occiso centurione ac militibus, qui ad tradendam disciplinam inmixti manipulis exemplum et rectores habebantur, tris liburnicas adactis per vim gubernatoribus ascendere; et uno remigante, suspectis duobus eoque interfectis, nondum vulgato rumore ut miraculum praevehebantur.
Translation :
Having killed a centurion and some soldiers, who, to impart military discipline, had been incorporated with their ranks and were employed at once to instruct and command them, they embarked on board three swift galleys with pilots pressed into their service. Under the direction of one of them—for two of the three they suspected and consequently put to death—they sailed past the coast in the strangest way before any rumour about them was in circulation
Edition :
Opera Minora. Cornelius Tacitus. Henry Furneaux. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1900.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1876. reprinted 1942.
Remark :
long-term consequence: The cohort afterwards turns to piracy against the british tribes: "After a while, dispersing in search of water and provisions, they encountered many of the Britons, who sought to defend their property [...] Having sailed round Britain and lost their vessels from not knowing how to manage them, they were looked upon as pirates and were intercepted, first by the Suevi and then by the Frisii.(Tac.Ag.28.3-5)"
Notes :
The long-term consequences and the fate of the cohort are shown in another act of violence, described in: "Usipian auxiliary cohort resorts to cannibalism".
