They fought upon that day till the ground was heaped
with their dead, while, as the foremost fell thick
and fast, their comrades, says the Roman, sprang upon
their piled-up bodies, and hurled their javelins at
the enemy as from a hill. They fought like men
to whom life without liberty was a curse. They
were not defeated, but exterminated. Of many
thousand fighting men went home but five hundred.
Upon reaching the place of refuge where they had bestowed
their women and children, Caesar found, after the
battle, that there were but three of their senators
left alive. So perished the Nervii. Caesar
commanded his legions to treat with respect the little
remnant of the tribe which had just fallen to swell
the empty echo of his glory, and then, with hardly
a breathing pause, he proceeded to annihilate the
Aduatici, the Menapii, and the Morini.
Gaul being thus pacified, as, with sublime irony,
he expresses himself concerning a country some of
whose tribes had been annihilated, some sold as slaves,
and others hunted to their lairs like beasts of prey,
the conqueror departed for Italy. Legations for
peace from many German races to Rome were the consequence
of these great achievements. Among others the
Batavians formed an alliance with the masters of the
world. Their position was always an honorable
one. They were justly proud of paying no tribute,
but it was, perhaps, because they had nothing to pay.
They had few cattle, they could give no hides and
horns like the Frisians, and they were therefore allowed
to furnish only their blood. From this time forth
their cavalry, which was the best of Germany, became
renowned in the Roman army upon every battle-field
of Europe.
It is melancholy, at a later moment, to find the brave
Batavians distinguished in the memorable expedition
of Germanicus to crush the liberties of their German
kindred. They are forever associated with the
sublime but misty image of the great Hermann, the hero,
educated in Rome, and aware of the colossal power
of the empire, who yet, by his genius, valor, and
political adroitness, preserved for Germany her nationality,
her purer religion, and perhaps even that noble language
which her late-flowering literature has rendered so
illustrious—but they are associated as
enemies, not as friends.
Galba, succeeding to the purple upon the suicide of
Nero, dismissed the Batavian life-guards to whom he
owed his elevation. He is murdered, Otho and
Vitellius contend for the succession, while all eyes
are turned upon the eight Batavian regiments.
In their hands the scales of empire seem to rest.
They declare for Vitellius, and the civil war begins.
Otho is defeated; Vitellius acknowledged by Senate
and people. Fearing, like his predecessors, the
imperious turbulence of the Batavian legions, he, too,
sends them into Germany. It was the signal for
a long and extensive revolt, which had well nigh overturned
the Roman power in Gaul and Lower Germany.
