escape, fell upon his sword, and the other chief officers
followed his example.

The legions were entirely destroyed, and the cavalry alone cut their
way through the enemy and regained the banks of the Rhine. By this
defeat the Romans lost all their conquests beyond that river; and
although Germanicus some years after again carried their arms to the
Weser, they never established anything like a solid dominion over
those regions. The defeat of Varus occurred, according to various
chronologists, in the year 763 of Rome (A.D. 9). The scene of the
defeat is conjectured to have been in the country of the Bructeri,
near the sources of the Ems and the Lippe. The news of this calamity,
the greatest that had befallen the Roman arms since the defeat of
Crassus, was received with universal amazement and terror. The
despairing cry of Augustus, "Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!"
testified to the consternation even at Rome, where it was expected
that the barbarians would take a terrible revenge for the wrongs they
had suffered.

The fears of invasion, however, were not realized. L. Asprena guarded
the banks of the Rhine, and the Germans were too little united among
themselves to attack the Empire. Augustus in the following year sent
Tiberius to the Rhine with a fresh army; but he does not seem to have
effected anything of importance. Hermann meantime quarrelled with
Segestes, chief of the Catti, whose daughter Tusnelda, he had carried
off and married against her father's consent. When Germanicus, after
the death of Augustus, marched into the interior of Germany to avenge
the defeat of Varus, he was assisted by Segestes, and also by the
Chauci and other tribes. In the first battle against Hermann, his wife
Tusnelda, was taken prisoner by the Romans, and she afterward figured
in the triumph of Germanicus. Germanicus, having reached the scene of
Varus's defeat, paid funeral honors to the remains of the legions; but
Hermann, who was hovering about his line of march, without coming to a
pitched battle, harassed him in his retreat, and occasioned a great
loss to Caecina, the lieutenant of Germanicus.

In the following year, Germanicus advanced again as far as the
Visurgis, or Weser, where he found Hermann encamped ready for battle.
A desperate fight took place, in which Hermann, after performing
prodigies of valor, was defeated, and escaped with difficulty. But the
victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had