The first year’s campaign extended to the Weser, and was continued to the month of December; Tiberius then returned to Rome, leaving his soldiers in winter quarters near the sources of the Lippe. He was back again early in the following spring, and in this year successfully completed the operation in which Drusus had failed, on a more extended scale; he made the Elbe, not the Weser, his objective, and sent round a fleet to meet his troops with fresh supplies. Paterculus attributes the success of this enterprise not only to the good fortune and diligence of the Commander-in-Chief, but to his careful study of the seasons. On this occasion the Romans first came across the Lombards, “a race whose courage surpassed even German ferocity”; they seem to have been settled on the East of the Elbe in the region of Magdeburg. Paterculus has a doubtless true story of an elderly German who asked to be allowed to see Tiberius, and on receiving permission paddled across the Elbe; after having stared at him for some time he touched his hand, and declaring that he had now beheld the gods, bewailed the folly of his young men who insisted on fighting with their superiors; he then returned to his boat, and departed across the Elbe, still keeping his eyes on the group of Roman officers. There is nothing improbable in this story; savages are particularly impressed by size, and the stately form of Tiberius, glorious in such a uniform as we see on the Augustus of the Prima Porta, may well have appeared superhuman to the uncultured Lombard. The practical results of the campaign were to convince Tiberius that an eastward extension of the Roman frontier was alike impracticable and undesirable; the problem was to find a defensible line of outposts near the Rhine and overawe the tribes who lived beyond it; but before Tiberius had time to rectify the frontier he was called off to deal with a far more serious war nearer Italy.