"But I suppose you did not think your uncle's life would be
sufficiently safe under my protection, Herculanus, since you were so
eager to join us?" asked the Tribune.
Before the nephew could answer, Ausonius interrupted: "But--thank the
gods--our campaign will be bloodless: the Barbarians have abandoned the
country. Where can they have gone? What have you learned through your
spies of the movements of the enemy?"
"Nothing. That is the mysterious part of it. It seems as though the
earth had swallowed them. They are said to have numerous subterranean
passages and cellars, in which they conceal their provisions and
themselves in times of danger. We found it very difficult to obtain
spies among our colonists on the southern shore. They know very well
that we Romans come and go; the Alemanni remain in the country, and
they fear their vengeance. And deserters can no longer be had. In
former wars they were often mentioned. But the fact that there are no
renegades shows that self-reliance is increasing and the dread or hope
of Rome is declining. I could get only two volunteers--for a large sum
of money--to venture upon a reconnoitring expedition; the one who went
to the East returned without having seen a sign of the foe; the one
dispatched to the North has not yet appeared. And unfortunately we have
not taken even one prisoner. Not a sign of a human footprint have we
seen on the whole march along the lake. Once, it is true, I thought I
saw a light column of smoke rising from the dense growth of rushes
which stretches for leagues into the lake, and ordered the troops to
halt; but the tiny cloud instantly vanished."
"I can understand the strategy of our admirable General only by
crediting him with an almost offensive degree of caution," sneered the
commander of the mailed horsemen. "By Hercules! Wherever they may hide,
the Barbarians cannot be a day's march from us."
"Yes," Ausonius assented. "Yet I should think we might be strong enough
to seek them and drive them from their hiding places."
Saturninus frowned slightly. "Your nephew's opinion of my courage gives
me no concern. But you, Prefect, have again forgotten that, by the
Emperor's orders, we are not to disperse the Barbarians, but to
surround them and force them to submission. We are too weak for this
encircling, and must wait for the ships. Unless our fleet should block
the lake, they will again escape, as they have often done, in their
boats. Stick to your hexameters, my Pierian friend, and leave the
Barbarians to me: it will be better for all concerned."
"Except the Barbarians!" replied Ausonius smiling, extending his hand
to his friend.
"Who are probably the leaders of the enemy?"
"The Romans on the southern shore mention two names. The rest of the
Alemanni provinces are mainly ruled by kings."
"So far do Germans carry royalty," nodded the learned Prefect. "May
they always continue to be divided into numberless provinces under
their hedge kings and village magistrates, whom each man obeys as much
as he chooses."
"It seems that this state of things has changed. Many provinces are
united in leagues, which hold together in peace as well as in war. The
men of Linzgau have no king now, it appears, only an aged count. But he
must be a man of powerful intellect, since the gray-haired Hariowald
has been chosen commander-in-chief of all the provinces leagued against
us. True, we have not to deal solely with the Lentienses. After
centuries of folly these Barbarians are beginning to discover that
'liberty,' that is, the privilege of doing what each man pleases
without regard to his neighbor, is, though a delightful, a somewhat
dangerous pleasure, and that with such 'liberty' they will be forever
our bondmen, so long as one province looks on with malicious pleasure
while we subjugate another with which it has had a quarrel--till its
own turn comes. Formerly they preferred to place their surplus of young
men at our disposal rather than have them obey the commands of one of
their own people, but for some time there has been a change; even those
splendid soldiers, my Batavians, no longer wish to remain with me, and
will not renew their oath of service. We no longer hear the names of
numberless small peoples: five or six great leagues fill the whole
country from the Ister to the Suabian Sea. It has long made me uneasy.
That old man is now the commander-in-chief of all the Germans allied
against us."
"Commander-in-chief of the Alemanni!"
"Don't laugh at them, Ausonius! Ay, this leadership of the woodland war
has cost us much blood and many a dear-bought victory, since the days
of that Quinctilius Varus. As the white-beard is said to be the head, a
young relative of his is called the arm, the sword, the fire-brand of
the conflict."
"What is his name?"
"Attalus."
"Adalo! That was one of Bissula's playmates. She often mentioned him. I
saw him frequently; he looked at me defiantly enough. Could it be he?"
"The women and men at our stations along the lake cannot say enough in
praise of his beauty and strength."
"Well, hitherto neither the warlike wisdom of the old man nor the
warlike zeal of the young one has showed itself," sneered Herculanus.
"Yes," laughed Ausonius. "Their wisdom is the resolve to run away, and
their zeal the energy with which they execute the decision."
But the Tribune, with frowning brow, cried: "Such speeches drive away
the goddess of victory and summon the avenger of foolhardiness. Jeer
after we have conquered--and even then, it is wiser not to do it.
Nemesis sleeps lightly."
"If you cannot discover where the Barbarians are hiding, what will you
do?"
"Seek them until I do find them and bring them to a halt."
"But then," cried Herculanus, "let there be no treaties, no mercy,
nothing save extermination. How often these faithless people have
broken the peace! Our legions are full of fury against the Barbarians
who, year after year, compel them to march through these horrible
marshy forests. Only the extirpation of the last German will give peace
to the Roman Empire." He clenched his fist threateningly.
"You have perhaps uttered words of prophecy," said Saturninus
thoughtfully, "but in a different sense from what you intended."
"He has uttered abominable words!" cried Ausonius, filling his goblet.
"And they are utterly groundless. Ay, more than a century ago it looked
as if the Persians and Germans under Gallienus would flood the Eastern
and the Western Empire. But since that time Eternal Rome has grown
young once more. Your brave countrymen, my Saturninus, the heroic
Illyrian emperors, have curbed the barbarians on the Euphrates, the
Rhine, and the Ister. Diocletian has remodelled the internal affairs of
the Empire; and so I might adapt to Rome's mastery of the world the
proud words of my colleague Horace: 'He did not lack talent, but he
possessed little learning.'"
"Do they belong to poetry?" asked Saturninus doubtfully.
But the eager speaker, without hearing his words, continued: "What he
said concerning the permanence and spread of his own renown I will
apply to the glory of Rome: it will increase and grow, so long as the
priest ascends the hill to the Capitol with the silent Virgin. The
Vestal," he added in explanation.
"H'm," observed the Illyrian, "only it's a pity that the hypothesis is
no longer apt."
"What? How so?"
"The pious Constantine, of murderous memory (I hear they want to
canonize the assassin of his mother and his wife) prohibited or
restricted the offering of sacrifices at the Capitol, and your pupil
and patron, Gratianus, recently abolished the Vestals."