Res Gestae

The rest were brought to Milan and cruelly tortured; and since they admitted that while feasting they had uttered some saucy expressions, it was ordered that they be kept in close confinement[*](Cf. Cod. Just., x. 19, 2, carcer poenalium. ) with some hope (though doubtful) of acquittal. But the members of the emperor’s guard, after being sentenced to leave the country for exile, since Marinus with their connivance had been allowed to die, at the suit of Arbetio obtained pardon.

The affair thus ended, war was declared on the . . .[*](See critical note.) and Lentienses,[*](Dwelling in the neighbourhood of Lentia, modern Lenze.) tribes of the Alamanni, who often made extensive inroads through the Roman frontier defences. On that expedition the emperor himself set out and came to Raetia and the Campi Canini;[*](Plains in Raetia, round about Bellinzona.) and after long and careful deliberation it seemed both honorable and expedient that, while he waited there with a part of the soldiers, Arbetio, commander of the cavalry, with the stronger part of the army should march on,

Between the defiles of lofty mountains the Rhine rises and pours with mighty current over high rocks, without receiving tributary streams, just as the Nile with headlong descent pours over the cataracts. And it could be navigated from its very source, since it overflows with waters of its own, did it not run along like a torrent rather than a quietly flowing river.

And now rolling to level ground and cutting its way between high and widely separated banks, it enters a vast round lake, which its Raetian neighbour calls Brigantia;[*](The Lake Constance.) this is four hundred and sixty stades long and in breadth spreads over an almost equal space; it is inaccessible through the bristling woods of the gloomy forest except where that old-time practical Roman ability, in spite of the opposition of the savages, the nature of the region, and the rigour of the climate, constructed a broad highroad.

Into this pool, then, the river bursts roaring with frothing eddies, and cleaving the sluggish quiet of the waters, cuts through its midst as if with a boundary line. And as if the element were divided by an everlasting discord, without increasing or diminishing the volume which it carried in, it emerges with name and force unchanged, and without thereafter suffering any contact it mingles with Ocean’s flood.

And

In the same way the river Alpheus, rising in Arcadia and falling in love with the fountain Arethusa, cleaves the Ionian Sea, as the myth tells us, and hastens to the retreat[*](The spring of Ortygia, at Syracuse in Sicily.) of the beloved nymph.

Arbetio did not wait for the coming of messengers to announce the arrival of the savages, although he knew that a dangerous war was on foot, and when he was decoyed into a hidden ambuscade, he stood immovable, overwhelmed by the sudden mischance.

For the enemy sprang unexpectedly out of their lurking-places and without sparing pierced with many kinds of weapons everything within reach; and in fact not one of our men could resist, nor could they hope for any other means of saving their lives than swift flight. Therefore the soldiers, bent on avoiding wounds, straggled here and there in disorderly march, exposing their backs to blows. Very many however, scattering by narrow by-paths and saved from danger by the protecting darkness of the night, when daylight returned recovered their strength and rejoined each his own company. In this mischance, so heavy and so unexpected, an excessive number of soldiers and ten tribunes were lost.

As a result the Alamanni, elated in spirit, came on more boldly the following day against the Roman works; and while the morning mist obscured