Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
The fears of invasion, however, were not realized. L. Asprena guarded
the banks of the Rhine, and the Germans were too little united among
themselves to attack the Empire. Augustus in the following year sent
Tiberius to the Rhine with a fresh army; but he does not seem to have
effected anything of importance. Hermann meantime quarrelled with
Segestes, chief of the Catti, whose daughter Tusnelda, he had carried
off and married against her father's consent. When Germanicus, after
the death of Augustus, marched into the interior of Germany to avenge
the defeat of Varus, he was assisted by Segestes, and also by the
Chauci and other tribes. In the first battle against Hermann, his wife
Tusnelda, was taken prisoner by the Romans, and she afterward figured
in the triumph of Germanicus. Germanicus, having reached the scene of
Varus's defeat, paid funeral honors to the remains of the legions; but
Hermann, who was hovering about his line of march, without coming to a
pitched battle, harassed him in his retreat, and occasioned a great
loss to Caecina, the lieutenant of Germanicus.
In the following year, Germanicus advanced again as far as the
Visurgis, or Weser, where he found Hermann encamped ready for battle.
A desperate fight took place, in which Hermann, after performing
prodigies of valor, was defeated, and escaped with difficulty. But the
victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had to
take refuge in their ships, nor did the Romans ever again attempt the
conquest of the fiercer German tribes.
When Tiberius recalled Germanicus, he observed that the Cherusci,
Bructeri, and other unsubdued tribes, might be left to their own
internal dissensions. He seems to have guessed right.
No sooner had the Romans been driven off, than Hermann had to protect
his people against an internal danger. Maroboduus, the chief of the
Marcomanni, a man of great ambition, had by treachery or by open
fighting, made himself master of several neighboring tribes. Hermann
began to fear his designs, and after the defeat of Varus, warned him
of his peril by sending him the Roman general's head. When Germanicus
finally left the country, Hermann declared war against Maroboduus,
and, being joined by the Semnones and Longobards, defeated him on the
borders of the Hercynian forest, broke up his kingdom, and drove him
from Germany. The fugitive applied to Rome for assistance. Tiberius
then sent his son Drusus into the Illyricum; but the Romans did not
advance beyond the Danube, and Hermann remained unmolested in Northern
Germany. Shortly after, however, Hermann was killed by his own
relatives, being accused, as it would seem, of aspiring to absolute
dominion. He died at the age of thirty-seven, in the twenty-first year
of our era, after being for twelve years the leader and champion of
Germany.
TRAJAN
By J. S. REID, Litt.D.
(53-117)
[Illustration: Trajan.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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