A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

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nion over the greater part of Gaul was firmly established by Julius C?sar, and in losing their independence, the Celts began to lose, also, their original habits and character. They and

as Ariovistus. With a force of 15,000 men, he joined the Arverni and the Sequani, and defeated the ?dui in several battles. After the complete overthrow of the latter, he haughtily demanded as a recompense one-third of the territory of the Sequani. His strength had meanwhile been increased by

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nst the inroads of the Suevi. It was an opportunity which he immediately seized, in order to bring the remaining Gallic tribes under the sway of Rome. He first sent a summons to Ariovistus to appe

for a few days, before beginning the march against the Suevi, the Gallic and Roman merchants and traders circulated the most frightful accounts of the strength and fierceness of the latter through the Roman camp. They reported that the German barbarians were men of giant size and more than human strength, whose faces were s

hem for their insubordination. He concluded by declaring that if the army should refuse to march, he would start the next morning with only the tenth legion, upon the courage and obedience of which he could rely. This speech produced an immediate effect. The tenth legion solemnly thanked C?sa

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would yield to the demands of the other, and as the cavalry of their armies began skirmishing, the interview was broken off. For several days in succession the Romans offered battle, but the Suevi refused to leave their strong p

er quickness and superior military skill of the Romans enabled them to recover sooner than the enemy. The day ended with the entire defeat of the Suevi, and the flight of the few who escaped across the Rhine

00, and the Northern Gauls, instead of regarding them as invaders, were inclined to welcome them as allies against Rome, the common enemy. C?sar knew that if they remained, a revolt of the Gauls against his rule would be the consequence. He therefore hastened to meet them, got p

stphalia, but the tribes he sought retreated into the great forests to the eastward, where he was unable to pursue them. He contented himself with burning their houses and gathering their ripen

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promised to aid them. In order to secure his conquests, the Roman general determined to cross the Rhine again, and intimidate, if not subdue, his dangerous neighbors. He built a second bridge, near the place where the first had been, and crossed with his army. But, as before, the Suevi and Sicambr

ded, and from that time the Gauls made no further effort to throw off the Roman yoke. They accepted the civil and military organization, the dress and habits, and finally the language and religion of their conquerors. The small German tribes in Alsatia and Belgium shared the sam

0 men, which afterwards fought on his side against Pompey, on the battle-field of Pharsalia. The Roman agents penetrated into the interior of the country, and enlisted a great many

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abiting the Alps and the lowlands south of the Danube, from the Lake of Constance to Vienna. This work had also been begun by C?sar: it was continued by the Emperor Augustus, whose step-sons, Tiberius and Drusus, finally overcame the desperate resist

t: the Emperor's design was probably to extend the dominions of Rome to the North Sea and the Baltic. Drusus built a large fleet on the Rhine, descended that river nearly to its mouth, cut a canal for his vessels to a lake whic

and establishing-not far from where the city of Paderborn now stands-a fortress called Aliso, which became a base for later operations against the German tribes. He next set about building a series of fortresses, fifty in

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h the land of the Cherusci (the Hartz region) to the Elbe. The legend says that he there encountered a German prophetess, who threatened him with coming evil, whereupon he tur

west bank of the Rhine. He then gradually extended his power, and in the course of two years brought nearly the whole country between the Rhine and Weser under the rule of Rome. His successor, Domitius ?nobarbus, built military roads through

fleet which reached the Elbe and ascended that river to meet him, secured, as he supposed, the sway of Rome over nearly the whole of Germania Magna. This was in the fifth year of the Christian Era. Of the German tribes who still remained independent, there were the Semnones, Saxons and Angles, east of the Elbe, and the Burgundians, Vandals and Goths along the shore of

E MARCOMAN

he succeeded in uniting nearly all the independent tribes east of the Elbe under his command, and in organizing a standing army of 70,000 foot and 4,000 horse, which, disciplined like the Roman legions, might be considered a match for an equal number. His success created so much anxiety in Rome, that in the next year after Tibe

e first of these two regions had been much weakened, both by the part some of them had taken in the Gallic insurrections, and by the revolt of all against Rome, during the first three

in spite of his later vices as Emperor, was prudent and conciliatory in his conquests; but Varus soon turned the respect of the Germans for the Roman power into the fiercest hate. He applied, in a more brutal form, the same measures which had been forced upon the Gauls.

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pendence; but they had been taught wisdom by seventy years of conflict with the Roman power. Up to this time, each tribe had acted for itself, without concert with its neighbors. They saw, now, that no single tribe could cope suc