simul a legionariis peritia et arte praestantibus plura struebantur. praecipuum pavorem intulit suspensum et nutans machinamentum, quo repente demisso praeter suorum ora singuli pluresve hostium sublime rapti verso pondere intra castra effundebantur. Civilis omissa expugnandi spe rursus per otium adsidebat, nuntiis et promissis fidem legionum convellens.
Translation :
All this time many engines were constructed by the legionaries, who were superior to the enemy in experience and skill. Peculiar consternation was caused by a machine, which, being poised in the air over the heads of the enemy, suddenly descended, and carried up one or more of them past the faces of their friends, and then, by a shifting of the weights, projected them within the limits of the camp. Civilis, giving up all hope of a successful assault, again sat down to blockade the camp at his leisure and undermined the fidelity of the legions by the promises of his emissaries.
Edition :
Historiae. Cornelius Tacitus. Charles Dennis Fisher. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1911.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
