njunction with
the fleet from Britain,[445] might harry the Batavian coast. However,
Fabius Priscus, who was in command, led his troops inland into the
country of the Nervii and Tungri, who surrendered to him. The
Canninefates[446] made an unprovoked attack upon the fleet and sank or
captured the greater number of the ships. They also defeated a band of
Nervian volunteers who had been recruited in the Roman interest.
Classicus secured a further success against an advance-guard of
cavalry which Cerialis had sent forward to Novaesium. These repeated
checks, though unimportant in themselves, served to dim the lustre of
the recent Roman victory.[447]

FOOTNOTES:

[416] Round Reims.

[417] Chap. 39.

[418] His sister was Titus's first wife.

[419] Augustus had made it a rule that the _praefectus
praetorio_ should come from the equestrian order.

[420] The text is here uncertain, and some historians maintain
that the third of these legions was not XIII Gemina but VII
Claudia (v. Henderson, _Civil War_, &c., p. 291).

[421] Great St. Bernard and Mt. Genevre.

[422] Little St. Bernard.

[423] See iii. 5.

[424] i.e. not raised in any one locality.

[425] Cp. ii. 22.

[426] The Triboci were in Lower Alsace; the Vangiones north of
them in the district of Worms; the Caeracates probably to the
north again, in the district between Mainz and the Nahe
(Nava).

[427] Bingen.

[428] Chap. 62.

[429] Round Metz.

[430] See chap. 59.

[431] The other detachments of legions IV and XXII.

[432] Riol.

[433] Hordeonius Flaccus, Vocula, Herennius, and Numisius.

[434] Legions I and XVI.

[435] They had, as a matter of fact, changed their allegiance
no less than six times since the outbreak of the civil war.

[436] Ariovistus, king of the Suebi, summoned to aid one
Gallic confederacy against another, formed the ambition of
conquering Gaul, but was defeated by Julius Caesar near
Besancon (Vesontio) in 58 B.C.

[437] See chap. 68.

[438] Tutor erred. Cerialis had also the Twenty-first from
Vindonissa, Felix's auxiliary cohorts, and the troops he had
found at Mainz (see chaps. 70 and 71).

[439] He suppresses his own defeat at Bingen (chap. 70).

[440] The town lay on the right bank of the Mose