7.
Having provided corn and selected his cavalry, he began to direct his march
toward those parts in which he heard the Germans
were. When he was distant from them only a few days' march, embassadors came to
him from their state, whose speech was as follows: "That the Germans neither make war upon the Roman
people first, nor do they decline, if they are provoked, to engage with them in
arms; for that this was the custom of the Germans
handed down to them from their forefathers, -to resist whatsoever people make
war upon them and not to avert it by entreaty; this, however, they
confessed,-that they had come hither reluctantly, having been expelled from
their country. If the Romans were disposed to accept
their friendship, they might be serviceable allies to them; and let them either
assign them lands, or permit them to retain those which they had acquired by
their arms; that they are inferior to the Suevi alone, to whom not
even the immortal gods can show themselves equal; that there was none at all
besides on earth whom they could not conquer."
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