r rear, while their attention was directed elsewhere.

9. The Limigantes became aware of the measures thus promptly taken, but
still employed no other means of defence than humility and entreaty;
though secretly they cherished designs very different from those
indicated by their words and gestures.

10. But when they saw the emperor on his high mound preparing a mild
harangue, and about to address them as men who would prove obedient in
future, one of them, seized with a sudden fury, hurled his shoe at the
tribune, and cried out, "Marha, Marha!" which in their language is a
signal of war; and a disorderly mob following him, suddenly raised their
barbaric standard, and with fierce howls rushed upon the emperor
himself.

11. And when he, looking down from his high position, saw the whole
place filled with thousands of men running to and fro, and their drawn
swords and rapiers threatening him with immediate destruction, he
descended, and mingling both with the barbarians and his own men,
without any one perceiving him or knowing whether he was an officer or a
common soldier; and since there was no time for delay or inaction, he
mounted a speedy horse, and galloped away, and so escaped.

12. But his few guards, while endeavouring to keep back the mutineers,
who rushed on with the fierceness of fire, were all killed, either by
wounds, or by being crushed beneath the weight of others who fell upon
them; and the royal throne, with its golden cushion, was torn to pieces
without any one making an effort to save it.

13. But presently, when it became known that the emperor, after having
been in the most imminent danger of his life, was still in peril, the
army, feeling it to be the most important of all objects to assist him,
for they did not yet think him safe, and confiding in their prowess,
though from the suddenness of the attack they were only half formed,
threw themselves, with loud and warlike cries upon the bands of the
barbarians, fearlessly braving death.

14. And because in their fiery valour our men were resolved to wipe out
disgrace by glory, and were full of anger at the treachery of the foe,
they slew every one whom they met without mercy, trampling all under
foot, living, wounded, and dead alike; so that heaps of dead were piled
up before their hands were weary of the slaughter. For the rebels were
completely overwhelmed, some being slain, and others fleeing in fear,
many of whom implored their lives with va