it, and retired into the land of the Boii, the modern Bohemia, without interfering from this point, where they were removed beyond the immediate sphere of the Roman power, in the conflicts on the Rhine. In the whole region between the Rhine and Weser the war was at an end. Drusus was able in 7459. to set foot on the right bank of the Weser in the canton of the Cherusci, and to advance thence to the Elbe, which he did not cross, and presumably was instructed not to do so. Several severe combats took place; successful resistance was nowhere offered.Death of Drusus. But on the return–march, which led apparently up the Saale and thence to the Weser, a severe blow befell the Romans, not through the enemy but through an incalculable misfortune. The general fell with his horse and broke his thigh–bone; after thirty days of suffering he expired in the distant land between the Saale and Weser,8 which had never before been trodden by a Roman army, in the arms of his brother who had hastened thither from Rome, in the thirtieth year of his age and in the full consciousness of his vigour and of his successes, long and deeply lamented by his adherents and the whole people—perhaps to be pronounced fortunate, because the gods granted to him to depart from life young, and to escape the disillusions and embitterments which tell most painfully on those highest in station, while his brilliant and heroic figure continues still to live in the remembrance of the world.