forces and come to his help, if needed, as soon as he sent for them. These auxiliaries were already under arms and in ambush a few days' journey ahead of Varus on his line of march. The two chieftains now sent word to the outlying communities to fall upon the Roman detachment sent for their protection and not to let a man escape.
No news came to Varus about this massacre because there were no survivors, and he was, in any case, out of touch with his headquarters. The road he was following was a mere forest track. But he did not take the precaution of putting out an advance-guard of skirmishers or flank-guards, but let the whole force--which contained a large number of non-combatants--string out in a disorderly column with as little precaution as if he had been within fifty miles of Rome. The march was very slow because he had constantly to be felling trees and bridging streams to enable the commissariat carts to get across; and this gave time for huge numbers of tribesmen to join the ambushing forces. The weather suddenly broke, a downpour of rain lasting for twenty-four hours or more soaked the men's leather shields, making them too heavy for fighting, and putting the archers' bows out of commission. The clay track became so slippery that it was difficult to keep one's footing and the carts were constantly getting stuck. The distance between the head and tail of the column increased. Then a smoke signal went up from a neighbouring hill and the Germans suddenly attacked from front, rear and both flanks.
The Germans were no match for the Romans in fair fight and Varus had not much exaggerated their cowardice. At first they only dared to attack stragglers and transport drivers, avoiding hand-to-hand fighting but flinging volleys of assegais and darts from behind cover, and running back into the forest if a Roman so much as shook a sword and shouted. But they caused many casualties by these tactics.
Parties led by Hermann, Segimerus and other chieftains made blocks on the road by wheeling captured carts together, breaking their wheels and felling trees across the wreckage. They made several of these blocks and left tribesmen behind them to harass the soldiers when they tried to clear them away. This so delayed the men at the tail of the column that, afraid of losing touch, they abandoned all the carts which were still in their possession and hurried forward, hoping ftiat the Germans would be so busy plundering that they would not return to the attack for some time.
The leading regiment had reached a hill where there were not many trees because of a recent forest fire and here they formed up in safety and waited for the other two. They still had their transport and had only lost a few hundred men.
The other two regiments were suffering much more heavily.
Men got separated from their companies, and new units were formed of from fifty to two hundred men apiece, each with a rear-guard, an advance-guard and flank-guards. The flank-guards could only go forward very slowly because of the denseness and marshiness of the forest and frequently lost touch with their little units; the advance-guards lost heavily at the barricades and the rear-guards were constantly being assegaied from behind. When the roll was called that night Varus found that nearly a third of his force was killed or missing. The next day he fought his way into open country, but he had been obliged to abandon the remainder of his transport. Food was scarce and on the third day he [•57] had to plunge into the forest again. The casualties on the second day had not been severe, for a large number of the enemy were occupied plundering the wagons and carrying the loot away with them, but when the roll was called on the evening of the third day only a quarter of the original force were present to answer their names. On the fourth day Varus was still advancing, for he was too wrong-headed to admit defeat and abandon his original objective, but the weather, which had improved somewhat, now became worse than ever, and the Germans, who were accustomed to heavy rain, grew bolder and bolder as they saw resistance weakening. They came to closer quarters.
About noon Varus saw that all was over and killed himself rather than fall alive into the hands of the enemy. Most of the senior officers surviving followed his example, and many of the men. Only one officer kept his head--the same Cassius Cbaerea who fought that day in the amphitheatre.
He was commanding the rear-guard, composed of mountaineers from Savoy, who were more at home in a forest than most; and when news came by a fugitive that Varus was dead, the Eagles captured and not three hundred men of the main body left on their feet. He determined to save what he could from the slaughter. He turned his force about and broke through the enemy with a sudden charge.
Cassius' great courage, something of which he managed to convey to his men, awed the Germans. They left this small resolute body of men alone and ran forward to make easier conquests. It stands as perhaps the finest soldiering feat of modern times that of the hundred and twenty men whom Cassius had with him when he turned about he managed after eight days' march through hostile country to bring eighty safely back, under the company banner, to the fortress from which he had set out twenty days previously.
It is difficult to convey an impression of the panic that reigned at Rome when the rumours of the disaster were confirmed. People started packing up their belongings and loading them on carts as if the Germans were already at the City gates. And indeed there was good reason for anxiety. The losses in the Balkan War had been so heavy that nearly all the available reserves of fighting men in Italy had been used up. Augustus was at his wits' end to find an army to send out under Tiberius to secure the Rhine bridgeheads, which apparently the Germans had not yet seized. Of Roman citizens who were liable for service few came forward willingly on the publication of the order calling them up; to march against the Germans seemed like going to certain death. Augustus then issued a second order that of those who did not offer themselves within three days every fifth man would be disenfranchised and deprived of all his property. Many hung back even after this, so he executed a few as an example and forced the remainder into the ranks, where some of them, as a matter of fact, made quite good soldiers. He also called up a class of men over thirty-five years of age and re-enlisted a number of veterans who had completed their sixteen years with the colours.
With these and a regiment or two composed of freedmen, who were not normally liable for service [though Germanicus' reinforcements in the Balkan War had consisted largely of such], he built up quite an imposing force and sent each company off North on its own as soon as it was armed and equipped.
It was the greatest shame and grief to me that in this hour of Rome's supreme need I was incapable of serving as a soldier in her defence. I went to Augustus and begged to be sent out in some capacity where my bodily weakness would not be a disability: I suggested going as intelligence officer to Tiberius and undertaking such useful tasks as collecting and collating reports of enemy movements, questioning prisoners, making maps, and giving special instructions to spies. Failing this appointment [for which I considered myself qualified because I had made a close study of the campaigns in Germany and had learned to think in an orderly way and to direct clerks] I volunteered to act as Tiberius'
Quartermaster-General: I would indent to Rome for necessary military supplies, and check and distribute them on their arrival at the base. Augustus seemed pleased that I had come forward so willingly and said that he would speak to Tiberius about my offer. But nothing came of it.
Perhaps Tiberius believed me incapable of any useful service; perhaps he was merely annoyed at my coming forward with this request when his son Castor had hung back and had persuaded Augustus to send him to raise and train [^59]
troops in the South of Italy. However, Germanicus was in the same case as myself, which was some comfort. He had volunteered for service in Germany, but Augustus needed him at Rome, where he was very popular, to help him quell the civil disturbances which he feared might break out as soon as the troops had left the City.
Meanwhile the Germans hunted down all the fugitives from Varus' army and sacrificed scores of them to their forest-gods, burning them alive in wicker cages. The remainder they held as captives. [Some of them were later ransomed by their relatives at an extravagantly high price, but Augustus forbade them ever to enter Italy again.] The Germans also enjoyed a long succession of tremendous drinking-bouts on the captured wine, and quarrelled bloodily over the glory and plunder. It was a long time before they became active again and realised how little opposition they would meet if they marched to the Rhine.
But as soon as the wine began to give out they attacked the weakly-held frontier-fortresses and one by one captured and sacked them. Only a single fortress put up a decent resistance: it was the one held by Cassius. The Germans would have occupied this as easily-as the rest because the garrison was small, but Hermann and Segimerus were elsewhere and none of the rest understood the Roman art of siege-warfare with catapults, mangonels, the tortoise, and sapping.
Cassius had a big supply of bows and arrows in his fortress and taught everyone, even the women and slaves, to use them. He successfully beat off several wild attacks on the gates and had great pots of boiling water always ready to pour on any Germans who attempted to scale the walls with ladders. The Germans were so busy
