ARMINIUS. 



2G9 



which were made upon them. Varus now saw de- 

 struction impending over Jiim. The courage and 

 discipline of the Roman soldiers had long excited 

 admiration, but could now only defer for a time their 

 tate. For three days their sufferings continued. A. 

 made himself master of three Roman eagles, and put 

 a stop for ever to their advance in the north of Ger- 

 many. Varus could not survive his disgrace ; lie 

 killed himself, as so many other Romans had done, 

 when the fortune of war was adverse. The victory 

 of A. was stained by useless acts of violence and 

 cruelty. The Germans cut off the hands of the 

 lawyers, whose subtleties were mast odious to the 

 national feeling, and put out the eyes of others. We 

 .must not, forget, however, the strong provocation 

 which they had received from their cruel and oppres- 

 sive conquerors. It is difficult to determine the place 

 of this celebrated engagement. The ancients called 

 it Teutoburgiensis Saltus. The opinion of Mannert 

 is very different from tliat of Tacitus. The former 

 fixes tiie field of battle on the borders of the princi- 

 palities of Lippe and Mark, and the duchy of West- 

 phalia; but the account of Tacitus agrees more 

 nearly with the tradition, which says the action was 

 fought at the source of the Ems and the Lippe, near 

 what is now the little city of Detmold. All the 

 neighbourhood is full of memorials of that day. 

 After A. liad secured the liberty of his country, he 

 destroyed the fortifications of the Romans on the 

 Elbe, the Weser. and the Rhine. He laboured to 

 elevate the martial spirit of his countrymen, which 

 lie regarded as the best defence against the arms of 

 Rome. But he was soon involved in a difficulty 

 with his own countrymen, particularly with Segestes, 

 the head of a powerful tribe, whose daughter, be- 

 trothed to another prince, had been carried off by 

 A. Segestes was first attacked by the national party, 

 of which A. was the head, and immediately applied 

 tor aid to Germanicus. The Romans hastened to 

 assist him, and delivered him from a siege. Among 

 the prisoners was the wife of A. When she was 

 presented before Germanicus, her whole behaviour 

 showed her worthy of her valiant husband. Her 

 grief, Tacitus says, was silent. She shed not a tear ; 

 she offered not a prayer ; her hands were folded ; 

 her eyes fixed on her breast. The treachery of Se- 

 gestes and the fate of Thusnelda gave new ardour to 

 the patriotic feelings of A. Inguiomar, his uncle, a 

 warrior of great celebrity, offered him his aid. Ger- 

 manicus felt the necessity of anticipating the blow, 

 and undertook a campaign, which, in spite of the 

 successes of the Romans, served only to draw closer 

 the bonds of union among the German confederates, 

 and to increase their confidence in their own strength. 

 The next year was marked by new exertions on the 

 part of the Roman general. His preparations were 

 immense, and his whole plan faultless in design and 

 execution. This fourth campaign of Drusus in Ger- 

 many was distinguished by the defeat of A. on the 

 plains of Idistavisus, on the banks of the Weser ; but 

 it ended in the retreat of the Romans. At the com- 

 mencement of the campaign, and previous to the 

 battle of Idistavisus, A. desired an interview with his 

 brother, Flavius, who had been educated with him in 

 Italy, and still adhered to the Romans. They con- 

 versed in Latin, from the opposite banks of the 

 Weser. It was in vain that A. sought to gain over 

 his brother to the cause of their common country. It 

 vras in vain that he stigmatized his military badges 

 as the reward of baseness, and the pledges of u 

 shameful bondage. Nothing but the river, which 

 flowed between, prevented them from actual violence. 

 Flavius was at length conveyed away from the place 

 by his friends. The jealousy of Tiberius against 

 Gtrmanicus favoured the exertions of the allies. 



But, when they had repelled the attacks of their 

 foreign foes, they turned their arms against one ano- 

 ther.' Marbodius, the king of the Suevi, and founder 

 of the kingdom of the Marcomanni, was prompted 

 by ambition to cany his conquests beyond the SaaJ 

 and the Elbe. He, too, had received his education 

 in Rome, but had returned with principles decidedly 

 opposed to those of the hero of the Cherusci. In A. 

 the Romans liad found a bold defender of his coun- 

 try's freedom, and in Marbodius an enemy of his 

 ambitious views. Notwithstanding the revolt of In- 

 guiomar, who went over to the party of Marbodius, 

 rather than serve under his nephew, A. came off 

 victorious in the civil war. He obtained the honour 

 of having freed his country from a foreign yoke, and 

 of preserving his fellow-citizens from domestic ty- 

 ranny. A long and bloody battle decided the claims 

 of the contending parties. The Germans no longer 

 fought in disorder ; for A. had accustomed them to 

 the rigid discipline of the Romans, and all the rules 

 of war had become familiar to the barbarians. The 

 event was long doubtful. But the king of the Mar- 

 comanni first withdrew his troops from the field, suul 

 was thus looked upon as vanquished. A large pro- 

 portion of his army abandoned him, and he was 

 forced to retreat in haste to Bohemia, in the interior 

 of his dominions, and, at last, to Italy, where he 

 lived in obscurity. Tacitus relates, that A. drew 

 upon himself the hatred of his countrymen by aiming 

 at the regal authority; and, in the thirty-seventh 

 year of his age, he was assassinated by one of his own 

 relations. A short time before his death, Adgantes- 

 tes, or Adgantestrius, prince of the Celts, proposed to 

 the Roman senate to despatch him by poison ; but 

 the senate took no notice of the offer. A. was 

 twenty six years old when he destroyed the legions 

 of Varus ; and two years before his death, he gained 

 his victory over Marbodius. In the language of 

 Tacitus, " A. was doubtless the deliverer of Germany. 

 He fought against the Romans, not like other kings 

 and generals, when they were weak, but when their 

 empire was mighty and their renown glorious. For- 

 tune, indeed, sometimes deserted him; but, even 

 when conquered, his noble character and his exten- 

 sive influence commanded the veneration of his con- 

 querors. For twelve years he presided over the 

 destiny of Germany, to the complete satisfaction of 

 his countrymen ; and, after his death, they paid him 

 divine honours." If we dwell a moment on the re- 

 sults of his victory, we find that it had a decided in- 

 fluence on the whole character of Germany, political 

 and literary ; because it is evident, that, - liad the 

 Romans remained in quiet possession of the country, 

 they would have given a tone to all its institutions 

 and its language, as was the case with all the other 

 countries of Europe conquered by them. The rea- 

 son, therefore, why the language of the Germans 

 remained unmixed and uninfluenced by Latin, and 

 why their political institutions retained so much of 

 their ancient character, is to be found in the victory 

 of A. To the same cause must be ascribed, how- 

 ever, their tardy developement in several respects. It 

 is not to be doubted, that other nations have derived 

 great benefit from the introduction among them of 

 the Roman civilization, as far as respects the order, 

 tranquillity, and refinement of social life ; but all ad- 

 vantages could not be had at once ; and had not A. 

 crushed the Roman power in Germany, an idiom 

 similar to the French and Spanish would be spoken 

 there, where now a language and literature exist of 

 a peculiar and original character. Some influence, 

 however, the Romans did undoubtedly exercise on 

 the dialect of Germany, and many Latin words were 

 introduced into it, yet with such alteration, that they 

 can with difficulty be recognised. 



