Reading, Berkshire from the "Readingas", an Anglo-Saxon tribe whose name means "Reada's People" in Old English, or less probably the Celtic "Rhydd-Inge", meaning "Ford over the River". In late 870, an army of Danes invaded the kingdom of Wessex and set up camp at Reading. On 4 January 871, in the first Battle of Reading, King Ethelred and his brother Alfred the Great attempted unsuccessfully to breach the Danes' defences. The battle is described in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and that account provides the earliest known written record of the existence of Reading. The Danes remained in Reading until late in 871, when
Battle of the Abas battle is noteworthy for Pompey's concealment of his infantry behind a screen of cavalry, which would twenty years later be used against him at the Battle of Pharsalus. The near perfect double envelopment Pompey is reported to have here achieved also serves to showcase the high quality of his generalship during the Eastern campaigns. Having defeated Mithridates and Tigranes of Armenia, Pompey then turned to neutralising Mithridates' remaining allies to the north, in Caucasian Albania and Iberia. In December 66 BC, the Albanian king, Oroeses had pre-emptively attacked the Roman forces but been defeated and then forced to submit. In