For this purpose, the German confederates frequented the head-quarters
of Varus, which seem to have been near the centre of the modern country
of Westphalia, where the Roman general conducted himself with all the
arrogant security of the governor of a perfectly submissive province.
There Varus gratified at once his vanity, his rhetorical tastes, and his
avarice, by holding courts, to which he summoned the Germans for the
settlement of all their disputes, while a bar of Roman advocates
attended to argue the cases before the tribunal of Varus, who did not
omit the opportunity of exacting court fees and accepting bribes. Varus
trusted implicitly to the respect which the Germans pretended to pay to
his abilities as a judge, and to the interest which they affected to
take in the forensic eloquence of their conquerors.
Meanwhile a succession of heavy rains rendered the country more
difficult for the operations of regular troops, and Arminius, seeing
that the infatuation of Varus was complete, secretly directed the tribes
near the Weser and the Ems to take up arms in open revolt against the
Romans.
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