He then moved his camp
near to the enemy, leaving in his former entrenchments the Thracians who, as
I have mentioned, were with us. These had permission to ravage, burn, and
plunder, provided they confined their forays to daylight, and passed the
night securely and vigilantly in their camp. This at first they strictly
observed. Soon they resigned themselves to enjoyment, and, enriched by
plunder, they neglected their guards, and amid feasts and mirth sank down in
the carelessness of the banquet, of sleep and of wine. So the enemy,
apprised of their heedlessness, prepared two detachments, one of which was
to attack the
REBELLION IN THRACE
CRUSHED |
plunderers, the other, to fall on the Roman camp, not with
the hope of taking it, but to hinder the din of the other battle from being
heard by our soldiers, who, with shouts and missiles around them, would be
all intent on their own peril. Night too was chosen for the movement to
increase the panic. Those however who tried to storm the entrenchment of the
legions were easily repulsed; the Thracian auxiliaries were dismayed by the
suddenness of the onset, for though some were lying close to their lines,
far more were straggling beyond them, and the massacre was all the more
savage, inasmuch as they were taunted with being fugitives and traitors and
bearing arms for their own and their country's enslavement.
