenth legion lost in the overthrow of Varus. The army marched
next to the farthest borders of the Bructerans, and the whole country
between the rivers Amisia and Luppia [Footnote: Lippe. ] was laid waste.
Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and in it the bones of
Varus and the legions, by report still unburied.

Hence Germanicus became inspired with a tender passion to pay the
last offices to the legions and their leader; the like tenderness also
affected the whole army. They were moved with compassion, some for
the fate of their friends, others for that of their relations here
tragically slain; they were struck with the doleful casualties of war,
and the sad lot of humanity.
Caecina was sent before to examine the
gloomy recesses of the forest; to lay bridges over the pools; and upon
the deceitful marshes, causeways. The army entered the doleful solitude,
hideous to sight, hideous to memory. First they saw the camp of Varus,
wide in circumference; and the three distinct spaces, allotted to the
different Eagles, showed the number of the legions. Further, they
beheld the ruinous entrenchment, and the ditch nigh choked up: in it the
remains of the army were supposed to have made their last effort, and
in it to have found their graves. In the open fields lay their bones
all bleached and bare, some separate, some on heaps; just as they had
happened to fall, flying for their lives, or resisting unto death. Here
were scattered the limbs of horses, there pieces of broken javelins; and
the trunks of trees bore the skulls of men. In the adjacent groves were
the savage altars; where, of the tribunes and principal centurions,
the barbarians had made a horrible immolation. Those who survived the
slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword, related the sad
particulars to the rest: "Here the commanders of the legions were slain;
there we lost the Eagles; here Varus had his first wound; there he gave
himself another, and perished by his own unhappy hand. In that place,
too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued; in this quarter, for
the execution of his captives, he erected so many gibbets; in that such
a number of funeral trenches were digged; and with these circumstances
of pride and despite he insulted the ensigns and Eagles. "

Thus the Roman army buried the bones of the three legions, six years
after the slaughter: nor could any one distinguish whether he gathered
the particular remains of a stranger, or those of a kinsman; but all
considered the whole as their friends, the whole as their relations;
with heightened resentments against the foe, at once sad and revengeful.
In this pious office, so acceptable to the dead, Germanicus was a
partner in the woe of the living; and upon the common tomb laid the
first sod: a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon
every action of Germanicus he put a perverse meaning, or believed that
the affecting spectacle of the unburied slain would sink the spirit
of the army, and heighten their terror of the enemy; as also that "a
general vested, as Augur, with the intendency of religious rites, became
defiled by touching the solemnities of the dead. "

Arminius, retiring into desert and pathless places, was pursued by
Germanicus; who, as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to
advance, and dislodge the enemy from the post they had possessed.
Arminius, having directed his men to keep close together, and draw near
to the woods, wheeled suddenly about, and to those whom he had hid in
the forest gave the signal to rush out: the Roman horse, now engaged
by a new army, became disordered, and to their relief some cohorts were
sent, but likewise broken by the press of those that fled; and great
was the consternation so many ways increased. The enemy too were already
pushing them into the morass, a place well known to the pursuers, as to
the unapprised Romans it had proved pernicious, had not Germanicus drawn
out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy became terrified,
our men reassured, and both retired with equal loss and advantage.
Germanicus presently after returning with the army to the river Amisia,
reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet: part
of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the Rhine.