aving humanized the old Roman spirit of
cruel indifference to human feelings and human sufferings, and without
acting as the least checks on unprincipled avarice and ambition or on
habitual and gross profligacy. Accustomed to govern the depraved and
debased natives of Syria--a country where courage in man and virtue in
woman had for centuries been unknown--Varus thought that he might
gratify his licentious and rapacious passions with equal impunity among
the high-minded sons and pure-spirited daughters of Germany. When the
general of an army sets the example of outrages of this description, he
is soon faithfully imitated by his officers, and surpassed by his still
more brutal soldiery. The Romans now habitually indulged in those
violations of the sanctity of the domestic shrine, and those insults
upon honor and modesty, by which far less gallant spirits than those of
our Teutonic ancestors have often been maddened into insurrection.

Arminius found among the other German chiefs many who sympathized with
him in his indignation at their country's abasement, and many whom
private wrongs had stung yet more deeply. There was little difficulty in
collecting bold leaders for an attack on the oppressors, and little fear
of the population not rising readily at those leaders' call. But to
declare open war against Rome and to encounter Varus' army in a pitched
battle would have been merely rushing upon certain destruction. Varus
had three legions under him, a force which, after allowing for
detachments, cannot be estimated at less than fourteen thousand Roman
infantry. He had also eight or nine hundred Roman cavalry, and at least
an equal number of horse and foot sent from the allied states, or raised
among those provincials who had not received the Roman franchise.

It was not merely the number, but the quality of this force that made
them formidable; and, however contemptible Varus might be as a general,
Arminius well knew how admirably the Roman armies were organized and
officered, and how perfectly the legionaries understood every manoeuvre
and every duty which the varying emergencies of a stricken field might
require. Stratagem was, therefore, indispensable; and it was necessary
to blind Varus to their schemes until a favorable opportunity should
arrive for striking a decisive blow.

For this purpose, the German confederates frequented the head-quarters
of Varus, which seem to have been near the centre of the modern country