The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 2 [20]
20. All this was known to Caesar. He was acquainted with their plans, their
positions, with what met the eye, and what was hidden, and he prepared to turn
the enemy’s stratagems to their own destruction. To Seius Tubero, his chief
officer, he assigned the cavalry and the plain. His infantry he drew up so that
part might advance on level ground into the forest, and part clamber up the
earthwork which confronted them. He charged himself with what was the specially
difficult operation, leaving the rest to his officers. Those who had the level
ground easily forced a passage. Those who had to assault the earthwork encountered
heavy blows from above, as if they were scaling a wall. The general saw how
unequal this close fighting was, and having withdrawn his legions to a little
distance, ordered the slingers and artillerymen to discharge a volley of missiles
and scatter the enemy. Spears were hurled from the engines, and the more conspicuous
were the defenders of the position, the more the wounds with which they were
driven from it. Caesar with some praetorian cohorts was the first, after the
storming of the ramparts, to dash into the woods. There they fought at close
quarters. A morass was in the enemy’s rear, and the Romans were hemmed in by
the river or by the hills. Both were in a desperate plight from their position;
valour was their only hope, victory their only safety.
21. The Germans were equally brave, but they were beaten by the nature of the
fighting and of the weapons, for their vast host in so confined a space could
neither thrust out nor recover their immense lances, or avail themselves of
their nimble movements and lithe frames, forced as they were to a close engagement.
Our soldiers, on the other hand, with their shields pressed to their breasts,
and their hands grasping their sword-hilts, struck at the huge limbs and exposed
faces of the barbarians, cutting a passage through the slaughtered enemy, for
Arminius was now less active, either from incessant perils, or because he was
partially disabled by his recent wound. As for Inguiomerus, who flew hither
and thither over the battlefield, it was fortune rather than courage which forsook
him. Germanicus, too, that he might be the better known, took his helmet off
his head and begged his men to follow up the slaughter, as they wanted not prisoners,
and the utter destruction of the nation would be the only conclusion of the
war. And now, late in the day, he withdrew one of his legions from the field,
to intrench a camp, while the rest till nightfall glutted themselves with the
enemy’s blood. Our cavalry fought with indecisive success.
22. Having publicly praised his victorious troops, Caesar raised a pile of arms
with the proud inscription, “The army of Tiberius Caesar, after thoroughly conquering
the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe, has dedicated this monument to Mars,
Jupiter, and Augustus.” He added nothing about himself, fearing jealousy, or
thinking that the conciousness of the achievement was enough. Next he charged
Stertinius with making war on the Angrivarii, but they hastened to surrender.
And, as suppliants, by refusing nothing, they obtained a full pardon.
23. When, however, summer was at its height some of the legions were sent back
overland into winter-quarters, but most of them Caesar put on board the fleet
and brought down the river Amisia to the ocean. At first the calm waters merely
sounded with the oars of a thousand vessels or were ruffled by the sailing ships.
Soon, a hailstorm bursting from a black mass of clouds, while the waves rolled
hither and thither under tempestuous gales from every quarter, rendered clear
sight impossible, and the steering difficult, while our soldiers, terrorstricken
and without any experience of disasters on the sea, by embarrassing the sailors
or giving them clumsy aid, neutralized the services of the skilled crews. After
a while, wind and wave shifted wholly to the south, and from the hilly lands
and deep rivers of Germany came with a huge line of rolling clouds, a strong
blast, all the more frightful from the frozen north which was so near to them,
and instantly caught and drove the ships hither and thither into the open ocean,
or on islands with steep cliffs or which hidden shoals made perilous. these
they just escaped, with difficulty, and when the tide changed and bore them
the same way as the wind, they could not hold to their anchors or bale out the
water which rushed in upon them. Horses, beasts of burden, baggage, were thrown
overboard, in order to lighten the hulls which leaked copiously through their
sides, while the waves too dashed over them.
24. As the ocean is stormier than all other seas, and as Germany is conspicuous
for the terrors of its climate, so in novelty and extent did this disaster transcend
every other, for all around were hostile coasts, or an expanse so vast and deep
that it is thought to be the remotest shoreless sea. Some of the vessels were
swallowed up; many were wrecked on distant islands, and the soldiers, finding
there no form of human life, perished of hunger, except some who supported existence
on carcases of horses washed on the same shores. Germanicus’s trireme alone
reached the country of the Chauci. Day and night, on those rocks and promontories
he would incessantly exclaim that he was himself responsible for this awful
ruin, and friends scarce restrained him from seeking death in the same sea.
At last, as the tide ebbed and the wind blew favourably, the shattered vessels
with but few rowers, or clothing spread as sails, some towed by the more powerful,
returned, and Germanicus, having speedily repaired them, sent them to search
the islands. Many by that means were recovered. The Angrivarii, who had lately
been admitted to our alliance, restored to us several had ransomed from the
inland tribes. Some had been carried to Britain and were sent back by the petty
chiefs. Every one, as he returned from some far-distant region, told of wonders,
of violent hurricanes, and unknown birds, of monsters of the sea, of forms half-human,
half beast-like, things they had really seen or in their terror believed.
25. Meanwhile the rumoured loss of the fleet stirred the Germans to hope for
war, as it did Caesar to hold them down. He ordered Caius Silius with thirty
thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry to march against the Chatti. He
himself, with a larger army, invaded the Marsi, whose leader, Mallovendus, whom
we had lately admitted to surrender, pointed out a neighbouring wood, where,
he said, an eagle of one of Varus’s legions was buried and guarded only by a
small force. Immediately troops were despatched to draw the enemy from his position
by appearing in his front, others, to hem in his rear and open the ground. Fortune
favoured both. So Germanicus, with increased energy, advanced into the country,
laying it waste, and utterly ruining a foe who dared not encounter him, or who
was instantly defeated wherever he resisted, and, as we learnt from prisoners,
was never more panic-stricken. The Romans, they declared, were invincible, rising
superior to all calamities; for having thrown away a fleet, having lost their
arms, after strewing the shores with the carcases of horses and of men, they
had rushed to the attack with the same courage, with equal spirit, and, seemingly,
with augmented numbers.
26. The soldiers were then led back into winter-quarters, rejoicing in their
hearts at having been compensated for their disasters at sea by a successful
expedition. They were helped too by Caesar’s bounty, which made good whatever
loss any one declared he had suffered. It was also regarded as a certainty that
the enemy were wavering and consulting on negotiations for peace, and that,
with an additional campaign next summer the war might be ended. Tiberius, however,
in repeated letters advised Germanicus to return for the triumph decreed him.
“He had now had enough of success, enough of disaster. He had fought victorious
battles on a great scale; he should also remember those losses which the winds
and waves had inflicted, and which, though due to no fault of the general, were
still grievous and shocking. He, Tiberius, had himself been sent nine times
by Augustus into Germany, and had done more by policy than by arms. By this
means the submission of the Sugambri had been secured, and the Suevi with their
king Maroboduus had been forced into peace. The Cherusci too and the other insurgent
tribes, since the vengeance of Rome had been satisfied, might be left to their
internal feuds.” When Germanicus requested a year for the completion of his
enterprise, Tiberius put a severer pressure on his modesty by offering him a
second consulship, the functions of which he was to discharge in person. He
also added that if war must still be waged, he might as well leave some materials
for renown to his brother Drusus, who, as there was then no other enemy, could
win only in Germany the imperial title and the triumphal laurel. Germanicus
hesitated no longer, though he saw that this was a pretence, and that he was
hurried away through jealousy from the glory he had already acquired.
27. About the same time Libo Drusus, of the family of Scribonii, was accused
of revolutionary schemes. I will explain, somewhat minutely, the beginning,
progress, and end of this affair, since then first were originated those practices
which for so many years have eaten into the heart of the State. Firmius Catus,
a senator, an intimate friend of Libo’s, prompted the young man, who was thoughtless
and an easy prey to delusions, to resort to astrologers’ promises, magical rites,
and interpreters of dreams, dwelling ostentatiously on his great-grandfather
Pompeius, his aunt Scribonia, who had formerly been wife of Augustus, his imperial
cousins, his house crowded with ancestral busts, and urging him to extravagance
and debt, himself the companion of his profligacy and desperate embarrassments,
thereby to entangle him in all the more proofs of guilt.
28. As soon as he found enough witnesses, with some slaves who knew the facts,
he begged an audience of the emperor, after first indicating the crime and the
criminal through Flaccus Vescularius, a Roman knight, who was more intimate
with Tiberius than himself. Caesar, without disregarding the information, declined
an interview, for the communication, he said, might be conveyed to him through
the same messenger, Flaccus. Meanwhile he conferred the praetorship on Libo
and often invited him to his table, showing no unfriendliness in his looks or
anger in his words (so thoroughly had he concealed his resentment); and he wished
to know all his saying and doings, though it was in his power to stop them,
till one Junius, who had been tampered with by Libo for the purpose of evoking
by incantations spirits of the dead, gave information to Fulcinius Trio. Trio’s
ability was conspicuous among informers, as well as his eagerness for an evil
notoriety. He at once pounced on the accused, went to the consuls, and demanded
an inquiry before the Senate. The Senators were summoned, with a special notice
that they must consult on a momentous and terrible matter.
29. Libo meanwhile, in mourning apparel and accompanied by ladies of the highest
rank, went to house after house, entreating his relatives, and imploring some
eloquent voice to ward off his perils; which all refused, on different pretexts,
but from the same apprehension. On the day the Senate met, jaded with fear and
mental anguish, or, as some have related, feigning illness, he was carried in
a litter to the doors of the Senate House, and leaning on his brother he raised
his hands and voice in supplication to Tiberius, who received him with unmoved
countenance. The emperor then read out the charges and the accusers’ names,
with such calmness as not to seem to soften or aggravate the accusations.
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