But a party of veterans which belonged to the disorderly legions, and then in garrison among the Chaucians, as they began a sedition there, were somewhat quelled by the instant execution of two of their body: an execution this, commanded by Maenius, Camp-Marshal, and rather of good example, than done by competent authority. The tumult, however, swelling again with fresh rage, he fled, but was discovered; so that, finding no safety in lurking, from his own bravery he drew his defence, and declared "that to himself, who was only their Camp-Marshal, these their outrages were not done, but done to the authority of Germanicus, their General, to the majesty of Tiberius their Emperor." At the same time, braving and dismaying all that would have stopped him, he fiercely snatched the colours, faced about towards the Rhine, and pronouncing the doom of traitors and deserters to every man who forsook his ranks, brought them back to their winter quarters, mutinous, in truth, but not daring to mutiny.
In the meantime the deputies from the Senate met Germanicus at the altar of the Ubians {Footnote: Cologne.}, whither in his return he was arrived. Two legions wintered there, the first and twentieth, with the soldiers lately placed under the standard of veterans; men already under the distractions of guilt and fear: and now a new terror possessed them, that these Senators were come armed with injunctions to cancel every concession which they had by sedition extorted; and, as it is the custom of the crowd to be ever charging somebody with the crimes suggested by their own false alarms, the guilt of this imaginary decree they laid upon Minutius Plancus, a Senator of consular dignity, and at the head of this deputation. In the dead of night, they began to clamour aloud for the purple standard placed in the quarters of Germanicus, and, rushing tumultuously to his gate, burst the doors, dragged the Prince out of his bed, and, with menaces of present death, compelled him to deliver the standard. Then, as they roved about the camp, they met the deputies, who, having learnt the outrage, were hastening to Germanicus: upon them they poured a deluge of contumelies, and to present slaughter were devoting them, Plancus chiefly, whom the dignity of his character had restrained from flight; nor in this mortal danger had he other refuge than the quarters of the first legion, where, embracing the Eagle and other ensigns, he sought sanctuary from the religious veneration ever paid them. But, in spite of religion, had not Calpurnius, the Eagle-bearer, by force defeated the last violence of the assault, in the Roman camp had been slain an ambassador of the Roman People, and with his blood had been stained the inviolable altars of the Gods; a barbarity rare even in the camp of an enemy. At last, day returning, when the General, and the soldiers, and their actions could be distinguished, Germanicus entered the camp, and commanding Plancus to be brought, seated him by himself upon the tribunal: he then inveighed against the late "pernicious frenzy, which in it, he said, had fatality, and was rekindled by no despite in the soldiers, but by that of the angry Gods." He explained the genuine purposes of that embassy, and lamented with affecting eloquence "the outrage committed upon Plancus, altogether brutal and unprovoked; the foul violence done to the sacred person of an Ambassador, and the mighty disgrace from thence derived upon the legion." Yet as the assembly showed more stupefaction than calmness, he dismissed the deputies under a guard of auxiliary horse.
During this affright, Germanicus was by all men censured, "that he retired not to the higher army, whence he had been sure of ready obedience, and even of succour against the revolters: already he had taken wrong measures more than enow, by discharging some, rewarding all, and other tender counsels; if he despised his own safety, yet why expose his infant son, why his wife big with child, to the fury of outrageous traitors, wantonly violating all the most sacred rights amongst men? It became him at least to restore his wife and son safe to Tiberius and to the State." He was long unresolved; besides Agrippina was averse to leave him, and urged, that "she was the grand-daughter of Augustus, and it was below her spirit to shrink in a time of danger." But embracing her and their little son, with great tenderness and many tears, he prevailed with her to depart. Thus there marched miserably along a band of helpless women: the wife of a great commander fled like a fugitive, and upon her bosom bore her infant son: about her a troop of other ladies, dragged from their husbands, and drowned in tears, uttering their heavy lamentations; nor weaker than theirs was the grief felt by all who remained.
These groans and tears, and this spectacle of woe, the appearances rather of a city stormed and sacked, than of a Roman camp, that of Germanicus Caesar, victorious and flourishing, awakened attention and inquiry in the soldiers: leaving their tents, they cried, "Whence these doleful wailings? what so lamentable! so many ladies of illustrious quality, travelling thus forlorn; not a Centurion to attend them; not a soldier to guard them; their General's wife amongst them, undistinguished by any mark of her princely dignity; destitute of her ordinary train; frightened from the Roman legions, and repairing, like an exile, for shelter to Treves, there to commit herself to the faith of foreigners." Hence shame and commiseration seized them, and the remembrance of her illustrious family, with that of her own virtues; the brave Agrippa her father; the mighty Augustus her grandfather; the amiable Drusus her father-in-law, herself celebrated for a fruitful bed, and of signal chastity: add the consideration of her little son, born in the camp, nursed in the arms of the legions, and by themselves named Caligula, a military name from the boots which of the same fashion with their own, in compliment to them, and to win their affections, he frequently wore. But nothing so effectually subdued them as their own envy towards the inhabitants of Treves: hence they all besought, all adjured, that she would return to themselves, and with themselves remain: thus some stopped Agrippina; but the main body returned with their entreaties to Germanicus, who, as he was yet in the transports of grief and anger, addressed himself on this wise to the surrounding crowd.
"To me neither is my wife or son dearer than my father and the Commonwealth. But him doubtless the majesty of his name will defend; and there are other armies, loyal armies, to defend the Roman State. As to my wife and children, whom for your glory I could freely sacrifice, I now remove them from your rage; that by my blood alone may be expiated whatever further mischief your fury meditates; and that the murder of the great grandson of Augustus, the murder of the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, may not be added to mine, nor to the blackness of your past guilt. For, during these days of frenzy what has been too horrid for you to commit? What so sacred that you have not violated? To this audience what name shall I give? Can I call you soldiers? you who have beset with arms the son of your Emperor, confined him in your trenches, and held him in a siege? Roman citizens can I call you? you who have trampled upon the supreme authority of the Roman Senate? Laws religiously observed by common enemies, you have profaned; violated the sacred privileges, and persons of Ambassadors; broken the laws of nations. The deified Julius Caesar quelled a sedition in his army by a single word: he called all who refused to follow him, townsmen. The deified Augustus, when, after the battle of Actium, the legions who won it lapsed into mutiny, terrified them into submission by the dignity of his presence and an awful look. These, it is true, are mighty and immortal names, whom I dare not emulate; but, as I am their descendant, and inherit their blood, should the armies in Syria and Spain reject my orders, and contemn my authority, I should think their behaviour strange and base: are not the present legions under stronger ties than those in Syria and Spain? You are the first and the twentieth legions; the former enrolled by Tiberius himself; the other his constant companions in so many battles, his partners in so many victories, and by him enriched with so many bounties! Is this the worthy return you make your Emperor, and late Commander, for the distinction he has shown you, for the favour he has done you, and for his liberalities towards you? And shall I be the author of such tidings to him; such heavy tidings in the midst of congratulations and happy accounts from every province in the Empire? Must it be my sad task to acquaint him that his own new levies, as well as his own veterans who long fought under him; these not appeased by their discharge, and neither of them satiated with the money given them, are both still combined in a furious mutiny? must I tell him that here and only here the Centurions are butchered, the Tribunes driven away, the Ambassadors imprisoned; that with blood the camp is stained, and the rivers flow with blood; and that for me his son, I hold a precarious life at the mercy of men, who owe me duty, and practise enmity?
"Why did you the other day, oh unseasonable and too officious friends! why did you leave me at their mercy by snatching from me my sword, when with it I would have put myself out of their power? He who offered me his own sword showed greater kindness, and was more my friend. I would then have fallen happy; happy that my death would have hid from mine eyes so many horrible crimes since committed by my own army; and for you, you would have chosen another general, such a general, no doubt, as would have left my death unpunished, but still one who would have sought vengeance for that of Varus and the three legions; for the Gods are too just to permit that ever the Belgians, however generously they offer their service, shall reap the credit and renown of retrieving the glory of the Roman name, and of reducing in behalf of Rome the German nations her foes. Filled with this passion for the glory of Rome, I here invoke thy spirit now with the Gods, oh deified Augustus; and thy image interwoven in the ensigns, and thy memory, oh deceased father. Let thy revered spirit, oh Augustus, let thy loved image and memory, oh Drusus, still dear to these legions, vindicate them from this guilty stain, this foul infamy of leaving to foreigners the honour of defending and avenging the Roman State. They are Romans; they already feel the remorses of shame; they are already stimulated with a sense of honour: improve, oh improve this generous disposition in them; that thus inspired they may turn the whole tide of their civil rage to the destruction of their common enemy. And for you, my fellow-soldiers, in whom I behold all the marks of compunction, other countenances, and minds happily changed; if you mean to restore to the Senate its ambassadors; to your Emperor your sworn obedience; to me, your general, my wife and son; be it the first instance of your duty, to fly the contagious company of incendiaries, to separate the sober from the seditious: this will be a faithful sign of remorse, this a firm pledge of fidelity."
These words softened them into supplicants: they confessed that all his reproaches were true; they besought him to punish the guilty and malicious, to pardon the weak and misled, and to lead them against the enemy; to recall his wife, to bring back his son, nor to suffer the fosterling of the legions to be given in hostage to the Gauls. Against the recalling of Agrippina he alleged the advance of winter, and her approaching delivery; but said, that his son should return, and that to themselves he left to execute what remained further to be executed. Instantly, with changed resentments, they ran, and seizing the most seditious, dragged them in bonds to Caius Cretonius, commander of the first legion, who judged and punished them in this manner. The legions, with their swords drawn, surrounded the tribunal; from thence the prisoner was by a Tribune exposed to their view, and if they proclaimed him guilty, cast headlong down, and executed even by his fellow-soldiers, who rejoiced in the execution, because by it they thought their own guilt to be expiated: nor did Germanicus restrain them, since on themselves remained the cruelty and reproach of the slaughter committed without any order of his. The veterans followed the same example of vengeance, and were soon after ordered into Rhetia, in appearance to defend that province against the invading Suevians; in reality, to remove them from a camp still horrible to their sight, as well in the remedy and punishment, as from the memory of their crime. Germanicus next passed a scrutiny upon the conduct and characters of the Centurions: before him they were cited singly; and each gave an account of his name, his company, country, the length of his service, exploits in war, and military presents, if with any he had been distinguished: if the Tribunes or his legion bore testimony of his diligence and integrity, he kept his post; upon concurring complaint of his avarice or cruelty, he was degraded.
Thus were the present commotions appeased; but others as great still subsisted, from the rage and obstinacy of the fifth and twenty-first legions. They were in winter quarters sixty miles off, in a place called the Old Camp, {Footnote: Xanten.} and had first began the sedition: nor was there any wickedness so horrid, that they had not perpetrated; nay, at this time, neither terrified by the punishment, nor reclaimed by the reformation of their fellow-soldiers, they persevered in their fury. Germanicus therefore determined to give them battle, if they persisted in their revolt; and prepared vessels, arms, and troops to be sent down the Rhine.
Before the issue of the sedition in Illyricum was known at Rome, tidings of the uproar in the German legions arrived; hence the city was filled with much terror; and hence against Tiberius many complaints, "that while with feigned consultations and delays he mocked the Senate and people, once the great bodies of the estate, but now bereft of power and armies, the soldiery were in open rebellion, one too mighty and stubborn to be quelled by two princes so young in years and authority: he ought at first to have gone himself, and awed them with the majesty of imperial power, as doubtless they would have returned to duty upon the sight of their Emperor, a Prince of consummate experience, the sovereign disposer of rewards and severity. Did Augustus, even under the pressure of old age and infirmities, take so many journeys into Germany? and should Tiberius, in the vigour of his life, when the same or greater occasions called him thither, sit lazily in the Senate to watch senators and cavil at words? He had fully provided for the domestic servitude of Rome; he ought next to cure the licentiousness of the soldiers, to restrain their turbulent spirits, and reconcile them to a life of peace."
But all these reasonings and reproaches moved not Tiberius: he was determined not to depart from the capital, the centre of power and affairs; nor to chance or peril expose his person and empire. In truth, many and contrary difficulties pressed and perplexed him: "the German army was the stronger; that of Pannonia nearer; the power of both the Gauls supported the former; the latter was at the gates of Italy. Now to which should he repair first? and would not the last visited be inflamed by being postponed? But by sending one of his sons to each, the equal treatment of both was maintained; as also the majesty of the supreme power, which from distance ever derived most reverence. Besides, the young princes would be excused, if to their father they referred such demands as were for them improper to grant; and if they disobeyed Germanicus and Drusus, his own authority remained to appease or punish them: but if once they had contemned their Emperor himself, what other resource was behind?" However, as if he had been upon the point of marching, he chose his attendance, provided his equipage, and prepared a fleet: but by various delays and pretences, sometimes that of the winter, sometimes business, he deceived for a time even the wisest men; much longer the common people, and the provinces for a great while.