On seeing some others in a gathering with soldiers of Sertorius from Spain who carried on the war with more strategy than recklessness, believing that the Romans through lack of supplies would soon abandon the country, he pretended to be afraid of them.  Though incurring their contempt he did not even so draw them into a conflict with him, but while they were calmly awaiting developments he attacked them suddenly and unexpectedly.  At the point where he met them he accomplished nothing, because the barbarians advanced and repelled him vigorously; but while their main force was there, he sent some men around to the other side of their camp, got possession of this, which was destitute of men, and passing through it took the fighters in the rear.  In this way they were all annihilated, and the rest, all but a few, made terms without a murmur.

[B.C. 55 (a.u. 699)]

[-47-] This was the work of the summer.  While the Romans were in winter quarters on friendly ground the Tencteri and Usipetes, Celtic tribes, partly because forced out by the Suebi and partly because called upon by the Gauls, crossed the Rhine and invaded the country of the Treveri.  Finding Caesar there they became afraid and sent to him to make a truce, asking for land or at least the permission to take some.  When they could obtain none, at first they promised voluntarily to return to their homes and requested an armistice.  Later their young men, seeing a few horsemen of his approaching, despised them and altered their determination:  thereupon they stopped their journey, harassed the small detachment, which would not await their attack, and elated over this success continued the war.

[-48-] Their elders, condemning their action, came to Caesar even contrary to their advice and asked him to pardon them, laying the responsibility upon a few.  He detained these emissaries with the assurance that he would give them an answer before long, set out against the other members of the tribe, who were in their tents, and came upon them as they were passing the noon hour and expecting no hostile demonstration, inasmuch as the delegation was with him.

Rushing into the tents[57] he found great numbers of infantrymen who did not have time even to pick up their weapons, and he cut them down near the wagons where they were disturbed by the presence of the women and the children scattered promiscuously about.  The cavalry was absent at the time, and immediately, when the men learned of the occurrence, they set out to their native abodes and retired among the Sugambri.  He sent after them and demanded their surrender, not because he expected that they would give themselves up to him (the men beyond the Rhine were not so afraid of the Romans as to listen to anything of that sort), but in order that on this excuse he might cross the stream itself.  He himself was exceedingly anxious to do something that no one had previously equaled, and he expected to keep the Celts at a distance from