The army
then marched against the Silures, a naturally fierce people and now full of
confidence in the might of Caractacus, who by many an indecisive and many a
successful battle had raised himself far above all the other generals
of the
Britons. Inferior in military strength, but deriving an advantage from the
deceptiveness of the country, he at once shifted the war by a stratagem into
the territory of the Ordovices, where, joined by all who dreaded peace with
us, he resolved on a final struggle. He selected a position for the
engagement in which advance and retreat alike would be difficult for our men
and comparatively easy for his own, and then on some lofty hills, wherever
their sides could be approached by a gentle slope, he piled up stones to
serve as a rampart. A river too of varying depth was in his front, and his
armed bands were drawn up before his defences.
