Commentaries on the Gallic War/Book 2
The translation is based on W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn (1869).
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1
[edit]While Caesar was in winter quarters in Germans should remain any longer in Gaul, so [on the other] they were dissatisfied that the army of the Roman people should pass the winter in it, and settle there; and others of them, from a natural instability and fickleness of disposition, were anxious for a revolution; [the Belgae were instigated] by several, also, because the government in Gaul was generally seized upon by the more powerful persons and by those who had the means of hiring troops, and they could less easily effect this object under our dominion. [LATIN]
2
[edit]Alarmed by these tidings and letters, Caesar levied two new legate, to conduct them further into Gaul. He, himself, as soon as there began to be plenty of forage, came to the army. He gives a commission to the LATIN]
3
[edit]As he arrived there unexpectedly and sooner than any one anticipated, the Andecombogius, [two of] the principal persons of the state, as their embassadors: to tell him that they surrendered themselves and all their possessions to the protection and disposal of the Roman people: and that they had neither combined with the rest of the Belgae, nor entered into any confederacy against the Roman people: and were prepared to give hostages, to obey his commands, to receive him into their towns, and to aid him with corn and other things; that all the rest of the Belgae were in arms; and that the LATIN]
4
[edit]When Caesar inquired of them what states were in arms, how powerful they were, and what they could do, in war, he received the following information: that the greater part of the Teutones and the Suessiones were their nearest neighbors and possessed a very extensive and fertile country; that among them, even in our own memory, Atrebates 15,000; the Caleti, 10,000; the Condrusi, the LATIN]
5
[edit]Caesar, having encouraged the Bellovaci, and begin to lay waste their country. With these instructions he dismissed him from his presence. After he perceived that all the forces of the legate, with six cohorts. He orders him to fortify a camp with a rampart twelve feet in height, and a trench eighteen feet in breadth. [LATIN]
6
[edit]There was a town of the testudo, they advance to the gates and undermine the wall: which was easily effected on this occasion; for while so large a number were casting stones and darts, no one was able to maintain his position upon the wall. When night had put an end to the assault, LATIN]
7
[edit]Thither, immediately after midnight, Caesar, using as guides the same persons who had come to him as messengers from Balearian slingers as a relief to the towns-people, by whose arrival both a desire to resist together with the hope of [making good their] defense, was infused into the LATIN]
8
[edit]Caesar at first determined to decline a battle, as well on account of the great number of the enemy as their distinguished reputation for valor: daily, however, in cavalry actions, he strove to ascertain by frequent trials, what the enemy could effect by their prowess and what our men would dare. When he perceived that our men were not inferior, as the place before the camp was naturally convenient and suitable for marshaling an army (since the hill where the camp was pitched, rising gradually from the plain, extended forward in breadth as far as the space which the marshaled army could occupy, and had steep declines of its side in either direction, and gently sloping in front gradually sank to the plain); on either side of that hill he drew a cross trench of about four hundred paces, and at the extremities of that trench built forts, and placed there his military engines, lest, after he had marshaled his army, the enemy, since they were so powerful in point of number, should be able to surround his men in the flank, while fighting. After doing this, and leaving in the camp the two legions which he had last raised, that, if there should be any occasion, they might be brought as a reserve, he formed the other six legions in order of battle before the camp. The enemy, likewise, had drawn up their forces which they had brought out of the camp. [LATIN]
9
[edit]There was a marsh of no great extent between our army and that of the enemy. The latter were waiting to see if our men would pass this; our men, also, were ready in arms to attack them while disordered, if the first attempt to pass should be made by them. In the mean time battle was commenced between the two armies by a cavalry action. When neither army began to pass the marsh, Caesar, upon the skirmishes of the horse [proving] favorable to our men, led back his forces into the camp. The enemy immediately hastened from that place to the river Aisne, which it has been stated, was behind our camp. Finding a ford there, they endeavored to lead a part of their forces over it; with the design, that, if they could, they might carry by storm the fort which LATIN]
10
[edit]Caesar, being apprized of this by Aedui were approaching the territories of the LATIN]
11
[edit]That matter being determined on, marching out of their camp at the second watch, with great noise and confusion, in no fixed order, nor under any command, since each sought for himself the foremost place in the journey, and hastened to reach home, they made their departure appear very like a flight. Caesar, immediately learning this through his scouts, [but] fearing an ambuscade, because he had not yet discovered for what reason they were departing, kept his army and cavalry within the camp. At daybreak, the intelligence having been confirmed by the scouts, he sent forward his cavalry to harass their rear; and gave the command of it to two of his Titus Labienus, another of his legates, to follow them closely with three LATIN]
12
[edit]On the day following, before the enemy could recover from their terror and flight, Caesar led his army into the territories of the LATIN]
13
[edit]Caesar, having received as hostages the first men of the state, and even the two sons of king Bratuspantium, and Caesar with his army was about five miles distant from that town, all the old men, going out of the town, began to stretch out their hands to Caesar, and to intimate by their voice that they would throw themselves on his protection and power, nor would contend in arms against the Roman people. In like manner, when he had come up to the town, and there pitched his camp, the boys and the women from the wall, with outstretched hands, after their custom, begged peace from the Romans. [LATIN]
14
[edit]For these Bellovaci had at all times been in the alliance and friendship of the Aeduan state; that they had revolted from the Aedui and made war upon the Roman people, being urged thereto by their nobles, who said that the Aedui, reduced to slavery by Caesar, were suffering every indignity and insult. That they who had been the leaders of that plot, because they perceived how great a calamity they had brought upon the state, had fled into LATIN]
15
[edit]Caesar said that on account of his respect for Ambiani, who, without delay, surrendered themselves and all their possessions. Upon their territories bordered the LATIN]
16
[edit]After he had made three days march through their territories, he discovered from some prisoners, that the river Viromandui, their neighbors, were there awaiting the arrival of the Romans; for they had persuaded both these nations to try the same fortune of war [as themselves]: that the forces of the LATIN]
17
[edit]Having learned these things, he sends forward scouts and centurions to choose a convenient place for the camp. And as a great many of the surrounding LATIN]
18
[edit]The nature of the ground which our men had chosen for the camp was this: A hill, declining evenly from the top, extending to the river LATIN]
19
[edit]Caesar, having sent his cavalry on before, followed close after them with all his forces; but the plan and order of the march was different from that which the LATIN]
20
[edit]Caesar had every thing to do at one time: the LATIN]
21
[edit]Caesar, having given the necessary orders, hastened to and fro into whatever quarter fortune carried him, to animate the troops, and came to the LATIN]
22
[edit]The army having been marshaled, rather as the nature of the ground and the declivity of the hill and the exigency of the time, than as the method and order of military matters required; while the legions in the different places were withstanding the enemy, some in one quarter, some in another, and the view was obstructed by the very thick hedges intervening, as we have before remarked, neither could proper reserves be posted, nor could the necessary measures be taken in each part, nor could all the commands be issued by one person. Therefore, in such an unfavorable state of affairs, various events of fortune followed. [LATIN]
23
[edit]The soldiers of the Viromandui, with whom they had engaged, were fighting from the higher ground upon the very banks of the river. But, almost the whole camp on the front and on the left side being then exposed, since the Boduognatus, who held the chief command, as their leader, hastened toward that place; and part of them began to surround the legions on their unprotected flank, part to make for the highest point of the encampment. [LATIN]
24
[edit]At the same time our horsemen, and light-armed infantry, who had been with those, who, as I have related, were routed by the first assault of the enemy, as they were betaking themselves into the camp, met the enemy face to face, and again sought flight into another quarter; and the camp-followers who from the Decuman Gate, and from the highest ridge of the hill had seen our men pass the river as victors, when, after going out for the purposes of plundering, they looked back and saw the enemy parading in our camp, committed themselves precipitately to flight; at the same time there arose the cry and shout of those who came with the baggage-train: and they (affrighted), were carried some one way, some another. By all these circumstances the cavalry of the LATIN]
25
[edit]Caesar proceeded, after encouraging the standard-bearer killed, the LATIN]
26
[edit]Caesar, when he perceived that the tenth legion as a relief to our men, who, when they had learned from the flight of the horse and the sutlers in what position the affair was, and in how great danger the camp and the legion and the commander were involved, left undone nothing [which tended] to dispatch. [LATIN]
27
[edit]By their arrival, so great a change of matters was made, that our men, even those who had fallen down exhausted with wounds, leaned on their shields, and renewed the fight: then the camp-retainers, though unarmed, seeing the enemy completely dismayed, attacked [them though] armed; the horsemen too, that they might by their valor blot the disgrace of their flight, thrust themselves before the legionary soldiers in all parts of the battle. But the enemy, even in the last hope of safety, displayed such great courage, that when the foremost of them had fallen, the next stood upon them prostrate, and fought from their bodies; when these were overthrown, and their corpses heaped up together, those who survived cast their weapons against our men [thence], as from a mound, and returned our darts which had fallen short between [the armies]; so that it ought not to be concluded, that men of such great courage had injudiciously dared to pass a very broad river, ascend very high banks, and come up to a very disadvantageous place; since their greatness of spirit had rendered these actions easy, although in themselves very difficult. [LATIN]
28
[edit]This battle being ended, and the nation and name of the LATIN]
29
[edit]When the Teutones, who, when they were marching into our LATIN]
30
[edit]And on the first arrival of our army they made frequent sallies from the town, and contended with our men in trifling skirmishes; afterward, when hemmed in by a rampart of twelve feet [in height], and fifteen miles in circuit, they kept themselves within the town. When, vineae having been brought up and a mound raised, they observed that a tower also was being built at a distance, they at first began to mock the Romans from their wall, and to taunt them with the following speeches. "For what purpose was so vast a machine constructed at so great a distance? With what hands," or "with what strength did they, especially [as they were] men of such very small stature" (for our shortness of stature, in comparison to the great size of their bodies, is generally a subject of much contempt to the men of Gaul) "trust to place against their walls a tower of such great weight." [LATIN]
31
[edit]But when they saw that it was being moved, and was approaching their walls, startled by the new and unaccustomed sight, they sent embassadors to Caesar [to treat] about peace; who spoke in the following manner: "That they did not believe the Romans waged war without divine aid, since they were able to move forward machines of such a height with so great speed, and thus fight from close quarters; that they resigned themselves and all their possessions to [Caesar's] disposal: that they begged and earnestly entreated one thing, viz., that if perchance, agreeable to his clemency and humanity, which they had heard of from others, he should resolve that the LATIN]
32
[edit]To these things Caesar replied, "That he, in accordance with his custom, rather than owing to their desert, should spare the state, if they should surrender themselves before the battering-ram should touch the wall; but that there was no condition of surrender, except upon their arms being delivered up; that he should do to them that which he had done in the case of the LATIN]
33
[edit]Toward evening Caesar ordered the gates to be shut, and the soldiers to go out of the town, lest the towns-people should receive any injury from them by night. They [the LATIN]
34
[edit]At the same time he was informed by Venelli, the Aulerci, and the LATIN]
35
[edit]These things being achieved, [and] all Gaul being subdued, so high an opinion of this war was spread among the Carnutes, the LATIN]
Parallel sources
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ The Cimbrian War of 113-101 BC.