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37It was against this people, then, that Caesar at that time conducted a campaign. At first he did not devastate or plunder at all, although they abandoned their villages in the plain; for he hoped to make them his subjects of their own free will. But when they harassed him as he advanced to Siscia, he became angry, burned their country, and took all the booty he could. 2When he drew near the city, the natives for the moment listened to their leaders and made terms with him and gave hostages, but afterwards they shut their gates and underwent a siege. For while they possessed strong walls also, yet they placed their whole confidence in two navigable rivers. 3The one named the Colops flows past the very circuit of the wall and empties into the Savus not far distant; it has now encircled the entire city, for Tiberius gave it this shape by constructing a great canal through which it comes back to its original channel. 4But at that time between the Colops on the one hand, which flowed past the very walls, and the Savus on the other, which flowed at a little distance, a gap had been left which had been fortified with palisades and ditches. 5Caesar secured boats made by the allies in that vicinity, and after towing them through the Ister into the Savus, and through that stream into the Colops, he assailed the enemy with his infantry and ships together, and had some naval battles on the river. 6For the barbarians prepared in turn some boats made of single logs, with which they risked a conflict; and thus on the river they killed Menas, the freedman of Sextus, besides many others, while on the land they vigorously repulsed the invader, until they ascertained that some of their allies had been ambushed and destroyed. Then they lost heart and yielded; and when they had been captured in this manner, the remainder of Pannonia was induced to capitulate.
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