the object of coming to an immediate
engagement with the barbarians. And I will here describe the character
of the ground briefly, as well as I can.

2. The Rhine rising among the defiles of lofty mountains, and forcing
its way with immense violence through steep rocks, stretches its onward
course without receiving any foreign waters, in the same manner as the
Nile pours down with headlong descent through the cataracts. And it is
so abundantly full by its own natural riches that it would be navigable
up to its very source were it not like a torrent rather than a stream.

3. And soon after it has disentangled itself from its defiles, rolling
onward between high banks, it enters a vast lake of circular form, which
the Rhaetian natives call Brigantia,[36] being four hundred and sixty
furlongs in length, and of nearly equal extent in breadth,
unapproachable on account of a vast mass of dark woods, except where the
energy of the Romans has made a wide road through them, in spite of the
hostility of the barbarians, and the unfavourable character both of the
ground and the climate.

4. The Rhine forcing its way into this pool, and roaring with its
foaming eddies, pierces the sluggish quiet of the waters, and rushes
through the middle from one end to the other. And like an element
separated from some other element by eternal discord, without any
increase or diminution of the volume of water which it has brought into
the lake, it comes forth from it again with its old name and its
unalloyed power, never having suffered from the contact, and so proceeds
till it mingles with the waves of the sea.

5. And what is exceedingly strange, the lake is not moved at all by this
rapid passage of the river through it, nor is it affected by the muddy
soil beneath the waters of the lake; the two bodies of water being
incapable of mingling with each other. A thing which would be supposed
impossible, did not the very sight of the lake prove the fact.

6. In a similar manner, the Alpheus, rising in Arcadia, being seized
with a love for the fountain Arethusa,[37] passing through the Ionian
sea, as is related by the poets, proceeds onward till it arrives at the
neighbourhood of its beloved fountain.

* * * * *

7. Arbetio not choosing to wait till messengers arrived to announce the
approach of the barbarians, although he knew the fierce way in which
they begin their wars, allowed himself to be betrayed into a