Complete Works of Velleius Paterculus

by Velleius Paterculus

  [112] (1) An exploit of Messalinus in the first summer of the war, fortunate in its issue as it was bold in undertaking, must here be recorded for posterity. (2) This man, who was even more noble in heart than in birth, and thoroughly worthy of having had Corvinus as his father, and of leaving his cognomen to his brother Cotta, was in command in Illyricum, and, at the sudden outbreak of the rebellion, finding himself surrounded by the army of the enemy and supported by only the twentieth legion, and that at but half its normal strength, he routed and put to flight more than twenty thousand, and for this was honoured with the ornaments of a triumph.

  (3) The barbarians were so little satisfied with their numbers and had so little confidence in their own strength that they had no faith in themselves where Caesar was. The part of their army which faced the commander himself, worn down according as it suited our pleasure or advantage, and reduced to the verge of destruction by famine, not daring to withstand him when he took the offensive, nor to meet our men when they gave them an opportunity for fighting and drew up their line of battle, occupied the Claudian mountain and defended itself behind fortifications. (4) But the division of their forces which had swarmed out to meet the army which the consulars Aulus Caecina and Silvanus Plautius were bringing up from the provinces across the sea, surrounded five of our legions, together with the troops of our allies and the cavalry of the king (for Rhoemetalces, king of Thrace, in conjunction with the aforesaid generals was bringing with him a large body of Thracians as reinforcements for the war), and inflicted a disaster that came near being fatal to all. (5) The horsemen of the king were routed, the cavalry of the allies put to flight, the cohorts turned their backs to the enemy, and the panic extended even to the standards of the legion. But in this crisis the valour of the Roman soldier claimed for itself a greater share of glory than it left to the generals, who departing far from the policy of their commander, had allowed themselves to come into contact with the enemy before they had learned through their scouts where the enemy was. (6) At this critical moment, when some tribunes of the soldiers had been slain by the enemy, the prefect of the camp and several prefects of cohorts had been cut off, a number of centurions had been wounded, and even some of the centurions of the first rank had fallen, the legions, shouting encouragement to each other, fell upon the enemy, and not content with sustaining their onslaught, broke through their line and wrested a victory from a desperate plight.

  (7) About this time Agrippa, who had been adopted by his natural grandfather on the same day as Tiberius, and had already, two years before, begun to reveal his true character, alienated from himself the affection of his father and grandfather, falling into reckless ways by a strange depravity of mind and disposition; and soon, as his vices increased daily, he met the end which his madness deserved.

  [113] (1) Listen now, Marcus Vinicius, to the proof that Caesar was no less great in war as a general than you now see him in peace as an emperor. When the two armies were united, that is to say the troops which had served under Caesar and those which had come to reinforce him, and there were now gathered together in one camp ten legions, more than seventy cohorts, fourteen troops of cavalry and more than ten thousand veterans, and in addition a large number of volunteers and the numerous cavalry of the king — in a word a greater army than had ever been assembled in one place since the civil wars — all were finding satisfaction in this fact and reposed their greatest hope of victory in their numbers. (2) But the general, who was the best judge of the course he pursued, preferring efficiency to show, and, as we have so often seen him doing in all his wars, following the course which deserved approval rather than that which was currently approval, after keeping the army which had newly arrived for only a few days in order to allow it to recover from the march, decided to send it away, since he saw that it was too large to be managed and was not well adapted to effective control. (3) And so he sent it back whence it came, escorting it with his own army onº a long exceedingly laborious march, whose difficulty can hardly be described. His purpose in this was, on the one hand, that no one might dare to attack his united forces, and, on the other, to prevent the united forces of the enemy from falling upon the departing division, through the apprehension of each nation for its own territory. Then returning himself to Siscia, at the beginning of a very hard winter, he placed his lieutenants, of whom I was one, in charge of the divisions of his winter quarters.

  [114] (1) And now for a detail which in the telling may lack grandeur, but is most important by reason of the true and substantial personal qualities it reveals and also of its practical service — a thing most pleasant as an experience and remarkable for the kindness it displayed. Throughout the whole period of the German and Pannonian war there was not one of us, or of those either above or below our rank, who fell ill without having his health and welfare looked after by Caesar with as much solicitude indeed as though this were the chief occupation of his mind, preoccupied though he was by his heavy responsibilities. (2) There was a horsed vehicle ready for those who needed it, his own litter was at the disposal of all, and I, among others, have enjoyed its use. Now his physicians, now his kitchen, and now his bathing equipment, brought for this one purpose for himself alone, ministered to the comfort of all who were sick. All they lacked was their home and domestic servants, but nothing else that friends at home could furnish or desire for them. (3) Let me also add the following trait, which, like the others I have described, will be immediately recognized as true by anyone who participated in that campaign. Caesar alone of commanders was in the habit of also travelling in the saddle, and, throughout the greater portion of the summer campaign, of sitting at the table when dining with invited guests. Of those who did not imitate his own stern discipline he took no notice, in so far as no harmful precedent was thereby created. He often admonished, sometimes gave verbal reproof, but rarely punishment, and pursued the moderate course of pretending in most cases not to see things, and of administering only occasionally a reprimand.

  (4) The winter brought the reward of our efforts in the termination of the war, though it was not until the following summer that all Pannonia sought peace, the remnants of the war as a whole being confined to Dalmatia. In my complete work I hope to describe in detail how those fierce warriors, many thousand in number, who had but a short time before threatened Italy with slavery, now brought the arms they had used in rebellion and laid them down, at a river called the Bathinus, prostrating themselves one and all before the knees of the commander; and how of their two supreme commanders, Bato and Pinnes, the one was made a prisoner and the other gave himself up.

  (5) In the autumn the victorious army was led back to winter quarters. Caesar gave the chief command of all the forces to Marcus Lepidus, a man who in name and in fortune approaches the Caesars, whom one admires and loves the more in proportion to his opportunities to know and understand him, and whom one regards as an ornament to the great names from whom he springs.

  [115] (1) Caesar then devoted his attention and his arms to his second task, the war in Dalmatia. What assistance he had in this quarter from his aide and lieutenant Magius Celer Velleianus, my brother, is attested by the words of Tiberius himself and of his father, and signalized by the record of the high decorations conferred upon him by Caesar on the occasion of his triumph. (2) In the beginning of summer Lepidus led his army out of winter quarters, in an effort to make his way to Tiberius the commander, through the midst of races that were as yet unaffected and untouched by the disasters of war and therefore still fierce and warlike; after a struggle in which he had to contend with the difficulties of the country as well as the attacks of the enemy, and after inflicting great loss on those who barred his way, by the devastation of fields, burning of houses, and slaying of the inhabitants, he succeeded in reaching Caesar, rejoicing in victory and laden with booty. (3) For these feats, for which, if they had been performed under his own auspices he would properly have received a triumph, he was granted the ornaments of a triumph, the wish of the sen
ate endorsing the recommendation of the Caesars.

  (4) This campaign brought the momentous war to a successful conclusion; for the Perustae and Desiadates, Dalmatian tribes, who were almost unconquerable on account of the position of their strongholds in the mountains, their warlike temper, their wonderful knowledge of fighting, and, above all, the narrow passes in which they lived, were then at last pacified, not now under the mere generalship, but by the armed prowess of Caesar himself, and then only when they were almost entirely exterminated.

  (5) Nothing in the course of this great war, nothing in the campaigns in Germany, came under my observation that was greater, or that aroused my admiration more, than these traits of its general; no chance of winning a victory ever seemed to him timely, which he would have to purchase by the sacrifice of his soldiers; the safest course was always regarded by him as the best; he consulted his conscience first and then his reputation, and, finally, the plans of the commander were never governed by the opinion of the army, but rather the army by the wisdom of its leader.

  [116] (1) In the Dalmatian war Germanicus, who had been dispatched in advance of the commander to regions both wild and difficult, gave great proof of his valour. By his repeated services and careful vigilance (2) the governor of Dalmatia, Vibius Postumusº the consular, also earned the ornaments of a triumph. A few years before this honour had been earned in Africa by Passienus and Cossus, both celebrated men, though not alike in merit. Cossus passed on to his son, a young man born to exhibit every variety of excellence, a cognomen that still testifies to his victory. (3) And Lucius Apronius, who shared in the achievements of Postumus, earned by the distinguished valour which he displayed in this campaign also, the honours which he actually won shortly afterwards.

  Would that it had not been demonstrated, by greater proofs, how mighty an influence fortune wields in all things; yet even here her power can be recognized by abundant examples. For instance, Aelius Lamia, a man of the older type, who always tempered his old-fashioned dignity by a spirit of kindliness, had performed splendid service in Germany and Illyricum, and was soon to do so in Africa, but failed to receive triumphal honours, not through any fault of his, but through lack of opportunity; (4) and Aulus Licinius Nerva Silianus, the son of Publius Silius, a man who was not adequately praised even by the friend who knew him best, when he declared that there were no qualities which he did not possess in the highest degree, whether as an excellent citizen or as an honest commander, through his untimely death failed not only to reap the fruit of his close friendship with the emperor but also to realize that lofty conception of his powers which had been inspired by his father’s eminence. (5) If anyone shall say that I have gone out of my way to mention these men, his criticism will meet no denial. In the sight of honest men fair-minded candour without misrepresentation is no crime.

  [117] (1) Scarcely had Caesar put the finishing touch upon the Pannonian and Dalmatian war, when, within five days of the completion of this task, dispatches from Germany brought the baleful news of the death of Varus, and of the slaughter of three legions, of as many divisions of cavalry, and of six cohorts — as though fortune were granting us this indulgence at least, that such a disaster should not be brought upon us when our commander was occupied by other wars. The cause of this defeat and the personality of the general require of me a brief digression.

  (2) Varus Quintilius, descended from a famous rather than a high-born family, was a man of mild character and of a quiet disposition, somewhat slow in mind as he was in body, and more accustomed to the leisure of the camp than to actual service in war. That he was no despiser of money is demonstrated by his governorship of Syria: he entered the rich province a poor man, but left it a rich man and the province poor. (3) When placed in charge of the army in Germany, he entertained the notion that the Germans were a people who were men only in limbs and voice, and that they, who could not be subdued by the sword, could be soothed by the law. (4) With this purpose in mind he entered the heart of Germany as though he were going among a people enjoying the blessings of peace, and sitting on his tribunal he wasted the time of a summer campaign in holding court and observing the proper details of legal procedure.

  [118] (1) But the Germans, who with their great ferocity combine great craft, to an extent scarcely credible to one who has had no experience with them, and are a race to lying born, by trumping up a series of fictitious lawsuits, now provoking one another to disputes, and now expressing their gratitude that Roman justice was settling these disputes, that their own barbarous nature was being softened down by this new and hitherto unknown method, and that quarrels which were usually settled by arms were now being ended by law, brought Quintilius to such a complete degree of negligence, that he came to look upon himself as a city praetor administering justice in the forum, and not a general in command of an army in the heart of Germany. (2) Thereupon appeared a young man of noble birth, brave in action and alert in mind, possessing an intelligence quite beyond the ordinary barbarian; he was, namely, Arminius, the son of Sigimer, a prince of that nation, and he showed in his countenance and in his eyes the fire of the mind within. He had been associated with us constantly on private campaigns, and had even attained the dignity of equestrian rank. This young man made use of the negligence of the general as an opportunity for treachery, sagaciously seeing that no one could be more quickly overpowered than the man who feared nothing, and that the most common beginning of disaster was a sense of security. (3) At first, then, he admitted but a few, later a large number, to a share in his design; he told them, and convinced them too, that the Romans could be crushed, added execution to resolve, and named a day for carrying out the plot. (4) This was disclosed to Varus through Segestes, a loyal man of that race and of illustrious name, who also demanded that the conspirators be put in chains. But fate now dominated the plans of Varus and had blindfolded the eyes of his mind. Indeed, it is usually the case that heaven perverts the judgement of the man whose fortune it means to reverse, and brings it to pass — and this is the wretched part of it — that that which happens by chance seems to be deserved, and accident passes over into culpability. And so Quintilius refused to believe the story, and insisted upon judging the apparent friendship of the Germans toward him by the standard of his merit. And, after this first warning, there was no time left for a second.

  [119] (1) The details of this terrible calamity, the heaviest that had befallen the Romans on foreign soil since the disaster of Crassus in Parthia, I shall endeavour to set forth, as others have done, in my larger work. Here I can merely lament the disaster as a whole. (2) An army unexcelled in bravery, the first of Roman armies in discipline, in energy, and in experience in the field, through the negligence of its general, the perfidy of the enemy, and the unkindness of fortune was surrounded, nor was as much opportunity as they had wished given to the soldiers either of fighting or of extricating themselves, except against heavy odds; nay, some were even heavily chastised for using the arms and showing the spirit of Romans. Hemmed in by forests and marshes and ambuscades, it was exterminated almost to a man by the very enemy whom it had always slaughtered like cattle, whose life or death had depended solely upon the wrath or the pity of the Romans. (3) The general had more courage to die than to fight, for, following the example of his father and grandfather, he ran himself through with his sword. (4) Of the two prefects of the camp, Lucius Eggius furnished a precedent as noble as that of Ceionius was base, who, after the greater part of the army had perished, proposed its surrender, preferring to die by torture at the hands of the enemy than in battle. Vala Numonius, lieutenant of Varus, who, in the rest of his life, had been an inoffensive and an honourable man, also set a fearful example in that he left the infantry unprotected by the cavalry and in flight tried to reach the Rhine with his squadrons of horse. But fortune avenged his act, for he did not survive those whom he had abandoned, but died in the act of deserting them. (5) The body of Varus, partially burned, was mangled by the enemy in their barbarity; his head was c
ut off and taken to Maroboduus and was sent by him to Caesar; but in spite of the disaster it was honoured by burial in the tomb of his family.

  [120] (1) On hearing of this disaster, Caesar flew to his father’s side. The constant protector of the Roman empire again took up his accustomed part. Dispatched to Germany, he reassured the provinces of Gaul, distributed his armies, strengthened the garrison towns, and then, measuring himself by the standard of his own greatness, and not by the presumption of an enemy who threatened Italy with a war like that of the Cimbri and Teutones, he took the offensive and crossed the Rhine with his army. (2) He thus made aggressive war upon the enemy when his father and his country would have been content to let him hold them in check, he penetrated into the heart of the country, opened up military roads, devastated fields, burned houses, routed those who came against him, and, without loss to the troops with which he had crossed, he returned, covered with glory, to winter quarters.

  (3) Due tribute should be paid to Lucius Asprenas, who was serving as lieutenant under Varus his uncle, and who, backed by the brave and energetic support of the two legions under his command, saved his army from this great disaster, and by a quick descent to the quarters of the army in Lower Germany strengthened the allegiance of the races even on the hither side of the Rhine who were beginning to waver. There are those, however, who believed that, though he had saved the lives of the living, he had appropriated to his own use the property of the dead who were slain with Varus, and that inheritances of the slaughtered army were claimed by him at pleasure. (4) The valour of Lucius Caedicius, prefect of the camp, also deserves praise, and of those who, pent up with him at Aliso, were besieged by an immense force of Germans. For, overcoming all their difficulties which want rendered unendurable and the forces of the enemy almost insurmountable, following a design that was carefully considered, and using a vigilance that was ever on the alert, they watched their chance, and with the sword won their way back to their friends. (5) From all this it is evident that Varus, who was, it must be confessed, a man of character and of good intentions, lost his life and his magnificent army more through lack of judgement in the commander than of valour in his soldiers. (6) When the Germans were venting their rage upon their captives, an heroic act was performed by Caldus Caelius, a young man worthy in every way of his long line of ancestors, who, seizing a section of the chain with which he was bound, brought down with such force upon his own head as to cause his instant death, both his brains and his blood gushing from the wound.