Arminius.
There was an attempt made many years ago to erect a statue to the memory of Arminius. The site chosen for this imposing monument was, of course, the Teutoberger Wald. It was suggested that contributions be received only from the English and German nations and that the statue should stand as a memorial of the common ancestry and heritage of the German-English races.
Arminius is indeed more truly an English national hero than was Caractacus, if the Saxon genealogy be properly traced.
However, the project fell through. England and Germany are not yet amicably one under the tutelage of a far off German war-lord: and no colossal statue of Arminius—successful strategist and wholesale slaughterer—rises today in gloomy Teutoberger Wald from out the dark depths of Der Mordkessel.
[Chapter V.]
ADRIANOPLE
Among the struggles of the past which seem decisively to have subverted the old order of things and ushered in the new, is the battle of Adrianople. There Valens, Emperor of Rome, was killed in battle with the Goths; and the proud Roman army hitherto deemed invincible, almost invulnerable, was defeated and destroyed.
How the wild-eyed children of the North must have gazed with astonishment upon one another as they stood victors on that field! They had not dared to hope that a Roman army would go down under their undisciplined assault; and that an Emperor of Rome should lie dead upon the battlefield was far beyond their wildest dream. Doubtless they felt within them that first awakening of brutal youth-strength: race-childhood was gone; race-manhood not yet come. And enervated old Rome; cultured, wily, effetely civilized Romans lay at the feet of these youthful, battle-flushed barbarians: and history yet hears the cries that arose as those feet advanced ruthlessly trampling.