Res Gestae

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