The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus
of the sea-coast of Holland, and almost all Friesland, in which alone
20,000 persons were drowned.
[184] Wherever the land seemed to terminate, and it appeared impossible
to proceed further, maritime nations have feigned pillars of Hercules.
Those celebrated by the Frisians must have been at the extremity of
Friesland, and not in Sweden and the Cimmerian promontory, as Rudbeck
supposes.
[185] Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, and father of Germanicus, imposed
a tribute on the Frisians, as mentioned in the Annals, iv. 72, and
performed other eminent services in Germany; himself styled Germanicus.
[186] The Chauci extended along the seacoast from the Ems to the Elbe
(Albis); whence they bordered on all the fore-mentioned nations, between
which and the Cherusci they came round to the Catti. The Chauci were
distinguished into Greater and Lesser. The Greater, according to
Ptolemy, inhabited the country between the Weser and the Elbe; the
Lesser, that between the Weser and Ems; but Tacitus (Annals xi. 19)
seems to reverse this order. Alting supposes the Chauci had their name
from _Kauken_, signifying persons eminent for valor and fidelity, which
agrees with the character Tacitus gives them. Others derive it from
_Kauk_, an owl, with a reference to the enmity of that animal to cats
(_Catti_). Others, from _Kaiten_, daws, of which there are great numbers
on their coast. Pliny has admirably described the country and manners of
the maritime Chauci, in his account of people who live without any trees
or fruit-bearing vegetables:--"In the North are the nations of Chauci,
who are divided into Greater and Lesser. Here, the ocean, having a
prodigious flux and reflux twice in the space of every day and night,
rolls over an immense tract, leaving it a matter of perpetual doubt
whether it is part of the land or sea. In this spot, the wretched
natives, occupying either the tops of hills, or artificial mounds
of turf, raised out of reach of the highest tides, build their small
cottages; which appear like sailing vessels when the water covers the
circumjacent ground, and like wrecks when it has retired. Here from
their huts they pursue the fish, continually flying from them with the
waves. They do not, like their neighbors, possess cattle, and feed on
milk; nor have they a warfare to maintain against wild beasts, for every
fruit of the earth is far removed from them. With flags and seaweed they
twist cordage for their fishing-nets. For fuel they use a kind of mud,
taken up by hand, and dried, rather in the wind than the sun: with this
earth they heat their food, and warm their bodies, stiffened by the
rigorous north. Their only drink is rain-water collected in ditches at
the thresholds of their doors. Yet this miserable people, if conquered
to-day by the Roman arms, would call themselves slaves. Thus it is that
fortune spares many to their own punishment."--Hist. Nat. xvi. 1.
[187] On this account, fortified posts were established by the Romans
to restrain the Chauci; who by Lucan are called Cayci in the following
passage:
Et vos crinigeros bellis arcere Caycos
Oppositi.--Phars. i. 463.
"You, too, tow'rds Rome advance, ye warlike band,
That wont the shaggy Cauci to withstand."--ROWE
[188] The Cherusci, at that time, dwelt between the Weser and the Elbe,
where now are Luneburg, Brunswick, and part of the Marche of Brandenburg
on this side the Elbe. In the reign of Augustus they occupied a more
extensive tract; reaching even this side the Weser, as appears from
the accounts of the expedition of Drusus given by Dio and Velleius
Paterculus: unless, as Dithmar observes, what is said of the Cherusci
on this side the Weser relates to the Dulgibini, their dependents. For,
according to Strabo, Varus was cut off by the Cherusci, and the people
subject to them. The brave actions of Arminius, the celebrated chief
of the Cherusci, are related by Tacitus in the 1st and 2d books of his
Annals.
[189] Cluver, and several others, suppose the Fosi to have been the same
with the ancient Saxons: but, since they bordered on the Cherusci, the
opinion of Leibnitz is nearer the truth, that they inhabited the banks
of the river Fusa, which enters the Aller (Allera) at Cellae; and were
a sort of appendage to the Cherusci, as Hildesheim now is to Brunswick.
The name of Saxons is later than Tacitus, and was not known till the
reign of Antoninus Pius, at which period they poured forth from the
Cimbric Chersonesus, and afterwards, in conjunction with the Angles,
seized upon Britain.
[191] The name of this people still exists; and the country they
inhabited is called the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Peninsula; comprehending
Jutland, Sleswig, and Holstein. The renown and various fortune of
the Cimbri is briefly, but accurately, related by Mallet in the
"Introduction" to the "History of Denmark."
[192] Though at this time they were greatly reduced by migrations,
inundations and wars, they afterwards revived; and from this storehouse
of nations came forth the Franks, Saxons, Normans, and various other
tribes, which brought all Europe under Germanic sway.
[193] Their fame spread through Germany, Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy,
and as far as the Sea of Azoph (Palus Maeotis), whither, according
to Posidonius, they penetrated, and called the Cimmerian or Cimbrian
Bosphorus after their own name.
[194] This is usually, and probably rightly, explained as relating to
both shores of the Cimbric Chersonesus. Cluver and Dithmar, however,
suppose that these encampments are to be sought for either in Italy,
upon the river Athesis (Adige), or in Narbonnensian Gaul near Aquae
Sextiae (Aix in Provence), where Florus (iii. 3) mentions that the
Teutoni defeated by Marius took post in a valley with a river running
through it. Of the prodigious numbers of the Cimbri who made this
terrible irruption we have an account in Plutarch, who relates that
their fighting men were 300,000, with a much greater number of women and
children. (Plut. Marius, p. 411.)
[195] Nerva was consul the fourth time, and Trajan the second, in the
85lst year of Rome; in which Tacitus composed this treatise.
[196] After the defeat of P. Decidius Saxa, lieutenant of Syria, by the
Parthians, and the seizure of Syria by Pacorus, son of king Orodes, P.
Ventidius Bassus was sent there, and vanquished the Parthians, killed
Pacorus, and entirely restored the Roman affairs.
[197] The Epitome of Livy informs us, that "in the year of Rome 640, the
Cimbri, a wandering tribe, made a predatory incursion into Illyricum,
where they routed the consul Papirius Carbo with his army." According
to Strabo, it was at Noreia, a town of the Taurisci, near Aquileia, that
Carbo was defeated. In the succeeding years, the Cimbri and Teutonia
ravaged Gaul, and brought great calamities on that country; but at
length, deterred by the unshaken bravery of the Gauls, they turned
another way; as appears from Caesar, Bell. Gal. vii. 17. They then
came into Italy, and sent ambassadors to the Senate, demanding lands to
settle on. This was refused; and the consul M. Junius Silanus fought
an unsuccessful battle with them, in the year of Rome 645. (Epitome of
Livy, lxv.)
[198] "L. Cassius the consul, in the year of Rome 647, was cut off with
his army in the confines of the Allobroges, by the Tigurine Gauls,
a canton of the Helvetians (now the cantons of Zurich, Appenzell,
Schaffhausen, &c.), who had migrated from their settlements. The
soldiers who survived the slaughter gave hostages for the payment of
half they were worth, to be dismissed with safety." (Ibid.) Caesar
further relates that the Roman army was passed under the yoke by the
Tigurini:--"This single canton, migrating from home, within the memory
of our fathers, slew the consul L. Cassius, and passed his army under
the yoke."--Bell. Gall. i. 12.
[199] M. Aurelius Scaurus, the consul's lieutenant (or rather consul,
as he appears to have served that office in the year of Rome 646), was
defeated and taken by the Cimbri; and when, being asked his advice,
he dissuaded them from passing the Alps into Italy, assuring them the
Romans were invincible, he was slain by a furious youth, named Boiorix.
(Epit. Livy, lxvii.)
[200] Florus, in like manner, considers these two affairs
separately:--"Neither could Silanus sustain the first onset of the
barbarians; nor Manlius, the second; nor Caepio, the third." (iii. 3.)
Livy joins them together:--"By the same enemy (the Cimbri) Cn. Manlius
the consul, and Q. Servilius Caepio the proconsul, were defeated in an
engagement, and both dispossessed of their camps." (Epit. lxvii.) Paulus
Orosius relates the affair more particularly:--"Manlius the consul, and
Q. Caepio, proconsul, being sent against the Cimbri, Teutones,
Tigurini, and Ambronae, Gaulish and German nations, who had conspired to
extinguish the Roman empire, divided their respective provinces by the
river Rhone. Here, the most violent dissensions prevailing between them,
they were both overcome, to the great disgrace and danger of the Roman
name. According to Antias, 80,000 Romans and allies were slaughtered.
Caepio, by whose rashness this misfortune was occasioned, was condemned,
and his property confiscated by order of the Roman people." (Lib. v.
16.) This happened in the year of Rome 649; and the anniversary was
reckoned among the unlucky days.
[201] The Republic; in opposition to Rome when governed by emperors.
[202] This tragical catastrophe so deeply affected Augustus, that, as
Seutonius informs us, "he was said to have let his beard and hair grow
for several months; during which he at times struck his head against the
doors, crying out, 'Varus, restore my legions!' and ever after kept
the anniversary as a day of mourning." (Aug. s. 23.) The finest history
piece, perhaps, ever drawn by a writer, is Tacitus's description of the
army of Germanicus visiting the field of battle, six years after,
and performing funeral obsequies to the scattered remains of their
slaughtered countrymen. (Annals, i. 61.)
[203] "After so many misfortunes, the Roman people thought no general
so capable of repelling such formidable enemies, as Marius." Nor was the
public opinion falsified. In his fourth consulate, in the year of Rome
652. "Marius engaged the Teutoni beyond the Alps near Aquae Sextiae (Aix
in Province), killing, on the day of battle and the following day, above
150,000 of the enemy, and entirely cutting off the Teutonic nation."
(Velleus Paterculus, ii. 12.) Livy says there were 200,000 slain, and
90,000 taken prisoners. The succeeding year he defeated the Cimbri, who
had penetrated into Italy and crossed the Adige, in the Raudian plain,
where now is Rubio, killing and taking prisoners upwards of 100,000 men.
That he did not, however, obtain an unbought victory over this warlike
people, may be conjectured from the resistance he met with even from
their women. We are told by Florus (iii. 3) that "he was obliged to
sustain an engagement with their wives, as well as themselves; who,
entrenching themselves on all sides with wagons and cars, fought from
them, as from towers, with lances and poles. Their death was no less
glorious than their resistance. For, when they could not obtain from
Marius what they requested by an embassy, their liberty, and admission
into the vestal priesthood (which, indeed, could not lawfully be
granted); after strangling their infants, they either fell by mutual
wounds, or hung themselves on trees or the poles of their carriages in
ropes made of their own hair. King Boiorix was slain, not unrevenged,
fighting bravely in the field." On account of these great victories,
Marius, in the year of Borne 652, triumphed over the Teutoni, Ambroni,
and Cimbri.
[204] In the 596th year of Rome, Julius Caesar defeated Ariovistus, a