ward to a time of
tranquillity. Liberty and independence were forgotten words. After the
terrible disorders of the last century, the general cry was for quiet at
any price. Octavian was a person admirably fitted to fulfil these
aspirations. His uncle Julius was too fond of active exertion to play
such a part well. Octavian never shone in war, while his vigilant and
patient mind was well fitted for the discharge of business. He avoided
shocking popular feeling by assuming any title savoring of royalty; but
he enjoyed by universal consent an authority more than regal.

GERMANS UNDER ARMINIUS REVOLT AGAINST ROME

A.D. 9

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(The German race was beginning to make itself felt to a greater extent
than hitherto in its efforts for freedom from the Roman rule. Research
shows that from the earliest days there were two distinct peoples under
this designation of _German_--the northern or Scandinavian, and the
southern, being more truly the German. Both consisted of numerous
tribes, the Romans giving separate names to each: from this arose the
generic titles of _Franks, Bavarians, Alamanni_, and the rest.

They were great fighters and, as a natural sequence, mighty hunters.
When warfare did not occupy their attention, hunting, feasting, and
drinking took its place. Tacitus writes: "To drink continuously, night
and day, was no shame for them." Their chief beverage was barley beer,
though, in the South, wine was used to some extent.

Rome had garrisons throughout the whole land, and the fortunes of the
Germans were at a low ebb. Freedom seemed stifled forever when Arminius
led his forces against the Roman hosts in the forest of Teutoburgium.
Rightly does Creasy rate this important battle so highly, for it meant
the final uplifting of the Teuton, and with him the English-speaking
races of a later time.)

To a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a minister can never
obscure his achievements in the world of letters, we are indebted for
the most profound and most eloquent estimate that we possess of the
importance of the Germanic element in European civilization, and of the
extent to which the human race is indebted to those brave warriors who
long were the unconquered antagonists, and finally became the
conquerors, of imperial Rome.

Twenty-three eventful years have passed away since M. Guizot[82]
delivered from the chair of modern history, at Paris, his course of
lectures on the hi