87 



This campaign, if so it can be called, seems little calculated to have 

 made Tiberius uneasy on account of the military gloiy it shed around 

 Germanicus. Yet this feeling is attributed to him by Tacitus. And 

 though he spoke in the senate in high terms of the services of his 

 nephew, the historian says " he seemed not to be in earnest (!) " Such 

 is the spirit of detraction with which almost every word and deed of 

 Tiberius was interpreted by his contemporaries, from motives which it 

 will be our duty to discover. 



The second campaign was planned on a much more extended scale. 

 Two armies, of four legions each, entered Germany, and after some 

 desultory marches, some burning of wretched hamlets and massacring 

 of women and children, the whole foixe was directed to the north, where, 

 six years before, the army of Varus had been annihilated b}'' Arminius. 

 The difficulties of marching a large army through a country without 

 roads, without even such towns as Gaul could then boast of, with hardly 

 any agriculture, covered with impenetrable forests and endless morasses, 

 must have been great indeed, so great that we may justly admire the 

 skill and courage of the men who undertook it. We have witnessed 

 too lately a gallant and well appointed army at a distance of a few miles 

 from a port crowded with ships and supplies, reduced to the greatest 

 privations and sufterings, and brought to the brink of destruction 

 from the want chiefly of a very short road. How bold and skilful must 

 have been those Roman generals who nearly two thousand years ago did 

 not hesitate to plunge with large armies into the midst of such a country 

 as Germany. Nothing, however, was neglected by them to insure the 

 success of such a perilous undertaking. Forests, in which the axe 

 had never perliaps been heard before, were for the first time opened by 

 the Roman engineer, valleys were filled up, and solid roads for the 

 tramp of large armies were constructed across treacherous bogs ; strong 

 camps and fortified places along the line of march offered safety in case 

 of retreat, and were filled with stores of supplies. Nevertheless the 

 difficulties were so great that the Roman generals, in spite of their 

 aversion to the sea, and their want of skill and experience as mariners, 

 availed themselves of the facilities of water carriage. They had 

 maoaged to conciliate the tribes that dwelt on the sea coast. The 

 ancestors of these men, afterwards so tenacious of their liberty and 

 national independence, the Batavi, the Frisians, and Chauci, not only 

 offered no resistance to the Romans, but sent auxiliaries and ships. 

 Thus Germanicus was enabled to send half his army by sea to the 

 ^mouth of the Ems, where he was joined by his legate Caeciua, 

 vith an equal force. ■' 

 A mournful duty awaited the Roman legion. They were now ucai- 



