d in thronging
multitudes they assailed the flanks of the invaders, pouring in clouds
of darts on the encumbered legionaries as they struggled up the glens or
floundered in the morasses, and watching every opportunity of charging
through the intervals of the disjointed column, and so cutting off the
communication between its several brigades. Arminius, with a chosen band
of personal retainers round him, cheered on his countrymen by voice and
example. He and his men aimed their weapons particularly at the horses
of the Roman cavalry. The wounded animals, slipping about in the mire
and their own blood, threw their riders and plunged among the ranks of
the legions, disordering all round them. Varus now ordered the troops to
be countermarched, in the hope of reaching the nearest Roman garrison on
the Lippe.

But retreat now was as impracticable as advance; and the falling back of
the Romans only augmented the courage of their assailants and caused
fiercer and more frequent charges on the flanks of the disheartened
army. The Roman officer who commanded the cavalry, Numonius Vala, rode
off with his squadrons in the vain hope of escaping by thus abandoning
his comrades. Unable to keep together or force their way across the
woods and swamps, the horsemen were overpowered in detail and
slaughtered to the last man. The Roman infantry still held together and
resisted, but more through the instinct of discipline and bravery than
from any hope of success or escape.

Varus, after being severely wounded in a charge of the Germans against
his part of the column, committed suicide to avoid falling into the
hands of those whom he had exasperated by his oppressions. One of the
lieutenants-general of the army fell fighting; the other surrendered to
the enemy. But mercy to a fallen foe had never been a Roman virtue, and
those among her legions who now laid down their arms in hope of quarter,
drank deep of the cup of suffering, which Rome had held to the lips of
many a brave but unfortunate enemy. The infuriated Germans slaughtered
their oppressors with deliberate ferocity, and those prisoners who were
not hewn to pieces on the spot were only preserved to perish by a more
cruel death in cold blood.

The bulk of the Roman army fought steadily and stubbornly, frequently
repelling the masses of assailants, but gradually losing the compactness
of their array and becoming weaker and weaker beneath the incessant
shower of darts and the reiterat