Bold before the danger came and timid in the moment of peril, the Helvetii, though at the commencement of the movement they had chosen Claudius Severus for their leader, knew not how to use their arms, to keep their ranks, or to act in concert. A pitched battle with veteran troops would be destruction, a siege would be perilous with fortifications old and ruinous. On the one side was Cæcina at the head of a powerful army, on the other were the auxiliary infantry and cavalry of Rhætia and the youth of that province, inured to arms and exercised in habits of warfare. All around were slaughter and devastation. Wandering to and fro between the two armies, the Helvetii threw aside their arms, and with a large proportion of wounded and stragglers fled for refuge to Mount Vocetius. They were immediately dislodged by the attack of some Thracian infantry. Closely pursued by the Germans and Rhætians they were cut down in their forests and even in their hiding places. Thousands were put to the sword, thousands more were sold into slavery. Every place having been completely destroyed, the army was marching in regular order on Aventicum, the capital town, when a deputation was sent to surrender the city. This surrender was accepted. Julius Alpinus, one of the principal men, was executed by Cæcina, as having been the promoter of the war. All the rest he left to the mercy or severity of Vitellius.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
