and blew the alarm. The men came tumbling out of their tents half-asleep with their swords in their hands. 'What's wrong? What's happened?'
'He's been sent away from us. That's the end of our luck and we'll never see him again.'
'Who's that? Who's been sent away?'
'Our boy has. Little Boot. His father says he can't trust the First Regiment with him so he's sent him away to the damned French allies. God knows what will happen to him there. You know what the French are. His mother's been sent off too. Seven months gone with her latest, and walking on foot, like a slave woman, poor lady. O lads!
Germanicus' wife and the daughter of old Agrippa whom we used to call the Soldier's Friend! And our Little Boot.'
Soldiers really are an extraordinary race of men, as tough as shield-leather, as superstitious as Egyptians and as sentimental as Sabine grandmothers. Ten minutes later there were about two thousand men besieging Germanicus' tent in a drunken ecstasy of sorrow and repentance and imploring him to let his lady come back with their darling little boy.
Germanicus came out to them with a pale angry face and told them to trouble him no more. They had disgraced themselves and him and the name of Rome and he could never trust them so long as he lived; they had done him no kindness in wresting his sword from him when he was on the point of plunging it into his breast.
'Tell us what to do, General! We'll do anything you say. We swear we'll never mutiny again. Forgive us. We'll follow you to the world's end. But give us back our little playfellow.'
Germanicus said: 'These are my conditions. Swear allegiance to my father Tiberius, and sort out from among yourselves the men responsible for the death of your captains, the insult to the deputation and the stealing of the Eagle. If you do this you will so far have my forgiveness that I shall let you have your playfellow back. My wife however must not be brought to bed in this camp, until it has been purged of guilt. Her time is near now and I want no evil influence to cloud the life of the child. But I can send her to Cologne instead of Treves if you do not wish it said that I confided her to the protection of barbarians. My full pardon will only be given when you have wiped out the [200] memory of your bloody crimes by a bloodier victory over your country's enemies, the Germans.'
They swore to abide by his conditions. So he sent a messenger to overtake Agrippina and Cassius; he was to explain matters and fetch Caligula back. The men ran to the tents and called on every loyal comrade to join them and arrest the ringleaders of the mutiny. About a hundred men were seized and frog-marched to the tribunal, about which the remainder of the two regiments formed a hollow square with drawn swords. A colonel made each prisoner in turn mount a rough scaffold which had been put up beside the tribunal, and if the men of his company judged him guilty he was thrown down and beheaded by them. Germanicus said nothing throughout the two hours of this informal trial, sitting with folded arms and an impassive face. All but a few of the prisoners were found guilty.
When the last head had fallen and the bodies had been taken out of camp to be burned, Germanicus called up every captain in turn to the tribunal and asked him to give particulars of his service. If he had a good record and had evidently not been appointed by favouritism Germanicus appealed to the company veterans for their opinion of him.
If they gave him a good name and the battalion colonel had nothing against him the man was confirmed in his rank.
But if his record was bad or if there were complaints from his company he was degraded, and Germanicus called on the company to choose the best man they had among them to succeed him. Germanicus then thanked the men for their co-operation and called on them to take the oath of allegiance to Tiberius. They took it solemnly; and a moment later a great cheer went up. They saw Germanicus'
messenger galloping back; and there was Caligula on the crupper in front of him shouting in his shrill voice and waving his toy sword.
Germanicus embraced the child and said that he had one more thing to add.
Fifteen hundred time-expired veterans had been discharged from the two regiments in accordance with instructions from Tiberius. But if any of them, he said, wanted his full pardon, which their fellows were soon going to earn by crossing the Rhine and avenging Varus' defeat, they could still win it. He would permit the more [201] active men to re-enlist in their old companies; while those who were only fit for garrison duty could enlist in a special force for service in the Tyrol where dangerous raids from Germany had lately been reported. Would you believe it? --every man stepped forward and more than half volunteered for active service across the Rhine. Among these active volunteers was Pomponius, who protested that he was as fit as any man in the army, in spite of his bare gums and his rupture. Germanicus made him his tent-orderly and put his grandsons into the bodyguard. So everything was all right again at Bonn, and Caligula was told by the men that he had put down the mutiny single- handed and that one day he'd be a great emperor and win wonderful victories; which was very bad for the child, who was already, as I say, disgracefully spoilt.
But there remained the five other regiments who were at a place called Santen to bring to their senses. They had continued to behave mutinously even after the payment of their bounty and their General could do nothing with them.
When news came of the change of heart in the Bonn regiments the chief mutineers became seriously alarmed for their own safety and stirred up their comrades to fresh acts of violence and depredation. Germanicus sent their General word that he was coming down the Rhine at once at the head of a powerful force and that if such loyal men as remained under his command did not quickly follow the example of the Bonn regiments and execute the troublemakers he would put the whole lot to the sword indiscriminately. The General read the letter privately to the standard-bearers, non-commissioned officers and a few trustworthy old soldiers and told them that there was little time for delay; for Germanicus might be on them any moment. They promised him to do what they could and, letting a few more loyalists into the secret, which was well kept, they rushed into the tents at midnight on a given signal and began to massacre the mutineers. These defended themselves as best they could and killed a number of the loyalists, but they were soon overpowered. Five hundred men were killed or wounded that night. The rest, leaving only sentries in the camp, marched out to meet Germanicus, begging him to lead them at once across the Rhine against the enemy. Although the campaigning season was nearly at an end, the fine weather still held and Germanicus promised to do what they asked. He threw a pontoon bridge over the river and marched across at the head of twelve thousand Roman infantry, twenty-
six battalions of allies and eight squadrons of cavalry. From his agents in enemy territory he knew of a large concentration of the enemy in the villages of Munster, where an annual autumn festival in honour of the German Hercules was being held. News of the mutiny had reached the Germans--the mutineers had actually been in treaty with Hermann and had exchanged presents with him--and they were only waiting for the regiments to march away to their new kingdom in the South-West before crossing the Rhine and marching direct for Italy.
Germanicus followed a rarely used forest-route and surprised the Germans completely, catching them at their beer-drinking. [Beer is a fermented drink made from steeped grain and they drink it to extraordinary excess at their feasts.] He divided his forces into four columns and wasted the country on a fifty-mile frontage, burning the villages and slaughtering the inhabitants without respect for age or sex. On his return he found detachments of various neighbouring tribes posted to dispute his passage through the forest; but he advanced in skirmishing order and was pressing the enemy back well when there was a sudden alarm from the Twentieth Regiment, which was acting as rear-guard, and Germanicus found that a huge force of Germans under the personal command of Hermann was upon him. Fortunately the trees at this point were not dense and allowed room for manoeuvre. Germanicus rode back to the position of most danger and cried out,
'Break their line, Twentieth, and everything will be forgiven and forgotten.' The Twentieth fought like madmen and threw the Germans back with huge slaughter, pursuing them far into the open country at the back of the wood. Germanicus caught sight of Hermann and challenged him to combat, but Hermann's men were running away: it would have been death for him to have accepted &e challenge.
He galloped off. Germanicus was as unlucky [»3] as our father had been in his pursuit of enemy chieftains; but he won his victories in the same style, and the name 'Germanicus' which he had inherited he bore now in his own right. He marched the exultant army back to safety in their camps across the Rhine.
Tiberius never understood Germanicus, nor Germanicus Tiberius. Tiberius, as I have said, was one of the bad Claudians. Yet he was, at times, easily tempted to virtue, and in a noble age might well have passed for a noble character: for he was a man of no mean capacity. But the age was not a noble one and his heart had been
