1At the first encounter the fighting was at long range; 1and the Britons, with steadiness and with skill alike, using their huge swords and small shields, avoided or struck aside our missiles, and themselves poured down a great shower of weapons, until Agricola urged the cohorts of the Batavians and two of the Tungrians to bring the matter to sword-point and hand-to-hand fighting; 1this was something familiar to them from long military service, and awkward for the enemy, who carried small shields and enormous swords; 1for the swords of the Britons, which have no point, could not stand the clash of arms and fighting at close quarters. 2So when the Batavians began to rain blows, to strike with the bosses of their shields, to stab at faces, and, having cut down those who had stood on the level, to push their line up the hills, the other cohorts, with rivalry and dash, pressed on and slaughtered all those nearest them: and many were left half-dead or unhurt in the haste for victory.
3Meanwhile the squadrons of cavalry, when the chariot-fighters fled, joined in the infantry battle. 3And although they had brought fresh terror, they nevertheless stuck fast in the dense ranks of the enemy and the uneven ground; 3and the battle had little look of a cavalry fight, since the men, long hardly able to keep their footing, were at the same time pushed along by the bodies of the horses; 3and often chariots wandering loose and terrified horses without drivers, as panic carried each of them, crashed into men from the side or head on.