The same night brought with it a cheering dream to Germanicus. He saw
himself engaged in sacrifice, and his robe being sprinkled with the sacred
blood, another more beautiful was given him by the hands of his grandmother
Augusta. Encouraged by the omen and finding the auspices favourable, he
called an assembly, and explained the precautions which wisdom suggested as
suitable for the impending battle. "It is not," he said, "plains only which
are good for the fighting of Roman soldiers, but woods and forest passes, if
science be used. For the huge shields and unwieldly lances of the barbarians
cannot, amid trunks of trees and brushwood that springs from the ground, be
so
HARANGUES OF GERMANICUS AND ARMINIUS |
well managed
as our javelins and swords and close-fitting armour. Shower your blows
thickly; strike at the face with your swords' points. The German has neither
cuirass nor helmet; even his shield is not strengthened with leather or
steel, but is of osiers woven together or of thin and painted board. If
their first line is armed with spears, the rest have only weapons hardened
by fire or very short. Again, though their frames are terrible to the eye
and formidable in a brief onset, they have no capacity of enduring wounds;
without any shame at the disgrace, without any regard to their leaders, they
quit the field and flee; they quail under disaster, just as in success they
forget alike divine and human laws. If in your weariness of land and sea you
desire an end of service, this battle prepares the way to it. The
Elbe is now nearer than the
Rhine, and there is no war beyond, provided only you
enable me, keeping close as I do to my father's and my uncle's footsteps, to
stand a conqueror on the same spot."