Res Gestae

The Goths on the other hand, bearing in mind the dangerous chances of war, and worried from seeing their bravest men stretched dead or wounded, while their strength was being worn away bit by bit, formed a clever plan, which Justice herself revealed.

For they enticed some of our subalterns, who had deserted to them the day before, to simulate flight, as if returning to their own side, and to manage to be admitted within the walls, and when let in, secretly to set fire to some part of the city; in order that as if a kind of secret signal had been raised, while the attention of the throng of the besieged was distracted with[*](For this meaning of circa, cf. occupatam circa messem agrestem, xxix. 6, 6.) extinguishing the flames, the city, left undefended, might be broken into.