Having provided corn and selected his cavalry, he began to direct his march toward those parts in which he heard the Germans were.
Re frumentaria comparata equitibusque delectis iter in ea loca facere coepit, quibus in locis esse Germanos audiebat.
When he was distant from them only a few days' march, embassadors came to him from their state, whose speech was as follows:
A quibus cum paucorum dierum iter abesset, legati ab iis venerunt, quorum haec fuit oratio:
"That the Germans neither make war upon the Roman people first, nor do they decline, if they are provoked, to engage with them in arms; for that this was the custom of the Germans handed down to them from their forefathers, -to resist whatsoever people make war upon them and not to avert it by entreaty; this, however, they confessed,-that they had come hither reluctantly, having been expelled from their country.
Germanos neque priores populo Romano bellum inferre neque tamen recusare, si lacessantur, quin armis contendant, quod Germanorum consuetudo [haec] sit a maioribus tradita, Quicumque bellum inferant, resistere neque deprecari. Haec tamen dicere venisse invitos, eiectos domo;
If the Romans were disposed to accept their friendship, they might be serviceable allies to them; and let them either assign them lands, or permit them to retain those which they had acquired by their arms;
si suam gratiam Romani velint, posse iis utiles esse amicos; vel sibi agros attribuant vel patiantur eos tenere quos armis possederint:
that they are inferior to the Suevi alone, to whom not even the immortal gods can show themselves equal; that there was none at all besides on earth whom they could not conquer."
sese unis Suebis concedere, quibus ne di quidem immortales pares esse possint; reliquum quidem in terris esse neminem quem non superare possint.