The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops, march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined to distress the Romans--the place deep with ooze, sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their spears long, so as to wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded, and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers had all to do over again. Cæcina, who had served forty years, either under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war, prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all probabilities, he could devise no other expedient than that of restraining the enemy to the wood until he had sent forward all the wounded and baggage; for between the mountains and the marshes there stretched a plain large enough to admit a small army. To this purpose the legions selected were: The Fifth, for the right wing, and Twenty-first, for the left; the soldiers of the First legion to lead the van of the Twentieth to oppose the pursuers.