The insurgents and the Germans who flocked to them proceeded to invest and besiege the headquarters of the lower army. During this siege news of the events on the lower Rhine reached the other Batavian cohorts in the neighbourhood of Mentz; they at once wheeled round towards the north. Instead of ordering them to be cut down, the weak-minded commander-in-chief allowed them to go, and when the commandant of the legion in Bonn sought to intercept them, Flaccus did not support him as he might have done and had even at first promised. So the brave Germans dispersed the Bonn legion and succeeded in joining Civilis--henceforth the compact core of his army, in which now the banners of the Roman cohorts stood by the side of the animal-standards from the sacred groves of the Germans. But still the Batavian held, at least ostensibly, by Vespasian; he swore in the Roman troops in Vespasian's name, and summoned the garrison of Vetera to join him in declaring for the latter. These troops, however, saw in this, probably with warrant, a mere attempt to overreach them, and repelled it as resolutely as they repelled the assailing hosts of the enemy, who soon found themselves compelled by the superiority of Roman tactics to change the siege into a blockade. But, as the leaders of the Roman army had been taken by surprise in these events, provisions were scarce and speedy relief was urgently called for. In order to bring it, Flaccus and Vocula set out with their whole force from Mentz, drew to themselves on the way the two legions from Bonna and Novaesium as well as the auxiliary troops of the Gallic cantons appearing at the word of command in large numbers, and approached Vetera. [Sidenote: Vocula.]