[10] To a connection in rear of the camp on the Rhine with the port Boulogne we might perhaps take the much disputed notice of Florus, ii. 30, to refer: Bonnam (or Bormam) et Gessoriacum pontibus iunxit classibusque firmavit, with which is to be compared the mention by the same author of forts on the Maas. Bonn may reasonably have been at that time the station of the Rhine–fleet; Boulogne was in later times still a fleet–station. Drusus might well have occasion to make the shortest and safest land–route between the two stations for the fleet available for transport, though the writer, probably bent on striking effect, awakens by his pointed mode of expression conceptions which cannot be in that form correct.
[11] As to the administrative partition of Gaul there is, apart from the separation of the Narbonensis, an utter absence of accounts, because it rested only on imperial ordinances, and nothing in reference to it came into the records of the senate. But the first information of the existence of separate Upper and Lower German commands is furnished by the campaigns of Germanicus, and the battle of Varus can hardly be understood under that assumption; here, doubtless, the hiberna inferiora appear, viz. that of Vetera (Velleius, ii. 120), and the counterpart to it, the superiora, can only have been formed by that of Mentz; but this was not under a colleague of Varus, but under his nephew, who was thus subordinate to him in command. Probably the partition only took place, in consequence of the defeat, in the last years of Augustus.
[12] The praesidium constructed by Drusus in monte Tauno (Tacitus, Ann. i. 56), and the φρούριον ἐν Χάττοις παρ’ αὐτῷ τῷ Ῥήνῳ associated with Aliso (Dio, liv. 33), are probably identical, and the special position of the canton of the Mattiaci is evidently connected with the construction of Mogontiacum.
[13] That the “fort at the confluence of the Lupias and the Helison,” in Dio, liv. 33, is identical with the oftener mentioned Aliso, and this must be sought on the upper Lippe, is subject to no doubt; and that the Roman winter–camp at the sources of the Lippe (ad caput Lupiae, Velleius, ii. 205), the only one of the kind, so far as we know, on German ground, is to be sought just there, is at least very probable. That the two Roman roads running along the Lippe, and their fortified places of bivouac, led at least as far as the region of Lippstadt, the researches of Hölzermann in particular have shown. The upper Lippe has only one confluent of note, the Alme, and as the village of Elsen lies not far from where the Alme falls into the Lippe, some weight may be here assigned to the similarity of name. To the view, supported among others by Schmidt, which places Aliso at the confluence of the Glenne (and Liese) with the Lippe, the chief objection is that the camp ad caput Lupiae must then have been different from Aliso, and in general this point lies too far from the line of the Weser, while from Elsen the route leads directly through the Dören defile into the Werra valley. Schmidt, who does not adhere to the identification of Aliso and Elsen, remarks generally (Westfälische Zeitschrift für Gesch. und Alterthumskunde, xx. p. 259), that the heights of Weser (not far from Elsen), and generally the left margin of the valley of the Alme, are the centre of a semicircle formed by the mountains in front, and this highlying, dry region, allowing an exact look–out as far as the mountains, which covers the whole country of the Lippe and is itself covered in front by the Alme, is well adapted for the starting–point of a march towards the Weser.
[14] This and not more is what Velleius says (ii. 110): in omnibus Pannoniis non disciplinae (= military training) tantummodo, sed linguae quoque notitia Romanae, plerisque etiam litterarum usus et familiaris animorum erat exercitatio. These are the same phenomena as are met with in the case of the Cheruscan princes, only in increased measure; and they are quite intelligible when we bear in mind the Pannonian and Breucian alae and cohortes raised by Augustus.
[15] If we assume that of the twelve legions who were on the march against Maroboduus (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 46), as many as we find soon after in Germany, that is, five, went to form the army there, the Illyrian army of Tiberius numbered seven, and the number of ten (Velleius, ii. 113) may fairly be referred to the contingents from Moesia and Italy, that of fifteen to the contingents from Egypt or Syria, and to the further levies in Italy, whence the newly raised legions went no doubt to Germany, but those thereby relieved went to the army of Tiberius. Velleius (ii. 112) speaks inaccurately, at the very beginning of the war, of five legions brought up by A. Caecina and Plautius Silvanus ex transmarinis provinciis; firstly, the transmarine troops could not be at once on the spot, and secondly, the legions of Caecina were of course the Moesian. Comp. my commentary on the Mon. Ancyr. 2d ed. p. 71.
[16] Velleius (ii. 118) says so; adsiduus militiae nostrae prioris comes, iure etiam civitatis Romanae eius equestres consequens gradus; which coincides with the ductor popularium of Tacitus, Ann. ii. 10. Such officers must have been of no infrequent occurrence at this time; thus, there fought in the third campaign of Drusus inter primores Chumstinctus et Avectius tribuni ex civitate Nerviorum (Liv. Ep. 141), and under Germanicus Chariovalda dux Batavorum (Tac. Ann. ii. 11).
[17] The effigy of Varus is shown on a copper coin of the African town Achulla, struck under his proconsulate of Africa in the year 747–8, B.C. 7–6 (L. Müller, Num. de l’ancienne Afrique, ii. p. 44, comp. p. 52). The base which once supported the statue erected to him by the town of Pergamus has again been brought to light by the excavations there; the subscription runs: ὁ δῆμος [ἐτίμησεν] Πόπλιον Κοινκτίλιον Σέξτου υἱὸν Οὐάρ[ον] πάσης ἀρετῆ[ς ἕνεκα].
[18] The report of Dio, the only one which hands down to us a somewhat connected view of this catastrophe, explains the course of it sufficiently, if we only take further into account—what Dio certainly does not bring into prominence—the general relation of the summer and winter camps, and thereby answer the question justly put by Ranke (Weltgeschichte, iii. 2, 275), how the whole army could have marched against a local insurrection. The narrative of Florus by no means rests on sources originally different, as that scholar assumes, but simply on the dramatic accumulation of motives for action, such as is characteristic of all historians of this type. The peaceful dispensing of justice by Varus and the storming of the camp are both known to the better tradition, and that in their causal connection. The ridiculous representation of the Germans breaking in at all the gates into the camp, while Varus is sitting on the judgment–seat and the herald is summoning the parties before him, is not tradition, but a picture manufactured from it. That this is in utter antagonism to the description by Tacitus of the three bivouacs, as well as to sound reason, is obvious.
[19] The normal strength of the three alae and the six cohortes is not to be calculated exactly, inasmuch as among them there may have been double divisions (miliariae); but the army cannot have numbered much over 20,000 men. On the other hand, there appears no reason for assuming a material difference of the effective strength from the normal. The numerous detachments which are mentioned (Dio, lvi. 19) serve to account for the comparatively small number of the auxilia, which were always by preference employed for this duty.