Those who assailed the lines of the legions were easily repulsed:
but, the auxiliary Thracians were terrified with the sudden encounter, as
they were utterly unprepared. Part of them lay along the entrenchments;
many were roaming abroad; and both were slain with the keener vengeance,
as they were upbraided "for fugitives and traitors, who bore arms to
establish servitude over their country and themselves."
Next day Sabinus drew up his army in view of the enemy, on ground equal to
both; to try, if elated with their success by night, they would venture a
battle: and, when they still kept within the fortress, or on the cluster
of hills, he began to begird them with a siege; and strengthening his old
lines and adding new, enclosed a circuit of four miles. Then to deprive
them of water and forage, he straitened his entrenchment by degrees, and
hemmed them in still closer. A bulwark was also raised, whence the enemy
now within throw, were annoyed with discharges of stones, darts, and fire.
But nothing aggrieved them so vehemently as thirst, whilst only a single
fountain remained amongst a huge multitude of armed men and families:
their horses too and cattle, penned up with the people, after the
barbarous manner of the country, perished for want of provender: amongst
the carcasses of beasts lay those of men; some dead of thirst, some of
their wounds; a noisome mixture of misery and death; all was foul and
tainted with putrefaction, stench, and filthy contamination.
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