18.
Caesar, discovering their design, leads his army into
the territories of Cassivellaunus to the river Thames; which
river can be forded in one place only and that with difficulty. When he had
arrived there, he perceives that numerous forces of the enemy were marshaled on
the other bank of the river; the bank also was defended by sharp stakes fixed in
front, and stakes of the same kind fixed under the water were covered by the
river. These things being discovered from [some] prisoners and deserters, Caesar, sending forward the cavalry, ordered the legions
to follow them immediately. But the soldiers advanced with such speed and such
ardor, though they stood above the water by their heads only, that the enemy
could not sustain the attack of the legions and of the horse, and quitted the
banks, and committed themselves to flight.
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