§4.7.1Re frumentaria comparata equitibusque delectis iter in ea loca facere coepit, quibus in locis esse Germanos audiebat.
Having provided grain and selected the cavalry, he began to march into those places in which he heard the Germans were.
§4.7.2A quibus cum paucorum dierum iter abesset, legati ab iis venerunt, quorum haec fuit oratio: §4.7.3Germanos neque priores populo Romano bellum inferre neque tamen recusare, si lacessantur, quin armis contendant, quod Germanorum consuetudo [haec] sit a maioribus tradita, Quicumque bellum inferant, resistere neque deprecari.
When he was a journey of a few days away from them, envoys came from them, whose speech was as follows: That the Germans neither made war upon the Roman people first, nor yet declined, if they were provoked, to contend in arms; because it was a custom of the Germans, handed down from their ancestors, to resist whoever brought war, and not to deprecate it.
Haec tamen dicere venisse invitos, eiectos domo; §4.7.4si suam gratiam Romani velint, posse iis utiles esse amicos; vel sibi agros attribuant vel patiantur eos tenere quos armis possederint: §4.7.5sese unis Suebis concedere, quibus ne di quidem immortales pares esse possint; reliquum quidem in terris esse neminem quem non superare possint.
However, they said that they had come unwillingly, having been driven from their homes; if the Romans wished for their friendship, they could be useful friends to them; let them either attribute lands to them, or permit them to keep those which they had acquired by arms: that they yielded to the Suebi alone, to whom not even the immortal gods could be equal; that there was indeed no one else on earth whom they could not overcome.