第16章 A.D.14, 15(16)

I was put off by that dilatory general, and, as I found but little protection in the laws, I urged him to arrest myself, Arminius, and his accomplices.That night is my witness; would that it had been my last.What followed, may be deplored rather than defended.However, I threw Arminius into chains and I endured to have them put on myself by his partisans.And as soon as give opportunity, I show my preference for the old over the new, for peace over commotion, not to get a reward, but that I may clear myself from treachery and be at the same time a fit mediator for a German people, should they choose repentance rather than ruin, For the youth and error of my son I entreat forgiveness.As for my daughter, I admit that it is by compulsion she has been brought here.It will be for you to consider which fact weighs most with you, that she is with child by Arminius or that she owes her being to me."Caesar in a gracious reply promised safety to his children and kinsfolk and a home for himself in the old province.He then led back the army and received on the proposal of Tiberius the title of Imperator.The wife of Arminius gave birth to a male child; the boy, who was brought up at Ravenna, soon afterwards suffered an insult, which at the proper time I shall relate.

The report of the surrender and kind reception of Segestes, when generally known, was heard with hope or grief according as men shrank from war or desired it.Arminius, with his naturally furious temper, was driven to frenzy by the seizure of his wife and the foredooming to slavery of his wife's unborn child.He flew hither and thither among the Cherusci, demanding "war against Segestes, war against Caesar." And he refrained not from taunts."Noble the father,"he would say, "mighty the general, brave the army which, with such strength, has carried off one weak woman.Before me, three legions, three commanders have fallen.Not by treachery, not against pregnant women, but openly against armed men do I wage war.There are still to be seen in the groves of Germany the Roman standards which I hung up to our country's gods.Let Segestes dwell on the conquered bank;let him restore to his son his priestly office; one thing there is which Germans will never thoroughly excuse, their having seen between the Elbe and the Rhine the Roman rods, axes, and toga.Other nations in their ignorance of Roman rule, have no experience of punishments, know nothing of tributes, and, as we have shaken them off, as the great Augustus, ranked among dieties, and his chosen heir Tiberius, departed from us, baffled, let us not quail before an inexperienced stripling, before a mutinous army.If you prefer your fatherland, your ancestors, your ancient life to tyrants and to new colonies, follow as your leader Arminius to glory and to freedom rather than Segestes to ignominious servitude."This language roused not only the Cherusci but the neighbouring tribes and drew to their side Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius, who had long been respected by the Romans.This increased Caesar's alarm.That the war might not burst in all its fury on one point, he sent Caecina through the Bructeri to the river Amisia with forty Roman cohorts to distract the enemy, while the cavalry was led by its commander Pedo by the territories of the Frisii.Germanicus himself put four legions on shipboard and conveyed them through the lakes, and the infantry, cavalry, and fleet met simultaneously at the river already mentioned.The Chauci, on promising aid, were associated with us in military fellowship.Lucius Stertinius was despatched by Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the eagle of the nineteenth legion which had been lost with Varus.The troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and all the country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia was ravaged, not far from the forest of Teutoburgium where the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.

Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the last honour to those soldiers and their general, while the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the lot of mankind.Having sent on Caecina in advance to reconnoitre the obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and causeways over watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations.Varus's first camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of its central space clearly indicated the handiwork of three legions.Further on, the partially fallen rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a shattered remnant of the army which had there taken up a position.In the centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in heaps.Near, lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees.In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars, on which they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions.Some survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death.They pointed out too the raised ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how in his exultation he insulted the standards and eagles.