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[Illustration: Famous painting of the head Jesus Christ
(By steadily gazing at the eyes in the picture they will be seen to
suddenly open.)
Painting by Gabriel Max.]
THE GREAT EVENTS
BY
FAMOUS HISTORIANS
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
_With a staff of specialists_
_VOLUME III_
[Illustration: Decorative]
The National Alumni
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
CONTENTS
VOLUME III
PAGE
_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xi
CHARLES F. HORNE
_Germanicus in Germany (A.D. 13-16)_, 1
TACITUS
_The Crucifixion (A.D. 30)_, 23
FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
_The Rise and Spread of Christianity (A.D. 33)_, 40
RENAN
WISE
NEWMAN
_Burning of Rome under Nero (A.D. 64)_, 108
SIENKIEWICZ
TACITUS
_Persecution of the Christians under Nero (A.D. 64-68)_, 134
FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
_The Great Jewish Revolt_
_Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70)_, 150
JOSEPHUS
_Destruction of Pompeii (A.D. 79)_, 207
PLINY
LYTTON
_The Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_
_Their Final Dispersion (A.D. 132)_, 222
CHARLES MERIVALE
_Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_
_Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (A.D. 155)_, 231
HOMERSHAM COX
POLYCARP
_Persecution of the Christians in Gaul (A.D. 177)_, 246
FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT
_Beginning of Rome's Decline_
_Commodus (A.D. 180)_, 263
EDWARD GIBBON
_Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia (A.D. 241)_, 277
GEORGE RAWLINSON
_Conversion of Constantine_
_Decline of Paganism (A.D. 300-337)_, 289
JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
_First Nicene Council_
_Rise and Decline of Arianism (A.D. 325)_, 299
JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
ARTHUR P. STANLEY
_Foundation of Constantinople (A.D. 330)_, 320
EDWARD GIBBON
_Julian the Apostate Becomes Emperor of Rome (A.D. 360)_, 333
EDWARD GIBBON
_The Huns and Their Western Migration (A.D. 374-376)_, 352
MARCELLINUS
_Final Division of Roman Empire_
_The Disruptive Intrigues (A.D. 395)_, 364
J. B. BURY
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 13-409)_, 385
JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME III
PAGE
_Famous painting of the head of Jesus Christ_ (_page 23_),
By Gabriel Max. Frontispiece
_Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner
by the soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus_, 4
Painting by H. Koenig.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
THE GREAT EVENTS
(THE PERIOD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE)
CHARLES F. HORNE
So vast and wonderful a construction was the Roman world, so different
from our own, that we are apt to imagine it as an arrangement far more
deliberately planned, far more mechanically complete, than it appeared
to its own inhabitants.
From a cursory glance, we may carry away wholly mistaken conceptions of
its thought and purpose. Thus, for instance, the Roman Republic never
assumed the definite design of conquering the world; its people had only
the vaguest conception of whither the world might extend. They merely
quarrelled with their neighbors, defeated and then annexed them.
At almost any time after Hannibal's death, Rome might have marched her
legions, practically unopposed, over all the lands within her reach. Yet
she permitted a century and a half to elapse ere Pompey asserted her
sovereignty over Asia. It was left for Augustus to take the final step,
and, by absorbing Egypt, make his country become in name what it had
long been in fact, the ruler of the civilized world.
Thus, too, we think of Augustus as a kindly despot, supreme, and
governed only by his own will. But his compatriots looked on him as
simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of
their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they
had chosen to confer upon one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the
high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another.
So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general
of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil
administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of
the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he
would have accepted them from an obsequious senate.
But the title of "king," so obnoxious to Roman taste, Augustus never
sought, nor did his successors, who were in turn appointed to all his
offices. For nearly three centuries after the one-man power had become
absolute, Rome continued to call itself a republic, to go through forms
of election and ceremonial, which grew ever more and more meaningless
and trivial.
Augustus seems to have felt the tremendous weight of his position, and
to have tried honestly to divide his authority. He invested the
trembling senate with both power and responsibility. In theory, it
became as influential as he. But the appointment of its members, and
also the supreme control of the armies, remained always with the
Imperator; and thus the senate continued in reality little better than a
flickering shadow. Under the reign of a well-meaning emperor, it loomed
large, and often dilated into a very valuable and honorable body. In the
grip of a tyrant, it sank at once to its true aspect of helpless and
obsequious submission.
THE "ROMAN PEACE"
To the outside world the reign of the emperors was welcome. The
provinces were governed by salaried officials, whose conduct was
seriously investigated. The hideous extortions and cruelties of the
governors sent out in the earlier days of the Republic almost
disappeared. This milder rule seemed happy in the contrast. An emperor
might be a brute at home, but his personal cruelties could scarce spread
over an entire world. Money for even the hugest extravagances of only
one man, the provinces could supply. At first they scarce felt the
drain.
For two entire centuries after Augustus had assumed power, the world
flourished and apparently prospered under the "Roman peace." The ruins
of Pompeii, the tale of its destruction, show how well and how lazily
the upper classes and even the masses lived.[1] The legions were scarce
needed except for petty wars along the frontier. The defeat inflicted by
the German barbarians was avenged, and the northern wilderness seems to
have come very near to sharing the fate of Gaul.[2] But the long
campaigns were costly and apparently valueless. No taxes flowed into the
treasury from the poor half-subjugated savages; and the emperor Tiberius
contemptuously declared that he would leave them to fight among
themselves. Another frontier strife completed the subjugation of Spain.
Another added Britain to the Empire. Another made temporary conquest
over Dacia and extended the Asian boundary. There were minor revolts in
Gaul.
Then the Jews, roused to sudden religious frenzy and believing
themselves invincible, burst into rebellion.[3] Titus stormed their
capital and burned their Temple. But the lesson was wasted on the
stubborn, fanatical race, and sixty years later they flared out again.
Roman relentlessness was roused to its fullest rage, and accomplished
against them the destruction of prophecy. Their cities were razed to the
ground, and the poor remnant of the race were scattered abroad. Yet,
apparently imperishable, refusing to be merged with other men, they
remained a people though without a country. They became what they are
to-day, a nation of wanderers.[4]
One other tumult, more central and in that sense more serious, intruded
on the Roman system. Just a century after the rise of Augustus, the
tyrannies of his successor Nero became so unbearable that even his own
senate turned against him; and he was slain, without having appointed a
successor. The purely military character of the Empire was at once
revealed. Different armies each upheld their own general as emperor. The
claimants attacked one another in turn, and the strongest won. The
turmoil lasted for only a year or so, just long enough for the distant
legions to gather around Rome; the bloodshed was nothing as compared to
former ages; the helpless senate acquiesced in each new proclamation of
each successful army; and the rest of the world, scarce even jarred in
its daily course, flowed on as before.
On the whole, then, these two hundred years were one long period of
peace. It was Augustus who for the first time in centuries closed the
gates of the war-god's temple in Rome. He encouraged literature, and we
have the "Augustan" age. He boasted that he found Rome built of bricks,
and left it of marble. He and his successors did far more than that.
They constructed roads extending from end to end of their domains.
Communication became easy; a mail post was established; people began to
travel for pleasure. The nations of the world intermingled freely, and
discovered, for the first time on earth, that they were much alike. The
universal brotherhood of man may be not even yet fully recognized and
welcomed; but the first step toward its acknowledgment was taken under
imperial Rome.
CHRISTIANITY
This brings us to a very solemn thought. Many earnest men have believed
that they see a divine Providence running through the whole course of
history, and nowhere more obvious than here. They point to the careers
of both Greece and Rome as being a special preparation for the coming of
the Christ. The mission of Greece, they tell us, was to arouse the mind
of man, to make him capable of thought and sensitive to spiritual
beauty; that of Rome was to teach him the value of law and peace, and
yet more, to draw all men together, that all might have opportunity to
hear the lessons of the new faith.
Certain it is that at any earlier date it would have seemed practically
impossible for a religion to spread beyond a single people. Not only was
communication between the nations faint and intermittent, but they were
so savage, so suspicious of each other, that a wanderer had to meet them
weapon in hand. He must have a ship to flee to or an army at his back.
Now, however, under the restraint of Roman law, strangers met and passed
without a blow. Latin, the tongue of law, was everywhere partly known.
Greek was almost equally widespread as the language of art and culture.
The Hebrews, too, had done their share in the work of preparation. They
had developed the religious sense, beyond any of the Aryan peoples.
Their religion had become a part, the main part, of their daily lives.
They believed it, not with the languid logic of the Romans, not with the
sensuous pleasure of the Greeks, but fiercely, fervidly, with a passion
that swept all reason to the winds.
Among them appeared the Christ, born in the days of Augustus, crucified
in those of Tiberius.[5] His teaching was mainly the doctrine of love,
which Buddha had announced five hundred years before, but which was new
to the Roman world; and the promise of life beyond the grave, which many
races had more or less believed in, but which never before had been made
to carry a vision of such splendor and such glory. He also advocated
non-resistance to enemies, a principle which the early Church obeyed,
but which has found small favor among the masses of later Christians.
These teachings, then, were none of them wholly unconceived before; but
they were enforced by a life so pure, a manner so earnest, as compelled
respect. Converts became many; and one of these at least took literally
the command of the Master, to proclaim the faith to all peoples of the
earth. The apostle Paul, stepping beyond the narrow bounds of Judea,
preached Christianity to mankind.[6]
Paul was the first great missionary. The earlier faiths of Greece and
Rome had not sought to extend themselves, because they did not recognize
the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on
our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian
became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them
hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith
spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a
generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero,
to divert from himself the suspicion of having burned Rome, accused the
Christians.[7]
This led to their first persecution. They were tortured as a punishment
and to extort confession. Most of them stood nobly by their doctrine of
non-resistance, and endured heroically a martyrdom which they looked on
as opening the gates of heaven.[8]
Their devotion drew to them the first serious notice of the Roman
authorities. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a sect among the
Jews. But now, with reluctant admiration of their courage, there came
also a recognition of their rapid growth and a suspicion of their
motives. The Romans could not understand such devotion to a mere
religion; and they always feared lest the faith was something more, a
cloak for nameless crimes, or a secret conspiracy of rebellion among
their slaves, who would some day turn and rend them.
Thus while Nero's attack on the Christians was in a sense an accident,
the blind rush of a half-crazed beast, the later persecutions were often
directed by serious and well-intentioned emperors and magistrates. The
Romans were far from being intolerant. They had interfered very little
with the religions of their subject races, and had, indeed, adopted more
than one foreign god into their own temples. They were quite willing
that the Christ should be worshipped. What they could not understand was
that reverence to one god should forbid reverence to another.
It was the new religion which was intolerant, which, in the passionate
intensity of its faith, attacked the old gods, denied their existence,
or declared them devils. When a man was summoned before a Roman court on
the charge of being a Christian, he was not, as a rule, asked to deny
Christ; only, there being a general impression that his sect was evil,
he was required to prove his honest citizenship and general good
character by doing reverence to the Roman gods.[9]
In spite of persecution, some writers say because of it, Christianity
spread. Toward the end of the first two hundred years of the Empire, it
seemed about the only prosperous institution in a world which was
beginning to go badly. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the last of
the "good" emperors (161-180), troubles, some accidental, some inherent
in the Roman system, were gathering very dark.
The curse of inaction, of wealth without liberty, of intellect without a
goal to strive toward, had long been corrupting the upper classes. Now,
a terrible plague swept the world from end to end, so that laborers
became scarce, lands went untenanted, taxes unpaid. The drain of
supporting Rome's boundless extravagance, in buildings, feasts, and
gladiatorial displays, began to tell upon the provinces at last. Newer
and ever harsher methods had to be employed to wring money from
exhausted lands. Driven by their sufferings to cling to religion as a
support, men thought of it more seriously; and a cry went up that earth
was being punished for its neglect and insult of the ancient gods. The
Christians were persecuted anew.[10]
THE PERIOD OF DECAY
The reign of Commodus,[11] son of Marcus Aurelius, marks the beginning
of a century which sank almost into anarchy. He was murdered, and his
guards auctioned the Empire to the highest bidder. Once more the legions
fought against each other and placed their generals upon the throne.
During ninety-two years there were twenty-five emperors fully
acknowledged, besides a far larger number of claimants who were
overthrown before Rome had time to hear of and salute them. The Imperial
city was no longer mistress of the world; she was only its capital, as
feeble and helpless as the other cities, which these unstable emperors
began at times to favor in her stead.
The barbarians also, who through all these ages were growing stronger
while Rome grew weaker, became ever a more serious menace. The internal
disorder of the Empire left its frontiers often unguarded. The Germans
plundered Gaul in the West, the Persians ravaged Asia in the East. In
fact, so comparatively strong had the Persians grown that one emperor,
venturing against them, was defeated and captured, and lived out his
miserable life a Persian slave. Rome could not rescue him.[12]
In the year 284 there came to the front an emperor "of iron,"
Diocletian. He did what Augustus had done three centuries before,
re-formed and recast the government of the world. The last empty
ceremonies of the Republic were discarded. Even the pretence of Rome's
leadership was brushed aside. The Empire was divided into four
districts, each with a capital of its own, and Diocletian selected three
other generals to share its rule with him. He and his colleagues
restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the barbarians.
Diocletian's reforms saved the Roman fabric from what seemed inevitable
extinction, and enabled it to exist in some shape for almost another two
hundred years.
His system of division did not, however, save the Empire from civil
wars. No sooner was his restraining hand removed than his colleagues
fought among themselves, until Constantine overthrew his antagonists and
once more united the entire Empire. Constantine became a Christian.[13]
It has been repeatedly asserted that his conversion was one of policy
rather than belief; and there could be no stronger evidence of the
changed position of the new faith. Diocletian had ordered a persecution
against it, the last and most terrible which its martyrs suffered. But
all that was best and most energetic and most living in the moribund
Empire seemed to have gathered round the Church. The persecution did but
emphasize its worth and influence.
Constantine did not force his followers to change their beliefs with
him; but he encouraged and rewarded those who did. Under him was held
the first general council of the faith. The bishops gathered from all
the different cities of the world to compare ideas and settle more
exactly the doctrines to be taught. Christianity stepped out from its
hiding-place and supplanted paganism as the state religion of the
Empire.[14]
As though the unimportance of Rome were not thus sufficiently
established, Constantine abandoned the decaying capital altogether, and
built himself a new city, Constantinople, at the junction of Europe and
Asia. This became the centre of the changing world. Built upon the site
of an old Greek colony, it was almost wholly Greek, not only in the
nationality of the people who flocked to it, but in the manners of the
court which Constantine created around him, in the art of its
decorators, in the language of its streets.[15] The Empire remained
Roman only in name. The might of a thousand years had made that name a
magic spell, had sunk its restraining influence deep in the minds of
men. It was not lightly to be thrown aside.
Julian, a nephew of Constantine, who after an interval succeeded him
upon the throne, abandoned the adopted religion of his family, and tried
to revive paganism.[16] Julian was a powerful and clever man; he seems
also to have been an honest and an earnest one. But he could not turn
back the current of the world. He could not make shallow speculation
take the place of earnest faith. Altruism, the spirit of brotherhood,
which was the animating force of Christianity, might and later somewhat
did lose itself amid the sands of selfishness; but it could not be
combated by one man with a chance preference for egotism.
Julian turned to a worthier purpose. He died fighting the barbarians.
These, held back for a time by Diocletian and Constantine, were
recommencing their ravages with renewed force. And now a change comes
over the character of the invasions. Hitherto they had been mere raids
for plunder; but now a huge, far-reaching, racial movement was in
progress.
From the distant plains of Asia came the vanguard of the Huns, a race of
horsemen, whose swift steeds enabled them to scatter or concentrate at
will around slower-paced opponents.[17] The Huns swept over Southern
Russia, then occupied by the Goths, the most civilized of the Teutonic
tribes. The Goths, finding themselves helpless against the active and
fierce marauders, moved onward in their turn. They crossed the Danube,
not as a raiding troop, but as an entire nation, and, half begging, half
demanding a place of refuge, they penetrated into the world of
civilization. With them came fearful stories of the Huns; but these
latter, sweeping off in another direction, failed for a while to follow
up the fugitives.
As for the Goths, after they had defeated and slain one emperor, they
were given lands and temporarily subdued by Theodosius the Great, the
last ruler to hold the entire Roman domain. In 395 Theodosius, dying,
divided his possessions, quite like a hereditary monarch, between his
two sons, both mere boys.[18] To the elder he gave Constantinople and
the East, to the younger Rome and the West. So instead of one kingdom
there were two. Partly through its own disorganization, partly from the
pressure of the barbarians, the Roman world had burst and fallen into
halves. These proved two very helpless and feeble halves in the hands of
their boy rulers; and the eager Teutons, finding themselves no longer
withheld, began that remarkable series of plundering invasions by which
they overwhelmed the ancient world.
[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME IV.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Destruction of Pompeii_, page 207.
[2] See _Germanicus in Germany_, page 1.
[3] See _Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem_, page 150.
[4] See _Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_, page 222.
[5] See _The Crucifixion_, page 23.
[6] See _Rise and Spread of Christianity_, page 40.
[7] See _Burning of Rome under Nero_, page 108.
[8] See _Persecution of the Christians under Nero_, page 134.
[9] See _Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_, page 231.
[10] See _Persecutions of Christians in Gaul_, page 246.
[11] See _Beginning of Rome's Decline_, page 263.
[12] See _Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia_, page 277.
[13] See _Conversion of Constantine_, page 289.
[14] See _First Nicene Council_, page 297.
[15] See _Foundation of Constantinople_, page 320.
[16] See _Julian the Apostate_, page 333.
[17] See _The Huns and Their Western Migration_, page 352.
[18] See _Final Division of the Roman Empire_, page 364.
GERMANICUS IN GERMANY
A.D. 13-16
TACITUS
When the Germans first became known to the Romans--about B.C.
112--they showed themselves as warlike tribes along the northern
borders of Italy and in various parts of Gaul, where Cæsar
afterward had frequent encounters with them, driving them across
the Rhine into their own country. But Cæsar's knowledge of them was
confined to those tribes whose dwellings were near the Rhine,
beyond which he did not pursue them.
Augustus fortified against the Germans along the Rhine, and Drusus,
his step-son, took command against them, defeating them in several
expeditions (B.C. 13-9). As a reward, he received for himself and
his posterity the surname of Germanicus, conqueror of Germany. He
died at the age of thirty.
His son, Germanicus, born B.C. 14, was sent, in A.D. 12, to command
the forces on the Rhine. After quelling serious mutinies among his
legions he crossed the Rhine and attacked and routed some of the
German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans.
During the following year he defeated other tribes, and after his
return across the Rhine he was persuaded by Segestes to aid him
against his son-in-law Arminius (the Latin name for Herman), by
whom Segestes was besieged and who, according to Tacitus, became in
the end the deliverer of Germany from the power of the Romans. But
before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he
had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he met
with severe reverses.
Arminius had defeated Varus, who, by reason of that disgrace,
killed himself (A.D. 10), and the despatch of Germanicus to command
the German legions was ordered in the first instance to revenge the
overthrow of his predecessor. Although it required several
campaigns, the work of Germanicus was so effectual that he withdrew
in the end, at the command of Tiberius, with advantage on his side,
and, returning to Rome, enjoyed a triumph (A.D. 17). His name is
preserved in history, alike for his military talents and services,
for his attainments in literary pursuits, and his nobleness of
mind.
In the consulship of Drusus Cæsar and Caius Norbanus a triumph was
decreed to Germanicus; the war continuing. He was preparing with all
diligence to prosecute it in the summer, but anticipated it by a sudden
irruption early in the spring into the territories of the Cattians: for
he had conceived a hope that the enemy was divided into opposite parties
under Arminius and Segestes, both remarkable for perfidy or fidelity
toward us: Arminius was the incendiary of Germany, but Segestes had
given repeated warning of an intended revolt at other times and during
the banquet immediately preceding the insurrection, and advised Varus
"to secure him and Arminius and all the other chiefs; that the
multitude, bereft of their leaders, would not dare to attempt anything;
and Varus would have an opportunity to separate the guilty from the
innocent." But fate decreed it, and he was slain by Arminius. Segestes,
though drawn into the war by the universal agreement of the nation in
it, yet continued to disapprove of it; his detestation being augmented
by motives of a domestic nature, for Arminius had carried away the
daughter of Segestes, already betrothed to another: the son-in-law
hated, the fathers-in-law were at enmity; and those relations which are
bonds of affection between friends fomented the animosities of enemies.
Germanicus therefore handed over to Cæcina four legions, five thousand
auxiliaries, and some tumultuous bands of Germans who dwelt on this side
the Rhine; he led, himself, as many legions, with double the number of
allies, and erecting a fort in Mount Taunus, upon the site of one raised
by his father, he pushed on in light marching order against the
Cattians; having left Lucius Apronius to secure the roads and the
rivers, for, as the roads were dry and the rivers within bounds--events
in that climate of rare occurrence--he had found no check in his rapid
march, but on his return apprehended the violent rains and floods. He
fell upon the Cattians with such surprise that all the weak (through sex
or age) were instantly taken or slaughtered. The young men swam over the
Adrana and endeavored to obstruct the Romans, who commenced building a
bridge; then, repulsed by engines and arrows and having in vain tried
terms of peace--after some had gone over to Germanicus--the rest
abandoned their cantons and villages and dispersed themselves into the
woods. Mattium, the capital of the nation, he burned, ravaged the open
country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his
rear, which is their custom whenever they have fled, more from craft
than fear. The Cheruscans had purposed to assist the Cattians, but were
deterred by Cæcina, who moved about with his forces from place to place;
and the Marsians, who dared to engage him, he checked by a victory.
Soon after arrived deputies from Segestes, praying relief against the
violence of his countrymen, by whom he was besieged; Arminius having
more influence with them than himself, because he advised war, for with
barbarians the more resolute in daring a man is the more he is trusted
and preferred in times of commotion. To the deputies Segestes had added
Segimund, his son; but the young man hesitated from self-conviction; for
the year when Germany revolted, having been created priest at the Ubian
altar, he had rent the fillets and fled to the revolters: yet, induced
to rely upon Roman clemency, he undertook the execution of his father's
orders, was graciously received, and conducted with a guard to the
Gallic bank of the Rhine. Germanicus thought it worth while to march
back, fought the besiegers, and rescued Segestes with a numerous train
of his relations and followers, in which were ladies of illustrious
rank, and among them the wife of Arminius--the same who was the daughter
of Segestes--with a spirit more like that of her husband than her
father; neither subdued to tears, nor uttering the language of
supplication, but her hands folded within her bosom, and her eyes fixed
upon her teeming womb. There were, likewise, carried off the spoils
taken at the slaughter of Varus and his army, and given as booty to most
of those who then surrendered.
At the same time appeared Segestes himself, of vast stature, and
undaunted in the consciousness of his fidelity. In this manner he spoke:
"This is not the first day that I have approved my faith and constancy
to the Roman people: from the moment I was by the deified Augustus
presented with the freedom of the city I have chosen my friends and
enemies with reference to your interests, and that not from hatred of my
country--for odious are traitors even to the party they prefer--but,
because the interests of the Romans and Germans were the same, and
because I was inclined to peace rather than war. For this reason, before
Varus, the then general, I arraigned Arminius, the ravisher of my
daughter and the violator of the league with you. Put off, from the
supineness of the general, and seeing there was little protection in the
laws, I importuned him to throw into irons myself and Arminius and his
accomplices: witness that night--to me I would rather it had been the
last! More to be lamented than defended are the events which followed.
However, I cast Arminius into irons, and was myself cast into irons by
his faction: and now, on the first opportunity of conferring with you, I
prefer old things to new, peace to turbulence; and at the same time I
might be a fitting mediator for the German nation, with no view of
reward, but to clear myself of perfidy, if they would rather repent than
be destroyed. For the youth and inexperience of my son I implore pardon.
I admit my daughter has been brought into this state by constraint; it
will be yours to consider which should preponderate with you--that she
is the wife of Arminius or the daughter of Segestes." The answer of
Germanicus was gracious: he promised indemnity to his children, and
kindred, and to himself, as a retreat, a place called "Vetera," in the
province; then returned with his army, and by the direction of Tiberius
received the title of _Imperator_.
[Illustration: Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner by the
soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus
Painting by H. Koenig]
The account circulated of the surrender of Segestes, and his gracious
reception, affected his countrymen with hope or anguish as they were
severally prone or averse to the war. Acting upon a temper naturally
violent, the captivity of his wife and the child in her womb subjected
to bondage drove Arminius to distraction: he flew about among the
Cheruscans, calling them to arms against Segestes, against Germanicus;
nor did he refrain from invectives--"An excellent father! a great
general; a valiant army, whose many hands had carried off one bit of a
woman! That before him three legions fell, three lieutenants-general;
for his method of carrying on war was not by treason nor against
pregnant women, but openly, against armed hosts. That the Roman
standards were still to be seen in the German groves, there suspended by
him to his country's gods. Segestes might live upon the vanquished bank;
he might get the priesthood restored to his son; but the Germans would
ever regard the fellow as the guilty cause of their having seen between
the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes and the toga. That to other nations who
know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes were unknown;
and as they had thrown them off, and as Augustus (he who was enrolled
with the gods) had retreated without accomplishing his object, and
Tiberius, his chosen successor, let them not dread an inexperienced
stripling and a mutinous army. If they preferred their country, their
parents, and their ancient possessions, to masters and new settlements,
they should follow Arminius, who led them to glory and liberty, rather
than Segestes, who conducted them to infamous servitude."
By these means not the Cheruscans only were roused, but the bordering
nations; and Inguiomer, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long in high
credit with the Romans, was drawn into the confederacy. Hence Germanicus
became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with
unbroken force, sent Cæcina with forty Roman cohorts to the river
Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division
in the army of the enemy. Pedo, the prefect, led the cavalry along the
confines of the Frisians; he himself, embarking four legions, sailed
through the lakes; and at the aforesaid river the whole body met--foot,
horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were
taken into the service; but the Bructerians, setting fire to their
effects and dwellings, were routed by Lucius Stertinius, despatched
against them by Germanicus with a band lightly armed. And amid the
carnage 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 Bructerians, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and
Luppia 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.
Germanicus, therefore, conceived a desire to pay the last offices to the
legions and their leader; while the whole of the army present were moved
to deep commiseration for their kinsmen and friends, and generally for
the calamities of war and the condition of humanity. Cæcina having been
sent before to explore the gloomy recesses of the forest, and to lay
bridges and causeways over the watery portions of the morasses and
insecure places in the plains, they enter the doleful scene, hideous in
appearance and association. The first camp of Varus appeared in view.
The extent of ground and the measurement of the _principia_ left no
doubt that the whole was the work of three legions. After that a
half-decayed rampart with a shallow foss, where their remains, now sadly
reduced, were understood to have sunk down. In the intervening portion
of the plain were whitening bones, either scattered or accumulated,
according as they had fled or had made a stand. Near them lay fragments
of javelins and limbs of horses. There were also skulls fixed upon the
trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars, where
they had immolated the tribunes and centurions of the first rank. 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.
How many gibbets he erected for the execution of his captives; what
trenches he dug; and how, in proud scorn, he made a mock at the
standards and eagles."
The Roman army which was on the spot buried the bones of the three
legions six years after the slaughter: nor could anyone distinguish
whether he buried the remains of a stranger or of a kinsman; but all
considered the whole as friends, as relations, with heightened
resentment against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. Germanicus laid
the first sod used in raising a tomb, thus rendering a most acceptable
service to the dead, and showing that he shared the sorrows of the
living, a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon
every action of Germanicus he put a malignant construction, or that he
believed that the impression produced by the sight of the unburied slain
would dampen the ardor of the army for battle and inspire them with fear
of the enemy. He also said that "A general invested with the office of
augur and the most ancient religious functions ought not to have put his
hand to the ceremonies of the dead."
Arminius, retiring into 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 he had possessed. Arminius, having directed his
men to keep close together and draw near to the wood, wheeled suddenly
about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to
rush out. Then the Roman horse were thrown into disorder by the assault
of a new army, and the cohorts sent out to support them, broken in upon
by the body of troops that fled, had augmented the consternation, and
were now being pushed into the morass--a place well known to the
pursuers, but dangerous to those unacquainted with it--had not
Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy
became terrified, our men reanimated, and both retired without advantage
on either side. Germanicus, soon after, returning with the army to the
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. Cæcina, who led his own men, was warned that, though he was to
return through well-known roads, yet he should with all speed pass the
causeway called the Long Bridges. It is a narrow causeway, between vast
marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The rest of the country
is of a moist nature, either tough and sticky from a heavy kind of clay
or dangerous from the streams which intersect it. Round about are woods
which rise gently from the plain, which at that time were filled with
soldiers by Arminius, who, by short cuts and quick marching, had arrived
there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Cæcina, who
was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time and to
repulse the foe, resolved to encamp in the place, that while some were
employed in the work, others might begin the fight.
The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the
outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops,
march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout
arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined
to distress the Romans--the place deep with ooze, sinking under those
who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered
with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the
midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to
encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their spears long, so as to
wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved
from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on
account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even
then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the
neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded,
and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers
had all to do over again. Cæcina, who had served forty years, either
under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war,
prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all
probabilities, he could devise no other expedient than that of
restraining the enemy to the wood until he had sent forward all the
wounded and baggage; for between the mountains and the marshes there
stretched a plain large enough to admit a small army. To this purpose
the legions selected were: The Fifth, for the right wing, and
Twenty-first, for the left; the soldiers of the First legion to lead the
van of the Twentieth to oppose the pursuers.
It was a restless night to both armies, but from different causes. The
barbarians, with festive carousals, songs of triumph, or horrid cries,
filled the vales below and echoing wood. Among the Romans were feeble
fires, low broken murmurs; they leaned, drooping here and there, against
the pales, or wandered about the tents, more like men wanting sleep than
quite awake. The general, too, was alarmed by direful visions during his
sleep; he thought he heard, and saw, Quintilius Varus, rising out of the
marsh, all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand and calling
upon him, but that he rejected the call, and pushed back his hand as he
held it toward him. At break of day the legions, posted on the wings,
whether from perverseness or fear, deserted their post and took sudden
possession of a field beyond the bogs; neither did Arminius fall
straight upon them, though they lay open to assault; but when the
baggage was set fast in the mire and ditches, the soldiers about it in
disorder, the order of the standards confounded, and--as usual at such a
time--each man acting hastily for himself, when the ears are slow to
catch the word of command, he then commanded his Germans to charge,
exclaiming vehemently, "Behold! Varus and his legions again subdued by
the same fate!" Thus he cried, and instantly, with a select body, broke
through the mass, and chiefly against the horse directed his weapons.
Floundering in their own blood and the slippery soil of the marsh, they
threw their riders, overturned all they met, and trampled on those that
were on the ground. The greatest distress was around the eagles, which
could neither be carried against a shower of darts nor be planted in the
slimy ground. Cæcina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot
and, having fallen, would have been overpowered had not the First legion
come up to succor him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy,
who ceased slaying, to seize the spoil. And the legions, as the day
closed in, by great exertion got into the open and firm ground. Nor was
this the end of their miseries; a palisade was to be raised, an
intrenchment digged; their instruments, too, for throwing up and
carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost.
No tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded. While dividing
among them their food, defiled with mire or blood, they lamented that
mournful night; they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand
men the last.
It happened that a horse which had broken his fastenings and, as he
strayed about, become frightened by a noise, had run over some that were
in his way. This raised such a consternation in the camp--from a
persuasion that the Germans had forced an entrance--that all rushed to
the gates, especially to the postern,[19] as the farthest from the foe
and safer for flight. Cæcina having ascertained that there was no cause
for alarm, but unable to stop them or hold them back, either by his
authority or prayers or even by force, prostrated himself on the
threshold of the gate; and thus at length by appealing to their
humanity--for if they proceeded it must be over the body of the
general--he blocked the passage, and the tribunes and centurions
satisfied them the while that it was a false alarm.
Then assembling them in the court, and desiring them to hear him with
silence, he warned them of their difficulties, and their duty under
them: "That their sole hope of safety was in their valor, but that must
be guided by counsel; that they must keep close within their camp till
the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, came up nearer to them; then
make a sudden sally on every side, that by this sally they might make
good their way to the Rhine; but if they fled, more forests, deeper
marshes, and the fierce attack of the foe still remained to them; but
that if they conquered, honor and renown awaited them." He reminded them
of all that was dear to them at home, and the rewards to be obtained in
the camp, but suppressed all mention of defeat. He next distributed
horses, first his own, then those of the tribunes and leaders of the
legions, to all the bravest warriors, without any flattery, that these
first, and afterward the infantry, might charge the enemy.
The Germans were in no less agitation from hope, eagerness, and the
opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed "To let them march
out, and to beset them again in their way when they got into marshes and
difficult passes." Inguiomer advised measures more resolute and
acceptable to barbarians--"To invest the camp; it would be quickly
captured; there would be more captives, and the plunder uninjured." As
soon therefore as it was light, they level the ditch, cast hurdles into
it, attempt to scale the palisade, there being but few men on the
rampart, and those who were, standing as if paralyzed by fear. But when
they were hampered in the fortifications, the signal was given to the
cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded at once, and instantly,
shouting and charging, they poured down upon their rear, telling them
tauntingly "that there were no thickets, no marshes, but equal chances
in a fair field." The enemy, expecting an easy conquest, and that the
Romans were few and half-armed, were overpowered with the sounds of
trumpets and glitter of arms, which were then magnified in proportion as
they were unexpected; and they fell like men who, as they are void of
moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress.
Arminius fled from the fight unhurt, Inguiomer severely wounded. The men
were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. At length, at night,
the legions returned, and though distressed by the same want of
provisions and more wounds, yet in victory they found all
things--health, vigor, and abundance.
Meanwhile a report had spread that an army was cut off, and a body of
Germans on full march to invade Gaul; so that, under the terror of this
news, there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to
demolish the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina forbidden the
infamous attempt. This high-minded woman took upon herself all the
duties of a general, and distributed to the soldiers, gratuitously,
medicines and clothes, according as anyone was in want or wounded. Caius
Plinius, the writer of the German wars, relates that she stood at the
head of the bridge as the legions returned, and bestowed on them thanks
and praises; a behavior which sunk deep into the heart of Tiberius, for
these attentions he thought were not disinterested; nor was it against
foreigners she sought to win the army; for nothing was now left the
generals to do, when a woman paid her visits of inspection to the
companies, attended the standards, and presumed to distribute largesses;
as if before she had shown but small tokens of ambitious designs in
carrying her child (the son of the general) in a soldier's uniform
about the camp and desiring that he be styled Cæsar Caligula.
Already Agrippina was in greater credit with the army than the
lieutenants-general, or even the generals--a woman had suppressed a
sedition which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.
These jealousies were inflamed and ministered to by Sejanus, who was
well acquainted with the temper of Tiberius, and supplied him with
materials for hatred, prospectively, that he might treasure them up in
his heart and draw them out augmented in bitterness.