Commentaries on the Gallic War

CHAPTER 1.1

SECTION 1.1.1All Gaul is divided into three parts, one inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and the third by those who in their own language are called Celts, and in ours Gauls.

SECTION 1.1.2All these peoples differ from one another in language, customs, and laws. The river Garumna separates the Gauls from the Aquitani, and the Matrona and Sequana separate them from the Belgae.

SECTION 1.1.3Of all these peoples, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are farthest removed from the culture and refinement of the Province, and merchants very seldom travel among them and import those things that tend to weaken courage;

SECTION 1.1.4they are also nearest to the Germans who dwell across the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For the same reason, the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, because they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, either keeping them out of their own territory or themselves waging war within the Germans’ borders.

SECTION 1.1.5[The one part occupied by the Gauls, as has been stated, begins at the river Rhodanus; it is bounded by the river Garumna, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae; on the side of the Sequani and Helvetii it also reaches the river Rhine, and it extends toward the north.

SECTION 1.1.6The territory of the Belgae begins at the farthest borders of Gaul, extends to the lower reaches of the Rhine, and faces north and east.

SECTION 1.1.7Aquitania extends from the river Garumna to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Ocean which lies toward Spain; it faces between west and north.]

CHAPTER 1.2

SECTION 1.2.1Among the Helvetii, by far the most noble and wealthy man was Orgetorix. In the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso, driven by a desire for kingship, he formed a conspiracy among the nobility and persuaded his people to leave their territory with all their forces:

SECTION 1.2.2since they surpassed all others in valor, it would be very easy for them to gain dominion over the whole of Gaul.

SECTION 1.2.3He persuaded them of this all the more easily because the Helvetii are hemmed in on every side by the nature of the country: on one side by the Rhine, a very broad and deep river, which separates the Helvetian territory from the Germans; on another by the lofty Jura mountain range, which lies between the Sequani and the Helvetii; and on a third by Lake Lemannus and the river Rhodanus, which separates our Province from the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.2.4These circumstances both restricted the range of their movements and made it less easy for them to wage war upon their neighbors;

SECTION 1.2.5and in this respect, being men eager for war, they were deeply distressed.

SECTION 1.2.6Considering the size of their population and their renown for warfare and courage, they thought their territory too confined, though it extended two hundred and forty miles in length and one hundred and eighty in breadth.

CHAPTER 1.3

SECTION 1.3.1Moved by these considerations and stirred by the authority of Orgetorix, they resolved to prepare everything required for their departure: to purchase as many draft animals and wagons as possible, to sow crops on the largest possible scale so that they would have an ample supply of grain on the march, and to establish peace and friendship with the neighboring peoples.

SECTION 1.3.2They judged that two years would be sufficient to complete these preparations; by law they fixed their departure for the third year.

SECTION 1.3.3Orgetorix was chosen to carry out these plans. He undertook an embassy to the neighboring peoples. On that journey he persuaded Casticus, a Sequanian and the son of Catamantaloedes—whose father had held the kingship among the Sequani for many years and had been called a friend by the Senate of the Roman people—to seize in his own state the kingship that his father had held before him;

SECTION 1.3.4and he likewise persuaded Dumnorix the Aeduan, brother of Diviciacus, who at that time held the leading position in his state and enjoyed the highest favor with the common people, to make the same attempt, and gave him his own daughter in marriage.

SECTION 1.3.5He showed them that it would be very easy to bring their designs to completion, because he himself was certain to secure command over his own state:

SECTION 1.3.6there was no doubt, he said, that the Helvetii were the most powerful people in all Gaul; and he assured them that with his own resources and his own army he would win kingdoms for them.

SECTION 1.3.7Persuaded by this argument, they exchanged pledges and oaths, and hoped that, once they had seized their kingships, they would be able, through the three most powerful and firmly established peoples, to gain possession of the whole of Gaul.

CHAPTER 1.4

SECTION 1.4.1This scheme was revealed to the Helvetii by an informer. In accordance with their custom, they compelled Orgetorix to plead his case in chains; if condemned, the penalty required him to be burned alive.

SECTION 1.4.2On the day appointed for his trial, Orgetorix summoned to the court from every quarter his entire household, numbering about ten thousand persons, and assembled there all his dependents and debtors, of whom he had a great number; by their aid he escaped having to plead his case.

SECTION 1.4.3When the state, enraged by this conduct, attempted to enforce its rights by arms, and the magistrates were gathering a multitude of men from the countryside, Orgetorix died;

SECTION 1.4.4and there is reason to suspect, as the Helvetii believe, that he took his own life.

CHAPTER 1.5

SECTION 1.5.1After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless continued their attempt to carry out their resolve and leave their territory.

SECTION 1.5.2When they considered themselves ready for the undertaking, they set fire to all their towns, about twelve in number, to some four hundred villages, and to all their remaining private buildings;

SECTION 1.5.3they burned all their grain except what they intended to carry with them, so that, with all hope of returning home removed, they might be readier to face every danger; and they ordered every man to carry from home a three-month supply of ground grain for himself. They persuaded their neighbors, the Rauraci, Tulingi, and Latobrigi, to adopt the same plan, burn their towns and villages, and depart together with them; and they admitted as allies and joined to themselves the Boii, who had lived across the Rhine, had crossed into Norican territory, and were besieging Noreia.

CHAPTER 1.6

SECTION 1.6.1There were only two routes by which they could leave their homeland. One ran through the territory of the Sequani, a narrow and difficult passage between the Jura mountain range and the river Rhodanus, where wagons could scarcely be drawn in single file; moreover, a very high mountain overhung the route, so that a very few men could easily block it.

SECTION 1.6.2The other ran through our Province and was far easier and more open, because the Rhodanus flows between the territory of the Helvetii and that of the Allobroges, who had recently been pacified, and in several places the river can be crossed by fords.

SECTION 1.6.3The outermost town of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the territory of the Helvetii, is Genava. From that town a bridge extends to the Helvetian side. They believed that they could either persuade the Allobroges, who did not yet appear well disposed toward the Roman people, or compel them by force to allow passage through their territory. When everything had been prepared for the departure, they appointed a day on which all were to assemble on the bank of the Rhodanus. That day was the fifth before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius.

CHAPTER 1.7

SECTION 1.7.1When Caesar was informed that they were attempting to march through our Province, he hastened to leave Rome, traveled by the longest forced marches he could make into Further Gaul, and arrived at Genava.

SECTION 1.7.2He ordered the entire Province to furnish as many soldiers as possible—for there was only one legion in Further Gaul—and commanded that the bridge at Genava be demolished.

SECTION 1.7.3When the Helvetii learned of his arrival, they sent as envoys to him the most distinguished men of their state, with Nammeius and Verucloetius holding the foremost place in the delegation. They were to say that the Helvetii intended to march through the Province without doing any harm, because they had no other route; and they asked to be permitted to do so with his consent. Caesar, remembering that the consul Lucius Cassius had been killed and his army defeated by the Helvetii and sent beneath the yoke, did not think their request should be granted;

SECTION 1.7.4nor did he believe that men of hostile disposition, if given the opportunity to march through the Province, would refrain from outrage and wrongdoing.

SECTION 1.7.5Nevertheless, to allow time for the soldiers he had ordered to assemble, he replied to the envoys that he would take a period for deliberation: if they wanted anything further, they should return on the Ides of April.

CHAPTER 1.8

SECTION 1.8.1Meanwhile, with the legion he had with him and the soldiers who had assembled from the Province, he constructed a wall nineteen miles long and sixteen feet high, together with a trench, from Lake Lemannus, which empties into the river Rhodanus, to the Jura mountain range, which separates the territory of the Sequani from that of the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.8.2When this work was completed, he posted garrisons and fortified strongpoints, so that he could more easily prevent them from crossing if they attempted it against his will.

SECTION 1.8.3When the day he had appointed with the envoys arrived and they returned to him, he declared that, in accordance with the custom and precedent of the Roman people, he could grant no one passage through the Province, and made it clear that if they attempted to use force, he would prevent them.

SECTION 1.8.4Disappointed in this hope, the Helvetii lashed boats together, built a number of rafts, and at other places attempted to cross by the fords of the Rhodanus where the river was shallowest, sometimes by day but more often by night, to see whether they could break through. Repulsed by the strength of the fortifications, the rapid concentration of the soldiers, and their missiles, they abandoned the attempt.

CHAPTER 1.9

SECTION 1.9.1Only one route remained, through the territory of the Sequani; because of its narrowness they could not take it without the consent of the Sequani.

SECTION 1.9.2Since they could not persuade them on their own, they sent envoys to Dumnorix the Aeduan, hoping through his intercession to obtain the Sequani’s consent.

SECTION 1.9.3Dumnorix possessed very great influence among the Sequani through his popularity and lavish gifts, and he was friendly to the Helvetii because he had married the daughter of Orgetorix, a woman of that state. Driven by a desire for kingship, he favored revolution and wished to have as many states as possible bound to him by favors.

SECTION 1.9.4He therefore undertook the matter and obtained from the Sequani permission for the Helvetii to pass through their territory; he also arranged for them to exchange hostages: the Sequani as a pledge not to obstruct the Helvetii on their march, and the Helvetii as a pledge to pass through without wrongdoing or injury.

CHAPTER 1.10

SECTION 1.10.1Caesar was informed that the Helvetii intended to march through the territories of the Sequani and the Aedui into the lands of the Santoni, who live not far from the territory of the Tolosates, a people within the Province.

SECTION 1.10.2He understood that, if this happened, it would greatly endanger the Province by placing a warlike people, hostile to the Roman people, on the borders of an open and exceptionally fertile region.

SECTION 1.10.3For these reasons he placed his lieutenant Titus Labienus in command of the fortifications he had constructed. He himself hastened by forced marches into Italy, enrolled two legions there, brought out of winter quarters the three that were wintering around Aquileia, and with these five legions pressed forward by the shortest route across the Alps into Further Gaul.

SECTION 1.10.4There the Ceutrones, Graioceli, and Caturiges occupied the higher ground and attempted to block the army’s passage. After routing them in several engagements, Caesar reached the territory of the Vocontii in the Further Province on the seventh day from Ocelum, the outermost town of the Nearer Province. From there he led his army into the territory of the Allobroges, and from the Allobroges into that of the Segusiavi. These are the first people beyond the Province across the Rhodanus.

CHAPTER 1.11

SECTION 1.11.1The Helvetii had already led their forces through the narrow pass and the territory of the Sequani, had reached the lands of the Aedui, and were ravaging their fields.

SECTION 1.11.2Since the Aedui could not defend themselves or their possessions against them, they sent envoys to Caesar to ask for aid:

SECTION 1.11.3they had, they said, deserved so well of the Roman people at all times that their lands ought not to have been laid waste, their children carried off into slavery, and their towns stormed almost within sight of our army. At the same time, the Ambarri, allies and kinsmen of the Aedui, informed Caesar that, with their fields devastated, they could not easily ward off the enemy’s violence from their towns.

SECTION 1.11.4Likewise, the Allobroges, who had villages and estates across the Rhodanus, fled to Caesar and declared that nothing remained to them but the bare soil of their land.

SECTION 1.11.5Moved by these circumstances, Caesar decided that he must not wait until the Helvetii, after consuming all the possessions of his allies, reached the territory of the Santoni.

CHAPTER 1.12

SECTION 1.12.1There is a river called the Arar, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and Sequani into the Rhodanus with such incredible gentleness that the eye cannot determine in which direction it flows. The Helvetii were crossing it on rafts and boats lashed together.

SECTION 1.12.2When Caesar was informed by scouts that the Helvetii had already led three-quarters of their forces across that river, while about one-quarter remained on the near side of the Arar, he left camp during the third watch with three legions and reached the body that had not yet crossed the river.

SECTION 1.12.3Attacking them while they were encumbered and unsuspecting, he cut down a great part of them; the rest fled and concealed themselves in the nearest forests.

SECTION 1.12.4This canton was called the Tigurinus, for the whole Helvetian state is divided into four cantons.

SECTION 1.12.5This one canton, when it had left its homeland within the memory of our fathers, had killed the consul Lucius Cassius and sent his army beneath the yoke.

SECTION 1.12.6Thus, whether by chance or by the design of the immortal gods, that part of the Helvetian state which had inflicted a signal disaster upon the Roman people was the first to pay the penalty.

SECTION 1.12.7In this affair Caesar avenged not only wrongs done to the state but also those done to his own family, because in the same battle in which they killed Cassius, the Tigurini had also killed the lieutenant Lucius Piso, grandfather of Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Piso.

CHAPTER 1.13

SECTION 1.13.1After this battle, in order to overtake the remaining forces of the Helvetii, Caesar had a bridge built across the Arar and led his army over it.

SECTION 1.13.2The Helvetii, alarmed by his sudden arrival, realized that he had accomplished in a single day what they themselves had completed with the greatest difficulty in twenty days—the crossing of the river—and sent envoys to him. The leader of the delegation was Divico, who had commanded the Helvetii in the war against Cassius.

SECTION 1.13.3He addressed Caesar as follows: if the Roman people made peace with the Helvetii, they would go and remain in whatever region Caesar assigned and wished them to occupy;

SECTION 1.13.4but if he persisted in pursuing them with war, he should remember both the former reverse suffered by the Roman people and the ancient valor of the Helvetii. Because Caesar had unexpectedly attacked a single canton when those who had crossed the river could not bring aid to their countrymen, he should neither ascribe too much to his own valor nor despise the Helvetii. They had learned from their fathers and ancestors to contend by courage rather than rely on deceit or ambushes.

SECTION 1.13.5Therefore Caesar should take care not to cause the place where they had taken their stand to derive its name, or hand down its memory, from a disaster to the Roman people and the destruction of an army.

CHAPTER 1.14

SECTION 1.14.1Caesar replied to them as follows: there was all the less room for hesitation in his mind because he remembered the events the Helvetian envoys had mentioned, and he resented them all the more bitterly because they had occurred through no fault of the Roman people;

SECTION 1.14.2if the Roman people had been conscious of having committed any wrong, it would not have been difficult to take precautions; but they had been deceived because they were unaware of having done anything that should cause them fear and did not think they ought to be afraid without cause.

SECTION 1.14.3Even if he were willing to forget that former outrage, could he also cast aside the memory of their recent injuries—their attempt, against his will, to force a passage through the Province, and their attacks upon the Aedui, the Ambarri, and the Allobroges?

SECTION 1.14.4Their insolent boasting of their victory, and their wonder that they had so long committed outrages with impunity, pointed to the same conclusion.

SECTION 1.14.5For the immortal gods were accustomed, when they wished to punish men for their crimes, sometimes to grant them greater prosperity and a longer season of impunity, so that a reversal of fortune might cause them all the greater anguish.

SECTION 1.14.6Nevertheless, such being the case, if they gave him hostages so that he might know they would perform what they promised, and if they made satisfaction to the Haedui for the injuries they had inflicted upon them and their allies, and likewise to the Allobroges, he would make peace with them.

SECTION 1.14.7Divico replied that the Helvetii had been so instructed by their ancestors that they were accustomed to receive hostages, not to give them; the Roman people could bear witness to that fact. Having given this answer, he departed.

CHAPTER 1.15

SECTION 1.15.1The next day they moved camp from that place. Caesar did the same, and sent ahead all his cavalry, about four thousand strong, which he had assembled from the whole Province, from the Haedui, and from their allies, to discover in what direction the enemy was marching. In their eagerness to pursue the enemy’s rear guard, these troops engaged the Helvetian cavalry on unfavorable ground, and a few of our men fell.

SECTION 1.15.2Elated by this encounter, because with five hundred horsemen they had driven back so great a body of cavalry, the Helvetii began at times to halt more boldly and to provoke our men to battle with their rear guard. Caesar restrained his men from fighting and considered it sufficient for the present to prevent the enemy from plundering, foraging, and ravaging the countryside.

SECTION 1.15.3In this manner they marched for about fifteen days, with no more than five or six miles separating the enemy’s rear guard from our vanguard.

CHAPTER 1.16

SECTION 1.16.1Meanwhile Caesar daily demanded from the Haedui the grain they had officially promised.

SECTION 1.16.2For because of the cold climate—Gaul, as stated before, lies toward the north—not only was the grain in the fields not yet ripe, but not even a sufficient abundance of fodder was available;

SECTION 1.16.3and he could make less use of the grain he had brought up in ships along the river Arar, because the Helvetii had turned their march away from the Arar, and he did not wish to leave them.

SECTION 1.16.4The Haedui put him off from day to day, saying that the grain was being collected, was being brought in, was close at hand.

SECTION 1.16.5When he realized that he was being delayed too long, and that the day was approaching on which grain had to be issued to the soldiers, he summoned their leading men, of whom he had a large number in camp, among them Diviciacus and Liscus, who held the highest magistracy, which the Haedui call the vergobret—a magistrate elected annually who holds the power of life and death over his people—and severely accused them,

SECTION 1.16.6because at so critical a time, with the enemy so near, when grain could neither be bought nor taken from the fields, they gave him no assistance, especially since he had undertaken the war largely at their entreaties; and he complained still more bitterly that he had been abandoned.

CHAPTER 1.17

SECTION 1.17.1Then at last, moved by Caesar’s speech, Liscus disclosed what he had previously kept silent: there were certain men whose influence with the common people was supreme and who, though private citizens, possessed more power than the magistrates themselves.

SECTION 1.17.2By seditious and unscrupulous speeches these men were frightening the populace away from contributing the grain they owed:

SECTION 1.17.3if they could no longer retain the leadership of Gaul, it was better to endure the rule of Gauls than that of Romans,

SECTION 1.17.4and they ought not to doubt that, if the Romans defeated the Helvetii, they would strip the Haedui of their liberty along with the rest of Gaul.

SECTION 1.17.5The same men reported our plans and all that took place in camp to the enemy; he was unable to restrain them.

SECTION 1.17.6Indeed, he understood how great a danger he had incurred by being compelled to reveal this necessary information to Caesar, and for that reason had remained silent as long as he could.

CHAPTER 1.18

SECTION 1.18.1From this statement by Liscus, Caesar perceived that Dumnorix, the brother of Diviciacus, was meant; but because he did not wish these matters discussed in the presence of many, he quickly dismissed the council and detained Liscus.

SECTION 1.18.2He questioned him privately about what he had said in the assembly. Liscus spoke more freely and boldly. Caesar made the same inquiries privately of others and found the allegations true:

SECTION 1.18.3the man was Dumnorix, a person of extraordinary audacity, highly popular with the common people because of his generosity, and eager for revolution. For many years he had secured at a low price the right to collect the customs duties and all the other revenues of the Haedui, because whenever he bid, no one dared bid against him.

SECTION 1.18.4By these means he had both increased his personal fortune and acquired ample resources for largesse;

SECTION 1.18.5he always maintained at his own expense and kept about him a large body of cavalry,

SECTION 1.18.6and he possessed great influence not only at home but also among neighboring states; to strengthen that power, he had married his mother among the Bituriges to a man of the highest birth and influence there;

SECTION 1.18.7he himself had a Helvetian wife, and had given his maternal half sisters and other female relatives in marriage into other states.

SECTION 1.18.8He favored the Helvetii and desired their success because of that connection by marriage; he also hated Caesar and the Romans on his own account, because their arrival had diminished his power and restored his brother Diviciacus to his former position of influence and honor.

SECTION 1.18.9If any disaster befell the Romans, he entertained the highest hopes of gaining kingship through the Helvetii; under the dominion of the Roman people, he despaired not only of kingship but even of retaining the influence he already possessed.

SECTION 1.18.10In the course of his inquiry Caesar also discovered that in the unsuccessful cavalry engagement fought a few days before, Dumnorix and his horsemen had begun the flight—for Dumnorix commanded the cavalry the Haedui had sent to Caesar’s aid—and that their flight had thrown the rest of the cavalry into a panic.

CHAPTER 1.19

SECTION 1.19.1When these facts became known, and when these suspicions were reinforced by the most conclusive evidence—that Dumnorix had conducted the Helvetii through the territory of the Sequani, that he had arranged the exchange of hostages between them, that he had done all this not only without Caesar’s orders or those of his state but even without their knowledge, and that he was accused by the chief magistrate of the Haedui—Caesar considered that there was sufficient cause either for him to punish Dumnorix himself or to order his state to punish him.

SECTION 1.19.2One consideration opposed all these facts: Caesar knew the supreme devotion of Dumnorix’s brother Diviciacus to the Roman people, his extraordinary goodwill toward Caesar himself, and his remarkable loyalty, justice, and self-restraint; for he feared that by punishing Dumnorix he might alienate Diviciacus.

SECTION 1.19.3Therefore, before attempting anything, he ordered Diviciacus to be summoned to him and, dismissing his customary interpreters, spoke with him through Gaius Valerius Troucillus, a leading man of the province of Gaul, his intimate friend, in whom he placed the highest confidence in every matter;

SECTION 1.19.4at the same time he reminded him of what had been said about Dumnorix in the council of the Gauls while Diviciacus himself was present, and disclosed what each man had said about him privately to Caesar.

SECTION 1.19.5He asked and urged Diviciacus, without taking offense, either to pass judgment on Dumnorix himself after investigating the case or to order the state to do so.

CHAPTER 1.20

SECTION 1.20.1Diviciacus embraced Caesar with many tears and began to entreat him not to impose too severe a punishment upon his brother:

SECTION 1.20.2he knew that the charges were true, and no one suffered more pain from them than he did, because when he himself possessed the greatest influence at home and throughout the rest of Gaul, while his brother had possessed very little because of his youth, Dumnorix had risen through his support;

SECTION 1.20.3and Dumnorix was now using those resources and that power not only to diminish his influence but almost to destroy him. Yet he was moved both by brotherly love and by concern for public opinion.

SECTION 1.20.4If any severe punishment befell Dumnorix at Caesar’s hands while he himself held such a place in Caesar’s friendship, no one would believe it had been done against his wishes; as a result, the sympathies of all Gaul would turn away from him.

SECTION 1.20.5As Diviciacus pleaded this case at greater length, weeping, Caesar took his right hand, consoled him, and asked him to cease his entreaties. He showed that Diviciacus’s influence with him was so great that, in deference to his wishes and prayers, he forgave both the injury done to the Roman state and his own personal grievance. He summoned Dumnorix and called in his brother; he pointed out what he found blameworthy in Dumnorix, set forth what he himself knew and what the state complained of, and warned him to avoid all grounds for suspicion in the future. He said that, for the sake of his brother Diviciacus, he forgave the past. He placed guards over Dumnorix so that he might know what he did and with whom he spoke.

CHAPTER 1.21

SECTION 1.21.1That same day, after scouts informed him that the enemy had encamped at the foot of a mountain eight miles from his own camp, Caesar sent men to ascertain the character of the mountain and the nature of the ascent on every side.

SECTION 1.21.2They reported that the ascent was easy. During the third watch he ordered Titus Labienus, his lieutenant with praetorian authority, to ascend to the mountain’s highest ridge with two legions and with the guides who had reconnoitered the route; he explained his plan to him.

SECTION 1.21.3He himself, during the fourth watch, hastened toward the enemy by the same route they had taken and sent all his cavalry ahead of him.

SECTION 1.21.4Publius Considius, who was considered highly experienced in military affairs and had served in the army of Lucius Sulla and afterward in that of Marcus Crassus, was sent ahead with the scouts.

CHAPTER 1.22

SECTION 1.22.1At daybreak, when the summit of the mountain was held by Lucius Labienus, while Caesar himself was no more than a mile and a half from the enemy’s camp, and when, as he afterward learned from prisoners, neither his own approach nor Labienus’s had been discovered,

SECTION 1.22.2Considius galloped up to him at full speed and reported that the mountain Caesar had wished Labienus to occupy was held by the enemy; he had recognized this from the Gallic arms and insignia.

SECTION 1.22.3Caesar withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and drew them up in battle order. Labienus, having been instructed by Caesar not to engage unless Caesar’s own forces were seen near the enemy’s camp, so that an assault might be made upon the enemy from every side at the same moment, held the mountain and waited for our men, refraining from battle.

SECTION 1.22.4Only when the day was far advanced did Caesar learn from his scouts both that the mountain was held by his own men and that the Helvetii had broken camp, and that Considius, panic-stricken by fear, had reported as seen what he had not seen. That day Caesar followed the enemy at his customary distance and pitched camp three miles from theirs.

CHAPTER 1.23

SECTION 1.23.1The following day, since only two days remained before grain had to be issued to the army, and since he was no more than eighteen miles from Bibracte, by far the largest and richest town of the Haedui, Caesar judged that he must provide for the grain supply. He therefore turned away from the Helvetii and hastened toward Bibracte.

SECTION 1.23.2This movement was reported to the enemy by deserters from Lucius Aemilius, a decurion of the Gallic cavalry.

SECTION 1.23.3The Helvetii, either because they thought the Romans were withdrawing from them in terror—all the more because, after occupying higher ground the day before, they had not joined battle—or because they trusted that the Romans could be cut off from their grain supply, changed their plan, reversed their march, and began to pursue and harass our rear guard.

CHAPTER 1.24

SECTION 1.24.1When Caesar observed this, he withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and sent out his cavalry to check the enemy’s attack.

SECTION 1.24.2Meanwhile, halfway up the hill, he drew up his four veteran legions in three lines; on the highest ridge he stationed the two legions he had most recently levied in Cisalpine Gaul, together with all the auxiliaries,

SECTION 1.24.3so that the whole mountain above him was filled with men. He ordered all the baggage and packs to be brought together in one place and that position fortified by the troops stationed in the upper line.

SECTION 1.24.4The Helvetii, who had followed with all their wagons, brought their baggage together in one place; then, in an exceedingly close-packed formation, they drove back our cavalry, formed a phalanx, and advanced against our first line.

CHAPTER 1.25

SECTION 1.25.1Caesar had first his own horse and then the horses of all the others removed from sight, so that by making the danger equal for everyone he might take away all hope of flight; then, after encouraging his men, he joined battle.

SECTION 1.25.2From their higher ground the soldiers hurled their pila and easily broke through the enemy’s phalanx. Once it was shattered, they drew their swords and charged.

SECTION 1.25.3The Gauls were greatly hampered in the fighting because a single cast of the pila had pierced and fastened together several of their shields; and since the iron shanks had bent, they could neither wrench the pila free nor fight with sufficient ease while their left arms were encumbered,

SECTION 1.25.4so that many, after shaking their arms for a long time, preferred to cast away their shields and fight with their bodies unprotected.

SECTION 1.25.5At last, exhausted by wounds, they began to give ground and withdraw to a mountain about a mile away.

SECTION 1.25.6After they had taken possession of the mountain and our men were advancing after them, the Boii and Tulingi, who with about fifteen thousand men closed the enemy’s column and protected its rear, attacked our exposed flank directly from the line of march and began to surround us. Seeing this, the Helvetii who had withdrawn to the mountain began once more to press forward and renew the battle.

SECTION 1.25.7The Romans wheeled their standards and advanced in two directions: the first and second lines opposed the enemy who had been defeated and driven back, while the third checked those now advancing.

CHAPTER 1.26

SECTION 1.26.1Thus the battle was fought on two fronts, long and fiercely. When the enemy could no longer withstand the assaults of our men, one body withdrew, as it had begun to do, to the mountain; the other retired to its baggage and wagons.

SECTION 1.26.2For throughout this entire battle, though the fighting lasted from the seventh hour until evening, no one saw an enemy turn his back.

SECTION 1.26.3The battle continued around the baggage until late at night, because the enemy had set their wagons before them as a rampart and, from their higher position, hurled missiles against our men as they advanced; some from between the wagons and wheels thrust their pikes and javelins upward and wounded our men.

SECTION 1.26.4After a long struggle, our men gained possession of the baggage and the camp. There the daughter of Orgetorix and one of his sons were captured.

SECTION 1.26.5About one hundred and thirty thousand persons survived that battle, and they marched continuously throughout the entire night, without halting for any part of it. On the fourth day they reached the territory of the Lingones, since our men, delayed for three days both by the soldiers’ wounds and by the burial of the slain, had been unable to pursue them.

SECTION 1.26.6Caesar sent letters and messengers to the Lingones, warning them not to assist the Helvetii with grain or anything else; if they did assist them, he would regard them in the same light as the Helvetii. After an interval of three days, he himself began to pursue them with all his forces.

CHAPTER 1.27

SECTION 1.27.1Driven by the want of every necessity, the Helvetii sent envoys to him to negotiate their surrender.

SECTION 1.27.2When these envoys met him on the march, threw themselves at his feet, and, speaking as suppliants and weeping, begged for peace, he ordered them to await his arrival in the place where they then were, and they obeyed.

SECTION 1.27.3After Caesar arrived there, he demanded hostages, their weapons, and the slaves who had fled to them.

SECTION 1.27.4While these things were being sought out and brought together, after night had intervened, about six thousand men of the canton called the Verbigenus, either terrified by the fear that, once they had surrendered their arms, they would be put to death, or lured by the hope of escape, because they believed that amid so great a multitude of surrendered men their flight might either be concealed or pass wholly unnoticed, left the Helvetian camp at the beginning of the night and hastened toward the Rhine and the territories of the Germans.

CHAPTER 1.28

SECTION 1.28.1When Caesar learned of this, he ordered the peoples through whose territories they had passed to search for them and bring them back, if they wished to be cleared of blame in his eyes; when they were brought back, he treated them as enemies.

SECTION 1.28.2All the rest, after they had surrendered hostages, arms, and deserters, he accepted in submission.

SECTION 1.28.3He ordered the Helvetii, Tulingi, and Latobrigi to return to their own territories, from which they had set out; and because, with all their crops destroyed, there was nothing at home with which they could stave off hunger, he ordered the Allobroges to provide them with a supply of grain. He ordered the Helvetii themselves to rebuild the towns and villages they had burned. His chief reason for doing this was that he did not wish the region from which the Helvetii had departed to remain vacant, lest, because of the excellence of the land, the Germans who lived across the Rhine should cross from their own territories into those of the Helvetii and become neighbors of the Province of Gaul and of the Allobroges.

SECTION 1.28.4At the request of the Haedui, because the Boii had become known for their outstanding courage, he permitted them to settle the Boii within their own territories. The Haedui gave them lands and later admitted them to the same condition of rights and freedom that they themselves enjoyed.

CHAPTER 1.29

SECTION 1.29.1In the camp of the Helvetii, tablets written in Greek characters were found and brought to Caesar. On these tablets an account had been drawn up by name of the number who had left home and were capable of bearing arms, and likewise, in separate lists, the number of children, old men, and women.

SECTION 1.29.2The total of all these was 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobrigi, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000 Boii. Of these, about 92,000 were capable of bearing arms.

SECTION 1.29.3The total number of all was about 368,000. Of those who returned home, a census taken in accordance with Caesar’s orders showed a total of 110,000.

CHAPTER 1.30

SECTION 1.30.1When the war with the Helvetii was concluded, envoys from nearly all Gaul, the leading men of their states, assembled to congratulate Caesar.

SECTION 1.30.2They declared that they understood that, although Caesar had waged war to exact punishment from the Helvetii for their ancient wrongs against the Roman people, the outcome had nevertheless served the interests of the land of Gaul no less than those of the Roman people,

SECTION 1.30.3because the Helvetii, though their affairs were at their most prosperous, had left their homes with the design of making war upon all Gaul and seizing supreme power; of choosing from the great abundance of places the site they judged most advantageous and fertile in all Gaul as their dwelling place; and of making the remaining states tributary to them.

SECTION 1.30.4They asked that they be permitted, with Caesar’s approval, to appoint a fixed day for a council of all Gaul. They had certain requests which, by common consent, they wished to make of him.

SECTION 1.30.5When permission was granted, they fixed a day for the council and bound one another by oath not to disclose its proceedings except to those entrusted with that task by their common decision.

CHAPTER 1.31

SECTION 1.31.1After that council had been dismissed, the same leading men of the states who had previously come to Caesar returned and asked to be permitted to confer with him privately and in secret concerning their own safety and that of all Gaul.

SECTION 1.31.2Their request was granted, and they all threw themselves weeping at Caesar’s feet. They declared that they strove and labored no less to prevent what they said from being disclosed than to obtain what they desired, because they saw that, if it were disclosed, they would be subjected to the most terrible torture.

SECTION 1.31.3Diviciacus the Haeduan spoke on their behalf: all Gaul was divided into two factions; the Haedui held the leadership of one, the Arverni of the other.

SECTION 1.31.4While these peoples had been contending fiercely with one another for supremacy for many years, the result had been that the Arverni and Sequani hired Germans as mercenaries.

SECTION 1.31.5At first about fifteen thousand of them had crossed the Rhine; later, when those fierce and barbarous men had come to relish the lands, civilization, and wealth of the Gauls, more had been brought across. There were now about 120,000 of them in Gaul.

SECTION 1.31.6The Haedui and their dependents had fought them in arms time and again; defeated, they had suffered a great disaster and had lost all their nobility, all their senate, and all their cavalry.

SECTION 1.31.7Broken by these battles and disasters, the Haedui, who before had held the greatest power in Gaul both through their own valor and through their ties of hospitality and friendship with the Roman people, had been forced to give the Sequani the most distinguished men of their state as hostages and to bind their state by oath that they would neither demand the hostages’ return, nor implore aid from the Roman people, nor refuse to remain forever under the dominion and authority of the Sequani.

SECTION 1.31.8He alone, out of the entire Haeduan state, could not be induced either to take the oath or to give his children as hostages.

SECTION 1.31.9For that reason he had fled from his state and gone to Rome to seek aid from the Senate, because he alone was bound neither by oath nor by hostages.

SECTION 1.31.10Yet a worse fate had befallen the victorious Sequani than the defeated Haedui, because Ariovistus, king of the Germans, had settled within their territory and seized one-third of the land of the Sequani, which was the best in all Gaul; and he was now ordering the Sequani to withdraw from another third, because a few months before twenty-four thousand Harudes had come to join him, and a place and settlements had to be prepared for them.

SECTION 1.31.11Within a few years, all the Gauls would be driven from their territories, and all the Germans would cross the Rhine; for Gallic land could not be compared with that of the Germans, nor could this manner of life be compared with theirs.

SECTION 1.31.12Moreover, ever since Ariovistus had defeated the forces of the Gauls in battle—a battle fought at Magetobriga—he had ruled with arrogance and cruelty, demanding as hostages the children of every man of highest rank and inflicting upon them every kind of exemplary punishment and torture if anything was not done at his nod or according to his pleasure.

SECTION 1.31.13He was a barbarous, hot-tempered, and reckless man; his commands could no longer be endured.

SECTION 1.31.14Unless some aid was to be found in Caesar and the Roman people, all the Gauls would have to do what the Helvetii had done: emigrate from their homes, seek another dwelling place and other settlements far removed from the Germans, and try whatever fortune might befall them. If these words were reported to Ariovistus, Diviciacus had no doubt that he would inflict the most terrible punishment upon all the hostages in his possession.

SECTION 1.31.15Caesar, either by his own authority and that of his army, or by his recent victory, or by the name of the Roman people, could deter a still greater multitude of Germans from being brought across the Rhine and could protect all Gaul from the violence of Ariovistus.

CHAPTER 1.32

SECTION 1.32.1When Diviciacus had delivered this speech, all who were present began, with loud weeping, to seek aid from Caesar.

SECTION 1.32.2Caesar noticed that, alone among all the others, the Sequani did none of the things the rest were doing, but remained sorrowful, gazing at the ground with bowed heads. Wondering at the reason for this, he questioned them.

SECTION 1.32.3The Sequani made no reply, but remained silent in the same dejection. When he questioned them repeatedly and could elicit no answer at all, the same Diviciacus the Haeduan replied:

SECTION 1.32.4the fortune of the Sequani was more wretched and grievous than that of the rest, because they alone dared not even complain in secret or implore aid, and shuddered at the cruelty of Ariovistus in his absence

SECTION 1.32.5as though he were present before them; for the rest still had the opportunity of flight, but the Sequani, who had admitted Ariovistus within their territories and whose towns were all in his power, had to endure every kind of torture.

CHAPTER 1.33

SECTION 1.33.1When Caesar had learned these facts, he reassured the Gauls with his words and promised that he would take the matter under his care. He had great hope that Ariovistus, moved by his favor and authority, would put an end to his wrongs. After delivering this speech, he dismissed the council.

SECTION 1.33.2Besides these considerations, many circumstances urged him to believe that he ought to take thought for the matter and undertake it. Chief among them was that he saw the Haedui, repeatedly styled brothers and kinsmen by the Senate, held in slavery and under the dominion of the Germans, and understood that their hostages were in the hands of Ariovistus and the Sequani. Given the vast power of the Roman people, he considered this deeply disgraceful both to himself and to the Republic.

SECTION 1.33.3Moreover, he saw that it was dangerous to the Roman people for the Germans gradually to become accustomed to crossing the Rhine and for a great multitude of them to enter Gaul. Nor did he think that these fierce and barbarous men would restrain themselves, once they had occupied all Gaul, from marching into the Province, as the Cimbri and Teutones had done before them, and from there advancing into Italy—especially since only the Rhône separated the Sequani from our Province. He therefore believed that these developments must be met as quickly as possible.

SECTION 1.33.4Ariovistus himself, moreover, had assumed such pride and such arrogance that he seemed no longer to be tolerated.

CHAPTER 1.34

SECTION 1.34.1Caesar therefore decided to send envoys to Ariovistus to demand that he choose some place midway between them for a conference. Caesar wished, he said, to discuss with him matters of public concern and of the highest importance to them both.

SECTION 1.34.2To this embassy Ariovistus replied that, if he himself had needed anything from Caesar, he would have gone to him; if Caesar wanted anything from him, Caesar ought to come to him.

SECTION 1.34.3Besides, he dared not come without an army into those parts of Gaul that Caesar possessed, nor could he concentrate his army in one place without a great supply train and enormous exertion.

SECTION 1.34.4Moreover, he found it strange what business either Caesar or the Roman people at large had in his part of Gaul, which he had conquered in war.

CHAPTER 1.35

SECTION 1.35.1When these replies were reported to Caesar, he again sent envoys to Ariovistus with the following instructions:

SECTION 1.35.2since, after receiving so great a favor from Caesar and the Roman people—having been styled king and friend by the Senate during Caesar’s consulship—he now returned this gratitude to Caesar and the Roman people by refusing an invitation to a conference and by judging that he need neither speak nor learn about a matter of common concern, these were Caesar’s demands of him:

SECTION 1.35.3first, that he bring no further multitude of men across the Rhine into Gaul; next, that he return the hostages he held from the Haedui and permit the Sequani, with his consent, to return to them the hostages they held; and that he neither provoke the Haedui by wrongful acts nor make war upon them or their allies.

SECTION 1.35.4If he acted accordingly, Caesar and the Roman people would enjoy lasting favor and friendship with him. If Caesar did not obtain these demands, then, since during the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso the Senate had decreed that whoever governed the Province of Gaul should, so far as he could do so consistently with the interests of the Republic, defend the Haedui and the other friends of the Roman people, Caesar would not overlook the wrongs done to the Haedui.

CHAPTER 1.36

SECTION 1.36.1To these demands Ariovistus replied that the law of war was that those who had conquered should rule those whom they had conquered in whatever manner they wished. The Roman people likewise had been accustomed to rule the conquered, not according to another’s dictates, but according to their own judgment.

SECTION 1.36.2If he did not dictate to the Roman people how they should exercise their rights, he ought not to be hindered by the Roman people in the exercise of his own rights.

SECTION 1.36.3The Haedui had become his tributaries because they had tried the fortune of war, had met him in arms, and had been defeated.

SECTION 1.36.4Caesar was doing him a great wrong, since by his arrival he was diminishing the revenues due him.

SECTION 1.36.5He would not return the hostages to the Haedui, nor would he wrongfully make war upon them or their allies, provided they abided by what had been agreed and paid their tribute each year. If they did not, the fraternal title bestowed upon them by the Roman people would be far from helping them.

SECTION 1.36.6As for Caesar’s warning that he would not overlook the wrongs done to the Haedui, no man had ever contended with Ariovistus except to his own destruction.

SECTION 1.36.7Let Caesar engage him whenever he wished; he would learn what the valor of the unconquered Germans could accomplish—men highly trained in arms who for fourteen years had never passed beneath a roof.

CHAPTER 1.37

SECTION 1.37.1These messages were being reported to Caesar at the same time that envoys arrived from the Haedui and the Treveri:

SECTION 1.37.2the Haedui to complain that the Harudes, who had recently been transported into Gaul, were ravaging their territories, and that even by giving hostages they had been unable to purchase peace from Ariovistus;

SECTION 1.37.3the Treveri to report that one hundred cantons of the Suebi had settled on the banks of the Rhine and were attempting to cross it, and that the brothers Nasua and Cimberius commanded them. Deeply alarmed by these developments, Caesar believed that he must act quickly, lest, if the new host of Suebi joined the old forces of Ariovistus, resistance should become more difficult.

SECTION 1.37.4Accordingly, after securing provisions as rapidly as he could, he hastened against Ariovistus by forced marches.

CHAPTER 1.38

SECTION 1.38.1When he had advanced for three days, word was brought to him that Ariovistus was hastening with all his forces to seize Vesontio, the largest town of the Sequani, and had advanced three days’ march from his own territory. Caesar believed that he must take the greatest precautions to prevent this. For in that town there was a most abundant supply of everything useful for war,

SECTION 1.38.2and the nature of its position fortified it so strongly that it offered a great advantage for conducting a campaign, because the river Dubis, as though traced with a compass, encircles nearly the entire town.

SECTION 1.38.3The remaining space, where the river leaves a gap, is no more than sixteen hundred feet across and is enclosed by a mountain of great height, whose base touches the riverbanks on either side.

SECTION 1.38.4A wall carried around this mountain makes it a citadel and joins it to the town.

SECTION 1.38.5Caesar hastened there by long marches night and day, seized the town, and stationed a garrison in it.

CHAPTER 1.39

SECTION 1.39.1While he remained for a few days at Vesontio to secure grain and other supplies, inquiries by our men and the statements of Gauls and merchants—who proclaimed that the Germans were of enormous physical stature, of incredible valor, and highly trained in arms, and who said that in their frequent encounters with them they had been unable to endure even the expression on their faces or the fierce gaze of their eyes—suddenly filled the entire army with such fear that it profoundly disturbed the minds and spirits of them all.

SECTION 1.39.2This fear first arose among the military tribunes, prefects, and others who had followed Caesar from Rome for friendship’s sake and possessed no great experience in warfare.

SECTION 1.39.3Each of them offered a different excuse, which he claimed made his departure necessary, and asked to be permitted to leave with Caesar’s consent; some, moved by shame and wishing to avoid the suspicion of fear, remained.

SECTION 1.39.4They could neither compose their features nor at times restrain their tears. Hidden away in their tents, they either lamented their own fate or commiserated with their intimate friends over the danger they shared. Wills were being sealed everywhere throughout the camp.

SECTION 1.39.5By their talk and their fear, even those who had great experience in camp—soldiers, centurions, and commanders of cavalry—were gradually thrown into confusion.

SECTION 1.39.6Those among them who wished to be considered less timid said that they did not fear the enemy, but were apprehensive about the narrowness of the route and the vast forests that lay between themselves and Ariovistus, or about the grain supply and whether it could be brought forward with sufficient ease.

SECTION 1.39.7Some even reported to Caesar that when he ordered the camp to be struck and the standards advanced, the soldiers would not obey his command or carry the standards, because of their fear.

CHAPTER 1.40

SECTION 1.40.1When Caesar observed this, he called a council and summoned to it the centurions of every rank. He reproached them bitterly: first, because they thought it their business to inquire or consider in what direction or with what purpose they were being led.

SECTION 1.40.2During his consulship Ariovistus had most eagerly sought the friendship of the Roman people; why should anyone so rashly suppose that he would abandon his duty?

SECTION 1.40.3For his own part, Caesar was convinced that once Ariovistus learned his demands and perceived the fairness of his terms, he would reject neither Caesar’s goodwill nor that of the Roman people.

SECTION 1.40.4But if, driven by rage and madness, he did make war, what, after all, had they to fear? Why should they despair either of their own courage or of their commander’s vigilance?

SECTION 1.40.5Within the memory of their fathers, this enemy had been put to the test when the Cimbri and Teutones were defeated by Gaius Marius [and the army was thought to have earned no less glory than the commander himself]. The Germans had also recently been tested in Italy during the slave uprising, although the slaves had been aided to some extent by the experience and discipline they had acquired from us.

SECTION 1.40.6From this it could be judged how much good there was in steadfastness, since the men whom they had for some time feared without cause while those men were unarmed, they had afterward overcome when they were armed and victorious.

SECTION 1.40.7Finally, these were the same Germans whom the Helvetii had encountered time and again and had generally defeated, not only in their own territory but in German territory as well; yet the Helvetii had been unable to stand against our army.

SECTION 1.40.8If any were disturbed by the Gauls’ defeat and flight, they could discover, if they made inquiry, that after the Gauls had been exhausted by the long duration of the war, Ariovistus had kept within his camp and the marshes for many months without giving them an opportunity to fight; then, when they had despaired of battle and dispersed, he had attacked them suddenly and prevailed more by calculation and strategy than by valor.

SECTION 1.40.9Though such a strategy had succeeded against barbarous and inexperienced men, Ariovistus himself could not expect our armies to be caught by it.

SECTION 1.40.10Those who disguised their fear by professing anxiety about the grain supply and the narrowness of the route were behaving arrogantly, since they appeared either to despair of their commander’s ability to perform his duty or to dictate to him.

SECTION 1.40.11These matters were his concern. The Sequani, Leuci, and Lingones were furnishing grain, and the crops were already ripe in the fields. As for the route, they themselves would soon be able to judge it.

SECTION 1.40.12As for the assertion that they would not obey orders or carry the standards, he was not at all disturbed by it. He knew that whenever an army had failed to obey its commander, either fortune had deserted him through failure in the field, or his greed had been exposed by the discovery of some crime.

SECTION 1.40.13His integrity had been demonstrated throughout his life, and his good fortune in the war against the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.40.14He would therefore do at once what he had intended to postpone until a later day, and would strike camp during the fourth watch of the coming night, so that he might learn as soon as possible whether honor and duty or fear held greater power over them.

SECTION 1.40.15Even if no one else followed, he would nevertheless march with the Tenth Legion alone, for he had no doubts about it, and it would serve as his praetorian cohort. Caesar had always shown this legion particular favor and, because of its courage, placed the greatest confidence in it.

CHAPTER 1.41

SECTION 1.41.1After this speech, the feelings of all were transformed in a remarkable fashion, and the greatest eagerness and desire to wage war arose among them.

SECTION 1.41.2The Tenth Legion was the first, through its military tribunes, to thank him for forming so excellent an opinion of it, and declared that it was entirely ready to wage war.

SECTION 1.41.3Then the remaining legions, through their military tribunes and the centurions of the senior grades, sought to satisfy Caesar. They declared that they had never doubted or been afraid, and had never supposed that judgment concerning the conduct of the whole war belonged to them rather than to their commander.

SECTION 1.41.4Caesar accepted their assurances and, after having the route investigated by Diviciacus—the Gaul in whom he placed the greatest trust—so that he might lead the army by open country on a detour of more than fifty miles, set out during the fourth watch, as he had said he would.

SECTION 1.41.5On the seventh day, having continued the march without interruption, he was informed by scouts that Ariovistus’s forces were twenty-four miles from ours.

CHAPTER 1.42

SECTION 1.42.1When Ariovistus learned of Caesar’s approach, he sent envoys to him. The conference that Caesar had previously requested could now take place, since Caesar had come nearer and Ariovistus believed that he could attend it without danger.

SECTION 1.42.2Caesar did not reject the proposal and now believed that Ariovistus was returning to reason, since he voluntarily offered what he had previously refused when requested.

SECTION 1.42.3He conceived great hope that, in view of the great benefits conferred upon Ariovistus by himself and the Roman people, Ariovistus would learn his demands and abandon his obstinacy.

SECTION 1.42.4The conference was appointed for the fifth day from that day.

SECTION 1.42.5Meanwhile, as envoys were frequently passing back and forth between them, Ariovistus demanded that Caesar bring no infantryman to the conference. He feared, he said, that Caesar might surround him in an ambush. Each should come with cavalry; on no other condition would he attend.

SECTION 1.42.6Caesar did not wish the conference to be canceled upon the introduction of a pretext, but he did not dare entrust his safety to the Gallic cavalry. He therefore decided that the most expedient course was to take all the horses away from the Gallic horsemen and mount upon them legionaries from the Tenth Legion, in which he placed the greatest confidence, so that, if action became necessary, he might have the most devoted possible bodyguard.

SECTION 1.42.7While this was being done, one of the soldiers of the Tenth Legion remarked, not without wit, that Caesar was doing more than he had promised: he had promised to treat the Tenth Legion as his praetorian cohort, but now he was enrolling it among the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.43

SECTION 1.43.1There was a broad plain, and upon it a fairly large earthen mound. This place was almost equally distant from the camps of Ariovistus and Caesar. There, as agreed, they came to hold their conference.

SECTION 1.43.2Caesar stationed the legion he had brought on horseback two hundred paces from the mound. Ariovistus’s horsemen likewise halted at an equal distance.

SECTION 1.43.3Ariovistus demanded that they confer on horseback and that each bring ten men besides himself to the meeting.

SECTION 1.43.4When they arrived, Caesar began his speech by recounting the benefits that he and the Senate had conferred upon Ariovistus: that the Senate had given him the title of king, that he had been declared a friend, and that gifts had been sent to him with the greatest generosity. Caesar explained that such distinctions had fallen to the lot of few men and were customarily bestowed only in return for great services.

SECTION 1.43.5Ariovistus, though he had neither access to the Senate nor any just grounds for making such a request, had obtained these honors through Caesar’s own favor and generosity and that of the Senate.

SECTION 1.43.6Caesar also explained how ancient and how just were the bonds of alliance that existed between the Romans and the Haedui;

SECTION 1.43.7how many decrees of the Senate had been passed in their favor and how honorable those decrees had been; and how the Haedui had at all times held supremacy over all Gaul, even before they had sought our friendship.

SECTION 1.43.8It was the custom of the Roman people not merely to permit their allies and friends to suffer no loss, but to desire that they be increased in influence, dignity, and honor. Who, then, could endure having taken from them what they had possessed when they entered into friendship with the Roman people?

SECTION 1.43.9He then made the same demands that he had entrusted to his envoys: Ariovistus must not make war upon the Haedui or their allies; he must return the hostages; and, if he could not send any part of the Germans back home, he must at least permit no more of them to cross the Rhine.

CHAPTER 1.44

SECTION 1.44.1Ariovistus answered Caesar’s demands briefly, but spoke at length in praise of his own prowess:

SECTION 1.44.2He had crossed the Rhine not of his own accord, but because the Gauls had asked and summoned him. He had not left his home and kindred without great hopes and great rewards. The settlements he held in Gaul had been granted by the Gauls themselves, and the hostages had been given of their own free will. He received tribute by the law of war, which victors were accustomed to impose upon the vanquished.

SECTION 1.44.3He had not made war upon the Gauls; the Gauls had made war upon him. All the states of Gaul had come to attack him and had encamped against him; all their forces had been routed and defeated by him in a single battle.

SECTION 1.44.4If they wished to make another trial, he was ready to fight it out again. If they wished to enjoy peace, it was unjust for them to refuse the tribute that they had paid voluntarily down to that time.

SECTION 1.44.5The friendship of the Roman people ought to bring him honor and protection, not injury, and he had sought it in that hope. If, through the intervention of the Roman people, the tribute were canceled and those who had surrendered were withdrawn from his authority, he would renounce the friendship of the Roman people as gladly as he had sought it.

SECTION 1.44.6As for his bringing a great number of Germans into Gaul, he was doing so to protect himself, not to attack Gaul. The proof was that he had not come except at the Gauls’ request and had not begun the war, but had defended himself.

SECTION 1.44.7He had come into Gaul before the Roman people. Never before this time had an army of the Roman people gone beyond the boundaries of the Province of Gaul.

SECTION 1.44.8What did Caesar want with him? Why had he entered Ariovistus’s possessions? This part of Gaul was his province, just as the other was ours. Just as Ariovistus ought not to be indulged if he made an attack upon our territory, so we were equally unjust to interfere with him in the exercise of his own rights.

SECTION 1.44.9As for Caesar’s assertion that the Haedui had been called brothers by the Senate, Ariovistus was neither so barbarous nor so ignorant of affairs that he did not know that the Haedui had brought no aid to the Romans in the recent war with the Allobroges, and that they themselves had received no aid from the Roman people in the struggles they had waged against him and the Sequani.

SECTION 1.44.10He was bound to suspect that Caesar, under the pretense of friendship, was keeping an army in Gaul for the purpose of crushing him.

SECTION 1.44.11Unless Caesar withdrew and led his army away from these regions, Ariovistus would regard him not as a friend, but as an enemy.

SECTION 1.44.12If he killed Caesar, he would gratify many nobles and leading men of the Roman people—he knew this from messages they themselves had sent—and by Caesar’s death he could purchase the favor and friendship of them all.

SECTION 1.44.13But if Caesar withdrew and surrendered to him the unrestricted possession of Gaul, Ariovistus would reward him magnificently and would bring to a conclusion, without any labor or danger to Caesar, whatever wars Caesar wished to have waged.

CHAPTER 1.45

SECTION 1.45.1Caesar spoke at length to explain why he could not abandon the matter. Neither his own custom nor that of the Roman people permitted them to desert allies who had rendered the greatest services, nor did he judge that Gaul belonged to Ariovistus rather than to the Roman people.

SECTION 1.45.2The Arverni and Ruteni had been defeated in war by Quintus Fabius Maximus, but the Roman people had pardoned them, had neither reduced their country to a province nor imposed tribute upon them.

SECTION 1.45.3If the earliest title in time ought to be regarded, the sovereignty of the Roman people in Gaul was the most just. If the judgment of the Senate ought to be observed, Gaul should be free, since after conquering it in war the Senate had wished it to retain its own laws.

CHAPTER 1.46

SECTION 1.46.1While these matters were being discussed at the conference, Caesar was informed that Ariovistus’s horsemen were drawing nearer to the mound, riding up toward our men, and hurling stones and missiles at them.

SECTION 1.46.2Caesar ended the discussion and withdrew to his own men, whom he ordered not to cast back any missile whatever against the enemy.

SECTION 1.46.3For although he saw that a battle between his chosen legion and the enemy cavalry would involve no danger, he nevertheless did not think it right to engage, lest, after the enemy had been routed, it be said that he had surrounded and attacked them during a conference held under pledge of good faith.

SECTION 1.46.4When word spread among the common soldiers of the arrogance with which Ariovistus had barred the Romans from all Gaul during the conference, and how his horsemen had attacked our men and thereby broken off the meeting, the army was filled with far greater eagerness and a still stronger desire to fight.

CHAPTER 1.47

SECTION 1.47.1Two days later Ariovistus sent envoys to Caesar. He wished, he said, to discuss with him the matters they had begun to consider but had not concluded. Caesar should either appoint another day for a conference or, if he were unwilling to do that, send one of his envoys to Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.2Caesar saw no reason for another conference, especially since on the previous day the Germans could not be restrained from casting missiles at our men.

SECTION 1.47.3He believed that he would be sending any envoy of his own to Ariovistus at great risk and exposing him to savage men.

SECTION 1.47.4It seemed best to send Gaius Valerius Procillus, the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus, a young man of the highest courage and refinement, whose father had been granted Roman citizenship by Gaius Valerius Flaccus. He was chosen both for his loyalty and for his knowledge of the Gallic language, which Ariovistus, through long familiarity, now spoke extensively, and because the Germans had no reason to commit any offense against him. With him Caesar sent Marcus Metius, who enjoyed guest-friendship with Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.5He instructed them to learn what Ariovistus had to say and report it to him. When Ariovistus saw them in his camp, he cried out in the presence of his army: Why had they come to him? Was it to spy? He prevented them from attempting to speak and cast them into chains.

CHAPTER 1.48

SECTION 1.48.1That same day Ariovistus moved his camp forward and established himself beneath a mountain, six miles from Caesar’s camp.

SECTION 1.48.2On the following day he led his forces past Caesar’s camp and made camp two miles beyond it, intending thereby to cut Caesar off from the grain and supplies being brought from the Sequani and Haedui.

SECTION 1.48.3For five successive days from that day, Caesar led his forces out before the camp and kept them drawn up in battle order, so that if Ariovistus wished to contend in battle he would not lack the opportunity.

SECTION 1.48.4Throughout all these days Ariovistus kept his army within camp, but engaged in cavalry combat every day. This was the manner of fighting in which the Germans had trained themselves:

SECTION 1.48.5There were six thousand horsemen and an equal number of the swiftest and bravest infantrymen, each of whom a horseman had personally chosen from the entire force for the protection of his own life.

SECTION 1.48.6The horsemen fought in battle alongside these men and withdrew to them for protection. If the situation became especially dangerous, the infantrymen rushed forward; if any horseman fell from his horse after receiving a serious wound, they surrounded him;

SECTION 1.48.7If they had to advance farther than usual or withdraw more rapidly, their training gave them such speed that, supporting themselves by the horses’ manes, they could keep pace with them at a gallop.

CHAPTER 1.49

SECTION 1.49.1When Caesar realized that Ariovistus was keeping within his camp, he chose a suitable site for a camp beyond the place where the Germans had settled, about six hundred paces from them, so that he might not be cut off from supplies any longer; then, drawing up his army in three lines, he advanced to that spot.

SECTION 1.49.2He ordered the first and second lines to remain under arms and the third to fortify the camp.

SECTION 1.49.3[This position, as has been stated, was about six hundred paces from the enemy.] Ariovistus sent there about sixteen thousand light-armed men with all his cavalry, intending this force to intimidate our men and prevent them from completing the fortifications.

SECTION 1.49.4Nevertheless, Caesar, as he had previously determined, ordered two lines to repel the enemy and the third to complete the work. When the camp had been fortified, he left two legions and part of the auxiliaries there and led the other four legions back to the larger camp.

CHAPTER 1.50

SECTION 1.50.1The next day Caesar, in accordance with his plan, led his forces out of both camps, advanced a short distance from the larger camp, drew up his battle line, and offered the enemy an opportunity to fight.

SECTION 1.50.2When he saw that even then they would not come out, he led his army back into camp at about noon. Only then did Ariovistus send part of his forces to attack the smaller camp. Both sides fought fiercely until evening. At sunset Ariovistus withdrew his troops into camp, after many wounds had been both inflicted and received.

SECTION 1.50.3When Caesar asked the prisoners why Ariovistus would not decide the issue in battle, he discovered this reason: it was the custom among the Germans for their matrons to declare by lots and divinations whether or not it was advantageous to engage in battle; and they were saying

SECTION 1.50.4that it was not ordained for the Germans to conquer if they fought a battle before the new moon.

CHAPTER 1.51

SECTION 1.51.1On the following day Caesar left in each camp what seemed a sufficient garrison and stationed all the auxiliary troops in sight of the enemy before the smaller camp, because, in view of the enemy’s numbers, he was weaker in legionary troops and wished to use the auxiliaries to give the appearance of greater strength; he himself advanced as far as the enemy’s camp with his army drawn up in three lines.

SECTION 1.51.2Then at last the Germans were compelled to lead their forces out of camp. They stationed them by tribes at equal intervals—the Harudes, Marcomani, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suebi—and surrounded their entire battle line with wagons and carts, so that no hope of escape should remain.

SECTION 1.51.3Upon these they placed their women, who, weeping and stretching out their hands, implored the soldiers as they went forth to battle not to deliver them into slavery to the Romans.

CHAPTER 1.52

SECTION 1.52.1Caesar placed a legate and the quaestor in command of each separate legion, so that every man might have them as witnesses to his courage;

SECTION 1.52.2he himself opened the battle from the right wing, because he had observed that this was the enemy’s weakest quarter.

SECTION 1.52.3At the signal our men charged the enemy so fiercely, and the enemy in turn rushed forward so suddenly and swiftly, that there was no room to cast the javelins against them.

SECTION 1.52.4The javelins were discarded, and the fighting was carried on at close quarters with swords. But the Germans quickly formed a phalanx according to their custom and received the assault of the swordsmen.

SECTION 1.52.5Many of our men were found who leaped upon the phalanx, tore away the shields with their hands, and struck the enemy from above.

SECTION 1.52.6Although the enemy’s line had been driven back on the left wing and put to flight, on the right wing the great mass of their men was pressing our line hard.

SECTION 1.52.7When the young Publius Crassus, who commanded the cavalry, observed this, being freer to survey the field than those who were engaged amid the battle line, he sent the third line to support our hard-pressed men.

CHAPTER 1.53

SECTION 1.53.1Thus the battle was restored, and all the enemy turned their backs; nor did they cease their flight until they reached the river Rhine, about fifty miles from the battlefield.

SECTION 1.53.2There a very few, trusting to their strength, attempted to swim across, or found small boats and so gained safety.

SECTION 1.53.3Among them was Ariovistus, who found a little boat moored to the bank and escaped in it; all the rest were overtaken and killed by our cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.4Ariovistus had two wives, one a Sueban by birth, whom he had brought with him from home, the other a Norican, the sister of King Voccio, whom he had married in Gaul after her brother sent her to him. Both perished in the rout. He also had two daughters: one of them was killed, the other captured.

SECTION 1.53.5Gaius Valerius Procillus, as he was being dragged away in the flight by his guards, bound with three chains, fell in with Caesar himself, who was pursuing the enemy with the cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.6This occurrence indeed gave Caesar no less pleasure than the victory itself, because he saw restored to him, rescued from the enemy’s hands, a man of the highest character in the province of Gaul, his own friend and guest; nor had fortune diminished any part of his great delight and rejoicing by bringing calamity upon Procillus.

SECTION 1.53.7Procillus said that, in his presence, the lots had been consulted three times concerning him—whether he should be burned to death at once or reserved for another occasion—and that by the favor of the lots he remained unharmed.

SECTION 1.53.8Marcus Metius was likewise found and brought back to Caesar.

CHAPTER 1.54

SECTION 1.54.1When news of this battle was carried across the Rhine, the Suebi who had come to its banks began to return home. When the peoples who live nearest the Rhine perceived their panic, they pursued them and killed a great number.

SECTION 1.54.2Having concluded two very great wars in a single summer, Caesar led his army into winter quarters among the Sequani somewhat earlier than the season required. He placed Labienus in command of the winter quarters;

SECTION 1.54.3he himself departed for Cisalpine Gaul to hold the assizes.

CHAPTER 2.1

SECTION 2.1.1While Caesar was in Cisalpine Gaul [in winter quarters], as we have shown above, frequent reports were brought to him, and he was also informed by letters from Labienus, that all the Belgae, whom we have said constitute the third part of Gaul, were conspiring against the Roman people and exchanging hostages among themselves.

SECTION 2.1.2The reasons for the conspiracy were these: first, they feared that, once all Gaul had been pacified, our army would be led against them;

SECTION 2.1.3second, they were being incited by certain Gauls—some who, just as they had been unwilling for the Germans to remain longer in Gaul, likewise resented the Roman people’s army wintering and becoming permanently established there; others who, from fickleness and instability of mind, were eager for new governments;

SECTION 2.1.4and still others because in Gaul royal power was commonly seized by the more powerful men and by those who had the means to hire retainers, whereas under our dominion they could accomplish this less easily.

CHAPTER 2.2

SECTION 2.2.1Moved by these reports and letters, Caesar enrolled two new legions in Cisalpine Gaul and, at the opening of summer, sent the legate Quintus Pedius to lead them into Transalpine Gaul.

SECTION 2.2.2He himself came to the army as soon as forage began to be plentiful.

SECTION 2.2.3He charged the Senones and the other Gauls who bordered on the Belgae to learn what was taking place among them and keep him informed of these matters.

SECTION 2.2.4They all reported consistently that bands of men were being gathered and an army concentrated in one place. Caesar then judged that he must no longer hesitate to march against them. After arranging the grain supply, he broke camp and in about fifteen days reached the borders of the Belgae.

CHAPTER 2.3

SECTION 2.3.1When he arrived there unexpectedly and sooner than anyone had anticipated, the Remi, the Belgic people nearest to Gaul, sent to him as envoys Iccius and Andebrogius, the foremost men of their state,

SECTION 2.3.2to declare that they entrusted themselves and all they possessed to the protection and authority of the Roman people; that they had neither joined the other Belgae nor conspired against the Roman people;

SECTION 2.3.3and that they were ready to give hostages, obey his commands, receive him into their towns, and assist him with grain and other supplies;

SECTION 2.3.4that all the other Belgae were under arms, and that the Germans who lived on this side of the Rhine had joined them;

SECTION 2.3.5and that the frenzy of them all was so great that they had been unable to deter even the Suessiones—their own brothers and kinsmen, who enjoyed the same rights and laws and shared with them one government and one magistracy—from joining the conspiracy.

CHAPTER 2.4

SECTION 2.4.1When Caesar asked them which states were under arms, how large they were, and what military strength they possessed, he learned the following: most of the Belgae were descended from the Germans and had crossed the Rhine in ancient times; attracted by the fertility of the country, they had settled there and driven out the Gauls who inhabited the region; and they alone,

SECTION 2.4.2within the memory of our fathers, when all Gaul was being ravaged, had prevented the Teutones and Cimbri from entering their territories;

SECTION 2.4.3and consequently the memory of those deeds gave them great prestige and great confidence in military affairs.

SECTION 2.4.4The Remi said that they possessed exact information about all their numbers, because, being connected with them by ties of blood and marriage, they had learned how large a force each people had promised for that war in the common council of the Belgae.

SECTION 2.4.5The Bellovaci were the most powerful among them in courage, influence, and numbers. They could muster one hundred thousand armed men, had promised sixty thousand picked troops from that number, and demanded for themselves the supreme command of the entire war.

SECTION 2.4.6The Suessiones were their own neighbors and possessed very extensive territories and exceptionally fertile fields.

SECTION 2.4.7Within our own memory their king had been Diviciacus, the most powerful man in all Gaul, who had held dominion over a great part of these regions and even over Britain. Their king now was Galba, upon whom, because of his justice and exceptional wisdom, the supreme command of the entire war was being conferred by unanimous consent. They had twelve towns and promised fifty thousand armed men; the Nervii promised the same number,

SECTION 2.4.8and were considered the fiercest among the Belgae themselves and lived farthest away;

SECTION 2.4.9the Atrebates promised fifteen thousand, the Ambiani ten thousand, the Morini twenty-five thousand, the Menapii seven thousand, the Caleti ten thousand, the Veliocasses and Viromandui the same number, and the Atuatuci nineteen thousand;

SECTION 2.4.10the Condrusi, Eburones, Caerosi, and Paemani, who are collectively called Germans, were estimated at about forty thousand.

CHAPTER 2.5

SECTION 2.5.1After encouraging the Remi and addressing them with generous praise, Caesar ordered their entire senate to assemble before him and the children of their leading men to be brought to him as hostages. All these requirements were punctually fulfilled by them on the appointed day.

SECTION 2.5.2He himself earnestly urged Diviciacus the Aeduan to action, explaining how greatly it concerned the republic and their common safety that the enemy’s forces should be kept apart, so that it would not be necessary to engage so great a multitude at one time.

SECTION 2.5.3This could be accomplished, he said, if the Aedui led their forces into the territory of the Bellovaci and began to ravage their lands.

SECTION 2.5.4After giving him these instructions, Caesar dismissed him. When he saw that all the forces of the Belgae, concentrated in one place, were advancing against him, and learned from the scouts he had sent out and from the Remi that they were now not far away, he hastened to lead his army across the river Axona, which lies at the extreme frontier of the Remi, and there pitched camp.

SECTION 2.5.5This position protected one side of the camp by the riverbanks, secured the country behind him from the enemy, and made it possible for supplies from the Remi and the other states to be carried to him without danger.

SECTION 2.5.6There was a bridge over the river. Caesar stationed a guard there and left the legate Quintus Titurius Sabinus with six cohorts on the other side of the river. He ordered the camp to be fortified with a rampart twelve feet high and a ditch eighteen feet wide.

CHAPTER 2.6

SECTION 2.6.1Eight miles from this camp stood a town of the Remi named Bibrax. The Belgae attacked it directly from their line of march with great violence. It was held only with difficulty that day.

SECTION 2.6.2The Gauls and Belgae employ the same method of attacking a town. After surrounding the entire circuit of the walls with a mass of men, they begin hurling stones against the wall from every direction; and when the wall has been stripped of defenders, they form a tortoise, advance to the gates, and undermine the wall. On that occasion this was easily done.

SECTION 2.6.3For when so great a multitude was hurling stones and missiles, no one had any possibility of maintaining his position on the wall.

SECTION 2.6.4When night put an end to the assault, Iccius the Remian—a man of the highest birth and influence among his people, who then commanded the town and had been one of the envoys who came to Caesar to sue for peace—sent him a messenger to say that unless reinforcements were dispatched to him, he could hold out no longer.

CHAPTER 2.7

SECTION 2.7.1At midnight Caesar sent Numidians, Cretan archers, and Balearic slingers to reinforce the townspeople, using as guides the same men who had come as messengers from Iccius;

SECTION 2.7.2their arrival gave the Remi, together with hope of defense, a stronger determination to resist, while for the same reason the enemy lost hope of taking the town.

SECTION 2.7.3Accordingly, after lingering near the town for a short time and laying waste the fields of the Remi, they burned every village and building they could reach, then marched with all their forces toward Caesar’s camp and pitched their own camp less than two miles away;

SECTION 2.7.4that camp, as the smoke and fires indicated, extended more than eight miles in breadth.

CHAPTER 2.8

SECTION 2.8.1At first Caesar resolved to refrain from battle, both because of the enemy’s numbers and because of their extraordinary reputation for courage;

SECTION 2.8.2nevertheless, by daily cavalry engagements he tested what the enemy could accomplish by their valor and what our men would dare.

SECTION 2.8.3When he realized that our men were not inferior, he found the ground before the camp naturally favorable and well suited for drawing up a battle line. The hill on which the camp stood rose slightly from the plain and extended across its forward face only as widely as a deployed army could occupy; it had steep descents on either flank, while in front it sloped gently and gradually returned to the level of the plain. From each side of this hill he drew a transverse ditch about four hundred paces long

SECTION 2.8.4and built redoubts at the ends of the ditches, where he placed artillery, so that, once he had drawn up his line, the enemy, because they were so powerful in numbers, might not fight around the flanks and envelop his men.

SECTION 2.8.5This done, he left in camp the two legions he had most recently enrolled, so that they could be brought up as reinforcements wherever there might be need, and drew up the other six legions in battle order before the camp. The enemy likewise led their forces out of camp and deployed them.

CHAPTER 2.9

SECTION 2.9.1Between our army and the enemy’s lay a marsh of no great extent. The enemy waited to see whether our men would cross it; our men, meanwhile, stood ready under arms to attack them while encumbered if they should begin to cross.

SECTION 2.9.2Meanwhile, a cavalry engagement was fought between the two battle lines. When neither side began to cross, Caesar, after the cavalry engagement had gone more favorably for our men, led his forces back into camp.

SECTION 2.9.3The enemy immediately hastened from that place to the river Axona, which, as has been stated, lay behind our camp.

SECTION 2.9.4There, finding fords, they attempted to lead part of their forces across, intending, if they could, to storm the fort commanded by the lieutenant Quintus Titurius and destroy the bridge;

SECTION 2.9.5or, if they could not, to ravage the lands of the Remi, who were of great service to us in conducting the war, and cut our men off from supplies.

CHAPTER 2.10

SECTION 2.10.1When Titurius informed Caesar of this, he led all the cavalry, the lightly armed Numidians, the slingers, and the archers across the bridge and hastened against them. A fierce battle was fought at that place.

SECTION 2.10.2Our men attacked the enemy while they were encumbered in the river and killed a great number of them;

SECTION 2.10.3the rest, who most boldly attempted to cross over the bodies of their comrades, they drove back with a hail of missiles, while those who had crossed first were surrounded by the cavalry and slain.

SECTION 2.10.4When the enemy realized that their hopes had failed both of storming the town and of crossing the river, and saw that our men would not advance onto less favorable ground for the sake of battle, while their own supply of grain began to run short, they called a council and decided that it was best for each man to return home, and that all should assemble from every quarter to defend whichever people’s territory the Romans first invaded with their army. Thus they would fight on their own soil rather than another’s and make use of their stores of provisions at home.

SECTION 2.10.5Among the other reasons that brought them to this decision was their discovery that Diviciacus and the Haedui were approaching the borders of the Bellovaci. The Bellovaci could not be persuaded to remain any longer and refrain from carrying aid to their own people.

CHAPTER 2.11

SECTION 2.11.1Having reached this decision, they left camp during the second watch with great noise and confusion, without any fixed order or command, each man seeking the foremost place on the road for himself and hastening to reach home, so that their departure looked very much like a rout.

SECTION 2.11.2Caesar learned of this immediately through his scouts, but, fearing an ambush because he had not yet discovered why they were withdrawing, kept the army and cavalry within the camp.

SECTION 2.11.3At daybreak, when the scouts had confirmed the report, he sent all the cavalry ahead to delay the enemy’s rear guard. He placed the lieutenants Quintus Pedius and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta in command of them and ordered the lieutenant Titus Labienus to follow with three legions.

SECTION 2.11.4They attacked the rear and, pursuing it for many miles, cut down a great multitude of the fugitives. Those at the end of the column whom they overtook would halt and stoutly withstand the attack of our soldiers,

SECTION 2.11.5but those in front, because they seemed far removed from danger and were held together by neither necessity nor command, would hear the shouting, break ranks in panic, and seek safety one and all in flight.

SECTION 2.11.6Thus, without any danger to themselves, our men killed as great a number of them as the hours of daylight allowed. At sunset they ceased their pursuit and withdrew to camp, as they had been ordered.

CHAPTER 2.12

SECTION 2.12.1On the following day, before the enemy could recover from their terror and flight, Caesar led his army into the territory of the Suessiones, who were nearest to the Remi, and, after completing a long march, hastened to the town of Noviodunum.

SECTION 2.12.2He attempted to take it by assault directly from the march, because he heard that it had no defenders, but owing to the breadth of the ditch and the height of the wall he was unable to capture it, though only a few men defended it.

SECTION 2.12.3After fortifying his camp, he began to advance covered galleries and prepare everything needed for the assault.

SECTION 2.12.4Meanwhile, during the following night, the entire host of the Suessiones that had escaped the rout assembled within the town.

SECTION 2.12.5When the covered galleries had swiftly been advanced toward the town, a ramp constructed, and towers erected, the Gauls, shaken by the magnitude of works such as they had never before seen or heard of and by the speed of the Romans, sent envoys to Caesar to arrange their surrender; and when the Remi petitioned that they be spared, their request was granted.

CHAPTER 2.13

SECTION 2.13.1Caesar accepted the surrender of the Suessiones after receiving as hostages the foremost men of the state and two sons of King Galba himself, and after all the weapons in the town had been delivered. He then led his army against the Bellovaci.

SECTION 2.13.2They had brought themselves and all their possessions into the town of Bratuspantium. When Caesar and his army were about five miles from the town, all the elders came out, stretched out their hands toward Caesar, and began to declare aloud that they placed themselves under his protection and authority and would not contend in arms against the Roman people.

SECTION 2.13.3Likewise, when he approached the town and was pitching camp there, the boys and women, with hands outstretched from the wall, begged the Romans for peace in their customary manner.

CHAPTER 2.14

SECTION 2.14.1Diviciacus spoke on their behalf—for after the departure of the Belgae he had dismissed the forces of the Haedui and returned to Caesar:

SECTION 2.14.2The Bellovaci had always been loyal friends of the Haeduan state;

SECTION 2.14.3they had been incited by their chiefs, who claimed that the Haedui had been reduced to slavery by Caesar and were enduring every kind of indignity and insult, and so had revolted from the Haedui and made war on the Roman people.

SECTION 2.14.4The leaders of that policy, realizing what a great calamity they had brought upon their state, had fled to Britain.

SECTION 2.14.5Not only the Bellovaci but also the Haedui on their behalf begged Caesar to exercise his accustomed clemency and forbearance toward them.

SECTION 2.14.6If he did so, he would increase the authority of the Haedui among all the Belgae, by whose auxiliary troops and resources they had customarily sustained themselves whenever wars arose.

CHAPTER 2.15

SECTION 2.15.1Out of regard for Diviciacus and the Haedui, Caesar said that he would receive the Bellovaci under his protection and preserve them; but because their state possessed great authority among the Belgae and surpassed them in population, he demanded six hundred hostages.

SECTION 2.15.2After these had been delivered and all the weapons in the town surrendered, he proceeded from that place into the territory of the Ambiani, who without delay surrendered themselves and all their possessions.

SECTION 2.15.3The Nervii bordered upon their territory. When Caesar inquired into the character and customs of that people, he learned the following:

SECTION 2.15.4Merchants were allowed no access to them; they permitted no wine or other articles tending toward luxury to be imported, because they believed that such things weakened their spirits and diminished their courage;

SECTION 2.15.5they were a fierce people of great valor; they bitterly reproached and accused the other Belgae for surrendering to the Roman people and casting aside their ancestral courage;

SECTION 2.15.6and they firmly declared that they would neither send envoys nor accept any terms of peace.

CHAPTER 2.16

SECTION 2.16.1After marching for three days through their territory, Caesar learned from prisoners that the river Sabis was no more than ten miles from his camp;

SECTION 2.16.2that all the Nervii had taken up their position beyond that river and were awaiting the arrival of the Romans there, together with the Atrebates and Viromandui, their neighbors

SECTION 2.16.3—for they had persuaded both these peoples to share the same fortune in war—;

SECTION 2.16.4that the forces of the Atuatuci were also expected by them and were on the march;

SECTION 2.16.5and that they had gathered the women and all who seemed too young or too old to fight in a place to which an army had no access because of the marshes.

CHAPTER 2.17

SECTION 2.17.1On learning these facts, Caesar sent scouts and centurions ahead to select a suitable site for a camp.

SECTION 2.17.2A considerable number of the surrendered Belgae and other Gauls were following Caesar and marching with him. Some of these, as was later learned from prisoners, had observed the army’s customary order of march during those days, and went by night to the Nervii. They explained that a great mass of baggage came between each legion and the next, and that there would be no difficulty, once the first legion had reached the campsite while the other legions were still a long way off, in attacking it while it was burdened with its packs;

SECTION 2.17.3once it had been driven off and the baggage plundered, the remaining legions would not dare to stand against them.

SECTION 2.17.4The plan of those who brought this information was also aided by the fact that from ancient times the Nervii, having no strength in cavalry—for even to this day they pay no attention to that arm, but all the power they possess lies in their infantry—had sought to obstruct the cavalry of their neighbors more easily if they entered their territory for the sake of plunder. They cut into young trees and bent them over, and, as numerous branches grew out sideways, interwove brambles and thornbushes among them, creating hedges that afforded protection like a wall, through which it was impossible not merely to enter but even to see.

SECTION 2.17.5Since these obstacles impeded the march of our column, the Nervii decided that they must not let the proposed opportunity pass.

CHAPTER 2.18

SECTION 2.18.1The nature of the ground our men had selected for the camp was as follows. From its summit a hill sloped evenly down toward the river Sabis, which we mentioned above.

SECTION 2.18.2From that river another hill rose with a like ascent, facing and opposite the first. Its lower part was open for about two hundred paces, but its upper part was wooded, so that it was not easy to see into its interior.

SECTION 2.18.3The enemy kept themselves concealed within those woods. In the open ground along the river a few cavalry outposts were visible. The river was about three feet deep.

CHAPTER 2.19

SECTION 2.19.1Caesar had sent the cavalry ahead and was following with all his forces, but the arrangement and order of his column differed from what the Belgae had reported to the Nervii.

SECTION 2.19.2For as he was approaching the enemy, Caesar, in accordance with his custom, was leading six legions unencumbered by baggage;

SECTION 2.19.3behind them he had placed the baggage of the entire army; then the two legions most recently levied closed the whole column and guarded the baggage.

SECTION 2.19.4Our cavalry, together with the slingers and archers, crossed the river and engaged the enemy’s cavalry.

SECTION 2.19.5The enemy repeatedly withdrew to their own men in the woods and then charged our men again from the forest, while our men did not dare to pursue them in retreat beyond the point where the open ground extended. Meanwhile the six legions that had arrived first marked out the work and began to fortify the camp.

SECTION 2.19.6As soon as the first part of our army’s baggage was sighted by those who lay hidden in the woods—the moment they had agreed upon for beginning the battle—the enemy, who had formed their battle line and ranks within the forest and steeled themselves for the attack, suddenly rushed forth with all their forces and charged our cavalry.

SECTION 2.19.7Having easily driven and scattered them, they ran down to the river with incredible speed, so that the enemy seemed almost at the same instant to be at the woods, in the river, and already upon us.

SECTION 2.19.8With the same speed they pressed uphill toward our camp and against the men occupied with the fortifications.

CHAPTER 2.20

SECTION 2.20.1Caesar had to do everything at once: the battle flag had to be displayed, the signal for the men to run to arms; the trumpet call had to be sounded; the soldiers had to be recalled from the work; those who had gone a little farther away to fetch materials for the rampart had to be summoned back; the battle line had to be formed; the soldiers had to be exhorted; and the signal for battle had to be given.

SECTION 2.20.2The shortness of the time and the enemy’s assault prevented a large part of these measures from being carried out.

SECTION 2.20.3Two things offered relief amid these difficulties: the knowledge and experience of the soldiers, who, trained in earlier battles, could prescribe for themselves what had to be done no less ably than others could instruct them; and Caesar’s order that each lieutenant remain with his respective legion at the work until the camp had been fortified.

SECTION 2.20.4Because of the enemy’s nearness and speed, these officers no longer waited for commands from Caesar but carried out on their own whatever measures seemed best.

CHAPTER 2.21

SECTION 2.21.1After issuing the necessary commands, Caesar ran down to exhort the soldiers in whatever quarter chance presented and came to the Tenth Legion.

SECTION 2.21.2He exhorted the soldiers in no longer a speech than to remember their former valor, not to lose heart, and stoutly to withstand the enemy’s assault;

SECTION 2.21.3and because the enemy was no farther away than the distance to which a missile could be hurled, he gave the signal to begin battle.

SECTION 2.21.4Then, as he went to another part of the line for the same purpose of exhortation, he found the men already fighting.

SECTION 2.21.5So little time was available, and the enemy’s spirit was so ready for combat, that there was no time not only to fasten on their insignia but even to put on their helmets and strip the coverings from their shields.

SECTION 2.21.6Each man took his stand in whatever part of the line he happened to reach from the work and beside whatever standards he first caught sight of, lest he lose time for fighting in searching for his own unit.

CHAPTER 2.22

SECTION 2.22.1The army was drawn up more as the nature of the ground, the slope of the hill, and the urgency of the moment demanded than as military method and order required. The legions were separated, each resisting the enemy in a different quarter, while the extremely dense hedges described above obstructed the view; therefore no fixed reserves could be posted, no provision could be made for what was needed in each part of the field, and all commands could not be directed by a single man.

SECTION 2.22.2Accordingly, amid such unfavorable circumstances, the turns of fortune were also varied.

CHAPTER 2.23

SECTION 2.23.1The soldiers of the Ninth and Tenth Legions, who had taken their stand on the left of the battle line, hurled their pila and swiftly drove the Atrebates—for that was the enemy assigned to their part of the field—down from the higher ground into the river, exhausted and breathless from their run and covered with wounds. Our men pursued them as they attempted to cross and killed with their swords a great part of them while they were struggling in the water.

SECTION 2.23.2They themselves did not hesitate to cross the river, and though they advanced onto unfavorable ground, they renewed the battle when the enemy again made a stand and put them to flight.

SECTION 2.23.3Likewise, in another part of the field, two separated legions, the Eleventh and the Eighth, routed the Viromandui, with whom they had engaged, and fought their way down from the higher ground to the very banks of the river.

SECTION 2.23.4But almost the whole camp had been left exposed in front and on the left. The Twelfth Legion was posted on the right wing, with the Seventh at no great distance from it, and all the Nervii, in a densely packed column under the leadership of Boduognatus, who held the supreme command, hastened toward that point. Some of them began to surround the legions on their exposed flank, while others made for the highest part of the camp.

CHAPTER 2.24

SECTION 2.24.1At the same time our cavalry and lightly armed infantry, who had been with them and whom I said had been driven back by the enemy’s first assault, encountered the enemy face-to-face as they withdrew into camp and once more fled in another direction;

SECTION 2.24.2and the camp servants, who from the rear gate and the summit of the ridge had seen our victorious troops crossing the river and had gone out to plunder, looked back and saw the enemy moving about within our camp, whereupon they hurled themselves headlong into flight.

SECTION 2.24.3At the same moment a clamor and uproar arose among those arriving with the baggage, and in terror they rushed in every direction.

SECTION 2.24.4 Moved by all these circumstances, the Treveran cavalry—whose reputation for valor is unrivaled among the Gauls, and who had been sent by their state to Caesar as auxiliaries—when they saw our camp filling with a multitude of enemies, the legions hard pressed and held almost completely surrounded, and the camp servants, cavalry, slingers, and Numidians fleeing apart and scattered in every direction, despaired of our fortunes and hastened home.

SECTION 2.24.5 They reported to their state that the Romans had been routed and defeated and that the enemy had gained possession of their camp and baggage.

CHAPTER 2.25

SECTION 2.25.1 Caesar, leaving his exhortation of the Tenth Legion and proceeding to the right wing, saw that his men were being hard pressed; that, with the standards brought together in one place, the soldiers of the Twelfth Legion were so densely packed that they hindered one another in fighting; that all the centurions of the fourth cohort had been killed, its standard-bearer slain, and its standard lost; that nearly all the centurions of the remaining cohorts had been either wounded or killed, among them the chief centurion, Publius Sextius Baculus, a man of exceptional courage, who had been disabled by many severe wounds and could no longer support himself; that the rest were losing heart, while some in the rear were abandoning their posts, withdrawing from the battle, and avoiding the missiles; that the enemy, advancing uphill from the lower ground, did not slacken their frontal attack and were pressing hard on both flanks; and that the situation had become critical, with no reserve available to be sent forward.

SECTION 2.25.2 Since he himself had come there without a shield, he took one from a soldier in the rear and advanced into the front line. Addressing the centurions by name and encouraging the remaining soldiers, he ordered them to advance the standards and open out the maniples so that they could use their swords more readily.

SECTION 2.25.3 His arrival gave the soldiers hope and restored their courage. Since every man, even in this extremity, was eager to do his utmost under the eyes of his commander, the enemy’s assault was checked for a time.

CHAPTER 2.26

SECTION 2.26.1 When Caesar saw that the Seventh Legion, which had taken its stand nearby, was likewise being hard pressed by the enemy, he instructed the military tribunes to bring the legions gradually together and, wheeling about, to advance their standards against the enemy.

SECTION 2.26.2 Once this was done, each body supported the other, and, no longer fearing that they would be surrounded from behind by the enemy, they began to resist more boldly and fight more vigorously.

SECTION 2.26.3 Meanwhile, the soldiers of the two legions that had been guarding the baggage at the rear of the column, upon receiving word of the battle, broke into a run and came into the enemy’s view on the summit of the hill;

SECTION 2.26.4 and Titus Labienus, having taken possession of the enemy’s camp and observed from the higher ground what was happening in our own, sent the Tenth Legion to the assistance of our men.

SECTION 2.26.5 From the flight of the cavalry and camp servants, the soldiers learned the state of affairs, the position of the battle, and the grave danger threatening the camp, the legions, and the commander; and they spared no effort to increase their speed.

CHAPTER 2.27

SECTION 2.27.1 Their arrival brought about so great a change in fortune that even those of our men who had fallen, disabled by their wounds, propped themselves upon their shields and renewed the fight, while the camp servants, seeing the enemy terrified, attacked armed men even though they themselves were unarmed;

SECTION 2.27.2 and the cavalry, determined to wipe out the disgrace of their flight by valor, everywhere in the battle sought to surpass the legionaries.

SECTION 2.27.3 But the enemy, even when their last hope of safety was gone, displayed such courage that, when their front ranks had fallen, those nearest stepped upon the bodies of the dead and fought from atop them;

SECTION 2.27.4 and when these too had been struck down and the corpses lay heaped together, the survivors used the pile as a mound from which to hurl missiles at our men and catch our javelins and throw them back.

SECTION 2.27.5 Thus it must be judged that men of such courage had not without reason dared to cross a very broad river, climb its exceedingly high banks, and advance over ground of the greatest disadvantage: their greatness of spirit had made the most difficult undertakings easy.

CHAPTER 2.28

SECTION 2.28.1 After this battle had been fought and the people and name of the Nervii had been reduced almost to annihilation, the elders—who, as we have said, had been gathered with the women and children in the tidal marshes and swamps—received news of the battle and concluded that nothing could hinder the victors and that nowhere was safe for the defeated.

SECTION 2.28.2 With the unanimous consent of all who survived, they sent envoys to Caesar and surrendered to him. In recounting the calamity that had befallen their state, they said that their six hundred senators had been reduced to three, and that of sixty thousand men able to bear arms scarcely five hundred remained.

SECTION 2.28.3 Caesar, wishing it to appear that he had shown mercy toward the wretched and suppliant people, took the greatest care to preserve them, ordered them to continue in possession of their own territory and towns, and commanded their neighbors to restrain themselves and their dependents from injury and outrage against them.

CHAPTER 2.29

SECTION 2.29.1 The Atuatuci, of whom we have spoken above, were coming with all their forces to the assistance of the Nervii; but when news of this battle reached them, they turned back from their march and returned home.

SECTION 2.29.2 Abandoning all their towns and strongholds, they gathered all their possessions into a single town exceptionally well fortified by nature.

SECTION 2.29.3 On every side around it this town had very high cliffs and steep descents, except at one point, where there remained a gently sloping approach no more than two hundred feet wide. This place they had fortified with an exceedingly high double wall, and they were then placing stones of great weight and sharpened timbers upon the wall.

SECTION 2.29.4 They themselves were descended from the Cimbri and Teutones, who, when making their way into our Province and Italy, had left on this side of the Rhine the baggage they could neither drive nor carry with them, and had also left six thousand of their own men together to guard and defend it.

SECTION 2.29.5 For many years after the destruction of their countrymen, these men were harried by the neighboring peoples, at one time making war upon them and at another defending themselves against their attacks. At last, after peace had been concluded by common consent among them all, they chose this place for their dwelling.

CHAPTER 2.30

SECTION 2.30.1 At the first arrival of our army, they made frequent sorties from the town and engaged our men in minor skirmishes.

SECTION 2.30.2 Later, when they had been enclosed by a rampart twelve feet high, extending for fifteen miles around them and strengthened by numerous redoubts, they kept within the town.

SECTION 2.30.3 When they saw the covered galleries being advanced, the siege mound being constructed, and a tower being erected at a distance, they at first laughed from the wall and assailed us with taunts, because so vast a machine was being built so far away:

SECTION 2.30.4 with what hands or with what strength, they asked, could men of such puny stature hope to place a tower of so enormous a weight upon their wall? For because of their own great bodily size, the Gauls generally hold our shortness of stature in contempt.

CHAPTER 2.31

SECTION 2.31.1 But when they saw the tower moving and approaching their walls, they were struck by the strange and unfamiliar sight and sent envoys to Caesar to sue for peace. These spoke as follows:

SECTION 2.31.2 they did not believe that the Romans could wage war without divine assistance, since they were able to move forward machines of such great height with such speed;

SECTION 2.31.3 and they said that they entrusted themselves and all they possessed to Roman power.

SECTION 2.31.4 They had only one request and entreaty: if Caesar, in accordance with the clemency and humanity of which they had heard from others, should decide that the Atuatuci were to be spared, he should not strip them of their arms.

SECTION 2.31.5 Nearly all their neighbors were their enemies and envied their valor; if they surrendered their arms, they would be unable to defend themselves against them.

SECTION 2.31.6 If they were to be reduced to such a condition, it would be better for them to suffer any fate at the hands of the Roman people than to be tortured to death by those over whom they had been accustomed to rule.

CHAPTER 2.32

SECTION 2.32.1 To this Caesar replied that, more from his own customary practice than from any merit of theirs, he would preserve their state, provided they surrendered before the battering ram touched their wall;

SECTION 2.32.2 but there could be no terms of surrender unless their arms were handed over. He would do what he had done in the case of the Nervii and would command their neighbors not to inflict any injury upon those who had surrendered to the Roman people.

SECTION 2.32.3 When this answer had been reported to their people, they said that they would obey his commands.

SECTION 2.32.4 A great quantity of arms was thrown from the wall into the ditch before the town, so that the heaps of weapons rose almost to the height of the top of the wall and the siege mound. Nevertheless, as was later discovered, approximately a third had been concealed and retained within the town. The gates were opened, and for that day they enjoyed peace.

CHAPTER 2.33

SECTION 2.33.1 Toward evening Caesar ordered the gates to be closed and the soldiers to leave the town, so that the townspeople might suffer no injury from them during the night.

SECTION 2.33.2 The Atuatuci had previously formed a plan, as was afterward learned, because they believed that once their surrender had been accepted, our men would withdraw their guards or at least keep watch less carefully. Some took the weapons they had retained and concealed; others carried shields made of bark or woven wicker, which, as the shortness of time required, they had hastily covered with hides. During the third watch, at the point where the ascent to our fortifications seemed least difficult, they suddenly made a sortie from the town with all their forces.

SECTION 2.33.3 Fires were immediately kindled as signals, in accordance with Caesar’s previous orders, and men hurried to the spot from the nearest redoubts.

SECTION 2.33.4 The enemy fought as fiercely as brave men, with their last hope of safety at stake and on unfavorable ground, were bound to fight against troops hurling missiles from the rampart and towers, when all hope depended upon valor alone.

SECTION 2.33.5 About four thousand of them were killed, and the remainder were driven back into the town.

SECTION 2.33.6 On the following day, when the gates had been broken down and no one remained to defend them, our soldiers were admitted, and Caesar sold the entire population and property of the town at auction.

SECTION 2.33.7 The purchasers reported to him that the number of persons sold was fifty-three thousand.

CHAPTER 2.34

SECTION 2.34.1 At the same time Caesar was informed by Publius Crassus, whom he had sent with one legion against the Veneti, Venelli, Osismi, Coriosolites, Esuvii, Aulerci, and Redones—maritime states bordering upon the Ocean—that all those states had been brought under the dominion and power of the Roman people.

CHAPTER 2.35

SECTION 2.35.1 With these achievements completed and all Gaul pacified, so great a reputation for this war spread among the barbarians that nations dwelling beyond the Rhine sent embassies to Caesar, promising to give hostages and carry out his commands.

SECTION 2.35.2 Since Caesar was hastening to Italy and Illyricum, he ordered these embassies to return to him at the beginning of the following summer.

SECTION 2.35.3 He himself placed the legions in winter quarters among the Carnutes, Andes, Turoni, and the other states near the regions where he had waged war, and then departed for Italy.

SECTION 2.35.4 In consequence of these achievements, upon receipt of Caesar’s dispatches, the Senate decreed a thanksgiving of fifteen days, an honor that before this time had been granted to no one.

CHAPTER 3.1

SECTION 3.1.1 When Caesar was departing for Italy, he sent Servius Galba with the Twelfth Legion and part of the cavalry against the Nantuates, Veragri, and Seduni, whose territory extends from the frontiers of the Allobroges, Lake Geneva, and the Rhône River to the highest Alps.

SECTION 3.1.2 His reason for sending him was that he wished the route through the Alps—by which merchants had been accustomed to travel at great risk and under heavy tolls—to be opened.

SECTION 3.1.3 He authorized Galba, if he thought it necessary, to station the legion in that region for the winter.

SECTION 3.1.4 After fighting several successful engagements and storming a number of their strongholds, Galba received envoys from every quarter, accepted hostages, and concluded peace. He then decided to station two cohorts among the Nantuates and to winter in a village of the Veragri called Octodurus with the remaining cohorts of that legion.

SECTION 3.1.5 This village lies in a valley of no great extent, with a small plain adjoining it, and is enclosed on every side by exceedingly high mountains.

SECTION 3.1.6 Since a river divided the village into two parts, Galba granted one part to the Gauls for their winter quarters and assigned to his cohorts the other, which they had vacated. He fortified this position with a rampart and ditch.

CHAPTER 3.2

SECTION 3.2.1 After a number of days had passed in winter quarters and Galba had ordered grain to be brought there, scouts suddenly informed him that during the night all the Gauls had departed from the part of the village he had granted them, and that the overhanging mountains were occupied by an immense multitude of Seduni and Veragri.

SECTION 3.2.2 Several reasons had led the Gauls suddenly to form a plan to renew the war and overwhelm the legion.

SECTION 3.2.3 First, they despised the legion because of its small numbers: it was not even at full strength, since two cohorts had been detached and many individual soldiers sent out to obtain supplies were absent.

SECTION 3.2.4 Furthermore, owing to the disadvantage of the Romans’ position, they believed that when they themselves rushed down from the mountains into the valley and hurled their missiles, not even their first assault could be withstood.

SECTION 3.2.5 In addition, they resented that their children had been taken from them under the name of hostages, and they were convinced that the Romans were attempting to occupy the summits of the Alps not merely to secure passage but to possess them permanently and annex that region to the neighboring Province.

CHAPTER 3.3

SECTION 3.3.1 Upon receiving this information, Galba found that neither the construction of the winter camp nor its fortifications had been fully completed, and that no adequate provision had been made for grain and other supplies, because, after the surrender and the acceptance of hostages, he had believed there was no reason to fear war. He therefore summoned a council without delay and began asking for opinions.

SECTION 3.3.2 In this council, since so great and sudden a danger had arisen contrary to all expectation, nearly all the higher ground could already be seen filled with a multitude of armed men, and, because the roads had been cut off, neither reinforcements could reach them nor supplies be brought in,

SECTION 3.3.3 their safety was almost despaired of, and some proposed that they abandon the baggage, make a sortie, and strive to escape by the same roads along which they had come.

SECTION 3.3.4 The majority, however, favored reserving this plan for the last extremity and meanwhile awaiting the outcome of events and defending the camp.

CHAPTER 3.4

SECTION 3.4.1 After only a brief interval—scarcely enough time to arrange and carry out the measures they had decided upon—the enemy, at a given signal, rushed down from every direction and hurled stones and javelins against the rampart.

SECTION 3.4.2 At first, while their strength was unimpaired, our men defended the fortifications bravely and hurled no missile ineffectually from their higher position. Whenever any part of the camp, stripped of defenders, appeared to be under pressure, they hurried there and brought assistance.

SECTION 3.4.3 But in this respect they were at a disadvantage: whenever the enemy grew weary in the long struggle, they withdrew from the battle and others took their place with strength unimpaired.

SECTION 3.4.4 Because of their small numbers, our men could do nothing of the kind. Not only was the weary soldier given no opportunity to withdraw from the fight, but even the wounded man was unable to leave the place where he had taken his stand and retire to safety.

CHAPTER 3.5

SECTION 3.5.1 By now the fighting had continued without interruption for more than six hours, and our men were running short not only of strength but also of missiles. The enemy pressed their attack more fiercely and, as our men grew weaker, began to tear down the rampart and fill the ditches. The situation had now been brought to the last extremity.

SECTION 3.5.2 Publius Sextius Baculus, chief centurion—the man whom we have said was disabled by numerous wounds in the battle against the Nervii—and Gaius Volusenus, a military tribune of great judgment and courage, hurried to Galba and told him that there was only one hope of safety: they must make a sortie and try this last resort.

SECTION 3.5.3Accordingly, he quickly summoned the centurions and instructed the soldiers to break off the fighting for a short time, merely intercept the missiles hurled at them, and recover from their exertions; then, when the signal was given, they were to burst from the camp and place all hope of safety in their courage.

CHAPTER 3.6

SECTION 3.6.1They did as they were ordered, and, suddenly sallying from every gate, left the enemy no chance either to understand what was happening or to rally.

SECTION 3.6.2Thus, with fortune reversed, they surrounded on every side and cut down the men who had come in the hope of taking the camp; and of the more than thirty thousand barbarians known to have approached it, they killed over a third, threw the rest into a panic and routed them, and did not allow them to make a stand even on the higher ground.

SECTION 3.6.3Thus, after routing the enemy’s entire force and stripping it of its arms, they withdrew within their own fortifications.

SECTION 3.6.4After this battle, Galba was unwilling to put fortune to the test again and remembered that he had entered winter quarters with a different plan, only to find himself confronted by different circumstances. Moved above all by the shortage of grain and provisions, he burned every building in that village the next day and hastened to return to the Province;

SECTION 3.6.5and with no enemy barring or delaying his march, he led the legion safely into the territory of the Nantuates, and from there into that of the Allobroges, where he wintered.

CHAPTER 3.7

SECTION 3.7.1After these events, Caesar believed for every reason that Gaul had been pacified—the Belgae had been overcome, the Germans driven out, and the Seduni defeated in the Alps—and so, at the beginning of winter, he had departed for Illyricum, wishing to visit those peoples also and become acquainted with their countries, when war suddenly broke out in Gaul.

SECTION 3.7.2The cause of this war was as follows. The young Publius Crassus was wintering with the Seventh Legion among the Andes, near the Ocean.

SECTION 3.7.3Because grain was scarce in those parts, he sent several prefects and military tribunes into the neighboring states to obtain it;

SECTION 3.7.4among them Titus Terrasidius was sent to the Esuvii, Marcus Trebius Gallus to the Coriosolites, and Quintus Velanius together with Titus Silius to the Veneti.

CHAPTER 3.8

SECTION 3.8.1The state of the Veneti possessed by far the greatest authority along the entire seacoast of those regions, both because they had more ships than any other people, in which they were accustomed to sail to Britain, and because they surpassed all others in their knowledge and experience of seamanship. Moreover, along that stormy and exposed coast, where harbors were few and far between and all were in their possession, they made tributaries of nearly everyone accustomed to navigate those waters.

SECTION 3.8.2They took the initiative by detaining Silius and Velanius, believing that through them they would recover the hostages they had given Crassus.

SECTION 3.8.3Influenced by their authority, the neighboring peoples—with the sudden and impulsive decision characteristic of the Gauls—detained Trebius and Terrasidius for the same reason. They swiftly sent envoys through their leading men and swore among themselves that they would act only by common agreement and would all endure the same outcome of fortune;

SECTION 3.8.4and they urged the remaining states to choose to preserve the liberty inherited from their ancestors rather than endure servitude to Rome.

SECTION 3.8.5When they had quickly brought the entire seacoast over to their view, they sent a joint embassy to Publius Crassus: if he wished to recover his men, he must return their hostages to them.

CHAPTER 3.9

SECTION 3.9.1When Caesar was informed of these events by Crassus, he was himself at a considerable distance; in the meantime, therefore, he ordered warships to be built on the Liger, which flows into the Ocean, rowers to be levied from the Province, and sailors and helmsmen to be procured.

SECTION 3.9.2These arrangements were carried out rapidly, and as soon as the season permitted, Caesar himself hastened to the army.

SECTION 3.9.3When the Veneti and the other states learned of Caesar’s arrival, they understood at the same time the enormity of the crime they had committed: they had detained envoys—a title always held sacred and inviolable among every nation—and cast them into chains. They therefore began to prepare for war in proportion to the magnitude of the danger and, above all, to provide everything required for the use of their ships, with all the greater hope because they placed great confidence in the natural character of their country.

SECTION 3.9.4They knew that the land routes were broken by tidal inlets and that navigation was hindered by unfamiliarity with the region and by the scarcity of harbors;

SECTION 3.9.5and they were confident that our armies could not remain long among them because of the shortage of grain.

SECTION 3.9.6Even if everything should turn out contrary to their expectations, they were nevertheless very powerful in ships, while the Romans had no fleet at all and knew neither the shallows, harbors, nor islands of the region where they were about to wage war;

SECTION 3.9.7and they clearly understood that navigation on an enclosed sea was far different from navigation on the vast and wholly exposed Ocean.

SECTION 3.9.8Having adopted these plans, they fortified their towns,

SECTION 3.9.9carried grain from the fields into the towns, and assembled as many ships as they could in the country of the Veneti, where it was known that Caesar would first wage war.

SECTION 3.9.10They enlisted as allies for that war the Osismi, Lexovii, Namnetes, Ambiliati, Morini, Diablintes, and Menapii, and summoned reinforcements from Britain, which lies opposite those regions.

CHAPTER 3.10

SECTION 3.10.1These were the difficulties of conducting the war that we have described above; nevertheless, many considerations impelled Caesar to undertake it:

SECTION 3.10.2the outrage of detaining Roman knights, the renewal of rebellion after surrender, the revolt after hostages had been given, the conspiracy of so many states, and, above all, the fear that if he neglected this quarter, the remaining nations would suppose that they too were free to act in the same way.

SECTION 3.10.3Accordingly, since he understood that nearly all the Gauls were eager for revolution and were readily and swiftly roused to war—and that all men by nature desire liberty and hate the condition of servitude—he thought that, before more states could conspire together, he must divide his army and distribute it more widely.

CHAPTER 3.11

SECTION 3.11.1Accordingly, he sent his lieutenant Titus Labienus with the cavalry to the Treveri, who live nearest the Rhine.

SECTION 3.11.2He instructed him to visit the Remi and the other Belgae and keep them loyal, and to prevent the Germans—who were said to have been summoned by the Belgae as reinforcements—from crossing the river in boats by force, should they attempt it.

SECTION 3.11.3He ordered Publius Crassus to depart for Aquitania with twelve legionary cohorts and a large body of cavalry, to prevent reinforcements from those nations from being sent into Gaul and such powerful peoples from joining together.

SECTION 3.11.4He sent his lieutenant Quintus Titurius Sabinus with three legions among the Venelli, Coriosolites, and Lexovii, to see that their forces were kept occupied.

SECTION 3.11.5He placed the young Decimus Brutus in command of the fleet and of the Gallic ships he had ordered to assemble from the Pictones, Santoni, and the other pacified regions, and instructed him to set out against the Veneti as soon as he could. Caesar himself hastened there with the land forces.

CHAPTER 3.12

SECTION 3.12.1The towns were generally situated in such a manner that, built at the extremities of narrow spits and promontories, they could not be approached on foot when the tide had surged in from the open sea—an event that always occurs twice in the space of twelve hours—nor by ships, because when the tide ebbed again, the vessels would be stranded in the shallows.

SECTION 3.12.2Thus in both ways the assault upon the towns was obstructed.

SECTION 3.12.3And if at any time they happened to be overcome by the magnitude of our works—when the sea had been shut out by a causeway and massive embankments, and these had been raised to the height of the town walls—and began to despair of their fortunes, they brought in a great number of ships, of which they had the utmost abundance, carried away all their possessions, and withdrew to the nearest towns.

SECTION 3.12.4There they once more defended themselves with the same advantages of position.

SECTION 3.12.5They were able to do this more readily through a great part of the summer because our ships were held back by storms, and navigation on that vast and exposed sea, with its powerful tides and its rare and almost nonexistent harbors, was exceedingly difficult.

CHAPTER 3.13

SECTION 3.13.1Their own ships were built and equipped in the following manner: the keels were considerably flatter than those of our vessels, so that they could more readily endure the shallows and the ebbing tide;

SECTION 3.13.2the prows were extremely high, and the sterns likewise, adapted to the great size of the waves and the violence of the storms;

SECTION 3.13.3the ships were built entirely of oak, to withstand any degree of force and battering;

SECTION 3.13.4the crossbeams were made of timbers a foot thick and fastened with iron spikes as thick as a man’s thumb;

SECTION 3.13.5the anchors were secured with iron chains instead of ropes;

SECTION 3.13.6and in place of sails they used hides and thin, finely dressed leather—whether from a scarcity of flax and ignorance of its use, or, more probably, because they believed that ordinary sails could not conveniently withstand such fierce storms of the Ocean and such violent blasts of wind, or control ships of such great weight.

SECTION 3.13.7When our fleet encountered these ships, it held the advantage only in speed and in the impulse of the oars; in all other respects, the enemy’s vessels were better suited and adapted to the nature of the waters and the violence of the storms.

SECTION 3.13.8Our ships could not damage them with their rams, so great was their strength; because of their height, a missile could not easily be hurled onto them; and for the same reason they were less easily held by grappling hooks.

SECTION 3.13.9Moreover, when the wind began to rage and they yielded themselves to it, they could weather the storm more easily, rest more safely in the shallows, and, when left aground by the tide, had nothing to fear from rocks and reefs—all hazards that our ships had to dread.

CHAPTER 3.14

SECTION 3.14.1After capturing several towns, Caesar realized that so much toil was being spent in vain: the enemy’s flight could not be checked by taking their towns, nor could any injury be done to them. He therefore resolved to wait for the fleet.

SECTION 3.14.2When it had assembled and was first sighted by the enemy, about two hundred and twenty of their ships, fully prepared and splendidly equipped with every kind of armament, sailed out of the harbor and took position facing ours.

SECTION 3.14.3Neither Brutus, who commanded the fleet, nor the military tribunes and centurions to whom individual ships had been assigned were entirely certain what to do or what method of battle to adopt.

SECTION 3.14.4They knew that the enemy could not be harmed by the ram; and although towers had been raised on our ships, these were still overtopped by the lofty sterns of the barbarians’ vessels, so that our missiles could not conveniently be hurled from the lower position, while those cast by the Gauls struck with greater force.

SECTION 3.14.5One device prepared by our men proved highly useful: extremely sharp hooks inserted into and fastened upon long poles, resembling in form the hooks used in attacking walls.

SECTION 3.14.6With these, they caught and pulled taut the ropes that bound the yards to the masts; then, as the ship was driven forward by the oars, the ropes were snapped.

SECTION 3.14.7Once they were severed, the yards necessarily fell, and since all the hope of the Gallic ships depended upon their sails and rigging, when these were torn away, the ships were rendered entirely useless in an instant.

SECTION 3.14.8The rest of the contest depended upon courage, in which our soldiers easily held the advantage, all the more because the action was fought in full view of Caesar and the entire army, so that no deed of exceptional bravery could pass unnoticed;

SECTION 3.14.9for the army occupied all the hills and higher ground from which there was a close view down upon the sea.

CHAPTER 3.15

SECTION 3.15.1Once the yards had been brought down, as we have described, two or three of our ships surrounded each enemy vessel, and the soldiers strove with all their might to board it.

SECTION 3.15.2When the barbarians saw what was happening, and several of their ships had been captured, they could find no remedy for the danger and endeavored to seek safety in flight.

SECTION 3.15.3But just as they had turned their ships in the direction toward which the wind was carrying them, so sudden a calm and stillness arose that they could not move from the spot.

SECTION 3.15.4This circumstance afforded the greatest possible opportunity to finish the action;

SECTION 3.15.5for our men pursued and captured the ships one by one, so that only a very few of the entire number reached land under cover of night, although the battle had lasted from about the fourth hour until sunset.

CHAPTER 3.16

SECTION 3.16.1By this battle the war with the Veneti and the entire seacoast was brought to an end.

SECTION 3.16.2For not only had all the young men assembled there, but also all the older men who possessed any judgment or distinction; and they had gathered in one place every ship they had anywhere possessed.

SECTION 3.16.3With these lost, the survivors had neither any place to which they could retreat nor any means of defending their towns.

SECTION 3.16.4Accordingly, they surrendered themselves and all their possessions to Caesar. He resolved to punish them with particular severity, so that in the future the rights of envoys might be observed more scrupulously by the barbarians. He therefore put the entire senate to death and sold the rest at auction.

CHAPTER 3.17

SECTION 3.17.1While these events were taking place among the Veneti, Quintus Titurius Sabinus reached the territory of the Venelli with the forces he had received from Caesar.

SECTION 3.17.2Viridovix commanded them and held supreme authority over all the states that had revolted, from which he had raised an army and powerful forces.

SECTION 3.17.3Within the past few days, moreover, the Aulerci Eburovices and the Lexovii had killed their own senates because they had refused to support the war, closed their gates, and joined Viridovix.

SECTION 3.17.4In addition, a great multitude of desperate men and brigands had assembled from every part of Gaul, drawn away from agriculture and their daily labor by the hope of plunder and eagerness for war.

SECTION 3.17.5Sabinus kept within his camp, which occupied a position advantageous in every respect, while Viridovix had encamped opposite him at a distance of two miles and daily led out his forces and offered battle. Thus Sabinus had by now not only fallen into contempt among the enemy, but was also subjected to some reproach in the talk of our own soldiers;

SECTION 3.17.6and he created so strong an impression of fear that the enemy now dared to approach the very rampart of the camp.

SECTION 3.17.7He acted in this way because he did not think that a lieutenant ought to engage so great a multitude of enemies—especially in the absence of the commander holding supreme authority—unless he could fight on equal ground or some favorable opportunity arose.

CHAPTER 3.18

SECTION 3.18.1When this impression of fear had become firmly established, he selected a suitable and shrewd man, a Gaul, from among those whom he had with him as auxiliaries.

SECTION 3.18.2By promises of great rewards, he persuaded this man to go over to the enemy and instructed him in what he wished done.

SECTION 3.18.3When the man came among them posing as a deserter, he described the Romans’ fear and explained the desperate straits in which Caesar himself was being pressed by the Veneti;

SECTION 3.18.4and he declared that no later than the following night Sabinus would secretly lead his army out of camp and set off to bring aid to Caesar.

SECTION 3.18.5When this was heard, they all cried out that the opportunity for a successful action must not be allowed to escape:

SECTION 3.18.6they must march upon the camp. Many considerations urged the Gauls toward this decision: Sabinus’s hesitation during the preceding days, the deserter’s assurance, the shortage of provisions, for which they had made insufficient preparation, their hopes concerning the war against the Veneti, and the fact that men generally are eager to believe what they desire.

SECTION 3.18.7Influenced by these arguments, they refused to dismiss Viridovix and the other leaders from the council until they had agreed to take up arms and march against the camp.

SECTION 3.18.8When this was granted, they joyfully set out for the camp, as though victory were already assured, gathering bundles of brushwood and twigs with which to fill the Roman trenches.

CHAPTER 3.19

SECTION 3.19.1The camp stood on high ground, rising gradually from the plain for about a mile. They rushed toward it at full speed, so as to give the Romans as little time as possible to assemble and arm themselves, and arrived utterly exhausted.

SECTION 3.19.2Sabinus exhorted his men and, eager as they were, gave the signal. While the enemy were encumbered by the loads they carried, he ordered a sudden sortie from two gates.

SECTION 3.19.3The advantage of the ground, the enemy’s ignorance and exhaustion, the courage of our soldiers, and the experience they had gained in earlier battles combined to make the enemy unable to withstand even our first charge; they immediately turned and fled.

SECTION 3.19.4Our soldiers, still fresh and unencumbered, overtook them and killed a great number; the cavalry pursued the rest and left only a few who escaped from the rout.

SECTION 3.19.5Thus at the same time Sabinus was informed of the naval battle and Caesar of Sabinus’s victory, and all the states immediately surrendered to Titurius.

SECTION 3.19.6For just as the spirit of the Gauls is ardent and eager in undertaking wars, so their resolution is weak and offers scarcely any resistance when they must endure disaster.

CHAPTER 3.20

SECTION 3.20.1At about the same time, Publius Crassus reached Aquitania, which, as stated before, must be reckoned—both from the extent of its territory and from the number of its inhabitants—as a third part of Gaul. He understood that he would have to wage war in the very regions where, a few years earlier, the lieutenant Lucius Valerius Praeconinus had been killed after his army was routed, and from which the proconsul Lucius Manlius had fled after losing his baggage. He therefore realized that no ordinary degree of care would be required of him.

SECTION 3.20.2Accordingly, after securing the grain supply and assembling auxiliaries and cavalry, he also summoned by name many brave men from Tolosa, Carcaso, and Narbo, communities of the Roman province bordering those regions, and led his army into the territory of the Sotiates.

SECTION 3.20.3When the Sotiates learned of his approach, they assembled a large force and, with the cavalry in which their chief strength lay, attacked our column on the march, first engaging us in a cavalry battle.

SECTION 3.20.4Then, after their cavalry had been routed and ours were pursuing, they suddenly revealed the infantry forces they had posted in ambush in a hollow. These attacked our scattered men and renewed the battle.

CHAPTER 3.21

SECTION 3.21.1The fighting was long and fierce. The Sotiates, confident from their former victories, believed that the safety of all Aquitania rested upon their valor; while our men wished it to be seen what they could accomplish under a youthful commander, without Caesar and without the other legions. At last the enemy, worn down by wounds, turned and fled.

SECTION 3.21.2After killing a great number of them, Crassus continued his march and began to assault the stronghold of the Sotiates. When they resisted bravely, he brought forward covered galleries and towers.

SECTION 3.21.3At one time they attempted a sortie, at another they drove tunnels toward the siege mound and covered galleries—a craft in which the Aquitani are by far the most expert, because in many places among them there are copper mines and excavations. When they realized that the vigilance of our men made all these efforts useless, they sent envoys to Crassus and begged him to accept their surrender. Their request was granted, and, when ordered to hand over their arms, they did so.

CHAPTER 3.22

SECTION 3.22.1While the attention of all our men was fixed upon this business, Adiatunnus, who held supreme command, appeared at another part of the stronghold with six hundred devoted retainers, whom they call soldurii.

SECTION 3.22.2The condition of these men is that they share all the comforts of life with those to whose friendship they have pledged themselves; but if any violent fate befalls those men, they must either suffer the same fate with them or take their own lives.

SECTION 3.22.3And within living memory no one has yet been found who, after the death of the man to whose friendship he had devoted himself, refused to die.

SECTION 3.22.4With these men Adiatunnus attempted a sortie. A shout arose from that part of the fortifications, the soldiers rushed to arms, and a fierce battle was fought there. He was driven back into the stronghold, but nevertheless obtained from Crassus permission to surrender on the same terms.

CHAPTER 3.23

SECTION 3.23.1After receiving their arms and hostages, Crassus marched into the territories of the Vocates and Tarusates.

SECTION 3.23.2Then the barbarians were thoroughly alarmed, because they learned that a stronghold fortified both by nature and by human skill had been captured within a few days of our arrival. They began sending envoys in every direction, swearing mutual oaths, exchanging hostages, and preparing forces.

SECTION 3.23.3Envoys were also sent to those states of Nearer Spain that bordered Aquitania, and auxiliaries and commanders were summoned from there.

SECTION 3.23.4Upon their arrival, the Aquitani attempted to wage war with great confidence and an immense multitude of men.

SECTION 3.23.5As their commanders they chose men who had served throughout all the years with Quintus Sertorius and were believed to possess the highest knowledge of warfare.

SECTION 3.23.6Following the practice of the Roman people, these men began to seize advantageous positions, fortify camps, and cut our forces off from supplies.

SECTION 3.23.7When Crassus observed that, because of their small numbers, his own forces could not easily be divided, while the enemy could range freely, block the roads, and still leave a sufficient guard in camp; that for this reason grain and other provisions could not conveniently be brought to him; and that the enemy’s numbers were increasing daily, he decided that he must not delay in bringing the matter to a decisive battle.

SECTION 3.23.8He laid the matter before a council of war, and when he found that all held the same opinion, he appointed the following day for battle.

CHAPTER 3.24

SECTION 3.24.1At daybreak he led out all his forces, drew them up in two lines, and placed the auxiliaries in the center. He then waited to see what plan the enemy would adopt.

SECTION 3.24.2Although the enemy believed that, because of their great numbers, their ancient military renown, and the small size of our force, they could fight without danger, they nevertheless thought it safer to block the roads, cut off our supplies, and gain victory without suffering wounds.

SECTION 3.24.3If the Romans began to retreat because of a shortage of grain, they intended to attack them while they were encumbered on the march and burdened with packs, and therefore weaker in spirit.

SECTION 3.24.4Their commanders approved this plan, and although the Roman forces had been led out, they remained within their camp.

SECTION 3.24.5When Crassus perceived this, and saw that the enemy’s hesitation and apparent fear had made our soldiers still more eager to fight, while voices rose from every quarter declaring that they ought to wait no longer before advancing against the camp, he exhorted his men and, amid the enthusiasm of all, marched upon the enemy’s camp.

CHAPTER 3.25

SECTION 3.25.1There some filled the trenches, while others discharged volleys of missiles and drove the defenders from the rampart and fortifications. The auxiliaries, in whom Crassus placed little confidence as fighting troops, nevertheless conveyed the appearance and impression of combatants by supplying stones and missiles and carrying sods to the siege mound. The enemy likewise fought steadily and without fear, and the missiles cast from their higher position did not fall without effect.

SECTION 3.25.2Meanwhile, cavalrymen who had ridden around the enemy’s camp reported to Crassus that the defenses at the rear gate had not been constructed with equal care and offered an easy approach.

CHAPTER 3.26

SECTION 3.26.1Crassus urged the cavalry commanders to rouse their men with promises of great rewards, and explained what he wished to be done.

SECTION 3.26.2As ordered, they led out the cohorts that had been left to guard the camp and were still fresh from lack of exertion. They took them around by a longer route so that they could not be seen from the enemy’s camp, and while every eye and every thought was fixed upon the fighting, they swiftly reached the fortifications already mentioned.

SECTION 3.26.3They demolished these defenses and established themselves inside the enemy’s camp before they could be clearly seen or the enemy could understand what was happening.

SECTION 3.26.4Then, when the shouting was heard from that quarter, our men renewed their strength—as commonly happens when victory is in sight—and began to press the attack more fiercely.

SECTION 3.26.5The enemy, surrounded on every side and despairing of everything, strove to throw themselves over the fortifications and seek safety in flight.

SECTION 3.26.6The cavalry pursued them over entirely open ground and, of the fifty thousand men known to have assembled from Aquitania and the country of the Cantabri, left scarcely a quarter alive before returning to camp late in the night.

CHAPTER 3.27

SECTION 3.27.1When news of this battle was heard, the greater part of Aquitania surrendered to Crassus and voluntarily sent hostages. Among these peoples were the Tarbelli, Bigerriones, Ptianii, Vocates, Tarusates, Elusates, Gates, Ausci, Garumni, Sibusates, and Cocosates.

SECTION 3.27.2A few of the most remote tribes, trusting to the season because winter was at hand, neglected to do so.

CHAPTER 3.28

SECTION 3.28.1At about the same time Caesar, although summer was now nearly over, nevertheless led his army against the Morini and Menapii. For while all the rest of Gaul had been pacified, these alone remained under arms and had never sent envoys to him to seek peace. He believed that this war could be swiftly concluded; but they began to conduct it in a manner altogether different from the rest of the Gauls.

SECTION 3.28.2For they understood that the greatest nations, which had met the Romans in battle, had been driven back and defeated; and since they possessed unbroken forests and marshes, they withdrew into them with all their possessions.

SECTION 3.28.3When Caesar reached the edge of these forests and began fortifying his camp, without any enemy having been seen in the meantime, they suddenly burst from every part of the woods while our men were scattered at their work and launched an attack upon them.

SECTION 3.28.4Our men quickly seized their weapons, drove them back into the forests, and killed a considerable number. They pursued them too far into difficult ground, however, and lost a few of their own men.

CHAPTER 3.29

SECTION 3.29.1During the days that followed, Caesar began cutting down the forests. To prevent any attack from being made against the flank of soldiers who were unarmed and unsuspecting, he placed all the felled timber facing the enemy and piled it up on both sides as a rampart.

SECTION 3.29.2With incredible speed a great extent of ground was cleared within a few days. Our men had already secured the enemy’s cattle and the rearmost part of their baggage, while the enemy themselves were seeking the denser forests, when storms of such severity followed that the work had to be suspended; and because the rains continued, the soldiers could no longer be kept under tents.

SECTION 3.29.3Accordingly, after devastating all their fields and burning their villages and buildings, Caesar led his army back and placed it in winter quarters among the Aulerci and Lexovii, and likewise among the other states that had most recently made war.

CHAPTER 4.1

SECTION 4.1.1In the following winter, during the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, the German Usipetes, together with the Tencteri, crossed the Rhine with a great multitude of people, not far from the sea into which the Rhine flows.

SECTION 4.1.2Their reason for crossing was that for several years they had been harried by the Suebi, oppressed by war, and prevented from cultivating their fields.

SECTION 4.1.3The nation of the Suebi is by far the largest and most warlike of all the Germans.

SECTION 4.1.4They are said to possess a hundred cantons, from each of which they lead out every year a thousand armed men to make war. The rest, who remain at home, support themselves and those in the field.

SECTION 4.1.5In the following year these men in turn serve under arms, while the others remain at home.

SECTION 4.1.6Thus neither agriculture nor the theory and practice of war is interrupted.

SECTION 4.1.7But among them there is no private or separately owned land, nor is anyone permitted to remain in one place for more than a year for the purpose of cultivation.

SECTION 4.1.8They do not live much upon grain, but chiefly upon milk and the flesh of livestock, and they devote much of their time to hunting.

SECTION 4.1.9This way of life—through the nature of their food, daily exercise, and freedom, since from childhood they are accustomed to no duty or discipline and do absolutely nothing against their will—nourishes their strength and makes them men of immense physical stature.

SECTION 4.1.10They have trained themselves to such habits that even in the coldest regions they wear no clothing except skins, which are so scanty that a large part of the body remains bare, and they bathe in rivers.

CHAPTER 4.2

SECTION 4.2.1Merchants are admitted among them more so that they may have buyers for what they have captured in war than because they desire anything to be imported.

SECTION 4.2.2Indeed, the Germans do not use imported draft animals, in which the Gauls take the greatest delight and which they purchase at enormous prices. Instead, by daily exercise they make the small and ill-shaped animals bred among them capable of the greatest endurance.

SECTION 4.2.3In cavalry battles they often leap down from their horses and fight on foot. They have trained their horses to remain in the same spot, and when need arises they quickly return to them.

SECTION 4.2.4By their customs nothing is considered more shameful or more spiritless than the use of saddles.

SECTION 4.2.5Therefore, however few they may be, they dare to advance against any number of saddled cavalry.

SECTION 4.2.6They permit no wine at all to be imported, because they believe that it makes men too soft to endure hardship and renders them effeminate.

CHAPTER 4.3

SECTION 4.3.1As a nation, they consider it their greatest distinction for the lands bordering their territory to lie uninhabited as widely as possible. They believe this signifies that a great number of states cannot withstand their power.

SECTION 4.3.2Thus on one side of the Suebi, it is said, the land lies uninhabited for about a hundred miles.

SECTION 4.3.3On the other side lie the Ubii, whose state was extensive and flourishing by German standards. Although they are of the same race, they are somewhat more civilized than the rest, because their territory touches the Rhine, merchants visit them frequently, and they themselves, owing to their proximity, have become accustomed to Gallic ways.

SECTION 4.3.4The Suebi had often tested them in many wars but, because of the size and importance of their state, had been unable to drive them from their territory. Nevertheless, they made them tributaries and reduced them to a condition of far greater humiliation and weakness.

CHAPTER 4.4

SECTION 4.4.1The Usipetes and Tencteri, whom we mentioned above, were in the same situation. For several years they withstood the power of the Suebi.

SECTION 4.4.2At last, however, they were driven from their lands, wandered through many parts of Germany for three years, and reached the Rhine, in regions inhabited by the Menapii. The Menapii possessed fields, buildings, and villages on both banks of the river.

SECTION 4.4.3Terrified by the arrival of so great a multitude, they withdrew from the buildings they had possessed across the river and stationed guards on this side of the Rhine to prevent the Germans from crossing.

SECTION 4.4.4The Germans tried every expedient, but they could neither force a crossing for lack of boats nor cross secretly because of the Menapii’s guards.

SECTION 4.4.5They therefore pretended to return to their own homes and territories, marched away for three days, and then turned back. Their cavalry covered the whole return journey in a single night and fell upon the Menapii, who knew nothing and expected nothing.

SECTION 4.4.6The Menapii, having been informed by scouts of the Germans’ departure, had crossed the Rhine without fear and returned to their villages.

SECTION 4.4.7After killing them and seizing their boats, they crossed the river before that part of the Menapii which lay on this side of the Rhine could be informed; then, taking possession of all their buildings, they sustained themselves on the Menapii’s provisions for the remainder of the winter.

CHAPTER 4.5

SECTION 4.5.1When Caesar was informed of these events, he feared the fickleness of the Gauls, because they are changeable in forming plans and generally eager for revolution, and therefore judged that nothing should be entrusted to them.

SECTION 4.5.2For it is a Gallic custom to compel travelers to stop, even against their will, and to ask what each of them has heard or learned about every matter; and in the towns the common people crowd around merchants and force them to declare from what countries they come and what events they have learned of there.

SECTION 4.5.3Moved by such reports and hearsay, they often form plans concerning matters of the highest importance, only to be forced to repent of them at once, since they are at the mercy of uncertain rumors, and most men give them fabricated answers suited to their wishes.

CHAPTER 4.6

SECTION 4.6.1Knowing this custom, Caesar, so that he might not encounter a more serious war, set out for the army earlier than was his habit.

SECTION 4.6.2When he arrived there, he learned that what he had suspected would happen had taken place:

SECTION 4.6.3embassies had been sent by several states to the Germans, inviting them to withdraw from the Rhine and assuring them that everything they demanded would be made ready by the Gauls.

SECTION 4.6.4Encouraged by this hope, the Germans were already ranging more widely and had reached the territories of the Eburones and the Condrusi, who are dependents of the Treveri.

SECTION 4.6.5After summoning the leading men of Gaul, Caesar decided that he must conceal what he had learned. He soothed and reassured their minds, ordered them to furnish cavalry, and resolved to wage war against the Germans.

CHAPTER 4.7

SECTION 4.7.1After securing the grain supply and selecting his cavalry, he began to march toward the places where he heard that the Germans were.

SECTION 4.7.2When he was a few days’ march from them, envoys came from them and spoke as follows:

SECTION 4.7.3The Germans neither made war upon the Roman people first nor, if attacked, refused to contend in arms, because this was the Germans’ ancestral custom: whoever made war upon them, they resisted and did not beg for peace. Yet they had come, they said, unwillingly, driven from their home;

SECTION 4.7.4if the Romans desired their friendship, they could be useful friends to them. Let the Romans either allot them lands or permit them to retain those they had won by arms.

SECTION 4.7.5They yielded to the Suebi alone, whom not even the immortal gods could equal; as for all the rest, there was no one on earth whom they could not overcome.

CHAPTER 4.8

SECTION 4.8.1To this Caesar made such reply as he thought fit; but the conclusion of his speech was that there could be no friendship between him and them if they remained in Gaul;

SECTION 4.8.2nor was it right that men who had been unable to defend their own territory should occupy that of others; and there were no vacant lands in Gaul that could be given, especially to so great a multitude, without injustice;

SECTION 4.8.3but they might, if they wished, settle in the territory of the Ubii, whose envoys were then with him, complaining of the injuries inflicted by the Suebi and seeking aid from him. He would command the Ubii to receive them.

CHAPTER 4.9

SECTION 4.9.1The envoys said that they would report this to their people and, after deliberating on the matter, would return to Caesar on the third day. Meanwhile, they asked him not to move his camp any nearer to them.

SECTION 4.9.2Caesar said that not even this request could be granted.

SECTION 4.9.3For he had learned that several days before they had sent a large part of their cavalry across the Meuse into the territory of the Ambivariti to plunder and forage. He believed that they were waiting for these horsemen and were seeking delay for that reason.

CHAPTER 4.10

SECTION 4.10.1[The Meuse rises in Mount Vosges, which lies in the territory of the Lingones, and, after receiving a branch of the Rhine called the Waal, forms the island of the Batavi and flows into the Ocean;

SECTION 4.10.2and no farther than eighty miles from the Ocean, it flows into the Rhine.

SECTION 4.10.3The Rhine, however, rises among the Lepontii, who inhabit the Alps, and rushes swiftly for a great distance through the territories of the Nantuates, Helvetii, Sequani, Mediomatrici, Triboci, and Treveri;

SECTION 4.10.4and when it approaches the Ocean, it divides into several channels, forming many immense islands, a large part of which are inhabited by fierce and barbarous tribes,

SECTION 4.10.5some of whom are believed to live on fish and birds’ eggs; and it flows into the Ocean through many mouths.]

CHAPTER 4.11

SECTION 4.11.1When Caesar was no more than twelve miles from the enemy, their envoys returned to him as arranged. Meeting him on the march, they earnestly begged him to advance no farther.

SECTION 4.11.2When they failed to obtain this, they asked him to send orders ahead to the cavalry that had preceded the column and forbid them to engage, and to grant the Germans an opportunity to send envoys to the Ubii.

SECTION 4.11.3They declared that, if the chief men and senate of the Ubii pledged their good faith to them by oath, they would accept the terms Caesar offered. They asked him to grant them three days to conclude these arrangements.

SECTION 4.11.4Caesar believed that all these requests had the same purpose: to secure a delay of three days so that their absent cavalry might return. Nevertheless, he said that on that day he would advance no farther than four miles, for the sake of obtaining water.

SECTION 4.11.5He ordered them to assemble there the next day in the greatest possible numbers, so that he might consider their demands.

SECTION 4.11.6Meanwhile, he sent messengers to the commanders who had gone ahead with all the cavalry, directing them not to provoke the enemy to battle and, if they themselves were attacked, to hold their ground until he came nearer with the army.

CHAPTER 4.12

SECTION 4.12.1But the enemy, as soon as they caught sight of our cavalry, five thousand strong, while they themselves had no more than eight hundred horsemen—for those who had crossed the Meuse to forage had not yet returned—made a charge and quickly threw our men into disorder. Our men feared nothing, because the German envoys had left Caesar only a little before, and that day had been requested by them as a truce.

SECTION 4.12.2When our men rallied and resisted, the Germans, following their usual practice, leaped down from their horses; then, stabbing many of our horses from below and unseating their riders, they put the rest to flight and drove them on in such terror that they did not cease fleeing until they came within sight of our marching column.

SECTION 4.12.3In that engagement seventy-four of our cavalry were killed,

SECTION 4.12.4among them Piso the Aquitanian, a man of the greatest courage and of most distinguished birth, whose grandfather had held the kingship in his own state and had been named a friend by our Senate.

SECTION 4.12.5When his brother was cut off by the enemy, Piso went to his aid and rescued him from danger; but his own horse was wounded and he was thrown, and for as long as he could, he resisted with the utmost bravery.

SECTION 4.12.6When, surrounded and suffering many wounds, he fell, his brother, who had already withdrawn from the battle, saw what had happened from a distance, spurred his horse against the enemy, and was killed.

CHAPTER 4.13

SECTION 4.13.1After this battle Caesar judged that he should no longer hear envoys or accept terms from men who, by deceit and treachery, had sought peace and then made an unprovoked attack.

SECTION 4.13.2He considered it the height of madness to wait until the enemy’s forces were increased and their cavalry returned;

SECTION 4.13.3and, knowing the fickleness of the Gauls, he understood how much prestige the enemy had already gained among them through a single battle. He therefore believed that they must be given no time to form plans.

SECTION 4.13.4After he had settled these matters and communicated his plan to his lieutenants and quaestor, so that he might let no day suitable for battle pass unused, a most favorable circumstance occurred. On the morning of the following day, employing the same treachery and pretense, the Germans came in great numbers to his camp, bringing with them all their chiefs and elders,

SECTION 4.13.5partly, as was said, to clear themselves of blame because, contrary to what had been agreed and to what they themselves had requested, they had joined battle the day before, and partly to obtain, if they could, a truce by deception.

SECTION 4.13.6Delighted that they had put themselves into his hands, Caesar ordered them detained. He then led all his forces out of camp and commanded the cavalry, which he believed had been terrified by the recent engagement, to follow at the rear of the column.

CHAPTER 4.14

SECTION 4.14.1He formed his army in three lines and, rapidly completing a march of eight miles, reached the enemy’s camp before the Germans could perceive what was happening.

SECTION 4.14.2Suddenly terrified by everything—by the speed of our arrival and by the absence of their leaders—and given no time either to take counsel or to seize their arms, they were thrown into confusion over whether it was better to lead their forces against the enemy, defend the camp, or seek safety in flight.

SECTION 4.14.3When their fear revealed itself in shouting and a confused rush, our soldiers, inflamed by the treachery of the previous day, burst into the camp.

SECTION 4.14.4There those who had been able to seize their arms quickly resisted our men for a short time and fought among the wagons and baggage.

SECTION 4.14.5But the rest of the multitude, consisting of children and women—for they had left their homes and crossed the Rhine with all their people—began to flee in every direction. Caesar sent the cavalry to pursue them.

CHAPTER 4.15

SECTION 4.15.1When the Germans heard shouting behind them and saw their people being killed, they threw away their weapons, abandoned their military standards, and rushed out of the camp.

SECTION 4.15.2When they reached the confluence of the Meuse and the Rhine, they despaired of further flight. A great number were killed, and the rest hurled themselves into the river, where, overwhelmed by fear, exhaustion, and the force of the current, they perished.

SECTION 4.15.3Our men, safe to the last man and with very few wounded, withdrew to camp, delivered from the fear of so great a war, although the enemy had numbered four hundred and thirty thousand souls.

SECTION 4.15.4Caesar gave those whom he had detained in camp permission to depart.

SECTION 4.15.5Fearing punishment and torture at the hands of the Gauls, whose lands they had ravaged, they said that they wished to remain with him. Caesar granted them their freedom.

CHAPTER 4.16

SECTION 4.16.1After the German war had been concluded, Caesar decided for many reasons that he must cross the Rhine. The most compelling was this: since he saw that the Germans were so easily induced to enter Gaul, he wished them also to fear for their own possessions when they understood that an army of the Roman people both could and dared to cross the Rhine.

SECTION 4.16.2There was also the fact that the body of Usipetan and Tencteran cavalry which, as I have related above, had crossed the Meuse to plunder and forage and had not taken part in the battle, had after the flight of their countrymen withdrawn across the Rhine into the territory of the Sugambri and joined forces with them.

SECTION 4.16.3When Caesar sent messengers to the Sugambri demanding that they surrender to him those who had made war upon him and upon Gaul, they replied:

SECTION 4.16.4the dominion of the Roman people ended at the Rhine. If Caesar considered it unjust for the Germans to cross into Gaul against his will, why did he claim any dominion or authority beyond the Rhine?

SECTION 4.16.5The Ubii, however, who alone among the peoples beyond the Rhine had sent envoys to Caesar, established friendship with him, and given hostages, earnestly begged him to bring them aid, because they were being severely oppressed by the Suebi.

SECTION 4.16.6Or, if the demands of public affairs prevented him from doing so, they asked him merely to transport his army across the Rhine: that would be sufficient to aid them and give them hope for the future.

SECTION 4.16.7Such was the renown and reputation of his army, after the expulsion of Ariovistus and this most recent battle, even among the remotest German tribes, that the Ubii could be safe through the prestige and friendship of the Roman people.

SECTION 4.16.8They promised a great number of boats for transporting the army.

CHAPTER 4.17

SECTION 4.17.1For the reasons I have related, Caesar had decided to cross the Rhine; but he considered crossing in boats neither sufficiently safe nor consistent with his own dignity or that of the Roman people.

SECTION 4.17.2Accordingly, although the breadth, swiftness, and depth of the river presented the greatest difficulty in building a bridge, he nevertheless believed that he must attempt it or else not take the army across at all.

SECTION 4.17.3He devised the following plan for the bridge. He joined together in pairs timbers a foot and a half thick, slightly sharpened at their lower ends and cut to match the depth of the river, leaving two feet between the timbers of each pair.

SECTION 4.17.4These were lowered into the river by machines, planted in the bed, and driven down with pile drivers—not upright like ordinary piles, but sloping forward at an incline, so that they leaned in the direction of the current.

SECTION 4.17.5Opposite these, forty feet downstream, he set two other timbers joined in the same fashion, inclined against the force and current of the river.

SECTION 4.17.6Each pair was held apart by a beam two feet thick laid across the top, corresponding to the space between the joined timbers, and was secured at the outer ends by two braces, one on either side.

SECTION 4.17.7With the pairs thus forced apart and bound in opposite directions, the structure possessed such strength and was so designed by its very nature that the greater the force with which the water drove against it, the more tightly its members were held fast.

SECTION 4.17.8These supports were connected by laying timbers lengthwise across them, and the surface was covered with poles and fascines.

SECTION 4.17.9In addition, piles were driven obliquely on the downstream side; these were set underneath like buttresses and joined to the whole structure, so that they might receive the force of the river.

SECTION 4.17.10Other piles were likewise driven a moderate distance upstream from the bridge, so that, if tree trunks or boats were sent down by the barbarians to destroy the work, these defenses might lessen the force of such objects and prevent them from damaging the bridge.

CHAPTER 4.18

SECTION 4.18.1Within ten days from the time when the collection of timber began, the entire work was completed and the army was led across.

SECTION 4.18.2Caesar left a strong guard at each end of the bridge and hastened into the territory of the Sugambri.

SECTION 4.18.3Meanwhile, envoys came to him from several states. When they sought peace and friendship, he answered them generously and ordered hostages to be brought to him.

SECTION 4.18.4But the Sugambri, having prepared for flight from the moment the construction of the bridge began, and urged on by the Tencteri and Usipetes whom they had among them, had left their territory, carried away all their possessions, and concealed themselves in the wilderness and forests.

CHAPTER 4.19

SECTION 4.19.1After remaining a few days in their territory, burning all their villages and buildings, and cutting down their grain, Caesar withdrew into the territory of the Ubii. He promised them his aid if they were oppressed by the Suebi, and learned the following from them:

SECTION 4.19.2After the Suebi learned from scouts that a bridge was being built, they had held an assembly according to their custom and sent messengers in every direction, ordering the people to leave their towns, place their children, wives, and all their possessions in the forests, and assemble in one place every man capable of bearing arms.

SECTION 4.19.3The place selected lay approximately in the center of the territories held by the Suebi. There they had resolved to await the arrival of the Romans and there to fight the decisive battle.

SECTION 4.19.4When Caesar learned of this, having accomplished all the purposes for which he had determined to lead his army across—to strike fear into the Germans, punish the Sugambri, and free the Ubii from siege—and having spent altogether eighteen days beyond the Rhine, he judged that he had achieved enough both for honor and for practical advantage. He therefore withdrew into Gaul and demolished the bridge.

CHAPTER 4.20

SECTION 4.20.1Although only a small part of the summer remained, and although winters come early in these regions because all Gaul inclines toward the north, Caesar nevertheless made determined preparations to set out for Britain, since he understood that in almost all his Gallic wars assistance had been furnished to our enemies from that island.

SECTION 4.20.2Even if the season should leave too little time for conducting a campaign, he still believed it would be of great use to him if he merely visited the island, observed the character of its people, and learned about its terrain, harbors, and approaches—all of which were almost entirely unknown to the Gauls.

SECTION 4.20.3For hardly anyone except merchants ventures there, and even they know nothing beyond the seacoast and those regions that face Gaul.

SECTION 4.20.4Accordingly, he summoned merchants to him from every quarter, but could discover neither how large the island was, nor what or how numerous were the peoples who inhabited it, nor what experience they had in war or what customs they followed, nor which harbors were suitable for a large number of ships.

CHAPTER 4.21

SECTION 4.21.1To learn these things before making the attempt himself, Caesar judged Gaius Volusenus a suitable man and sent him ahead in a warship.

SECTION 4.21.2He instructed him to investigate everything and return to him as quickly as possible.

SECTION 4.21.3Caesar himself marched with all his forces into the territory of the Morini, because the crossing from there to Britain was the shortest.

SECTION 4.21.4He ordered ships from all the neighboring regions to assemble there, together with the fleet he had built the previous summer for the war against the Veneti.

SECTION 4.21.5Meanwhile, when his plan became known and was reported to the Britons by merchants, envoys came to him from a number of the island’s states, promising to give hostages and submit to the authority of the Roman people.

SECTION 4.21.6After hearing them, Caesar made generous promises and urged them to remain of that mind.

SECTION 4.21.7He then sent them home, and with them sent Commius, whom he himself had appointed king there after defeating the Atrebates. Caesar approved of his courage and judgment, believed him loyal, and knew that his influence was highly regarded in those regions.

SECTION 4.21.8He ordered Commius to visit as many states as he could, urge them to place themselves under the protection of the Roman people, and announce that Caesar would soon come there.

SECTION 4.21.9Volusenus, after surveying all the regions as far as opportunity permitted a man who did not dare leave his ship and entrust himself to the barbarians, returned to Caesar on the fifth day and reported what he had observed there.

CHAPTER 4.22

SECTION 4.22.1While Caesar remained in those regions to prepare his ships, envoys came to him from a large part of the Morini. They sought to excuse their conduct on the previous occasion, saying that, as barbarous men ignorant of our customs, they had made war upon the Roman people, and they promised to do whatever he commanded.

SECTION 4.22.2Caesar considered this a sufficiently opportune development, because he did not wish to leave an enemy behind him, had no opportunity to conduct a war because of the season, and did not think that attention to such trifling matters should take precedence over Britain. He therefore demanded a large number of hostages from them.

SECTION 4.22.3When these were brought, he accepted the Morini under his protection. After assembling and collecting about eighty transports, which he considered enough to carry two legions, he distributed all the warships he had besides among his quaestor, legates, and prefects.

SECTION 4.22.4In addition, there were eighteen transports eight miles away, prevented by the wind from reaching the same harbor. These he assigned to the cavalry.

SECTION 4.22.5He placed the rest of the army under his legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta, with orders to lead it against the Menapii and those districts of the Morini from which no envoys had come to him.

SECTION 4.22.6He ordered his legate Sulpicius Rufus to hold the harbor with the garrison he considered sufficient.

CHAPTER 4.23

SECTION 4.23.1After making these arrangements, Caesar found weather suitable for sailing and put to sea at about the third watch. He ordered the cavalry to proceed to the farther harbor, embark, and follow him.

SECTION 4.23.2Since they carried out these orders somewhat slowly, Caesar himself reached Britain with the leading ships at about the fourth hour of the day, and there saw the enemy’s armed forces drawn up on all the hills.

SECTION 4.23.3The nature of the place was such, and the sea was so closely confined by steep heights, that a missile could be cast from the higher ground onto the shore.

SECTION 4.23.4Considering this place wholly unsuitable for disembarkation, Caesar waited at anchor until the ninth hour for the remaining ships to assemble there.

SECTION 4.23.5Meanwhile, he summoned his legates and military tribunes, explained what he had learned from Volusenus and what he wished done, and warned them that, as the principles of warfare—and maritime operations above all—required, since conditions at sea were swift and unstable in their movement, they must execute every order promptly and at his signal.

SECTION 4.23.6After dismissing them, Caesar obtained a favorable wind and tide at the same time. He gave the signal, raised anchor, advanced about seven miles from that place, and brought the ships to rest off an open, level beach.

CHAPTER 4.24

SECTION 4.24.1But the barbarians, perceiving the Romans’ plan, sent their cavalry and charioteers ahead—the kind of troops they generally employed in battle—and followed with the rest of their forces, seeking to prevent our men from leaving the ships.

SECTION 4.24.2The difficulty was extreme for these reasons: because of their size, the ships could not be brought to rest except in deep water, while the soldiers, on unfamiliar ground, with their hands encumbered and weighed down by the great and heavy burden of their arms, had at one and the same time to leap down from the ships, find a footing amid the waves, and fight the enemy.

SECTION 4.24.3The enemy, meanwhile, either stood on dry land or advanced only a little way into the water, with every limb unencumbered; and on ground perfectly familiar to them, they boldly hurled missiles and spurred forward their well-trained horses.

SECTION 4.24.4Terrified by these circumstances and wholly inexperienced in this kind of fighting, our men did not display the same spirit and eagerness they were accustomed to show in battles on land.

CHAPTER 4.25

SECTION 4.25.1When Caesar observed this, he ordered the warships, whose appearance was more unfamiliar to the barbarians and whose maneuverability made them readier for action, to draw off a little from the transports, be driven forward by their oars, and take position on the enemy’s exposed flank. From there, slings, arrows, and artillery were to drive the enemy back and clear them away. This proved of great assistance to our men.

SECTION 4.25.2For the barbarians, disconcerted by the shape of the ships, the movement of the oars, and the unfamiliar kind of artillery, halted and drew back only a little.

SECTION 4.25.3But while our soldiers still hesitated, chiefly because of the depth of the water, the eagle-bearer of the Tenth Legion called upon the gods to make the deed fortunate for the legion. “Leap down, soldiers,” he cried, “unless you mean to betray your eagle to the enemy. I, at least, shall have done my duty to the republic and to my commander.”

SECTION 4.25.4After saying this in a loud voice, he threw himself from the ship and began carrying the eagle against the enemy.

SECTION 4.25.5Then our men, urging one another not to permit so great a disgrace, all leaped down from the ship.

SECTION 4.25.6When the men in the nearest ships saw them, they too followed and advanced against the enemy.

CHAPTER 4.26

SECTION 4.26.1Both sides fought fiercely. Our men, however, were greatly disordered because they could neither keep their ranks nor plant themselves firmly nor follow their standards; instead, each man joined whatever standard he happened to encounter after leaving his own ship.

SECTION 4.26.2The enemy, on the other hand, knew every shoal; and whenever from the shore they saw men leaving a ship singly, they spurred their horses forward and attacked them while they were encumbered.

SECTION 4.26.3Many surrounded a few, while others hurled missiles from the exposed flank against the whole body of our men.

SECTION 4.26.4When Caesar observed this, he ordered the boats belonging to the warships, together with the scouting vessels, to be filled with soldiers, and sent reinforcements to any men he saw in difficulty.

SECTION 4.26.5As soon as our men gained a footing on dry land and all their comrades had joined them, they charged the enemy and put them to flight. They could not pursue them farther, however, because the cavalry had been unable to hold its course and reach the island. This alone was lacking to Caesar’s accustomed good fortune.

CHAPTER 4.27

SECTION 4.27.1The enemy, defeated in battle, sent envoys to Caesar to seek peace as soon as they recovered from their flight. They promised to give hostages and do whatever he commanded.

SECTION 4.27.2Commius the Atrebatian came with these envoys—the man whom, as I explained above, Caesar had sent ahead to Britain.

SECTION 4.27.3When he had left his ship and was bringing them Caesar’s commands in the capacity of an envoy, they had seized him and thrown him into chains.

SECTION 4.27.4After the battle, however, they released him; and in seeking peace they laid the blame for the act upon the common people and begged pardon on the grounds of ignorance.

SECTION 4.27.5Caesar complained that, although they had voluntarily sent envoys to the mainland to seek peace from him, they had made war without cause. He said that he would pardon their ignorance and ordered them to provide hostages.

SECTION 4.27.6They gave some of these at once and said that they would give the remainder, who had to be summoned from more distant places, within a few days.

SECTION 4.27.7Meanwhile, they ordered their people to return to their fields, and chiefs began to assemble from every quarter and commend themselves and their states to Caesar.

CHAPTER 4.28

SECTION 4.28.1Peace having been established by these measures, on the fourth day after the arrival in Britain, the eighteen ships mentioned above, which had taken the cavalry aboard, sailed from the farther harbor with a gentle wind.

SECTION 4.28.2As they approached Britain and came within sight of the camp, so violent a storm suddenly arose that none of them could hold its course. Some were driven back to the place from which they had set out; others were swept, at great peril to themselves, toward the lower part of the island, which lies nearer the setting sun.

SECTION 4.28.3Though they cast anchor, they were filling with water from the waves and were therefore compelled, despite the adverse night, to put out to sea and make for the mainland.

CHAPTER 4.29

SECTION 4.29.1That same night there happened to be a full moon, the phase that usually produces the highest ocean tides; and this was unknown to our men.

SECTION 4.29.2Thus, at one and the same time, the tide flooded the warships [in which Caesar had arranged for the army to be transported], which Caesar had drawn up onto dry land, while the storm battered the transports that were riding at anchor; and our men were given no opportunity either to manage the vessels or to render assistance.

SECTION 4.29.3A number of ships were wrecked, while the rest, having lost their ropes, anchors, and other equipment, were rendered unfit to sail. As was inevitable, the entire army was thrown into great consternation.

SECTION 4.29.4For there were no other ships in which they could be carried back, everything needed to repair the vessels was lacking, and, since it was agreed by all that the army must winter in Gaul, no grain had been provided in these regions for the winter.

CHAPTER 4.30

SECTION 4.30.1When the chiefs of Britain who had assembled before Caesar after the battle learned of these events, they conferred among themselves. They understood that the Romans lacked cavalry, ships, and grain, and they inferred the small number of soldiers from the narrow extent of the camp—which was smaller still because Caesar had transported the legions without their baggage.

SECTION 4.30.2They decided that the best course was to renew the war, prevent our men from obtaining grain and other provisions, and prolong the affair into winter, since they were confident that, if the Romans were defeated or cut off from their return, no one thereafter would cross into Britain to make war upon them.

SECTION 4.30.3Accordingly, they formed another conspiracy, began gradually withdrawing from the camp, and secretly summoned their people from the fields.

CHAPTER 4.31

SECTION 4.31.1Although Caesar had not yet discovered their plans, nevertheless, from what had happened to his ships and from the fact that they had stopped delivering hostages, he suspected that what did happen was about to occur.

SECTION 4.31.2He therefore prepared safeguards against every contingency. Each day he had grain brought from the fields into the camp; he used the timber and bronze from the ships that had been most severely damaged to repair the rest; and he ordered whatever was needed for this work to be brought over from the mainland.

SECTION 4.31.3Accordingly, since the soldiers carried out the work with the greatest zeal, Caesar, though twelve ships had been lost, made the rest sufficiently seaworthy for the voyage.

CHAPTER 4.32

SECTION 4.32.1While this work was under way, one legion, called the Seventh, was sent out as usual to gather grain. Up to that time there had been no suspicion of war: some of the inhabitants remained in the fields, and others continued to visit the camp. But the men posted on guard before the camp gates reported to Caesar that an unusually great cloud of dust could be seen in the direction in which the legion had marched.

SECTION 4.32.2Suspecting—as was indeed the case—that the barbarians had embarked upon some new design, Caesar ordered the cohorts on guard to march with him in that direction, two of the remaining cohorts to take their place on guard, and the others to arm themselves and follow him immediately.

SECTION 4.32.3When he had advanced somewhat farther from the camp, he saw that our men were being hard-pressed by the enemy and were scarcely holding their ground, while missiles were being hurled from every side against the closely packed legion.

SECTION 4.32.4For since the grain had been reaped everywhere else and only one tract remained, the enemy, suspecting that our men would come there, had concealed themselves in the woods during the night.

SECTION 4.32.5Then they had suddenly attacked our men while they were scattered, had laid aside their arms, and were occupied with reaping. After killing a few, they threw the rest into confusion before they could form regular ranks, while at the same time surrounding them with cavalry and chariots.

CHAPTER 4.33

SECTION 4.33.1Their manner of fighting from chariots is as follows. First they drive in every direction and hurl missiles, generally throwing the ranks into disorder by the very terror inspired by their horses and the clatter of their wheels. Once they have worked their way between the squadrons of cavalry, they leap down from their chariots and fight on foot.

SECTION 4.33.2Meanwhile, the drivers gradually withdraw from the battle and position the chariots so that, if their warriors are hard-pressed by a mass of enemies, they have a ready means of retreat to their own men.

SECTION 4.33.3Thus in battle they combine the mobility of cavalry with the steadiness of infantry; and by daily practice and training they acquire such skill that, even on sloping and precipitous ground, they are accustomed to check their horses at full gallop, bring them under control and turn them in an instant, run along the chariot pole, stand upon the yoke, and then return from there into their chariots with the greatest speed.

CHAPTER 4.34

SECTION 4.34.1While our men were disordered by these tactics [and by the unfamiliar form of fighting], Caesar brought assistance at the most opportune moment. At his arrival, the enemy halted, and our men recovered from their fear.

SECTION 4.34.2After this, Caesar judged the moment unfavorable for provoking the enemy and joining battle. He therefore kept his force in position and, after a short interval, led the legions back to camp.

SECTION 4.34.3While this was taking place, with all our men occupied, the rest of the enemy who were in the fields withdrew.

SECTION 4.34.4Several days of uninterrupted storms followed, which both kept our men within camp and prevented the enemy from fighting.

SECTION 4.34.5Meanwhile the barbarians sent messengers in every direction, proclaimed to their people how few our soldiers were, and showed them what an opportunity they had to win plunder and secure their freedom forever if they drove the Romans from their camp. By these means they quickly assembled a great force of infantry and cavalry and came against the camp.

CHAPTER 4.35

SECTION 4.35.1Although Caesar foresaw that the same thing would happen as on the preceding days—that if the enemy were routed, they would escape danger by their speed—he nevertheless took advantage of the presence of about thirty horsemen whom Commius the Atrebatian, mentioned above, had brought across with him, and drew up the legions in battle formation before the camp.

SECTION 4.35.2When battle was joined, the enemy could not long withstand the charge of our soldiers and turned their backs.

SECTION 4.35.3Our men pursued them as far as their speed and strength permitted and killed a considerable number of them; then, after setting fire to every building far and wide, they returned to camp.

CHAPTER 4.36

SECTION 4.36.1On the same day envoys sent by the enemy came to Caesar to sue for peace.

SECTION 4.36.2Caesar doubled the number of hostages he had previously required of them and ordered these to be brought to the continent, because the equinox was near and he did not think that, with his ships in poor condition, he should expose the voyage to the hazards of winter.

SECTION 4.36.3Finding favorable weather, he himself set sail shortly after midnight,

SECTION 4.36.4and all the ships reached the continent safely; but two of the transports could not make the same harbors as the others and were carried a little farther down the coast.

CHAPTER 4.37

SECTION 4.37.1When about three hundred soldiers had disembarked from these ships and were making for the camp, the Morini, whom Caesar had left at peace when he departed for Britain, were tempted by the hope of plunder and at first surrounded them with no very large number of their men, ordering them to lay down their arms if they did not wish to be killed.

SECTION 4.37.2When our men formed a circle and defended themselves, about six thousand men quickly gathered at the shouting. When this was reported, Caesar sent all the cavalry from the camp to aid his men.

SECTION 4.37.3Meanwhile our soldiers withstood the enemy’s attack and fought with the utmost courage for more than four hours; though they suffered only a few wounds, they killed a considerable number of the enemy.

SECTION 4.37.4But as soon as our cavalry came into sight, the enemy threw away their weapons and turned their backs, and a great number of them were killed.

CHAPTER 4.38

SECTION 4.38.1The next day Caesar sent his lieutenant Titus Labienus, with the legions he had brought back from Britain, against the Morini who had rebelled.

SECTION 4.38.2Since, because the marshes had dried up, they had no place to which they could retreat—the refuge they had used the previous year—almost all of them fell into Labienus’s power.

SECTION 4.38.3But the lieutenants Quintus Titurius and Lucius Cotta, who had led their legions into the territory of the Menapii, laid waste all their lands, cut down their grain, and burned their buildings; then, because all the Menapii had hidden themselves in the densest forests, they returned to Caesar.

SECTION 4.38.4Caesar established the winter quarters of all the legions among the Belgae. Only two states in all Britain sent hostages there; the rest neglected to do so.

SECTION 4.38.5After these achievements, the senate, upon receiving Caesar’s dispatch, decreed a public thanksgiving of twenty days.

CHAPTER 5.1

SECTION 5.1.1In the consulship of Lucius Domitius and Appius Claudius, Caesar, on leaving winter quarters for Italy, as he was accustomed to do every year, ordered the lieutenants whom he had placed in command of the legions to see that as many ships as possible were built during the winter and that the old ones were repaired. He specified their dimensions and design.

SECTION 5.1.2To permit rapid loading and hauling ashore, he made them somewhat lower than the vessels we ordinarily use on our own sea, especially because he had learned that the frequent changes of the tides prevented the waves there from becoming very large; to carry cargo and transport large numbers of pack animals, he made them somewhat broader than those we use on other seas.

SECTION 5.1.3He ordered all these ships to be built for swift movement under oars, a purpose greatly aided by their low profile.

SECTION 5.1.4He ordered the equipment needed to rig the ships to be brought from Spain.

SECTION 5.1.5He himself, after completing the assizes in Cisalpine Gaul, set out for Illyricum, because he had heard that the Pirustae were ravaging the neighboring part of the province with their incursions.

SECTION 5.1.6When he arrived there, he ordered the states to furnish soldiers and directed them to assemble at a fixed place.

SECTION 5.1.7When this was reported to them, the Pirustae sent envoys to him to explain that none of these acts had been committed by public decision, and they declared themselves ready to make satisfaction for the injuries by every means.

SECTION 5.1.8After hearing their plea, Caesar demanded hostages and ordered them to be brought by a fixed date; unless they did so, he declared that he would wage war against their state.

SECTION 5.1.9When the hostages were brought on the appointed day, as he had ordered, he appointed arbitrators between the states to assess the damages and determine the penalty.

CHAPTER 5.2

SECTION 5.2.1After settling these matters and completing the assizes, he returned to Cisalpine Gaul and from there set out for the army.

SECTION 5.2.2When he arrived, he made a circuit of all the winter quarters and found that, despite an extreme scarcity of every material, the extraordinary zeal of the soldiers had produced about six hundred ships of the kind described above and twenty-eight warships, all fully equipped and not far from being ready for launching within a few days.

SECTION 5.2.3After warmly praising the soldiers and those who had supervised the work, he explained what he wished done and ordered all the forces to assemble at Portus Itius, from which he had learned that the passage to Britain was most convenient, the crossing from the continent being about thirty miles. He left behind what seemed a sufficient number of soldiers for this task;

SECTION 5.2.4he himself set out with four lightly equipped legions and eight hundred cavalry for the territory of the Treveri, because they neither attended the councils nor obeyed his commands and were said to be inciting the Germans across the Rhine.

CHAPTER 5.3

SECTION 5.3.1This state possesses by far the strongest cavalry in all Gaul, has large infantry forces, and borders upon the Rhine, as we have shown above.

SECTION 5.3.2In this state two men, Indutiomarus and Cingetorix, were contending with each other for supremacy;

SECTION 5.3.3one of them, as soon as Caesar’s approach with the legions became known, came to him, affirmed that he and all his followers would remain loyal and would not abandon the friendship of the Roman people, and informed him of what was taking place among the Treveri.

SECTION 5.3.4Indutiomarus, however, began gathering cavalry and infantry and preparing for war, after concealing in the Ardennes Forest those who by reason of age were unable to bear arms. This forest, immense in extent, stretches through the middle of the Treveran territory from the Rhine to the borders of the Remi.

SECTION 5.3.5But afterward, when a number of leading men of that state, influenced by their friendship with Cingetorix and alarmed by the arrival of our army, came to Caesar and began making private requests concerning their own affairs, since they could do nothing for the state, Indutiomarus, fearing that everyone would desert him, sent envoys to Caesar:

SECTION 5.3.6he had been unwilling, they said, to leave his people and come to Caesar so that he might more easily keep the state loyal, and so that, with all the nobles gone, the common people might not stray through lack of judgment;

SECTION 5.3.7the state was therefore under his control, and, if Caesar permitted, he would come to him in camp and entrust both his own fortunes and those of his state to Caesar’s protection.

CHAPTER 5.4

SECTION 5.4.1Although Caesar understood why this was being said and what circumstance was deterring Indutiomarus from his original plan, nevertheless, to avoid being forced to spend the summer among the Treveri when all preparations had been made for the war in Britain, he ordered Indutiomarus to come to him with two hundred hostages.

SECTION 5.4.2When these were brought, including his son and all his relatives, whom Caesar had summoned by name, Caesar reassured Indutiomarus and urged him to remain loyal;

SECTION 5.4.3nevertheless, he summoned the leading men of the Treveri to him and reconciled each of them individually to Cingetorix. He understood that Cingetorix’s services deserved this treatment from him, and he also considered it highly important that the authority of a man whose exceptional devotion to him he had clearly perceived should carry the greatest possible weight among his own people.

SECTION 5.4.4Indutiomarus bitterly resented this action, since it diminished his influence among his people; and though he had already been hostile to us, this indignity inflamed his resentment far more fiercely.

CHAPTER 5.5

SECTION 5.5.1After settling these matters, Caesar reached Portus Itius with the legions.

SECTION 5.5.2There he learned that sixty ships built in the territory of the Meldi had been driven back by a storm, had been unable to hold their course, and had returned to the place from which they had departed. He found the rest ready to sail and fully equipped with everything necessary.

SECTION 5.5.3The cavalry of all Gaul, four thousand strong, assembled there as well, together with the leading men from every state.

SECTION 5.5.4Of these Caesar had decided to leave in Gaul only a very few whose loyalty to him he had proved, and to take the rest with him as hostages, because he feared a rising in Gaul during his absence.

CHAPTER 5.6

SECTION 5.6.1Among the others was the Aeduan Dumnorix, whom we have mentioned before. Caesar had particularly resolved to take him along, because he knew him to be eager for revolution, eager for power, bold in spirit, and a man of great authority among the Gauls.

SECTION 5.6.2Added to this was the fact that Dumnorix had declared in the council of the Aedui that Caesar was offering him the kingship of the state. The Aedui deeply resented this statement, yet did not dare send envoys to Caesar either to reject the proposal or to entreat him not to carry it out.

SECTION 5.6.3Caesar had learned of the matter from his personal guests. At first Dumnorix strove with every entreaty to be left in Gaul, partly because, being unaccustomed to sailing, he feared the sea, and partly because he said that religious scruples prevented him.

SECTION 5.6.4When he saw that his request was being firmly refused and that all hope of obtaining it had been taken away, he began soliciting the leading men of Gaul, taking them aside one by one and urging them to remain on the continent;

SECTION 5.6.5he tried to frighten them, saying that it was not without reason that Gaul was being stripped of all her nobility; this was Caesar’s design—to carry over to Britain and kill there all those whom he was afraid to put to death before the eyes of Gaul;

SECTION 5.6.6he pledged his word to the others and demanded an oath that they would act by common agreement in whatever manner they judged best for the interests of Gaul. These activities were reported to Caesar by a number of men.

CHAPTER 5.7

SECTION 5.7.1When Caesar learned of this, because he attached so much importance to the standing of the Aeduan state, he determined that Dumnorix must be restrained and deterred by whatever means he could employ;

SECTION 5.7.2and since he saw that the man’s madness was going too far, he had to take precautions lest Dumnorix be able to harm either him or the republic. He therefore remained in that place for about twenty-five days,

SECTION 5.7.3because the northwest wind, which commonly blows in that region for a large part of every season, was preventing the voyage. During this time he took care to keep Dumnorix loyal, while nevertheless learning of all his designs.

SECTION 5.7.4At last, finding favorable weather, he ordered the soldiers and cavalry to embark.

SECTION 5.7.5But while everyone’s attention was occupied, Dumnorix, without Caesar’s knowledge, began leaving the camp for home with the Aeduan cavalry.

SECTION 5.7.6When this was reported, Caesar suspended the departure, set every other matter aside, and sent a large part of the cavalry in pursuit, with orders to bring him back;

SECTION 5.7.7if he offered resistance and refused to obey, Caesar ordered them to kill him, judging that a man who had disregarded his authority while he was present would do nothing rational during his absence.

SECTION 5.7.8For when Dumnorix was ordered to return, he began to resist, defend himself by force, and appeal to the loyalty of his followers, repeatedly shouting that he was a free man and belonged to a free state.

SECTION 5.7.9The cavalrymen, as they had been ordered, surrounded the man and killed him; all the Aeduan horsemen then returned to Caesar.

CHAPTER 5.8

SECTION 5.8.1After these events, Caesar left Labienus on the continent with three legions and two thousand cavalry to guard the ports, provide for the grain supply, learn what was happening in Gaul, and adopt whatever measures circumstances and events required.

SECTION 5.8.2He himself, with five legions and a number of cavalry equal to that which he had left on the continent, set sail at sunset. Carried forward by a gentle southwest wind, he failed to hold his course when the wind died about midnight; borne too far by the tide, at daybreak he saw Britain lying behind him on the left.

SECTION 5.8.3Then, following the turn of the tide, he again strained at the oars to reach that part of the island where he had learned the preceding summer that a landing could best be made.

SECTION 5.8.4In this the soldiers’ courage was especially worthy of praise, for in transports and heavily laden vessels, without any respite from the labor of rowing, they matched the speed of the warships.

SECTION 5.8.5All the ships reached Britain at about noon, and no enemy was seen at that place;

SECTION 5.8.6but, as Caesar afterward learned from prisoners, although large forces had assembled there, they had been terrified by the multitude of ships—more than eight hundred appearing at one time when those from the previous year and the private vessels each man had built for his own convenience were included—and had withdrawn from the shore and concealed themselves on the higher ground.

CHAPTER 5.9

SECTION 5.9.1Caesar disembarked the army and selected a suitable site for camp. When he learned from prisoners where the enemy’s forces had taken position, he left ten cohorts and three hundred cavalry by the sea to guard the ships and, during the third watch, marched against the enemy. He felt less concern for the ships because he was leaving them moored at anchor on a soft, open shore,

SECTION 5.9.2and he placed Quintus Atrius in command of the guard over them. Advancing by night for about twelve miles, Caesar sighted the enemy’s forces.

SECTION 5.9.3They advanced with cavalry and chariots to the river and, from the higher ground, began trying to bar our advance and engaging us in battle.

SECTION 5.9.4Driven back by our cavalry, they concealed themselves in the woods, having found a position exceptionally well fortified both by nature and by human labor, which they appeared to have prepared earlier for a war among themselves;

SECTION 5.9.5for all the approaches had been blocked by felling trees at close intervals.

SECTION 5.9.6They themselves fought from the woods in scattered groups and prevented our men from entering the fortifications.

SECTION 5.9.7But the soldiers of the Seventh Legion formed a tortoise, raised an earthwork against the fortifications, captured the position, and drove them from the woods, suffering only a few wounds.

SECTION 5.9.8Caesar, however, forbade them to pursue the fugitives too far, both because he did not know the nature of the terrain and because, with a large part of the day already spent, he wished to leave time for fortifying the camp.

CHAPTER 5.10

SECTION 5.10.1Early the following day he sent the infantry and cavalry out in three divisions to pursue those who had fled.

SECTION 5.10.2After they had advanced some distance, when the rear of the column was still in sight, horsemen came to Caesar from Quintus Atrius to report that a violent storm had arisen the previous night and that almost all the ships had been damaged and cast upon the shore, since neither anchors nor cables had held fast, nor had the sailors and helmsmen been able to withstand the force of the tempest;

SECTION 5.10.3and thus the collision of the ships had caused heavy damage.

CHAPTER 5.11

SECTION 5.11.1On learning this, Caesar ordered the legions and cavalry to be recalled and to halt on the march; he himself returned to the ships.

SECTION 5.11.2He saw with his own eyes almost exactly what he had learned from the messengers and dispatches: about forty ships had been lost, while the rest appeared capable of repair, though only with great difficulty.

SECTION 5.11.3He therefore selected craftsmen from the legions and ordered others to be summoned from the mainland;

SECTION 5.11.4he wrote to Labienus instructing him to build as many ships as possible with the legions under his command.

SECTION 5.11.5For his own part, though the undertaking required great effort and labor, he decided that the best course was to haul all the ships ashore and connect them with the camp by a single fortification.

SECTION 5.11.6He spent about ten days on these operations, without suspending the soldiers’ labor even during the night.

SECTION 5.11.7When the ships had been hauled ashore and the camp excellently fortified, he left the same forces as before to guard the ships; he himself set out for the place from which he had returned.

SECTION 5.11.8When he arrived there, larger forces of Britons had already assembled from every quarter, and by common consent supreme command and direction of the war had been entrusted to Cassivellaunus, whose territory is separated from the maritime states by a river called the Thames, about eighty miles from the sea.

SECTION 5.11.9In former times he had been continually at war with the other states; but the Britons, alarmed by our arrival, had placed him in command of the entire war and of all their forces.

CHAPTER 5.12

SECTION 5.12.1The interior of Britain is inhabited by people who, according to their own tradition, were born on the island;

SECTION 5.12.2the coastal region, by those who crossed over from Belgic territory for the sake of plunder and warfare—all of whom are called, for the most part, by the names of the states from which they sprang and from which they came there—and who, after making war, remained there and began to cultivate the land.

SECTION 5.12.3The population is immense, the farmsteads exceedingly numerous and generally like those of Gaul, and the number of cattle is great.

SECTION 5.12.4They use either bronze, or gold coins, or iron bars adjusted to a fixed weight as currency.

SECTION 5.12.5Tin is found there in the inland regions and iron along the coast, though only in small quantities; the bronze they use is imported. Timber of every kind is found as in Gaul, except beech and fir.

SECTION 5.12.6They consider it unlawful to eat hare, chicken, or goose, though they raise these creatures for pleasure and amusement. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, with less severe cold.

CHAPTER 5.13

SECTION 5.13.1The island is triangular by nature, and one of its sides faces Gaul. Of the two corners of this side, the one by Kent, where almost all ships from Gaul put in, faces east; the lower one faces south. This side extends for about five hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.2The second side slopes toward Spain and the west; on this side lies Ireland, believed to be half the size of Britain, though the crossing to it is equal in distance to that from Gaul to Britain.

SECTION 5.13.3Midway on this passage is an island called Mona; in addition, several smaller islands are believed to lie offshore, and some writers have recorded that at the winter solstice night lasts there for thirty consecutive days.

SECTION 5.13.4We could discover nothing about this from our inquiries, except that, by exact measurements with a water clock, we observed that the nights were shorter than on the mainland.

SECTION 5.13.5The length of this side, according to their reckoning, is seven hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.6The third side faces north; no land lies opposite it, but the corner of this side points chiefly toward Germany. It is believed to extend eight hundred miles in length.

SECTION 5.13.7Thus the whole island measures two thousand miles in circumference.

CHAPTER 5.14

SECTION 5.14.1Of all these peoples, by far the most civilized are those who inhabit Kent, a region lying wholly along the coast, and their customs differ little from those of the Gauls.

SECTION 5.14.2Most of the inhabitants of the interior do not sow grain, but live on milk and meat and are clothed in skins. All the Britons, however, stain themselves with woad, which produces a blue color, and this makes their appearance in battle all the more terrifying;

SECTION 5.14.3they wear their hair long and shave every part of the body except the head and upper lip.

SECTION 5.14.4Groups of ten or twelve men have wives in common, especially brothers with brothers and fathers with sons; but the children born of these unions are regarded as belonging to the man to whom each woman was first given as a virgin.

CHAPTER 5.15

SECTION 5.15.1The enemy’s cavalry and charioteers fought fiercely with our cavalry along the line of march; nevertheless, our men gained the advantage everywhere and drove them into the woods and hills.

SECTION 5.15.2But after killing a number of them, our men pursued too eagerly and lost some of their own.

SECTION 5.15.3After an interval, however, while our men were off their guard and occupied in fortifying the camp, the enemy suddenly burst from the woods, charged those who had been posted on guard before the camp,

SECTION 5.15.4and fought fiercely. Caesar sent two cohorts to their support, the leading cohorts of two legions; but though these had taken position with only a very narrow space between them, the enemy, while our men were dismayed by this unfamiliar manner of fighting, dashed through their midst with the greatest daring and withdrew safely.

SECTION 5.15.5On that day Quintus Laberius Durus, a military tribune, was killed. The enemy were driven back when more cohorts were sent forward.

CHAPTER 5.16

SECTION 5.16.1Throughout this entire engagement, fought before the eyes of everyone and in front of the camp, it became clear that the weight of our men’s armor made them less suited to fight an enemy of this kind, since they could neither pursue them when they retreated nor dared leave the standards;

SECTION 5.16.2the cavalry, meanwhile, fought at great peril, because the enemy often retreated deliberately and, after drawing our horsemen a short distance away from the legions, leaped down from their chariots and fought on foot on unequal terms.

SECTION 5.16.3The nature of the cavalry action, moreover, exposed both those who retreated and those who pursued to equal and identical danger.

SECTION 5.16.4Added to this was the fact that they never fought in a close mass, but in scattered groups with wide intervals between them, and had detachments posted in reserve; each group relieved another in succession, and fresh, unwearied men took the place of those who were exhausted.

CHAPTER 5.17

SECTION 5.17.1The next day the enemy took position on the hills at some distance from the camp, showed themselves only in scattered groups, and began to challenge our cavalry to battle less vigorously than on the preceding day.

SECTION 5.17.2But at noon, when Caesar had sent three legions and all the cavalry under the legate Gaius Trebonius to forage, they suddenly swept down upon the foragers from every quarter, pressing so close that they did not draw away from the standards and legions.

SECTION 5.17.3Our men charged them fiercely and drove them back, never ceasing their pursuit, until the cavalry, confident of support when they saw the legions behind them,

SECTION 5.17.4drove the enemy headlong and, after killing a great number of them, gave them no opportunity to rally, make a stand, or leap down from their chariots.

SECTION 5.17.5Immediately after this rout, the auxiliary forces that had assembled from every quarter dispersed, and from that time onward the enemy never again opposed us with their full strength.

CHAPTER 5.18

SECTION 5.18.1Having learned their plan, Caesar led his army to the River Thames, into the territory of Cassivellaunus. This river can be crossed on foot at only one place, and even there only with difficulty.

SECTION 5.18.2When he arrived, he observed that large enemy forces were drawn up on the opposite bank of the river;

SECTION 5.18.3the bank was fortified with sharp stakes planted along it, and stakes of the same kind had been driven beneath the water and were concealed by the river.

SECTION 5.18.4After learning these facts from prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent the cavalry ahead and ordered the legions to follow at once.

SECTION 5.18.5But the soldiers advanced with such speed and force, though only their heads rose above the water, that the enemy could not withstand the charge of the legions and cavalry, but abandoned the banks and took to flight.

CHAPTER 5.19

SECTION 5.19.1Cassivellaunus, as we have explained above, abandoned all hope of a pitched struggle, dismissed the greater part of his forces, and retained about four thousand charioteers. He watched our line of march, withdrew a short distance from the road, and concealed himself in rough and wooded country. In those districts through which he had learned that we intended to march, he drove the cattle and inhabitants from the fields into the woods; and,

SECTION 5.19.2whenever our cavalry ranged more freely into the countryside for the sake of plunder and devastation, he sent his charioteers out of the woods by every road and path. They engaged our horsemen at great risk to our men and, by inspiring this fear, prevented them from roaming farther afield.

SECTION 5.19.3The only course left was for Caesar not to permit his men to move any great distance from the column of legions, and for the enemy to suffer no more harm from the devastation of their fields and the burning of their property than the legionaries could inflict through their own labor and the extent of their march.

CHAPTER 5.20

SECTION 5.20.1Meanwhile the Trinobantes, nearly the strongest state in that region, sent envoys to Caesar and promised to surrender to him and obey his commands. From this state the young Mandubracius, placing himself under Caesar’s protection, had come to him on the mainland of Gaul. Mandubracius’s father had held the kingship in that state and had been killed by Cassivellaunus, while Mandubracius himself had escaped death by flight.

SECTION 5.20.2They asked Caesar to protect Mandubracius from violence at the hands of Cassivellaunus and to send him back to their state to govern it and hold supreme authority.

SECTION 5.20.3Caesar demanded forty hostages and grain for the army, and sent Mandubracius to them.

SECTION 5.20.4They swiftly fulfilled his commands, sending the required number of hostages and the grain.

CHAPTER 5.21

SECTION 5.21.1After the Trinobantes had been taken under his protection and safeguarded from every injury by the soldiers, the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, and Cassi sent embassies and surrendered to Caesar.

SECTION 5.21.2From them he learned that Cassivellaunus’s stronghold lay not far from that place, protected by woods and marshes, and that a considerable number of people and cattle had gathered there.

SECTION 5.21.3The Britons call it a stronghold when they fortify a dense woodland with rampart and ditch, a place where they are accustomed to assemble in order to escape hostile incursions.

SECTION 5.21.4He marched there with the legions and found the place excellently fortified both by nature and by human labor; nevertheless, he undertook to assault it from two sides.

SECTION 5.21.5The enemy held their ground for a short time, but could not withstand the assault of our soldiers and rushed out from another side of the stronghold.

SECTION 5.21.6A great number of cattle were found there, and many of the enemy were overtaken and killed in their flight.

CHAPTER 5.22

SECTION 5.22.1While these operations were taking place in that region, Cassivellaunus sent messengers to Kent, which, as we explained above, lies by the sea. Four kings ruled those districts—Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segovax—and he ordered them to collect all their forces and make a sudden assault upon the naval camp.

SECTION 5.22.2When they came to the camp, our men made a sortie, killed many of them, captured even the distinguished leader Lugotorix, and brought their own men back unharmed.

SECTION 5.22.3When news of this battle reached Cassivellaunus, after he had suffered so many reverses and seen his territory laid waste, and especially because he was deeply shaken by the defection of the states, he sent envoys through Commius the Atrebatian to Caesar to negotiate his surrender.

SECTION 5.22.4Caesar had decided to winter on the mainland because of the sudden disturbances in Gaul. Since little of the summer remained and he understood that the negotiations could easily be drawn out, he demanded hostages and fixed the annual tribute Britain was to pay to the Roman people;

SECTION 5.22.5he strictly commanded Cassivellaunus not to harm Mandubracius or the Trinobantes.

CHAPTER 5.23

SECTION 5.23.1After receiving the hostages, Caesar led the army back to the sea and found the ships repaired.

SECTION 5.23.2When they had been launched, because he had a great number of prisoners and some of the ships had been lost in the storm, he decided to carry the army back in two crossings.

SECTION 5.23.3And so it happened that, despite so many ships and so many voyages, not a single ship carrying soldiers was lost, either that year

SECTION 5.23.4or the year before; but of those sent back empty to him from the mainland, both after landing the soldiers of the first crossing and among the sixty that Labienus had afterward caused to be built, very few reached their destination, while nearly all the rest were driven back.

SECTION 5.23.5After Caesar had waited for them in vain for some time, he feared that the season of the year would prevent him from sailing,

SECTION 5.23.6since the equinox was approaching. He therefore had no choice but to crowd the soldiers more closely aboard; and when a perfect calm came on, he set sail at the beginning of the second watch, reached land at daybreak, and brought every ship safely into port.

CHAPTER 5.24

SECTION 5.24.1After the ships had been hauled ashore and a council of the Gauls held at Samarobriva, Caesar was compelled, because the grain crop in Gaul that year had been scantier on account of drought, to quarter his army for the winter differently from previous years and to distribute the legions among a larger number of states.

SECTION 5.24.2Of these, he assigned one legion to the legate Gaius Fabius to lead into the territory of the Morini, another to Quintus Cicero among the Nervii, and a third to Lucius Roscius among the Esubii; he ordered a fourth to winter among the Remi with Titus Labienus, on the frontier of the Treveri. He stationed three among the Belgae,

SECTION 5.24.3placing the quaestor Marcus Crassus and the legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in command of them.

SECTION 5.24.4He sent one legion, which he had most recently raised beyond the Po, and five cohorts into the territory of the Eburones, the greater part of whom dwell between the Meuse and the Rhine and were under the rule of Ambiorix and Catuvolcus.

SECTION 5.24.5He ordered the legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta to command these troops.

SECTION 5.24.6By distributing the legions in this manner, he believed that he could most easily remedy the shortage of grain.

SECTION 5.24.7Nevertheless, the winter quarters of all these legions, except the one he had assigned to Lucius Roscius to lead into a thoroughly pacified and tranquil region, lay within a radius of one hundred miles.

SECTION 5.24.8Meanwhile Caesar himself decided to remain in Gaul until he learned that the legions had been stationed and their winter quarters fortified.

CHAPTER 5.25

SECTION 5.25.1Among the Carnutes there was a man of the highest birth named Tasgetius, whose ancestors had held the kingship in their state.

SECTION 5.25.2In recognition of his courage and goodwill toward Caesar, whose exceptional services Caesar had employed in all his wars, Caesar had restored him to the position of his ancestors.

SECTION 5.25.3He was now in the third year of his reign when his enemies murdered him, with many men of his state openly supporting the deed.

SECTION 5.25.4The matter was reported to Caesar. Fearing, because many men were implicated, that their influence might cause the state to revolt, he ordered Lucius Plancus to march rapidly with his legion from Belgic territory into the country of the Carnutes and winter there, and to arrest and send to him those whom he learned to have been responsible for Tasgetius’s murder.

SECTION 5.25.5Meanwhile, all the legates and the quaestor to whom he had entrusted the legions informed him that they had reached their winter quarters and had fortified their positions.

CHAPTER 5.26

SECTION 5.26.1About fifteen days after the troops had entered winter quarters, a sudden uprising and revolt began under Ambiorix and Catuvolcus.

SECTION 5.26.2Although they had met Sabinus and Cotta at the borders of their kingdom and had brought grain into the winter quarters, they were incited by messages from Indutiomarus of the Treveri, roused their people, suddenly overpowered the soldiers who were gathering wood, and came with a large force to attack the camp.

SECTION 5.26.3Our men quickly took up arms and mounted the rampart; and when, by sending out the Spanish cavalry on one side, they gained the advantage in the cavalry engagement, the enemy despaired of success and withdrew their men from the attack.

SECTION 5.26.4Then, in their customary manner, they shouted that one of our men should come forward for a conference: they had something to say concerning the common interest, and hoped that what they had to offer might lessen the points at issue.

CHAPTER 5.27

SECTION 5.27.1Gaius Arpineius, a Roman knight and friend of Quintus Titurius, and a certain Quintus Junius from Spain, who had previously been accustomed to visit Ambiorix on Caesar’s missions, were sent to confer with them. To these men Ambiorix spoke as follows:

SECTION 5.27.2He acknowledged that he owed Caesar a very great debt for the benefits Caesar had conferred upon him: through Caesar’s intervention he had been freed from the tribute he had been accustomed to pay to the Aduatuci, his neighbors; and Caesar had restored to him both his son and his brother’s son, whom the Aduatuci, after receiving them as hostages, had kept among themselves in slavery and in chains.

SECTION 5.27.3As for his attack upon the camp, he had acted neither upon his own judgment nor of his own free will, but under compulsion from his people; and his authority was of such a kind that the multitude had no less power over him than he himself had over the multitude.

SECTION 5.27.4The reason his state had gone to war was that it had been unable to resist the sudden conspiracy of the Gauls. He could readily prove this from his own humble position, for he was not so inexperienced in affairs as to trust that the Roman people could be defeated by his forces.

SECTION 5.27.5But this was the common design of Gaul: the present day had been appointed for attacks upon all Caesar’s winter quarters, so that no legion could come to the assistance of another.

SECTION 5.27.6It had not been easy for Gauls to refuse Gauls, especially when the design appeared to have been undertaken for the recovery of their common liberty.

SECTION 5.27.7Since he had now satisfied their claims upon his loyalty, he was mindful of the duty he owed in return for Caesar’s benefits: in the name of their bond of hospitality, he warned and implored Titurius to provide for his own safety and that of his soldiers.

SECTION 5.27.8A large force of hired Germans had crossed the Rhine and would arrive in two days.

SECTION 5.27.9It was for the Romans themselves to decide whether, before the neighboring peoples learned of it, they wished to lead their soldiers out of winter quarters and take them either to Cicero or to Labienus, one of whom was about fifty miles away, the other a little farther.

SECTION 5.27.10This much he promised and confirmed by oath: he would grant them safe passage through his territory.

SECTION 5.27.11In doing so, he would both serve his own state, which would be relieved of the winter quarters, and repay Caesar’s kindness for the benefits he had conferred. Having delivered this speech, Ambiorix departed.

CHAPTER 5.28

SECTION 5.28.1Arpineius and Junius reported to the legates what they had heard. Though deeply disturbed by the sudden turn of events, the legates judged that, even if the statements came from an enemy, they should not be disregarded. They were especially troubled by the fact that it was scarcely credible that the obscure and insignificant state of the Eburones would have dared on its own initiative to make war upon the Roman people.

SECTION 5.28.2They therefore referred the matter to a council, and a great dispute arose among them.

SECTION 5.28.3Lucius Aurunculeius, several military tribunes, and the centurions of the senior ranks believed that nothing should be done rashly and that they should not leave winter quarters without Caesar’s orders. They pointed out that forces of any size, even large bodies of Germans, could be held off from fortified winter quarters. The facts themselves bore witness to this, since they had withstood the enemy’s first assault with the greatest courage and had inflicted many wounds besides. They were not pressed for provisions; meanwhile, relief would arrive both from the nearest winter quarters and from Caesar. Finally, what could be more frivolous or more shameful than to take counsel on matters of the highest importance at an enemy’s prompting?

CHAPTER 5.29

SECTION 5.29.1Titurius, on the other hand, kept shouting that they would act too late once larger forces of the enemy had assembled with the Germans added to them, or once some disaster had been suffered in the nearest winter quarters. The opportunity for deliberation was brief. He believed that Caesar had departed for Italy.

SECTION 5.29.2Otherwise, the Carnutes would never have formed their plan to kill Tasgetius, nor, if Caesar were present, would the Eburones have come against the camp with such contempt for us.

SECTION 5.29.3He was looking not to the enemy as an adviser, but to the facts: the Rhine was close at hand; the death of Ariovistus and our previous victories caused the Germans bitter resentment.

SECTION 5.29.4Gaul, reduced beneath the dominion of the Roman people after suffering so many humiliations and seeing its former military glory extinguished, was ablaze with anger.

SECTION 5.29.5Finally, who could persuade himself that Ambiorix would have resorted to such a plan without certain knowledge of the facts?

SECTION 5.29.6His own proposal was safe in either event: if nothing very serious was afoot, they would reach the nearest legion without any danger; but if all Gaul were in league with the Germans, their only hope of safety lay in speed.

SECTION 5.29.7What outcome could Cotta’s plan, and that of those who disagreed with him, possibly have? Even if it held no immediate danger, they must certainly fear starvation in a protracted siege.

CHAPTER 5.30

SECTION 5.30.1After these arguments had been advanced on both sides, and while Cotta and the senior centurions continued to resist vehemently, Sabinus said, “Have it your way, if that is what you wish,” speaking in a louder voice so that a large part of the soldiers could hear him.

SECTION 5.30.2“I am not the man among you,” he said, “who is most terrified by the danger of death. These men will understand; if anything more serious happens, they will demand an accounting from you,

SECTION 5.30.3when, if you allowed it, they could join the nearest winter quarters the day after tomorrow and face the common fortunes of war together with the rest, instead of being cast off and banished far from their comrades to perish either by the sword or by starvation.”

CHAPTER 5.31

SECTION 5.31.1The council rose. The members took hold of both commanders and begged them not to bring matters into the greatest danger through their disagreement and obstinacy.

SECTION 5.31.2The situation would be manageable, whether they remained or departed, provided only that all held and approved a single view; in disagreement, on the other hand, they could see no hope of safety. The debate continued until midnight.

SECTION 5.31.3At last Cotta, overcome by their appeals, yielded. Sabinus’s opinion prevailed. It was announced that they would depart at daybreak.

SECTION 5.31.4The remainder of the night was spent awake, as each soldier looked over his belongings to see what he could carry with him and what part of the equipment of the winter quarters he would be forced to leave behind.

SECTION 5.31.5Every possible reason was devised to show that remaining would not be without danger, while the soldiers’ exhaustion and loss of sleep only increased that danger.

SECTION 5.31.6At daybreak they marched out of the camp as though they had been convinced that the advice had come not from an enemy but from their dearest friend Ambiorix, proceeding in a very long column and burdened with an enormous train of baggage.

CHAPTER 5.32

SECTION 5.32.1But when the enemy learned from the nighttime commotion and wakefulness that the Romans intended to depart, they divided their forces in two and laid ambushes in the woods at a favorable and concealed position about two miles away, where they waited for the Romans to arrive.

SECTION 5.32.2When the greater part of the column had descended into a broad, deep valley, they suddenly revealed themselves on both sides of it and began pressing the rear, blocking the vanguard from climbing out, and engaging our men on ground most unfavorable to them.

CHAPTER 5.33

SECTION 5.33.1Only then did Titurius, who had foreseen nothing, begin to panic, run to and fro, and arrange the cohorts—and even these tasks he performed timidly and in such a way that he appeared at a loss in everything, as commonly happens to men who are forced to form their plans in the very midst of action.

SECTION 5.33.2Cotta, however, who had considered that such things might happen on the march and for that reason had not favored their departure, failed the common safety in no respect. In calling upon and encouraging the soldiers he performed the duties of a commander, and in battle those of a common soldier.

SECTION 5.33.3Because the length of the column made it difficult for them personally to attend to everything and determine what should be done at every point, they ordered an announcement to be made that the soldiers should abandon the baggage and form a circle.

SECTION 5.33.4Although this decision cannot be condemned in such circumstances, it nevertheless had an unfortunate effect.

SECTION 5.33.5It both diminished the confidence of our soldiers and made the enemy more eager for battle, since it appeared that such an order could have been given only in the utmost fear and desperation. Moreover, what was bound to happen did happen: soldiers everywhere left their standards, and each man hurried to the baggage to seek out and seize whatever he valued most, while shouting and weeping filled the whole scene.

CHAPTER 5.34

SECTION 5.34.1But the barbarians were not at a loss for a plan. Their leaders ordered it proclaimed throughout the line that no man was to leave his position: the booty was theirs, and whatever the Romans abandoned was being reserved for them; therefore they should consider that everything depended upon victory.

SECTION 5.34.2The two sides were evenly matched in courage and eagerness to fight. Although our men were abandoned by both their commander and fortune, they nevertheless placed all hope of safety in their valor; and whenever any cohort charged forward, a great number of the enemy fell on that side.

SECTION 5.34.3Observing this, Ambiorix ordered it proclaimed that his men should cast their missiles from a distance and not approach too closely, but should give way in whatever direction the Romans attacked—for, because of their light arms and daily training, the Romans could do them no harm—

SECTION 5.34.4and then pursue them as they withdrew again to their standards.

CHAPTER 5.35

SECTION 5.35.1They observed this command with the greatest care: whenever any cohort left the circle and made a charge, the enemy retreated with the utmost speed.

SECTION 5.35.2Meanwhile, that part of the formation was necessarily left exposed and received missiles upon its unprotected flank.

SECTION 5.35.3Then, when the soldiers began to return to the position from which they had advanced, they were surrounded both by those who had given way and by those who had remained close by.

SECTION 5.35.4But if they chose to hold their ground, there was no scope left for valor, and, packed closely together, they could not evade the missiles cast by so great a multitude.

SECTION 5.35.5Nevertheless, though beset by so many disadvantages and suffering many wounds, they continued to resist; and after a great part of the day had passed—for the fighting lasted from daybreak until the eighth hour—they did nothing unworthy of themselves.

SECTION 5.35.6Then Titus Balventius, a brave man of great authority who in the previous year had served as chief centurion, had both thighs pierced by a heavy javelin.

SECTION 5.35.7Quintus Lucanius, a centurion of the same rank, was killed while fighting with the utmost courage as he went to the aid of his surrounded son.

SECTION 5.35.8Lucius Cotta, the legate, while encouraging all the cohorts and ranks, was struck full in the face by a sling-stone.

CHAPTER 5.36

SECTION 5.36.1Shaken by these events, Quintus Titurius, seeing Ambiorix in the distance encouraging his men, sent his interpreter, Gnaeus Pompeius, to ask him to spare himself and his soldiers.

SECTION 5.36.2When addressed, Ambiorix replied that if Titurius wished to confer with him, he was free to do so; he hoped that the multitude could be persuaded to grant what concerned the soldiers’ safety; Titurius himself, however, would suffer no harm, and upon this he pledged his word. Titurius communicated the proposal to the wounded Cotta:

SECTION 5.36.3if Cotta approved, they should withdraw from the fighting and confer together with Ambiorix; Titurius hoped that they could obtain from him their own safety and that of the soldiers. Cotta refused to go to an armed enemy and persisted in his refusal.

CHAPTER 5.37

SECTION 5.37.1Sabinus ordered the military tribunes and centurions of the senior ranks who were then around him to follow. When he had approached nearer to Ambiorix and was ordered to throw down his arms, he obeyed the command and ordered his men to do the same.

SECTION 5.37.2Meanwhile, as they negotiated the terms and Ambiorix deliberately prolonged the conversation, Sabinus was gradually surrounded and killed.

SECTION 5.37.3Then indeed the enemy, in their customary manner, shouted out their victory, raised a great howl, charged our men, and threw the ranks into confusion.

SECTION 5.37.4There Lucius Cotta was killed fighting, together with the greater part of the soldiers. The rest withdrew into the camp from which they had set out.

SECTION 5.37.5Among them, Lucius Petrosidius, the eagle-bearer, when hard pressed by a great mass of the enemy, hurled the eagle inside the rampart; he himself was killed while fighting with the utmost courage before the camp. The survivors barely sustained the attack until nightfall.

SECTION 5.37.6During the night, despairing of safety, every one of them killed himself.

SECTION 5.37.7A few who escaped from the battle made their way by uncertain paths through the woods to the winter quarters of the legate Titus Labienus and informed him of what had happened.

CHAPTER 5.38

SECTION 5.38.1Elated by this victory, Ambiorix immediately set out with his cavalry for the Aduatuci, whose territory bordered his kingdom. He halted neither by night nor by day and ordered the infantry to follow him.

SECTION 5.38.2After explaining what had happened and rousing the Aduatuci, he reached the Nervii on the following day and urged them not to let slip the opportunity to free themselves forever and avenge upon the Romans the injuries they had suffered.

SECTION 5.38.3He pointed out that two legates had been killed and that a large part of the army had perished.

SECTION 5.38.4It would be no difficult matter, he said, to take by surprise and destroy the legion wintering with Cicero; he declared himself ready to assist in the undertaking. By this speech he easily persuaded the Nervii.

CHAPTER 5.39

SECTION 5.39.1Accordingly, they immediately sent messengers to the Ceutrones, Grudii, Levaci, Pleumoxii, and Geidumni, all of whom were under their rule, mustered the largest forces they could, and swept unexpectedly upon Cicero’s winter quarters before news of Titurius’s death had yet reached him.

SECTION 5.39.2There too the inevitable occurred: several soldiers who had gone into the woods to gather timber and obtain material for the fortifications were cut off by the sudden arrival of the cavalry.

SECTION 5.39.3After surrounding them, the Eburones, Nervii, Aduatuci, and the allies and dependents of all these peoples began, in great force, to attack the legion. Our men quickly rushed to arms and mounted the rampart.

SECTION 5.39.4That day was sustained only with difficulty, because the enemy placed all their hope in speed and trusted that, if they won this victory, they would be victorious forever.

CHAPTER 5.40

SECTION 5.40.1Cicero immediately sent letters to Caesar, offering great rewards to the messengers if they delivered them; but because all the roads were beset, those he sent were intercepted.

SECTION 5.40.2During the night, from the timber they had brought in for the fortifications, they raised about one hundred and twenty towers with incredible speed; whatever appeared to be lacking in the defensive works was completed.

SECTION 5.40.3The next day the enemy, having assembled far greater forces, attacked the camp and filled in the ditch. Our men resisted in the same manner as on the day before.

SECTION 5.40.4The same thing continued to happen on each succeeding day.

SECTION 5.40.5No part of the night was left free from labor; neither the sick nor the wounded were given any opportunity to rest.

SECTION 5.40.6Whatever was needed for the next day’s assault was prepared by night: great numbers of stakes hardened in the fire and a large supply of heavy wall-javelins were made ready; the towers were furnished with floors, and battlements and breastworks of wicker were constructed.

SECTION 5.40.7Cicero himself, though in extremely poor health, did not allow himself even the nighttime for rest, until the soldiers of their own accord crowded around him and by their entreaties compelled him to spare himself.

CHAPTER 5.41

SECTION 5.41.1Then the leaders and chief men of the Nervii who had some means of addressing Cicero and some claim to his friendship declared that they wished to confer with him.

SECTION 5.41.2When permission was granted, they repeated the same assertions that Ambiorix had made to Titurius: all Gaul was under arms;

SECTION 5.41.3the Germans had crossed the Rhine; Caesar’s winter quarters and those of the other commanders were under attack.

SECTION 5.41.4They added an account of Sabinus’s death and displayed Ambiorix as a pledge of their truthfulness.

SECTION 5.41.5They said that the Romans were mistaken if they expected any protection from men who had no confidence in their own position. Nevertheless, their own feelings toward Cicero and the Roman people were such that they objected to nothing but the establishment of winter quarters and did not wish this practice to become permanent:

SECTION 5.41.6the Romans might depart from their winter quarters unharmed by them and proceed without fear in whatever direction they wished.

SECTION 5.41.7To this Cicero made only one reply: it was not the custom of the Roman people to accept terms from an enemy under arms.

SECTION 5.41.8If they were willing to lay down their arms, they might employ him as their advocate and send envoys to Caesar; he hoped that, in view of Caesar’s justice, they would obtain what they requested.

CHAPTER 5.42

SECTION 5.42.1Disappointed in this hope, the Nervii surrounded the winter quarters with a rampart nine feet high and a ditch fifteen feet wide.

SECTION 5.42.2They had learned these methods from observing us in previous years and were also instructed by certain prisoners whom they held from our army;

SECTION 5.42.3but since they possessed no supply of iron tools suited to this work, they were forced to cut the turf with their swords and remove the earth with their hands and cloaks.

SECTION 5.42.4From this feat some idea of their great numbers could be formed, for in less than three hours they completed a circuit of fortifications fifteen thousand feet in circumference,

SECTION 5.42.5and during the following days they began to prepare and construct towers as high as the rampart, grappling hooks, and covered galleries, all of which the same prisoners had taught them to make.

CHAPTER 5.43

SECTION 5.43.1On the seventh day of the assault, when a violent wind arose, they began to sling red-hot bullets of molded clay and to hurl heated javelins upon the huts, which in the Gallic fashion were roofed with thatch.

SECTION 5.43.2The huts quickly caught fire, and the force of the wind carried the flames throughout the camp.

SECTION 5.43.3With a tremendous shout, as though victory were already won and assured, the enemy began to move forward their towers and covered galleries and to scale the rampart with ladders.

SECTION 5.43.4But such was the courage and presence of mind of our soldiers that, though they were scorched by flames on every side, overwhelmed by a vast shower of missiles, and aware that all their baggage and all their possessions were burning, not only did no one leave the rampart to withdraw from the danger, but scarcely anyone even looked back; and at that moment they all fought with the greatest fierceness and bravery.

SECTION 5.43.5This day was by far the most terrible for our men; nevertheless, it had this result: on that day the greatest number of the enemy were wounded and killed, because they had crowded together immediately beneath the rampart and those in the rear gave those in front no room to retreat.

SECTION 5.43.6When the flames had somewhat subsided and a tower had been brought up at one point until it touched the rampart, the centurions of the third cohort withdrew from the place where they stood and removed all their men; then with gestures and shouts they began inviting the enemy to enter if they wished. Not one of them dared advance.

SECTION 5.43.7Then, pelted with stones from every side, they were driven off, and the tower was set on fire.

CHAPTER 5.44

SECTION 5.44.1In that legion there were two centurions of outstanding bravery, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, both of whom were approaching promotion to the first rank.

SECTION 5.44.2These men were constantly disputing which of them should take precedence, and every year they contended for the highest positions with the bitterest rivalry.

SECTION 5.44.3Of the two, Pullo, when the fighting at the fortifications was at its fiercest, said: “Why do you hesitate, Vorenus? What opportunity are you waiting for to prove your courage?

SECTION 5.44.4This day shall decide our disputes.” With these words he went outside the fortifications and charged into the place where the enemy’s line appeared thickest.

SECTION 5.44.5Vorenus then could not keep himself within the rampart either, but, fearing what everyone would think of him, followed close behind.

SECTION 5.44.6After advancing a moderate distance, Pullo hurled his pilum at the enemy and pierced one man who was running forward from the multitude. When the man had been struck and killed, the enemy covered his body with their shields, all hurled their weapons at Pullo, and gave him no opportunity to retreat.

SECTION 5.44.7Pullo’s shield was pierced, and a light spear lodged in his sword belt.

SECTION 5.44.8This accident turned his scabbard aside and hindered his right hand as he tried to draw his sword; while he was thus encumbered, the enemy surrounded him.

SECTION 5.44.9His rival Vorenus came to his aid and rescued him in his distress.

SECTION 5.44.10At once the whole multitude turned away from Pullo against Vorenus,

SECTION 5.44.11believing Pullo had been killed by the spear. Vorenus fought them at close quarters with his sword, killed one, and drove the rest back a short distance;

SECTION 5.44.12but as he pressed forward too eagerly, he stumbled down into a hollow and fell. When he in turn was surrounded, Pullo came to his aid,

SECTION 5.44.13and after killing several of the enemy, both men withdrew unharmed within the fortifications, covered with the highest distinction.

SECTION 5.44.14Thus fortune dealt with both men in their rivalry and contest: each, though the other’s rival, became his helper and preserver, and it could not be determined which of the two should be judged superior in courage.

CHAPTER 5.45

SECTION 5.45.1The more severe and bitter the assault became from day to day—and especially because a large part of the soldiers had been disabled by wounds and the number of defenders had been reduced—the more frequently letters and messengers were sent to Caesar. Some of the messengers were caught and tortured to death in sight of our soldiers.

SECTION 5.45.2Inside the camp was a Nervian named Vertico, a man of honorable birth, who at the beginning of the siege had fled for protection to Cicero and had proved his loyalty to him.

SECTION 5.45.3By promising freedom and great rewards, he persuaded a slave to carry a letter to Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.4The man carried it out fastened to a javelin and, moving as a Gaul among Gauls without arousing any suspicion, reached Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.5From him Caesar learned of the dangers threatening Cicero and the legion.

CHAPTER 5.46

SECTION 5.46.1Upon receiving the letter at about the eleventh hour of the day, Caesar immediately sent a messenger into the territory of the Bellovaci to Marcus Crassus, his quaestor, whose winter quarters were twenty-five miles away.

SECTION 5.46.2He ordered the legion to set out at midnight and come to him with all speed.

SECTION 5.46.3Crassus departed with the messenger. Caesar sent another to his lieutenant Gaius Fabius, ordering him to bring his legion into the territory of the Atrebates, through which Caesar knew he himself would have to march.

SECTION 5.46.4He wrote to Labienus, directing him to come with his legion to the borders of the Nervii if he could do so without injury to the public interest. He did not think it necessary to wait for the rest of the army, since it was somewhat farther away; from the nearest winter quarters he assembled about four hundred cavalry.

CHAPTER 5.47

SECTION 5.47.1At about the third hour, the scouts informed him that Crassus was approaching, and that day Caesar advanced twenty miles.

SECTION 5.47.2He placed Crassus in command at Samarobriva and assigned him a legion, because he was leaving there the army’s baggage, the hostages of the states, the official records, and all the grain he had brought there to sustain the army through the winter.

SECTION 5.47.3Fabius, as ordered, made no great delay and met Caesar on the march with his legion.

SECTION 5.47.4Labienus, having learned of the destruction of Sabinus and the slaughter of the cohorts, and with all the forces of the Treveri now gathered against him, feared that if he made a departure from his winter quarters resembling a flight, he would be unable to withstand the enemy’s attack, especially since he knew they were elated by their recent victory. He therefore sent a letter back to Caesar explaining the great danger involved in leading his legion out of winter quarters. He gave a full account of what had happened among the Eburones and informed Caesar that all the cavalry and infantry of the Treveri had encamped three miles from his camp.

CHAPTER 5.48

SECTION 5.48.1Caesar approved his decision. Although the expectation of having three legions had been disappointed and he was reduced to two, he still believed that the one means of securing the common safety lay in speed. By forced marches he entered the territory of the Nervii.

SECTION 5.48.2There he learned from prisoners what was happening at Cicero’s camp and how critical the situation was.

SECTION 5.48.3Then, by promising great rewards, he persuaded one of his Gallic horsemen to carry a letter to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.4He sent it written in Greek characters, so that if the letter were intercepted, the enemy might not discover our plans.

SECTION 5.48.5If the man could not reach Cicero, Caesar instructed him to bind the letter to the thong of a throwing spear and cast it inside the camp’s fortifications.

SECTION 5.48.6In the letter he wrote that he had set out with the legions and would soon be there; he urged Cicero to maintain his former courage.

SECTION 5.48.7The Gaul, fearing the danger, hurled the spear as he had been instructed.

SECTION 5.48.8By chance it lodged against a tower and remained unnoticed by our men for two days. On the third day a soldier saw it, took it down, and carried it to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.9After reading the letter through, Cicero recited it before an assembly of the soldiers and filled them all with the greatest joy.

SECTION 5.48.10Then the smoke of fires could be seen in the distance, and this removed all doubt that the legions were approaching.

CHAPTER 5.49

SECTION 5.49.1When the Gauls learned of this through their scouts, they abandoned the siege and hastened against Caesar with all their forces. These amounted to about sixty thousand armed men.

SECTION 5.49.2Given the opportunity, Cicero again obtained from the same Vertico mentioned above a Gaul to carry a letter to Caesar. He warned the man to make the journey cautiously and attentively.

SECTION 5.49.3In the letter he reported fully that the enemy had withdrawn from him and had turned their entire multitude against Caesar.

SECTION 5.49.4The letter was delivered to Caesar at about midnight. He informed his men of its contents and strengthened their resolve for battle.

SECTION 5.49.5At first light the next day he broke camp, and after advancing about four miles he sighted the multitude of the enemy across a valley and a stream.

SECTION 5.49.6It would have been extremely dangerous to fight on unfavorable ground with so small a force. Since he now knew that Cicero had been relieved from the siege, he thought he could set aside his haste without anxiety.

SECTION 5.49.7He halted and fortified a camp on the most favorable ground he could find. Although the camp was already small in itself, since his force scarcely numbered seven thousand men and had no baggage, he contracted it as much as possible by making the passageways narrow, intending thereby to bring himself into the utmost contempt in the eyes of the enemy.

SECTION 5.49.8Meanwhile, he sent scouts in every direction to discover by what route he could most conveniently cross the valley.

CHAPTER 5.50

SECTION 5.50.1That day, after a few minor cavalry skirmishes near the water, both sides remained in their own positions:

SECTION 5.50.2the Gauls because they were waiting for larger forces,

SECTION 5.50.3which had not yet assembled; Caesar because he hoped that by feigning fear he might entice the enemy onto his own ground and fight a battle before his camp on this side of the valley—or, if he could not accomplish that,

SECTION 5.50.4that after reconnoitering the routes he might cross the valley and stream with less danger. At first light the enemy’s cavalry approached the camp and engaged our horsemen.

SECTION 5.50.5Caesar deliberately ordered his cavalry to give way and withdraw into the camp. At the same time he ordered the camp to be fortified on every side with a higher rampart and the gates to be barricaded; and in carrying out these measures he commanded his men to run about as conspicuously as possible and act as though terrified.

CHAPTER 5.51

SECTION 5.51.1Enticed by all these signs, the enemy brought their forces across and drew up their battle line on unfavorable ground. When our men were even withdrawn from the rampart, they came closer and hurled missiles from every side inside the fortifications.

SECTION 5.51.2They sent heralds around and ordered them to proclaim that if any Gaul or Roman wished to come over to them before the third hour, he might do so without danger; after that time there would be no opportunity.

SECTION 5.51.3They held our men in such contempt that, because the gates had been blocked merely for appearance with a single row of turf at each entrance and they did not think they could break in through them, some began tearing down the rampart with their hands, while others began filling the ditches.

SECTION 5.51.4Then Caesar launched a sortie from every gate and sent out the cavalry. He quickly put the enemy to flight, so that not one of them stood his ground with any intention of fighting. He killed a great number of them and stripped them all of their weapons.

CHAPTER 5.52

SECTION 5.52.1Fearing to pursue them any farther because woods and marshes intervened, and seeing that they had no opportunity to make even the slightest stand, Caesar reached Cicero that same day with all his forces unharmed.

SECTION 5.52.2He marveled at the towers, covered galleries, and fortifications the enemy had constructed. When the legion was paraded before him, he discovered that not one soldier in ten remained unwounded.

SECTION 5.52.3From all these circumstances he judged how great the danger had been and how courageously the defense had been conducted.

SECTION 5.52.4He praised Cicero as his merit deserved and commended the legion. He addressed individually those centurions and military tribunes whose exceptional bravery he had learned of from Cicero’s testimony. From the prisoners he obtained a more certain account of the fate of Sabinus and Cotta.

SECTION 5.52.5The next day he called an assembly, set forth what had happened, and consoled and encouraged the soldiers.

SECTION 5.52.6He explained that the loss suffered through the fault and recklessness of a lieutenant ought to be borne with greater composure because, through the favor of the immortal gods and their own courage, the disaster had been avenged, leaving neither lasting joy to the enemy nor prolonged grief to themselves.

CHAPTER 5.53

SECTION 5.53.1Meanwhile, news of Caesar’s victory was carried through the Remi to Labienus with incredible speed. Although he was about sixty miles from Cicero’s winter quarters and Caesar had not reached them until after the ninth hour of the day, before midnight a shout arose at the gates of Labienus’s camp, by which the Remi announced the victory and offered him their congratulations.

SECTION 5.53.2When this report reached the Treveri, Indutiomarus, who had determined to attack Labienus’s camp the next day, fled during the night and led all his forces back into the territory of the Treveri.

SECTION 5.53.3Caesar sent Fabius back to winter quarters with his legion. He himself resolved to winter with three legions around Samarobriva, each in separate quarters; and because such great disturbances had arisen throughout Gaul, he determined to remain personally with the army for the entire winter.

SECTION 5.53.4For when the disastrous news of Sabinus’s death was reported, nearly all the states of Gaul were deliberating about war, dispatching messengers and embassies in every direction, seeking to discover what course the others intended to take and where the war should begin, and holding councils by night in deserted places.

SECTION 5.53.5Indeed, scarcely any period of the entire winter passed without anxiety for Caesar, and without his receiving some report of the plans and movements of the Gauls.

SECTION 5.53.6Among these reports, Lucius Roscius, whom he had placed in command of the Thirteenth Legion, informed him that large forces of Gauls from the states called the Armorican states had assembled to attack him

SECTION 5.53.7and had come within eight miles of his winter quarters, but that, when news of Caesar’s victory arrived, they had withdrawn so hastily that their departure appeared more like a rout.

CHAPTER 5.54

SECTION 5.54.1Caesar, meanwhile, summoned the leading men of each state to appear before him and kept a large part of Gaul obedient, sometimes by intimidation, declaring that he knew what was being done, and sometimes by exhortation.

SECTION 5.54.2Nevertheless, the Senones, a state of exceptional strength and great authority among the Gauls, attempted by public resolution to kill Cavarinus, whom Caesar had established as king among them, and whose brother Moritasgus had held the kingship at the time of Caesar’s arrival in Gaul, as his ancestors had done before him. When Cavarinus learned of the plot and fled, they pursued him as far as the borders,

SECTION 5.54.3drove him from his kingdom and home, and sent envoys to Caesar to offer satisfaction; but when Caesar ordered their entire senate to come before him, they refused to obey his command.

SECTION 5.54.4Among these barbarous peoples, the mere fact that some leaders had been found ready to make war carried such weight and produced so great a change in the sentiments of them all that, apart from the Aedui and the Remi—whom Caesar had always held in especial honor, the former because of their ancient and unbroken loyalty to the Roman people, the latter because of their recent services in the Gallic War—there was scarcely a state that did not become an object of suspicion to us.

SECTION 5.54.5And I am not sure that this should be thought so surprising, for besides many other reasons, those who had been esteemed superior to every nation in martial valor deeply resented having forfeited so much of that reputation that they were now compelled to submit to the commands of the Roman people.

CHAPTER 5.55

SECTION 5.55.1The Treveri, however, and Indutiomarus allowed no part of the entire winter to pass without sending envoys across the Rhine, soliciting the states there, promising money, and declaring that, since a large part of our army had been destroyed, only a much smaller part remained.

SECTION 5.55.2Yet no German state could be persuaded to cross the Rhine. They said that they had twice made the trial, in the war of Ariovistus and at the crossing of the Tencteri, and that they would not tempt fortune again. Though disappointed in this hope, Indutiomarus nevertheless began to raise forces,

SECTION 5.55.3train them, procure horses from the neighboring peoples, and entice to his side, with great rewards, exiles and condemned men from all over Gaul.

SECTION 5.55.4By these means he had already acquired such authority in Gaul that embassies flocked to him from every quarter, publicly and privately seeking his favor and friendship.

CHAPTER 5.56

SECTION 5.56.1When he perceived that men were coming to him of their own accord, that on the one side the Senones and Carnutes were being spurred on by consciousness of their crime, and on the other the Nervii and Aduatuci were preparing war against the Romans, and that he would lack no bands of volunteers if he began to advance beyond his own borders, he proclaimed an armed council. By Gallic custom, this marks the beginning of war,

SECTION 5.56.2and under their common law all men of military age are accustomed to assemble there under arms; whoever comes last is tortured to death in the sight of the multitude.

SECTION 5.56.3At that council he declared Cingetorix, the leader of the opposing faction and his own son-in-law—who, as we have shown above, had embraced Caesar’s cause and had not deserted it—a public enemy, and confiscated his property.

SECTION 5.56.4When these measures had been completed, he announced in the council that he had been summoned by the Senones, the Carnutes, and several other states of Gaul;

SECTION 5.56.5that he would march there through the territory of the Remi and lay waste their lands, but before doing so would attack Labienus’s camp. He then gave orders for the measures he wished carried out.

CHAPTER 5.57

SECTION 5.57.1Labienus, since he occupied a camp exceptionally well fortified both by the nature of the ground and by human labor, had no fear for his own safety or that of the legion; rather, he was considering how he might avoid letting slip any opportunity for a successful action.

SECTION 5.57.2Accordingly, when he learned from Cingetorix and his kinsmen what Indutiomarus had said in the council, he sent messengers to the neighboring states and summoned cavalry from every quarter, appointing a fixed day for them to assemble.

SECTION 5.57.3Meanwhile, almost every day Indutiomarus ranged beneath his camp with all his cavalry, sometimes to learn the position of the camp, at other times to seek a conference or inspire terror; and nearly all his horsemen hurled missiles inside the rampart.

SECTION 5.57.4Labienus kept his men within the fortifications and by every means in his power strengthened the impression that he was afraid.

CHAPTER 5.58

SECTION 5.58.1As Indutiomarus approached the camp each day with greater contempt, Labienus admitted one night the cavalrymen from all the neighboring states whom he had arranged to summon, and with such vigilance kept all his men confined within the camp by guards that there was no possible means by which the matter could be disclosed or reported to the Treveri.

SECTION 5.58.2Meanwhile, in accordance with his daily custom, Indutiomarus approached the camp and spent a large part of the day there; his horsemen hurled missiles and, with many insulting words, challenged our men to battle.

SECTION 5.58.3When our men made no reply, the enemy, as soon as they thought fit, departed toward evening, scattered and dispersed.

SECTION 5.58.4Suddenly Labienus sent all his cavalry out through two gates. He commanded and strictly enjoined them, once the enemy had been terrified and put to flight—as he foresaw would happen, and as it did—that every man should make for Indutiomarus alone, and that no one should wound any other enemy until he had seen Indutiomarus slain. He did not want the delay caused by pursuit of the others to give Indutiomarus time to escape. He offered great rewards to those who killed him,

SECTION 5.58.5and sent cohorts forward to support the cavalry.

SECTION 5.58.6Fortune confirmed the wisdom of his plan. Since every man made for Indutiomarus alone, he was overtaken and killed in the very ford of the river, and his head was carried back to the camp. As the horsemen returned, they pursued and killed all whom they could overtake.

SECTION 5.58.7When this became known, all the forces of the Eburones and Nervii that had assembled withdrew, and after this event Caesar enjoyed somewhat greater tranquility in Gaul.