Res Gestae

And since he could not reach his own territories except by crossing the Rhine, he covered his face for fear of being recognised and slowly retired. But when he was already nearing the river-bank and was skirting a lagoon which had been flooded with marsh water, in order to get by, his horse stumbled on the muddy and sticky ground and he was thrown off; but although he was fat and heavy, he quickly escaped to the refuge of a neighbouring hill. But he was recognised (for he could not conceal his identity, being betrayed by the greatness of his former estate); and immediately a cohort with its tribune followed him with breathless haste and surrounded the wooded height with their troops and cautiously invested it, afraid to break in for fear that some hidden ambush might meet them among the dark shadows of the branches.

On seeing them he was driven to the utmost fear and surrendered of his own accord, coming out alone; and his attendants, two hundred in number, with three of his closest friends, thinking it a disgrace to survive their king, or not to die for their king if an emergency required it, gave themselves up to be made prisoners.

And as the savages are by nature humble in adversity and overbearing in success, subservient as he now was to another’s will he was dragged along pale and abashed, tongue-tied by the consciousness of his crimes—how vastly different from

So the battle was thus finished by the favour of the supreme deity; the day had already ended and the trumpet sounded; the soldiers, very reluctant to be recalled, encamped near the banks of the Rhine, protected themselves by numerous rows of shields, and enjoyed food and sleep.

Now there fell in this battle on the Roman side two hundred and forty-three soldiers and four high officers: Bainobaudes, tribune of the Cornuti, and also Laipso; and Innocentius, commander of the mailed cavalry, and one unattached tribune, whose name is not available to me. But of the Alamanni there were counted six thousand corpses lying on the field, and heaps of dead, impossible to reckon, were carried off by the waves of the river.

Thereupon, since Julian was a man of greater mark than his position, and more powerful in his deserts than in his command, he was hailed as Augustus by the unanimous acclamation of the entire army; but he rebuked the soldiers for their thoughtless action, and declared with an oath that he neither expected nor desired to attain that honour.