§2.28.1Hoc proelio facto et prope ad internecionem gente ac nomine Nerviorum redacto, maiores natu, quos una cum pueris mulieribusque in aestuaria ac paludes coniectos dixeramus, hac pugna nuntiata, cum victoribus nihil impeditum, victis nihil tutum arbitrarentur, §2.28.2omnium qui supererant consensu legatos ad Caesarem miserunt seque ei dediderunt; et in commemoranda civitatis calamitate ex DC ad tres senatores, ex hominum milibus LX vix ad D, qui arma ferre possent, sese redactos esse dixerunt.
When this battle was over, and the nation and name of the Nervii were reduced almost to extinction, the elders, whom we had said had been gathered together with the children and women into the tidal inlets and marshes, when this battle was reported, thinking that nothing was obstructed for the victors and nothing safe for the vanquished, by the consensus of all who survived, sent ambassadors to Caesar and surrendered themselves to him; and in recounting the calamity of their state, they said that they had been reduced from six hundred senators to three, and from sixty thousand men capable of bearing arms to scarcely five hundred.
§2.28.3Quos Caesar, ut in miseros ac supplices usus misericordia videretur, diligentissime conservavit suisque finibus atque oppidis uti iussit et finitimis imperavit ut ab iniuria et maleficio se suosque prohiberent.
Caesar, so that he might be seen to have shown mercy toward the wretched and suppliant, preserved them most carefully and ordered them to use their own territories and towns, and commanded their neighbors to restrain themselves and their people from injury and outrage.