The Defeat of Varus and the German Frontier Policy of Augustus

by W. A. Oldfather; H. V. Canter

FOOTNOTES

[1] Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., V, p. 41; 51; Idem, Die Oertlichkeit der Varusschlacht, p. 207; Gardthausen, I, p. 1199. Ch. Gailly de Taurines (Les Légions de Varus, Paris, 1911, p. 73) places the number as probably 22,000.

[2] Vell., II, 119.

[3] Velleius’ words (II, 119) suggest a series of changing incidents and conditions: “ordinem atrocissimae calamitatis; exercitus iniquitate fortunae circumventus ... inclusus silvis, paludibus, insidiis”; cf. also Tac., Ann., I, 65: “Quintilium Varum sanguine oblitum et paludibus emersum”.

[4] Vell., II, 117; II, 120: “ex quo apparet Varum magis imperatoris defectum consilio quam virtute destitutum militum se magnificentissimumque perdidisse exercitum”; Suet., Tib., 18: “Varianam cladem temeritate et neglegentia ducis accidisse.” Cf. also Tac., Ann., II, 46: “quoniam tres vagas legiones et ducem fraudis ignarum perfidia deceperit” [Arminius], where “vagas” suggests an army marching in loose order, ignorant of the territory and without proper leadership. So Mommsen (Röm. Gesch., V, p. 40) calls Varus: “Ein Mann ... von trägem Körper und stumpfem Geist und ohne jede militärische Begabung und Erfahrung”; Deppe (Rh. Jahrbr., 87, p. 59) accepting Zangemeister’s date for the defeat of Varus as August 2, 9 A. D. (see Westd. Zeitschr., 1887, pp. 239-242) says that the battle followed a feast day, which explains the enigma of how a Roman army of 18,000 men could be annihilated by an unorganized German host: “Die Soldaten waren an diesem Tage noch festkrank, nicht geordnet, überhaupt unvorbereitet, entsprechend der Angabe des Tacitus, der sie in den Ann., II, 46, nennt ‘tres vacuas [vagas] legiones et ducem fraudis ignarum’”.

[5] Dio, 56, 20 f. says that the Romans were fewer at every point than their assailants; moreover, the latter increased as the battle continued, since many of those who at first wavered later joined them, particularly for the sake of plunder. Mommsen (Die Oertlichkeit, etc., p. 209) thinks that from the communities which joined the Cherusci in the uprising the Romans were confronted by numbers probably two or three times their equal.

[6] Cf. Tac., Ann., II, 46: “At se [Maroboduum] duodecim legionibus petitum duce Tiberio inlibatam Germanorum gloriam servavisse.” Mommsen (Röm. Gesch., V, p. 34) estimates the combined strength (regular and auxiliary) of the two armies in the campaign against Maroboduus at almost double that of their opponents, whose fighting force was 70,000 infantry and 4,000 horsemen.

[7] See Eduard Meyer, “Kaiser Augustus” (in Kleine Schriften, Halle a. S., 1900, p. 486); Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., V, p. 37; Shuckburgh, Suet., Aug., 24; Vell., II, 114. Ritterling (“Zur Geschichte des römischen Heeres in Gallien,” Rh. Jahrbr., 114-115, p. 162) argues, on the basis of three legions each to the nine provinces, that Augustus retained 27 legions after the battle of Actium. This is out of harmony with the well-known view of Mommsen that Augustus had only 18 legions until the year 6 A. D., at which time he raised eight new legions in view of the uprising in Illyricum.

[8] Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit, I, p. 232 f.: “Der Verlust—er mag 16.000 betragen haben—erscheint trotz alledem nicht bedeutend genug, um eine Wendung in der germanischen Politik zu rechtfertigen.” Koepp (Die Römer in Deutschland, p. 34) agrees that it is absurd to think that the loss of three legions could produce such a change in policy: “so ist es doch schwer zu glauben, dass er [Augustus] in besonnenen Stunden aus dem Verlust dreier Legionen die Konsequenz gezogen haben sollte, dass es mit der Provinz Germanien aus und vorbei sein müsse.” Much the same view is expressed by him in Westfalen, I, p. 40: “nicht als ob der Untergang dreier Legionen ein Verlust gewesen wäre, der das Reich in seinen Grundfesten hätte erschüttern können; wenn man in Pannonien fünfzehn Legionen aufgeboten hatte, so hätte man auch am Rhein eine ähnliche Waffenmacht zusammenbringen können, wenn wirklich der Sieg des Arminius zu einer Gefahr des Reiches geworden wäre. Und später noch ist Brittannien erobert worden, ist Dacien Provinz geworden, ist der Kampf gegen die Parther aufgenommen worden.”

[9] Hist. of Rome, V, p. 61; cf. also p. 54: “The Romano-German conflict was not a conflict between two powers equal in the political balance, in which the defeat of the one might justify the conclusion of an unfavorable peace; it was a conflict in which ... an isolated failure in the plan as sketched might as little produce any change as the ship gives up its voyage because a gust of wind drives it out of its course.”

[10] Kaiser Augustus, p. 116.

[11] Kaiser Augustus, p. 486; cf. Dio, 57, 5. However, Meyer attaches undue significance to this fact. While the old rule confined service in the army to citizens, in times of peril freedmen, or slaves manumitted especially for the occasion, had been enrolled many times previous to the occasion referred to—indeed as early as the Punic wars. See examples cited by Shuckburgh, Suet., Aug., 25. According to Suetonius libertini were employed twice by Augustus: “Libertino milite, praeterquam Romae incendiorum causa et si tumultus in graviore annona metueretur, bis usus est: semel ad praesidium coloniarum Illyricum contingentium, iterum ad tutelam ripae Rheni.” These two occasions, at the uprising in Pannonia, and after the defeat of Varus, are mentioned also by Dio, 55, 31 and 56, 23.

[12] This is the figure given by Ed. Meyer (“Bevölkerung des Altertums,” Conrad’s Handw. d. Staatsw., 3rd ed., II (1909), p. 911), who accepts with slight modifications, Beloch’s calculations. The latter (Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (1886), p. 507) gave 54,000,000 at the time of the death of Augustus. In a later essay (Rh. Mus., IV (1889), p. 414 ff.) Beloch raises materially his estimate of the population of Gaul, which, if accepted, and it seems very plausible, would affect somewhat the total for the empire. Thus H. Delbrück (Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, II, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 175) after Beloch’s revision, calculates the population of the empire at sixty to sixty-five millions, and O. Seeck (Jahrb. für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, III, 13 (1897), p. 161 ff.), would prefer in many instances much more generous calculations than those of Beloch. Compare, however, Beloch’s vigorous reply in the same volume. We have preferred to accept, however, the more conservative figure.

[13] That this was the custom followed for the socii and auxilia during the period of the republic is suggested by Pliny, N. H., 25, 33, 6, and the same general proportion seems to have been observed later, as Tacitus, Ann., IV, 5, in speaking of the “sociae triremes alasque et auxilia cohortium,” adds, “neque multo secus in numero virium.” Detailed information regarding the size of these auxiliary contingents is nowhere given. See Liebenam, art. “Exercitus,” Pauly-Wiss., VI, 1601, 1607. G. L. Cheesman (The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army, Oxford, 1914 p. 53 ff.) finds that the auxilia under Augustus were at least as numerous as the legionaries, and later became more so. He calculates 180,000 for the year 69 A. D., and 220,000 for the middle of the second century A. D. Cf. also Delbrück, op. cit., II, p. 203 (2nd ed.).

[14] Cf. Ed. Meyer, ibid., p. 909. The evidence for the enrollment of foreigners in the legions at this time is conveniently summarized by Liebenam, art. “Dilectus,” Pauly-Wiss., V, 611 ff.

[15] Mommsen, Eph. Epigr., V (1884), p. 159 ff.; Hermes, XIX (1884), p. 1 ff., esp. p. 11.

[16] We must remember that this restriction in the recruiting sources of the legionaries was wholly an act of free choice on the part of Augustus, whatever the motive may have been. That suggested by Seeck, l. c., p. 611, does not seem very probable; it involved a change in the usage to which men had already become accustomed in the civil wars, and it was gradually but completely abandoned by his successors. There was nothing in the general conditions which required it.

[17] Rh. Mus., XLVIII (1893), p. 602 ff. His conclusions in part rest on none too certain foundations, and introduce an insufficiently motivated complexity in the system of levying troops, for Augustus at the beginning of his career used non-citizen soldiers freely, and after the defeat of Varus, of the two new legions which were raised one was a Galatian contingent, the Deiotariana, which was given citizenship and a place in the army (Mommsen, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 2nd ed. (1885), p. 70; O. Seeck, Gesch. d. Untergangs d. ant. Welt, 3rd ed., I, p. 260), and the other was recruited from the non-citizen population of Rome (Tac., Ann., I, 31, “vernacula multitudo”; cf. Mommsen, Hermes, XIX (1884), p. 15, n. 1). Seeck’s statement of the system which he believes Augustus followed is: “Prätorianer und Stadtsoldaten rekrutirten sich aus Latium, Etrurien, Umbrien, und den frühesten Bürgercolonien; den übrigen Italikern sind die Legionen zugewiesen, den Bürgern der Provinz die Freiwilligencohorten; aus den Libertinen setzen sich die Mannschaften der Flotte und der Feuerwehr zusammen; die Nichtbürger bilden Cohorten und Alen und einen Theil der Flotte.”

[18] In B. C. 8 it was 4,233,000; in A. D. 14, 4,957,000. See the Mon. Anc., 8. Of course if we accept the view still defended by Gardthausen and Kornemann that this number represented only the male population (Augustus, II, 532; and Jahrb. für Nationalökonomie u. Statistik, III, 14 (1897), p. 291 ff.), a citizen army of more than a million men might have been raised, but the view of Beloch and Ed. Meyer that the numbers in the Mon. Anc. include women and children seems the only one possible. See Meyer’s complete refutation of Kornemann, Jahrb. für Nationalökonomie, III, 15 (1898), p. 59 ff.

[19] This figure, 800,000, is modest, amounting to roughly 1½% of the total population, about the same proportion which Germany and France have for some time past kept under arms in time of peace, while their war strength is several times as great as this. Rome did actually at one time, the crisis of the Second Punic War, have at least 7½% of her total population in the field, even according to the most conservative estimates. Cf. H. Delbrück, Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, I, 2nd ed. (1908), pp. 349, 355 ff.

[20] Mommsen, Hermes, XIX (1884), p. 3, n. 3, gives the number of Roman citizens who were engaged in the war between Octavian and Antony as 300,000, which makes a total of 600,000 troops or more.

[21] The details in Marquardt, Röm. Staatsver., V, 2 (2nd ed., 1884), p. 444 f.

[22] Or possibly 28; see von Domaszewski, “Zur Geschichte des Rheinheeres,” Röm.-Germ. Korrespondenzblatt, 1910, on the date of the establishment of the twenty-first and twenty-second legions. There is some question about the exact date at which the increase in the size of the legions was made (see the literature cited by Gardthausen, Augustus, II, p. 775), but that does not affect our argument. See above [note 7].

[23] Mommsen, op. cit., p. 75; Liebenam in Pauly-Wiss., VI, 1605. We must remember that this number was somewhat low; and was gradually raised by succeeding emperors. Claudius added two legions, Nero one, and Galba two, so that Vespasian had thirty, and that number seems to have been maintained until the time of Septimius Severus, who added three more. It is significant that Trajan found 30 legions quite sufficient for extensive and difficult conquests, so that 25 would doubtless have been regarded even by him as adequate for the conquest of Germany. For the evidence of the gradual increase in the army see Marquardt, op. cit., p. 448 ff.

[24] The evidence for the size of the legion at this time is conveniently summarized by R. Cagnat, “Legio,” Daremberg et Saglio, III, p. 1050 f. The most elaborate discussion of the size of the legion (especially that of Caesar) is in Fr. Stolle, Lager und Heer der Römer, 1912, pp. 1-23. He finds what he regards as evidence for legions of varying size, from 3600 up to 5000 men. The standard legion of the empire, however, can hardly have been less than 6000. Cf. also Fröhlich’s review of Stolle’s work, Berl. Philol. Wochenschr., 1913, 530 ff.

[25] A list of these is given by Liebenam, op. cit., p. 1607 ff.

[26] Calculations as to the effective strength of the standing army of Augustus vary somewhat. H. Furneaux (The Annals of Tacitus, I (1884), p. 109), gives 350,000; Mommsen (Hermes, XIX (1884), p. 4—apparently excluding the naval forces), 300,000 as a maximum figure; Seeck (Rh. Mus., XLVIII (1893), p. 618) reckons on the basis of 20 legions (which would be applicable only down to the year 6 A. D.) 132,000 citizen soldiery out of Italy: in his Gesch. des Untergangs d. ant. Welt, 3rd ed., I (1910), p. 255, on a basis of 25 to 30 legions, from Augustus to Diocletian, he calculates the total forces of the empire at 300,000 to 350,000; H. Delbrück (Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, II, 2nd ed. (1904), p. 174) counting only the 25 legions, estimates 225,000 men; if other contingents be included the total would certainly exceed 250,000 even on the basis of his extremely low estimates; Gardthausen (Augustus, I, p. 635) estimates 250,000-300,000. The figure 200,000 which he gives on p. 637 seems to refer to the conditions before 6 A. D., when only 18 legions were maintained. G. Boissier’s number, 500,000 (L’opposition sous les Césars, 3rd ed. 1892, p. 4), seems to count the auxilia three times, once in making up the number 250,000 for the legions, and again in doubling that!

[27] For historical parallels to this condition compare Miss Ellen Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment, New York, 1911, p. 215 ff.

[28] E. M. Arndt, Zeitschr. f. Geschichtswissenschaft, III (1845), p. 244, calculated a population of 800-1000 per (German) square mile, but only then on the assumption, which no man would now accept, that the Roman reports about the primitive conditions of agriculture were incorrect. On this estimate the population of Germany between the Rhine, Elbe, and the Main-Saale line, which is the part generally considered in the question of conquest, would have been roughly 1,840,000 to 2,300,000. H. Von Sybel (Entstehung d. deutschen Königtums, 1881, p. 80) estimates the Germans at 12,000,000, basing his calculation on a highly problematic series of inferences regarding the extent of territory which the Sugambri once occupied, 40,000 of whom were said to have been transferred to the west bank of the Rhine by Tiberius. Karl Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte (1894), I, p. 236 accepts the traditional statement that the Goths alone amounted to five-sixths of a million, a reckoning which would make the total population of Germany many times that number. Even G. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte (1880), I, p. 19, takes at their face value such Roman exaggerations as 300,000 warriors for the Cimbri and Teutones, 60,000 for the Bructeri, and the like, figures which presuppose an incredibly dense population.

[29] Histoire des Institutions politiques de l’ancienne France, I (1875), “L’Invasion Germanique,” p. 310 ff. For Delbrück’s results see the chapter entitled “Zahlen,” Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, II, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 294 ff. On the actual number of the Vandals and their allies, a cardinal point in the discussion, compare H. Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., 81 (1895), 475 f. O. Seeck (Jahrb. für Nationalökonomie u. Statistik, III, 13 (1897), p. 173 ff.) argued unsuccessfully for the older view, but Delbrück (Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, II, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 308 f.) has completely settled this specific question.

[30] “Observations sur l’état et le nombre des populations germaniques dans la seconde moitié du IVe siècle, d’après Ammien Marcellin,” Mélanges Cagnat, Paris, 1912, pp. 247-267.

[31] “Der urgermanische Gau und Staat,” Preussische Jahrbücher, 81, (1895), p. 471 ff. The main arguments here presented (except the detailed criticism and comparison of a number of ancient estimates, p. 474 ff.) are repeated with some slight modifications in his Gesch. d. Kriegskunst, II, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 12 ff. L. Schmidt, Gesch. der deutschen Stämme, I (1904), p. 48, accepts Delbrück’s calculations indeed, though with some reserve; p. 46 f. he criticizes effectively the absurd exaggerations with which the pages of many ancient authors abound.

[32] Preuss. Jahrb., p. 482.

[33] Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre, I, Leipzig, 1901, p. 158 ff., especially 159 f. and 183.

[34] Velleius, II, 109.

[35] Op. cit., I, p. 48; II, p. 209.

[36] See Gardthausen, Augustus, I. p. 1169 on this campaign.

[37] This is the calculation Caesar uses for the Helvetians (Bell. Gall., I, 29), and Velleius (II, 116) for the Pannonian rebels. Cf. Beloch, Rh. Mus., LIV (1899), p. 431, 1. L. Schmidt uses the ratio of one to five. It seems more reasonable, however, to use the Roman system of reckoning. Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., 81, p. 480, uses the one to five ratio for the proportion of warriors who might be expected to attend the war council, but that is a slightly different thing from the utmost that a tribe could do in a desperate situation.

[38] That the Cheruscan confederacy was originally not more powerful than the Marcomannic seems clear from the fact that, even after the defection of the Semnones, Longobardi and certain Suebian tribes (Tacitus, Ann., II, 45) Arminius and Maroboduus fought a drawn battle. Tacitus’ statement that the counter defection of Inguiomerus was a complete offset is most improbable; see L. Schmidt, op. cit., II, 2, 181.

[39] La population française. Histoire de la population avant 1789, I, Paris, 1889, p. 99 ff. Otto Hirschfeld (Sitzungsber. d. Berl. Akad., 1897, p. 1101) also uses this bit of evidence as a basis for calculations. Beloch, however, (Rh. Mus., LIV (1899), p. 414 f.) utterly rejects it, because he insists on taking the word ἄνδρες here as equivalent to fighting men. That is doubtless correct, but as it makes arrant nonsense of the calculation, it should not be ascribed to so well-informed a scientist as Posidonius, but only to the stupid Diodorus, who has thus changed what must have been an estimate only of the total population, into one of the number capable of bearing arms. Beloch’s remark that the ancient Gauls had no idea of the total population, but only of the fighting men, seems to go too far. If one number be known it is an easy matter to calculate the other. Certainly Posidonius was capable of multiplying any figures the Gauls may have given him for their fighting men by 4 or 5, in order to secure an estimate of the whole population. Besides, the Gauls must have had a certain accepted proportion between the total population of a district and the number of fighting men it could produce. They had a great many more occasions to make use of such calculations than any one in modern times would ever have; for questions of life and death depended only too frequently on just such estimates.

[40] Strabo, IV, 3, 2.

[41] Rh. Mus., LIV (1899), pp. 438, 443.

[42] Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., p. 47 f. Any exact calculation of the total number of tribes in Germany is impossible because our knowledge of the different tribal names comes from diverse periods, and the designations of clans and confederacies varied greatly from time to time.

[43] Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., p. 428, note, and Geschichte der Kriegskunst, I, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 14.

[44] Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter, Leipzig, 1886, I, p. 148 ff., esp. 161 ff.

[45] Assuming that the region occupied by the Germans in the time of Augustus was approximately as large as the modern German empire. Agrippa’s imperfect calculation, even including Raetia and Noricum, was to be sure much smaller, i. e., 686 × 248 m.; Pliny, Nat. Hist., IV, 98.

[46] See Beloch, Rh. Mus., LIV (1899), pp. 418, 423, 428. In his Bevölkerung, p. 457, he had estimated one in ten, which was too large a fraction.

[47] Tac., Ann., I, 56.

[48] Tac., Ann., II, 16. This was the force later kept at the Rhine. Tacitus, Ann., IV, 5; Josephus, II, 16, 4.

[49] Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., p. 481 f., has well refuted the Roman claims of great numerical superiority on the part of the Germans, and concludes that the forces on both sides were about equal. Judging from the campaign against Maroboduus, which it may be noted, is the only one in which we have apparently reliable information regarding the strength of both sides, one might safely infer that, at least under Tiberius, the Romans enjoyed actual numerical superiority.

[50] Delbrück, Preuss. Jahrb., p. 481, exaggerates somewhat the advantage in cavalry which the Germans enjoyed.

[51] Velleius, II, 106.

[52] The overwhelmingly superior force of Rome is specifically admitted by some historians, but hardly seems as yet to be generally accepted. See especially Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France, vol. II, 2nd ed. (by C. Jullian), Paris, 1891, p. 328; Ed. Meyer, Kl. Schr., p. 486; von Domaszewski, Geschichte der römischen Kaiser, Leipzig, 1909, p. 245. The same thing is meant also by J. Beloch where he observes that the Romans recognized “dass die Eroberung grössere Anstrengungen kosten würde als das Objekt wert war” (Griechische Geschichte, 2nd ed., vol. I, 1 (1912), p. 14).

[53] See [p. 37].

[54] Cf. Koepp, Die Römer in Deutschland, p. 35: “Kurz, als Tiberius am Rhein erschien, waren die Befürchtungen der ersten Aufregung schon zerstreut, die Folgen des Unglücksfalls eingedämmt. Rasch war das Heer ergänzt, ja vermehrt”; Hübner, op. cit., p. 111: “Nach des Varus Niederlage musste zeitweilig das rechtsrheinische Gebiet verlassen werden; Tiberius und Germanicus gewannen es wieder”; Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, V, 53: “The defeat was soon compensated, in so far as the Rhine army was immediately not simply made up to its strength, but considerably reinforced”; Gardthausen, I, p. 1223: “damals ... wurde die Rheinarmee auf acht Legionen verstärkt.” So Niese, Röm. Gesch., p. 298.

[55] Vell., II, 120: “mittitur [Tiberius] ad Germaniam ... ultro Rhenum cum exercitu transgreditur.”

[56] Suet., Tib., 18 and 19; Gardthausen, I, p. 1224.

[57] Gardthausen, I, p. 1225.

[58] Suet., Tib., 19.

[59] Cf. Tac., Ann., II, 26, 4: “Precante Germanico annum efficiendis coeptis.” This is the basis of Mommsen’s statement (Hist. of Rome, V, p. 59): [Germanicus] “reported to Rome that in the next campaign he should have the subjugation of Germany complete.” And just preceding this the same author says: “The second tropaeum of Germanicus [in the Teutoburg forest] spoke of the overthrow of all the Germanic tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe.” See also p. 54 f. for further discussion of the campaigns of Tiberius and Germanicus. Mommsen speaks of the campaigns of the summers 12, 13, and 14 as years of inaction, a mere continuance of the war, of which nothing at all is reported. This gap in the record Riese explains, Forschungen, etc., p. 13 by the meagerness of our sources (Velleius, Suetonius, and Dio) covering the last years of Augustus, as compared with the fuller account in Tacitus of the early years of the regency of Tiberius. So Koepp, op. cit., p. 34.

[60] Hist. of Rome, V, p. 62.

[61] I, p. 1201.

[62] Cf. p. 36.

[63] Cf. Gardthausen, I, p. 492: “Mit einem Worte Augustus ist derselbe geblieben: kalt, klar und klug sein ganzes Leben lang, keineswegs so genial wie Julius Caesar, aber entschieden verständiger.” These characteristics are uncontradicted save, of course, by the rhetorically embellished gossip about Augustus’ discomposure after the defeat of Varus; see Suet., Aug., 23; Dio, 56, 23. There is not the slightest evidence of a panic at Rome or of alarm on the part of any one except Augustus. Yet at the Pannonian-Dalmatian revolt, only a short time before (6-9 A. D.), the people were greatly wrought up because of wars and famines (Dio, 55, 31), and Augustus announced in the senate that in a few days the enemy might reach Rome, while Tiberius was provided with 15 legions (Velleius, II, 111, 1). So there was profound alarm at Rome at the time of the Marcomannic war (167-180 A. D. See Julius Capitolinus, Marcus Antoninus, 13, 1 and Ammianus, XXXI, 5, 13), while at the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones all Italy was palsied with fear (Sall., Jug., 114; Orosius, 5, 15, 7; 6, 14, 2). But at the defeat of Varus we hear nothing of the kind. Besides, Augustus was now well advanced in years, his health was precarious, his daughter and granddaughter had humiliated and cruelly disappointed him, while the successive deaths in his family had forced him to adopt as his heir and successor Tiberius, whom he greatly disliked. It is small wonder that in his old age and bereavements he should give way to some momentary weakness. The Varus calamity, coming so soon after the Pannonian revolt, and just at the time when the strain from the latter had momentarily lifted, must have been too much for Augustus to bear.

[64] Gardthausen, I, p. 508. This view of Augustus is not invalidated by Gardthausen’s further statement: “Der Kaiser scheute sich nicht zurückzutreten, wenn der Widerstand grösser war als die Mittel, die er darauf verwenden wollte oder konnte.” These words are nothing more than an attempt to explain what all who hold to the traditional view are forced to explain, viz., Augustus’ reversal of policy in “die schwere Wahl zwischen der Politik des dauernden Friedens und der Politik der fortgesetzten Eroberung.”

[65] Kleine Schriften, p. 462.

[66] Meyer, l. c.: “Der Vorwurf, dass er feige gewesen sei, ist gewiss unbegründet.”

[67] The reduction of the army after the battle of Actium shows that Augustus wished no larger standing forces than would be sufficient for the internal and external peace of the empire. See Gardthausen, I, p. 637; Furneaux, Tacitus, Introd., p. 121; Mommsen, Germanische Politik, etc., p. 8: “ja man darf sagen, dass Augustus das Militärwesen in einem Grade auf die Defensive beschränkte.”

[68] Monumentum Ancyranum, V, 14. Cf. Dio, 56, 33; Suet., Aug., 101; Tac., Ann., I, 11: “quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus addideratque consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii, incertum metu an per invidiam.” The sneer, “metu an per invidiam”, found in the words of Tacitus, who wrote in the time of the great expansive conquests of Trajan, and who had only contempt for the prudent foreign policy of Augustus (see Furneaux on this passage), has undoubtedly caused many to restrict Augustus’ peace policy to the period after Varus’ defeat. But no such restriction should be made. We now know that the Monum. Ancyr. was not written at one time, nor at the end of Augustus’ life, but was finished in 6 A. D. See Chapter III, notes [84] and [88]. This shows that his counsel of peace and his advice not to extend the limits of the empire was made prior to, and hence not as a result of, the defeat of Varus (9 A. D.), as has so frequently been asserted.

[69] Aug., 21: “nec ulli genti sine iustis et necessariis causis bellum intulit.”

[70] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. 1910, I, p. 1 f.

[71] Gardthausen, I, p. 317: “Freude am Kriege und an Eroberungen ist bekanntlich das Letzte, was man dem jugendlichen und doch staatsklugen Caesar billiger Weise vorwerfen konnte.” Tacitus’ statement (Ann., I, 3), that Augustus’ later wars against the Germans were “abolendae magis infamiae ob amissum cum Quintilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii”, does not necessarily mean, as is often inferred, that the earlier wars aimed to enlarge the empire.

[72] Vell., II, 89: “Finita vicesimo anno bella civilia, sepulta externa, revocata pax, sopitus ubique armorum furor, restituta vis legibus, iudiciis auctoritas.” This is well expressed by Botsford, Hist. of Rome, p. 205: “The chief aim of Augustus was to protect the frontiers, to maintain quiet by diplomacy and to wage war solely for the sake of peace.”

[73] Kleine Schriften, p. 455.

[74] Gardthausen, I, p. 477: “Der Friede war der Preis, um den Rom sich die Herrschaft des Augustus gefallen liess; und auch seine Nachfolger haben im Wesentlichen eine Politik des Friedens befolgt.” Cf. Lang, op. cit., p. 56: “Sein [Tiberius] Ziel war es daher, als er zur Herrschaft gekommen war, im Sinne und in Fortsetzung der Politik seines Adoptivvaters und Vorgängers Augustus, ihnen [den Provinzen] diese Ruhe und Ordnung zu verschaffen.”

[75] Suet., Aug., 22: “Ianum Quirinum, semel atque iterum a condita urbe ante memoriam suam clausum, in multo breviore temporis spatio terra marique pace parta ter clusit.”

[76] Davis, Outline Hist. of the Rom. Empire, New York, 1907, p. 59.

[77] Dio, 54, 20; Suet., Aug., 23.

[78] See Eduard Meyer, Kleine Schriften, p. 230: “He [Augustus] might have followed the precedent of Caesar and have aspired to world-conquest and absolute monarchy; by shrinking from it, by giving the state a new constitution and retaining for himself only limited powers, he made world-conquest impossible”; Ibid., p. 470 f.; Gardthausen, I, p. 1069; Drumann, Röm. Gesch., IV (1910), p. 300; Gibbon (see above [p. 57]). It is refuted also by the emperor Julian, who shows himself to be singularly well-informed regarding the history of the early empire (Cf. J. Geffcken, Kaiser Julianus, Leipzig, 1914, p. 150: “Julian zeigt ... wie gründlich er sich mit der Geschichte jener Zeit beschäftigt hat”). In The Caesars, 326 C, he represents Augustus as saying: “For I did not give way to boundless ambition and aim at enlarging her [Rome’s] empire at all costs, but assigned for it two boundaries defined as it were by nature herself, the Danube and the Euphrates. Then after conquering the Scythians and Thracians I did not employ the long reign that you gods vouchsafed me in making projects for war after war, but devoted my leisure to legislation and to reforming the evils that war had caused.” (Trans. by Wilmer Cave Wright).

[79] Op. cit., p. 12. There is at least consistency in von Ranke’s position. The only conceivable reason for the conquest of Germany would be precisely such a fantastic dream of universal empire. But the weakness of the whole argument of those who claim that Germany’s conquest was intended is that its logical consequences lead to absurd results, contradicting all that we know of the character of the emperor and of his times.

[80] II, 39.

[81] Cf. Drumann, Gesch. Roms,² 1910, IV, p. 300: “Octavian ergriff als Imperator das Schwert nur zu seiner Verteidigung; er führte nur gerechte Kriege; die Lorbeeren reizten ihn nicht, und darin, nicht in der Ueberzeugung, dass ein endloss vergrösserter Koloss in sich zusammenstürzt, lag die erste und vorzügliche Ursache seiner Mässigung. Gern hätte er den Tempel des Janus für immer geschlossen.”

[82] “Zum Monum. Ancyr.” Beiträge zur alten Gesch., II (1902), pp. 141-162.

[83] This view, together with the statement that the last addition was made by Augustus in 14 A. D., was subsequently modified by Kornemann in placing the number of revisions at seven (Klio, IV (1904), pp. 88-97), and the final revision at the end or middle of the year 6 A. D. (Beiträge zur alten Gesch., III (1903), p. 74 f.).

[84] “Zur Entstehung des Monum. Ancyr.,” Hermes, 38 (1903), pp. 618-628.

[85] Vulić, “Quando fu scritto il monumento Ancyrano,” Riv. di Storia Ant., XIII (1909), pp. 41-46, objects to the theory of interpolation in chapter 26. In it Augustus says: “Gallias et Hispanias provincias et Germaniam ... pacavi”, i. e. the Gauls and the Spains are considered real provinces, while Germany is a neighboring territory, over which for the time Rome’s beneficent influence was extended. The necessity of bringing out this distinction made imperative the repetition of the word “provinciae” (read two lines above), and this repetition justifies the abandonment of the geographical order.

[86] “Nochmals das Monum. Ancyr.,” Klio, IV (1904), pp. 88-97.

[87] “Récents Travaux sur les Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” Mélanges Cagnat, Paris, 1912, p. 144.

[88] Cf. Bésnier, op. cit., p. 145: “nous savons en tout cas, qu’ Auguste n’a pas improvisé son apologie à la veille de sa mort, qu’il a commencé de bonne heure à la rédiger, au moins dès l’an 12 av. J.-C. et peut-être plus tot encore, qu’en l’an 6 de notre ére il a cessé d’y travailler, et que dans l’intervalle il l’a enrichie graduellement d’additions nombreuses et significatives.... Le souple génie politique d’Auguste s’y manifeste tout entier et l’on y retrouve, présentées sous le meilleur jour, les grandes pensées dont il s’est inspire tour à tour pendant son règne si long et si bien rempli.”

[89] Cf. Ritterling, op. cit., p. 176: “Aber eine durchgreifende Aenderung ist sicher erst infolge der lollianischen Niederlage und des durch diese hervorgerufenen Umschwunges der römischen Politik gegenüber den Germanen vorgenommen worden. Bisher war die Kriegführung gegen die Germanen eine in der Hauptsache rein defensive gewesen ... Eine Eroberung des rechtsrheinischen Gebietes lag der bisherigen römischen Politik durchaus fern. Jetzt fasste Augustus die völlige Einverleibung Germaniens bis an die Elbe ins Auge und traf während seiner mehrjährigen Anwesenheit in Gallien von 16 bis 13 die in grossem Stile angelegten Vorbereitungen zur Ausführung dieses Planes.”

[90] Op. cit., p. 25.

[91] Monumentum Ancyranum, VI, 3.

[92] Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., V, p. 23; Gardthausen, I, p. 1066; Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, Paris, 1914, IV, p. 108.

[93] Dio, 54, 20; Vell., II, 97; Suet., Aug., 23.

[94] Paul Meyer, Der Triumphzug des Germanicus, p. 85.

[95] I, p. 1067. According to Niese, op. cit., p. 295, the decision came later, and by reason of a new attack from the Sugambri: “Dann erfolgte 12 v. Chr. ein neuer Angriff des Sugambrers Melo, und nun ward beschlossen, um Gallien zu sichern und zu beruhigen, über den Rhein hinüberzugreifen und die Germanen zu unterwerfen.”

[96] Kleine Schriften, p. 471.

[97] Op. cit., p. 214: “Der Kaiser entschloss sich jetzt von seinem Grundsatz, das Reich nicht durch Eroberung zu mehren, abzugehen und ... auf diese Weise eine Grenze herzustellen welche leichter zu vertheidigen und kürzer war als die jetzt bestehende.”

[98] Germanische Politik, etc., p. 9.

[99] Op. cit., 29.

[100] The same statement is made by other historians, e. g., Merivale, General Hist. of Rome, New York, 1876, p. 431; Bury (Hist. of the Roman Empire, New York, 1893, p. 125), who speaks of “The project of extending the empire to the Albis, into which perhaps the cautious emperor was persuaded by the ardor of his favorite stepson, Drusus.” Cf. Mommsen, Germanische Politik, etc., p. 10: “Ob Augustus ganz von freien Stücken sich dazu entschloss, die Friedenspolitik zu verlassen, oder ob er dem Drängen der Seinigen [Agrippa, Tiberius, and Drusus] nachgab, die Niederlage des Lollius gab den Ausschlag.”

[101] I, p. 1049 f.

[102] Op. cit., V, p. 142.

[103] Eduard Meyer, Kleine Schriften, p. 230, citing Augustus’ decision against imperial expansion, as a remarkable instance of the power and consequence of the individual action in history, says: “If we put the question, how it came to pass that the ... Germans were not bent under the yoke of Rome ... the only reason history can give is that it was the result of the decision which Augustus made concerning the internal organization of the empire, when he had become its absolute master by the battle of Actium. This decision sprang from his character and his own free will.” On the other hand Beloch, Griech. Gesch.², I, 1 (1912), p. 15, takes the traditional view: “nicht der Wille zur Eroberung hat den Römern gefehlt, sondern die Macht; wenn man lieber will, sie erkannten dass die Eroberung grössere Anstrengungen kosten würde, als das Objekt wert war.”

[104] Kaiser Augustus, p. 111.

[105] I, p. 1048 f.

[106] Op. cit., V, p. 153 f.

[107] Mommsen, Germanische Politik, etc., p. 13: “wie Gallien durch Caesar, so war vierzig Jahre später Germanien zum römischen Reiche gebracht, die neue Monarchie mit Waffenruhm und Siegesglanz geschmückt worden.” In explanation of the fact that still later, in Tiberius’ time, Germany is spoken of as “almost a province” (Vell., II, 97, 4), Mommsen says: “so ist es begreiflich genug, dass man das nachherige Aufgeben desselben mit dem Willen des Augustus zu beschönigen bemüht war.” Niese, Grundriss der röm. Gesch., 1910, p. 297; Gardthausen, II, p. 1197; Fr. Kauffman, “Deutsche Altertumskunde” (in Matthias’ Handbuch d. deutschen Unterrichts, München, 1913, p. 317): “In den Jahren 12 v. Ch. Geb. bestand offiziell eine römische Provinz Germanien, die das Land vom Rhein bis zur Elbe unfasste.”

[108] But see the evidence to prove that as late as 6 A. D. Augustus did not consider Germany a province. (See Chapter III, [note 85]). Augustus’ own opinion as to whether it was or was not a province at this date is of the highest value for our question. For if he did not so consider it, then a great deal of first class documentary evidence is necessary to establish the fact that it really was a province. Similarly some convincing reason must be given to account for his failure to call it a province. Such evidence is not forthcoming. On the other hand there is no evidence to show that Augustus did regard it as a province but was hindered by the defeat of Varus from formally organizing it as such. For since no part of the Monum. Ancyr. was written after 6 A. D., it cannot be cited as evidence of any change in Augustus’ views after 9 A. D., as is often done on the assumption that the final revision of that document took place in 14 A. D.

[109] II, p. 1089.

[110] I, p. 1198: “Wenn auch die von Schuchhardt gefundenen Reste zweifelhaft sind, so bleibt doch immer die Thatsache bestehen, dass die Römer im Innern von Deutschland Castelle angelegt haben.”

[111] Die Römer in Deutschland, p. 34. Eduard Meyer, in Kleine Schriften, p. 230, expresses the same view in different words: “Now the very existence of Teutonic languages is a consequence of the fact that Germany was not subdued by the Romans.... Caesar would have subdued Germany as well as he did Gaul when he had once begun; but for the military and financial organization which Augustus gave to the Roman world, the task was too great indeed. So the emperor left Germany to herself.”

[112] Westfalen, p. 40: “das rechtsrheinische Germanien ist niemals eigentlich Provinz gewesen, auch nicht vor der Varusschlacht.”

[113] Studia Romana, 1859, P. 130.

[114] Röm. Gesch., V, p. 23 f.

[115] In Germanische Politik, etc., p. 13, Mommsen suggests that these terms, Upper and Lower Germany, later and improperly applied to the small territory on the left bank of the Rhine, were probably original designations for Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. For the correct status, see Riese’s view as given below, [p. 73 ff.]

[116] “Die Verwaltung der Rheingrenze,” etc., Commentationes philologae in honorem Th. Mommseni, p. 434.

[117] Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I (1881), p. 271.

[118] Op. cit., p. 212.

[119] p. 219.

[120] p. 229.

[121] p. 233. Pelham, “The Roman Frontier in Southern Germany” (in Essays on Roman History, 1910, p. 179 f.), while speaking repeatedly of Upper and Lower Germany, limits his discussion for the most part to the period after Augustus’ time and specifically to the territory lying along the left bank of the Rhine. He says, referring to Tacitus’ statement (Germ., 29) to the effect that a stretch of territory beyond the Upper Rhine had been annexed by Rome and made a part of the province, that Upper Germany must be the province meant; that the land annexed to it was in reality “debatable land” (dubiae possessionis of Tacitus), and had been so for more than 150 years. The last sentence clearly indicates that, in the writer’s view, Rome had never had the land organized as her own territory.

[122] Forschungen zur Gesch. der Rheinlande in der Römerzeit, p. 5 f. See also Riese in Westdeutsche Zeitschrift f. Gesch. u. Kunst, Korrespondenz-Blatt, xiv (1895), p. 156 f. He shows here that the two provinces, Upper and Lower Germany, were not established until the time of Domitian, some time between 82-90 A. D.: “Vor dem Jahre 90 gab es also ... nur eine Germania, in der ein exercitus Germanicus als superior und inferior unter zwei zu gegenseitiger Hülfe verbundenen Heereslegaten standen; dagegen gab es keine Germania superior und keine Germania inferior.... Auch ist jene Germania keine Provinz, sondern der Heeresbezirk der gallischen Provinzen.”

[123] Plin., N. H., iv, 105; Dio, 53, 12; Oros., I, 2.

[124] Ritterling (op. cit., p. 162) believes, however, that there were only two Gauls, and that the division took place at the beginning of Augustus’ reign: “Bei der Neuordnung des Reiches nach Beendigung der Bürgerkriege, i. J. 727-27, war ganz Gallien in zwei Kommandobezirke geteilt worden: der eine umfasste Aquitania und Narbonensis, der andere Gallia comata, also die Gebiete der späteren Provinzen Lugdunensis und Belgica.” See also Gardthausen, I, 662; II, 355.

[125] See [p. 27] and [note].

[126] Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I², 504.

[127] There seems to be no doubt that the military forces of all the Gauls were at this time under the direction of one commander; further that this position was in the nature of a commandership-in-chief of all the forces, on the lower, middle, and upper Rhine. Cf. Ritterling, op. cit., p. 187: “die Neuordnung der politischen und militärischen Verhältnisse Galliens durch Augustus seit dem Jahre 739-15 musste notwendig auch eine Aenderung in der Organisation des Heereskommandos zur Folge haben. Dem Statthalter der neugebildeten Provinz Belgica, in deren Gebiet jetzt beide gallischen Heere ihre Standlager hatten, konnte unmöglich diese bedeutendste Streitmacht des Reiches und die Führung des Krieges gegen die Germanen anvertraut werden. Anderseits machte die Grösse der militärischen Aufgaben und das Ineinandergreifen der geplanten Operationen am Mittel- und Niederrhein ein einheitliches Oberkommando notwendig.”

[128] Characters and Events of Roman History, p. 165.

[129] See also Sadée, Römer und Germanen, II. Theil, p. 99 (the chapter “Die Befreiung Deutschlands durch Arminius”); Wolf, Die That des Arminius, p. 41 f. (“Der Befreiungskampf”). Eduard Meyer’s statement that it was not possible for Rome to raise sufficient citizen troops to win back the advantage lost in 9 A. D. has already been answered (see [p. 38]).

[130] Reitzenstein, “Das deutsche Heldenlied bei Tacitus,” Hermes, 48 (1913), p. 268, quite correctly observes that the defeat of Varus had no such significance; that there was no change in Rome’s policy until Germanicus’ time, and that Rome’s contest with Germany through three decades did nothing to unite the strength of her antagonist, for hatred toward Arminius and the desire for his downfall characterize a political situation which is found at a much later time.

[131] Cf. also Mommsen, Germanische Politik, etc., p. 14 f.: “Die Unterwerfung Germaniens ... stockt mit dem Jahre 747 [7 B. C.] plötzlich. Wenn die sachlichen Verhältnisse dafür schlechterdings keinen Grund an die Hand geben, so liegt derselbe in den persönlichen klar genug vor.” As reasons of a private character he mentions: (1) the deaths of Agrippa and Drusus; (2) the estrangement of Tiberius. Then, after Tiberius’ return and the beginning of the war anew (4 A. D.), the following events: (1) the Dalmatian-Pannonian uprising; (2) the defeat of Varus; (3) the recall of Germanicus and the conditions surrounding the absolute monarchy of Tiberius.

[132] II, p. 1214; this is also the view of Ferrero, Characters and Events, p. 165.

[133] Op. cit., p. 117: “Freilich gehörte dazu eine sehr grosse Anstrengung; nur Heere von mehreren Legionen durften sich in das germanische Gebiet tiefer hineinwagen. Aber Cäsar hatte zuletzt in Gallien zum wenigsten 11 oder 12 Legionen gehabt. Germanicus hatte nur 8. Man sieht nicht weshalb das römische Reich nicht diese oder eine noch grössere Zahl Legionen viele Jahre hintereinander hätte über den Rhein schicken, oder wie die germanischen Grenzvölker sich dagegen hätten wehren können.”

[134] Practically the same point is made by Paul Meyer, op. cit., p. 86. That is, Germanicus was making notable progress in his campaigns, but was forced by the suspicions and jealousy of Tiberius to sheathe his sword. For the purpose of closing his career an elaborate and well deserved triumph was given him May 26, 17 A. D. Von Ranke, op. cit., p. 28, on the other hand, does not believe that hostilities were renewed against the Germans under Tiberius for purposes of conquest “sondern nur darauf, die Ehre der römischen Waffen herzustellen.” Hence the Roman troops were withdrawn because “die Germanen wurden, wie Tiberius mit Recht bemerkt, für die römische Welt durch ihre inneren Entzweiungen unschädlich.”

[135] Die Römer in Deutschland, p. 45.

[136] This is not convincing to Riese (p. 12, n. 1): “Allerdings bildeten diese Schädigungen ... nur einen und zwar nicht den wichtigsten Grund der Abberufung des Germanicus.” As for the matter of the great costs of such a campaign, one should bear in mind that the difference in cost between maintaining an ancient army on a war footing and on a peace footing was relatively slight. There was no great expense involved in the wastage of artillery and of equipment, when most of the fighting was done hand to hand, and when the soldiers required less rather than more supplies while living in part from the enemy’s country. As a professional standing army was always ready, and no new levies of troops required, not even in the greater wars, regular campaigns in Germany would have been a very slight drain on the treasury.

[137] See op. cit., p. 20.

[138] Cf. Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire, IV, p. 240: “These repeated advances ... though far from having the character of conquests, could not altogether fail in extending the influence of Rome throughout a great portion of central Europe. They inspired a strong sense of her invincibility, and of her conquering destiny; at the same time they exalted the respect of the barbarians for the southern civilization, which could marshal such irresistible forces at so vast a distance from the sources of its power.”

CHAPTER IV
A New Interpretation

Every empire of the ancient world was bordered on one or more sides, if not actually surrounded by barbarian tribes which envied its prosperity and were ever on the alert to organize a razzia into its prosperous domains. It was therefore a prime policy of every empire builder, not merely to mark out distinctly the limits of national authority and responsibility, and to round off the lines of dominion by the inclusion of the whole of some tribe or nation, or the complete extent of a certain well defined district possessed of a unified economic character, but beyond all else to secure an easily defensible frontier line against the aggression of his civilized rivals, and the chronic brigandage of barbarian neighbors. Certainly no civilized country of ancient times enjoyed such immunity from annoyance on the part of its neighbors as did ancient Egypt, when once the upper and the lower kingdoms had been united, for it is wholly surrounded by seas and deserts; yet even here the barbarian was an intermittent danger, the Nubian and Ethiopian in the south, against whom many a Pharaoh waged punitive campaigns; the Libyan in the west; the Bedouins at the northeast; and even the sea could not protect the Delta from the ravages of freebooters from the isles, the far spread front of the latest wave of the Hellenic invaders of Greece. And two of the barbarian nations actually invaded the country in such numbers as to set up dynasties of more than an ephemeral character, the Hyksos and the Ethiopians. Less favorably situated was the civilization in the Mesopotamian valley; Elamites, Kassites, Mitanni, Khita, Aramaeans, and the brigands of the mountains, the last and most powerful, the Medo-Persians, were ready to devastate their peaceful preserves. Persia had to contend with Massagetae and Scythians;[1] Philistia had the Hebrews, and they in turn the Amalekites and other dwellers in the wastes; Carthage, the Numidians, Libyans, and Moors; the Macedonians had the Thracians and Paeonians; the Greeks in Asia Minor had the Lydians, in Italy, the Sabellians, Bruttians, Lucanians, Iapygians,—in short the Greek colonies had upon every coast of the three continents a fringe of warlike and rapacious enemies with whom permanent peace was an impossibility.

Rome was, of course, no exception to the rule, and once her power had spread beyond the confines of Italy it was inevitable that her extraordinary national vitality and genius for organization must keep extending her confines until strong and satisfactory frontiers were secured. By the beginning of our era the great permanent boundaries of the empire had in the main been reached. To the west lay the Atlantic ocean; the south and southeast was covered by the deserts of Sahara, Arabia, and Syria; the north had the Black Sea[2] and the Danube; only two quarters were inadequately provided for, the northeast, Armenia, and the northwest, Germany. In the former case the uplands of the Taurus constitute a welter of confused peaks and ranges, whose trend is, however, in the main east and west, so that neither the crest of a long line of mountains nor the course of some large river supplies any satisfactory north and south line.[3] In the latter, a relatively small river, that showed a marked tendency to flow in parallel channels, with a rather sluggish current except in a few places, and with a considerable number of islands, so that it could be crossed almost at will even by barbarian tribes, furnished inadequate protection to the rich provinces of Gaul.[4] Had the population on the right band of the Rhine been extremely thin, or sluggish, as for a long period it seems to have been on the north bank of the Danube, no great danger need have been anticipated here, but the Germans were, for barbarians, relatively numerous,[5] brave, and adventurous to a fault, and passionately addicted to warfare and marauding. Under these circumstances it seems clear that an ordinary frontier line would have been thoroughly insecure. No matter how many forts and trenches might be established along the Rhine it would have been impossible to hold a single line intact even with the full standing army of the Empire. If the hostile territory extended right up to the ramparts of the legionaries, the Germans, secure in the protection of their hills, forests, and swamps, could gather an overwhelming force, cross the river and break through the fortifications at any point they pleased along a line of several hundred miles in length, before an adequate force, with the slow methods of communication then available, could be gathered to resist them. And once past the defenses, either the invaders must be allowed to harry and plunder at will, while the breach was repaired to stop the influx of others, or else, if they were pursued and hunted down, the forts must be weakened to the imminent danger of a repetition of the same event at some other point.

There were but two ways to remedy this situation. One was to give up the Rhine as a frontier and to push on; but this would merely have transferred the scene of difficulty, not removed it, for bad as the Rhine may have been it was the best available frontier in this direction until one came to the Arctic Ocean and the Ural Mountains;[6] or if only the Germans were so dangerous as neighbors, the limits of the empire must have been pushed to the almost equally impossible line of the Vistula, or beyond, in order to include them all within its confines; and finally, a very material increase must have been made in the size of the standing army, because the legions on the Rhine served not only the purpose of warding off the Germans but also of keeping in restraint the restless Gauls, while, if the frontier were fixed at the Elbe or the Oder, quite as many troops would be needed to defend it there, and many additional legions for garrison service in Belgica, Gaul, and Noricum.[7] The other way was to buttress the frontier by securing on the right bank of the Rhine a series of friendly states or tribes, whose leading men or factions were to be kept well disposed to the empire by all the expedients of force and diplomacy. In this way the danger from the barbarian would be minimized, no sudden attacks from the proximate tribes need be apprehended, and even against a great tribal movement in the remote hinterland, like that of the Basternae, the Galatians, the Cimbri and Teutones, the Helvetians, and many another even before the Völkerwanderung, the Romans would be amply prepared in advance. The shock could be absorbed by the launching of friendly tribes, more or less strongly supported by Roman troops, against the newcomers, and, if worst came to worst, and the foe pushed his way relentlessly onward, the issue could be decided on foreign territory beyond the frontiers, and with the assistance of tribes which otherwise would have been forced to join the invaders against Rome, or at the best, have remained neutral.[8] Once established, such friendly relations might easily be maintained by the countless devices of a resourceful diplomacy, the honors and recognitions, the flattery and gifts which are so dear to the barbaric heart, and for which incalculable values have ofttimes been rashly bartered away; or, when a chief proved recalcitrant, it was easy among so ambitious and independent a nobility as was that of Germany to raise up a rival who could either compel obedience or else take his place.[9] We can readily believe that the subtle and resourceful Tiberius accomplished during his German campaigns more by diplomacy than with the sword[10], and characteristic not merely of the man but of the general situation which had been produced was his effort to console the impetuous Germanicus with the observation that the Germans could well be left to themselves now, i. e. to cutting one another’s throats at the artful suggestion of Roman diplomacy.[11] But diplomacy alone could never have initiated such a condition in Germany; nothing less was needed than the vivid fear of the legionaries, and that too not as a static body of troops however powerful, but dreaded through bitter experience of what it meant to have the cohorts carry fire and sword to the innermost recesses of the country. Barbarian peoples are easily impressed by a portentous occurrence, but with them the effect wears rapidly away, unless by frequent repetition it be seared into their consciousness. This process of terrorization had to be kept up until the fear of Rome was so great that the mere thought of invasion would be recognized as madness. The readiness with which the tribes of Gaul and even of Germany[12] expressed their submission to Caesar, after some heavy stroke, is familiar to all readers of the Gallic Wars, but no less characteristic is the readiness with which they would take up arms at the least rumor of a reverse, or even without any change in the situation whatsoever, merely after the first effects of the news of disaster had worn away.[13] For years therefore after the Rhine had been definitely determined upon as a frontier it was necessary for Roman generals to march at frequent intervals into Germany, making powerful demonstrations in force not simply among the proximate tribes, but penetrating far into the interior, so that even the remotest might trust no more to their forests and their swamps; bringing ships of war up the larger rivers not merely to support the land troops, but also to demonstrate the mastery over water as well as land, and to show how far beyond the actual frontier of the empire its outstretched arm could strike; rewarding friends and establishing them more firmly in places of authority, punishing foes individually and in small groups, beating down any armed opposition that dared to raise its head (and that was relatively seldom in the numerous campaigns that were waged), and ruthlessly devasting the territory of the intransigent, frequently in the more completely pacified districts adjusting disputes between Roman merchants and the natives, or acting as arbitrators in difficulties which had arisen between individuals and factions among the Germans themselves. Such is the picture of these German campaigns as we should draw it, filling in the meager outlines of events as given by the ancient historians. Of a similar nature are the punitive or monitory expeditions carried on by the French, the British, and the Russians, in their dealing with similar barbarous or semicivilized tribes upon the borders of their African or Asiatic empires. Real warfare was rare, a pitched battle seldom took place[14], but the repetition of the demonstrations gradually had its effect even upon the fierce and rapacious Germans.

Let us examine from this point of view the actual conduct of the Germanic campaigns, bearing in mind the utter dissimilarity with the methods employed by Caesar for the conquest of Gaul under similar conditions. In the first place no army posts, forts, or powerful garrisons were established and maintained in Germany. Aliso was nothing more than a station for munitions of war and no doubt traders’ stocks of goods[15], and it was established so short a distance from the Rhine, only a trifle more than 30 miles from Vetera, as to have little more effect in overawing the tribes in its vicinity than did the powerful fortresses along the Rhine itself.[16] The fort built by Drusus in Mt. Taunus can hardly have been much out of sight of the Rhine, and doubtless served merely to secure an easy entrance into the upland country for the garrisons farther south along the river.[17] These two posts certainly could have had no direct influence upon the maintenance of authority in the remote interior. Flevum on the coast was a feeble trading post for merchants, sufficient only to hold their supplies, give a safe anchorage for their vessels, harbor an occasional Roman war vessel which would be needed to guard against the danger of piracy, and protect a few ships engaged in coast traffic towards the north and the northeast. On rare occasions it might serve as a naval base for a large fleet sent out to make a demonstration along the coast and rivers of Germany.[18] None of these can properly be denominated a “Zwingburg”, yet how could the Romans have expected to maintain and make permanent a conquest over such fierce barbarians without overawing them in some wise with great fortresses located at strategical points in their very midst?

It is noteworthy also that no Roman army ventured to spend the winter on German soil except on one occasion, and that was in 4-5 A. D., when for some unknown cause (doubtless one of considerable importance judging from the way in which Velleius speaks of it), Tiberius was so long delayed in the north that his active campaign was not over until December, and winter must have been upon him before he could reach the Rhine.[19] In this case he remained “ad caput Iuliae”, as near the permanent camps doubtless as he could get.[20] The next summer an extensive campaign was undertaken to the north and east, and with the cooperation of the fleet even the Elbe was reached, but that this encampment in the confines of Germany the preceding winter had meant nothing singular, and established no new policy, is clear from the fact that after this summer’s campaign, when, if ever, it would have been necessary to retain a powerful army in the “conquered” territory whose limits are supposed to have been greatly extended, Tiberius calmly led his troops back to the Rhine as usual (“in hiberna legiones reduxit”, Velleius, II, 107, 3).[21]

Furthermore, there was no building of a network of great military roads to facilitate the march of the legions far into the interior, yet if such roads were anywhere needed it was surely in Germany, where the trifling commercial trade routes could not possibly have sufficed for the sure and speedy movements of the legions and their large baggage trains. There are some vague statements regarding engineering works by Drusus[22], and we hear likewise of certain structures of Domitius, the pontes longi in the northwestern swamps[23], and certain limites and aggeres with which Germanicus connected Aliso and the Rhine[24], nothing at all commensurate with the ambitious schemes which the Romans are supposed to have entertained for the conquest of the country.[25]

Finally there was no civil administration established for any part of the country, even that which might have some appearance of being under Roman sway; no colonies were founded, either military or commercial; there was no effort to push forward, to settle, and to absorb the newly acquired “province”.[26] Nor can shortness of time be put forward as an excuse for failure to perform these characteristic features of a regular Roman conquest. Two generations had passed between Caesar’s first passage of the Rhine and the defeat of Varus, forty-seven years since Agrippa had crossed the same river, or, if we consent to take the date generally set for the conquest of Germany, the last campaign of Drusus, 9 B. C., eighteen years of Roman domination had elapsed before the battle of the Teutoburg forest, yet nothing of any real importance had been done to organize the “new province”. For the earlier part of this period since Caesar, one might indeed argue that Rome had been engaged in more absorbing enterprises, to wit, the civil wars, but since the battle of Actium, or at all events since the establishment of the dyarchy, Augustus had a perfectly free hand to complete any project whatsoever that he may have had in mind with regard to Germany. Drusus, Tiberius, Domitius, Vinicius, and Tiberius again had campaigned often enough beyond the Rhine, but nothing was actually done toward finishing any formal conquest. Nor will it do to ascribe to Augustus, as is generally done, the policy of turning over to Quintilius Varus the last formal act of organizing the province. What less opportune moment could possibly have been selected than just the period of the Pannonian revolt, when the Rhine armies were reduced below their normal strength, and a man placed in charge, who, whatever his other virtues may have been, was certainly not an experienced general? For it would certainly be expected that the formal establishment of complete imperial administration in Germany would have aroused what little spirit of independence yet remained (according to this theory) in German bosoms, and to have entrusted such a mission to such a man, at such a time, with such small forces, and without any of the necessary preliminary work of roadbuilding, fortress erection, stationing of garrisons and the like, would have been an act of colossal and criminal folly on the part of one of the shrewdest and most patient and calculating statesmen of the ancient world.[27]

We must here examine the arguments of the authorities who are cited for the statement that Varus was engaged in organizing a full civil administration for the “province” when disaster overtook him. The rhetorical nature of these documents and their general untrustworthiness have already been emphasized; when we look for perfectly definite acts we find either the vaguest language, or else utterly improbable statements. Much has been said of the presence of “causarum patroni” in Varus’ army, but just how much is properly to be inferred therefrom is doubtful. In the first place the evidence for their presence is the worst possible, Florus alone mentioning them (II, 30, 36 f.), and that with the most patent rhetorical purpose, and the highly colored story of how, when the tongue of one was cut out and the lips sewed together he was taunted with the remark, “Viper, you have finally ceased to hiss”. But granted that some “causarum patroni” attended Varus, how much does that signify? When was the organization of a province entrusted to these men, or what official rôle would they play in such a process? Their presence is easily enough explained as an aid to the general in his semilegal activities. We have already observed that he must often have been called upon to settle disputes between the numerous rival nobles of Germany. Who indeed was better suited to act as arbitrator than a powerful and disinterested official of the great neighboring empire?[28] Doubtless many an appeal regarding the business dealings of Roman traders with the Germans was referred likewise to him. The only regular course of procedure would have been to act in accordance with the recognized Roman legal traditions—one surely would not expect a Roman general to dispense German law or to act merely on his passing whims—, and it would be perfectly natural to have on his general staff a few legal advisers. That Varus took their advice frequently, and that some persons felt that they had been injured when such advice was followed, and bore a special grudge against those men, may very well be, but that the final steps of turning a barbarian country into a province were being then and there taken surely cannot be established by the presence of a few legal advisers on Varus’ staff.

More serious is the statement that tribute was being assessed and collected.[29] That this was literally true on any comprehensive scale is clearly impossible. We hear nowhere of publicani[30], or any of the paraphernalia for collecting the tribute of a conquered province.[31] That certain things were given Varus and his army by allied and friendly chiefs and tribes there can be no doubt, and these may have been objects of high specific value, as choice pieces of amber and the like, or mere supplies of grain, meat, hides, and similar material. It was not to be expected that Roman armies should march through Germany without being amply assisted by their socii and amici. An example of what such assistance may have been is the well-known case of the Frisians, who were expected to furnish a few oxhides annually for military uses, and who started to fight when an exacting officer modified the terms of the original understanding. That the Frisians however were really a free, though allied people, at this time, there can be no question, for there is not a hint of actual Roman administration of their affairs.[32] Similar must have been the case with the Cheruscans and other tribes farther inland. A certain amount of assistance was doubtless quite properly expected, and in fact the genuineness of the friendship might well have been doubted if there were no willingness manifested to be helpful.[33] That Varus or some of his officers may occasionally have regarded a voluntary service of friendship or policy in the light of an obligation, and may have requested and even insisted upon more than friendship or policy would lead the Germans to regard as a fair offering, is quite possible, although with a weak force and while the Pannonian revolt was still unsubdued, it would indeed have been preternatural folly. But we are not justified in admitting any more, and this is all that our sources, stripped of a little rhetorical embellishment, really assert.[34]

Finally, Dio speaks of a division of Varus’ forces, whereby a large portion of his army was serving on garrison duty at one point or another in the country, and adds that after the defeat of the main body of his troops all these separate detachments were hunted down and destroyed.[35] This would be important if it could be used as evidence for the establishment of Roman garrisons throughout the land, but it cannot. There is no hint in any other author that a large number of forts and strongholds were captured in consequence of this defeat, yet as intensifying the importance of the reverse, that must surely have been referred to by some one. Every other authority knows merely of the annihilation of Varus and his army, not of the capture of a whole series of strongholds all over the land.[36] Besides, one asks in vain what these places were and when occupied. There is nothing in the accounts of earlier or of later operations which furnishes any answer to such questions, or a parallel to such a military policy on the part of Varus. And finally, what could have been more foolish than to divide a force, unusually small in itself, at a critical period, when the great revolt in Pannonia was not yet put down? That Varus might not have had every man of his three legions with him on the fatal occasion, is quite conceivable. Some detachments might have been with convoys of provisions, others out to look for supplies, yet others engaged in hunting down some band of outlaws, or in putting into execution some decision favorable to a conspicuous supporter of Rome, and that these small bands may have fallen victims after the great disaster is perfectly possible. That is all that we are justified in inferring from Dio after the veneer of rhetoric has been removed.

For we must bear in mind the marked tendencies of our sources for the administration of Varus. Florus was concocting a melodrama; Dio arranging an explanation, which should save the credit of Rome and the Roman soldier by putting all the blame on the dead who tell no tales; Velleius distorting everything in maiorem gloriam of Tiberius, for whom Varus must serve as a foil at every turn. There is therefore nothing so stupid, arrogant, or wilful that it is not cheerfully ascribed to him, while perfectly proper and natural things, like the presence of lawyers on his staff, the making of arrangements regarding the quantity and character of the assistance to be rendered by the socii, the dispersion of little detachments of troops upon one or another small but necessary service, are exaggerated into acts of wanton folly and oppression, and interpreted as the inauguration of a totally new policy. Yet every one of these things must inevitably have taken place on all the numerous similar demonstrations that had been made in Germany; the only reason that they are not mentioned elsewhere is that we have no accounts regarding other operations in Germany in which such details would have been in place. They were the ordinary routine of campaigning and of no interest to the average ancient historiographer, save as they served to point a lurid description of a disaster, or to supply a basis, however flimsy, for a misrepresentation.

Varus was, we may feel assured, doing no more, in all probability much less, than his predecessors had done on numerous occasions. Two years of heavy fighting had not broken the Pannonian revolt. The forces along the Rhine, if not actually weakened in order to enlarge those in Pannonia, would doubtless be so represented by hot-headed Germans of the nationalist persuasion, particularly after two years of utter inaction. It was doubtless in response to suggestions that Roman prestige needed some refurbishing in the interior, and very likely at the express command of Augustus, that Varus undertook his fatal demonstration. The very fact that he left so large a force at the Rhine under Asprenas would indicate that he felt it safer to keep two armies in readiness for action at different points, rather than to concentrate his forces and so risk the breaking out of trouble in some quarter from which pressure had been removed. Without any open show of violence, rather with every expression of courtesy, confidence, and good will, he was engaged in the ordinary routine of a commanding officer upon such a demonstration in force, when suddenly attacked and destroyed. Graciousness and friendliness had been taken for weakness, as too often with the barbarian, and he and his men had to pay for a conciliatory attitude with their lives. All this is but the thing which we should reasonably expect under the circumstances; it is all that the sources, critically examined, will justify us in asserting. We do not possess, to be sure, the actual documents of alliance between Rome and various tribes or chieftains of Germany; we have in fact scarcely the name of any German preserved from Ariovistus to Arminius, but we can be perfectly certain that negotiations of friendship and alliance were frequently and solemnly entered upon. If Rome had made an alliance with Ariovistus in 59 B. C. (see above [n. 8]), while as yet he was a relatively unknown force, hundreds of miles from the frontier, how much more must she have been busy in organizing friendly relations with the German tribes that were immediately contiguous to the Rhine and through whose territories her armies so often marched in peace?

Finally, we would emphasize the general defensive character of the campaigns. In the great majority of cases some disturbance in Germany is definitely given as the cause of the operations, and if our sources for the Germanic wars were not so hopelessly fragmentary we should doubtless find that in every instance the Germans were the aggressors.[37] Even the proposed campaign against Maroboduus we have no right to regard as an act of wanton aggression, for Maroboduus had retired sulkily into the forests of Bohemia, and there developed a formidable army, and though his overt acts were conciliatory, his very presence, considering the inflammable character of the nation to which he belonged, and in which he might incite greater disturbances than had ever yet broken out, was a cause of justifiable apprehension.[38] Indeed any other German than Maroboduus and the fact that he did not seems to have been regarded by his fellow Germans as disloyalty to the national cause. Likewise the campaigns of Germanicus in 14 A. D., while apparently at the very moment unprovoked, were in reality a bit of deferred revenge for the treacherous attack upon the legions of Varus. Is it in fact not truly singular that among so many scattered references to the Germanic wars, there is nowhere, save in Florus, who has been dealt with elsewhere, any direct assertion that the purpose was conquest, reduction to a state of subjection, or the like? (Cf. pp. 27 and note; 75). All writers represent the Romans as being compelled to send troops from time to time into Germany to preserve the peace, and to make powerful demonstrations; there are none of the characteristic marks or processes of conquest. Were it not for the all but universal preconception that conquest was intended the sources speaking for themselves would tell a very different tale. That is briefly the following: for a generation from the time of Caesar to that of Drusus, Rome had been content with merely repelling attacks and punishing the immediate offenders, together with a local demonstration of her forces. That procedure finally appeared to be ineffective, and so a vigorous policy of terrorizing the Germans from further disturbances of the peace was tried. Some canals were dug to facilitate the movements of the fleet which was greatly needed for the purpose of transporting supplies upon the marches into the remote interior; close to the Rhine some swamp road construction was undertaken, subsidiary apparently to the naval operations; a few castella near to the Rhine and along the highways leading into the interior were erected as munition depots, and nothing further.[39] Preparations were made to facilitate incursions into Germany, and these were repeatedly undertaken, but every year Drusus came back to his starting point upon the Rhine, after the most approved manœuvers of the noble Duke of York, or of the perplexed Persian poet who tried to become a philosopher,

“but evermore

Came out by the same door where in I went.”

The campaigns of Domitius and of Tiberius are of exactly the same character, a rally, a raid, and a relapse. Regarded as attempts at conquest these operations represented from the political point of view sheer folly, from the military point of view a sequence of grandiose fiascos; considered as a prolonged series of demonstrations intended to establish a line of buffer states in the form of friendly, allied tribes as a further protection of a naturally weak frontier against the barbaric hordes of the remote swamps and forests, they were sagaciously conceived and to the highest degree successful.

Our argument has thus far followed the process of exclusion. The Roman operations in Germany were either those of permanent conquest or of demonstration; there is no tertium quid. If not conquest, and we have endeavored to refute that view at every point, it must have been demonstration. The nature of our sources does not permit a positive and detailed proof of our new interpretation; that, properly interpreted, however, they are in harmony with it, we have been at pains to show. By way of conclusion we shall undertake to strengthen our position by pointing out analogies and parallels, not merely in the general course of ancient history, but in the foreign policy of Augustus himself.

Punitive and monitory raids were frequently undertaken in antiquity without any attempt whatsoever at making permanent conquest. Such were the oft repeated razzias into Nubia made by the Pharaohs, the countless raids of Assyrian monarchs into the mountains to the east and north, especially the great campaign of Darius among the Scythians in 512 B. C.[40] Of the same sort were the frequent campaigns of the Macedonian kings against the Paeonians and Thracians, though no serious attempt was made to extend their dominion greatly in this direction. A typical example of such chronic punitive campaigning was the service of Clearchus in the Chersonese, who used that peninsula as his base of operations while raiding the Thracians above the Hellespont.[41] The whole history of the more powerful Greek colonies is filled with the record of such punitive expeditions intended to keep the restless barbarians at peace. Of this identical nature were Caesar’s demonstrations across the Rhine in Germany, and beyond the channel in Britain. He had surely no thought of making a permanent conquest, at least at that time, but desired merely to make a display of Roman power to the barbarians who were, or might be, interfering with the security of his conquests in Gaul.[42] It is true that the Romans were not generally in the habit of keeping a foe off at arm’s length in this fashion, but preferred to close with and destroy him once for all, but the time was bound to come soon or late when even the amazing vitality of the Romans would reach its limit, and when they must content themselves with defense instead of new conquest. And this limit was first reached along the Rhine, where an effort at further advance would have involved endless difficulties.

But we are not without examples of quite the same thing from the very reign of Augustus, and that too at a period considerably prior to the disaster of Varus. Of precisely this nature was the raid into Arabia in 25-24 B. C. There is no evidence that a permanent seizure of the land was intended; but occasion was taken to demonstrate the power of Rome, and then the expedition returned. That there may have been some intention of seizing or securing fabled wealth we cannot perhaps wholly deny, although men so well informed as the Roman merchants and administrators of Egypt could hardly have been guilty of such folly, but its main purpose seems to have been merely a demonstration of the vigor of the new Egyptian administration.[43] For it is significant that in the very next year began the Ethiopian wars, which lasted until 20 B. C., wherein likewise no effort was made at extending the limits of the new province, but the Ethiopians or Nubians were given a taste of Roman steel, and made to realize how serious a thing it would be to harass the new lords of Egypt.[44] Of quite the same nature was the invasion of Dacia, 12-9 B. C., and the later raids during the Pannonian revolt, 6-9 A. D. Augustus had certainly no intention of adding Dacia to the Empire; he merely wished to punish the tribes north of the Danube for interfering in the affairs of the province and to give a sharp warning against a repetition of the offense.[45] That the invasions of Germany were made more frequently and probably upon a larger scale than elsewhere, there can be no denial, but that is due to the fact that the Germans were more warlike and martial than the other contiguous barbarians. We have already observed that practically every campaign in Germany was preceded by grave provocation on the part of the barbarians, while frequently the difficulties raised were settled by diplomacy without recourse to armed intervention. But the lesson that an invasion of the Empire was likely to cost far more than it was worth, while it took a long time to teach, was in the end thoroughly learned. For two hundred years after the death of Tiberius almost unbroken peace reigned along this quarter of the frontier, which had been for half a century the storm center of the empire[46], and when the northern defenses finally began to crumble, it was towards the north and northeast, not the northwest, that they first succumbed. The policy of the first two principes was therefore abundantly justified by its lasting success.

As regards the secondary policy, i. e., that of the upbuilding and support of friendly or buffer states immediately contiguous to the actual frontier, there is no lack of parallels from antiquity.[47] Tiglath Pileser IV in 732 B. C., after annexing certain parts of Palestine, set up such a buffer between his empire and Egypt along the marches of Philistia, in the shape of a vassal principality under a Bedouin chief called “kipi, (or resident) of Musri” (i. e. Egypt).[48] Similar was doubtless the purpose of Nebuchadrezzar in leaving Jehoiakim of Judah upon the throne of a subject kingdom after his conquest of Palestine in 704 B. C. Only after two revolts, both instigated apparently by Egypt, did he apparently feel compelled to give up a policy which, though it made it unnecessary to invade Egypt directly, nevertheless allowed the temptation to renew hostilities without a desperate risk.[49] Something similar, though under very different conditions was the policy of Sparta in building a ring of Perioeci about her own Helot population on every side save that of Messenia, where by the destruction of cities and the closing of harbors the Helots were likewise cut off from contact with the outside world. The Perioeci thus formed a double barrier, warding off the enemy on the outside, and helping to keep in a disaffected servile population.[50] Again, this was clearly the policy of Alexander in the East, who set the Indus as his actual frontier, but secured that by establishing two powerful protected states, the kingdoms of Porus and of Taxiles, on the eastern bank.[51] A parallel not too remote, perhaps, can be pointed out in the case of the first contact of Rome and Carthage in Spain. Here the Romans seem to have set up Saguntum as an allied state to act as a buffer or check to the advances of Hannibal to the Ebro, and towards what they chose to regard as their proper sphere of influence (or, if one prefer, that of their ancient ally Massilia). That the policy in this case failed to prevent war is of course no proper criticism of its intent. There were also the numerous but ephemeral protectorates of the eastern marches, which served for the most part the purpose of preparing the formal advance of the empire rather than actually covering a difficult frontier, and so lasted only a short time. But in Armenia we have a truly classical example of a buffer state, whose fortunes no less an authority than Lord Curzon compares directly with those of Afghanistan, similarly situated between the two great rival powers of Russia and Great Britain.[52] One Roman general or emperor after another might have made Armenia a province, as Trajan actually did, although his successor immediately restored it to its former state of uncertainty, but for more than four centuries it was preserved as a buffer state against Parthia.[53] Less notorious but equally clear is the case of Mauretania. In 25 B. C. Augustus transferred King Juba from Numidia, which he thereupon transformed into a province, to Mauretania, which, after having been eight years a province, was once more made a kingdom. The purpose of this singular interchange of political status, must have been to protect the actual confines of the empire from direct contact with the barbarians of the south and west, who were not yet accustomed to the presence of the Romans.[54] It was not until sixty-five years afterwards, 40 A. D., when danger from this quarter might have been expected to have diminished or disappeared after two generations of a strong and peaceful government, that Mauretania was once more made into a province.[55]

With this brief list of parallels and precedents to the German frontier policy which we have ascribed to Augustus, we hope to have shown that there was no striking innovation involved therein, nothing really beyond the range of the expedients and experiences of an ancient statesman. In thus attributing to Augustus in Germany a policy bearing so modern a designation as that of the “buffer state”, we feel convinced that we are not modernizing the ancients, but only recognizing how very ancient some of our supposedly modern expedients of statesmanship in reality are.