Give Me Back My Legions(40)

Towns were . . . efficient. The word and the idea existed in Latin, but not in the Germans’ tongue. Roman armies were efficient, too. Arminius wished his own people grasped the concept, tor it was as much a weapon as the edge of the sword.

But the world was as it was, not as he wished it were. It he wanted to spread news, he couldn’t do it by traveling to a few towns. He had to go to one steadily alter another, talk with one farmer or minor chieftain after another, and persuade or cajole or jolly the man and the lesser followers at each place to his own way of thinking.

That way of thinking was simple enough. Very often, so was getting the Germans to his side. All he had to ask was, “Did the Romans collect taxes from you this past fall?”

More often than not, someone would say, or snarl, the word “Yes.” More often than not, that same man or someone else would curse the Romans.

Then Arminius would ask, “And do you want to pay taxes again next year?”

That commonly produced gasps of horror or fury or, most often, both commingled. “They were lucky to get it from me once - they caught me by surprise. Demons drag me down if they’ll do that again,” was an answer he heard again and again, in almost identical words.

“But they intend to,” he would say. It was no less than the truth, either. “They intend to, and they will try to kill you if you don’t let them rob you. What do you propose to do about that?”

People didn’t always say the same thing then. A lot of them didn’t believe him, or didn’t want to believe him - the notion was as far outside their ken as efficiency was. He had the advantage over them, though. He’d seen how things in Pannonia worked. He knew the Romans collected taxes there every year.

And he knew something else. “The Pannonians have given the Romans as much fight as thev ever wanted, and then some,” he would say to anyone who wanted to listen. “Are the Pannonians stronger than we are?”

“No!” Anyone he talked to would say that. The Germans were convinced they were the strongest folk in the world.

Arminius would nod and agree: “You’re right. I fought them. They’re strong enough, but they’re no stronger than we are. Are they braver?”

“No!” That question was guaranteed to affront any German ever born. His folk prided themselves on their courage.

And he would nod again. “That’s right - they’re not. They’re plenty brave - no doubt about it. But thev aren’t any braver than we are, either.

So if they’re brave enough to take on the Romans, why can’t we do the same?”

Hardly any Germans who’d been taxed by the Romans - -plundered by the Romans - saw any reason why they shouldn’t go to war against the legions. Arminius began to think his biggest problem would be holding the tribesmen back, not leading them forward. They wanted to march on the Rhine and burn every Roman fortification on this side of the river.

Strangely enough, much of the help he got in restraining the Germans came from Segestes and others who were pro-Roman. There weren’t that many of them, but they had influence beyond their numbers. One of the things the Romans did to win the land to their side was to get chieftains to go along with them. The chieftains, and the retinues of warriors they supported, helped sway the views of ordinary folk.

Quite a few of them told the Germans what an idiot Arminius was. He didn’t mind. Not many Germans who’d been taxed thought Arminius was an idiot. But the ordinary tribesmen did hesitate instead of rebelling too soon. Arminius found that blackly funny. Irony was one more concept he’d learned among his enemies.

And he had weapons against the pro-Roman chieftains, weapons they couldn’t match. “The Romans did this in Pannonia, too,” he would say. “I saw them do it. By the gods, I helped them do it so I could learn their ways. It is what they do whenever they enslave a new folk. Our old men will tell you they did the same thing in Gaul most of a lifetime ago. And now the people over there are their slaves.”

One graybeard said, “Well, those are only Gauls. We used to beat them, too. They aren’t so tough.”

“Let Quinctilius Varus keep collecting taxes from you, then,” Arminius replied. “Fifty years from now, some Roman master will say, ‘Well, those are only Germans. They aren’t so tough.’ “

People nodded, taking the point. The graybeard bit his lip, but he didn’t argue any more. Anyone who argued against Arminius soon wished he hadn’t.

Varus was drunk when a courier brought a letter from Augustus. In summer, the weather in this northerly part of the world got warm enough for cultured Romans to drink watered wine. During the winter, though, everybody took his neat to stoke the fires inside himself. Varus thought the habit barbarous till he tried it. When he found how well it worked, he became as enthusiastic as a convert to Judaism.