Res Gestae

After these achievements in the savages’ country, the camp

When these events had been brought to a successful issue, as has been told, the public welfare required that the standards quickly be transported to the Limigantes, former slaves of the Sarmatians,[*](For their revolt, see 12, 18, above. Limigantes seems to be the name that they assumed (Gibbon, ch. xviii.)) for it was most shameful that they had with impunity committed many infamous outrages. For as if forgetting the past, when the free Sarmatians rebelled, those others also found the opportunity most favourable and broke over the Roman frontier, for this outrage alone making common cause with their masters and enemies.

Nevertheless, it was determined after driving out their former masters; according to others, the Limigantes were a tribe of the Sarmatians.

Accordingly, suspecting that the weight of war would be directed against them, they got ready wiles and arms and entreaties. But at the first sight of our army, as if smitten by a stroke of lightning and anticipating the utmost, after having pleaded for life they promised a yearly tribute, a levy of their able youth, and slavery; but they were ready, as they showed by gestures and expression, to refuse if they should be ordered to move elsewhere, trusting to the protection of the situation in which they had established themselves in security, after driving out their masters.

For the Parthiscus[*](The modern Theiss.) rushing into those lands with winding course, mingles with the Hister.[*](The Danube.) But while it flows alone and unconfined, it slowly traverses a long expanse of broad plain; near its mouth, however, it compresses this into a narrow tract, thus protecting those who dwell there from a Roman attack by the channel of the Danube, and making them safe from the inroads of other savages by the opposition of its own stream; for the greater part of the country is of a marshy nature, and since it is flooded when the rivers rise, is full of pools and overgrown with willows, and therefore impassable except for those well acquainted with the region. Besides this the larger river, enclosing the winding circuit of an island, which almost reaches the mouth

So, at the emperor’s request, they came with their native arrogance to their bank of the river, not, as the event proved, intending to do what they were bidden, but in order not to appear to have feared the presence of the soldiers; and there they stood defiantly, thus giving the impression that they had come there to reject any orders that might be given.

But the emperor, suspecting that this might happen, had secretly divided his army into several bands, and with swift speed enclosed them, while they were delaying, within the lines of his own soldiers; then standing with a few followers on a loftier mound, protected by the defence of his guards, in mild terms he admonished them not to be unruly.

But they, wavering in uncertainty of mind, were distracted different ways, and with mingled craft and fury they thought both of entreaties and of battle; and preparing to sally out on our men where we lay near to them, they purposely threw forward their shields a long way, so that by advancing step by step to recover them they might without any show of treachery gain ground by stealth.

When the day was now declining to evening and the waning light warned them to do away with delay, the soldiers lifted up their standards and rushed upon them in a fiery attack. Thereupon the foe massed themselves together, and, huddled in close order, directed all their attack against the emperor himself, who, as was said, stood on higher ground, charging upon him with fierce looks and savage cries.

The furious madness of this onset

The praetorian cohort, which stood before Augustus and was carefully guarding him, fell upon the breasts of the resisting foe, and then upon their backs as they took flight. And the savages with invincible stubbornness showed as they fell, by their awful shrieking, that they did not so much resent death as the triumph of our soldiers; and besides the dead many lay about hamstrung and thus deprived of the means of flight, others had their right hands cut off, some were untouched by any steel but crushed by the weight of those who rushed over them; but all bore their anguish in deep silence.

And amid their varied torments not a single man asked for pardon or threw down his weapon, or even prayed for a speedy death, but they tightly grasped their weapons, although defeated, and thought it less shameful to be overcome by an enemy’s strength than by the judgement of their own conscience,[*](That is, to be overcome by a superior force rather than yield voluntarily.) while sometimes they were heard to mutter that what befell them was due to fortune, not to their deserts. Thus in the course of half an hour the decision of this battle was reached, and so many savages met a sudden death that the victory alone showed that there had been a fight.

Hardly yet had the hordes of the enemy been laid low, when the kinsfolk of the slain, dragged from their humble cots, were led forth in droves without regard to age or sex, and abandoning the haughtiness of their former life, were reduced to the abjectness of servile submission; and only a brief space of time had elapsed, when heaps of slain and throngs of captives were to be seen.

Then, excited by the heat of battle and the fruits of victory, our soldiers roused themselves to destroy those who had deserted the battle or were lurking in concealment in their huts. And these, when the soldiers had come to the spot thirsting for the blood of the savages, they butchered after tearing to pieces the light straw;[*](With which the houses were thatched.) and no house, even though built with the stoutest of timbers, saved a single one from the danger of death.