The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 — John Shaqi
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
History
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
World history
The account circulated of the surrender of Segestes, and his gracious
reception, affected his countrymen with hope or anguish as they were
severally prone or averse to the war. Acting upon a temper naturally
violent, the captivity of his wife and the child in her womb subjected
to bondage drove Arminius to distraction: he flew about among the
Cheruscans, calling them to arms against Segestes, against Germanicus;
nor did he refrain from invectives--"An excellent father! a great
general; a valiant army, whose many hands had carried off one bit of a
woman! That before him three legions fell, three lieutenants-general;
for his method of carrying on war was not by treason nor against
pregnant women, but openly, against armed hosts. That the Roman
standards were still to be seen in the German groves, there suspended by
him to his country's gods. Segestes might live upon the vanquished bank;
he might get the priesthood restored to his son; but the Germans would
ever regard the fellow as the guilty cause of their having seen between
the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes and the toga. That to other nations who
know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes were unknown;
and as they had thrown them off, and as Augustus (he who was enrolled
with the gods) had retreated without accomplishing his object, and
Tiberius, his chosen successor, let them not dread an inexperienced
stripling and a mutinous army. If they preferred their country, their
parents, and their ancient possessions, to masters and new settlements,
they should follow Arminius, who led them to glory and liberty, rather
than Segestes, who conducted them to infamous servitude."
By these means not the Cheruscans only were roused, but the bordering
nations; and Inguiomer, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long in high
credit with the Romans, was drawn into the confederacy. Hence Germanicus
became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with
unbroken force, sent Cæcina with forty Roman cohorts to the river
Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division
in the army of the enemy. Pedo, the prefect, led the cavalry along the
confines of the Frisians; he himself, embarking four legions, sailed
through the lakes; and at the aforesaid river the whole body met--foot,
horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were
taken into the service; but the Bructerians, setting fire to their
effects and dwellings, were routed by Lucius Stertinius, despatched
against them by Germanicus with a band lightly armed. And amid the
carnage and plunder he found the eagle of the Nineteenth legion lost in
the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of
the Bructerians, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and
Luppia was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and
in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report, still unburied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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