When the news of this disaster reached Augustus, he thought that Gaul was lost, Italy in danger, and Rome herself imperilled. Mad with grief, he would {103}rise, for a month afterwards, night after night, and in his terror wander through his vast palace, crying out: “O Varus, Varus, bring me back my legions!” [Illustration: 123] Well, the Irmensul was nothing more than a triumphal column erected in honor of Arminius and his Cheruski. _Irmen_ is the same as the name _Herman or Armin_ (Arminius), and _sul_ means column. The Romans, however, did not know this, and they paid dearly for their ignorance. If they had known better they would not have committed the egregious blunder of kneeling down and worshipping the man who had destroyed the three legions of Varus. It is very evident that they were as ignorant of German as of Celtic. {104}It ought not to surprise us, however, to see the soldiers of the imperial people change stones into gods, as Deucalion had changed them into men. Before the days of Homer, and for a long time after him, Jupiter was in Seleucia modestly represented by a fragment of rock and Cybele by a black stone. In Cyprus, the Venus of Paphos was nothing but a triangular or quadrangular pyramid, nor can I imagine what importance could be attached to three or four angles in a body, which was soon to assume the softest and most fascinating outlines. First the poets had come and sung of Cybele, the kind goddess, of Jupiter the omnipotent, and of Venus, the soul of the world and the queen of beauty. Inspired by their voice and the bold conceptions of their fancy, the sculptors had next employed the chisel upon these stones and these pyramids, and there had sprung forth from these shapeless masses the Lord of Gods, armed with his lightning, the beautiful Cytherea, armed with the most powerful weapons of all womanly graces. Oh, poets and sculptors, you have upset everything in religion! You are responsible for the loss of that austere simplicity which once characterized the faith of men! Miserable cutters of stone, reckless counters of syllables, you, and you alone, have substituted symbols for truth! Still, I do not condemn you; although I have stood up to {105}defend the Druids of the earliest days, I am far from being insensible to the charms of art and of poetry; besides, what right have I, who speak of gods and myths, to pass sentence on those who have been the real creators of Mythology? [Illustration: 125] While the conquerors of the Teutons, in the pride of their cleverness, were committing blunder after blunder, and fell into the pits they had dug for others, the real gods of Rome stayed on the banks of the Rhine, where they had already been accepted by the Gauls. They were impatient enough to see Germany also erect them temples and statues, but the Rhine with uplifted waves barred the passage.