Germanicus
upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the last honour to those
soldiers and their general, while the whole army present was moved to
compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the
calamities of wars and the lot of mankind. Having sent on Cæcina in
advance to reconnoitre the obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and
causeways over watery
swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful
scenes, with their horrible sights and associations. Varus's first camp with
its wide circumference and the measurements of its central space clearly
indicated the handiwork of three legions. Further on, the partially fallen
rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a
shattered remnant of the army which had there taken up a position. In the
centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or
stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near, lay fragments
of weapons and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to
trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars, on which
they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some survivors of the
disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how
this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were
captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the
stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death. They pointed
out too the raised ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the
number of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how in his
exultation he insulted the standards and eagles.
