sensit dux inparem comminus pugnam remotisque paulum legionibus funditores libritoresque excutere tela et proturbare hostem iubet. missae e tormentis hastae, quantoque conspicui magis propugnatores, tanto pluribus vulneribus deiecti.
Translation :
The general saw how unequal this close fighting was, and having withdrawn his legions to a little distance, ordered the slingers and artillerymen to discharge a volley of missiles and scatter the enemy. Spears were hurled from the engines, and the more conspicuous were the defenders of the position, the more the wounds with which they were driven from it.
Edition :
Annales ab excessu divi Augusti. Cornelius Tacitus. Charles Dennis Fisher. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1906.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. reprinted 1942.