The distressed Batavians formed
themselves into a ring, but were again broken, partly by a close assault,
partly by distant showers of darts. Cariovalda, having long sustained the
fury of the enemy, exhorted his men to draw up into platoons, and break
through the prevailing host; he himself forced his way into their centre,
and fell with his horse under a shower of darts, and many of the principal
Batavians round him; the rest were saved by their own bravery, or rescued
by the cavalry under Stertinius and Aemilius.
Germanicus, having passed the Visurgis, learned from a deserter, that
Arminius had marked out the place of battle; that more nations had also
joined him; that they rendezvoused in a wood sacred to Hercules, and would
attempt to storm our camp by night. The deserter was believed; the enemy's
fires were discerned; and the scouts having advanced towards them,
reported that they had heard the neighing of horses, and the hollow murmur
of a mighty and tumultuous host. In this important conjuncture, upon the
approach of a decisive battle, Germanicus thought it behoved him to learn
the inclinations and spirit of the soldiers and deliberated with himself
how to be informed without fraud: "for the reports of the Tribunes and
Centurions used to be oftener pleasing than true; his Freedmen had still
slavish souls, incapable of free speech; friends were apt to flatter;
there was the same uncertainty in an assemble, where the counsel proposed
by a few was wont to be echoed by all; in truth, the minds of the soldiery
were then best known, when they were least watched; when free and over
their meals, they frankly disclosed their hopes and fears.
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