At the consecration of the hero-shrine there were all sorts of contests, and the children of the nobles performed the Troy equestrian exercise.  Men who were their peers also contended on chargers and pairs and three-horse teams.  A certain Quintus Vitellius, a senator, fought as a gladiator.  All kinds of wild beasts and kine were slain by the wholesale, among them a rhinoceros and a hippopotamus, then seen for the first time in Rome.  Many have described the appearance of the hippo and it has been seen by many more.  As for the rhinoceros, it is in most respects like an elephant, but has a projecting horn at the very tip of its nose and through this fact has received its name.  Besides the introduction of these beasts Dacians and Suebi fought in throngs with each other.  The latter are Celts, the former a species of Scythian.  The Suebi, to be exact, dwell across the Rhine (though many cities elsewhere claim their name), and the Dacians on both sides of the Ister.  Such of them, however, as live on this side of it and near the Triballic country are reckoned in with the district of Moesia and are called Moesi save among those who are in the very neighborhood.  Such as are on the other side are called Dacians, and are either a branch of the Getae or Thracians belonging to the Dacian race that once inhabited Rhodope.  Now these Dacians had before this time sent envoys to Caesar:  but when they obtained none of their requests, they turned away to follow Antony.  To him, however, they were of no great assistance, owing to disputes among themselves.  Some were consequently captured and later set to fight the Suebi.

The whole spectacle lasted naturally a number of days.  There was no intermission in spite of a sickness of Caesar’s, but it was carried on in his absence, under the direction of others.  During its course the senators on one day severally held banquets in the entrance to their homes.  Of what moved them to this I have no knowledge, for it has not been recorded.  Such was the progress of the events of those days.

[-23-] While Caesar was yet in his fourth consulship Statilius Taurus had both constructed at his own expense and dedicated with armed combat a hunting-theatre of stone on the Campus Martius.  On this account he was permitted by the people to choose one of the praetors year after year.  During this same period Marcus Crassus was sent into Macedonia and Greece and carried on war with the Dacians and Bastarnae.  It has already been stated who the former were and how they had been made hostile.  The Bastarnae are properly classed as Scythians and at this time had crossed the Ister and subdued the part of Moesia opposite them, then the Triballi who live near it, and the Dardani who inhabit the Triballian country.  While they were so engaged they had no trouble with the Romans.  But when they crossed the Haemus and overran the portion of Thrace belonging to the Dentheleti who had a compact with Rome, then Crassus,