Part 35 (1/2)

All he said was true, and the other officers heaped the same 78 reproaches on their heads. The men were drawn up in cohorts and companies, since it was impossible to deploy with the enemy swarming round them, and, the fight being inside the rampart, the tents and baggage were a serious enc.u.mbrance. Tutor and Cla.s.sicus and Civilis, each at his post, were busy rallying their forces, appealing to the Gauls to fight for freedom, the Batavians for glory, and the Germans for plunder. Everything, indeed, went well for the enemy until the Twenty-first legion, who had rallied in a clearer s.p.a.ce than any of the others, first sustained their charge and then repulsed them. Then, by divine providence, on the very point of victory the enemy suddenly lost their nerve and turned tail. They themselves attributed their panic to the appearance of the Roman auxiliaries, who, after being scattered by the first charge, formed again on the hill-tops and were taken for fresh reinforcements. However, what really cost the Gauls their victory was that they let their enemy alone and indulged in ign.o.ble squabbles over the spoil. Thus after Cerialis' carelessness had almost caused disaster, his pluck now saved the day, and he followed up his success by capturing the enemy's camp and destroying it before nightfall.

Cerialis' troops were allowed short respite. Cologne was 79 clamouring for help and offering to surrender Civilis' wife and sister and Cla.s.sicus' daughter, who had been left behind there as pledges of the alliance. In the meantime the inhabitants had ma.s.sacred all the stray Germans to be found in the town. They were now alarmed at this, and had good reason to implore aid before the enemy should recover their strength and bethink themselves of victory, or at any rate of revenge. Indeed, Civilis already had designs on Cologne, and he was still formidable, for the most warlike of his cohorts, composed of Chauci and Frisii,[443] was still in full force at Tolbiac.u.m,[444]

within the territory of Cologne. However, he changed his plans on receiving the bitter news that this force had been entrapped and destroyed by the inhabitants of Cologne. They had entertained them at a lavish banquet, drugged them with wine, shut the doors upon them and burned the place to the ground. At the same moment Cerialis came by forced marches to the relief of Cologne. A further anxiety haunted Civilis. He was afraid that the Fourteenth legion, in conjunction 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 s.h.i.+ps. They also defeated a band of Nervian volunteers who had been recruited in the Roman interest.

Cla.s.sicus 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 l.u.s.tre of the recent Roman victory.[447]

FOOTNOTES:

[416] Round Reims.

[417] Chap. 39.

[418] His sister was t.i.tus'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).