The whole of the country between the Rhine, the Westerwald, and the Elbe, was about the year 760 brought under the rule of Rome: the Chauci, who dwelt in East-Friesland and Oldenburg, and the other inhabitants of the marshes were quite as much subdued as the Bructeri and Cherusci in Westphalia Proper. Quintilius Varus, who was of an old and illustrious patrician house, and an able general, but had made himself notorious for his shameful rapacity, quite thought himself the governor of nations which only recked fear and force. For him Arminius—whom we generally call Hermann, but whose name was probably not this, but Armin—laid a trap most cleverly. As things then stood, it was very difficult for the Germans who had no towns, to make head against the Romans: the German cavalry was superior to that which the Romans had of their own; but the Gaulish cavalry, which had the advantage of better horses, and of more complete armour, thenceforth constituted the flower of the Roman army, in which it had such a preponderance, that the terms which belonged to the cavalry service, were almost all of them of Celtic origin: so paramount was Gallic influence on discipline! Cunning against tyranny is all fair; so that I cannot blame Arminius in the least for what he did: the Germans had been most unjustly made war upon by the Romans, whom they could not possibly meet with open force. Arminius had in many Roman campaigns served with German cavalry, and very likely had distinguished himself in the Pannonian war: he was a perfect master of the Latin tongue, had the Roman franchise, and the rank of a knight; and, by dint of the greatest perseverance, he, as well as his fellow conspirators, had gained the unbounded, and even childlike confidence of Varus. Varus had made for himself a stationary camp, where, as in a Roman province, he held a court of justice which was a means for enriching himself; like the law-courts of the oppressive high bailiffs in Switzerland. The Roman soldiers were wont to purchase leave of absence and discharge, as was formerly the custom in the German army; for just as it was in France before the revolution, they then only got part of their pay: thus there might have been many of them roving about the country. There seemed to be the most profound peace, and the Germans made Varus believe that they felt indeed quite happy in their growing civilization; but when he was thus off his guard, and a great part of the soldiers gone perhaps away on furlough, some tribes in Lower Saxony revolted, as it had been arranged; so that Varus was got to draw near those countries. The conspirators persuaded him to turn off from the highways (_limites_) which led from the Rhine to the Lippe, and through Westphalia as far as the Weser;—these were straight roads cut through the woods, not yet paved indeed, but laid with logs; and when he had ventured sufficiently deep into the impassable forests, the insurrection broke out on all sides.