The Romans under Germanicus having reached Raetinium, a city of Dalmatia, fared rather badly.  Their opponents, forced back by the numbers, could not resist them and therefore placed fire in a circle about themselves and threw it into the buildings near by, devising a way to keep it surely from blazing up at once and to make it go unnoticed for a long time.  The enemy after doing this retired to the heights.  The Romans, unaware of their action, followed hard after them expecting to find no work at all in pillaging extensively.  Thus they got inside of the circle of fire and with their minds directed upon the enemy saw nothing of it until they were encompassed by it on all sides.  Then they found themselves in imminent danger, being pelted by men from above and injured by fire from without.  They could neither safely stay where they were nor break their way out without danger.  If they stood out of range of the missiles they were consumed by the fire, or if they jumped away from the flame they were destroyed by the hurlers of missiles.  Some were caught in narrow places and perished by both at once, wounded on one side and burned on the other.  The majority of those who entered the circle met their fate in this way.  Some few by casting corpses into the very flame and making a passage over them as over bridges managed to escape.  The fire gained such headway that not even those on the acropolis could stay there, but abandoned it in the night and hid themselves in subterranean chambers.

[-12-] These were the operations at that point.—­Seretium, which Tiberius had once besieged but not captured, was subdued, and after this some other towns were more easily won.  But since the remainder even under these conditions offered resistance and the war kept lengthening out and famine came in its train, especially in Italy, Augustus sent Tiberius again into Dalmatia.  He saw that the soldiers were not for enduring further delay and were anxious to end the war in some way eyen if it involved danger; therefore, fearing that if they remained in one place together they might revolt, he divided them into three parts.  One he assigned to Silvanus and one to Marcus Lepidus; with the remainder he marched with Germanicus against Bato.  Without difficulty the two former overcame those arrayed in battle opposite them.  Tiberius himself went wandering off through practically the entire country, as Bato appeared first at one point and then at another:  finally, Bato took refuge in Fort Andetrium, located close to Salonae, and Tiberius, who besieged him, found himself in sore straits.  The garrison had the protection of fortifications built upon a well guarded rock, difficult of access, encircled by deep ravines through which torrents roared, and the men had all necessary provisions, part of which they had previously stored there, while a part they were still bringing from the mountains, which were in their hands.  Moreover, by ambuscades they interfered with the Roman provision trains.  Hence Tiberius, though supposed to be besieging them, was himself placed in the position of a besieged force.