The disorder was immense, the complaints against Tiberius so unjust, the demands of the soldiers so insolent, their behavior marked by such violence that Germanicus was obliged to make me leave the camp for fear I might suffer an offense. Yet, I did everything in my power not to part from him, for fear has no place in the heart of Agrippina, and no human power can command her to be silent or to speak, unless it pleases her and reason suggests it. Germanicus not only quelled the soldiers' rebellion but also managed to rally those very soldiers who no longer recognized a leader, who only followed their whims, who only listened to their wrath, and who armed themselves only to oppose the emperor's will. They gathered under their banners, regained their reasoning, obeyed the orders of Germanicus, and eagerly followed him into all the perils he faced, from which he emerged victorious. 

With these same soldiers, he avenged Varus's defeat, recaptured the eagle of the nineteenth legion, crossed the lands of the Bructeri, and entirely devastated everything between the rivers Amisia and Lippe. Unsatisfied to demonstrate his worth solely in battle, he also proved it with his affection. Upon arriving at the same place where Varus had been defeated and where one still sees an endless number of blanched bones, scattered across the fields or piled high in great mounds bearing witness to the timeline of the battle, where one still finds broken javelins and many other shattered weapons, horse heads attached to trees, altars where the barbarians sacrificed officers and generals, and where those who escaped death point out the places where the leaders received their fatal wounds, where Varus sustained his first injuries and where shortly afterward, he took his own life, Germanicus was overwhelmed by sorrow and compassion. He burst into tears, surrendering his soul to grief. He inspired the soldiers to pay their last respects to these unfortunate men, some of whom were their kin and friends. He allowed sorrow to take place in their hearts to later exhort them with greater zeal to revenge. He lit the first fire with his own hand on the tomb erected in honor of these needy ones. Yet, Tiberius did not approve of this act. He did not understand how one could be both valiant and sensitive, how one could bury his friends and defeat his enemies. He considered affection as a sentiment unworthy of great courage. He would have wished that Germanicus overlook these mounds of dead without remembering that they were Romans like him, that they had fought like he was about to fight, that the same enemies awaited them, and that to deserve victory over them, one must strive to appease the gods and nurture the desire for vengeance within the souls of his soldiers to stoke their ardor in battle and win the fight. But the principles of Tiberius and those of Germanicus were distinctly different, which led them on different paths. Tiberius reigns and Germanicus is dead.

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