The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
and a land army. Tiberius repeated on a larger scale what Drusus had done eighteen years before. But while on the earlier occasion the Roman fleet had not advanced beyond the mouth of the Visurgis (if so far), under the auspices of Tiberius it reached the Albis and even sailed to the northern promontory of the Cimbric peninsula. Some peoples east of the Albis, such as the Semnones, the Charydes, and the Cimbri (in Denmark), sent envoys seeking the friendship of the Emperor and the Roman people.
The authority of Tiberius had thus pacified the trans-Rhenane dominion of Rome, and in the following year (6 A.D.) a new enterprise of conquest was entrusted to his conduct. When Drusus in his last expedition marched up the Moenus, he entered the land of the Marcomanni, and they, under the leadership of their chief Maroboduus, retreated before him into that lozenge-shaped, mountain-girt country in central Europe, which has derived its name Boiohemum, Bohemia, from the Celtic Boii who then inhabited it. The Marcomanni dispossessed the Celts, and Maroboduus established a powerful and united state, which extended its sway eastward, and northward over the neighboring German tribes. The ideas of this remarkable man were far in advance of his countrymen. He had a leaning to Roman civilization, and he was ready to learn from it the methods and uses of political organization. He formed and disciplined in Roman fashion an army of 70,000 foot and 4000 horse. But his policy was essentially one of peace. He desired to avoid a war with Rome, and yet to make it plain that he was quite strong enough to hold his own. He was willing to be a friendly ally, but he was not disposed to be a vassal. Geography, however, rendered a collision unavoidable. For Rome, possessing Germany in the north, and Noricum and Pannonia in the south, it would have been impossible to allow the permanent presence of an independent German state wedged in between these provinces. The actual occupation of the territory between the Dravus and the Danube, if it had not already taken place, was merely a question of time, and it was obviously necessary to have a continuous line of frontier from the Albis to the Danube. Policy demanded that the Empire should absorb the realm of Maroboduus, and advance to the river Marus (now the March, which flows into the Danube below Pressburg).
The legions of the Rhine under an experienced commander, Cn. Sentius Saturninus, advanced from the valley of the Moenus, breaking their way through the unknown depths of the Hercynian Forest, to meet the legions of Illyricum, which Tiberius led across the Danube at Carnuntum. Both armies together numbered twelve legions, nearly double of the troops mustered by Maroboduus; and under the command of a cautious and experienced leader like Tiberius the success of the enterprise seemed assured. But it was not to be. Before the armies met, sudden tidings of a most alarming kind imperatively recalled the general. A revolt, caused by oppressive taxation, had broken out in Dalmatia and Pannonia, and of so serious a nature that not only were the Illyric legions obliged to return, but the troops of Moesia and even forces from beyond the sea (probably from Syria) were required to assist in suppressing it. This would have been an excellent opportunity for Maroboduus to take the offensive, but he clung to his policy of neutrality, and accepted terms of peace which were proposed by Tiberius. The army of Sentius Saturninus hastened back to the Rhine to prevent a simultaneous outbreak there.
The Pannonian revolt lasted for three years, the Dalmatian for one year longer. In Dalmatia the leader of the insurgents was one Bato. He made an attempt to capture Salona, but was obliged to retire severely wounded, and had to content himself with ravaging the coast of Macedonia as far south as Apollonia. The legatus of Illyricum, M. Valerius Messalinus, son of the orator Messalla, extended against him with varying success. In Pannonia, another Bato, chief of the Breuci, was the most prominent leader. As the Dalmatian Bato failed to take Salons, so the Pannnnian Bato failed to take Sirmium, and was defeated before its walls by Aulus Caecina Severus, the legatus of Moesia, who had hurried to the scene of action. After this the two Batos seem to have joined forces and taken up a strong position on Mount Almas, close to Sirmium. Tiberius passed the winter in Siscia, and made that place the basis of his operations in Pannonia. As many as fifteen legions were ultimately collected in the rebellious provinces under his command, and the loyal princes of Thrace had also come to the rescue. An unusually large number of auxiliary troops, fully 90,000, were employed in this war. Terror was felt not only in Macedonia, but even in Italy and Rome. Augustus himself had hastened to Ariminum, to be near the seat of war; levies were raised in Italy and placed under Germanicus, son of Drusus, a youth of twenty-one years. In 7 A.D. the course of the hostilities was desultory; the rebels avoided engagements in the open field. Germanicus advanced from Siscia along the river Unna into western Dalmatia, and conquered the tribe of the Maezaei, who dwelled in the extreme west of modern Bosnia. Subsequently (7-8 A.D.) he captured three important strongholds, which seem to have been situated on the borders of Liburnia and Iapydia. The next serious event was the long siege of Arduba, in south-eastern Dalmatia, which was marked by the heroic obstinacy of the women, who, when the place was captured, threw themselves and their children into the fire. But in the following autumn the Pannonian Bato was induced to betray his cause. He surrendered in a battle fought at the stream of Bathinus (August 3) and handed over his colleague and rival Pinnes to Tiberius, who in return recognized him as prince of the Breuci. But his treachery did not go unpunished. He was caught and put to death by his Dalmatian namesake. Germanicus hastened in person to carry the news of the Bathinus to Augustus at Ariminum, and the Emperor returned to Rome, where he was received with thank-offerings. But although this victory practically determined the end of the war, Tiberius was obliged in the following year to bring his forces again into the field against the Dalmatians, and Bato, besieged in his last refuge, Andetrium (near Salona?), at length gave up the desperate cause, and was sent as a prisoner to Ravenna, where he died. When he was led before Tiberius, and was asked why he had rebelled, he replied, “It is your doing, in that you send not dogs or shepherds to guard your sheep, but wolves to prey on them”.
Gennanicus, who had taken part in the suppression of this dangerous and tedious war—the hardest, it was said, since the war with Hannibal—showed high promise of future distinction, and, like his father, was a universal favorite. Triumphal ornaments were granted to him, and he was placed first in the rank of praetorians in the senate. To Tiberius himself the senate decreed a triumph, but it was not destined to be celebrated. The people had hardly time to realize the successes of the legions of the Danube, when the news came of a terrible disaster which had befallen the legions of the Rhine.
SECT. III. — THE GERMAN REBELLION AND DEFEAT OF VARUS
The Emperor seems to have entertained few fears of the possibility of a rising in his new German province. For he named as commander of the Rhine armies a man, distantly related to himself by marriage, who had no experience of active warfare and was quite incompetent to meet any grave emergency. This was Publius Quinctilius Varus, who, as imperial legatus in Syria, had won wealth, if not fame. It was said that when he came to that province he was poor and Syria was rich; but when he went, he was rich and Syria was poor. His experiences as governor of Syria proved unlucky for him as governor in Germany. He utterly misconceived the situation. He imagined that the policy which he had successfully pursued in Syria might be adopted equally well in Germany. He failed to perceive the differences between the two cases; and to mark the weak grasp with which Rome, as yet, held the lands between the Rhine and the Albis. He seems to have felt himself perfectly sale in the wild places of Germany, under the shield of the Roman name; he imposed taxes on the natives and dealt judgment without any fear of consequences.
But a storm was brewing under his very eyes. It seemed to those German patriots, who could never brook with patience the rule of a foreign master, that the moment had come when a struggle for the liberty of their nation might be attempted with some chance of success. In this enterprise only four prominent German peoples were concerned, the Cherusci, the Chatti, the Marsi, and the Bructeri; the same who had before distinguished themselves by their opposition to Drusus. The Frisians, the Chauci, the Suevic peoples who acknowledged the overlordship of Maroboduus, took no part in this insurrection. The plotter and leader of the rebellion was the Cheruscan prince Arminius, son of Sigimer, then in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He and his brother Flavus had received the privilege of Roman citizenship from Augustus; he had been raised to the equestrian rank, and had seen military service under the Roman standard. He was not only physically brave, but it was thought that he possessed intellectual qualities unusual in a barbarian. The Romans naturally trusted his loyalty, and the insinuations of Segestes his countryman, who knew him belter,