“They’re well trained,” said Gene. “To flush game sometimes and to sneak up quietly at other times.”

“Simply remain calm,” Hunter said in Latin, this time in a normal tone. “Continue our conversation if you wish. Lower your voices, though, if you go on discussing history. We do not want to give our friends ideas they do not already have.”

“Not much chance of that,” said Gene. “These events are already in motion.” “What do you mean that this is a Roman province ‘so far’?” Jane asked Gene. “The province doesn’t stay Roman very long,” said Gene. “ A German prince of the Cherusci tribe, called Arminius, has been granted Roman citizenship. He’s been dealing with Varus in this new province, representing the Cherusci. In fact, the entire tribe has been given the privileged position of a federated state within the Roman Empire. For this reason, many of the Cherusci have Latin names, like Arminius himself.”

“But what happened to the Romans?” Steve ducked under another low branch, hurrying to keep up. He looked around for the Germans that Hunter could hear, but still saw no direct sign of them. Then he noticed some birds suddenly fluttering out of a tree a short distance away. He realized that they might have been disturbed by humans walking near them.

“This year,” said Gene, “Arminius leads an uprising against the Romans. The Cherusci Germans and some allied tribes ambushed Varus in the Teutoburger Forest, destroying him and his entire army. The Roman border will be pushed back to the Rhine until the Empire falls completely. As a result, Gaul will be culturally and linguistically Romanized to a degree that Germany never will be.”

“What of it?” Steve demanded. “I mean, the Roman Empire was huge. This one province couldn’t have meant that much to the Romans, could it?”

“Not to the living Roman Empire,” said Gene. “But think of it this way. If this province had remained within the Roman Empire, then maybe more of Germany would have been conquered by the Romans. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the Germanic tribes that helped bring it down might have been culturally Latinized and much more like the tribes in Gaul, which became France, than the Germany of our history. The history of the new Germany would have been extremely different forever after, altering major world events in many different centuries.”

“So the real difference would came later,” said Steve. “I see.”

“When was the ambush in Teutoburger Forest?” Hunter asked.

“It-” Gene stopped as an arrow whistled in front of Hunter and hit a tree trunk.