280 CJESAR. people, Caesar himself has given this account in his com- mentaries, that the barbarians, having sent ambassadors to treat with him, did, during the treaty, set upon him in his march, by which means with eight hundred men they routed five thousand of his horse, who did not sus- pect their coming ; that afterwards they sent other am- bassadors to renew the same fraudulent practices, whom he kept in custody, and led on his army against the bar- barians, as judging it mere simplicity to keep faith with those who had so faithlessly broken the terms they had agreed to. But Tanusius states, that "when the senate decreed festivals and sacrifices for this victory, Cato de- clared it to be his opinion that Caesar ought to be given into the hands of the barbarians, that so the guilt which this breach of faith might otherwise bring upon the state, might be expiated by transferring the curse on him, who was the occasion of it Of those who passed the Rhine, there were four hundred thousand cut off; those few who escaped were sheltered by the Sugambri, a people of Germany. Caesar took hold of this pretence to invade the Germans, being at the same time ambitious of the honor of being the first man that should pass the Rhine with an army. He carried a bridge across it, though it was very wide, and the current at that particular point very full, strong, and violent, bringing down with its waters trunks of trees, and other lumber, which much shook and weakened the foundations of his bridge. But he drove great piles of wood into the bottom of the river above the passage, to catch and stop these as they floated down, and thus fixing his bridle upon the stream, suc- cessfully finished his bridge, which no one who saw could believe to be the work but of ten days. In the passage of his army over it, he met with no op- borhood of the river Sieg. Ta- is quoted by Suetonius. The bridge nusius was an historical wiiter, and was probably a little below Cobleuz.
