Res Gestae

His confidence now increased by this successful stroke, the result of both valour and good fortune, Jovinus led on his soldiers, sending ahead an efficient scouting party, and hastily advanced against the remaining third division; and when by a rapid march he came near Châlons,[*](Châlons-sur-Marne.) he found the enemy fully ready for battle.

Having measured off a stockade to suit the conditions, and refreshed his men with food and sleep, so far as time allowed, at the first coming of dawn he drew up his line of battle in the open plain; and he extended it with such skilful art, that the Romans, who were inferior in number (though equal in strength), by occupying a greater space appeared to be as numerous as the enemy.[*](Cf. xxiv. 1, 3.)

And so, when the signal had been given by the trumpet and they began to engage at close quarters, the Germans stood amazed, terrified by the fearful sight of the gleaming standards. For a while their ardour was blunted, but they quickly recovered and prolonged the fighting to the end of the day; and our vigorously attacking soldiers would have gained the fruit of victory without loss, had not Balchobaudes, tribune of the heavy-armed guard, a man by nature both boastful and cowardly, withdrawn in disorder at the approach of evening. And if the rest of the cohorts had followed his example and left the field, the affair would have come to such a sad ending that not one of our number could have survived to tell what had happened.

But the soldiers resisted with bold energy and courage, and were so superior in strength that they wounded 4000 of the enemy and

When therefore the battle was now broken off by the coming of night, and the wearied soldiers had recovered their strength, their distinguished general towards daybreak led forward his army in square formation[*](I.e., ready for battle; see note, p. 270.) ; and finding that the savages had slipped away under cover of darkness, free from worry about ambuscades he followed them over the open and easy plains, trampling underfoot the dying, and the contracted bodies of those whom, since the severity of the cold had drawn their wounds together, the extreme pain had taken off.

Then, after advancing farther but returning on finding none of the enemy, he learned that the Ascarii[*](Named, with the Eruli and the Batavi, among the court troops: (erant) inter auxilia Palatina sexaginta quinque (Not. Imper. Occid. v. 157, Seeck).) (whom he himself had sent by another route to plunder the tents of the Alamanni) had captured a king of the hostile army with a few of his followers, and had gibbeted him. Angered at this, he decided to punish the tribune who had ventured to take this action without consulting higher authority; and he would have condemned him to death, if it had not been clear from convincing evidence that the cruel deed had been committed through passion to which soldiers are prone.[*](That is, without the tribune’s knowledge and giving him no chance to intervene.)