We saw great Roma Dea atop of the Wall , the frost on her helmet , and her spear pointed towards the North Star . We saw the twinkle of night-fires all along the guard towers , and the line of the black catapults growing smaller and smaller in the distance . All these things we knew till we were weary ; but that night they seemed very strange to us , because the next day we knew we were to be their masters . ` The men took the news well ; but when Maximus went away with half our strength , and we had to spread ourselves into the emptied towers , and the townspeople complained that trade would be ruined , and the autumn gales blew -- it was dark days for us two . Here Pertinax was more than my right hand . Being born and bred among the great country-houses in Gaul , he knew the proper words to address to all -- from Roman-born Centurions to those dogs of the Third -- the Libyans . And he spoke to each as though that man were as high-minded as himself . Now I saw so strongly what things were needed to be done , that I forgot things are only accomplished by means of men . That was a mistake . ' I feared nothing from the Picts , at least for that year , but Allo warned me that the Winged Hats would soon come in from the sea at each end of the Wall to prove to the Picts how weak we were . So I made ready in haste , and none too soon . I shifted our best men to the ends of the Wall , and set up screened catapults by the beach . The Winged Hats would drive in before the snow-squalls -- ten or twenty boats at a time -- on Segedunum or Ituna , according as the wind blew . ` Now a ship coming in to land men must furl her sail . If you wait till you see her men gather up the sail 's foot , your catapults can jerk a net of loose stones -LRB- bolts only cut through the cloth -RRB- into the bag of it . Then she turns over , and the sea makes everything clean again . A few men may come ashore , but very few . ... It was not hard work , except the waiting on the beach in blowing sand and snow . And that was how we dealt with the Winged Hats that winter . ` Early in the spring , when the East winds blow like skinning-knives , they gathered again off Segedunum with many ships .
XXXXX told me they would never rest till they had taken a tower in open fight .
Allo Ituna Libyans Maximus Picts Third days night-fires snow-squalls townspeople