surrounded with nets, he first of all entered Brumat, and just as he
reached that place he was encountered by a body of Germans prepared for
battle.

13. Having arranged his own army in the form of a crescent, the
engagement began, and the enemy were speedily surrounded and utterly
defeated. Some were taken prisoners, others were slain in the heat of
the battle, the rest sought safety by rapid flight.

III.

Sec. 1. After this, meeting with no resistance, he determined to proceed to
recover Cologne, which had been destroyed before his arrival in Gaul.
In that district there is no city or fortress to be seen except that
near Confluentes;[60] a place so named because there the river Moselle
becomes mingled with the Rhine; there is also the village of Rheinmagen,
and likewise a single tower near Cologne.

2. After having taken possession of Cologne he did not leave it till the
Frank kings began, through fear of him, to abate of their fury, when he
contracted a peace with them likely to be of future advantage to the
republic. In the mean time he put the whole city into a state of
complete defence.

3. Then, auguring well from these first-fruits of victory, he departed,
passing through the district of Treves, with the intention of wintering
at Sens, which was a town very suitable for that purpose. When bearing,
so to say, the weight of a world of wars upon his shoulders, he was
occupied by perplexities of various kinds, and among them how to provide
for establishing in places most exposed to danger the soldiers who had
quitted their former posts; how to defeat the enemies who had conspired
together to injure the Roman cause; and further, how to provide supplies
for the army while employed in so many different quarters.

IV.

Sec. 1. While he was anxiously revolving these things in his mind, he was
attacked by a numerous force of the enemy, who had conceived a hope of
being able to take the town. And they were the more confident of success
because, from the information of deserters, they had learnt that he
neither had with him his Scutarii nor his Gentiles, both of which bodies
of troops had been distributed among the different municipal towns in
order that they might be the more easily supplied with provisions.

2. Therefore after the gates of the city had been barricaded, and the
weakest portions of the walls carefully strengthened, Julian was seen
night and day on the battlements and ramparts, attended by a