It remains to consider the policy of Augustus in relation to the northern frontier of the Empire. Elsewhere he practically accepted the boundaries which had been bequeathed to him by Julius and the Republic. Here he marked out new frontiers of his own and engaged, sometimes vigorously, sometimes reluctantly, in the work of expansion. It will be most convenient in the course of this chapter to present a brief connected story of the wars which he waged in order to thrust forward his boundaries to the Danube, the Rhine delta, and the German Ocean. We shall then see the legions advance through Germany to the Weser and the Elbe, and finally, after suffering one great military disaster, draw back to the valley of the Rhine.
The Republic had looked to the North with eyes apprehensive of barbaric invasion rather than eager with the hope of conquest. There had, it is true, been endless petty wars in the province of Cisalpine Gaul on the southern slopes of the Alps, and constant campaigns at the head of the Adriatic against the tribes of Illyricum. But, broadly speaking, one may say that the Republic had been content to allow the northern regions of Italy to remain in the hands of the hill men, who, from time to time, pillaged and harried the dwellers in the valleys, even when the Roman arms were subduing powerful nations in Spain, Africa, and the East. Italy, in fact, was not mistress of her own household until the time of Augustus, and he had started his career of conquest, not in the North but in the Northeast, and had begun his long series of annexations by moving towards the Danube. As far back as 35 B.C., Augustus had undertaken his first campaign in Pannonia against the Iapydes, and advanced to the Save, where he captured the Pannonian capital of Siscia, and, in the course of the next two years, settled a number of military posts along the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia. This occupation of part of Pannonia was intended primarily to prepare the way for a campaign against the Dacians, who were threatening the security of Macedonia and the coast towns of Thrace. In the Monumentum Ancyranum, Augustus declares that he never waged war in a wanton spirit of conquest, and Suetonius similarly states that he never took up arms "without just and necessary cause." We know so little of what took place behind the screen of the Alps and the Danube that it is almost impossible to discuss the justice of this claim. The fact seems to be that threatening confederations of the tribes were formed periodically, as capable warriors rose to power amongst them, and that the Romans and friendly natives who dwelt on the borders were constantly menaced by a flood of barbarian invasion. The client states of Rome clamored for protection, and even in the time of Julius, the Dacians, under Burebista, had swept down as far as Apollonia in a great devastating raid. Antonius himself had helped to drive them back, and then Augustus, when his hands were free after the Battle of Actium, sent in 29 B.C. his lieutenant, Marcus Licinius Crassus to inflict the punishment which had been so long delayed. The expedition was successful. The King of the Bastarnae was defeated and slain. Crassus advanced to the Danube in its lower reaches, and the foundations were laid of what subsequently became the province of Moesia. The tribes suffered so severely that we hear of no more campaigns in that region until, after the lapse of seventeen years, the barbarians on the farther side of the Danube once more collected for a rush across the river.
Augustus then proceeded to break up the hill tribes which dwelt among the Rhaetian and Cottian Alps. The task was one which could no longer be postponed. Rome needed a secure and direct highway into Gaul, and the passes were in the hands of warlike peoples, as difficult to deal with and as little to be depended upon as the Afridis and Waziris on the northwest frontiers of India. One tribe alone was spared, in recognition of the loyalty of its king, Cottius, who under Roman direction opened out a great road over Mt. Cenis. Cottius' capital lay at Segusio (Suse), and the two new Roman colonies founded by Augustus at Saluces and Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) were, doubtlessly, potent influences in keeping him faithful to his allegiance. Farther north among the Graian Alps, lay the Salassi, watched by a Roman colony at Eporedia. These were destroyed root and branch. In 25 B.C., Marcus Terentius Varro defeated them in battle and the entire nation of forty-four thousand was sold into slavery in the marketplace of Eporedia, with the stipulation that the purchasers should remove them far from their native hills and not grant them their liberty for the space of twenty years. The severity of this punishment is perhaps incapable of justification, but it at least solved the problem of the protection of the military roads which Augustus now built over the Little St. Bernard to Lugdunum, the capital of Gaul, and over the Great St. Bernard to the Lake of Geneva and the Rhine. Three thousand praetorians were settled at Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), and a few years later the campaigns of Publius Silius against some of the lesser tribes completed the conquest of the whole region. A great trophy was erected at Segusio to commemorate this series of minor but useful campaigns and the names of forty-four conquered nations were inscribed upon its arch.
But Augustus was not satisfied with having gained possession of the southern slopes of the Alps. One conquest led on to another and in 15 B.C. he commissioned his two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus, to penetrate into Rhaetia and Vindelicia. The operations were most skillfully carried out. Drusus entered Rhaetia from the south and, advancing up the valley of the Adige, crossed the Brenner Pass and defeated the Rhaetians in what is now the Austrian Tyrol. While Tiberius, moving with a second army from Gaul, fell upon the Vindelici in their rear. In a naval battle on Lake Constance, the Roman triremes overwhelmed the barbarian flotillas, and the two imperial armies marched without mishap from victory to victory through some of the most difficult country in Europe. Horace, in one of his finest odes, celebrated the glories of Drusus' campaign with genuine enthusiasm, and reflected the proud confidence of the Roman world that there was no military operation beyond the powers of the Claudian house. "Nil Claudioe non perficient manus." The empire seemed safe which was supported by two such imperial pillars, and by an Emperor so discerning of genius in the younger branches of his family.
Thus, for the first time, the northern slopes of the Alps became Roman territory, and Roman influence spread along the middle reaches of the Danube. In accordance with his usual practice, Augustus sought to break the power of the tribes by settling them in the valleys and by the foundation of military colonies, while the outpost of the Empire at this period was fixed at Augusta Vindelicum (Augsburg) a few miles south of the Danube. Apparently without the need of another campaign, the spacious district lying to the east of Rhaetia, with the Danube for its northern and Pannonia for its eastern boundary, became the province of Noricum. On the western side, the dangerous gap of open country lying between the Danube and the Rhine was protected by settlements of Gallic colonists, transplanted thither from beyond the Rhine, and the region was known as "the tithe lands " or Agri Decumates. Yet much hard fighting lay before the Roman legions and there were many hours of cruel anxiety in store for Augustus before the Danube along its whole course became the frontier of the Empire. The province of Illyricum remained for many years an open sore. In the campaign of 35 B.C., Augustus had not advanced beyond the Save, and the wild Pannonian tribes had not been thoroughly crushed. Their marauding bands evaded the Roman legions and constantly poured down upon the Adriatic. In 13 B.C., the situation was sufficiently serious to call for the presence of Agrippa, and upon his death the disturbances broke out anew. Tiberius was despatched thither at the head of a large army and, while his brother, Drusus, waged successful and aggressive war in North Germany, he conducted three campaigns in Pannonia from 12-10 B.C. The result was an advance from the Save to the Drave and the headquarters were removed from Siscia to Poetovio (Pettau), while Carnuntum on the Danube, close to the modern city of Vienna, became the station of the Norican legion. The great bend of the Danube does not seem to have been occupied, and its incorporation took place later. Simultaneously with the revolt of the Pannonians came the rising in Thrace, where the native pro-Roman party was expelled and the tribes penetrated into Macedonia. Happily, however, Lucius Piso, the Governor of Pamphylia, who was sent to take command of the Roman troops, proved himself equal to the emergency. The invaders were driven back and Augustus placed Rhoemetalces upon the throne of Thrace. From 9 B.C. to 6 A.D., we hear nothing of the movements of the legions on the Danubian frontier. Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia — the whole chain of new border provinces from west to east — were outwardly peaceful and the natives seemed to have resigned themselves to the Roman rule.
But they were still to make one last desperate struggle for freedom, which taxed to the very utmost the military strength of Rome. The rising was exceedingly well timed. In 6 A.D., Augustus emboldened by the apparently complete subjection of North Germany, had commissioned Tiberius to invade the territory of Maroboduus, the King of the Marcomanni, who held what is now Bohemia. It was decided to employ not only the Rhenish legions, but the whole army of the Danube, inasmuch as the main invasion was to take place from the southern side. Tiberius, therefore, advanced to Carnuntum with six legions, denuding the garrison towns of troops as he marched north and calling upon the native levies to join him. The levies collected but, instead of moving to Carnuntum, they raised the standard of revolt and in an instant the whole of Pannonia and Dalmatia was ablaze. According to the Roman estimates, the insurgents mustered 200,000 infantry and 9,000 horsemen, who spread over the provinces, murdering every Roman who fell into their hands and destroying in a few weeks the patient labor of many years. The situation was indeed critical. Tiberius, with his army, was absolutely cut off from his base. He was confronted by Maroboduus and the Marcomanni. His rear was threatened by the rebels, and, as though to crown the misfortunes of Rome, the Dacians burst across the Danube and overran the province of Moesia. Only the Thracian King Rhoemetalces remained true to his allegiance and helped to stem the raging torrent.
Rome was in a fever of apprehension similar to that which had prevailed in the days of Marius, when the Cimbri were pouring through the passes of Cisalpine Gaul. It was fully believed that the barbarians of Dalmatia were on their way to Italy, and there was hardly a single legion to intercept their march. The dangers of the policy, deliberately adopted by Augustus, of removing as far as possible from the seat of Empire the great military commands were now made manifest. Hurriedly, therefore, new levies were raised. The veterans were summoned to resume their armor; and not only freedmen but slaves, enfranchised by the State on their enrollment, were pressed into the legions. Augustus himself warned the Senate that unless they rose to the emergency they might see within ten days the barbarians at their gates, and Velleius declares that even the cool and collected Emperor, familiar as he was with desperate crises, shared the panic which fell upon Italy. The peril was instant and, if Maroboduus had boldly advanced to attack Tiberius and had made common cause with the Pannonians and Dalmatians, the Roman arms might have suffered a grave disaster. But the good fortune of Rome came once again to her succour. Tiberius, fully realizing his desperate position, immediately opened negotiations with the enemy who faced him. His overtures were not repulsed. An accommodation was arrived at, the Marcomanni remained tranquil, and Tiberius was left free to employ his legions in quelling the revolt in his rear. Troops from the transmarine provinces were hastily despatched to his assistance, while the new Italian levies, under the command of the young Germanicus, crossed the border and pressed back the insurgent bands. Tiberius seems to have marched down to Siscia on the Save, where he was within easy communication with Rome, and to have gathered into winter quarters a vast army of fifteen legions and an equal number of auxiliaries, by whose help, during the following summer, he broke the back of the rebellion. Three campaigns, however, were found necessary before the task was completed and the Pannonian leaders sued for peace and pardon.
The progress of those campaigns need not be followed in detail, but Suetonius lays stress, in his Life of Tiberius, on the enormous difficulties which the Roman general had to overcome, partly due to the character of the country and partly to the problem of providing supplies for so large a force. He adds, too, the striking sentence: "Though Tiberius was constantly receiving messages of recall, he stuck to his work, fearing lest the enemy, still hovering round him in strength, should fall upon his army if he made a backward movement." So, too, Cassius Dio declares that Augustus suspected Tiberius of deliberately prolonging the war, in order that he might remain at the head of his powerful force. But whatever motives were uppermost in the mind of the Emperor — and it maybe pointed out that Tiberius himself in after years adopted a precisely similar attitude towards Germanicus — there is no doubt that Tiberius showed a true discernment of the necessities of the situation in teaching the insurgents a lesson which they never forgot. Half conquests were futile in dealing with the tribesmen of Dalmatia and Pannonia, and three years were well spent in bringing them to their knees. They submitted in detachments, but large numbers continued to wage guerilla warfare long after all hope of national independence had vanished. The chieftain Bato was one of the last to yield, and on being brought into the presence of Tiberius and asked what had prompted him to revolt, he replied that Rome herself was responsible for the insurrection because she had sent wolves instead of shepherds to protect her sheep. Whether the tribute exacted by the Emperor from these Danubian provinces had been excessive, or whether the imperial tax collectors had fleeced the natives, we cannot say. Similar excuses for revolt have often been put forward simply to cover an incurable objection to paying any taxes at all, however moderate, and we may more probably attribute this dangerous rebellion, "the most dangerous," in the carefully weighed words of Suetonius, "since the Punic wars," to the fierce spirit of nationality which made a last gigantic effort to win back a lost independence. When Tiberius at length returned to Rome, the victories he had won were consolidated by Germanicus and the new province of Pannonia became one of the chief recruiting grounds of the Roman auxiliary army. Rome, too, found an able soldier, outside the Imperial family, in Gnaeus Lentulus, the Governor of Moesia. He not only repulsed the Dacians, who had crossed the frozen Danube in its lower reaches, but himself led for the first time a Roman army into Dacian territory, signally defeated the Getae and Bastarnae, and carried back with him across the river fifty thousand Dacian captives, whom he settled in Thrace. During the short remainder of Augustus' reign, there was peace on the Danube.
But there was war on the Rhine. No sooner had Rome begun its rejoicings over the pacification of Pannonia than the dreadful tidings arrived from Germany that Quintilius Varus had suffered an overwhelming disaster, that the general was dead, and that his entire army of three legions, three regiments of auxiliaries, and six cohorts had been cut to pieces by the German barbarians. Let us then turn to the Gallic frontier and recount the circumstances which culminated in this staggering defeat and the wreck of many of Augustus' most cherished hopes. We have seen in a previous chapter how the Emperor had made the Rhine the eastern frontier of Gaul. It seems probable, though on this point the authorities are silent, that during the early part of his reign Augustus had no thought of penetrating far across the river into the territory of the Germans. His main object had been rather to secure the Gallic provinces from invasion than to extend his borders. But as time went on and his troops began to push north — still on the left bank — into the Netherlands, and as he found that he could not safely ignore what transpired upon the right bank of the river, he was insensibly drawn into adopting a forward Germanic policy. Then, as his proverbial good fortune continued to attend him and his first ventures across the stream proved successful, it would appear that Augustus decided to advance his frontier, first from the Rhine to the Weser, and then from the Weser to the Elbe. By so doing he would remove all pressure from Gaul, and he had fair grounds for hope that the signal triumph which had crowned his conciliatory policy towards the Gallic cantons would be repeated among the German tribes. This we believe to be the true explanation of the course which events took in the Rhineland. Having gone so far, Augustus found himself compelled to go still farther and annex in spite of himself. Again the parallels of British annexations in India and Burmah and of the Russian advance in Central Asia leap to the mind. Conquering states are driven forward by their own momentum quite as much as by carefully calculated reasons of policy, whenever they come in contact with less highly organized communities. It is also to be remembered that when great armies are collected in standing camps along a frontier their commanding officers invariably chafe at inaction and impress upon the home government the feasibility of further advance. In the case of the armies of the Rhine, those commanders were princes of the imperial house, eager to show themselves worthy and capable in the old Roman way — the way of military conquest. And the Emperor himself, cautious though he was, knew that a series of brilliant victories, gained by the younger members of his family, was at once the shortest road to popular favor and the most effective method of silencing criticism at home. It is at least significant that no great forward movement on a large scale took place upon the Rhine until 12 B.C., when the young Prince, Drusus, made his first Germanic campaign.
This was not, of course, the first occasion on which Romans and Germans had faced one another in the field. Agrippa had crossed the Rhine as early as 38 B.C. in order to protect the friendly clan of the Ubii from the attacks of their kinsmen and to facilitate their transference to the left bank. In 25 B.C., a punitive expedition had been undertaken to avenge the massacre of some Roman merchants. Five years later, the presence of Agrippa had again been required to expel an irruption of German tribes, and in 16 B.C the Sugambri, Usipites, and Tencteri had crossed the river in force at various points and raided far and wide in the province of Belgica. They inflicted a humiliating defeat upon the Fifth Legion, commanded by Marcus Lollius. Compared with the annihilation of the army of Varus, twenty-five years later, this was justly described by Suetonius as "majoris infamioe quam detrimenti" — a blow to Rome's prestige rather than to her military strength — for it was speedily repaired by the presence of Augustus and Agrippa, who hurried to the scene with powerful reinforcements, only to find that the invaders retreated hastily before them without offering battle. But the unsoldierly behavior of the Fifth Legion in the face of the enemy and the loss of its eagle made a painful impression upon public opinion, and it was to wipe out the memory of this military disgrace that Augustus sanctioned the aggressive campaign undertaken by Drusus in 12 B.C., after his victories in Rhaetia and Vindelicia.
Such a campaign, however, was not undertaken for sentimental reasons alone. The Germans had once more assumed the offensive. United in a powerful confederacy, consisting of the Sugambri, the Cherusci, and the leading Suebian tribes, with the exception of the Chatti, they again crossed the Rhine, so confident of victory that they had already agreed among themselves as to the division of the spoils. But Drusus was more than a match for the German chieftains. He drove the invaders back, ravaged the territory of the Sugambri and the Usipites from Cologne to Nimeguen, and then when the confederacy had dissolved under the stress of defeat, he proceeded to carry out his own plan of campaign. This was to establish the Roman arms along the North Sea coast to the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe by means of a joint naval and military expedition. Such a scheme must have been maturing for some years. From the fact that the Batavian tribes in the Rhine delta offered no opposition, and that the Frisians actually assisted in the expedition, we may suppose that Drusus' emissaries had been busy amongst them, purchasing their support against their neighbors, in accordance with the traditional policy of Julius, which had facilitated his conquest of Gaul. Still stronger evidence is found in the circumstance that Drusus had gathered a large flotilla of transports and that a canal had been dug from the Rhine to the Zuyder Zee (Lacus Flevus) to avoid, as far as possible, the perils of the open sea. The expedition proved successful. The fleet of the Bructeri was defeated in the river Ems, and Drusus reached in safety the mouth of the Weser. Then, while returning by the way it had come, his fleet ran aground on the Frisian coast, and, but for the help of the natives, would have suffered disaster. By this campaign, Drusus gained new allies for Rome and a hold over the north coast. In the following year (11 B.C.), he began his great invasion of Germany proper. Again the dissensions of the German tribes were of the greatest service to Rome. While Drusus had been absent in the North Sea, the Sugambri had invaded the adjoining territory of the Chatti. Seizing their chance, the legions stationed on the Rhine had moved into the vacant territory, and Drusus, on his return, marched triumphantly to the Weser without having to fight any important action. While returning to winter quarters with his main army, he came within an ace of destruction at Arbalo — the site of which defies identification — where only the overconfidence of the Germans saved him from annihilation.
In the following year (10 B.C.), the Chatti were conquered. In 9 B.C., the Marcomanni withdrew into Bohemia and the victorious Drusus continued his triumphal progress from the Weser to the Elbe, through the territory of the Cherusci. There the legions halted, but on their way back they suffered an irreparable loss in the death of their gallant and youthful commander. Drusus was thrown from his horse and, after suffering the agony of a broken thigh for thirty days, died, to the grief of his soldiers and of the whole Roman world. His elder brother, Tiberius, hastened north to take over the command and, during the next two years, carried on with vigor the work which Drusus had begun. In five years, therefore, Rome had asserted her mastery over the vast expanse which was bounded by the Rhine, the North Sea, the Elbe, and the Saal, and the exploits of Julius in Gaul had been repeated in Germany. We may be tolerably certain that the Emperor and his ministers believed that a vast new province had been added to the Empire. They thought that the frontier had been permanently thrown forward to the Elbe, and that the next move of the legions would be to advance southward from the Saal into Bohemia, until they reached the Danube on the bank opposite to the new Roman territory of Vindelicia. Warned by his experiences in Pannonia and Illyricum, Augustus was probably quite prepared for spasmodic insurrection, and the fact that no standing camp was established for the troops to the east of Aliso, on the Ems, shows that the Emperor proceeded with caution. But the peace which reigned in Germany during the next few years must have been very flattering to his hopes. He transplanted the irreconcilable Sugambri across to the very seaboard of Gaul and settled among the Gallic cantons a number of the Suebian tribes. He thus removed all danger of German irruptions into Gaul, and, by creating a pro-Roman party among the princely houses of the Cherusci, gradually extended his sway over the heart of Germany. The legions marched east every summer to put down insurrection and disorder, returning every autumn to their winter quarters on the Ems and the Rhine. It seemed as though the Romanization of Germany would involve no greater difficulties than had been successfully surmounted elsewhere.
Tiberius had laid down the German command in 6 B.C. He resumed it in 4 A.D., on his reconciliation with Augustus and his restoration to favor. It was the post which needed the ablest general and administrator in the imperial service, and such Tiberius had proven himself to be. His campaigns of 5 and 6 A.D. were carried out in the country lying between the Weser and the Elbe, while the Roman fleet again navigated the North Sea, exploring the coast as far as the northern extremity of Jutland and then sailing up the Elbe to cooperate with the land forces. Then, feeling sure that the subjugation of the North was completed, Tiberius prepared to attack the Marcomanni in their Bohemian fastnesses. Their king, Maroboduus, had copied to some extent the Roman military model, and had gathered together a fighting force of 70,000 infantry and 4,000 horsemen. With him were allied, more or less loosely, the tribes on the right bank of the Elbe, the Semnones and the Suevi, who now felt that it would be their turn next to be attacked by the restless Romans. Hitherto Maroboduus had remained neutral in the long strife between Rome and the Germans. He now, in 6 A.D., found his territory threatened with invasion on two sides. Sentius Saturninus advanced with an army from Mogontiacum (Mayence) up the valley of the Main through what is now the northern part of Bavaria, while Tiberius, quitting Germany, had concentrated an army of twelve legions at Carnuntum, on the Danube, in order to enter Bohemia from the south. But, as we have seen, it was at this moment that the whole of Pannonia and Illyricum rose in rebellion at the back of Tiberius and Maroboduus consented to make peace, instead of prosecuting the war with tenfold vigor. History has not recorded the terms upon which he agreed to sheathe the sword, but we may fairly suppose that he received specific guarantees from Tiberius that his territory would not be invaded, and that the Emperor pledged himself to respect the integrity of his dominions. Whether that pledge — if it were given — would have been kept when the hands of Augustus were again free is more than doubtful, but circumstances soon arose which compelled a revision of his whole frontier policy with respect to Germany.
While Maroboduus continued to turn a deaf ear to the representations and entreaties of the German patriots, a new star was appearing in the North. Among the princes of the Cherusci was one, named Arminius, who, upon the submission of his father, Sigimer, had frequented the Roman camps and seen service with the legions. He had been granted the Roman citizenship and the rank of an eques, and had carefully studied Roman tactics. Enjoying as he did the full confidence of the commander-in-chief in Germany, his loyalty was held to be above suspicion, in spite of the information frequently laid against him by his personal enemy Segestes. Yet it is important to point out that the rebellion which he fomented was in no sense a national rising of the whole of Germany. Even when Arminius threw off all disguise, Maroboduus never stirred, while the Batavi, Frisii, Chauci, and the other tribes of the North hardly made a sign. The revolt was strictly local in character, and its marvelous success was due rather to the appalling incapacity of a Roman general than to the genius of Arminius or to the numbers which he placed in the field. The tragic story which remains to be told irresistibly reminds the English reader, in certain of its leading features, of the tale of the Indian mutiny. Quintilius Varus, the Gallic commander-in-chief, was utterly unfitted for high command. He had owed his promotion directly to court favor and to his marriage with a niece of the Emperor, while he had grown rich on the plunder of Syria. Nor did he possess a single soldierly quality. He was a sluggard in mind as in body, and better suited, in the scathing phrase of Velleius, for the repose of camps than for the hardships of a campaign. His political insight was as faulty as his generalship. Varus believed that the national spirit of the Germans around him had been broken. He refused to listen to the reports of his intelligence officers. He trusted Arminius as implicitly as the British colonels trusted their Sepoys. Lulled into a false sense of security, he closed his eyes to the evidences of treason which were laid before him. "Frequentissimum initium calamitatis securitas" — in that phrase we have the adequate explanation of the success of Arminius. Varus thought that the Germans were sufficiently tamed to endure the introduction of Roman methods and customs, and acted as though he were an urban praetor presiding over the law courts in the Forum rather than a general in the heart of an enemy's country.
Such was the man to whom the supreme command of the Rhine legions had been entrusted and in the year 9 A.D. the crisis came. Varus was then in his summer quarters on the Weser, in the neighborhood of the modern Minden. His communications with the Rhine were kept open by a chain of small posts along the road which ran through Aliso to Vetera, the headquarters of the northern army on the Rhine. He spent the summer in hearing lawsuits and adjusting quarrels, and then in the autumn prepared to lead his army back. In order to punish some refractory districts, he decided to take a circuitous route, which led him away from the main road, and set out with an army of about 20,000 men, encumbered with baggage and hampered by the presence of a large number of women and children. He was not anticipating serious opposition, but was merely marching from summer to winter quarters — a circumstance which helps to explain, though it does not in the remotest degree justify, his utter unpreparedness for attack. No sooner had he reached difficult country than the people rose in insurrection all round him. Arminius himself accompanied the general and supped in his tent, and on the very evening before he quitted the Roman lines, his rival, Segestes, had denounced his intended treason to Varus, and had implored him to seize them both and hold them as hostages until his warning should be verified by fact. Varus refused to believe, and blundered on, nor was it until Arminius had absented himself and then speedily reappeared at the head of an armed host attacking the Roman column that the general recognized the trap into which he had fallen. Even then the army need not have been lost, if there had been a capable general in command of the legions. Roman troops had often found themselves in equally ugly corners, but had shaken off their adversaries and extricated themselves from peril. Their communications were cut. They were surrounded by forests and swamps. They had to fight for every forward step they took, and they were cruelly hampered by the severity of the weather and the encumbrances of the women and the wounded. Yet, though their plight was bad, it was no worse than that from which Julius Caesar, Marcus Antonius, and the younger Drusus had emerged in triumph. But not only was Varus himself absolutely incompetent; his staff officers, apparently, were equally destitute of military science, leadership, and even courage. The cavalry were led from the field of battle by their craven commander in disgraceful flight, only to be surrounded and cut to pieces a few miles farther on. The infantry stood their ground manfully until Varus, who was wounded early in the battle, took his own life. From the fact that his friends tried to burn the body to prevent it from falling into the enemy's hands, we may infer that the army of Varus was not rushed in one great onslaught, but rather that the attack was renewed on successive days, and that the legions were overwhelmed piecemeal as the march gradually became a rout. Despairing of safety, most of the officers imitated the example of Varus, and committed suicide, until at length the sole survivor surrendered what remained of the army to Arminius. Such was the fate of Varus and his legions, and such the heavy penalty paid by arrogance and incompetence. The whole host perished miserably. Only a few stragglers managed to reach Aliso in safety, while most of those who had surrendered were barbarously put to death by their captors. Some were crucified. Others were buried alive. Others were offered as sacrifice on the altars of the German priests, and their heads were nailed to the trees of the forests. And it is significant that the victors reserved their most appalling tortures not for the combatants, but for the advocates and pleaders whom they found in Varus' camp. Florus preserves the legend that when one of these luckless lawyers had his tongue cut out and his mouth sewn up, his savage executioners taunted him with the gibe: "At last, you viper, cease your hissing." The story has its historical importance as showing how deeply the iron of the Roman law had entered into the soul of the free German barbarian.
Some historians have sought to explain the defeat of Varus and the indifferent behavior of his troops by the supposition that these three legions were composed mainly of recruits, and that the Rhine had been denuded of its veterans to reinforce the Danubian legions in Pannonia and Illyricum. But in the face of the explicit statement of Velleius, who describes the legions of Varus as the flower of the Roman army, this supposition is scarcely tenable. Helpless incompetence, such as that displayed by Varus and his staff, has led to the destruction of even finer armies than that which perished so miserably in one of the defiles of the mountain ranges of Munster and left its three eagles in the possession of the exultant Germans. It was fortunate, indeed, for Rome that even in the moment of depression attending this shattering defeat, there were found one or two capable men on the spot who knew how to avert the full consequences of the disaster. One of these, Lucius Caedicius, was stationed at Aliso. When the Germans, flushed with their triumph, advanced to overwhelm him, he resolutely bore the siege as long as his supplies held out, and then, quitting his encampment under cover of night, succeeded in fighting his way through to Vetera on the Rhine. Thanks to Caedicius, who thus delayed the rush of Arminius, Lucius Monius Asprenas, in command of two legions at Mogontiacum (Mayence), had time to move north to Vetera, to secure the passage of the river, and to allay the excitement among the German tribes and Gallic cantons on the left bank. Arminius did not even essay to cross the Rhine, and the worst fears which were entertained at Rome were not realized. It was fortunate again for Augustus that the King of the Marcomanni still remained faithful to his neutrality. Arminius sent him the head of Varus, as a ghastly proof of victory and as an incitement to him to join in the national movement, but Maroboduus merely forwarded the head to Augustus and kept his faith with Rome. No wonder the Romans made Fortune a goddess and worshipped at her shrine.
Rome had been preparing to celebrate with unusual magnificence the victories of Tiberius and Germanicus in Illyricum when the calamitous news arrived. At once panic and despair seized upon the capital. The festivals were abandoned, the games were forgotten, and alike in the Palace, in the Senate, and in the Forum, all trembled with fear lest the next courier should bring word that the whole of Gaul was ablaze. Tiberius, fortunately present in Rome at this critical hour, was sent to take over the command on the Rhine for the third time, with every available soldier who could be spared for the purpose. But the now aged Emperor completely broke down under the blow. In a graphic and familiar chapter, Suetonius describes how Augustus, for long months together, neglected the care of his person and allowed his hair and beard to go untrimmed; how he dashed his head in frenzy against the walls, and was constantly heard to cry out in anguish: "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions." Whether these details be simple truth or decorated fable, we can well believe what a shock such a disaster must have been to one of Augustus' years, and to an Emperor who had been accustomed only to tidings of victory. So grave was the position that he not only posted guards throughout the city to repress any possible tumult, but sent despatches to the provincial governors bidding them be specially watchful of rebellion. When military empires lose their military prestige, insurrection is the natural result. His first care was to obtain new recruits for his army, but the people hung back and would not enlist. According to Cassius Dio, he branded with infamy and confiscated the goods of one man in every five under thirty-five years of age who refused to serve, and of one man in ten of all above that age. But even these rigorous measures were unavailing to procure the necessary recruits, and he was driven to put many to death before reinforcements could be raised and sent north to Tiberius. The Emperor banished all Gauls and Germans from the capital, and dismissed the German mercenaries serving in the Praetorian Guard, so apprehensive was he that there was treason afoot. Nor was his confidence restored until he was assured of the unwavering loyalty of Maroboduus and received the gratifying intelligence that the victorious enemy had turned back.
Throughout the closing years of his reign, no decisive actions were fought. During the year 10 A.D., Tiberius held the supreme command. In the ensuing year, he shared it with Germanicus. In the year 12, he was again sole commander, while at the beginning of 13 he returned to Rome and left Germanicus behind him as commander-in-chief. Their expeditions were intended not so much to reconquer Germany as to make an imposing demonstration of military strength. And, in the meantime, Augustus had arrived at the momentous decision to abandon the Elbe frontier and fall back upon the Rhine. It is not too much to say that this was one of the most important steps which he took throughout his whole reign and one which had the most far-reaching consequences. No one can estimate how profoundly he thereby modified the course of future events, or to what extent the history of modern Europe would have been changed if he had not definitely abandoned his old policy of Romanizing Germany as he had Romanized Gaul and Spain. The development of Teutonic civilization would, in all human probability, have proceeded along wholly different lines and there would not have been that sharp antagonism between the Latin and the Teuton temperament which has been and still is one of the most dominating factors in European politics. It remains to ask why Augustus took this retrograde step and to judge whether his policy was prudent or the reverse. His motives at least were clear enough. Augustus was an old man and his chief anxiety was that he might end his days in peace. He had acutely felt the long strain of the Pannonian and Dalmatian wars, and he regarded with even graver apprehension the prospect of equally arduous and hazardous campaigns in Germany. It was abundantly clear that the reconquest of Germany must involve sooner or later a great war with the Marcomanni, with the moral certainty that in Bohemia too there would be a long period of revolt and insurrection, as well as trouble with the tribes living beyond the Elbe. The retention of the Elbe frontier meant, in other words, a continued war policy, and a continued series of annexations, for barbarism and the Roman civilization could not lie peacefully side by side. Such a policy, to be successful, would inevitably entail an enormous increase in the military forces of the Empire and Augustus had just seen how strong was the disinclination of the people of Italy to enter the legions even in a moment of desperate emergency. The fact that not only freedmen but slaves were drafted by hundreds into the legions raised in the recent crises spoke eloquently of the decay of the ancient martial spirit. We cannot wonder, therefore, that he hesitated and drew back, impelled thereto alike by his personal inclinations, by his increasing infirmities, by the loss of popularity which, with rare exceptions, seems to be one of the penalties of length of reign, as well as by his certain conviction that the legions were barely adequate to hold even the territory which was already securely Roman. The "far-flung battleline" of Rome was dangerously thin; who should know the peril of its further extension better than Augustus? The tendency of the latest school of historians is to condemn the step which the Emperor took. They point out with perfect truth that a boundary formed by the Elbe and the Danube is far shorter than a boundary formed by the Rhine and the Danube. From the strategic point of view, there can be no comparison between them. All the advantages lie with the Elbe over the Rhine. The essential weakness of the Rhine and Danube frontier was that the legions stationed on the two rivers could not cooperate or lend one another assistance, for a great wedge of barbarism was thrust in between them, which proved an impassable barrier. But statesmanship has to deal with the actual rather than with the ideal, and has usually to be content with the second best. Augustus drew back.
One would give much to know the contents of the despatches which passed between him and Tiberius. No doubt he left Tiberius considerable freedom of action, but the general tenor of his instructions was clearly "Back!" Probably enough, Augustus never made any explicit or public announcement of his determination. Public opinion was opposed to retirement, and there were doubtless critics in plenty who denounced Augustus in secret for his policy of "scuttle." The subsequent campaigns of Germanicus in the early years of Tiberius' reign show how keen the legions were to be led against the conquerors of Varus, and the recall of Germanicus after a series of brilliant victories gave rise to the most malignant rumors. The abandonment of Germany was felt to be a confession of weakness, to be a retractation of the proud boast of Rome that wherever her standards had once been planted they made the soil around them Roman. It was a foretaste of humiliation, an acknowledgment of defeat, which could not be concealed by the formation of the two so-called Germanic provinces on the Rhine, carved not out of the territory of the German but of the Gaul. Yet Augustus was right to draw back, if he considered his military strength inadequate to the task of holding down all Germany. At the moment, it certainly was inadequate, and the miserable exhibition of craven cowardice which had just been made by the Roman people fully justified him in the step which he took. But was he equally justified in solemnly warning his successors to be content with the boundaries as he left them? We think not. He should rather have urged upon them the imperative need of increasing and reorganizing the Roman army, so that it might carry the eagles once more to the Elbe and guard that frontier as the Rhine was already guarded. He himself might be too old to recreate Roman military ardor, but he should have set this duty before those who were to come after him. As it was, the injunction which he laid upon Tiberius in his will, the injunction that the Empire should be confined to its present limits, became the keystone of Roman policy with respect to Germany, and Tiberius allowed Germanicus to wage campaign after campaign in Germany, as though his policy were reconquest, and then withdrew him at the very moment when the prizes of victory seemed to be falling into his hands. Thus the Rhine continued to be the Roman frontier as long as the Empire lasted. New provinces were formed in later years in Britain, Dacia, and Mesopotamia, but Germany was left to the barbarian.
Augustus sought, as we have said, to conceal his complete change of policy by permitting Tiberius and Germanicus to make military demonstrations on the right bank of the Rhine. He also raised the number of the Rhenish legions from five to eight, and settled the formation of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Germany. The former, with its headquarters at Mogontiacum (Mayence), stretched from above Coblenz to below Argentoratum (Strassburg) and included not only the right bank of the Rhine but also the valleys of the Main and the Neckar. Lower Germany stretched from below Bonn to the North Sea, keeping to the left bank of the Rhine until Noviomagus (Nimeguen) was reached and then striking across to the Zuyder Zee, and including the whole of the Netherlands. Vetera, where the river Lippe flows into the Rhine, was the capital of this province, and a chain of fifty forts secured the principal points of passage along the river bank up to its source. On the left bank dwelt the tribes which had been transplanted from the right by successive generals, and these were retained by Augustus and his successors as a rampart against their kinsmen for the protection of Gaul. But the dream of a great German province faded forever from the view of Rome.