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Updated: June 9, 2025
Hence Germanicus became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with unbroken force, sent Cæcina with forty Roman cohorts to the river Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division in the army of the enemy.
Germanicus had already drawn together his army, and was prepared to take vengeance on the seditious: but judging it proper to allow space for trial, whether they would follow the late example, and consulting their own safety do justice upon one another, he sent letters to Caecina, "that he himself approached, with a powerful force; and if they prevented him not, by executing the guilty, he would put all indifferently to the slaughter."
To the grant of the Quaestorship was added a seat in the College of Pontiffs; and the first day he entered the Forum in his manly robe, a donative of corn and money was distributed to the populace, who exulted to behold a son of Germanicus now of age. Their joy was soon heightened by his marriage with Julia, the daughter of Drusus.
Germanicus, having in a public harangue praised his victorious troops, raised a pile of arms with this proud inscription: "That the army of Tiberius Cæsar, having subdued the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe, had consecrated these memorials to Mars, to Jupiter, and to Augustus."
Germanicus died in the 34th year of his age, and was universally mourned for, not only by the Roman people, but by the princes in alliance with Rome, and even by the proud monarch of Parthia. He was found in the morning with his throat cut, and his sword lying by him; but whether this was done by his own hand, or by the orders of Tiberius, is not known.
But to murder his mother was both an abominable and dangerous undertaking, for it meant killing the daughter of Germanicus killing that woman whom the people regarded with a semi-religious veneration as a portent of fortune; for she was the daughter of a man whom only a premature death had prevented from becoming the head of the empire, and she had been the sister, the wife, and the mother of emperors.
"They cannot, indeed, claim the merit of being the first in France who opened the eyes of the nation; for Fenelon had taught even to Louis XIV., in his immortal 'Telemaque, the duties of a king; Racine, in his 'Germanicus, had shown the accursed nature of irresponsible despotism; Moliere, in his 'Tartuffe, had exposed the vices of priestly hypocrisy; Pascal, in his 'Provincial Letters, had revealed the wretched sophistries of the Jesuits; Bayle even, in his 'Critical Dictionary, had furnished materials for future sceptics."
Piso the while was overtaken at the Isle of Cooes by a message, "that Germanicus was deceased," and received it intemperately, slew victims and repaired with thanksgiving to the temples: and yet, however immoderate and undisguised was his joy, more arrogant and insulting proved that of Plancina, who immediately threw off her mourning, which for the death of a sister she wore, and assumed a dress adapted to gaiety and gladness.
Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, to draw a full-length portrait. Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina.
After quelling serious mutinies among his legions he crossed the Rhine and attacked and routed some of the German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans. But before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he met with severe reverses.
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