Res Gestae

So, as he now had firmer hope of success in resisting their attacks, he proceeded among many dangers to Troyes, reaching there so unlooked for, that when he was almost knocking at the gates, the fear of the widespread bands of savages was such, that entrance to the city was vouchsafed only after anxious debate.

And after staying there a short time, out of consideration for his tired soldiers, he felt that he ought not to delay, and made for the city of Rheims. There he had ordered the whole army to assemble with provisions for a month and to await his coming; the place was commanded by Ursicinus’ successor Marcellus, and Ursicinus himself was directed to serve in the same region until the end of the campaign.

Accordingly, after the expression of

And because the day was misty and overcast, so that even objects close at hand could not be seen, the enemy, aided by their acquaintance with the country, went around by way of a crossroad and made an attack on the two legions bringing up the rear of the Caesar’s army. And they would nearly have annihilated them, had not the shouts that they suddenly raised brought up the reinforcements of our allies.

Then and thereafter, thinking that he could cross neither roads nor rivers without ambuscades, Julian was wary and hesitant, which is a special merit in grett commanders, and is wont both to help and to save their armies.

Hearing therefore that Strasburg, Brumath, Saverne, Seltz, Speyer, Worms, and Mayence were held by the savages, who were living on their lands (for the towns themselves they avoid as if they were tombs surrounded by nets),[*](In xxxi. 2, 4, a similar statement is made of the Huns, that they avoid houses as they would tombs. E. Maass, Neue Jahrb., xlix. (1922) pp. 205 ff., says that graves of women who died in childbed, and might return to get their offspring, were surrounded with nets.) he first of all seized Brumath, but while he was still approaching it a band of Germans met him and offered battle.

Julian drew up his forces in the form of a crescent, and when the fight began to come to close quarters, the enemy were overwhelmed by a double danger; some were captured, others were slain in the very heat of the battle, and the rest got away, saved by recourse to speed.

Accordingly, as after this no one offered resistance, Julian decided to go and recover Cologne, which had been destroyed before his arrival in Gaul.[*](See xv. 8, 19.) In all that region there is no city to be seen and no stronghold, except that at the Confluence, a place so called because there the river Moselle mingles with the Rhine, there is the town of Remagen[*](Near Coblenz, which gets its name from Confluentes. ) and a single tower near Cologne itself.

So, having entered Cologne, he did not stir from there until he had overawed the Frankish kings and lessened their pugnacity, had made a peace with them which would benefit the state meanwhile, and had recovered that very strongly fortified city.

Pleased with these first-fruits of victory, he passed through the land of the Treveri, and went to winter at Sens, a town which was then convenient. There, bearing on his shoulders, as the saying is, the burden of a flood of wars,[*](See p. 82, n. 5.) he was distracted by manifold cares—how the soldiers who had abandoned their usual posts might be taken back to danger-points, how he might scatter the tribes that had conspired to the hurt of the Roman cause, and how to see to it that food should not fail his army as it was about to range in different directions.