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Rh All these circumstances rendered the German revolt most grave and menacing. That it appeared so to Tacitus, is plain from several passages in his works. Could the Germans only be induced to destroy one another, Rome might sleep in comparative security, and thank her presiding deities for the feuds of her enemy. In his 'Germany' he writes thus of a happy accident of the kind: "The Chamavi and Angrivarii utterly exterminated the Bructeri, with the common help of the neighbouring tribes, either from hatred of their tyranny, or from the attractions of plunder, or from heaven's favourable regard to us. It did not even grudge us the spectacle of the conflict. I pray that there may long last among the nations, if not a love for us, at least a hatred for each other; for, while the destinies of empire hurry us on, fortune can bestow no greater boon than discord among our foes."

In Antonius Primus we have at least the semblance of an adventurous and able leader of a division. He is a sort of Achilles or Joachim Murat; but in Claudius Civilis we have an able general and statesman combined. Tacitus evidently bestowed great pains on his portraiture. Civilis was of a noble Batavian family, and had served twenty-five years in the Roman armies. He must have been forty at least when he formed the project of revolt, since for a quarter of a century he had fought wherever the imperial eagles flew, or been stationed wherever there was a Roman camp. For some offence he had incurred the displeasure of a Cæsar or his legate. "It is," he says, "a noble reward that I have received for my toils: my brother