The desertion of Segestes being divulged, with his gracious reception from Germanicus, affected his countrymen variously; with hope or anguish, as they were prone or averse to the war. Naturally violent was the spirit of Arminius, and now, by the captivity of his wife, by the fate of his child doomed to bondage though yet unborn, enraged even to distraction: he flew about amongst the Cheruscans, calling them to arms; to arm against Segestes, to arm against Germanicus. Invectives followed his fury; "A blessed father this Segestes," he cried! "a mighty general this Germanicus! invincible warriors these Romans! so many troops have made prisoner of a woman. It is not thus that I conquer; before me three legions fell, and three lieutenant-generals. Open and honourable is my method of war, nor waged with big-bellied women, but against men and arms; and treason is none of my weapons. Still to be seen are the Roman standards in the German groves, there by me hung up and devoted to our country Gods. Let Segestes live a slave in a conquered province; let him to his son recover a foreign priesthood: with the German nations he can never obliterate his reproach, that through him they have seen between the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes, and the Roman toga. To other nations who know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes are also unknown; evils which we too have cast off, in spite of that Augustus now dead and enrolled with the Deities; in spite too of Tiberius, his chosen successor: let us not after this dread a mutinous army, and a boy without experience, their commander; but if you love your country, your kindred, your ancient liberty and laws, better than tyrants and new colonies, let Arminius rather lead you to liberty and glory, than the wicked Segestes to the infamy of bondage."
By these stimulations, not the Cheruscans only were roused, but all the neighbouring nations; and into the confederacy was drawn Inguiomerus, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long since in high credit with the Romans: hence a new source of fear to Germanicus, who, to avoid the shock of their whole forces, and to divert the enemy, sent Caecina with forty Roman cohorts to the river Amisia, {Footnote: Ems.} through the territories of the Bructerans. Pedo the Prefect led the cavalry by the confines of the Frisians: he himself, on the lake, {Footnote: The Zuyder Zee.} embarked four legions; and upon the bank of the said river the whole body met, foot, horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were taken into the service; but the Bructerans, setting fire to their effects and dwellings, were routed by Stertinius, by Germanicus despatched against them with a band lightly armed. As this party were engaged between slaughter and plunder, he found the Eagle of the nineteenth legion lost in the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of the Bructerans, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia {Footnote: Lippe.} was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report still unburied.
Hence Germanicus became inspired with a tender passion to pay the last offices to the legions and their leader; the like tenderness also affected the whole army. They were moved with compassion, some for the fate of their friends, others for that of their relations here tragically slain; they were struck with the doleful casualties of war, and the sad lot of humanity. Caecina was sent before to examine the gloomy recesses of the forest; to lay bridges over the pools; and upon the deceitful marshes, causeways. The army entered the doleful solitude, hideous to sight, hideous to memory. First they saw the camp of Varus, wide in circumference; and the three distinct spaces, allotted to the different Eagles, showed the number of the legions. Further, they beheld the ruinous entrenchment, and the ditch nigh choked up: in it the remains of the army were supposed to have made their last effort, and in it to have found their graves. In the open fields lay their bones all bleached and bare, some separate, some on heaps; just as they had happened to fall, flying for their lives, or resisting unto death. Here were scattered the limbs of horses, there pieces of broken javelins; and the trunks of trees bore the skulls of men. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars; where, of the tribunes and principal centurions, the barbarians had made a horrible immolation. Those who survived the slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword, related the sad particulars to the rest: "Here the commanders of the legions were slain; there we lost the Eagles; here Varus had his first wound; there he gave himself another, and perished by his own unhappy hand. In that place, too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued; in this quarter, for the execution of his captives, he erected so many gibbets; in that such a number of funeral trenches were digged; and with these circumstances of pride and despite he insulted the ensigns and Eagles."
Thus the Roman army buried the bones of the three legions, six years after the slaughter: nor could any one distinguish whether he gathered the particular remains of a stranger, or those of a kinsman; but all considered the whole as their friends, the whole as their relations; with heightened resentments against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. In this pious office, so acceptable to the dead, Germanicus was a partner in the woe of the living; and upon the common tomb laid the first sod: a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon every action of Germanicus he put a perverse meaning, or believed that the affecting spectacle of the unburied slain would sink the spirit of the army, and heighten their terror of the enemy; as also that "a general vested, as Augur, with the intendency of religious rites, became defiled by touching the solemnities of the dead."
Arminius, retiring into desert and pathless places, was pursued by Germanicus; who, as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to advance, and dislodge the enemy from the post they had possessed. Arminius, having directed his men to keep close together, and draw near to the woods, wheeled suddenly about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to rush out: the Roman horse, now engaged by a new army, became disordered, and to their relief some cohorts were sent, but likewise broken by the press of those that fled; and great was the consternation so many ways increased. The enemy too were already pushing them into the morass, a place well known to the pursuers, as to the unapprised Romans it had proved pernicious, had not Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy became terrified, our men reassured, and both retired with equal loss and advantage. Germanicus presently after returning with the army to the river Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet: part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the Rhine. Caecina, who led his own men, was warned, that though he was to return through unknown roads, yet he should with all speed pass the causeway called the long bridges: it is a narrow track this, between vast marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The marshes themselves are of an uncertain soil, here full of mud, there of heavy sticking clay, or traversed with various currents. Round about are woods which rise gently from the plain, and were already filled with soldiers by Arminius; who, by shorter ways and a running march, had arrived there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Caecina, who was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time, and to repulse the foe, resolved at last to encamp in the place, that whilst some were employed in the work, others might maintain the fight.
The Barbarians strove violently to break our station, and to fall upon the entrenchers: they harassed our men, assaulted the works, changed their attacks, and pushed everywhere. With the shouts of the assailants, the cries of the workmen were confusedly mixed; and all things equally combined to distress the Romans: the place deep with ooze sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armour heavy; the waters deep, nor could they in them launch their javelins. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to encounters in the bogs; their persons tall, their spears long, such as could wound at a distance. At last the legions, already yielding, were by night redeemed from an unequal combat; but night interrupted not the activity of the Germans, become by success indefatigable. Without refreshing themselves with sleep, they diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the neighbouring mountains, and turned them into the plains: thus the Roman camp was flooded, the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, and the labour of the poor soldiers renewed and doubled. To Caecina this year proved the fortieth of his sustaining as officer or soldier the functions of arms; a man in all the vicissitudes of war, prosperous or disastrous, well experienced and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, with himself all probable events and expedients, he could devise no other than that of restraining the enemy to the woods, till he had sent forward the wounded men and baggage; for, from the mountains to the marshes there stretched a plain fit only to hold a little army: to this purpose the legions were thus appointed; the fifth had the right wing, and the one-and-twentieth the left; the first led the van; the twentieth defended the rear.
A restless night it was to both armies, but in different ways; the Barbarians feasted and caroused, and with songs of triumph, or with horrid and threatening cries, filled all the plain and echoing woods. Amongst the Romans were feeble fires, sad silence, or broken words; they leaned drooping here and there against the pales, or wandered disconsolately about the tents, like men without sleep, but not quite awake. A frightful dream too terrified the General; he thought he heard and saw Quinctilius Varus, rising out of the marsh all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand, and calling upon him; but that he rejected the call and pushed him away. At break of day, the legions posted on the wings, through contumacy or affright, deserted their stations, and took sudden possession of a field beyond the bogs. Neither did Arminius fall straight upon them, however open they lay to his assault; but, when he perceived the baggage set fast in mire and ditches, the soldiers above it disorderly and embarrassed, the ranks and ensigns in confusion, and, as usual in a time of distress, every one in haste to save himself, but slow to obey his officer, he then commanded his Germans to break in, "Behold," he vehemently cried; "behold again Varus and his legions subdued by the same fate." Thus he cried, and instantly with a select body broke quite through our forces, and chiefly against the horse directed his havoc; so that the ground becoming slippery by their blood and the slime of the marsh, their feet flew from them, and they cast their riders; then galloping and stumbling amongst the ranks, they overthrew all they met, and trod to death all they overthrew. The greatest difficulty was to maintain the Eagles; a storm of darts made it impossible to advance them, and the rotten ground impossible to fix them. Caecina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot, and having fallen was nigh taken; but the first legion saved him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy, who ceased slaying to seize the spoil: hence the legions had respite to struggle into the fair field and firm ground. Nor was here an end of their miseries: a palisade was to be raised, an entrenchment digged; their instruments too for throwing up and carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost; no tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded; and their food all defiled with mire or blood. As they shared it in sadness amongst them, they lamented that mournful night, they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand men the last.
It happened that a horse, which had broke his collar as he strayed about, became frightened with noise, and ran over some that were in his way: this raised such a consternation in the camp, from a persuasion that the Germans in a body had forced an entrance, that all rushed to the gates, especially to the postern, as the farthest from the foe, and safer for flight. Caecina having found the vanity of their dread, but unable to stop them, either by his authority, or by his prayers, or indeed by force, flung himself at last across the gate. This prevailed; their awe and tenderness of their General restrained them from running over his body; and the Tribunes and Centurions satisfied them the while, that it was a false alarm.
Then calling them together, and desiring them to hear him with silence, he reminded them of their difficulties, and how to conquer them: "That for their lives they must be indebted to their arms, but force was to be tempered with art; they must therefore keep close within their camp, till the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, advanced; then make a sudden sally on every side, and by this push they should break through the enemy, and reach the Rhine. But if they fled, more forests remained to be traversed, deeper marshes to be passed, and the cruelty of a pursuing foe to be sustained." He laid before them the motives and fruits of victory, public rewards and glory, with every tender domestic consideration, as well as those of military exploits and praise. Of their dangers and sufferings he said nothing. He next distributed horses, first his own, then those of the Tribunes and leaders of the legions, to the bravest soldiers impartially; that thus mounted they might begin the charge, followed by the foot.
Amongst the Germans there was not less agitation, from hopes of victory, greediness of spoil, and the opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed "to let the Romans march off, and to beset them in their march, when engaged in bogs and fastnesses." The advice of Inguiomerus was fiercer, and thence by the Barbarians more applauded: he declared "for forcing the camp, for that the victory would be quick, there would be more captives, and entire plunder." As soon, therefore, as it was light, they rushed out upon the camp, cast hurdles into the ditch, attacked and grappled the palisade. Upon it few soldiers appeared, and these seemed frozen with fear; but as the enemy was in swarms, climbing the ramparts, the signal was given to the cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded, and instantly, with shouts and impetuosity, they issued out and begirt the assailants. "Here are no thickets," they scornfully cried; "no bogs; but an equal field and impartial Gods." The enemy, who imagined few Romans remaining, fewer arms, and an easy conquest, were struck with the sounding trumpets, with the glittering armour; and every object of terror appeared double to them who expected none. They fell like men who, as they are void of moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress. Arminius forsook the fight unhurt; Inguiomerus grievously wounded; their men were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. In the evening the legions returned, in the same want of provisions, and with more wounds; but in victory they found all things, health, vigour, and abundance.