1With minds turned to civil war, foreign affairs were neglected. 1All the more boldly the Rhoxolani, a Sarmatian people, having cut down two cohorts the previous winter, had burst into Moesia with high hopes, about nine thousand horsemen, intent, from their ferocity and success, on plunder rather than fighting. 1So, while they were roaming about and off their guard, the Third legion, with auxiliaries attached, suddenly attacked them. 1On the Roman side everything was suited for battle: the Sarmatians, scattered or, in their greed for plunder, weighed down by the burden of their packs, and robbed of their horses' speed by the slipperiness of the roads, were cut down as if in chains.
1For it is wonderful to tell how all the courage of the Sarmatians lies, as it were, outside themselves. 1Nothing is so cowardly in fighting on foot: when they come on in squadrons, scarcely any battle line could withstand them. 1But at that time, on a wet day and with the frost thawed, neither their lances nor their swords, which are very long and which they wield with both hands, were of any use, as their horses kept slipping and under the weight of their mail. 1This is the covering of their chiefs and all the noblest, made of iron plates or very hard leather fitted together, as impenetrable against blows as it is unwieldy for rising again when men are overthrown by the enemy's charge; 1at the same time they were swallowed up by the depth and softness of the snow.
1The Roman soldier, nimble in his breastplate, darting in with javelins thrown or with lances, and when the situation demanded, with his light sword, stabbed the defenceless Sarmatian at close quarters (for it is not their custom to protect themselves with a shield), until the few who had survived the battle hid themselves in the marshes. 1There they were destroyed by the severity of the winter or by their wounds. 1When this was known at Rome, Marcus Aponius, governor of Moesia, was granted a triumphal statue, and Fulvus Aurelius, Julianus Tettius and Numisius Lupus, legates of the legions, consular insignia, while Otho rejoiced and drew the glory to himself, as if he too had been lucky in war and had enlarged the state through his own generals and his own armies.