To the eighth legion, which had recently been raised from across the Po (trans Padum) he added another five cohorts, appointing Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta as the legati commanding them.
[1] The troops of Sabinus and Cotta were sent by Caesar into the country of the Eburones, in Belgica, most of which lies between the Meuse and the Rhine where they set up Fort Aduatuca in which to winter.
He pointed out that a huge force of Germans, greatly angered by Caesar's successes, were rampaging across the Rhine and offered to give the Romans safe passage to the fort of either of two nearby legions.
He pointed out that experience had shown them that Germans could be resisted from behind Roman fortifications, that they had plenty of supplies, were within easy reach of assistance from nearby legions and that they should not take at face value either the news or the advice of an enemy.
When dawn broke, the Romans, in marching order (long columns of soldiers with each unit following the other), more heavily burdened than usual, departed the fort.
A handful of men slipped away in another direction and proceeded to find Titus Labienus, a legate of a nearby legion and inform him of the disaster.
Caesar recounts, in Book V; 52 how he learnt of the death of Cotta and Sabinus from prisoners captured by the besieged garrison of Quintus Tullius Cicero, another Lieutenant-General, whose force was the next to be attacked after the disaster.
In Book VI; 32, Caesar en passant notes that the name of the fort, in which Cotta and Sabinus had been encamped during their last days fighting the Eburones was called Aduatuca.
In Book VI; 37, Caesar tells how later, a garrison of soldiers at Aduatuca, themselves besieged, were fearful of their being stationed in the same fort which the legion of Cotta and Sabinus had occupied before their destruction.