Suddenly attacking the praetor of the province, Lucius Piso, as he was travelling in all the carelessness of peace, he killed him with a single wound.He then fled on a swift horse, and reached a wooded country, where he parted with his steed and eluded pursuit amid rocky and pathless wilds.But he was soon discovered.The horse was caught and led through the neighbouring villages, and its owner ascertained.Being found and put to the torture that he might be forced to reveal his accomplices, he exclaimed in a loud voice, in the language of his country, that it was in vain to question him; his comrades might stand by and look on, but that the most intense agony would not wring the truth from him.Next day, when he was dragged back to torture, he broke loose from his guards and dashed his head against a stone with such violence that he instantly fell dead.It was however believed that Piso was treacherously murdered by the Termestini.
Some public money had been embezzled, and he was pressing for its payment too rigorously for the patience of barbarians.
In the consulship of Lentulus Gaetulicus and Caius Calvisius, triumphal distinctions were decreed to Poppaeus Sabinus, for a crushing defeat of some Thracian tribes, whose wild life in the highlands of a mountainous country made them unusually fierce.Besides their natural ferocity, the rebellion had its origin in their scornful refusal to endure levies and to supply our armies with their bravest men.Even native princes they would obey only according to their caprice, and if they sent aid, they used to appoint their own leaders and fight only against their neighbours.A rumour had then spread itself among them that, dispersed and mingled with other tribes, they were to be dragged away to distant countries.Before however they took up arms, they sent envoys with assurances of their friendship and loyalty, which, they said, would continue, if they were not tried by any fresh burden.But if they were doomed to slavery as a conquered people, they had swords and young warriors and a spirit bent on freedom or resigned to death.As they spoke, they pointed to fortresses amid rocks whither they had conveyed their parents and their wives, and threatened us with a difficult, dangerous and sanguinary war.
Sabinus meantime, while he was concentrating his troops, returned gentle answers; but on the arrival of Pomponius Labeo with a legion from Moesia and of king Rhoemetalces with some reinforcements from his subjects, who had not thrown off their allegiance, with these and the force he had on the spot, he advanced on the enemy, who were drawn up in some wooded defiles.Some ventured to show themselves on the open hills; these the Roman general approached in fighting order and easily dislodged them, with only a small slaughter of the barbarians, who had not far to flee.In this position he soon established a camp, and held with a strong detachment a narrow and unbroken mountain ridge, stretching as far as the next fortress, which was garrisoned by a large force of armed soldiers along with some irregulars.Against the boldest of these, who after the manner of their country were disporting themselves with songs and dances in front of the rampart, he sent some picked archers, who, discharging distant volleys, inflicted many wounds without loss to themselves.
As they advanced, a sudden sortie put them to the rout, and they fell back on the support of a Sugambrian cohort, drawn up at no great distance by the Roman general, ready for any emergency and as terrible as the foe, with the noise of their war songs and the clashing of their arms.
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 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.
Next day Sabinus displayed his forces in the plain, on the chance of the barbarians being encouraged by the night's success to risk an engagement.Finding that they did not quit the fortress and the adjoining hills, he began a siege by means of the works which he had opportunely began to construct; then he drew a fosse and stockade enclosing an extent of four miles, and by degrees contracted and narrowed his lines, with the view of cutting off their water and forage.He also threw up a rampart, from which to discharge stones, darts, and brands on the enemy, who was now within range.It was thirst however which chiefly distressed them, for there was only one spring for the use of a vast multitude of soldiers and non-combatants.
