army against the Romans. The latter chanced to be without a leader for the
reason that Paulinus their commander had gone on an expedition to Mona, an
island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and plunder two Roman
cities, and, as I said, she wrought indescribable slaughter. Persons
captured by the Britons underwent every form of most frightful treatment.
The conquerors committed the most atrocious and bestial outrages. For
instance, they hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women, cut
off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, to make the victims
appear to be eating them. After that they impaled them on sharp skewers
run perpendicularly the whole length of the body. All this they did to the
accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and exhibitions of insolence in all
of their sacred places, but chiefly in the grove of Andate,--that being
the name of their personification of Victory, to whom they paid the most
excessive reverence.

[Sidenote:--8--] It happened that Paulinus had already brought Mona to
terms; hence on learning of the disaster in Britain he at once set sail
thither from Mona. He was unwilling to risk a conflict with the barbarians
immediately, for he feared their numbers and their frenzy; therefore he
was for postponing the battle to a more convenient season. But as he grew
short of food and the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard, he
was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter into an engagement
with them. Buduica herself, heading an army of about twenty-three myriads
of men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their several stations.
Now Paulinus could not extend his phalanx the width of her whole line,
for, even if the men had been drawn up only one deep, they would not have
stretched far enough, so inferior were they in numbers: nor did he dare to
join battle with one compact force, for fear he should be surrounded and
cut down. Accordingly, he separated his army into three divisions in order
to fight at several points at once, and he made each of the divisions so