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For Spurinna restored by force of arms the king of the Bructeri to his kingdom, and, after threatening war, subdued that savage race by the terror of his name, which is the noblest kind of victory. That was the reward of his valour, and the fact that his son Cottius, whom he lost while he was away on his duties, was deemed worthy of being honoured with a statue has solaced his grief for his loss.
Further, a small bright yellow Pteroloma, an Elaphrus, Bembidia six kinds, Agonum four kinds, an Omaseus, an Amara, Elater scabricollis Esch. Entomogr.; an Elater, like undulatus P., three kinds, which like Bructeri, live among stones; a wingless kind which is found buried in the sea-sand, and a perfectly black Campylus.
One Velaeda by her soothsaying ruled the tribe of Bructeri completely and was regarded as a goddess, as were many others. The German warrior fought his best that he might protect and please his wife. The standard of conjugal fidelity was strict ; men were content with one wife, although high nobles were sometimes allowed several wives as an increase to the family prestige.
See the thirty-third section of the "Germania" of Tacitus, where he mentions the destruction of the Bructeri by the neighbouring tribes: "Favore quodam erga nos deorum: nam ne spectaculo quidem proelii invidere: super LX. millia non armis telisque Romanis, sed, quod magnificentius est, oblectationi oculisque ceciderunt.
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 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 present town of Ham in Westphalia probably preserves the name and gives the original locality of the Chamavi, the present Engern that of the Angrivarii. The termination varii or uarii probably==inhabitants of. Thus angrivarii==inhabitants of Engern. Chasuarii==Inhabitants of the river Hase. The same element is perhaps contained in the termination of Bructeri and Tencteri. See Latham in loco.
Majesty of mien implies much, which the comparatively short period of eighteen years rarely confers, yet majestic most properly describes this girl, whose archetype Veleda read runic myths to the Bructeri in the twilight of history.
But the victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had to take refuge in their ships, nor did the Romans ever again attempt the conquest of the fiercer German tribes. When Tiberius recalled Germanicus, he observed that the Cherusci, Bructeri, and other unsubdued tribes, might be left to their own internal dissensions. He seems to have guessed right.
For example, in the reign of Vespasian a certain Veleda, of the tribe of the Bructeri, was commonly held to be a deity, and in that character reigned over her people, her sway being acknowledged far and wide. She lived in a tower on the river Lippe, a tributary of the Rhine.
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