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48Their elders, condemning their action, came to Caesar contrary to their advice and asked him to pardon them, laying the responsibility upon a few. He detained these emissaries with the assurance that he would give them an answer before long, 2and setting out against the other members of the tribe, who were in their tents, he came upon them as they were taking their noonday rest and expecting no hostile move, inasmuch as their elders were with him. Rushing into the tents, he found great numbers of infantrymen who had not time even to pick up their weapons, and he cut them down amid the waggons where they were embarrassed by the presence of the women and the children scattered promiscuously about. 3The cavalry was absent at the time, but as soon as they learned of the occurrence, they immediately set out for their homes and retired among the Sugambri. He sent and demanded their surrender, not because he expected them to be given up, since the people beyond the Rhine were not so afraid of the Romans as to listen to anything of the sort, but in order that on this excuse he might cross that river also. 4For he was exceedingly anxious on his own part to do something that no one of his predecessors had ever equalled, and he also expected to keep the Germans at a distance from Gaul by invading their territory. When, therefore, the horsemen were not given up, and the Ubii, who dwelt alongside the Sugambri and who were at variance with them, invoked his aid, he crossed the river by bridging it. 5But on finding that the Sugambri had betaken themselves into their strongholds and that the Suebi were gathering to come to their aid, he retired within twenty days.
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