14 A. D.
Hermann's deeds were afterwards celebrated in the songs of his people, as they have been in modern German literature; but, like many other great men, the best results of his victory were cast away by the people whom he had liberated. It was now possible to organize into a nation the tribes which had united to overthrow the Romans, and such seems to have been his intention. He sent the head of Varus to Marbod, Chief of the Marcomanni, whose power he had secured by carrying out his original design; but he failed to secure the friendship, or even the neutrality, of the rival leader. At home his own family—bitterest among them all his father-in-law, Segestes—opposed his plans, and the Cherusci were soon divided into two parties—that of the people, headed by Hermann, and that of the nobility, headed by Segestes.
When Tiberius, therefore, hastily collected a new army and marched into Germany the following year, he encountered no serious opposition. The union of the tribes had been dissolved, and each avoided an encounter with the Romans. The country was apparently subjugated for the second time. The Emperor Augustus died, A. D. 14: Tiberius succeeded to the purple, and the command in Germany then devolved upon his nephew, Germanicus, the son of Drusus.
The new commander, however, was detained in Gaul by insubordination in the army and signs of a revolt among the people, following the death of Augustus, and he did not reach Germany until six years after the defeat of Varus. His march was sudden and swift, and took the people by surprise, for the apparent indifference of Rome had made them careless. The Marsi were all assembled at one of their religious festivals, unprepared for defence, in a consecrated pine forest, when Germanicus fell upon them and slaughtered the greater number, after which he destroyed the sacred trees. The news of this outrage roused the sluggish spirit of all the neighboring tribes: they gathered together in such numbers that Germanicus had much difficulty in fighting his way back to the Rhine.
15 A. D. THE INVASION OF GERMANICUS.
Hermann succeeded in escaping from his father-in-law, by whom he had been captured and imprisoned, and began to form a new union of the tribes. His first design was to release his wife, Thusnelda, from the hands of Segestes, and then destroy the authority of the latter, who was the head of the faction friendly to Rome. Germanicus re-entered Germany the following summer, A. D. 15, with a powerful army, and to him Segestes appealed for help against his own countrymen. The Romans marched at once into the land of the Cherusci. After a few days they reached the scene of the defeat of Varus, and there they halted to bury the thousands of skeletons which lay wasting on the mountainside. Then they met Segestes, who gave up his own daughter, Thusnelda, to Germanicus, as a captive.
The loss of his wife roused Hermann to fury. He went hither and thither among the tribes, stirring the hearts of all with his fiery addresses. Germanicus soon perceived that a storm was gathering, and prepared to meet it. He divided his army into two parts, one of which was commanded by Cæcina, and built a large fleet which transported one-half of his troops by sea and up the Weser. After joining Cæcina, he marched into the Teutoburger Forest. Hermann met him near the scene of his great victory over Varus, and a fierce battle was fought. According to the Romans, neither side obtained any advantage over the other; but Germanicus, with half the army, fell back upon his fleet and returned to the Rhine by way of the North Sea.
Cæcina, with the remnant of his four legions, also retreated across the country, pursued by Hermann. In the dark forests and on the marshy plains they were exposed to constant assaults, and were obliged to fight every step of the way. Finally, in a marshy valley, the site of which cannot be discovered, the Germans suddenly attacked the Romans on all sides. Hermann cried out to his soldiers: "It shall be another day of Varus!" the songs of the women prophesied triumph, and the Romans were filled with forebodings of defeat. They fought desperately, but were forced to yield, and Hermann's words would have been made truth, had not the Germans ceased fighting in order to plunder the camp of their enemies. The latter were thus able to cut their way out of the valley and hastily fortify themselves for the night on an adjoining plain.
15 A. D.
The German chiefs held a council of war, and decided, against the remonstrances of Hermann, to renew the attack at daybreak. This was precisely what Cæcina expected; he knew what fate awaited them all if he should fail, and arranged his weakened forces to meet the assault. They fought with such desperation that the Germans were defeated, and Cæcina was enabled, by forced marches, to reach the Rhine, whither the rumor of the entire destruction of his army had preceded him. The voyage of Germanicus was also unfortunate: he encountered a violent storm on the coast of Holland, and two of his legions barely escaped destruction. He had nothing to show, as the result of his campaign, except his captive Thusnelda and her son, who walked behind his triumphal chariot, in Rome, three years afterwards, and never again saw their native land; and his ally, the traitor Segestes, who ended his contemptible life somewhere in Gaul, under Roman protection.
Germanicus, nevertheless, determined not to rest until he had completed the subjugation of the country as far as the Elbe. By employing all the means at his command he raised a new army of eight legions, with a great body of cavalry, and a number of auxiliary troops, formed of Gauls, Rhætians, and even of Germans. He collected a fleet of more than a thousand vessels, and transported his army to the mouth of the Ems, where he landed and commenced the campaign. The Chauci, living near the sea, submitted at once, and some of the neighboring tribes were disposed to follow their example; but Hermann, with a large force of the united Germans, waited for the Romans among the mountains of the Weser. Germanicus entered the mountains by a gorge, near where the city of Minden now stands, and the two armies faced each other, separated only by the river. The legends state that Hermann and his brother Flavus, who was still in the service of Germanicus, held an angry conversation from the opposite shores, and the latter became so exasperated that he endeavored to cross on horseback and attack Hermann.
Germanicus first sent his cavalry across the Weser, and then built a bridge, over which his whole army crossed. The Romans and Germans then met in battle, upon a narrow place between the river and some wooded hills, called the Meadow of the Elves. The fight was long and bloody: Hermann himself, severely wounded, was at one time almost in the hands of the Romans. It is said that his face was so covered with blood that he was only recognized by some of the German soldiers on the Roman side, who purposely allowed him to escape. The superior military skill of Germanicus, and the discipline of his troops, won the day: the Germans retreated, beaten but not yet subdued.
16 A. D. END OF THE INVASION.
In a short time the latter were so far recruited that they brought on a second battle. On account of his wounds, Hermann was unable to command in person, but his uncle, Ingiomar, who took his place, imitated his boldness and bravery. The fight was even more fierce than the first had been, and the Romans, at one time, were only prevented from giving way by Germanicus placing himself at their head, in the thick of the battle. It appears that both sides held their ground at the close, and their losses were probably equally great, so that neither was in a condition to continue the struggle.
Germanicus erected a monument on the banks of the Weser, claiming that he had conquered Germany to the Elbe; but before the end of the summer of the year 16 he re-embarked with his army, without leaving any tokens of Roman authority behind him. A terrible storm on the North Sea so scattered his fleet that many vessels were driven to the English coast: his own ship was in such danger that he landed among the Chauci and returned across the country to the Rhine. The autumn was far advanced before the scattered remnants of his great army could be collected and reorganized: then, in spite of the lateness of the season, he made a new invasion into the lands of the Chatti, or Hessians, in order to show that he was still powerful.
Germanicus was a man of great ambition and of astonishing energy. As Julius Cæsar had made Gaul Roman, so he determined to make Germany Roman. He began his preparations for another expedition the following summer; but the Emperor Tiberius, jealous of his increasing renown, recalled him to Rome, saying that it was better to let the German tribes exhaust