Caesar
9Legati haec se ad suos relaturos dixerunt et re deliberata post diem tertium ad Caesarem reversuros: interea ne propius se castra moveret, petierunt. Ne id quidem Caesar ab se impetrari posse dixit. Cognoverat enim magnam partem equitatus ab eis aliquot diebus ante praedandi frumentandique causa ad Ambivaritos trans Mosam missam: hos exspectari equites atque eius rei causa moram interponi arbitrabatur.
10Mosa profluit ex monte Vosego, qui est in finibus Lingonum, et parte quadam ex Rheno recepta, quae appellatur Vacalus, insulam efficit Batavorum, neque longius ab Oceano milibus passuum lxxx in Rhenum influit. Rhenus autem oritur ex Lepontiis, qui Alpes incolunt, et longo spatio per fines Nantuatium, Helvetiorum, Sequanorum, Mediomatricum, Tribocorum, Treverorum citatus fertur et, ubi Oceano appropinquavit, in plures defluit partes multis ingentibusque insulis effectis, quarum pars magna a feris barbarisque nationibus incolitur, ex quibus sunt, qui piscibus atque ovis avium vivere existimantur, multisque capitibus in Oceanum influit.
11Caesar cum ab hoste non amplius passuum xii milibus abesset, ut erat constitutum, ad eum legati revertuntur; qui in itinere congressi magnopere ne longius progrederetur orabant. Cum id non impetrassent, petebant uti ad eos equites, qui agmen antecessissent, praemitteret eosque pugna prohiberet, sibique ut potestatem faceret in Vbios legatos mittendi; quorum si principes ac senatus sibi iureiurando
Gallic War, Book IV
The envoys said that they would report this to their people and, after deliberation upon the matter, return to Caesar in three days: they asked him not to move his camp nearer in the meanwhile. Caesar replied that he could not even grant that request. He knew, in fact, that they had sent a large detachment of cavalry some days before to the country of the Ambivariti across the Meuse, to get booty and corn: he supposed that they were waiting for this cavalry, and for that reason sought to interpose delay.
The Meuse flows from the range of the Vosges, in the territory of the Lingones, and, receiving from the Rhine a certain tributary called the Waal, forms the island of the Batavi; then, no more than eighty miles from the Ocean, it flows into the Rhine. The Rhine rises in the land of the Lepontii, who inhabit the Alps; in a long, swift course it runs through the territories of the Nantuates, Helvetii, Sequani, Mediomatrices, Triboci, and Treveri, and on its approach to the Ocean divides into several streams, forming many large islands (a great number of which are inhabited by fierce barbaric tribes, believed in some instances to live on fish and birds’ eggs); then by many mouths it flows into the Ocean.
When Caesar was no more than twelve miles away from the enemy, the deputies returned to him as agreed: they met him on the march, and besought him earnestly not to advance further. When their request was not granted, they asked him to send forward to the cavalry in advance of his column and to prevent them from engaging, and to grant themselves an opportunity of sending deputies into the land of the Ubii. They put forward the hope that, if the chiefs and the senate of the Ubii pledged their