No More Learning

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These reasonings alarmed them, and filled them with mutual jealousies.
Presently the fresh soldiers forsook the veterans, and one legion
separated from another; then by degrees returned the love of duty and
obedience. They relinquished the guard of the gates: and the Eagles
and other ensigns, which in the beginning of the tumult they had thrown
together, were now restored each to its distinct station.

Drusus, as soon as it was day, summoned an assembly, and though
unskilled in speaking, yet with a haughtiness inherent in his blood,
rebuked their past and commended their present behaviour. "With threats
and terrors," he said, "it was impossible to subdue him; but if he saw
them reclaimed to submission, if from them he heard the language of
supplicants, he would send to his father to accept with a reconciled
spirit the petitions of the legions," Hence, at their entreaty, for
their deputy to Tiberius the same Blesus was again despatched, and with
him Lucius Apronius, a Roman Knight of the cohort of Drusus; and Justus
Catonius, a Centurion of the first order. There followed great debates
in the council of Drusus, while some advised "to suspend all proceeding
till the return of the deputies, and by a course of courtesy the while
to soothe the soldiers; others maintained, that remedies more potent
must needs be applied: in a multitude, was to be found nothing on this
side extremes; always imperious where they are not awed, and to be
without danger despised when frightened: to their present terror from
superstition was to be added the dread of their General, by his dooming
to death the authors of the sedition. " Rather prompt to rigorous
counsels was the genius of Drusus: Vibulenus and Percennius were
produced, and by his command executed; it is by many recounted, that in
his own tent they were secretly despatched and buried; by others, that
their bodies were ignominiously thrown over the entrenchments, for a
public spectacle of terror.

Search was then made for other remarkable incendiaries. Some were caught
skulking without the camp, and there by the Centurions or Praetorian
soldiers slain; others were by their several companies delivered up, as
a proof of their own sincere faith. The consternation of the soldiers
was heightened by the precipitate accession of winter, with rains
incessant and so violent, that they were unable to stir from their
tents, or maintain common intercourse, nay, scarce to preserve their
standards, assaulted continually by tempestuous winds and raging floods.
Dread besides of the angry Gods still possessed them; nor was it at
random, they thought, that such profane traitors were thus visited
with black eclipses and roaring tempests; neither against these their
calamities was there other relief than the relinquishing of a camp by
impiety contaminated and accursed, and after expiation of their guilt
returning to their several garrisons. The eighth legion departed first;
and then the fifteenth: the ninth, with earnest clamours, pressed
for continuing there till the letters from Tiberius arrived; but when
deserted by the other two, their courage failed, and by following of
their own accord, they prevented the shame of being forced. Drusus
seeing order and tranquillity restored, without staying for the return
of the deputies, returned himself to Rome.

Almost at the same time, and from the same causes, the legions in
Germany raised an insurrection, with greater numbers, and thence with
more fury. Passionate too were their hopes that Germanicus would never
brook the rule of another, but yield to the spirit of the legions, who
had force sufficient to bring the whole Empire under his sway.
Upon
the Rhine were two armies; that called the higher, commanded by Caius
Silius, Lieutenant-General; the lower, by Aulus Caecina: the command in
chief rested in Germanicus, then busy collecting the tribute in Gaul.
The forces however under Silius, with cautious ambiguity, watched the
success of the revolt which others began: for the soldiers of the lower
army had broken out into open outrages, which took its rise from the
fifth legion, and the one-and-twentieth; who after them drew the first,
and twentieth. These were altogether upon the frontiers of the Ubians,
passing the campaign in utter idleness or light duty: so that upon the
news that Augustus was dead, the whole swarm of new soldiers lately
levied in the city, men accustomed to the effeminacies of Rome, and
impatient of every military hardship, began to possess the ignorant
minds of the rest with many turbulent expectations, "that now was
presented the lucky juncture for veterans to demand entire dismission;
the fresh soldiers, larger pay; and all, some mitigation of their
miseries; as also to return due vengeance for the cruelties of the
Centurions. " These were not the harangues of a single incendiary, like
Percennius amongst the Pannonian legions; nor uttered, as there, in the
ears of men who, while they saw before their eyes armies greater than
their own, mutinied with awe and trembling: but here was a sedition of
many mouths, filled with many boasts, "that in their hands lay the power
and fate of Rome; by their victories the empire was enlarged, and from
them the Caesars took, as a compliment, the surname of Germanicus. "

Neither did Caecina strive to restrain them. A madness so extensive had
bereft him of all his bravery and firmness. In this precipitate frenzy
they rushed at once, with swords drawn, upon the Centurions, the eternal
objects of their resentment, and always the first victims to their
vengeance. Them they dragged to the earth, and upon each bestowed
a terrible portion of sixty blows; a number proportioned to that of
Centurions in a legion. Then bruised, mangled, and half expiring, as
they were, they cast them all out of the camp, some into the stream
of the Rhine. Septimius, who had for refuge fled to the tribunal of
Caecina, and lay clasping his feet, was demanded with such imperious
vehemence, that he was forced to be surrendered to destruction. Cassius
Cherea (afterwards famous to posterity for killing Caligula), then a
young man of undaunted spirit, and one of the Centurions, boldly opened
himself a passage with his sword through a crowd of armed foes striving
to seize him. After this no further authority remained to the Tribunes,
none to the Camp-Marshals. The seditious soldiers were their own
officers; set the watch, appointed the guard, and gave all orders proper
in the present exigency; hence those who dived deepest into the spirit
of the soldiery, gathered a special indication how powerful and obdurate
the present insurrection was like to prove; for in their conduct were no
marks of a rabble, where every man's will guides him, or the instigation
of a few controls the whole. Here, all at once they raged, and all at
once kept silence; with so much concert and steadiness, that you would
have believed them under the sovereign direction of one.

To Germanicus the while, then receiving, as I have said, the tribute in
Gaul, news were brought of the decease of Augustus; whose grand-daughter
Agrippina he had to wife, and by her many children: he was himself the
grandson of Livia, by her son Drusus, the brother of Tiberius; but ever
under heavy anxiety from the secret hate which his uncle and grandmother
bore him: hate the more virulent as its grounds were altogether
unrighteous; for, dear and adored was the memory of his father Drusus
amongst the Roman People, and from him was firmly expected that had he
succeeded to the Empire, he would have restored public liberty: hence
their zeal for Germanicus, and of him the same hopes conceived; as
from his youth he possessed a popular spirit, and marvellous affability
utterly remote from the comportment and address of Tiberius, ever
haughty and mysterious. The animosities too between the ladies
administered fresh fuel; while towards Agrippina, Livia was actuated
by the despite natural to step-mothers: and over-tempestuous was the
indignation of Agrippina; only that her known chastity and love for her
husband, always gave her mind, however vehement, a virtuous turn.