sing out] of
battle being laid aside, the greater part of his forces being dismissed,
and about 4000 charioteers only being left, used to observe our marches
and retire a little from the road, and conceal himself in intricate and
woody places, and in those neighbourhoods in which he had discovered we
were about to march, he used to drive the cattle and the inhabitants
from the fields into the woods; and, when our cavalry, for the sake of
plundering and ravaging the more freely, scattered themselves among the
fields, he used to send out charioteers from the woods by all the
well-known roads and paths, and, to the great danger of our horse, engage
with them; and this source of fear hindered them from straggling very
extensively. The result was that Caesar did not allow excursions to be
made to a great distance from the main body of the legions, and ordered
that damage should be done to the enemy in ravaging their lands and
kindling fires only so far as the legionary soldiers could, by their own
exertion and marching, accomplish it.

XX.--In the meantime, the Trinobantes, almost the most powerful state of
those parts, from which the young man Mandubratius embracing the
protection of Caesar had come to the continent of Gaul to [meet] him
(whose father, Imanuentius, had possessed the sovereignty in that state,
and had been killed by Cassivellaunus; he himself had escaped death by
flight), send ambassadors to Caesar, and promise that they will
surrender themselves to him and perform his commands; they entreat him
to protect Mandubratius from the violence of Cassivellaunus, and send to
their state some one to preside over it, and possess the government.
Caesar demands forty hostages from them, and corn for his army, and
sends Mandubratius to them. They speedily performed the things demanded,
and sent hostages to the number appointed, and the corn.

XXI.--The Trinobantes being protected and secured from any violence of
the soldiers, the Cenimagni, the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, the Bibroci,
and the Cassi, sending embassies, surrender themselves to Caesar. From
them he learns that the capital town of Cassivellaunus was not far from
that place, and was defended by woods and morasses, and a very large
number of men and of cattle had been collected in it. (Now the Britons,
when they have fortified the intricate woods, in which they are wont to
assemble for the purpose of avoiding the incursion of an enemy, with an
entrenchment and