WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

When the Roman outposts approached the River Weser, Arminius called out to them from the opposite bank, and expressed a wish to see his brother. Flavins Stepped forward, and Arminius ordered his own followers to retire, and requested that the archers should be removed from the Roman bank of the river. This was done; and the brothers, who apparently had not seen each other for some years, began a conversation from the opposite side of the stream, in which Arminius questioned his brother respecting the loss of his eye, and what battle it had been lost in, and what reward he had received for his wound.

Flavius told him how the eye was lost, and mentioned the increased pay that he had on account of its loss, and showed the collar and other military decorations that had been given him. Arminius mocked at these as badges of slavery; and then each began to try to win the other over. Flavius boasting the power of Rome, and her generosity to the submissive; Arminius appealing to him in the name of their country's gods, of the mother that had borne them, and by the holy names of father-land and freedom, not to prefer being the betrayer to being the champion of his country.

They soon proceeded to mutual taunts and menaces, and Flavius called aloud for his horse and his arms, that he might dash across the river and attack his brother; nor would he have been checked from doing so, had not the Roman general Stertinius run up to him and forcibly detained him. Arminius stood on the other bank threatening the renegade, and defying him to battle.

I shall not be thought to need apology for quoting here the stanzas in which Praed has described this scene—a scene among the most affecting, as well as the most striking, that history supplies. It makes us reflect on the desolate position of Arminius, with his wife and child captives in the enemy's hands, and with his brother a renegade in arms against him. The great liberator, of our German race was there, with every source of human happiness denied him except the consciousness of doing his duty to his country.

Back, back he fears not foaming flood
Who fears not steel-clad line:
No warrior thou of German blood,
NO brother thou of mine.

Go, earn Rome's chain to load thy neck,
Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honor's hapless wreck
With all the gauds of gilt.

But wouldst thou have me share the prey?
By all that I have done,
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun,

The legion's trampled panoply,
The eagle's shatter'd wing—
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorn'd and mean a thing.

Ho, call me here the wizard, boy,
Of dark and subtle skill
To agonize but not destroy,
To torture, not to kill.

When swords are out, and shriek and shout
Leave little room for prayer,
No fetter on man's arm or, heart
Hangs half so heavy there.

I curse him by the gifts the land
Hath won from him and Rome,
The riving axe, the wasting brand
Rent forest, blazing home.

I curse him by our country's gods,
The terrible, the dark,
The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.

Oh, misery that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle's van
His country’s chief to be?

To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame
And worthy of a brother's pride
And of a brother's name?

But it Is past! where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee,
Arminius is not brotherless,
His brethren are the free.

They come around: one hour, and light
Will fade from turf and tide,
Then onward, onward to the fight,
With darkness for our guide.

To-night, to-night, when we shall meet
In combat face to face,
Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade's embrace.

The canker of home's guilt shall be
Upon his dying name;
And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.

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