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. Their cattle too, penned up close to them, after the fashion of barbarians, were dying of want of fodder; near them lay human bodies which had perished from wounds or thirst, and the whole place was befouled with rotting carcases and stench and infection. To their confusion was added the growing misery of discord, some thinking of surrender, others of destruction by mutual blows. Some there were who suggested a sortie instead of an unavenged death, and these were all men of spirit, though they differed in their plans.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. reprinted 1942.
