battle with them near the river Dravus vanquished their army.  Hoping to renew the struggle soon, since many of the Romans also had fallen, they turned to summon their allies, and collected as many as they could.  Meanwhile the Dalmatian Bato had made a descent upon Salonae, and being himself grievously wounded with a stone accomplished nothing, but sent some others, who wrought havoc along the whole sea-coast as far as Apollonia.  There, in spite of his defeat, his representatives won a slight battle against the Romans who encountered them.

[-30-] Tiberius ascertaining this feared they might invade Italy and so returned from Celtica:  he sent Messalinus ahead and himself followed with the rest of the army.  Bato learned of their approach and though not yet well went to meet Messalinus.  He proved the latter’s superior in open conflict but was afterward conquered by an ambuscade.  Thereupon he went to Bato the Breucan, and making common cause with him in the war occupied a mountain named Alma.  Here they were defeated in a slight skirmish by Rhoemetalces the Thracian, despatched in advance against them by Severus, but resisted Severus himself vigorously.  Later Severus withdrew to Moesia because the Dacians and the Sauromatae were ravaging it, and while Tiberius and Messalinus were tarrying in Siscia the Dalmatians overran their allied territory and likewise caused many to revolt.  Although Tiberius approached them, they would engage in no open battle with him but kept moving from one place to another, devastating a great deal of ground.  Owing to their knowledge of the country and the lightness of their equipment they could easily go wherever they pleased.  When winter set in, they did much greater damage by invading Macedonia again.  Rhoemetalces and his brother Rhascuporis got the better of this force in battle.

[A.D. 7 (a. u. 760)]

The rest did not stay in their territory while it was being ravaged (this was principally later, in the consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Lincinius Silanus), but took refuge on the heights, from which they made descents whenever they saw a chance.

[-31-] When Augustus learned this he began to be suspicious of Tiberius, for he thought the latter might have overcome them soon but was delaying purposely so that he might be under arms as long as possible, with war for an excuse.  The emperor therefore sent Germanicus, though he was then quaestor, and gave him soldiers not only from the free born citizens but from the freedmen, some of whom were slaves that he had taken from both men and women, in return for their value, with food for six months, and had set free.  This was not the only measure he took in view of the necessities of the war:  he also postponed the review of the knights, which was wont to occur in the Forum.  And he vowed to conduct the Great Games [18] because a woman had cut some letters on her arm and had practiced some kind of divination.  He knew well, to be sure,