Every empire of the ancient world was bordered on one or more sides, if not actually surrounded by barbarian tribes which envied its prosperity and were ever on the alert to organize a razzia into its prosperous domains. It was therefore a prime policy of every empire builder, not merely to mark out distinctly the limits of national authority and responsibility, and to round off the lines of dominion by the inclusion of the whole of some tribe or nation, or the complete extent of a certain well defined district possessed of a unified economic character, but beyond all else to secure an easily defensible frontier line against the aggression of his civilized rivals, and the chronic brigandage of barbarian neighbors. Certainly no civilized country of ancient times enjoyed such immunity from annoyance on the part of its neighbors as did ancient Egypt, when once the upper and the lower kingdoms had been united, for it is wholly surrounded by seas and deserts; yet even here the barbarian was an intermittent danger, the Nubian and Ethiopian in the south, against whom many a Pharaoh waged punitive campaigns; the Libyan in the west; the Bedouins at the northeast; and even the sea could not protect the Delta from the ravages of freebooters from the isles, the far spread front of the latest wave of the Hellenic invaders of Greece. And two of the barbarian nations actually invaded the country in such numbers as to set up dynasties of more than an ephemeral character, the Hyksos and the Ethiopians. Less favorably situated was the civilization in the Mesopotamian valley; Elamites, Kassites, Mitanni, Khita, Aramaeans, and the brigands of the mountains, the last and most powerful, the Medo-Persians, were ready to devastate their peaceful preserves. Persia had to contend with Massagetae and Scythians;[1] Philistia had the Hebrews, and they in turn the Amalekites and other dwellers in the wastes; Carthage, the Numidians, Libyans, and Moors; the Macedonians had the Thracians and Paeonians; the Greeks in Asia Minor had the Lydians, in Italy, the Sabellians, Bruttians, Lucanians, Iapygians,—in short the Greek colonies had upon every coast of the three continents a fringe of warlike and rapacious enemies with whom permanent peace was an impossibility.

Rome was, of course, no exception to the rule, and once her power had spread beyond the confines of Italy it was inevitable that her extraordinary national vitality and genius for organization must keep extending her confines until strong and satisfactory frontiers were secured. By the beginning of our era the great permanent boundaries of the empire had in the main been reached. To the west lay the Atlantic ocean; the south and southeast was covered by the deserts of Sahara, Arabia, and Syria; the north had the Black Sea[2] and the Danube; only two quarters were inadequately provided for, the northeast, Armenia, and the northwest, Germany. In the former case the uplands of the Taurus constitute a welter of confused peaks and ranges, whose trend is, however, in the main east and west, so that neither the crest of a long line of mountains nor the course of some large river supplies any satisfactory north and south line.[3] In the latter, a relatively small river, that showed a marked tendency to flow in parallel channels, with a rather sluggish current except in a few places, and with a considerable number of islands, so that it could be crossed almost at will even by barbarian tribes, furnished inadequate protection to the rich provinces of Gaul.[4] Had the population on the right band of the Rhine been extremely thin, or sluggish, as for a long period it seems to have been on the north bank of the Danube, no great danger need have been anticipated here, but the Germans were, for barbarians, relatively numerous,[5] brave, and adventurous to a fault, and passionately addicted to warfare and marauding. Under these circumstances it seems clear that an ordinary frontier line would have been thoroughly insecure. No matter how many forts and trenches might be established along the Rhine it would have been impossible to hold a single line intact even with the full standing army of the Empire. If the hostile territory extended right up to the ramparts of the legionaries, the Germans, secure in the protection of their hills, forests, and swamps, could gather an overwhelming force, cross the river and break through the fortifications at any point they pleased along a line of several hundred miles in length, before an adequate force, with the slow methods of communication then available, could be gathered to resist them. And once past the defenses, either the invaders must be allowed to harry and plunder at will, while the breach was repaired to stop the influx of others, or else, if they were pursued and hunted down, the forts must be weakened to the imminent danger of a repetition of the same event at some other point.

There were but two ways to remedy this situation. One was to give up the Rhine as a frontier and to push on; but this would merely have transferred the scene of difficulty, not removed it, for bad as the Rhine may have been it was the best available frontier in this direction until one came to the Arctic Ocean and the Ural Mountains;[6] or if only the Germans were so dangerous as neighbors, the limits of the empire must have been pushed to the almost equally impossible line of the Vistula, or beyond, in order to include them all within its confines; and finally, a very material increase must have been made in the size of the standing army, because the legions on the Rhine served not only the purpose of warding off the Germans but also of keeping in restraint the restless Gauls, while, if the frontier were fixed at the Elbe or the Oder, quite as many troops would be needed to defend it there, and many additional legions for garrison service in Belgica, Gaul, and Noricum.[7] The other way was to buttress the frontier by securing on the right bank of the Rhine a series of friendly states or tribes, whose leading men or factions were to be kept well disposed to the empire by all the expedients of force and diplomacy. In this way the danger from the barbarian would be minimized, no sudden attacks from the proximate tribes need be apprehended, and even against a great tribal movement in the remote hinterland, like that of the Basternae, the Galatians, the Cimbri and Teutones, the Helvetians, and many another even before the Völkerwanderung, the Romans would be amply prepared in advance. The shock could be absorbed by the launching of friendly tribes, more or less strongly supported by Roman troops, against the newcomers, and, if worst came to worst, and the foe pushed his way relentlessly onward, the issue could be decided on foreign territory beyond the frontiers, and with the assistance of tribes which otherwise would have been forced to join the invaders against Rome, or at the best, have remained neutral.[8] Once established, such friendly relations might easily be maintained by the countless devices of a resourceful diplomacy, the honors and recognitions, the flattery and gifts which are so dear to the barbaric heart, and for which incalculable values have ofttimes been rashly bartered away; or, when a chief proved recalcitrant, it was easy among so ambitious and independent a nobility as was that of Germany to raise up a rival who could either compel obedience or else take his place.[9] We can readily believe that the subtle and resourceful Tiberius accomplished during his German campaigns more by diplomacy than with the sword[10], and characteristic not merely of the man but of the general situation which had been produced was his effort to console the impetuous Germanicus with the observation that the Germans could well be left to themselves now, i. e. to cutting one another’s throats at the artful suggestion of Roman diplomacy.[11] But diplomacy alone could never have initiated such a condition in Germany; nothing less was needed than the vivid fear of the legionaries, and that too not as a static body of troops however powerful, but dreaded through bitter experience of what it meant to have the cohorts carry fire and sword to the innermost recesses of the country. Barbarian peoples are easily impressed by a portentous occurrence, but with them the effect wears rapidly away, unless by frequent repetition it be seared into their consciousness. This process of terrorization had to be kept up until the fear of Rome was so great that the mere thought of invasion would be recognized as madness. The readiness with which the tribes of Gaul and even of Germany[12] expressed their submission to Caesar, after some heavy stroke, is familiar to all readers of the Gallic Wars, but no less characteristic is the readiness with which they would take up arms at the least rumor of a reverse, or even without any change in the situation whatsoever, merely after the first effects of the news of disaster had worn away.[13] For years therefore after the Rhine had been definitely determined upon as a frontier it was necessary for Roman generals to march at frequent intervals into Germany, making powerful demonstrations in force not simply among the proximate tribes, but penetrating far into the interior, so that even the remotest might trust no more to their forests and their swamps; bringing ships of war up the larger rivers not merely to support the land troops, but also to demonstrate the mastery over water as well as land, and to show how far beyond the actual frontier of the empire its outstretched arm could strike; rewarding friends and establishing them more firmly in places of authority, punishing foes individually and in small groups, beating down any armed opposition that dared to raise its head (and that was relatively seldom in the numerous campaigns that were waged), and ruthlessly devasting the territory of the intransigent, frequently in the more completely pacified districts adjusting disputes between Roman merchants and the natives, or acting as arbitrators in difficulties which had arisen between individuals and factions among the Germans themselves. Such is the picture of these German campaigns as we should draw it, filling in the meager outlines of events as given by the ancient historians. Of a similar nature are the punitive or monitory expeditions carried on by the French, the British, and the Russians, in their dealing with similar barbarous or semicivilized tribes upon the borders of their African or Asiatic empires. Real warfare was rare, a pitched battle seldom took place[14], but the repetition of the demonstrations gradually had its effect even upon the fierce and rapacious Germans.

Let us examine from this point of view the actual conduct of the Germanic campaigns, bearing in mind the utter dissimilarity with the methods employed by Caesar for the conquest of Gaul under similar conditions. In the first place no army posts, forts, or powerful garrisons were established and maintained in Germany. Aliso was nothing more than a station for munitions of war and no doubt traders’ stocks of goods[15], and it was established so short a distance from the Rhine, only a trifle more than 30 miles from Vetera, as to have little more effect in overawing the tribes in its vicinity than did the powerful fortresses along the Rhine itself.[16] The fort built by Drusus in Mt. Taunus can hardly have been much out of sight of the Rhine, and doubtless served merely to secure an easy entrance into the upland country for the garrisons farther south along the river.[17] These two posts certainly could have had no direct influence upon the maintenance of authority in the remote interior. Flevum on the coast was a feeble trading post for merchants, sufficient only to hold their supplies, give a safe anchorage for their vessels, harbor an occasional Roman war vessel which would be needed to guard against the danger of piracy, and protect a few ships engaged in coast traffic towards the north and the northeast. On rare occasions it might serve as a naval base for a large fleet sent out to make a demonstration along the coast and rivers of Germany.[18] None of these can properly be denominated a “Zwingburg”, yet how could the Romans have expected to maintain and make permanent a conquest over such fierce barbarians without overawing them in some wise with great fortresses located at strategical points in their very midst?

It is noteworthy also that no Roman army ventured to spend the winter on German soil except on one occasion, and that was in 4-5 A. D., when for some unknown cause (doubtless one of considerable importance judging from the way in which Velleius speaks of it), Tiberius was so long delayed in the north that his active campaign was not over until December, and winter must have been upon him before he could reach the Rhine.[19] In this case he remained “ad caput Iuliae”, as near the permanent camps doubtless as he could get.[20] The next summer an extensive campaign was undertaken to the north and east, and with the cooperation of the fleet even the Elbe was reached, but that this encampment in the confines of Germany the preceding winter had meant nothing singular, and established no new policy, is clear from the fact that after this summer’s campaign, when, if ever, it would have been necessary to retain a powerful army in the “conquered” territory whose limits are supposed to have been greatly extended, Tiberius calmly led his troops back to the Rhine as usual (“in hiberna legiones reduxit”, Velleius, II, 107, 3).[21]

Furthermore, there was no building of a network of great military roads to facilitate the march of the legions far into the interior, yet if such roads were anywhere needed it was surely in Germany, where the trifling commercial trade routes could not possibly have sufficed for the sure and speedy movements of the legions and their large baggage trains. There are some vague statements regarding engineering works by Drusus[22], and we hear likewise of certain structures of Domitius, the pontes longi in the northwestern swamps[23], and certain limites and aggeres with which Germanicus connected Aliso and the Rhine[24], nothing at all commensurate with the ambitious schemes which the Romans are supposed to have entertained for the conquest of the country.[25]

Finally there was no civil administration established for any part of the country, even that which might have some appearance of being under Roman sway; no colonies were founded, either military or commercial; there was no effort to push forward, to settle, and to absorb the newly acquired “province”.[26] Nor can shortness of time be put forward as an excuse for failure to perform these characteristic features of a regular Roman conquest. Two generations had passed between Caesar’s first passage of the Rhine and the defeat of Varus, forty-seven years since Agrippa had crossed the same river, or, if we consent to take the date generally set for the conquest of Germany, the last campaign of Drusus, 9 B. C., eighteen years of Roman domination had elapsed before the battle of the Teutoburg forest, yet nothing of any real importance had been done to organize the “new province”. For the earlier part of this period since Caesar, one might indeed argue that Rome had been engaged in more absorbing enterprises, to wit, the civil wars, but since the battle of Actium, or at all events since the establishment of the dyarchy, Augustus had a perfectly free hand to complete any project whatsoever that he may have had in mind with regard to Germany. Drusus, Tiberius, Domitius, Vinicius, and Tiberius again had campaigned often enough beyond the Rhine, but nothing was actually done toward finishing any formal conquest. Nor will it do to ascribe to Augustus, as is generally done, the policy of turning over to Quintilius Varus the last formal act of organizing the province. What less opportune moment could possibly have been selected than just the period of the Pannonian revolt, when the Rhine armies were reduced below their normal strength, and a man placed in charge, who, whatever his other virtues may have been, was certainly not an experienced general? For it would certainly be expected that the formal establishment of complete imperial administration in Germany would have aroused what little spirit of independence yet remained (according to this theory) in German bosoms, and to have entrusted such a mission to such a man, at such a time, with such small forces, and without any of the necessary preliminary work of roadbuilding, fortress erection, stationing of garrisons and the like, would have been an act of colossal and criminal folly on the part of one of the shrewdest and most patient and calculating statesmen of the ancient world.[27]

We must here examine the arguments of the authorities who are cited for the statement that Varus was engaged in organizing a full civil administration for the “province” when disaster overtook him. The rhetorical nature of these documents and their general untrustworthiness have already been emphasized; when we look for perfectly definite acts we find either the vaguest language, or else utterly improbable statements. Much has been said of the presence of “causarum patroni” in Varus’ army, but just how much is properly to be inferred therefrom is doubtful. In the first place the evidence for their presence is the worst possible, Florus alone mentioning them (II, 30, 36 f.), and that with the most patent rhetorical purpose, and the highly colored story of how, when the tongue of one was cut out and the lips sewed together he was taunted with the remark, “Viper, you have finally ceased to hiss”. But granted that some “causarum patroni” attended Varus, how much does that signify? When was the organization of a province entrusted to these men, or what official rôle would they play in such a process? Their presence is easily enough explained as an aid to the general in his semilegal activities. We have already observed that he must often have been called upon to settle disputes between the numerous rival nobles of Germany. Who indeed was better suited to act as arbitrator than a powerful and disinterested official of the great neighboring empire?[28] Doubtless many an appeal regarding the business dealings of Roman traders with the Germans was referred likewise to him. The only regular course of procedure would have been to act in accordance with the recognized Roman legal traditions—one surely would not expect a Roman general to dispense German law or to act merely on his passing whims—, and it would be perfectly natural to have on his general staff a few legal advisers. That Varus took their advice frequently, and that some persons felt that they had been injured when such advice was followed, and bore a special grudge against those men, may very well be, but that the final steps of turning a barbarian country into a province were being then and there taken surely cannot be established by the presence of a few legal advisers on Varus’ staff.

More serious is the statement that tribute was being assessed and collected.[29] That this was literally true on any comprehensive scale is clearly impossible. We hear nowhere of publicani[30], or any of the paraphernalia for collecting the tribute of a conquered province.[31] That certain things were given Varus and his army by allied and friendly chiefs and tribes there can be no doubt, and these may have been objects of high specific value, as choice pieces of amber and the like, or mere supplies of grain, meat, hides, and similar material. It was not to be expected that Roman armies should march through Germany without being amply assisted by their socii and amici. An example of what such assistance may have been is the well-known case of the Frisians, who were expected to furnish a few oxhides annually for military uses, and who started to fight when an exacting officer modified the terms of the original understanding. That the Frisians however were really a free, though allied people, at this time, there can be no question, for there is not a hint of actual Roman administration of their affairs.[32] Similar must have been the case with the Cheruscans and other tribes farther inland. A certain amount of assistance was doubtless quite properly expected, and in fact the genuineness of the friendship might well have been doubted if there were no willingness manifested to be helpful.[33] That Varus or some of his officers may occasionally have regarded a voluntary service of friendship or policy in the light of an obligation, and may have requested and even insisted upon more than friendship or policy would lead the Germans to regard as a fair offering, is quite possible, although with a weak force and while the Pannonian revolt was still unsubdued, it would indeed have been preternatural folly. But we are not justified in admitting any more, and this is all that our sources, stripped of a little rhetorical embellishment, really assert.[34]

Finally, Dio speaks of a division of Varus’ forces, whereby a large portion of his army was serving on garrison duty at one point or another in the country, and adds that after the defeat of the main body of his troops all these separate detachments were hunted down and destroyed.[35] This would be important if it could be used as evidence for the establishment of Roman garrisons throughout the land, but it cannot. There is no hint in any other author that a large number of forts and strongholds were captured in consequence of this defeat, yet as intensifying the importance of the reverse, that must surely have been referred to by some one. Every other authority knows merely of the annihilation of Varus and his army, not of the capture of a whole series of strongholds all over the land.[36] Besides, one asks in vain what these places were and when occupied. There is nothing in the accounts of earlier or of later operations which furnishes any answer to such questions, or a parallel to such a military policy on the part of Varus. And finally, what could have been more foolish than to divide a force, unusually small in itself, at a critical period, when the great revolt in Pannonia was not yet put down? That Varus might not have had every man of his three legions with him on the fatal occasion, is quite conceivable. Some detachments might have been with convoys of provisions, others out to look for supplies, yet others engaged in hunting down some band of outlaws, or in putting into execution some decision favorable to a conspicuous supporter of Rome, and that these small bands may have fallen victims after the great disaster is perfectly possible. That is all that we are justified in inferring from Dio after the veneer of rhetoric has been removed.

For we must bear in mind the marked tendencies of our sources for the administration of Varus. Florus was concocting a melodrama; Dio arranging an explanation, which should save the credit of Rome and the Roman soldier by putting all the blame on the dead who tell no tales; Velleius distorting everything in maiorem gloriam of Tiberius, for whom Varus must serve as a foil at every turn. There is therefore nothing so stupid, arrogant, or wilful that it is not cheerfully ascribed to him, while perfectly proper and natural things, like the presence of lawyers on his staff, the making of arrangements regarding the quantity and character of the assistance to be rendered by the socii, the dispersion of little detachments of troops upon one or another small but necessary service, are exaggerated into acts of wanton folly and oppression, and interpreted as the inauguration of a totally new policy. Yet every one of these things must inevitably have taken place on all the numerous similar demonstrations that had been made in Germany; the only reason that they are not mentioned elsewhere is that we have no accounts regarding other operations in Germany in which such details would have been in place. They were the ordinary routine of campaigning and of no interest to the average ancient historiographer, save as they served to point a lurid description of a disaster, or to supply a basis, however flimsy, for a misrepresentation.

Varus was, we may feel assured, doing no more, in all probability much less, than his predecessors had done on numerous occasions. Two years of heavy fighting had not broken the Pannonian revolt. The forces along the Rhine, if not actually weakened in order to enlarge those in Pannonia, would doubtless be so represented by hot-headed Germans of the nationalist persuasion, particularly after two years of utter inaction. It was doubtless in response to suggestions that Roman prestige needed some refurbishing in the interior, and very likely at the express command of Augustus, that Varus undertook his fatal demonstration. The very fact that he left so large a force at the Rhine under Asprenas would indicate that he felt it safer to keep two armies in readiness for action at different points, rather than to concentrate his forces and so risk the breaking out of trouble in some quarter from which pressure had been removed. Without any open show of violence, rather with every expression of courtesy, confidence, and good will, he was engaged in the ordinary routine of a commanding officer upon such a demonstration in force, when suddenly attacked and destroyed. Graciousness and friendliness had been taken for weakness, as too often with the barbarian, and he and his men had to pay for a conciliatory attitude with their lives. All this is but the thing which we should reasonably expect under the circumstances; it is all that the sources, critically examined, will justify us in asserting. We do not possess, to be sure, the actual documents of alliance between Rome and various tribes or chieftains of Germany; we have in fact scarcely the name of any German preserved from Ariovistus to Arminius, but we can be perfectly certain that negotiations of friendship and alliance were frequently and solemnly entered upon. If Rome had made an alliance with Ariovistus in 59 B. C. (see above n. 8), while as yet he was a relatively unknown force, hundreds of miles from the frontier, how much more must she have been busy in organizing friendly relations with the German tribes that were immediately contiguous to the Rhine and through whose territories her armies so often marched in peace?

Finally, we would emphasize the general defensive character of the campaigns. In the great majority of cases some disturbance in Germany is definitely given as the cause of the operations, and if our sources for the Germanic wars were not so hopelessly fragmentary we should doubtless find that in every instance the Germans were the aggressors.[37] Even the proposed campaign against Maroboduus we have no right to regard as an act of wanton aggression, for Maroboduus had retired sulkily into the forests of Bohemia, and there developed a formidable army, and though his overt acts were conciliatory, his very presence, considering the inflammable character of the nation to which he belonged, and in which he might incite greater disturbances than had ever yet broken out, was a cause of justifiable apprehension.[38] Indeed any other German than Maroboduus and the fact that he did not seems to have been regarded by his fellow Germans as disloyalty to the national cause. Likewise the campaigns of Germanicus in 14 A. D., while apparently at the very moment unprovoked, were in reality a bit of deferred revenge for the treacherous attack upon the legions of Varus. Is it in fact not truly singular that among so many scattered references to the Germanic wars, there is nowhere, save in Florus, who has been dealt with elsewhere, any direct assertion that the purpose was conquest, reduction to a state of subjection, or the like? (Cf. pp. 27 and note; 75). All writers represent the Romans as being compelled to send troops from time to time into Germany to preserve the peace, and to make powerful demonstrations; there are none of the characteristic marks or processes of conquest. Were it not for the all but universal preconception that conquest was intended the sources speaking for themselves would tell a very different tale. That is briefly the following: for a generation from the time of Caesar to that of Drusus, Rome had been content with merely repelling attacks and punishing the immediate offenders, together with a local demonstration of her forces. That procedure finally appeared to be ineffective, and so a vigorous policy of terrorizing the Germans from further disturbances of the peace was tried. Some canals were dug to facilitate the movements of the fleet which was greatly needed for the purpose of transporting supplies upon the marches into the remote interior; close to the Rhine some swamp road construction was undertaken, subsidiary apparently to the naval operations; a few castella near to the Rhine and along the highways leading into the interior were erected as munition depots, and nothing further.[39] Preparations were made to facilitate incursions into Germany, and these were repeatedly undertaken, but every year Drusus came back to his starting point upon the Rhine, after the most approved manœuvers of the noble Duke of York, or of the perplexed Persian poet who tried to become a philosopher,

The campaigns of Domitius and of Tiberius are of exactly the same character, a rally, a raid, and a relapse. Regarded as attempts at conquest these operations represented from the political point of view sheer folly, from the military point of view a sequence of grandiose fiascos; considered as a prolonged series of demonstrations intended to establish a line of buffer states in the form of friendly, allied tribes as a further protection of a naturally weak frontier against the barbaric hordes of the remote swamps and forests, they were sagaciously conceived and to the highest degree successful.

Our argument has thus far followed the process of exclusion. The Roman operations in Germany were either those of permanent conquest or of demonstration; there is no tertium quid. If not conquest, and we have endeavored to refute that view at every point, it must have been demonstration. The nature of our sources does not permit a positive and detailed proof of our new interpretation; that, properly interpreted, however, they are in harmony with it, we have been at pains to show. By way of conclusion we shall undertake to strengthen our position by pointing out analogies and parallels, not merely in the general course of ancient history, but in the foreign policy of Augustus himself.

Punitive and monitory raids were frequently undertaken in antiquity without any attempt whatsoever at making permanent conquest. Such were the oft repeated razzias into Nubia made by the Pharaohs, the countless raids of Assyrian monarchs into the mountains to the east and north, especially the great campaign of Darius among the Scythians in 512 B. C.[40] Of the same sort were the frequent campaigns of the Macedonian kings against the Paeonians and Thracians, though no serious attempt was made to extend their dominion greatly in this direction. A typical example of such chronic punitive campaigning was the service of Clearchus in the Chersonese, who used that peninsula as his base of operations while raiding the Thracians above the Hellespont.[41] The whole history of the more powerful Greek colonies is filled with the record of such punitive expeditions intended to keep the restless barbarians at peace. Of this identical nature were Caesar’s demonstrations across the Rhine in Germany, and beyond the channel in Britain. He had surely no thought of making a permanent conquest, at least at that time, but desired merely to make a display of Roman power to the barbarians who were, or might be, interfering with the security of his conquests in Gaul.[42] It is true that the Romans were not generally in the habit of keeping a foe off at arm’s length in this fashion, but preferred to close with and destroy him once for all, but the time was bound to come soon or late when even the amazing vitality of the Romans would reach its limit, and when they must content themselves with defense instead of new conquest. And this limit was first reached along the Rhine, where an effort at further advance would have involved endless difficulties.

But we are not without examples of quite the same thing from the very reign of Augustus, and that too at a period considerably prior to the disaster of Varus. Of precisely this nature was the raid into Arabia in 25-24 B. C. There is no evidence that a permanent seizure of the land was intended; but occasion was taken to demonstrate the power of Rome, and then the expedition returned. That there may have been some intention of seizing or securing fabled wealth we cannot perhaps wholly deny, although men so well informed as the Roman merchants and administrators of Egypt could hardly have been guilty of such folly, but its main purpose seems to have been merely a demonstration of the vigor of the new Egyptian administration.[43] For it is significant that in the very next year began the Ethiopian wars, which lasted until 20 B. C., wherein likewise no effort was made at extending the limits of the new province, but the Ethiopians or Nubians were given a taste of Roman steel, and made to realize how serious a thing it would be to harass the new lords of Egypt.[44] Of quite the same nature was the invasion of Dacia, 12-9 B. C., and the later raids during the Pannonian revolt, 6-9 A. D. Augustus had certainly no intention of adding Dacia to the Empire; he merely wished to punish the tribes north of the Danube for interfering in the affairs of the province and to give a sharp warning against a repetition of the offense.[45] That the invasions of Germany were made more frequently and probably upon a larger scale than elsewhere, there can be no denial, but that is due to the fact that the Germans were more warlike and martial than the other contiguous barbarians. We have already observed that practically every campaign in Germany was preceded by grave provocation on the part of the barbarians, while frequently the difficulties raised were settled by diplomacy without recourse to armed intervention. But the lesson that an invasion of the Empire was likely to cost far more than it was worth, while it took a long time to teach, was in the end thoroughly learned. For two hundred years after the death of Tiberius almost unbroken peace reigned along this quarter of the frontier, which had been for half a century the storm center of the empire[46], and when the northern defenses finally began to crumble, it was towards the north and northeast, not the northwest, that they first succumbed. The policy of the first two principes was therefore abundantly justified by its lasting success.

As regards the secondary policy, i. e., that of the upbuilding and support of friendly or buffer states immediately contiguous to the actual frontier, there is no lack of parallels from antiquity.[47] Tiglath Pileser IV in 732 B. C., after annexing certain parts of Palestine, set up such a buffer between his empire and Egypt along the marches of Philistia, in the shape of a vassal principality under a Bedouin chief called “kipi, (or resident) of Musri” (i. e. Egypt).[48] Similar was doubtless the purpose of Nebuchadrezzar in leaving Jehoiakim of Judah upon the throne of a subject kingdom after his conquest of Palestine in 704 B. C. Only after two revolts, both instigated apparently by Egypt, did he apparently feel compelled to give up a policy which, though it made it unnecessary to invade Egypt directly, nevertheless allowed the temptation to renew hostilities without a desperate risk.[49] Something similar, though under very different conditions was the policy of Sparta in building a ring of Perioeci about her own Helot population on every side save that of Messenia, where by the destruction of cities and the closing of harbors the Helots were likewise cut off from contact with the outside world. The Perioeci thus formed a double barrier, warding off the enemy on the outside, and helping to keep in a disaffected servile population.[50] Again, this was clearly the policy of Alexander in the East, who set the Indus as his actual frontier, but secured that by establishing two powerful protected states, the kingdoms of Porus and of Taxiles, on the eastern bank.[51] A parallel not too remote, perhaps, can be pointed out in the case of the first contact of Rome and Carthage in Spain. Here the Romans seem to have set up Saguntum as an allied state to act as a buffer or check to the advances of Hannibal to the Ebro, and towards what they chose to regard as their proper sphere of influence (or, if one prefer, that of their ancient ally Massilia). That the policy in this case failed to prevent war is of course no proper criticism of its intent. There were also the numerous but ephemeral protectorates of the eastern marches, which served for the most part the purpose of preparing the formal advance of the empire rather than actually covering a difficult frontier, and so lasted only a short time. But in Armenia we have a truly classical example of a buffer state, whose fortunes no less an authority than Lord Curzon compares directly with those of Afghanistan, similarly situated between the two great rival powers of Russia and Great Britain.[52] One Roman general or emperor after another might have made Armenia a province, as Trajan actually did, although his successor immediately restored it to its former state of uncertainty, but for more than four centuries it was preserved as a buffer state against Parthia.[53] Less notorious but equally clear is the case of Mauretania. In 25 B. C. Augustus transferred King Juba from Numidia, which he thereupon transformed into a province, to Mauretania, which, after having been eight years a province, was once more made a kingdom. The purpose of this singular interchange of political status, must have been to protect the actual confines of the empire from direct contact with the barbarians of the south and west, who were not yet accustomed to the presence of the Romans.[54] It was not until sixty-five years afterwards, 40 A. D., when danger from this quarter might have been expected to have diminished or disappeared after two generations of a strong and peaceful government, that Mauretania was once more made into a province.[55]

With this brief list of parallels and precedents to the German frontier policy which we have ascribed to Augustus, we hope to have shown that there was no striking innovation involved therein, nothing really beyond the range of the expedients and experiences of an ancient statesman. In thus attributing to Augustus in Germany a policy bearing so modern a designation as that of the “buffer state”, we feel convinced that we are not modernizing the ancients, but only recognizing how very ancient some of our supposedly modern expedients of statesmanship in reality are.