Custom Search
| Home | Introduction | Persons | Geogr. | Sources | Events | Mijn blog(Nederlands) |
| Religion | Subjects | Images | Queries | Links | Contact | Do not fly Iberia |
|
Notes Display Latin text | Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb Book I Chapter 69: War with the Germans. The bridge over the Rhine[AD 15] | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
|
Meanwhile a rumour had spread that our army was cut off, and that a furious German host was marching on Gaul. And had not Agrippina prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, some in their cowardice would have dared that base act. A woman of heroic spirit, she assumed during those days the duties of a general, and distributed clothes or medicine among the soldiers, as they were destitute or wounded. According to Gaius Plinius, the historian of the German wars, she stood at the extremity of the bridge, and bestowed praise and thanks on the returning legions. This made a deep impression on the mind of Tiberius. Such zeal, he thought, could not be guileless; it was not against a foreign foe that she was thus courting the soldiers. Generals had nothing left them when a woman went among the companies, attended the standards, ventured on bribery, as though it showed but slight ambition to parade her son in a common soldier's uniform and wish him to be called Caesar Caligula. Agrippina had now more power with the armies than officers, than generals. A woman had quelled a mutiny which the sovereign's name could not check. All this was inflamed and aggravated by Sejanus, who, with his thorough comprehension of the character of Tiberius, sowed for a distant future hatreds which the emperor might treasure up and might exhibit when fully matured. Event: War with the Germans |