XXIX.--When the Aduatuci, of whom we have written above, were coming with all their forces to the assistance of the Nervii, upon this battle being reported to them, they returned home after they were on the march; deserting all their towns and forts, they conveyed together all their possessions into one town, eminently fortified by nature. While this town had on all sides around it very high rocks and precipices, there was left on one side a gently ascending approach, of not more than 200 feet in width; which place they had fortified with a very lofty double wall: besides, they had placed stones of great weight and sharpened stakes upon the walls. They were descended from the Cimbri and Teutones, who, when they were marching into our province and Italy, having deposited on this side the river Rhine such of their baggage-trains as they could not drive or convey with them, left 6000 of their men as a guard and defence for them. These having, after the destruction of their countrymen, been harassed for many years by their neighbours, while one time they waged war offensively, and at another resisted it when waged against them, concluded a peace with the consent of all, and chose this place as their settlement. XXX.--And on the first arrival of our army they made frequent sallies from the town, and contended with our men in trifling skirmishes: afterwards, when hemmed in by a rampart of twelve feet [in height], and fifteen miles in circuit, they kept themselves within the town. When, vineae having been brought up and a mound raised, they observed that a tower also was being built at a distance, they at first began to mock the Romans from their wall, and to taunt them with the following speeches. "For what purpose was so vast a machine constructed at so great a distance?" "With what hands," or "with what strength did they, especially [as they were] men of such very small stature" (for our shortness of stature, in comparison with the great size of their bodies, is generally a subject of much contempt to the men of Gaul), "trust to place against their walls a tower of such great weight."