Civilis, at the head of a small number of regular troops, but of the collective levy of the Batavi, Cannenefates, and Frisians, advanced from his home to the attack. In the first instance, on the Rhine he met with remnants of the Roman garrisons driven from the northern cantons and a division of the Roman Rhenish fleet; when he attacked them, not merely did the ships' crews, consisting in great part of Batavians, go over to him, but also a cohort of the Tungri--it was the first revolt of a Gallic division; such Italian soldiers as were present were slain or taken prisoners. This success brought at length the Germans on the right of the Rhine into the movement. What they had long vainly hoped for--the rising of the Roman subjects on the other bank--now came to be fulfilled, and as well the Chauci and the Frisians on the coast, as above all, the Bructeri on both sides of the upper Ems as far down as the Lippe, the Tencteri on the middle Rhine opposite to Cologne, and in lesser measure the tribes adjoining these on the south--Usipes, Mattiaci, Chatti--threw themselves into the struggle. When, on the orders of Flaccus, the two weak legions marched out from Vetera against the insurgents, these could already confront them with a numerous contingent drawn from beyond the Rhine; and the battle ended, like the combat on the Rhine, with a defeat of the Romans through the defection of the Batavian cavalry, which belonged to the garrison of Vetera, and through the bad behaviour of the cavalry of the Ubii and of the Treveri. [Sidenote: Siege of Vetera.]