obable things
which had met him since yesterday, was added another. But being weak and
without his slaves, he restrained himself, especially since a wish to
learn some details of Lygia's life gained the upper hand in him.

When he had calmed himself, therefore, he inquired about the war of the
Lygians against Vannius and the Suevi. Ursus was glad to converse, but
could not add much that was new to what in his time Aulus Plautius had
told. Ursus had not been in battle, for he had attended the hostages to
the camp of Atelius Hister. He knew only that the Lygians had beaten the
Suevi and the Yazygi, but that their leader and king had fallen from
the arrows of the Yazygi. Immediately after they received news that the
Semnones had set fire to forests on their boundaries, they returned in
haste to avenge the wrong, and the hostages remained with Atelius, who
ordered at first to give them kingly honors. Afterward Lygia's mother
died. The Roman commander knew not what to do with the child. Ursus
wished to return with her to their own country, but the road was unsafe
because of wild beasts and wild tribes. When news came that an
embassy of Lygians had visited Pomponius, offering him aid against the
Marcomani, Hister sent him with Lygia to Pomponius. When they came to
him they learned, however, that no ambassadors had been there, and in
that way they remained in the camp; whence Pomponius took them to Rome,
and at the conclusion of his triumph he gave the king's daughter to
Pomponia Graecina.

Though only certain small details of this narrative had been unknown to
Vinicius, he listened with pleasure, for his enormous pride of family
was pleased that an eye-witness had confirmed Lygia's royal descent. As
a king's daughter she might occupy a position at Caesar's court equal to
the daughters of the very first families, all the more since the nation
whose ruler her father had been, had not warred with Rome so far, and,
though barbarian, it might become terrible; for, according to Atelius
Hister himself, it possessed an immense force of warriors. Ursus,
moreover, confirmed this completely.

"We live in the woods," said he, in answer to Vinicius, "but we have so
much land that no man knows where the end is, and there are many people
on it. There are also wooden towns in the forest, in which there is
great plenty; for what the Semnones, the Marcomani, the Vandals, and the
Quadi plunder through the world, we take from them. They dare n