uring that very spring, had
harried the Roman frontier. The command of the expedition had been
entrusted to experienced generals who had chosen their own force of
foot and horse, while a large baggage train conveyed the provisions and
the remainder of the luggage. In all, there were probably more than
three thousand men.

According to the old victorious Roman strategy--whose success was
proved by the conquest of nearly half the world known at that
day--this small force was to assail the foe from several directions at
once, the same as in great campaigns, as if seized by claws, a favorite
comparison in Roman military literature. Part of the troops--the
cavalry, several squadrons of cataphractarii (mailed riders, who were
completely sheathed in armor), cohorts of the Twenty-Second Legion,
picked German mercenaries, Batavians (they were considered the best of
all the foreign soldiers), and lastly the flower of the Imperial Guard,
foot-soldiers, mainly Illyrians and Thracians, were to march northward
from Windisch, cross the Rhine, move along the old road to the north,
then, suddenly turning eastward, skirt the western shore of the lake to
gain its northern side, thus penetrating the whole Linzgau from the
west to the east, halting at an appointed place in the heart of the
enemy's country and awaiting the second division. Meanwhile this second
body was to march along the great highway bordering the southern shore
from Windisch to Arbon, cross the lake in boats, land on the northern
shore, and pass through the Linzgau from east to west till they reached
the first division.

Thus the escape of the Barbarians, whose tilled lands would all be laid
waste, would be cut off both eastward and westward. Those who attempted
flight southward in their boats across the lake would be intercepted by
the Roman Bodensee[1] Fleet. Year after year, the last time that very
March, the most brilliant reports of its strength and prowess had been
sent to Gaul. The remnant of the foe remaining after the assault from
two or three directions were to be driven by the united bands as far as
possible into the inhospitable northern forests, or forced into the
Danube.

The place of meeting appointed for both divisions was the lofty hill,
half a league north of Friedrichshafen, whence at the present day the
church of Berg dominates the lowlands. At that time it was known as the
Idisenhang,--the hill of the wood-goddesses. The Roman ships, in
crossing d