especially to the want of head and of courage in the general. After the attack took place the Roman army continued its march, now beyond doubt in the direction of Aliso, amidst constantly increasing pressure and increasing demoralisation. Even the higher officers failed in part to do their duty; one of them rode away from the field of battle with all the cavalry, and left the infantry to sustain the conflict alone. The first to despair utterly was the general himself; wounded in the struggle, he put himself to death before the matter was finally decided, so early indeed, that his followers still made an attempt to burn the dead body and to withdraw it from being dishonoured by the enemy. A number of the superior officers followed his example. Then, when all was lost, the leader that was left surrendered, and thereby put out of his own power what remained open to these last--an honourable soldier's death. Thus perished the Germanic army in one of the valleys of the mountain-range that bounds the region of Münster, in the autumn of the year 9 A.D.[20] The eagles fell--all three of them--into the enemy's hand. Not a division cut its way through, not even those horsemen who had left their comrades in the lurch; only a few who were isolated and dispersed were able to effect their escape. The captives, especially the officers and the advocates, were fastened to the cross, or buried alive, or bled under the sacrificial knife of the German priests. The heads cut off were nailed as a token of victory to the trees of the sacred grove. Far and wide the land rose against the foreign rule; it was hoped that Maroboduus would join the movement; the Roman posts and roads on the whole right bank of the Rhine fell without further trouble into the power of the victors. Only in Aliso, the brave commandant Lucius Caedicius, not an officer, but a veteran soldier, offered a resolute resistance, and his archers were enabled to make the encampment before the walls so annoying to the Germans, who possessed no weapons for distant fighting, that they converted the siege into a blockade. When the last stores of the besieged were exhausted, and still no relief came, Caedicius broke out one dark night; and this remnant of the army, though burdened with numerous women and children, and suffering severe losses through the assaults of the Germans, in reality ultimately reached the camp at Vetera. Thither also the two legions stationed in Mentz under Lucius Nonius Asprenas had gone on the news of the disaster. The resolute defence of Aliso, and the rapid intervention of Asprenas, hindered the Germans from following up the victory on the left bank of the Rhine, and perhaps the Gauls from rising against Rome. [Sidenote: Tiberius again on the Rhine.]