Plate 29: Civilis Floods the Land by Defensively Breaking the Dikes by Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen 1611

"But meantime Civilis, after his reverse among the Treviri, recruited his army in Germany and encamped at Vetera, where he was protected by his position, and he also wished to inspire his barbarian troops with new courage from the memory of their former success there. Cerialis followed after him, having had his forces doubled by the arrival of the Second, Sixth, and Fourteenth legions; moreover, the auxiliary foot and horse that he had ordered up long before had hurried to join him after his victory. Neither general was given to delay, but they were separated by a wide plain that was naturally marshy; moreover, Civilis had built a dam obliquely into the Rhine, so that the river, thrown from its course by this obstacle, flooded the adjacent fields. Such was the nature of the ground, which was treacherous for our men because the shallows were uncertain and therefore dangerous: for the Roman soldier is heavily weighted with arms and afraid of swimming, but the Germans are accustomed to streams, are lightly armed, and their great stature keeps their heads above water.
 
Therefore when the Batavians attacked our men, the bravest of our troops engaged; but a panic soon followed as arms and horses were swallowed up in the deep marshes. The Germans, knowing the shallows, leaped through the waters, and frequently, leaving our front, surrounded our men on the flanks and rear; there was no fighting at close quarters, as is usual in an engagement between infantry, but the struggle was rather like a naval fight, for the men floundered about in the water, or, if they found firm ground, they exerted all their strength to secure it; so the wounded and the uninjured, those who could swim and those who could not, struggled together to their common destruction."

-Tacitus, The Histories: Book 5, Chapter 14-15

Plate 29: Civilis Floods the Land by Defensively Breaking the Dikes by Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen 1611, from The War of the Romans Against the Batavians (Romanorvm et Batavorvm societas). 6 5/16 × 8 1/16 in. (16 × 20.5 cm). Current location: MET Museum. Antonio Tempesta in collaboration with Otto van Veen published in 1612 in Antwerp a series of thirty-six etchings on the Batavians and the Romans in a book entitled Batavorum cum Romanis bellum.

Copy of Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen's work by an unknown artist in the 1700s.

Source:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/401499

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-P-OB-77.967(V)


Quote:

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/5B*.html