s in order of battle. Hence the enemy
became terrified, our men reanimated, and both retired without advantage
on either side. Germanicus, soon after, returning with the army to the
Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet;
part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the
Rhine. Caecina, who led his own men, was warned that, though he was to
return through well-known roads, yet he should with all speed pass the
causeway called the Long Bridges. It is a narrow causeway, between vast
marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The rest of the country
is of a moist nature, either tough and sticky from a heavy kind of clay
or dangerous from the streams which intersect it. Round about are woods
which rise gently from the plain, which at that time were filled with
soldiers by Arminius, who, by short cuts and quick marching, had arrived
there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Caecina, who
was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time and to
repulse the foe, resolved to encamp in the place, that while some were
employed in the work, others might begin the fight.

The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the
outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops,
march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout
arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined
to distress the Romans--the place deep with ooze, sinking under those
who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered
with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the
midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to
encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their spears long, so as to
wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved
from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on
account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even
then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the
neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded,
and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers
had all to do over again. Caecina, who had served forty years, either
under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war,
prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all
probabilities, he could devise no other e