Germanicus soon after entered the camp
now full of blood and carcasses, and lamenting with many tears that "this
was not a remedy, but cruelty and desolation," commanded the bodies to be
burnt. Their minds, still tempestuous and bloody, were transported with
sudden eagerness to attack the foe, as the best expiation of their
tragical fury: nor otherwise, they thought, could the ghosts of their
butchered brethren be appeased, than by receiving in their own profane
breasts a chastisement of honourable wounds. Germanicus fell in with the
ardour of the soldiers, and laying a bridge upon the Rhine, marched over
twelve thousand legionary soldiers, twenty-six cohorts of the allies, and
eight regiments of horse; men all untainted in the late sedition.
The Germans rejoiced, not far off, at this vacation of war, occasioned
first by the death of Augustus, and afterwards by intestine tumults in the
camp; but the Romans by a hasty march passed through the Caesian woods,
and levelling the barrier formerly begun by Tiberius, upon it pitched
their camp. In the front and rear they were defended by a palisade; on
each side by a barricade of the trunks of trees felled.
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