wanted to go home and rest. If no one opposed them they
would march peaceably by; but if hostility was offered they would find
a passage at the point of the sword. Gallus hesitated, but his men
induced him to risk an engagement. Three thousand legionaries, some
hastily recruited Belgic auxiliaries, and a mob of peasants and
camp-followers, who were as cowardly in action as they were boastful
before it, came pouring out simultaneously from all the gates, hoping
with their superior numbers to surround the Batavians. But these were
experienced veterans. They formed up into columns[298] in deep
formation that defied assault on front, flank, or rear. They thus
pierced our thinner line. The Belgae giving way, the legion was driven
back and ran in terror to reach the trench and the gates of the camp.
It was there that we suffered the heaviest losses. The trenches were
filled with dead, who were not all killed by the blows of the enemy,
for many were stifled in the press or perished on each other's swords.
The victorious cohorts avoided Cologne and marched on without
attempting any further hostilities. For the battle at Bonn they
continued to excuse themselves. They had asked for peace, they said,
and when peace was persistently refused, had merely acted in
self-defence.

FOOTNOTES:

[288] V Alaudae and XV Primigenia, both depleted.

[289] At Vetera.

[290] Waal.

[291] They lived round their chief town, known since A.D. 50
as Colonia Agrippinensis, now Cologne (cp. i. 56, note 106).

[292] See chap. 16.

[293] This was a German custom. We read in the _Germania_ that
in battle 'they keep their dearest close at hand, where the
women's cries and the wailing of their babies can be heard'.

[294] This means, of course, simply The Old Camp, but, as
Tacitus treats Vetera as a proper name, it has been kept in
the translation. It was probably on the Rhine near Xanten and
Fuerstenberg, some sixty-six miles north of Cologne.

[295] Cp. i. 59; ii. 97; iv. 15.

[296] Who got better pay for lighter service.

[297] i.e. at Mainz, Bonn, Novaesium and Vetera.

[298] See note 283.

THE SIEGE OF VETERA

After the arrival of these veteran cohorts Civilis was now at the 21
head of a respectable army. But being still uncertain of his plans,
and engaged in reckoning up the Roman forces, he made all who were
with him swea