Tiberius i-2

by Allan Massie

  "Which was lost precisely in the cause of empire."

  "An undeniable truth, and therefore one better left unsaid."

  Augustus will present himself as an enigma to historians. Which of his utterances are they to believe? In one breath he will present himself as the saviour of Rome's liberty and the restorer of the Republic; in the next, confess that liberty has vanished and that the Republican offices are now no more than decoration. Yet he rests his power, or at least its legal expression, on the tribunicia potestas, which represents the fullest statement of Republican liberty. How much of what he says does he believe himself?

  "A meaningless question," Livia would say. "Your father uses words as counters, which is, ultimately, all they are."

  He is a hypocrite deceived by his own hypocrisy. Whatever he says at any moment has the ring of truth for him. This is why he is so adept at deceiving others.

  Germany was no place to take Julia. I had myself to hasten there in the middle of winter, for the exigencies of modern war in remote barbarian lands require a degree of preparation such as would have amazed Julius Caesar, that improviser of genius. Lacking genius, I shun improvisation. Moreover, it was necessary that I should learn as much as possible about the tribes by whom I would be opposed. There is of course a close resemblance between one German tribe and another, but not all are equally devoted to war, for that devotion fluctuates according to the temper of the different chiefs. One consequence of this is that, though they fight by tribes, a tribe may often contain a number of outsiders, for high-born youths frequently seek out service with a neighbouring tribe, if their own chiefs are disinclined to make war. Yet, on the whole, peace is unwelcome to the German peoples, and they distinguish themselves more readily in the midst of danger, for, lacking all arts and civil refinements, it is only in war that a man may obtain reputation. Besides, a great retinue, such as their chiefs delight in, since they measure their own status according to the number of their followers, cannot be maintained except by war and violence, for it is to the generosity of their chiefs that they look for the war horse and the spear. Their warriors receive no pay, which is not surprising, for barbarians despise money. On the other hand they accept presents from their chiefs, and they expect to be well fed. They are great drunkards, believing that courage in war goes with a capacity for deep drinking. They are capable of a certain swaggering generosity, but they have more of cruel savagery than wolves. They delight in torturing their prisoners before they kill them.

  As I had feared, the morale of our army was low. The soldiers had been cast down by Drusus' death. Moreover, I discovered that the extent of my brother's achievement was less than we had hoped. This was not his fault. It was a measure of the enormity of the task. Though he had advanced through the forests as far as the Elbe, it was only in coastal regions that he had been able to embark on the policy of civilisation which is a necessary part of any conquest that aspires to be enduring. He had constructed a canal through the lakes of Holland, and this had persuaded the tribes resident there, the Frisii and the Batavii, to become allies of the Roman people, for they saw not only our greatness but the prospect of unimagined prosperity open before them. It is trade which greases the wheels of empire, and it is the building of roads, bridges and canals which makes commerce possible.

  There were no cities in Germany. Indeed the Germans scarcely live even in villages as we understand them. They prefer to live separately and scattered, and they lay out their villages with open ground, frequently extensive, between the houses. They are therefore averse from learning the arts and manners of civil society; and I saw at once that this was a great problem. It was clear to me that Germany could not be thoroughly and effectively conquered till the land was settled, till cities were built and colonies planted. However, it was difficult to persuade colonists to establish themselves there till the tribes had been thoroughly subdued and brought to recognise the majesty and order of Rome. This was a problem I was unable to solve in my three years in Germany. Indeed, I can hardly claim to have done more than define it, and take a few tentative steps by means of the engineering works I instigated. Otherwise, every summer was spent in pursuit of an evasive enemy who could rarely be brought to battle. On each occasion that we achieved battle however, the skill and discipline of our armies appalled, dispirited, and defeated the barbarians.

  "It will be a slow business," I told Augustus, "and we can offer our young men no hope of glory. I demand sacrifice from them. They must be ready to shed blood and sweat, to toil long hours and to endure hardships without repining. But, if the gods are willing, we shall at last bring these accursed barbarians within the pale of civilisation."

  He replied praising my efforts for Rome, "… worthy of your Claudian ancestors in their greatest hours, and of your mother's son."

  Our second child was stillborn. I had scarcely time to grieve. Julia was depressed by the little girl's death, and her letters were mournful. They were also brief and less and less frequent. I could not reproach her for I had to confess that sometimes days went by without thought of her crossing my mind. Then, in my second summer campaign, little Tiberius caught a fever and died. The news was brought to me as I crouched in my tent on the muddy banks of a tributary of the Elbe. It had been raining for three weeks and our advance was halted. It was difficult to bring up provisions for the troops and horses from our base fifty miles in the rear. Some scouts reported that the enemy had vanished into the uttermost recesses of the forest, but my mind was not appeased by this information. I had a foreboding of danger, even disaster. The forest was too quiet. I called Segestes, the chief of one branch of the Cherusci, a man originally taken prisoner by Drusus and persuaded to ally himself to the Roman people by the eloquence of my brother and the example of his virtue. For a German, Segestes was an honourable man. Yet I was uncertain to what extent I could trust him.

  "My scouts report that the enemy has entirely vanished," I said. "Do you think that possible?"

  He spat on the ground — an ineradicable German habit that has always disgusted me.

  "Is that a commentary on the information?" I asked.

  "Your scouts are lying, or they have made a mistake," he said. "If the enemy has vanished, it is because your scouts have been looking in the wrong direction. They should have looked in your rear. That is where they would find my people. That is how they have learned to fight. They intend to cut you off as you retreat, having first prevented supplies from reaching you."

  "But a messenger has come through today. I have received letters."

  "They would not be interested in letters or in cutting off a small troop. It is in their interest to let you think the road behind is open."

  "So what do you recommend?"

  "You, a Roman, ask me, a German, what course 1 would recommend?"

  "I ask you as a knowledgeable man, and as one whom experience has taught me I may trust."

  He looked at the interpreter as if he wondered whether my answer had been correctly relayed to him. I nodded my head and smiled.

  "My noble brother trusted you," I said, "and I trust my brother's judgment."

  He received this observation in silence, turned and walked to the open flap of my tent and gazed out into the mist. The rain spattered the canvas, but there was no wind to shift the mist which hung over the meadows towards the invisible river.

  "If you return by the route you advanced by, you will march into the trap. Its jaws will close, and then, no Imperator Tiberius, no Roman Army, but much rejoicing among the Cherusci."

  "So?"

  "So you must find another route, through territory which is unknown to you. You must keep the river on your flank. In that way you can be attacked only on one side. You cannot be surrounded."

  "Do we go up the river or down?"

  "Down, perhaps, for in that way you will reach the Elbe."

  "And if we go up?"

  "The mountains eventually."

  "And is there a pass there by which we can cross over to
the Rhine?"

  "I believe there is. But it would be difficult with the waggons. However, if you turn towards the Elbe, you will find yourself required to negotiate a wide tract of marshland."

  "And which course will your cousin, the chief for the time being of the Cherusci, expect us to take…"

  Segestes spat again.

  "He is not a clever man. Brave but a fool. He will not be expecting you to do anything but retrace your route. However, there are wise heads among his advisers. They will conclude that you will make for the Elbe, where you have forts and a fleet waiting in the mouth. They will not expect you to take the bold path, because they do not expect boldness from Romans, and they know, general, that you are a cautious man."

  I asked my servant to bring us wine. Germans are not accustomed to wine, and many of them affect to regard it as an effeminate drink, since their preference is to swig great jugs of beer or mead. However, Segestes had learned to consider wine as a mark of the civilisation to which he aspired (I had one day found him taking a reading lesson from one of my secretaries) and had even learned to do something which comes naturally to no German: to drink it without evident signs of greed.

  "I am honoured, General, that you ask my advice, but how can you know that it is good advice? How can you be certain that I am not intending to take this opportunity to restore my credit with my own people?"

  "Segestes," I said, "I could speak much of your honour, and utter a long speech in your praise. I could say I believe, as indeed I do, that you have come to think that it will be to the benefit of your people that they should enter within the embraces of the Roman empire. And there would be much truth in what I would say. But there is another argument which will remind you of what manner of man I am."

  I clapped my hands to call back my servant, and whispered a message to him. He departed, to come back in a few moments leading a German youth, who stood before us and glowered.

  "When you came over to us," I said, "you did us the honour of entrusting your son, the young Segestes, to us. That showed your faith in Rome. I am sensible of your confidence, and I shall now repay it by making the boy my aide-de-camp. He shall remain by my side throughout this campaign, eat at my table, sleep in my tent. I shall watch over him…"

  "I see, General," he said. "It is a powerful argument. But I have many sons, seventeen I think, and some of them are in the other army. Why should I trouble myself about the fate of one out of seventeen?"

  "Well," I said, "that is a matter for you to decide. You have given me good advice, and I shall ponder it. Do not doubt my gratitude, which I shall extend to this boy also."

  And so I threatened Segestes with his son's death, while the death of my own little boy lay like a dead flower pressed in the book of life. Did I give five minutes then to thought of what he might have been? I doubt it. I had been aroused to a sense of the army's danger. Comfort for Julia and mourning for little Tiberius must wait.

  I summoned a council, for I have never believed that a general should embark on a course of action without discussing it with his officers. The greater the danger, the more necessary it is that they understand the position. Yet, paradoxically, the greater and more immediate the danger, the more necessary it is that the commander display authority. Debate is then a luxury; yet without granting the opportunity for debate, the commander may lose the chance of obtaining a valuable suggestion. Speed is of the essence, but there is much truth in the proverb festina lente: hasten slowly.

  I outlined the position, and told them of my conversation with Segestes.

  "What reason have we to trust in the word of a barbarian?"

  The speaker was Marcus Lollius, a man whom, had I had full freedom to choose my officers, I would never have had on my staff. A few years previously, in Gaul, he had suffered a defeat at the hands of raiding Germans, brought on, in my opinion, by his neglect of security, represented by his failure to keep himself properly informed. However, it seemed the wrong moment to make reference to that episode and I knew I had to treat Lollius with kid gloves, as they say, for he was a favourite of Augustus, whom he flattered absurdly. But no flattery is too absurd for a dynast.

  "Drusus trusted Segestes, and I trust my brother's judgment."

  This was a politic answer rather than a truthful one; in fact, I had trusted everything about Drusus except his judgment of men, for he was too easily carried away by the generosity of his nature and was therefore apt to take the word for the deed.

  "Moreover," I said, "I think Segestes' interest is bound up with the success of our arms and with the fortune of the Roman people."

  Lollius threw back his head and laughed, a calculated gesture.

  "So, the campaign plan of a Roman army is now to be dictated by a barbarian deserter. I have never heard of such a thing. You would have us march into unknown territory at his word, when we have behind us a fortified line of march, which we know well…"

  "And which lies through a forest which the enemy know better, and where we cannot deploy…"

  There was a shifting of feet, as every man imagined the dreams that afflicted us by night in those accursed forests.

  We debated the merits of the course open to us. Some were in agreement with Marcus Lollius that we should disregard the advice given by Segestes, and retrace the route by which we had advanced.

  "It is only fifty miles to our first base," they insisted.

  "You can destroy an army in less time than it takes to march five," I answered.

  My reasoning carried weight, though Lollius continued to sneer. After all, everyone knew that the responsibility was mine, that they would themselves be free of blame even if I chose wrong. Then I outlined the merits of the two courses Segestes had proposed.

  "It's clear, isn't it…?" the speaker hesitated, with habitual diffidence. This was Caius Velleius Paterculus, an honest man whose grandfather had fought by my father's side in the terrible siege of Perugia, and then fallen on his sword when all was lost. "It's clear," he repeated. "Segestes thinks you should follow the high route because they will not think of it. But he thought of it himself, and so it seems likely that one of their chiefs will also do so. Therefore we should go downstream to join the Elbe."

  "No," said Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, speaking sleepily as was his wont, "have you never played the game the soldiers call 'spoof? It's a matter of guessing how many coins you each hold in your hand. Well, we are in the same position. We must always take the guessing game one stage further. For that reason I say we take the high road…"

  There comes a time in war, as in political affairs, when argument falls away. It is a matter then of decision. All courses have been examined, and all found to have their own virtue and their own danger. None possesses any transcendent merit. Very well, the man in command must act and he must follow his course as if there had never been an alternative. I looked round my staff. I saw hesitation, uncertainty, fear. I thought of how both Paterculus and Lentulus were men worthy of the highest admiration. I said:

  "Gentlemen, you have considered the problem wisely. You have laid out the arguments for either course with a lucidity which I commend. I will ponder these matters, and issue orders in the morning."

  I spoke with an assurance I did not feel — precisely the circumstances in which assurance is necessary. I retired to my tent. I sent for the soothsayer, and drank a cup of wine while 1 was waiting. The German boy, the young Segestes, crouched in a corner of my tent. He had pulled a blanket round his shoulders and buried his face in it. A mop of yellow hair emerged from its folds, and though the rest of him was hidden I could sense the tension in which he held himself. I put my hand on his head. "Don't be afraid," I said. "Do you speak any Latin?" He shook my hand off.

  The soothsayer entered. I asked him if he had taken the omens.

  "But not yet interpreted them," he said.

  "Good. We shall march by the high road. I trust the omens will be favourable."

  There is relief in decision. I retired and slept soun
dly. But I woke in the darkest hours having dreamed of little Tiberius and of Julia grieving. A whimper came from the corner of the tent where young Segestes was stretched out. I called to him and there was silence. Then I called again and heard him rise to his feet. He stumbled as he crossed the floor and fell on top of me. I held him close and felt him relax and then spring to life. We rejoiced and took comfort in each other's maleness. He smelled of the stable. In the morning he held his head high and smiled at me.

  For two days we saw no sign of the enemy but, keeping the river ever on our left hand, climbed high into the mountains. The track was poor, disappearing in places, and very early I gave orders that we should abandon the heavy waggons. For the first day I rode at the head of the column, but on the day following, judging that we had outstripped the enemy, and taken them by surprise, I transferred to the rear, from which direction I now judged an attack most likely to come. It is, moreover, the way of barbarian tribes to wage irregular war, and to try to cut off the rearguard of an army rather than risk frontal assault and wholehearted battle. Meanwhile the scouts who scoured the skirts of the forest reported no movement from the enemy. Our troops grew cheerful, and exchanged the opinion that we had given the Germans the slip. I could not share their confidence and when I consulted the elder Segestes, he declined to commit himself.

  Towards evening on the second day it began to rain. The mist closed in upon us and soon we could see no further than a man can throw a spear in battle. Then one of the light waggons which we had retained slewed across the path, blocking our way. The accident happened in a narrow defile. While men struggled to free the cart, I sent a messenger after the main body of the army to warn them that we should be delayed. At that moment huge rocks descended from our right, blocking the pass. The crash was succeeded by silence broken only by the curses and heaving of our men trying to clear the way. A handful of them scrambled over the rocks, but the main body of the rearguard was held pressed together, unaware of what was happening, in the grip of incipient panic.