The Provinces of the Roman Empire (Illustrated Edition). Theodor Mommsen
conditions to this end, the overthrow of the Germanic patriot–party and of the Suebian king in Bohemia, were no easy tasks; nevertheless they had already once stood on the verge of succeeding, and with a right conduct of the war these results could not fail to be reached. But it was another question whether, after the institution of the Elbe frontier, the troops could be withdrawn from the intervening region; this question had been raised in a very serious way for the Roman government by the Dalmato–Pannonian war. If the mere impending movement of the Roman Danube–army into Bohemia had called forth a popular rising in Illyricum, that was only put down by the exertion of all their military resources after a four years’ conflict, this wide region might not be left to itself either at the time or for many years to come. Similar, doubtless, was the state of the case on the Rhine. The Roman public was wont, indeed, to boast that the state held all Gaul in subjection by means of the garrison at Lyons 1200 strong; but the government could not forget that the two great armies on the Rhine not merely warded off the Germans, but also had a very material bearing on the Gallic cantons that were not at all distinguished by submissiveness. Stationed on the Weser or even on the Elbe, they would not have rendered this service in equal measure; and to keep both the Rhine and the Elbe occupied was beyond their power.
And its abandonment.
Thus Augustus might well come to the conclusion that with the strength of the army as it then stood—considerably increased indeed of late, but still far below the measure of what was really requisite—that great regulation of the frontier was not practicable; the question was thus converted from a military one into one of internal policy, and especially into one of finance. Neither Augustus nor Tiberius ventured to increase still further the expense of the army. We may blame them for not doing so. The paralysing double blow of the Illyrian and the Germanic insurrections with their grave disasters, the great age and the enfeebled vigour of the ruler, the increasing disinclination of Tiberius for initiating any fresh and great undertaking, and above all any deviation from the policy of Augustus, doubtless co–operated to induce this result, and did so, perhaps, to the injury of the state. By the demeanour of Germanicus, not to be approved but easily to be explained, we perceive how keenly the soldiers and the youth felt the abandonment of the new province of Germany. In the poor attempt to retain, at least nominally, the lost Germany with the help of the two German cantons on the left of the Rhine, and in the ambiguous and uncertain words with which Augustus himself in his account of the case lays or forgoes claim to Germany as Roman, we discern how perplexed was the attitude of the government towards public opinion in this matter. The grasping at the frontier of the Elbe was a mighty, perhaps a too bold stroke, undertaken possibly by Augustus—who did not generally soar so high—only after years of hesitation, and doubtless not without the determining influence of the younger stepson who was in closest intercourse with him. But to retrace too bold a step is, as a rule, not a mending of the mistake, but a second mistake. The monarchy had need of warlike honour unstained and of unconditional warlike success, in quite another way than the former burgomaster–government; the absence of the numbers 17, 18, and 19—never filled up since the battle of Varus—in the roll of regiments, was little in keeping with military prestige, and the peace with Maroboduus, on the basis of the status quo, could not be construed by the most loyal rhetoric into a success. The assumption that Germanicus began those far–reaching enterprises in opposition to the strict orders of his government is forbidden by his whole political position; but the reproach that he made use of his double position, as supreme commander of the first army of the Rhine and as future successor to the throne, in order to carry out at his own hand his politico–military plans, is one from which he can as little be exempted as the emperor from the no less grave reproach of having started back perhaps from the forming, or perhaps only from the clear expression and the sharp execution, of his own resolves. If Tiberius at least allowed the resumption of the offensive, he must have felt how much was to be said for a more vigorous policy; he may perhaps, as over–considerate people do, have left the decision, so to speak, to destiny, till at length the repeated and severe misfortunes of the crown–prince once more justified the policy of despair. It was not easy for the government to bid an army halt which had brought back two of the three lost eagles; but it was done. Whatever may have been the real and the personal motives, we stand here at a turning–point in national destinies. History, too, has its flow and its ebb; here, after the tide of Roman sway over the world has attained its height, the ebb sets in. Northward of Italy the Roman rule had for a few years reached as far as the Elbe; since the battle of Varus its bounds were the Rhine and the Danube. A legend—but an old one—relates that the first conqueror of Germany, Drusus, on his last campaign at the Elbe, saw a vision of a gigantic female figure of Germanic mould, that called to him in his own language the word “Back!” The word was not spoken, but it was fulfilled.
Germans against Germans.
Nevertheless the defeat of the Augustan policy, as the peace with Maroboduus and the sufferance of the Teutoburg disaster may well be termed, was hardly a victory of the Germans. After the battle with Varus the hope must doubtless have passed through the minds of the best, that a certain union of the nation would accrue from the glorious victory of the Cherusci and their allies, and from the retiring of the enemy in the west as in the south. Perhaps in these very crises the feeling of unity may have dawned on the Saxons and Suebians formerly confronting each other as strangers. The fact that the Saxons sent from the battle–field the head of Varus to the king of the Suebians, can be nothing but the savage expression of the thought that the hour had come for all Germans to throw themselves in joint onset upon the Roman empire, and thus to secure the frontier and the freedom of their land, as they could alone be secured, by striking down the hereditary foe in his own home. But the cultured man and the politic king accepted the gift of the insurgents only in order to forward the head to the emperor Augustus for burial; he did nothing for, but also nothing against, the Romans, and persevered unshaken in his neutrality. Immediately after the death of Augustus there were fears at Rome of the Marcomani invading Raetia, but apparently without cause; and when Germanicus thereupon resumed the offensive against the Germans from the Rhine, the mighty king of the Marcomani looked on inactive. This policy of finesse or of cowardice dug its own grave amidst a Germanic world fiercely excited, and drunk with patriotic successes and hopes. The more remote Suebian tribes but loosely connected with the empire, the Semnones, Langobardi, and Gothones, declared off from the king, and made common cause with the Saxon patriots; it is not improbable that the considerable forces, which were evidently at the disposal of Arminius and Inguiomerus in the conflicts with Germanicus, flowed to them in great part from these quarters.
Fall of Maroboduus.
Soon afterwards, when the Roman attack was suddenly broken off, the patriots turned (17) to assail Maroboduus, perhaps to assail the kingly office in general, at least as the latter administered it on the Roman model.23 But even among themselves divisions had set in; the two nearly related Cheruscan princes, who in the last struggles had led the patriots, if not victoriously, at any rate bravely and honourably, and had hitherto constantly fought shoulder to shoulder, no longer stood together in this war. The uncle Inguiomerus no longer tolerated his being second to his nephew, and at the outbreak of the war passed to the side of Maroboduus. Thus matters came to a decisive battle between Germans and Germans, nay, between the same tribes; for Suebi as well as Cherusci fought in both armies. Long the conflict wavered; both armies had learned from the Roman tactics, and on both sides the passion and the exasperation were alike. Arminius did not achieve a victory properly so called, but his antagonist left to him the field of battle; and, as Maroboduus seemed to have fared the worst, those who had hitherto adhered to him left him, and he found himself confined to his own kingdom. When he asked for Roman aid against his overpowerful countrymen, Tiberius reminded him of his attitude after the battle of Varus, and replied that now the Romans in turn would remain neutral. His fate was rapidly decided. In the very following year (18) he was surprised in his royal abode itself by a prince of the Gothones, Catualda, to whom he had formerly given personal offence, and who had thereupon revolted from him with the other non–Bohemian Suebi; and, abandoned by his own people, he with difficulty made his escape to the Romans, who granted to him the asylum which he sought—he died many years afterwards, as a Roman pensioner, at Ravenna.
End of Arminius.
Thus the opponents as well as the rivals of Arminius had become refugees, and the Germanic nation