Arminius

Arminius

By William Walling

Published by William Walling at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 William Walling

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ARMINIVS

William Walling

To be ignorant of that which occurred before you

were born is to remain forever a child. For what is

the worth of human life unless it is woven into

the lives of our ancestors by the record of history

ORATOR ad M. BRUTEM

Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCE

Foreword

Roman chronicles cite his feats. Many contemporary historians refer to this distant figure from the shadows of European antiquity as a liberating crusader, others as the noble savage gone wrong. In 1875 on a hilltop in modern Grotenberg, Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen dedicated an enormous statue of Hermann der Cherusker, a princeling and chieftain of the Cherusci, the aggregate Germanic tribal clan later to become one nucleus of the Goths. Rearing sixteen meters tall atop a high pedestal, the imposing white figure lofts a seven-meter sword in symbolic defiance of Rome. Germany’s vilified National Socialist régime went a step farther; eulogizing Arminius, his savior-like qualities were favorably compared to those of Nazi demi-god Adolph Hitler.

Whether destroying ingrate –– the Roman view –– or patriotic defender of the indigenous culture from which he sprang, his ambitious deeds surely lie closer to one such pole than the other. But whether culpable, benevolent or slipping into the wide crack between, his documented complishments credit him with organizing and consummating the stunning defeat of imperial forces Roman scribes termed clades variana, the Varian Disaster. The epic battle, possibly initiating a subsequent turning point in European history, has inspired volumes of modern academic controversy and conjecture.

In telling this tale, the author had neither the means nor any intention of attemplting to relate events and circumstances lost in the mists of time as they actually were, only as they might have been. Numerous inventions were needed to fill the gaping lacunae in sketchy ancient accounts, and to round out characterizations. The span of years involved, coupled with the Augustan era’s rich confluence of prominent historical luminaries, made it necessary to compress certain events known to have taken place, marginally time-shift others, and totally eliminate some.

Minimal evidence concerning the man himself has come down to us. What little hearsay there is derives from accounts in surviving Roman literature, including his classical identity, Arminius. Barbarian names may have been Latinized by the Romans as a matter of course, yet most contemporary scholars refute the notion that the hero’s conferred name derived from his purported indigenous name, Hermann. Arminius may even have been bestowed centuries later by none other than celebrated ecclesiastic reformer Martin Luther. Surviving books of the ANNALES, penned by Tacitus a century after the fact, mention Arminius and the famous battle, as do the fragmentary works of the hero’s contemporary, Marcus Velleius Paterculus, a soldierly historian who warred beside future Emperor Tiberius. Writing generations later, Florus and Cassius Dio also touch upon the epic struggles of Arminius, although neither account is too credible.

Roman historians refer to the hero’s elder sibling as Flavus, literally The Blond; to the Cheruscan petty-king who sired the brothers as Sigimerus; to their uncle as Inguiomerus; and to the hero’s antagonistic father-in-law as Segestes. It will never be known whether these names were rooted in the Cheruscan dialect, loose transliterations meant to endow them with a quasi-Latin ring, or simply adopted by the bearers from Roman culture. Arminius may have derived from Irmin, a proto-Germanic deity, or another called Irminsul. An educated guess is that his Cheruscan name was most likely a variation of the patronymic — Sigi-something. It has also been suggested that he might have been the legendary Siegfried of Germanic myth, the hero of heroes who gained international recognition in Richard Wagner’s music-drama tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. In this tale he remains the familiar Hermann der Cherusker — Arminius.

A good deal more is known about his Roman antagonist, the much maligned Publius Quinctilius Varus. A patrician whose second wife, Claudia Pulcra, was herself a grandniece of Caesar Augustus, Varus served Rome as quaestor (the letter u retained to enhance legibility did not exist in the twenty-three-letter Latin alphabet), and later as legatus augusti legiones, the supreme commander of a multiple-legion army in what is now western Turkey. Circa 13 BCE Varus was elected Roman co-consul in company with future Emperor Tiberius, and eventually appointed legatus augusti per praetore, governing in turn the provinces of Africa and Syria. Lastly and fatally, he served as the emperor’s surrogate in germania inferior, where he reputedly exacted crushing tribute from the northern tribes living under Rome’s nominal sway while rendering unjust magisterial decisions. Apparently viewing himself a patrician above the fray, Varus failed to heed military counsel in general, and in particular repeated warnings of a serious threat in the offing.

Roman historians, all naturally biased in favor of their own culture, display small sympathy for a barbarian inferior who in their eyes had the effrontery to accept Roman largesse and trust via an award of citizenship and rare elevation to equestrian social status, only to flaunt those signal honors and revert to the role of a turncoat who betrayed Rome. History is said to be written by the victors, yet in this instance no rebuttal was forthcoming. The warlike, ethnically related peoples inhabiting early first century germanorum magnus had no written language with which to plead their case.

Determining the site of the epic battle, known as Varusschlacht or Hermannsschlacht in the German language, became the subject of contemporary speculation and dispute, not to mention the object of numerous ground and aerial searches. A renowned nineteenth century classicist, Theodor Mommsen, was first to estimate the battle’s location with minimal accuracy. Professor Mommsen based his conclusion on descriptive geography, a thorough knowledge of Roman historical accounts, military means and methods, and the significant quantity of Roman coins, none datable subsequent to the lengthy reign of Caesar Augustus, unearthed by a retired British Army officer in saltus teutoburgensis, a swampy, forested locale near modern Osnabrück. Commencing in the early 1990s under University of Osnabrück sponsorship, an archaeological dig in rural Bramsche unearthed topographical details and items of physical evidence which definitely establish it as the climactic battle site.

Professor Mommsen is said to have begun a lecture with this intriguing sally: Ladies and gentlemen, in speaking of ancient Rome I could not have chosen a more modern topic. As in Dickens’ romantic tale of revolutionary France, Augustan Rome flourished during the best and worst of times, when the seven-hilled city on the Tiber –– its motto urbi et orbi, The City and the World –– ruled some forty provinces and the lives of roughly fifty millions. As with other societies thriving in antiquity, Rome’s socio-economic health and prosperity derived in some measure from lifelong servitude by an enslaved populace whose members were not considered human beings, but chattel. The empire sprawling across Europe and portions of Africa and Asia was created and sustained by the ferocity, tenacity and incredible engineering feats of its fabled legions, twenty-eight in number on the eve of Varusschlacht.

Ah, the citizen soldiers of legiones augusti! Hordes of strapping, dark-haired farmers, shepherds and laborers recruited from Samnium, Latium, Marsica and elsewhere were endowed with broad shoulders and stocky physiques their renowned imperator, Gaius Julius Caesar, had dubbed brevitas. Legionaries arrayed for battle in tactical cohorts were led by military tribunes drawn from the senatorial or equestrian classes, while in each cohort venal, pitiless, hardy and brave centurions welded the rank and file gregarii milites into indomitable centuries manned by iron-disciplined, enduring, relentless professionals.

In company with several of the era’s brighter historical luminaries, a real-life officer of the legions makes his way through portions of this narrative. The military career, and life, of Marcus Caelius Rufus, a native of rural bononia –– today’s Bologna –– was cut short while he held the exalted post of primipilus, or First Centurion, in ill-fated legio XVIII. His cenotaph, excavated near the town of Xanten in the seventeenth century, describes his fall at age fifty-three bello variano, merely one victim of the numbing annihilation of three Roman legions amid forested hills, riverine marshes and gloomy lowlands in a then remote sector of germanorum magnus Rome knew as the Teutoburg Forest. Caelius’ gravestone, a rare item of physical evidence pertaining to the legionaries who were once the staunch comrades of Arminius, and later his bitterest foes, commemorates the life and service of a highly decorated veteran.

Patrician or plebian, Roman citizen, foreigner, ally, freedman, slave or unlettered barbarian, the denizens of early first-century Europe were human beings remarkably like ourselves. Popular books and films tend to laxly portray the milieu of roma antica in a vein more suited to cartoon strips than historical integrity, whereas the populace of antiquity’s foremost civilization, its provinces and frontiers, was actually vital and industrious, if in some respects brutal and sinful when judged by contemporary standards.

Theirs was an era of juxtaposed bloodbath and constructiveness, epicurean self-indulgence and aristocratic noblesse oblige, monumental folly mixed with flights of lofty genius.

Very much like our own.

All of this, you see, took place two thousand years in the past.

Twenty centuries ago.

Yesterday . . .

INCIPIT LIBER PRIMVS

CHAPTER I

GERMANIA INFERIOR AB VRBE CONDITA DCCLXII

Farther Germania, in Rome’s traditional 762nd year (9 CE)

Wind-driven rain fell slaunchwise from the rogue advance guard of big-bellied thunderheads marching above a plain stretchinf northward all the way to Ocean. Fork-tongued lightning flickered in a somber sky, orchestrated by grumbling tympani householders acting as blood priests in the Sacred Grove liked to call Donnar’s voice of anger. Sun dazzle peeked between towering cloud anvils, sheening brakes of larch and alder that dripped from every leaf. Lush with rain-glossed foliage, a shallow slope fell away beneath the hillside vantage where two watchers kept a lonely vigil.

Weary and footsore from standing in place hour after hour, Flavus shuffled his feet often to relieve the discomfort. Chafing in silence a while longer, he idly fingered the hilt of his sword, turning now and again to glance back at the motionless figure rearing two paces behind him. His uncle looked as if he were standing at ease, but Flavus knew better; he radiated tension electric as the weather.

Silhouetted against the tempestuous late-morning sky, his uncle’s muscular forearm was draped atop the legionary buckler he never went anywhere without; a loosely held Roman javelin in his other hand was canted outward in a sentinel’s classic stance, its shaft butted against one scuffed, muddied legionary sandal. Moisture clung to his uncle’s copper-blond mane and beard; a wolfskin cape beaded with water droplets shrouded his massive torso; the fixed gaze of his ice-blue eyes never strayed from a gap in the treetops framing a saddle in the low hills, where the river meandered northward through a gently curving valley

Flavus lifted resentful eyes to the storm clouds convening overhead. The wind had picked up in strength, promising a wet, blustery afternoon, causing their mounts, tethered out of sight beyond the hillcrest, to grow restive due to the growls and rolls of not too distant thunder. Flavus mistrusted his runty, ill-mannered colt. He grimaced when it nickered softly. Skittish even as a foal, the small horse tended to shy at shadows, and never failed to buck whenleast expected.

Yet another late-summer shower raked the hillside. Drenched, footsore and bored to the verge of insensibility, Flavus swung about and searched his uncle’s stolid countenance. He cleared his throat in an overly loud manner, waited for a reaction that never came, hawked irritably and spat into the humus underfoot. Any sign of them?

Soon, I think, muttered Arminius.

You said that a while ago.

And may say it again. You would do well to learn patience, Flavus.

Disgruntlement creased the youth’s high, summer-tanned forehead. He folded his arms and resolutely faced front, wondering if he would ever conquer an instinctive aversion to the name he had chosen for himself. Rolling the syllables around in his mind, he examined their flavor, their texture –– Fla-vus. For some reason his acquired name echoed falsely when his uncle pronounced it in the manner of a speaker in the römischen tongue.

After months of soul-searching, he had succumbed to the counsel of relatives and close friends and adopted a new name. This weighty decision had been made in late spring of the previous year, while accompanying Arminius and Papa Inguiomerus on a conspiratorial, rabble-rousing journey through the Völkerschaften lands of the Chatti, Marsi and Ubii.

In the wake of endless conferences with nobles and elders who held themselves in godlike self-esteem, being looked down upon by suspicious Hunni who led their respective warrior Hundertschaften, and invariably nay-said by uppity Wehrmanner who thought it their birthright to sustain a deep, abiding mistrust of strangers who dared to propose anything new and untried, the threesome had journeyed southwestward instead of returning to the Cheruscan demesne. Making an impromptu holiday of the leisurely junket, they had crossed the multi-channeled Rhine on a series of military pontoon bridges downstream from the lesser Roman garrison of Durnomagus, and thence upriver to Ara Ubiorum, a moderate-sized Ubii settlement coexisting on the river’s western bank with the major Roman fortress of Apud Aram.

Visiting Ubiorum had doubled Flavus’ hunger to learn more about the wide world beyond his native Dorf. The town and its environs had proven fascinating, what with loose women to be admired and a seemingly infinite variety of wares vended in the jumble of stalls, tents and lean-tos dotting the mud-rutted marketplace. In a time of relative tranquillity east of the river, Ara Ubiorum was where Those bastard sons of the she wolf –– Papa Inguiomerus’ pet pejorative for Romans of all cants, complexions and persuasions –– had erected a Roma et Augustus shrine to the emperor’s cult, as well as a more modest place of worship dedicated to Freye, Wodin and other dieties favored by the germani, Rome’s collective label for the diverse multitudes dwelling in a trackless hinterland of forest, hill, marshland and watercourse east of the great river.

Bent upon upholding their reputation as canny, money-grubbing scoundrels, Ubiorum’s civic fathers had not erected the Germanic shrine out of pious regard for local religious beliefs, but rather as an unsubtle lure designed to coax into the settlement any and all travel prone germani. A place of worship, those in authority had decided, would surely induce relatively affluent surrounding peoples to rid themselves of the Roman coins earned by intestine looting and pillaging among rival clan-nations, dispatching slaves to set traps and bring to market a variety of woodland pelts, or cheerfully capturing and selling one another into slavery.

In Ubiorum, Flavus had learned the Germanic shrine’s basic purpose: to attract wanderers among the Sugambri, Tencteri, Marsi, Chatti, Cherusci, et al, in order to fleece them of their meager stores of silver coins. It was common knowledge that nobles like Papa Inguiomerus, in most respects fearless to a suicidal degree, were abjectly terrified of giving offense on high. Ubii popular wisdom, doubtless inspired by the Romans, had it that no superstitious germanus would ever, under any circumstances, pass up an opportunity to appease the wrath of the deities. He himself had often been counseled often on that very subject. Trying to dodge the gods’ vengeance, Papa would rumble in the gravelly bass rising full-flower from his deep chest, would be like running between raindrops to stay dry.

True to his vacillating nature, Papa had at first refused to call the returned prodigal Arminius, instead reverting to his nephew’s birth name, Hermann. But then on-again, off-again swings from unbending rectitude to liberal tolerance were what one came to expect from Papa. Vacillation was predictably in keeping with his lightning changes of heart.

Not long since, Flavus reminded himself, he too had felt naught but deep disdain for anyone sinking low enough to rename himself in order to suit the caprice and convenience of the Romans and their hirelings. Yet in the end he had adopted the name of a second uncle, the brother of Arminius dubbed Flavus in infancy not to please the Romans, but because of the newborn’s shock of butter-colored hair.

Many stiff-necked Cheruscan elders and villagers retained a conviction that renaming oneself was the ultimate form of self-debasement. Despite sharing that feeling for most of his young life, the enlightenment brought about by a brief stay in Ubiorum had revealed the deeper reason why Papa and many kinfolk had assumed Latinized names. Owning a recognizable, pronounceable alias simplified one’s dealings with a settlement’s tribute gatherers, merchants, officials, tavern keepers, legionaries and camp followers. More to the point, as Papa never tired of explaining, becoming known as Inguiomerus rather than Ingomar, or some truly guttural indigenous name, helped grease the skids during unavoidable face-to-face encounters with the Romans and their minions. As Flavus, he had found that pleasantries often replaced formerly tepid greetings, shrugs of indifference, or an occasional cuff on the ear.

Even before he came of age and earned the privilege of bearing arms, Flavus had fallen into a habit of paying close heed to the fiery discussions, denunciations and pronouncements of his elders. Prodigal in that respect, he had rarely passed up an opportunity to eavesdrop on sober Gau Council debates, casual discussions, and not a few nighttime confrontations that invariably ended in blows and bloodshed. Try as he might, he had found it no easy task to sort and evaluate the widely divergent, stridently espoused attitudes and philosophies forever under discussion. Controversy raged eternal, most often centered about the question of how to treat with the arrogant, tribute-hungry Romans and their high-handed magistrates. Determined to take a stand that would satisfy logic as well as the conscience of his inquiring mind, he had reflected long and hard on the thorny issue. The more thought he’d given to the question, the more confused he had become.

And then –– wonder of wonders! –– long lost Uncle Hermann had dumbfounded his extended family by making an unheralded return to the homeland. The stripling who had vanished years earlier under mysterious circumstances reappeared as a radically changed, mature Wehrmann who styled himself Caius Julius Arminius. At first reluctant to discuss his years among the Romans, it had soon become apparent that nameless fires smoldered deep within his uncle. After spending hours in earnest conversation with Papa Inguiomerus, the Romanized stranger had gradually regained semi-acceptance within his native Völkerschaft. Eventually taking a wife, he had ostensibly settled down.

But what his kith and kin assumed to be a brooding concession to things as they were had actually been a lengthy interlude of thoughtful scheming. Not long after the disputatious controversy over his nuptials died down, Arminius had begun campaigning in earnest. Badgering the Gau Council with heated rhetoric, he had vociferously urged nobles and elders alike to help persuade the Cherusci and most neighboring peoples to join together and wage unremitting, winner-take-all warfare against his former Roman lords and masters. Opening up slowly, one slice at a time, if only to blood relatives and a double handful of retainers made up of Whermanner who had earned his trust and pledged themselves to follow him, he’d described his life as a Roman. Levied into service against his will, he had been trained and assigned to an auxiliary unit made up of locally conscripted youths like himself, and then later awarded command of an all-Cheruscan auxiliary infantry detachment, and later still, through a quirk of fate, had gained Roman citizenship and been opted into the legion proper.

Regaling fireside audiences with tales of legionary life, Arminius had drawn word pictures of the City of cities. Relating certain experiences which had soured him on Rome and the Romans, he had described how swelling disaffection finally drove him to return to the homeland and reclaim his Cheruscan heritage, albeit as one steeped in Roman military means and methods, strategy, tactics, policies, procedures and traditions. Touting his military background, he had begun circulating among the outlying clan-nations, preaching one diatribe after another, repetitiously driving home to nobles, elders, warriors and anyone else who cared to listen a solemn litany: namely, that a thorough knowledge of the enemy was far and away the most vital milestone on the rocky road to defeating him, ousting him from all Völkerschaften demesnes.

These advertisements of himself, coupled with a keen intelligence and obvious strength of character, not to mention his superb degree of expertise with all types of weaponry, had gradually advanced his cause. Eventually looked up to as a resourceful, respected Cheruscan prince, his anti-Roman crusade had steadily gained strength and momentum, attracting adherents by the tens of tens. And as his preachments had earned credence and popularity among peoples in the surrounding demesnes, he had also –– with notable exceptions –– garnered an ever-increasilng following within the bellicose Cheruscan faction that supported his views.

From the topmost strand of his tousled, reddish-blond mane to the hobnailed legionary sandals he favored, Arminius had become obsessed with organizing and commanding a regional army whose sole aim would be to once and for all rid the lands of Roman dominance and persecution. This resolve, wrought in iron, caused him to turn a deaf ear to any and all arguments intended to rebut his intransigent insistence that Rome’s rapacious legions could indeed be routed and driven from the lands for all time to come.

Papa Inguiomerus, nominally a tough-minded pillar of integrity, often dismayed Flavus and their extended family by swinging in the wind like a flimsy cattle gate, something especially true when the question arose of how to deal with the arrogant Romans. At any given moment, drunk or sober, smiling or sullen, Papa might voice total accord with his nephew’s eloquent jeremiads, endorsing with militancy and unqualified enthusiasm his nephew’s diatribes, holding back nothing in his effort to fire the zeal of the Gau Council. Bellowing in his overly loud manner, Papa would forcefully parrot the righteous polemics of his nephew, and firmly declare that concerted, all-out warfare was the sole answer to Rome’s unconquerable legions, and echo his nephew’s stern credo that Rome’s casual, overbearing sovereignty would never simply melt away, but would grow ever stronger, ever more oppressive. He would parrot the demand of Arminius that the legions garrisoned along the Rhine, as well as isolated cohorts stationed in interior encampments and outpost fortresses, be defeated in the field lest the civilized masters of far-flung dominions eventually subjugate all Völkerschaften peoples and turn the lands into subservient provinces like those of spineless Gallic tribes to the west.

Should such a fate befall the Cherusci, Papa would cry, articulating his nephew’s diatribe, Roman military incursions and harsh punitive measures such as the judicial murders perpetrated by scum-sucking Roman magistrates, or the greedy exaction of tribute, or the forced levy of the clans’ ablest youths into Roman military service, would continue forever and ever, world without end, time out of mind.

Yet to the bewilderment of Flavus and others, in the very next breath Papa might turn about head-to-tail and advocate conciliation and compromise as the only realistic means of dealing with Rome’s demonically organized, vastly superior armed might. What never failed to strike his son as especially disconcerting was the fact that when preaching peaceful coexistence Papa invariably sounded every whit as earnest and sincere as when chiming in to reinforce Arminius’ preachments about inciting a united martial uprising. When arguing compromise, Papa would hector the Gau Council with equal or greater vehemence, issuing caveat after caveat, ranting at length about the fact that, despite the self-defeating nature of bowing down and paying tribute, it would be suicidal folly to defy the bottomless resources, insane discipline, ruthless energy and organization exhibited by Those bastard sons of the she wolf.

As a footnote to his anti-Roman campaign, Arminius seldom became eloquent when coaxed and inveigled into discussing his legionary career. Having earned his salt as a seasoned auxiliary foot soldier –– a pedite to use the Roman term –– he had been awarded Roman citizenship and brought into the legion proper with the rank of pilanus, a heavy infantryman. Later dispatched to Rome for an unstated reason, he had eventually been elevated in social status by the award of Roman knighthood, a facet of Latinization that helped cast him in the role of a pariah upon his return to home and hearth. Flavus recalled his own juvenile resentment of the dandified Romanesque stranger unexpectedly thrust back into his extended family’s fold. In truth, he had been too young to recall his uncle, unable to bring to mind anything of his appearance and personality. A foreign-yet-somehow familiar stranger, his uncle had reappeared from nowhere, a phantom from earlychildhood.

But after a summer spent hunting and fishing in company with Arminius, especially after witnessing his uncle’s flashing Roman short sword in action, or admiring his superb javelin casts, horsemanship and woodcraft, his original opinion of the returned prodigal had fallen by the wayside. Time after time had he listened enraptured to his uncle’s quietly spoken counsel, his accounts of legionary life, the vignettes describing Rome’s insensate brutality and foulness that went hand in glove with noble deeds and lofty wonders. Only then had he begun to understand why his uncle had turned his back on Rome and the Romans, and why he so avidly opposed his avaricious former masters for their dominance over peoples they considered barbarians.

Rainsoaked and lethargic after the endless hillside vigil, Flavus was lost in introspection, contemplating the rhyme and reason of the world and his place in it, when his uncle suddenly stirred.

There! The word cracked like a nearby thunderclap.

Startled, the youth drew himself erect and peered into the distance.

Outriders! Arminius lifted the Roman javelin, aiming the backward-raked barbs of its head downriver. Elation sharpened his diction in saying, Look you, Flavus! The pathfinders rove through patches of sun and shadow, combing thinned-out stands of timber above mud flats on the near shore.

Flavus squinted, straining until his eyes watered.

What we see there, added Arminius, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice, is the snake’s forked tongue. It flicks ahead of the line of march, rooting out danger. The head will not be far behind.

Knowing where to look, Flavus picked out several crawling dots –– horsemen moving through reedy marshlands shelving upward from the riverbank. Scouts! he cried, sharing his uncle’s excitement. You said the scouts were, uh . . . Is ‘scouts’ the right word?

His mind elsewhere, Arminius murmured, Scouts, yes.

How are they called in, uh . . ? In der römischen Zunge genannt?

Ex-plor-a-tores. Arminius pronounced each Latin syllable with added clarity for his nephew’s benefit. Those your father and I saw at the legions’ summer encampment were mainly Gauls, salted with a few Bructeri and others. He abruptly changed the subject. Take your sword, Flavus, and go into the wood. Fetch us some fat, shaggy boughs for use as concealment.

Here on the hillside?

Where else?

Why stay? We could mount up, and ride. You’ve made sure they’re on march, coming through this valley in the Wiehen hills as expected. When Arminius did not reply, Flavus asked what they would do if the scouts spotted them.

They won’t bother swinging up our little hill.

The response did not satisfy his nephew. What if they do? We take horse and make a run for it, right?

Should we cross paths with legionaries of any stripe, informed his uncle, we shall greet them warmly, empty-handed and smiling, our heads bowed ever so humbly. We will shower them with Wodin’s blessings for rushing to the aid of the stricken peoples, pile fuel on the fire by explaining how miserably the war is ravaging the lands.

But what if they ––?

Go, Flavus! Bring the boughs.

Although the directive had been calmly stated, Flavus sensed the agitation underlying his uncle’s outward composure. Worried to think Arminius might be outsmarting himself, he unlimbered his sword and strode uphill into the dripping woodland, flexing his ankles in an exaggerated fashion to work out the kinks.

* * *

By early afternoon, a nebulous gray ceiling had clamped down over hill, valley and river, blotting out the horizon. Rain haze from a torrential downpour veiled the snakelike procession laboriously wending its way past the foot of the hill. Foot soldiers and mounted legionaries Arminius called alae made heavy going of it, the horses slow-stepping, their hooves sucking mud."

What are ahh-lay? Or whatever you called them?

Alae . . . uh, cavalry –– Kavallerie, enlightened Arminius, reverting to Cheruscan terms. Squadrons of PferdeSoldaten made up of irregulars, mainly foreign auxiliaries levied from Gaul and other regions, are usually deployed on the wings in battle. Leaning forward on the legionary buckler, he studied the passing parade intently, and wagged his head in disbelief. By the gods! It makes no sense. The noble Varus has failed to heed the warnings of my dear father-in-law.

Segestes warned him?

More than once. And stern warnings they were, so I was told.

Then why haven’t the Romans ––?

The great man refuses to believe a Romanized barbarian like myself could do wrong. Still and all, something is grossly awry. With no apparent threat in the offing, I can understand him being careless. But not this careless.

How . . . careless? Open-mouthed, Flavus marveled at the endless column of riders, soldiers and beasts of burden stretching into the mistiness downriver.

They advance in a formation called agmen pilatum, declared Arminius. It’s a proper enough marching order in ‘safe’ country, a region known to harbor few if any hostiles. When the heavy infantry marches past you’ll see four-abreast files grouped cohort by cohort, but —

You would do it differently. Flavus made it a flat statement.

Much differently. A nose-in-the-air patrician, Varus has committed a lapse far worse than ssimply disregarding the warnings of by my beloved father-in-law. He’s either swallowed the tendered bait at a gulp, or become grossly overconfident. Whichever happens to be true, he’s living in a fool’s paradise. The prescribed marching order in a suspect area is acie instructa, an alignment akin to the order of battle. I grant you it would be difficult to hold that formation farther upstream, in the narrow savannas between river and marsh

You would have tried, supplied his nephew.

Oh, I would have done more than try.

Foot soldiers are coming, announced Flavus. Is it the main body?

Hardly. Those you point out are velites –– lightly armed skirmishers. In the Roman tongue, the slingers are known as fundatores; the best come from the Balearic Isles. The archers marching along with them are called sagittarii. Behind the skirmishers we’ll see light infantry formations, then more cavalry leading a contingent of fabri, engineers and road builders.

And after them?

Mules and carts beyond count hauling the impedimenta of ––

The what?

Baggage, Flavus. The belongings of Varus, his legates, tribunes and lesser officers.

You once said there was more than one kind of leeg . . .

Lee-gat, syllabified Arminius. An army of two or more legions is often commanded by of one of the Roman consuls, their highest-ranking officials, or in some cases former holders of that office known as consulars. Varus assumed co-consulship years ago in company with a renowned imperator of the legions who is now the emperor’s adopted son and heir. It’s said that Varus, once a relatively poor Roman noble, governed the rich province of Syria and left the Syrians destitute upon returning to Rome greatly enriched. His name is also tainted in the Roman tongue: ‘Varus’ connotes being ‘stooped,’ or ‘crooked.’ When a major uprising broke out in Rome’s southeastern provinces, the emperor appointed him supreme commander of the three legions garrisoned in my first posting, a fortress to the west on the upper-middle Rhine.

Flavus had difficulty absorbing the foreign terms. What exactly is a . . . lee-gat?

The commander of a single legion bears the title legatus legionis. Varus is a makeshift appointee, a surrogate . . . That means he represents the emperor’s imperial power as legatus augusti per praetore, which in turn means ‘He charged with Augustus’ mission’. Knowing the Latin terms meant little or nothing to the youth, he clarified. I have to use their designations, Flavus; no such terms exist in our way of speech. Think of Varus as . . . Never mind; it’s complicated. What it boils down to is that Augustus awarded Varus the authority to act not only as supreme commander of the legionaries now marching through the rain below us, but also to act in his place with a commission to direct imperial affairs in the entire northern region.

Aw-gus-tuss. Flavus seized on the name. Their high king?

In effect, although much more. The emperor refers to himself as princeps, Rome’s first citizen,’ or less often as imperator, a title of favor once bestowed by legionaries wishing to honor the praiseworthy legate who commanded them. Legates are almost always drawn from the ranks of Roman nobility. In addition to command authority, they’re granted the unique power of life and death judgment called imperium. In the Roman tongue, imperator and imperium have more than one meaning.

Further confused by the cascade of foreign terms and usages blithely tossed off by his uncle, Flavus was nonetheless fascinated by the intimidating spectacle unreeling beneath the hill. You once told me, he declared, their marching order never changes.

Seldom, if ever.

What will come after the, uh, baggage?

The great man himself, riding in company with a mounted honor guard. Shortly after Varus passes our hill we’ll see a second body of light infantry and cavalry, then a collection of small catapulta. Noting the way his nephew stumbled over the term, he explained how numerous scorpiones –– small, one-man devices designed to cast larger than normal spears ––were sure to be seen, but no ballistae, the much larger siege engines capable of throwing heavy stones.

Why not?

Because no sites in the Völkerschaften lands are worthy of besiegement. Hauling heavy equipment over this difficult ground, especially with rain-soaked sand and clay underfoot, would be an exercise tens of times more burdensome than useful.

Feigning comprehension, the youth remained silent for a number of heartbeats. At length he said with a degree of reverence, It’s such a long snake. Must we stand here in the rain all day and watch it wriggle past?

A while longer. We must see what we came to see.

Eagles . . ?

Eagles, Flavus. Pray to the gods for two or more.

No eagles will be aloft in this weather, his nephew said slyly.

Arminius grudged a thin smile. The talons of the birds we seek are sunk in mud, never to leave the ground.

* * *

Peering over the sodden branch he held for concealment, Flavus watched with a swelling sense of awe as streaming masses of horsemen, foot soldiers, beasts of burden and baggage carts slowly traversed the soggy terrain ascending shallowly from river flowing placidly at summer-low ebb. He shook his head to flick the rainwater from his eyes, then cupped a hand against his forehead and tried to ignore the deluge. They go on and on, he said, a break in his voice.

With many more to come.

Flavus shivered involuntarily. He pulled the waterlogged cloak tightly about his shoulders. Haven’t we seen enough? It’s soaking out here.

Wet or dry, their overall strength must be confirmed.

You already know their strength, objected Flavus. Didn’t you and Papa ride a distance with them marching out of the summer encampment?

A ways with the pathfinders, yes. But jumping to a shortsighted conclusion like that could be the end of us. Varus led all three legions intact away from the encampment, along with squadrons of cavalry and five or six cohorts of auxilia. I sat to horse beside your father and watched them assemble.

So why do we have to ––?

Think, Flavus, counseled his uncle. How else can we learn whether or not Varus has divided his forces?

Won’t it be better for us if he has?

Gauging his nephew’s acumen, Arminius’s response was slow in coming. When it did come, he answered the question with a question. Better in what way?

Well, we’d, uh . . . We’d be going against a smaller army.

True, in all likelihood with many cohorts, even a full legion, held in reserve. Were Varus’ fancy red commander’s boots strapped on my feet, and I held an imperial ivory wand signifying the authority to command, that is exactly how I would direct a campaign to put down a supposed uprising. From our standpoint, what you suggest would be the worst situation we could possibly face.

I don’t understand.

That does not surprise me. Arminius paused to marshal his thoughts. "You’ve witnessed the maddening frustration of trying to organize our mob of self-styled, independent minded rogues into reasonable fighting units. We may have succeeded, or maybe not; we won’t know until they clash with the bloody handed butchers marching past below. Even if we’ve been successful, our so-called ‘army’ will be short-lived. The gods themselves couldn’t hold that mass of undisciplined rabble together long enough to wage a series of campaigns. If the coming encounter ends in anything short of total victory, we’ll be hounded and ripped apart, destroyed piecemeal.

Flavus took his time digesting the information.

I’ve lectured kings, princes, elders and warriors, pursued Arminius. "I’ve spoken out of both sides of my mouth until I was too hoarse to be heard. I’ve cajoled them, encouraged them, threatened them, and yes told them outright lies, trying every way I knew how to sway the opinions of obstinate nobles, skeptical elders and antagonistic warriors. I’ve shouted assurances and reassurances to believers and nonbelievers alike, including some among our own people. I’ve explained time and again, and then yet again and again, that our sole hope of defeating a major Roman force will be to catch the main bodies of all three legions unprepared, unsuspecting.

A phenomenal amount of forethought and scheming went into the battle plan, Flavus. On a roll, his enthusiasm feeding upon itself, Arminius was now more or less thinking aloud. As a tactical concept, our plan is dirt simple: we catch the main column long before it reaches the gap between Kalkreise and the bog, where the snake’s forked tongue will encounter the rampart sealing off further progress. After pinning down the main bodies in the lower forest, we begin chopping them to pieces by devour their triple hearts, the heavy infantry cohorts of all three legions. If that battle plan isn’t followed to the letter, well . . .

Flavus hung on his uncle’s words, waiting for him to continue.

The heavy infantry, amplified Arminius, is the heart of each legion. Our one and only objective will be to trap the whatever remains of the legions in an escape-proof ambuscade between Kalkreise and the bog, and them subject them to converging assaults by successive assault waves when and where they are least expected. We have to overwhelm them with sheer numbers, grind them into the mud, with no quarter asked, none given, and no retreat possible. There will be no second chance if we fail. It will not be a matter of simply defeating Varus in battle, his entire command must overcome, the legionaries destroyed, wiped out to the man.

Disconcerted by the length and vehemence of his uncle’s speech, his imagination ignited by foreknowledge of the carnage to come, Flavus said, Doing it that way means all three of their armies must be together in one place.

An emphatic nod. Verily, Flavus. The stubborn, independent minded sods blood-sworn to do battle in a common cause could never be reorganized and readied to fight separate engagements in more than one locale. Who could make them understand orders, or for that matter force them to halfway follow those they did pretend to understand? Who could pound into their bloodthirsty brains the fact that victory’s foundation is laid by meticulous planning, a thorough knowledge of tactics the enemy will employ, and a thorough appreciation of the counter-tactics we must originate? Who could lead them in two or more separate engagements?

You, said Flavus promptly.

Ah, yes; assuming I could be in more than one place at the same time.

I, uh . . . see what you mean. Pondering the ramifications of what he had learned, Flavus held his tongue until his uncle’s sudden intake of breath startled him.

Three! bellowed Arminius. He whooped and repeated the cry, roaring it at the top of his lungs. Three, Flavus! Flinging aside the rainsoaked bough, his uncle lofted the legionary javelin on high and bobbed it up and down. Three glorious, golden eagles! See how they shine through the wet and gloom. Oh, Varus, you foolish man! You’ve served up your armies intact, with nothing in reserve. Nothing!

Flavus found his uncle’s pulse-pounding excitement infectious,. Just as you had hoped.

Just as I had prayed the gods to deliver. His massive chest heaving, breathing stertorously, Arminius swept back the cowl of his cloak and lifted his face to the weeping sky. Closing his eyes, he let the raindrops pelt him until water streamed from his hair and beard. O blessed rain! Our everlasting thanks for this bounty, mighty Donnar. Nimbly switching languages, he added in Latin, A sacrifice and stone marker of thanksgiving is also due you, iuppiter pluvius, even though your flock sleeps in the enemy tents.

Dropping the javelin, he seized the bronze torque encircling his nephew’s upper arm in an iron grip. Look you, Flavus! Drink in the sight, savor it! Three Roman legions marching toward oblivion. Never again will you see anything half so magnificent.

Determined to savor the sight, Flavus winced and tried to wrench free, hoping his uncle’s bear grip had not permanently impaired the usefulness of his swordarm.

How sloppily, observed Arminius, do the aquiliferi tote the poles topped by their gleaming birds. Behind them will come signiferi, the labarum standards of their cohorts drooping and flapping in the wind and rain. The trumpeters look half-drowned.

So do we. Flavus pulled his arm free with an effort.

His uncle’s low-pitched utterance was more a growl than a statement. On the heels of the signiferi will come the first batch of authentic butchers –– ten heavy infantry cohorts of the Seventeenth, followed by ten of the Eighteenth, and lastly ten of the Nineteenth.

And behind them . . ? Flavus wanted to know.

The main baggage train; it’s usually kept somewhere in mid-column for safety reasons. Then you’ll see more horses, mules and carts than a scholar can tote. Daylight will be all but gone before the rear guard optiones march past, and trailing after them will be a rag-tag collection of camp followers from the temporary settlement next to Varus’ summer encampment.

Flavus shivered. Must we stay for all that?

No, we’re through here. Arminius bent and scooped up the javelin. Inserting his left arm through the straps of the legionary buckler, he hefted it. Come, we’ve miles to cover before dark.

Stiff-legged from the lengthy vigil, Flavus massaged his arm and slogged uphill through the dripping wood, his mind alive with visions of the carnage to come. Will it be tomorrow? he asked.

No, was his uncle’s flat denial. Close on two tens of Roman miles separate the summer encampment from the marsh and Chalk Mountain, and the legions are strung out over a goodly number of those miles. The Romans are too numerous, too encumbered and slow moving to even think of arriving in the vicinity of Kalkreise on the morrow. Riverside bogs lie ahead, and Donnar’s blessed downpour will ensure even muddier, sloppier going there. The march will slow from a crawl to a series of starts and stops long before pathfinders cross the plain below Chalk Mountain. Trees will also be felled trees in their path, further slowing the column.

Then, the day after . . ?

Possibly, at the earliest. Perhaps not even then if Donnar’s miraculous rains persist. The legions will have to stop and set up an overnight encampment at least once more.

Wouldn’t that be the perfect time to strike, when they’re asleep?

Arminius surprised his nephew by saying. It would be the worst mistake we could make,

They topped the gentle rise, and the horses came in view. The chestnut mare and Flavus’ runty colt looked woebegone, bedraggled, their heads hanging low, their rumps turned into the driving rain.

Arminius finished his explanation while untethering his mount, pulling himself up into the stirrupless, four-pommeled Roman saddle. Each afternoon on march, he said, legionaries build a wonderous temporary fortress ringed by a ditch, an earthwork and palisade, with every hide covered eight-man tent aligned along the inner streets, and sentries posted. Awake or sleeping, each and every legionär keeps his arms and armor within reach, alert for the sound of an alarm, prepared to instantly dash to a pre-assigned defensive post. Unless you’ve witnessed them raise an overnight encampment for yourself, you would never believe the lengths they go to erecting a ‘temporary’ fortress.

Instead of turning his mount toward the warrior horde eagerly awaiting the honk of an elk horn that would transform them into a raging, battle-frenzied mob, Arminius walked the mare up a gentle slope to the hillcrest. Letting the horse pick its way along the tree-lined ridge, he searched for a break in the screening forest, found an ideal spot, and reined in for a last, lingering survey of the legionaries destined to become fair game for the hordes of blood-lusting Wehrmanner under his nominal command.

The rain beat down, a ferocious, unremitting deluge sorely impeding the progress of heavy infantry cohorts belonging to legio septendecim torturously filing past below. Motionless, Arminius sat astride the mare, viewing the rain-soaked procession in stoic silence.

His breath suddenly caught in his throat, A vivid picture of an idyllic, long gone summer morning flashed before his mind’s eye, the unforgettable morning when a smaller, infinitely less significant Roman snake had slithered unbidden into lands bordering the Cheruscan demesne. Almost a dozen years had fled since the watershed summer marking the end of his youth and an enforced entry into manhood. He had been happier then, months younger his than Nephew Flavus was now, and a good deal happier.

But so incredibly naive . . .

CHAPTER II

IN LIMINE AB VRBE CONDITA DCCLI

On the threshold, in Rome’s traditional 751st year (2 BCE)

Cheruscan petty-king Sigimar’s claim to nobility was based upon arcane chants handed down fireside from generation to generation in songs so ancient their origins were forever lost. The king, now self-named Sigimerus, boasted direct descent from Tuisco, the Earth-born god by way of the god’s son, Mann, founder of the race, and his progeny, the descendants of three male offspring whose numerous names some thought perpetuated in tribal identities chosen by the Cherusci, Marcomanni, Chatti, Bructeri, Ampsivarii and most other Völkerschaften peoples. The king’s extended family prided itself in having neither tolerated intermarriage with, immigration from, nor much in the way of friendly intercourse with, any members of an inferior clan-group.

At daybreak, Sigimerus stepped out of the wattled, thatch-roofed household dwelling place. He pulled shut the rough plank door, yawned and haltingly made his way toward the makeshift corral, taking in huge lungfuls of cool, sweet morning air.

Partially sighted in one eye, and otherwise moderately lamed by an assortment of battle wounds, Sigimerus limped as he worked the stiffness and soreness out of his bad leg. Scanning his holdings, he was pleased to note how a pair of spring calves, penned with a