This suits Paulinus' suggestion a few lines lower that the
Vitellians need only march four miles to catch them in
marching column. The whole question is fully discussed by Mr.
Henderson (op. cit.) and by Mr. E.G. Hardy in the _Journal of
Philology_, vol. xxxi, no. 61.
[299] See 34 and 35.
[300] Via Postumia.
[301] The word here used, _cuneus_ (a wedge), should mean
strictly a V-shaped formation, which the troops also called
'pig's-head'. But it is also used more generally of any
attacking column advancing to pierce the enemy's line, or
indeed of any body of men in close order.
[302] Because they were on the raised Postumian road.
[303] i.e. The Irresistibles.
[304] The quondam marines (cp. i. 6, &c.).
[305] From Lower Germany (cp. i. 55 and 61).
[306] From Pannonia (cp. chap. 24).
[307] Only a detachment of the Fourteenth was present at this
battle, as is explained below, chap. 66.
[308] The camp-prefect (chap. 29). The Batavians are the
detachment which had left the Fourteenth (chap. 27).
[309] This is not an allusion to the fight described in chap.
35. The gladiators, now under Sabinus (ch. 36) seem to have
suffered a second defeat.
[310] The fixing of this distance rests on the doubtful
figures in chap.
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