A.D. 9.
"Hac clade factum, ut Imperium quod in littore oceani non
steterat, in ripa Rheni fluminis staret."--FLORUS.
To a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a minister can never
obscure his achievements in the world of letters, we are indebted for
the most profound and most eloquent estimate that we possess of the
importance of the Germanic element in European civilization, and of the
extent to which the human race is indebted to those brave warriors,
who long were the unconquered antagonists, and finally became the
conquerors, of Imperial Rome.
Twenty-three eventful years have passed away since M. Guizot delivered
from the chair of modern history at Paris his course of lectures on
the History of Civilization in Europe. During those years the spirit
of earnest inquiry into the germs and early developments of existing
institutions has become more and more active and universal; and the
merited celebrity of M. Guizot's work has proportionally increased. Its
admirable analysis of the complex political and social organizations of
which the modern civilized world is made up, must have led thousands to
trace with keener interest the great crises of times past, by which the
characteristics of the present were determined. The narrative of one of
these great crises, of the epoch A.D. 9, when Germany took up arms
for her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this special
attraction--that it forms part of our own national history. Had Arminius
been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been
enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eyder and the
Elbe; this island would never have borne the name of England, and "we,
this great English nation, whose race and language are now over-running
the earth, from one end of it to the other," [Arnold's Lectures on
Modern History.] would have been utterly cut off from existence.
Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are wholly unconnected
in race with the Romans and Britons who inhabited this country before
the coming over of the Saxons; that, "nationally speaking, the history
of Caesar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history
of the animals which then inhabited our forests." There seems
ample evidence to prove that the Romanized Celts, whom our Teutonic
forefathers found here, influenced materially the character of our
nation. But the main stream of our people was and is Germanic. Our
language alone decisively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one
of our national heroes than Caractacus: and it was our own primeval
fatherland that the brave German rescued, when he slaughtered the Roman
legions eighteen centuries ago in the marshy glens between the Lippe and
the Ems. [See post, remarks on the relationship between the Cherusci and
the English.]
Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the
prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his
countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons;
and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent
in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could
be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined; while the enemy's troops
consisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training,
familiarized with victory, and commanded by officers of proved skill and
valour. The resources of Rome seemed boundless; her tenacity of purpose
was believed to be invincible. There was no hope of foreign sympathy or
aid; for "the self-governing powers that had filled the old world,
had bent one after another before the rising power of Rome, and had
vanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations." [Ranke.]
The (German) chieftain knew well the gigantic power of the oppressor.
Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct, or in
ignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Roman
language and civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he had
been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the dignity of
the equestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to confer
rank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nations
which she wished to enslave. Among other young German chieftains,
Arminius and his brother, who were the heads of the noblest house in the
tribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as fit objects for the exercise
of this insidious system. Roman refinements and dignities succeeded in
denationalizing the brother, who assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and
adhered to Rome throughout all her wars against his country. Arminius
remained unbought by honours or wealth, uncorrupted by refinement or
luxury. He aspired to and obtained from Roman enmity a higher title than
ever could have been given him by Roman favour. It is in the page of
Rome's greatest historian, that his name has come down to us with the
proud addition of "Liberator haud dubie Germaniae." [Tacitus, Annals,
ii. 88.]
Often must the young chieftain, while meditating the exploit which has
thus immortalised him, have anxiously revolved in his mind the fate
of the many great men who had been crushed in the attempt which he was
about to renew,--the attempt to stay the chariot-wheels of triumphant
Rome. Could he hope to succeed where Hannibal and Mithridates had
perished? What had been the doom of Viriathus? and what warning against
vain valour was written on the desolate site where Numantia once had
fourished? Nor was a caution wanting in scenes nearer home and in
more recent times. The Gauls had fruitlessly struggled for eight years
against Caesar; and the valiant Vercingetorix, who in the last year of
the war had roused all his countrymen to insurrection, who had cut off
Roman detachments, and brought Caesar himself to the extreme of peril at
Alesia--he, too, had finally succumbed, had been led captive in Caesar's
triumph, and had then been butchered in cold blood in a Roman dungeon.
It was true that Rome was no longer the great military republic which
for so many ages had shattered the kingdoms of the world. Her system
of government was changed; and, after a century of revolution and civil
war, she had placed herself under the despotism of a single ruler. But
the discipline of her troops was yet unimpaired, and her warlike spirit
seemed unabated. The first wars of the empire had been signalised by
conquests as valuable as any gained by the republic in a corresponding
period. It is a great fallacy, though apparently sanctioned by great
authorities, to suppose that the foreign policy pursued by Augustus
was pacific. He certainly recommended such a policy to his successors,
either from timidity, or from jealousy of their fame outshining his
own; ["Incertum metu an per invidiam."--Tac. Ann. i. 11] but he himself,
until Arminius broke his spirit, had followed a very different course.
Besides his Spanish wars, his generals, in a series of principally
aggressive campaigns, had extended the Roman frontier from the Alps
to the Danube; and had reduced into subjection the large and important
countries that now form the territories of all Austria south of
that river, and of East Switzerland, Lower Wirtemberg, Bavaria, the
Valteline, and the Tyrol. While the progress of the Roman arms thus
pressed the Germans from the south, still more formidable inroads had
been made by the Imperial legions in the west. Roman armies, moving from
the province of Gaul, established a chain of fortresses along the right
as well as the left bank of the Rhine, and, in a series of victorious
campaigns, advanced their eagles as far as the Elbe; which now seemed
added to the list of vassal rivers, to the Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone,
the Danube, the Tagus, the Seine, and many more, that acknowledged the
supremacy of the Tiber. Roman fleets also, sailing from the harbours of
Gaul along the German coasts, and up the estuaries, co-operated with the
land-forces of the empire; and seemed to display, even more decisively
than her armies, her overwhelming superiority over the rude Germanic
tribes. Throughout the territory thus invaded, the Romans had, with
their usual military skill, established chains of fortified posts; and a
powerful army of occupation was kept on foot, ready to move instantly on
any spot where a popular outbreak might be attempted.
Vast however, and admirably organized as the fabric of Roman power
appeared on the frontiers and in the provinces, there was rottenness at
the core. In Rome's unceasing hostilities with foreign foes, and, still
more, in her long series of desolating civil wars, the free middle
classes of Italy had almost wholly disappeared. Above the position which
they had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared itself: beneath
that position a degraded mass of poverty and misery was fermenting.
Slaves, the chance sweepings of every conquered country, shoals of
Africans, Sardinians, Asiatics, Illyrians, and others, made up the bulk
of the population of the Italian peninsula. The foulest profligacy of
manners was general in all ranks. In universal weariness of revolution
and civil war, and in consciousness of being too debased for
self-government, the nation had submitted itself to the absolute
authority of Augustus. Adulation was now the chief function the senate:
and the gifts of genius and accomplishments of art were devoted to
the elaboration of eloquently false panegyrics upon the prince and his
favourite courtiers. With bitter indignation must the German chieftain
have beheld all this, and contrasted with it the rough worth of his own
countrymen;--their bravery, their fidelity to their word, their manly
independence of spirit their love of their national free institutions,
and their loathing of every pollution and meanness. Above all, he must
have thought of the domestic virtues that hallowed a German home; of the
respect there shown to the female character, and of the pure affection
by which that respect was repaid. His soul must have burned within him
at the contemplation of such a race yielding to these debased Italians.
Still, to persuade the Germans to combine, in spite of their frequent
feuds among themselves, in one sudden outbreak against Rome; to keep the
scheme concealed from the Romans until the hour for action had arrived;
and then, without possessing a single walled town, without military
stores, without training, to teach his insurgent countrymen to defeat
veteran armies, and storm fortifications, seemed so perilous an
enterprise, that probably Arminius would have receded from it, had not a
stronger feeling even than patriotism urged him on. Among the Germans
of high rank who had most readily submitted to the invaders, and become
zealous partisans of Roman authority, was a chieftain named Segestes.
His daughter, Thusnelda, was pre-eminent among the noble maidens of
Germany. Arminius had sought her hand in marriage; but Segestes, who
probably discerned the young chief's disaffection to Rome, forbade
his suit, and strove to preclude all communication between him and
his daughter. Thusnelda, however, sympathised far more with the heroic
spirit of her lover, than with the time serving policy of her father. An
elopement baffled the precautions of Segestes; who, disappointed in
his hope of preventing the marriage, accused Arminius, before the Roman
governor, of having carried off his daughter, and of planning treason
against Rome. Thus assailed, and dreading to see his bride torn from him
by the officials of the foreign oppressor, Arminius delayed no longer,
but bent all his energies to organize and execute a general insurrection
of the great mass of his countrymen, who hitherto had submitted in
sullen inertness to the Roman dominion.
A change of governors had recently taken place, which, while it
materially favoured the ultimate success of the insurgents, served, by
the immediate aggravation of the Roman oppressions which it produced,
to make the native population more universally eager to take arms.
Tiberius, who was afterwards emperor, had lately been recalled from
the command in Germany, and sent into Pannonia to put down a dangerous
revolt which had broken out against the Romans in that province. The
German patriots were thus delivered from the stern supervision of one
of the most auspicious of mankind, and were also relieved from having
to contend against the high military talents of a veteran commander, who
thoroughly understood their national character, and the nature of
the country, which he himself had principally subdued. In the room of
Tiberius, Augustus sent into Germany Quintilius Varus, who had lately
returned from the proconsulate of Syria. Varus was a true representative
of the higher classes of the Romans; among whom a general taste for
literature, a keen susceptibility to all intellectual gratifications,
a minute acquaintance with the principles and practice of their own
national jurisprudence, a careful training in the schools of the
rhetoricians, and a fondness for either partaking in or watching the
intellectual strife of forensic oratory, had become generally diffused;
without, however, having humanized the old Roman spirit of cruel
indifference for human feelings and human sufferings, and without acting
as the least check on unprincipled avarice and ambition, or on habitual
and gross profligacy. Accustomed to govern the depraved and debased
natives of Syria, a country where courage in man, and virtue in woman,
had for centuries been unknown, Varus thought that he might gratify
his licentious and rapacious passions with equal impunity among the
high-minded sons and pure-spirited daughters of Germany. When the
general of an army sets the example of outrages of this description, he
is soon faithfully imitated by his officers, and surpassed by his
still more brutal soldiery. The Romans now habitually indulged in those
violations of the sanctity of the domestic shrine, and those insults
upon honour and modesty, by which far less gallant spirits than those of
our Teutonic ancestors have often been maddened into insurrection.
[I cannot forbear quoting Macaulay's beautiful lines, where he describes
how similar outrages in the early times of Rome goaded the plebeians to
rise against the patricians:--
"Heap heavier still the fetters; bar closer still the grate;
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate.
But by the shades beneath us, and by the gods above,
Add not unto your cruel hate your still more cruel love.
* * *
Then leave the poor plebeian his single tie to life--
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife,
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vext soul endures,
The kiss in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours.
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with
pride;
Still let the bridegroom's arms enfold an unpolluted bride.
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to
flame;
Lest when our latest hope is fled ye taste of our despair,
And learn by proof in some wild hour, how much the wretched
dare."]
Arminius found among the other German chiefs many who sympathised with
him in his indignation at their country's debasement, and many whom
private wrongs had stung yet more deeply. There was little difficulty in
collecting bold leaders for an attack on the oppressors, and little
fear of the population not rising readily at those leaders' call. But
to declare open war against Rome, and to encounter Varus's army in a
pitched battle, would have been merely rushing upon certain destruction.
Varus had three legions under him, a force which, after allowing for
detachments, cannot be estimated at less than fourteen thousand Roman
infantry. He had also eight or nine hundred Roman cavalry, and at least
an equal number of horse and foot sent from the allied states, or raised
among those provincials who had not received the Roman franchise.
It was not merely the number, but the quality of this force that made
it formidable; and however contemptible Varus might be as a general,
Arminius well knew how admirably the Roman armies were organized and
officered, and how perfectly the legionaries understood every manoeuvre
and every duty which the varying emergencies of a stricken field might
require. Stratagem was, therefore, indispensable; and it was necessary
to blind Varus to his schemes until a favourable opportunity should
arrive for striking a decisive blow.
For this purpose the German confederates frequented the headquarters of
Varus, which seem to have been near the centre of the modern country
of Westphalia, where the Roman general conducted himself with all the
arrogant security of the governor of a perfectly submissive province.
There Varus gratified at once his vanity, his rhetorical taste, and his
avarice, by holding courts, to which he summoned the Germans for
the settlement of all their disputes, while a bar of Roman advocates
attended to argue the cases before the tribunal of the Proconsul;
who did not omit the opportunity of exacting court-fees and accepting
bribes. Varus trusted implicitly to the respect which the Germans
pretended to pay to his abilities as a judge, and to the interest which
they affected to take in the forensic eloquence of their conquerors.
Meanwhile a succession of heavy rains rendered the country more
difficult for the operations of regular troops; and Arminius, seeing
that the infatuation of Varus was complete, secretly directed the tribes
near the Weser and the Ems to take up arms in open revolt against the
Romans. This was represented to Varus as an occasion which required his
prompt attendance at the spot; but he was kept in studied ignorance of
its being part of a concerted national rising; and he still looked
on Arminius as his submissive vassal, whose aid he might rely on
in facilitating the march of his troops against the rebels, and in
extinguishing the local disturbance. He therefore set his army in
motion, and marched eastward in a line parallel to the course of the
Lippe. For some distance his route lay along a level plain; but on
arriving at the tract between the curve of the upper part of that
stream and the sources of the Ems, the country assumes a very different
character; and here, in the territory of the modern little principality
of Lippe, it was that Arminius had fixed the scene of his enterprise.
A woody and hilly region intervenes between the heads of the two rivers,
and forms the water-shed of their streams. This region still retains
the name (Teutoberger wald--Teutobergiensis saltus) which it bore in the
days of Arminius. The nature of the ground has probably also remained
unaltered. The eastern part of it, round Detmoldt, the present capital
of the principality of Lippe, is described by a modern German scholar,
Dr. Plate, as being "a table-land intersected by numerous deep and
narrow valleys, which in some places form small plains, surrounded by
steep mountains and rocks, and only accessible by narrow defiles. All
the valleys are traversed by rapid streams, shallow in the dry season,
but subject to sudden swellings in autumn and winter. The vast forests
which cover the summits and slopes of the hills consist chiefly of oak;
there is little underwood, and both men and horse would move with ease
in the forests if the ground were not broken by gulleys, or rendered
impracticable by fallen trees." This is the district to which Varus is
supposed to have marched; and Dr. Plate adds, that "the names of several
localities on and near that spot seem to indicate that a great battle
had once been fought there. We find the names 'das Winnefeld' (the field
of victory), 'die Knochenbahn' (the bone-lane), 'die Knochenleke' (the
bone-brook), 'der Mordkessel' (the kettle of slaughter), and others." [I
am indebted for much valuable information on this subject to my friend
Mr. Henry Pearson.]
Contrary to the usual strict principles of Roman discipline, Varus had
suffered his army to be accompanied and impeded by an immense train of
baggage-waggons, and by a rabble of camp followers; as if his troops had
been merely changing their quarters in a friendly country. When the long
array quitted the firm level ground, and began to wind its way among the
woods, the marshes, and the ravines, the difficulties of the march, even
without the intervention of an armed foe, became fearfully apparent. In
many places the soil, sodden with rain, was impracticable for cavalry
and even for infantry, until trees had been felled, and a rude causeway
formed through the morass.
The duties of the engineer were familiar to all who served in the Roman
armies. But the crowd and confusion of the columns embarrassed the
working parties of the soldiery, and in the midst of their toil and
disorder the word was suddenly passed through their ranks that the
rear-guard was attacked by the barbarians. Varus resolved on pressing
forward; but a heavy discharge of missiles from the woods on either
flank taught him how serious was the peril, and he saw the best men
falling round him without the opportunity of retaliation; for his
light-armed auxiliaries, who were principally of Germanic race, now
rapidly deserted, and it was impossible to deploy the legionaries on
such broken ground for a charge against the enemy. Choosing one of the
most open and firm spots which they could force their way to, the Romans
halted for the night; and, faithful to their national discipline and
tactics, formed their camp amid the harassing attacks of the rapidly
thronging foes, with the elaborate toil and systematic skill, the traces
of which are impressed permanently on the soil of so many European
countries, attesting the presence in the olden time of the imperial
eagles.
On the morrow the Romans renewed their march; the veteran officers who
served under Varus now probably directing the operations, and hoping
to find the Germans drawn up to meet them; in which case they relied on
their own superior discipline and tactics for such a victory as
should reassure the supremacy of Rome. But Arminius was far too sage a
commander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy broadswords and
inefficient defensive armour, against the Roman legionaries, fully armed
with helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield; who were skilled to commence
the conflict with a murderous volley of heavy javelins, hurled upon the
foe when a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrust
swords, to hew their way through all opposition; preserving the utmost
steadiness and coolness, and obeying each word of command. In the midst
of strife and slaughter with the same precision and alertness as if upon
parade. [See Gibbon's description (vol. i, chap. 1) of the Roman legions
in the time of Augustus; and see the description in Tacitus (Ann. lib.
i) of the subsequent battles between Caecina and Arminius.] Arminius
suffered the Romans to march out from their camp, to form first in
line for action, and then in column for marching, without the show
of opposition. For some distance Varus was allowed to move on, only
harassed by slight skirmishes, but struggling with difficulty through
the broken ground; the toil and distress of his men being aggravated by
heavy torrents of rain, which burst upon the devoted legions as if the
angry gods of Germany were pouring out the vials of their wrath upon the
invaders. After some little time their van approached a ridge of high
woody ground, which is one of the off-shoots of the great Hercynian
forest, and is situate between the modern villages of Driburg and
Bielefeld. Arminius had caused barricades of hewn trees to be formed
here, so as to add to the natural difficulties of the passage. Fatigue
and discouragement now began to betray themselves in the Roman ranks.
Their line became less steady; baggage-waggons were abandoned from
the impossibility of forcing them along; and, as this happened, many
soldiers left their ranks and crowded round the waggons to secure the
most valuable portions of their property; each was busy about his own
affairs, and purposely slow in hearing the word of command from his
officers. Arminius now gave the signal for a general attack. The fierce
shouts of the Germans pealed through the gloom of the forests, and in
thronging multitudes they assailed the flanks of the invaders, pouring
in clouds of darts on the encumbered legionaries, as they struggled up
the glens or floundered in the morasses, and watching every opportunity
of charging through the intervals of the disjointed column, and so
cutting off the communication between its several brigades. Arminius,
with a chosen band of personal retainers round him, cheered on his
countrymen by voice and example. He and his men aimed their weapons
particularly at the horses of the Roman cavalry. The wounded animals,
slipping about in the mire and their own blood, threw their riders,
and plunged among the ranks of the legions, disordering all round
them. Varus now ordered the troops to be countermarched, in the hope of
reaching the nearest Roman garrison on the Lippe. [The circumstances
of the early part of the battle which Arminius fought with Caecina six
years afterwards, evidently resembled those of his battle with Varus,
and the result was very near being the same: I have therefore adopted
part of the description which Tacitus gives (Ann. lib. i. c. 65) of the
last mentioned engagement: "Neque tamen Arminius, quamquam libero in
cursu, statim prorupit: sed ut haesere caeno fossisque impedimenta,
turbati circum milites; incertus signorum ordo; utque tali in tempore
sibi quisque properus, et lentae adversum imperia aures, irrumpere
Germanos jubet, clamitans 'En Varus, et eodem iterum fato victae
legiones!' Simul haec, et cum delectis scindit agmen, equisque maxime
vulnera ingerit; illi sanguine suo et lubrico paludum lapsantes,
excussis rectoribus, disjicere obvios, proterere jacentes."] But retreat
now was as impracticable as advance; and the falling back of the Romans
only augmented the courage of their assailants, and caused fiercer and
more frequent charges on the flanks of the disheartened army. The Roman
officer who commanded the cavalry, Numonius Vala, rode off with his
squadrons, in the vain hope of escaping by thus abandoning his comrades.
Unable to keep together, or force their way across the woods and swamps,
the horsemen were overpowered in detail and slaughtered to the last man.
The Roman infantry still held together and resisted, but more through
the instinct of discipline and bravery than from any hope of success or
escape. Varus, after being severely wounded in a charge of the Germans
against his part of the column, committed suicide to avoid falling into
the hands of those whom he had exasperated by his oppressions. One of
the lieutenant-generals of the army fell fighting; the other surrendered
to the enemy. But mercy to a fallen foe had never been a Roman virtue,
and those among her legions who now laid down their arms in hope of
quarter, drank deep of the cup of suffering, which Rome had held to
the lips of many a brave but unfortunate enemy. The infuriated Germans
slaughtered their oppressors with deliberate ferocity; and those
prisoners who were not hewn to pieces on the spot, were only preserved
to perish by a more cruel death in cold blood.
The bulk of the Roman army fought steadily and stubbornly, frequently
repelling the masses of the assailants, but gradually losing the
compactness of their array, and becoming weaker and weaker beneath the
incessant shower of darts and the reiterated assaults of the vigorous
and unencumbered Germans. At last, in a series of desperate attacks the
column was pierced through and through, two of the eagles captured, and
the Roman host, which on the yester morning had marched forth in such
pride and might, now broken up into confused fragments, either fell
fighting beneath the overpowering numbers of the enemy, or perished in
the swamps and woods in unavailing efforts at flight. Few, very few,
ever saw again the left bank of the Rhine. One body of brave veterans,
arraying themselves in a ring on a little mound, beat off every charge
of the Germans, and prolonged their honourable resistance to the close
of that dreadful day. The traces of a feeble attempt at forming a ditch
and mound attested in after years the spot where the last of the Romans
passed their night of suffering and despair. But on the morrow this
remnant also, worn out with hunger, wounds, and toil, was charged by the
victorious Germans, and either massacred on the spot, or offered up in
fearful rites at the alters of the deities of the old mythology of the
North.
A gorge in the mountain ridge, through which runs the modern road
between Paderborn and Pyrmont, leads from the spot where the heat of the
battle raged, to the Extersteine, a cluster of bold and grotesque rocks
of sandstone; near which is a small sheet of water, overshadowed by a
grove of aged trees. According to local tradition, this was one of the
sacred groves of the ancient Germans, and it was here that the Roman
captives were slain in sacrifice by the victorious warriors of Arminius.
["Lucis propinquis barbarae arae, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinam
centuriones mactaverant."--TACITUS, Ann. lib. i. c. 61.]
Never was victory more decisive, never was the liberation of an
oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the
Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and, within a few weeks after
Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.
At Rome, the tidings of the battle was received with an agony of terror,
the descriptions of which we should deem exaggerated, did they not come
from Roman historians themselves. These passages in the Roman writers
not only tell emphatically how great was the awe which the Romans felt
of the prowess of the Germans, if their various tribes could be brought
to reunite for a common purpose, but also they reveal bow weakened and
debased the population of Italy had become. [It is clear that the Romans
followed the policy of fomenting dissension and wars of the Germans
among themselves. See the thirty-third section of the "Germania" of
Tacitus, where he mentions the destruction of the Bructeri by the
neighbouring tribes: "Favore quodam erga nos deorum: nam ne spectaculo
quidem proelii invidere: super LX. millia non armis telisque Romanis,
sed, quod magnificentius est, oblectationi oculisque ceciderunt. Maneat
quaeso, duretque gentibus, si non amor nostri at certe odium sui quando
urgentibus imperii fatis, nihil jam praestare fortuna majus potes quam
hostiam discordiam."] Dion Cassius says: [Lib. lvi. sec. 23.] "Then
Augustus, when he heard the calamity of Varus, rent his garments, and
was in great affliction for the troops he had lost, and for terror
respecting the Germans and the Gauls. And his chief alarm was, that he
expected them to push on against Italy and Rome: and there remained no
Roman youth fit for military duty, that were worth speaking of, and the
allied populations that were at all serviceable had been wasted away.
Yet he prepared for the emergency as well as his means allowed; and when
none of the citizens of military age were willing to enlist he made them
cast lots, and punished by confiscation of goods and disfranchisement
every fifth man among those under thirty-five, and every tenth man of
those above that age. At last, when he found that not even thus; could
he make many come forward, he put some of them to death. So he made
a conscription of discharged veterans and emancipated slaves, and
collecting as large a force as he could, sent it, under Tiberius, with
all speed into Germany."
Dion mentions, also, a number of terrific portents that were believed to
have occurred at the time; and the narration of which is not immaterial,
as it shows the state of the public mind, when such things were so
believed in, and so interpreted. The summits of the Alps were said to
have fallen, and three columns of fire to have blazed up from them. In
the Campus Martius, the temple of the War-God, from whom the founder of
Rome had sprung, was struck by a thunderbolt. The nightly heavens glowed
several times, as if on fire. Many comets blazed forth together; and
fiery meteors shaped like spears, had shot from the northern quarter of
the sky, down into the Roman camps. It was said, too, that a statue of
Victory, which had stood at a place on the frontier, pointing the way
towards Germany, had of its own accord turned round, and now pointed
to Italy. These and other prodigies were believed by the multitude to
accompany the slaughter of Varus's legions, and to manifest the anger of
the gods against Rome, Augustus himself was not free from superstition;
but on this occasion no supernatural terrors were needed to increase the
alarm and grief that he felt; and which made him, even for months after
the news of the battle had arrived, often beat his head against the
wall, and exclaim, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" We learn
this from his biographer, Suetonius; and, indeed, every ancient writer
who alludes to the overthrow of Varus, attests the importance of the
blow against the Roman power, and the bitterness with which it was felt.
[Florus expresses its effect most pithily: "Hac clade factum est ut
imperium quod in litore oceani non steterat, in ripa Rheni fluminis
staret" (iv. 12).]
The Germans did not pursue their victory beyond their own territory.
But that victory secured at once and for ever the independence of the
Teutonic race. Rome sent, indeed, her legions again into Germany, to
parade a temporary superiority; but all hopes of permanent conquest were
abandoned by Augustus and his successors.
The blow which Arminius had struck never was forgotten, Roman fear
disguised itself under the specious title of moderation; and the Rhine
became the acknowledged boundary of the two nations until the fifth
century of our era, when the Germans became the assailants, and carved
with their conquering swords the provinces of Imperial Rome into the
kingdoms of modern Europe.
ARMINIUS.
I have said above that the great Cheruscan is more truly one of our
national heroes than Caractacus is. It may be added that an Englishman
is entitled to claim a closer degree of relationship with Arminius
than can be claimed by any German of modern Germany. The proof of this
depends on the proof of four facts: first, that the Cherusci were
Old Saxons, or Saxons of the interior of Germany; secondly, that the
Anglo-Saxons, or Saxons of the coast of Germany, were more closely akin
than other German tribes were to the Cheruscan Saxons; thirdly, that the
Old Saxons were almost exterminated by Charlemagne; fourthly, that
the Anglo-Saxons are our immediate ancestors. The last of these may be
assumed as an axiom in English history. The proofs of the other three
are partly philological, and partly historical. I have not space to
go into them here, but they will be found in the early chapters of the
great work of Dr. Robert Gordon Latham on the "English Language;" and
in the notes to his edition of the "Germania of Tacitus." It may be,
however, here remarked that the present Saxons of Germany are of the
High Germanic division of the German race, whereas both the Anglo-Saxon
and Old Saxon were of the Low Germanic.
Being thus the nearest heirs of the glory of Arminius, we may fairly
devote more attention to his career than, in such a work as the present,
could be allowed to any individual leader, and it is interesting to
trace how far his fame survived during the middle ages, both among the
Germans of the Continent and among ourselves.
It seems probable that the jealousy with which Maraboduus, the king of
the Suevi and Marcomanni, regarded Arminius, and which ultimately broke
out into open hostilities between those German tribes and the Cherusci,
prevented Arminius from leading the confederate Germans to attack Italy
after his first victory. Perhaps he may have had the rare moderation
of being content with the liberation of his country, without seeking to
retaliate on her former oppressors. When Tiberius marched into Germany
in the year 10, Arminius was too cautious to attack him on ground
favourable to the legions, and Tiberius was too skilful, to entangle his
troops in difficult parts of the country. His march and counter-march
were as unresisted as they were unproductive. A few years later, when
a dangerous revolt of the Roman legions near the frontier caused
their generals to find them active employment by leading them into the
interior of Germany, we find Arminius again energetic in his country's
defence. The old quarrel between him and his father-in-law, Segestes,
had broken out afresh. Segestes now called in the aid of the Roman
general, Germanicus, to whom he surrendered himself; and by his
contrivance his daughter Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, also came into
the hands of the Romans, being far advanced in pregnancy. She showed, as
Tacitus relates, [Ann. i. 57.] more of the spirit of her husband than
of her father, a spirit that could not be subdued into tears or
supplications. She was sent to Ravenna, and there gave birth to a son,
whose life we find, from an allusion in Tacitus, to have been eventful
and unhappy; but the part of the great historian's work which narrated
his fate has perished, and we only know from another quarter that
the son of Arminius was, at the age of four years, led captive in a
triumphal pageant along the streets of Rome.
The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy by these
bereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from him, and of his
babe doomed to bondage even before its birth, inflamed the eloquent
invectives with which he roused his countrymen against the home
traitors, and against their invaders, who thus made war upon women and
children. Germanicus had marched his army to the place where Varus had
perished, and had there paid funeral honours to the ghastly relics
of his predecessor's legions that he found heaped around him. [In
the Museum of Rhenish antiquities at Bonn there is a Roman sepulchral
monument, the inscription on which records that it was erected to the
memory of M. Coelius, who fell "BELLO VARIANO."] Arminius lured him to
advance a little further into the country, and then assailed him, and
fought a battle, which, by the Roman accounts, was a drawn one. The
effect of it was to make Germanicus resolve on retreating to the Rhine.
He himself, with part of his troops, embarked in some vessels on the
Ems, and returned by that river, and then by sea; but part of his forces
were entrusted to a Roman general, named Caecina, to lead them back by
land to the Rhine. Arminius followed this division on its march, and
fought several battles with it, in which he inflicted heavy loss on
the Romans, captured the greater part of their baggage, and would have
destroyed them completely, had not his skilful system of operations been
finally thwarted by the haste of Inguiomerus, a confederate German chief
who insisted on assaulting the Romans in their camp, instead of waiting
till they were entangled in the difficulties of the country, and
assailing their columns on the march.
In the following year the Romans were inactive; but in the year
afterwards Germanicus led a fresh invasion. He placed his army on
ship-board, and sailed to the mouth of the Ems, where he disembarked,
and marched to the Weser, where he encamped, probably in the
neighbourhood of Minden. Arminius had collected his army on the other
side of the river; and a scene occurred, which is powerfully told by
Tacitus, and which is the subject of a beautiful poem by Praed. It has
been already mentioned that the brother of Arminius, like himself, had
been trained up, while young, to serve in the Roman armies; but, unlike
Arminius, he not only refused to quit the Roman service for that of his
country, but fought against his country with the legions of Germanicus.
He had assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and had gained considerable
distinction in the Roman service, in which he had lost an eye from a
wound in battle. When the Roman outposts approached the river Weser,
Arminius called out to them from the opposite bank, and expressed a wish
to see his brother. Flavius stepped forward, and Arminius ordered
his own followers to retire, and requested that the archers should
be removed from the Roman bank of the river. This was done: and the
brothers, who apparently had not seen each other for some years, began
a conversation from the opposite sides of the stream, in which Arminius
questioned his brother respecting the loss of his eye, and what battle
it had been lost in, and what reward he had received for his wound.
Flavius told him how the eye was destroyed, and mentioned the increased
pay that he had on account of its loss, and showed the collar and other
military decorations that had been given him. Arminius mocked at these
as badges of slavery; and then each began to try to win the other
over; Flavius boasting the power of Rome, and her generosity to the
submissive; Arminius appealing to him in the name of their country's
gods, of the mother that had borne them, and by the holy names of
fatherland and freedom, not to prefer being the betrayer to being
the champion of his country. They soon proceeded to mutual taunts and
menaces, and Flavius called aloud for his horse and his arms, that he
might dash across the river and attack his brother; nor would he have
been checked from doing so, had not the Roman general, Stertinius, run
up to him, and forcibly detained him. Arminius stood on the other bank,
threatening the renegade, and defying him to battle.
I shall not be thought to need apology for quoting here the stanzas in
which Praed has described this scene--a scene among the most affecting,
as well as the most striking, that history supplies. It makes us reflect
on the desolate position of Arminius, with his wife and child captives
in the enemy's hands, and with his brother a renegade in arms against
him. The great liberator of our German race stood there, with every
source of human happiness denied him, except the consciousness of doing
his duty to his country.
"Back, back! he fears not foaming flood
Who fears not steel-clad line:--
No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.
Go, earn Rome's chain to load thy neck,
Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honour's hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt.
"But wouldst thou have ME share the prey?
By all that I have done,--
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun,
The legion's trampled panoply,
The eagle's shattered wing,--
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorn'd and mean a thing.
"Ho, call me here the wizard, boy,
Of dark and subtle skill,
To agonise but not destroy,
To curse, but not to kill.
When swords are out, and shriek and shout,
Leave little room for prayer,
No fetter on man's arm or heart
Hangs half so heavy there.
"I curse him by the gifts the land
Hath won from him and Rome--
The riving axe, the wasting brand,
Rent forest, blazing home.
I curse him by our country's gods,
The terrible, the dark,
The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.
"Oh misery, that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle's van
His country's chief to be?--
To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame,
And worthy of a brother's pride
And of a brother's name?
"But it is past!--where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee
Arminius is not brotherless;
His brethren are the free.
They come around: one hour, and light
Will fade from turf and tide,
Then onward, onward to the fight
With darkness for our guide.
"To-night, to-night, when we shall meet
In combat face to face,
Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade's embrace.
The canker of Rome's guilt shall be
Upon his dying name;
And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.
On the day after the Romans had reached the Weser, Germanicus led his
army across that river, and a partial encounter took place, in which
Arminius was successful. But on the succeeding day a general action was
fought, in which Arminius was severely wounded, and the German infantry
routed with heavy loss. The horsemen of the two armies encountered
without either party gaining the advantage. But the Roman army remained
master of the ground, and claimed a complete victory. Germanicus erected
a trophy in the field, with a vaunting inscription, that the nations
between the Rhine and the Elbe had been thoroughly conquered by his
army. But that army speedily made a final retreat to the left bank of
the Rhine; nor was the effect of their campaign more durable than their
trophy. The sarcasm with which Tacitus speaks of certain other
triumphs of Roman generals over Germans, may apply to the pageant which
Germanicus celebrated on his return to Rome from his command of the
Roman army of the Rhine. The Germans were "TRIUMPHATI POTIUS QUAM
VICTI."
After the Romans had abandoned their attempts on Germany, we find
Arminius engaged in hostilities with Maroboduus, the king of the Suevi
and Marcomanni who was endeavouring to bring the other German tribes
into a state of dependency on him. Arminius was at the head of the
Germans who took up arms against this home invader of their liberties.
After some minor engagements, a pitched battle was fought between the
two confederacies, A.D. 16, in which the loss on each side was equal;
but Maroboduus confessed the ascendency of his antagonist by avoiding
a renewal of the engagement, and by imploring the intervention of the
Romans in his defence. The younger Drusus then commanded the Roman
legions in the province of Illyricum, and by his mediation a peace was
concluded between Arminius and Maroboduus, by the terms of which it
is evident that the latter must have renounced his ambitious schemes
against the freedom of the other German tribes.
Arminius did not long survive this second war of independence, which
he successfully waged for his country. He was assassinated in the
thirty-seventh year of his age, by some of his own kinsmen, who
conspired against him. Tacitus says that this happened while he was
engaged in a civil war, which had been caused by his attempts to make
himself king over his countrymen. It is far more probable (as one of the
best biographers of Arminius has observed) that Tacitus misunderstood an
attempt of Arminius to extend his influence as elective war-chieftain
of the Cherusci, and other tribes, for an attempt to obtain the royal
dignity. [Dr. Plate, in Biographical Dictionary commenced by the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.] When we remember that his
father-in-law and his brother were renegades, we can well understand
that a party among his kinsmen may have been bitterly hostile to him,
and have opposed his authority with the tribe by open violence, and when
that seemed ineffectual, by secret assassination.
Arminius left a name, which the historians of the nation against which
he combated so long and so gloriously have delighted to honour. It is
from the most indisputable source, from the lips of enemies, that
we know his exploits. [See Tacitus, Ann. lib. ii. sec. 88; Velleius
Paterculus, lib. ii. sec. 118.] His country men made history, but did
not write it. But his memory lived among them in the lays of their
bards, who recorded
"The deeds he did, the fields he won, The freedom he restored."
Tacitus, many years after the death of Arminius, says of him, "Canitur
adhuc barbaras apud gentes." As time passed on, the gratitude of ancient
Germany to her great deliverer grew into adoration, and divine honours
were paid for centuries to Arminius by every tribe of the Low Germanic
division of the Teutonic races. The Irmin-sul, or the column of Herman,
near Eresburg, the modern Stadtberg, was the chosen object of worship to
the descendants of the Cherusci, the Old Saxons, and in defence of which
they fought most desperately against Charlemagne and his christianized
Franks. "Irmin, in the cloudy Olympus of Teutonic belief, appears as a
king and a warrior; and the pillar, the 'Irmin-sul,' bearing the statue,
and considered as the symbol of the deity, was the Palladium of the
Saxon nation, until the temple of Eresburg was destroyed by Charlemagne,
and the column itself transferred to the monastery of Corbey, where,
perhaps, a portion of the rude rock idol yet remains, covered by the
ornaments of the Gothic era." [Palgrave on the English Commonwealth,
vol. ii. p. 140.]
Traces of the worship of Arminius are to be found among our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors, after their settlement in this island. One of the four great
highways was held to be under the protection of the deity, and was
called the "Irmin-street." The name Arminius is, of course, the mere
Latinized form of "Herman," the name by which the hero and the deity
were known by every man of Low German blood, on either side of the
German Sea. It means, etymologically, the "War-man," the "man of hosts."
No other explanation of the worship of the "Irmin-sul," and of the name
of the "Irmin-street," is so satisfactory as that which connects them
with the deified Arminius. We know for certain of the existence of other
columns of an analogous character. Thus, there was the Roland-seule
in North Germany; there was a Thor-seule in Sweden, and (what is
more important) there was an Athelstan-seule in Saxon England. [See
Lappenburg's Anglo-Saxons, p. 378. For nearly all the philological and
ethnographical facts respecting Arminius, I am indebted to Dr. R. G.
Latham.]
There is at the present moment a song respecting the Irmin-sul current
in the bishopric of Minden, one version of which might seem only to
refer to Charlemagne having pulled down the Irmin-sul:--
"Herman, sla dermen, Sla pipen, sla trummen,
De Kaiser will kummen,
Met hamer un stangen,
Will Herman uphangen."
But there is another version, which probably is the oldest, and which
clearly refers to the great Arminius:--
"Un Herman slaug dermen; Slaug pipen, slaug trummen;
De fursten sind kammen,
Met all eren-mannen
Hebt VARUS uphangen."
[See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 329.]
About ten centuries and a half after the demolition of the Irmin-sul,
and nearly eighteen after the death of Arminius, the modern Germans
conceived the idea of rendering tardy homage to their great hero; and,
accordingly some eight or ten years ago, a general subscription was
organized in Germany, for the purpose of erecting on the Osning--a
conical mountain, which forms the highest summit of the Teutoberger
Wald, and is eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea--a
colossal bronze statue of Arminius. The statue was designed by Bandel.
The hero was to stand uplifting a sword in his right hand, and looking
towards the Rhine. The height of the statue was to be eighty feet from
the base to the point of the sword, and was to stand on a circular
Gothic temple, ninety feet high, and supported by oak trees as columns.
The mountain, where it was to be erected, is wild and stern, and
overlooks the scene of the battle. It was calculated that the statue
would be clearly visible at a distance of sixty miles. The temple is
nearly finished, and the statue itself has been cast at the copper works
at Lemgo. But there, through want of funds to set it up, it has lain for
some years, in disjointed fragments, exposed to the mutilating homage
of relic-seeking travellers. The idea of honouring a hero who belongs to
ALL Germany, is not one which the present rulers of that divided country
have any wish to encourage; and the statue may long continue to lie
there, and present too true a type of the condition of Germany herself.
[On the subject of this statue I must repeat an acknowledgment of my
obligations to my friend Mr. Henry Pearson.]
Surely this is an occasion in which Englishmen might well prove, by acts
as well as words, that we also rank Arminius among our heroes.
I have quoted the noble stanzas of one of our modern English poets on
Arminius, and I will conclude this memoir with one of the odes of the
great poet of modern Germany, Klopstock, on the victory to which we owe
our freedom, and Arminius mainly owes his fame. Klopstock calls it
the "Battle of Winfield." The epithet of "Sister of Cannae" shows that
Klopstock followed some chronologers, according to whom, Varus was
defeated on the anniversary of the day on which Paulus and Varro were
defeated by Hannibal.
SONG OF TRIUMPH AFTER THE VICTORY OF HERRMAN, THE DELIVERER OF GERMANY
FROM THE ROMANS.
FROM KLOPSTOCK'S "HERRMAN UND DIE FURSTEN." Supposed to be sung by a
Chorus of Bards.
A CHORUS.
Sister of Cannae! Winfield's fight!
We saw thee with thy streaming bloody hair,
With fiery eye, bright with the world's despair,
Sweep by Walhalla's bards from out our sight.
Herrman outspake--"Now Victory or Death!"
The Romans,... "Victory!"
And onward rushed their eagles with the cry.
--So ended the FIRST day.
"Victory or Death!" began
Then, first, the Roman chief; and Herrman spake
Not, but home struck: the eagles fluttered--brake.
--So sped the SECOND day.
TWO CHORUSES.
And the third came.... The cry was "Flight or Death!"
Flight left they not for them who'd make them slaves--
Men who stab children!--flight for THEM!... no! graves!
--'Twas their LAST day.
TWO BARDS.
Yet spared they messengers: two came to Rome.
How drooped the plume! the lance was left to trail
Down in the dust behind: their cheek was pale:
So came the messengers to Rome.
High in his hall the Imperator sate--
OCTAVIANUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS sate.
They filled up wine-cups, wine-cups filled they up
For him the highest, Jove of all their state.
The flutes of Lydia hushed before their voice,
Before the messengers--the "Highest" sprung--
The god against the marble pillars, wrung
By the dred words, striking his brow, and thrice
Cried he aloud in anguish--"Varus! Varus!
Give back my legions, Varus!"
And now the world-wide conquerors shrunk and feared
For fatherland and home
The lance to raise; and 'mongst those false to Rome
The death-lot rolled, and still they shrunk and feared;
"For she her face hath turned,
The victor goddess," cried these cowards--(for aye
Be it!)--"from Rome and Romans, and her day
Is done!"--And still be mourned
And cried aloud in anguish--"Varus! Varus!
Give back my legions, Varus!"
[Notes:--The battle of Cannae, B.C. 216--Hannibal's victory over the
Romans. Winfield--the probable site of the "Herrmanschladt." See SUPRA.
Augustus was worshipped as a deity in his lifetime. I have taken this
translation from an anonymous writer in FRASER, two years ago.]
SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN ARMINIUS'S VICTORY OVER VARUS, AND THE BATTLE
OF CHALONS.
A.D. 43. The Romans commence the conquest of Britain, Claudius being
then Emperor of Rome. The population of this island was then Celtic. In
about forty years all the tribes south of the Clyde were subdued, and
their land made a Roman province.
68-60. Successful campaigns of the Roman general Corbulo against the
Parthians.
64. First persecution of the Christians at Rome under Nero.
68-70. Civil wars in the Roman World. The emperors Nero, Galba, Otho,
and Vitellius, cut off successively by violent deaths. Vespasian becomes
emperor.
70. Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans under Titus.
83. Futile attack of Domitian on the Germans.
86. Beginning of the wars between the Romans and the Dacians.
98-117. Trajan, emperor of Rome. Under him the empire acquires its
greatest territorial extent by his conquests in Dacia and in the East.
His successor, Hadrian, abandons the provinces beyond the Euphrates,
which Trajan had conquered.
138-180. Era of the Antonines.
167-176. A long and desperate war between Rome and a great confederacy
of the German nations. Marcus Antoninus at last succeeds in repelling
them.
192-197. Civil Wars throughout the Roman world. Severus becomes emperor.
He relaxes the discipline of the soldiers. After his death in 211, the
series of military insurrections, civil wars, and murders of emperors
recommences.
226. Artaxerxes (Ardisheer) overthrows the Parthian, and restores the
Persian kingdom in Asia. He attacks the Roman possessions in the East.
260. The Goths invade the Roman provinces. The emperor Decius is
defeated and slain by them.
253-260. The Franks and Alemanni invade Gaul, Spain, and Africa. The
Goths attack Asia Minor and Greece. The Persians conquer Armenia. Their
king, Sapor, defeats the Roman emperor Valerian, and takes him prisoner.
General distress of the Roman empire.
268-283. The emperors Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus
defeat the various enemies of Rome, and restore order in the Roman
state.
285. Diocletian divides and reorganizes the Roman empire. After his
abdication in 305 a fresh series of civil wars and confusion ensues.
Constantine, the first Christian emperor, reunites the empire in 324.
330. Constantine makes Constantinople the seat of empire instead of
Rome.
363. The emperor Julian is killed in action against the Persians.
364-375. The empire is again divided, Valentinian being emperor of the
West, and Valens of the East. Valentinian repulses the Alemanni, and
other German invaders from Gaul. Splendour of the Gothic kingdom under
Hermanric, north of the Danube.
376-395. The Huns attack the Goths, who implore the protection of the
Roman emperor of the East. The Goths are allowed to pass the Danube, and
to settle in the Roman provinces. A war soon breaks out between them and
the Romans, and the emperor Valens and his army are destroyed by them.
They ravage the Roman territories. The emperor Theodosius reduces them
to submission. They retain settlements in Thrace and Asia Minor.
395. Final division of the Roman empire between Arcadius and Honorius,
the two sons of Theodosius. The Goths revolt, and under Alaric attack
various parts of both the Roman empires.
410. Alaric takes the city of Rome.
412. The Goths march into Gaul, and in 414 into Spain, which had been
already invaded by hosts of Vandals, Suevi, Alani, and other Germanic
nations. Britain is formally abandoned by the Roman emperor of the West.
428. Genseric, king of the Vandals, conquers the Roman province of North
Africa.
441. The Huns attack the Eastern empire.