Finally, we would emphasize the general defensive character of the campaigns. In the great majority of cases some disturbance in Germany is definitely given as the cause of the operations, and if our sources for the Germanic wars were not so hopelessly fragmentary we should doubtless find that in every instance the Germans were the aggressors.[37] Even the proposed campaign against Maroboduus we have no right to regard as an act of wanton aggression, for Maroboduus had retired sulkily into the forests of Bohemia, and there developed a formidable army, and though his overt acts were conciliatory, his very presence, considering the inflammable character of the nation to which he belonged, and in which he might incite greater disturbances than had ever yet broken out, was a cause of justifiable apprehension.[38] Indeed any other German than Maroboduus and the fact that he did not seems to have been regarded by his fellow Germans as disloyalty to the national cause. Likewise the campaigns of Germanicus in 14 A. D., while apparently at the very moment unprovoked, were in reality a bit of deferred revenge for the treacherous attack upon the legions of Varus. Is it in fact not truly singular that among so many scattered references to the Germanic wars, there is nowhere, save in Florus, who has been dealt with elsewhere, any direct assertion that the purpose was conquest, reduction to a state of subjection, or the like? (Cf. pp. 27 and note; 75). All writers represent the Romans as being compelled to send troops from time to time into Germany to preserve the peace, and to make powerful demonstrations; there are none of the characteristic marks or processes of conquest. Were it not for the all but universal preconception that conquest was intended the sources speaking for themselves would tell a very different tale. That is briefly the following: for a generation from the time of Caesar to that of Drusus, Rome had been content with merely repelling attacks and punishing the immediate offenders, together with a local demonstration of her forces. That procedure finally appeared to be ineffective, and so a vigorous policy of terrorizing the Germans from further disturbances of the peace was tried. Some canals were dug to facilitate the movements of the fleet which was greatly needed for the purpose of transporting supplies upon the marches into the remote interior; close to the Rhine some swamp road construction was undertaken, subsidiary apparently to the naval operations; a few _castella_ near to the Rhine and along the highways leading into the interior were erected as munition depots, and nothing further.[39] Preparations were made to facilitate incursions into Germany, and these were repeatedly undertaken, but every year Drusus came back to his starting point upon the Rhine, after the most approved manœuvers of the noble Duke of York, or of the perplexed Persian poet who tried to become a philosopher,