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The legions,
with their swords drawn, surrounded the tribunal; from thence the
prisoner was by a Tribune exposed to their view, and if they
proclaimed him guilty, cast headlong down, and executed even by his
fellow-soldiers, who rejoiced in the execution, because by it they
thought their own guilt to be expiated: nor did Germanicus restrain
them, since on themselves remained the cruelty and reproach of the
slaughter committed without any order of his. The veterans followed the
same example of vengeance, and were soon after ordered into Rhetia, in
appearance to defend that province against the invading Suevians; in
reality, to remove them from a camp still horrible to their sight, as
well in the remedy and punishment, as from the memory of their crime.
Germanicus next passed a scrutiny upon the conduct and characters of the
Centurions: before him they were cited singly; and each gave an account
of his name, his company, country, the length of his service, exploits
in war, and military presents, if with any he had been distinguished:
if the Tribunes or his legion bore testimony of his diligence and
integrity, he kept his post; upon concurring complaint of his avarice or
cruelty, he was degraded.

Thus were the present commotions appeased; but others as great still
subsisted, from the rage and obstinacy of the fifth and twenty-first
legions. They were in winter quarters sixty miles off, in a place called
the Old Camp, [Footnote: Xanten. ] and had first began the sedition: nor
was there any wickedness so horrid, that they had not perpetrated; nay,
at this time, neither terrified by the punishment, nor reclaimed by the
reformation of their fellow-soldiers, they persevered in their fury.
Germanicus therefore determined to give them battle, if they persisted
in their revolt; and prepared vessels, arms, and troops to be sent down
the Rhine.

Before the issue of the sedition in Illyricum was known at Rome, tidings
of the uproar in the German legions arrived; hence the city was filled
with much terror; and hence against Tiberius many complaints, "that
while with feigned consultations and delays he mocked the Senate and
people, once the great bodies of the estate, but now bereft of power and
armies, the soldiery were in open rebellion, one too mighty and stubborn
to be quelled by two princes so young in years and authority: he
ought at first to have gone himself, and awed them with the majesty of
imperial power, as doubtless they would have returned to duty upon the
sight of their Emperor, a Prince of consummate experience, the sovereign
disposer of rewards and severity. Did Augustus, even under the pressure
of old age and infirmities, take so many journeys into Germany? and
should Tiberius, in the vigour of his life, when the same or greater
occasions called him thither, sit lazily in the Senate to watch senators
and cavil at words? He had fully provided for the domestic servitude
of Rome; he ought next to cure the licentiousness of the soldiers,
to restrain their turbulent spirits, and reconcile them to a life of
peace. "

But all these reasonings and reproaches moved not Tiberius: he was
determined not to depart from the capital, the centre of power and
affairs; nor to chance or peril expose his person and empire. In truth,
many and contrary difficulties pressed and perplexed him: "the German
army was the stronger; that of Pannonia nearer; the power of both the
Gauls supported the former; the latter was at the gates of Italy. Now to
which should he repair first? and would not the last visited be inflamed
by being postponed?
But by sending one of his sons to each, the equal
treatment of both was maintained; as also the majesty of the supreme
power, which from distance ever derived most reverence. Besides, the
young princes would be excused, if to their father they referred such
demands as were for them improper to grant; and if they disobeyed
Germanicus and Drusus, his own authority remained to appease or punish
them: but if once they had contemned their Emperor himself, what other
resource was behind? " However, as if he had been upon the point of
marching, he chose his attendance, provided his equipage, and prepared
a fleet: but by various delays and pretences, sometimes that of the
winter, sometimes business, he deceived for a time even the wisest men;
much longer the common people, and the provinces for a great while.

Germanicus had already drawn together his army, and was prepared to take
vengeance on the seditious: but judging it proper to allow space for
trial, whether they would follow the late example, and consulting their
own safety do justice upon one another, he sent letters to Caecina,
"that he himself approached, with a powerful force; and if they
prevented him not, by executing the guilty, he would put all
indifferently to the slaughter. " These letters Caecina privately read
to the principal officers, and such of the camp as the sedition had not
tainted; besought them "to redeem themselves from death, and all
from infamy; urged that in peace alone reason was heard and merit
distinguished; but in the rage of war the blind steel spared the
innocent no more than the guilty. " The officers, having tried those they
believed for their purpose, and found the majority still to persevere
in their duty, did, in concurrence with the General, settle the time for
falling with the sword upon the most notoriously guilty and turbulent.
Upon a particular signal given they rushed into their tents and
butchered them, void as they were of all apprehension; nor did any but
the centurions and executioners know whence the massacre began, or where
it would end.

This had a different face from all the civil slaughters that ever
happened: it was a slaughter not of enemies upon enemies, nor from
different and opposite camps, nor in a day of battle; but of comrades
upon comrades, in the same tents where they ate together by day, where
they slept together by night. From this state of intimacy they flew
into mortal enmity, and friends launched their darts at friends: wounds,
outcries, and blood were open to view; but the cause remained hid: wild
chance governed the rest, and several innocents were slain. For the
criminals, when they found against whom all this fury was bent, had also
betaken themselves to their arms; neither did Caecina, nor any of the
Tribunes, intervene to stay the rage; so that the soldiers had full
permission to vengeance, and a licentious satiety of killing. Germanicus
soon after entered the camp now full of blood and carcasses, and
lamenting with many tears that "this was not a remedy, but cruelty
and desolation," commanded the bodies to be burnt. Their minds, still
tempestuous and bloody, were transported with sudden eagerness to attack
the foe, as the best expiation of their tragical fury: nor otherwise,
they thought, could the ghosts of their butchered brethren be appeased,
than by receiving in their own profane breasts a chastisement of
honourable wounds. Germanicus fell in with the ardour of the soldiers,
and laying a bridge upon the Rhine, marched over twelve thousand
legionary soldiers, twenty-six cohorts of the allies, and eight
regiments of horse; men all untainted in the late sedition.

The Germans rejoiced, not far off, at this vacation of war, occasioned
first by the death of Augustus, and afterwards by intestine tumults in
the camp; but the Romans by a hasty march passed through the Caesian
woods, and levelling the barrier formerly begun by Tiberius, upon
it pitched their camp. In the front and rear they were defended by a
palisade; on each side by a barricade of the trunks of trees felled.
From thence, beginning to traverse gloomy forests, they stopped to
consult which of two ways they should choose, the short and frequented,
or the longest and least known, and therefore unsuspected by the
foe: the longest way was chosen; but in everything else despatch was
observed; for by the scouts intelligence was brought that the Germans
did, that night, celebrate a festival with great mirth and revelling.