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Notes Display Latin text | Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb Book IV Chapter 48: Revolt in Thracia (cont.)[AD 26] | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
He [Note 1] then moved his camp near to the enemy, leaving in his former entrenchments the Thracians who, as I have mentioned, were with us. These had permission to ravage, burn, and plunder, provided they confined their forays to daylight, and passed the night securely and vigilantly in their camp. This at first they strictly observed. Soon they resigned themselves to enjoyment, and, enriched by plunder, they neglected their guards, and amid feasts and mirth sank down in the carelessness of the banquet, of sleep and of wine. So the enemy, apprised of their heedlessness, prepared two detachments, one of which was to attack the plunderers, the other, to fall on the Roman camp, not with the hope of taking it, but to hinder the din of the other battle from being heard by our soldiers, who, with shouts and missiles around them, would be all intent on their own peril. Night too was chosen for the movement to increase the panic. Those however who tried to storm the entrenchment of the legions were easily repulsed; the Thracians auxiliaries were dismayed by the suddenness of the onset, for though some were lying close to their lines, far more were straggling beyond them, and the massacre was all the more savage, inasmuch as they were taunted with being fugitives and traitors and bearing arms for their own and their country's enslavement. Note 1: He = Sabinus Event: Revolt in Thracia |