Germanicus, having in a public harangue praised his victorious troops, raised a pile of arms with this proud inscription: "That the army of Tiberius Cæsar, having subdued the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe, had consecrated these memorials to Mars, to Jupiter, and to Augustus." Of himself he made no mention; either fearful of provoking envy or that he felt satisfied with the consciousness of his own merit. He next charged Stertinius with the war among the Angrivarians, and he would have proceeded had they not made haste to submit; approaching as supplicants, and making a full confession of their guilt, they received pardon without reserve. The summer being now far advanced, some of the legions were sent back into winter quarters by land; the greater part Cæsar put on board the fleet and conveyed them along the Amisia to the ocean. The sea, at first serene, resounded only with the oars of a thousand ships or their impulse when under sail; but presently a shower of hail poured down from a black mass of clouds; at the same time storms raging on all sides in every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The soldiers, too, unaccustomed to the perils of the sea, in their alarm embarrassed the mariners, or, helping them awkwardly, rendered unavailing the services of the skilful. After this, the whole expanse of air and sea was swept by a southwest wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous regions of Germany, its deep rivers, and boundless tract of clouded atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigor of the neighboring north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open ocean, or upon islands, dangerous from precipitous rocks or the hidden sand-banks which beset them. Having got a little clear of these (but with great difficulty), the tide turned, and, flowing in the same direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them. Horses, beasts of burden, baggage, even arms, were thrown overboard to lighten the holds of the vessels, which took in water at their sides and from the waves running over them. Around them were either shores inhabited by enemies or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed to be the limit of the world and unbounded by any land. Part of the fleet was swallowed up; many ships were driven upon remote islands where, without a trace of civilized humanity, the men perished through famine, or were kept alive by the carcasses of horses that were dashed upon the same shore. The galley of Germanicus alone reached the coast of the Chaucians[25] where, during the whole period of his stay, both day and night, amid the rocks and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as being the author of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his friends from destroying himself in the sea. At last, with the returning