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 Garonne River separates the Gauls from the Aquitani, and the Marne and Seine separate them from the Belgae.

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

SECTION 1.1.4They are also nearest to the Germans, who live across the Rhine, and they wage war with them continually. 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 German territory.

SECTION 1.1.5[The one part of these territories that, as has been stated, is occupied by the Gauls begins at the Rhône River and is bounded by the Garonne River, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae. On the side of the Sequani and Helvetii it also reaches the Rhine River and extends toward the north.

SECTION 1.1.6The territory of the Belgae begins at the farthest borders of Gaul and extends to the lower part of the Rhine River; it faces north and east.

SECTION 1.1.7Aquitania extends from the Garonne River to the Pyrenees Mountains and to that part of the Ocean bordering Spain; it faces northwest.]

CHAPTER 1.2

SECTION 1.2.1Among the Helvetii, Orgetorix was by far the noblest and wealthiest man. 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 everyone in valor, he said, it would be very easy for them to gain dominion over all 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 terrain: on one side by the Rhine, a very broad and deep river that separates the Helvetian territory from the Germans; on another by the very high Jura Mountains, which lie between the Sequani and the Helvetii; and on a third by Lake Geneva and the Rhône River, which separate our Province from the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.2.4These circumstances kept them from ranging widely and made it harder for them to wage war on their neighbors.

SECTION 1.2.5In this respect, as men eager for war, they were deeply distressed.

SECTION 1.2.6Considering the size of their population and their reputation for warfare and courage, they believed that their territory was too confined, though it extended 240 miles in length and 180 in width.

CHAPTER 1.3

SECTION 1.3.1Prompted by these circumstances and influenced by the authority of Orgetorix, they resolved to prepare everything needed for their departure: to buy up as many pack animals and wagons as possible, to sow as much grain as possible so that an adequate supply would be available on the journey, and to establish peace and friendship with the neighboring states.

SECTION 1.3.2They considered two years 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 took upon himself the diplomatic mission to the neighboring states. On this 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 named a friend by the Senate of the Roman people, to seize in his own state the kingship his father had previously held.

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

SECTION 1.3.5He convinced them that it would be very easy to accomplish their designs, because he himself was going to obtain supreme power in his own state.

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

SECTION 1.3.7Persuaded by this argument, they pledged their word and swore an oath to one another, hoping that once they had seized their kingships, they could gain control of all Gaul through its three most powerful and steadfast peoples.

CHAPTER 1.4

SECTION 1.4.1This scheme was revealed to the Helvetii by an informer. In accordance with their customs, they compelled Orgetorix to stand trial in chains; if convicted, the penalty he had to suffer was death by burning.

SECTION 1.4.2On the appointed day of his trial, Orgetorix gathered from every quarter all the members of his household, numbering about ten thousand people, and assembled there all his dependents and debtors, of whom he had a great number. Through their intervention he escaped having to stand trial.

SECTION 1.4.3While the state, enraged by this action, was attempting to enforce its law by arms, and the magistrates were gathering a large body of men from the countryside, Orgetorix died.

SECTION 1.4.4Nor, as the Helvetii believe, is there any lack of suspicion that he took his own life.

CHAPTER 1.5

SECTION 1.5.1After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless continued trying to do what they had resolved upon: to leave their territory.

SECTION 1.5.2When they believed they were ready for this undertaking, they burned all their towns, about twelve in number, approximately four hundred villages, and all the remaining private buildings.

SECTION 1.5.3They burned all the grain except what they intended to carry with them, so that, with all hope of returning home removed, they would be more prepared to face every danger. They ordered each person to carry from home a three-month supply of ground grain. They persuaded their neighbors, the Rauraci, Tulingi, and Latobrigi, to adopt the same plan, burn their towns and villages, and set out with them. They also admitted the Boii, who had lived across the Rhine, crossed into Norican territory, and attacked Noreia, and took them as allies.

CHAPTER 1.6

SECTION 1.6.1There were only two routes by which they could leave their homeland. One passed through the territory of the Sequani and was narrow and difficult, lying between the Jura Mountains and the Rhône River, with scarcely enough room for wagons to be drawn through one at a time. A very high mountain overhung the route, so that a very small number of men could easily block it.

SECTION 1.6.2The other route passed through our Province and was much easier and less obstructed, because the Rhône 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 1.6.3Geneva is the farthest town of the Allobroges and the one nearest the territory of the Helvetii. A bridge extends from that town into Helvetian territory. They believed that they would either persuade the Allobroges, who did not yet appear well disposed toward the Roman people, or compel them by force to allow them to pass through their territory. When everything had been prepared for the departure, they appointed a day on which everyone was to assemble on the bank of the Rhône. That day was March 28, 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 hurried to leave Rome, proceeded by forced marches into Further Gaul, and reached Geneva.

SECTION 1.7.2He ordered the entire Province to furnish as many soldiers as possible—there was only one legion in Further Gaul—and ordered the bridge at Geneva to be destroyed.

SECTION 1.7.3When the Helvetii learned of his arrival, they sent as envoys to him the most distinguished men of their state. Nammeius and Verucloetius held the leading places in this delegation. They were to say that the Helvetii intended to march through the Province without causing any harm, because they had no other route; they asked to be permitted to do so with Caesar’s consent. Because Caesar remembered that the consul Lucius Cassius had been killed and that his army had been routed by the Helvetii and sent under the yoke, he 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 injury 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 time to consider the matter. If they wanted an answer, they should return on April 13.

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 Geneva, which empties into the Rhône River, to the Jura Mountains, which separate the territory of the Sequani from that of the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.8.2When this work was completed, he stationed garrisons and fortified redoubts so that he could more easily stop them if they attempted to cross against his wishes.

SECTION 1.8.3When the day he had appointed with the envoys arrived and they returned to him, he said that, in accordance with the custom and precedent of the Roman people, he could not grant anyone passage through the Province, and he made it clear that if they attempted to use force, he would stop them.

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

CHAPTER 1.9

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

SECTION 1.9.2Since they could not persuade the Sequani on their own, they sent envoys to Dumnorix the Aeduan so that through his intercession they might obtain permission from them.

SECTION 1.9.3Through his influence and generosity, Dumnorix was extremely powerful among the Sequani, and he was friendly to the Helvetii because he had married the daughter of Orgetorix, a woman from their state. Driven by a desire for kingship, he favored revolution and wanted as many states as possible to be bound to him by personal obligation.

SECTION 1.9.4He therefore undertook the matter and obtained the Sequani’s permission for the Helvetii to pass through their territory. He also arranged for them to exchange hostages: the Sequani as a guarantee that they would not prevent the Helvetii from passing, and the Helvetii as a guarantee that they would 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 Aedui into the territory of the Santoni, who live not far from the territory of the Tolosates, a state within the Province.

SECTION 1.10.2He understood that, if this happened, the Province would be in great danger from having a warlike people hostile to the Roman people as neighbors in 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 built. Caesar himself hurried to Italy by forced marches, enrolled two legions there, led out of winter quarters the three legions wintering around Aquileia, and with these five legions hurried by the shortest route through 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 march. After defeating them in several engagements, Caesar traveled from Ocelum, the farthest town of the Nearer Province, to the territory of the Vocontii in the Further Province in seven days. From there he led the army into the territory of the Allobroges, and from the Allobroges into that of the Segusiavi. These are the first people beyond the Rhône outside the Province.

CHAPTER 1.11

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

SECTION 1.11.2Since the Aedui could not defend themselves and their property against them, they sent envoys to Caesar to ask for help.

SECTION 1.11.3They said that their services to the Roman people at all times had been such that their lands should not have been devastated, their children carried off into slavery, and their towns captured almost within sight of our army. At the same time, the Ambarri, close allies and kinsmen of the Aedui, informed Caesar that after their lands had been laid waste, they could not easily keep the enemy’s violence away from their towns.

SECTION 1.11.4Likewise, the Allobroges, who had villages and property across the Rhône, fled to Caesar and told him that nothing remained to them except the bare soil of their land.

SECTION 1.11.5Prompted by these events, Caesar decided that he must not wait until the Helvetii had consumed all the property of Rome’s allies and reached the territory of the Santoni.

CHAPTER 1.12

SECTION 1.12.1There is a river called the Saône, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and Sequani into the Rhône. Its current is unbelievably gentle, so 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-fourths of their forces across that river, while about one-fourth remained on the near side of the Saône, he left camp with three legions during the third watch and reached the division that had not yet crossed the river.

SECTION 1.12.3Attacking them when they were burdened and taken by surprise, he killed a great number of them. The rest fled and concealed themselves in the nearest woods.

SECTION 1.12.4This district was called the Tigurine district, for the entire Helvetian state is divided into four districts.

SECTION 1.12.5Within the memory of our fathers, this single district had left its homeland, killed the consul Lucius Cassius, and sent his army under the yoke.

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

SECTION 1.12.7In this matter Caesar avenged not only public but also private injuries, because in the same battle in which they had killed Cassius, the Tigurini had killed Lucius Piso, a lieutenant and the grandfather of Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Piso.

CHAPTER 1.13

SECTION 1.13.1After this battle, so that he could overtake the Helvetii’s remaining forces, Caesar had a bridge built across the Saône and led his army over it.

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

SECTION 1.13.3He addressed Caesar as follows: if the Roman people made peace with the Helvetii, the Helvetii would go to and remain in whatever place Caesar assigned them and wished them to be.

SECTION 1.13.4But if Caesar persisted in pursuing them with war, he should remember both the Roman people’s former defeat and the Helvetii’s traditional valor. Because Caesar had attacked one district by surprise when those who had crossed the river could not bring assistance to their countrymen, he should neither attribute too much to his own valor on that account nor despise the Helvetii. They had learned from their fathers and ancestors to contend by valor rather than rely on trickery or ambushes.

SECTION 1.13.5He should therefore not bring it about that the place where they stood would take its name from a disaster to the Roman people and the destruction of a Roman army, or hand down the memory of such an event.

CHAPTER 1.14

SECTION 1.14.1Caesar replied to them as follows: he had all the less uncertainty because he remembered the events the Helvetian envoys had mentioned, and he resented them all the more because they had happened without the Roman people’s deserving them.

SECTION 1.14.2If the Roman people had been conscious of committing any wrong, it would not have been difficult for them to take precautions. But they had been deceived because they did not understand that they had done anything for which they should be afraid, and they did not think they should be afraid without cause.

SECTION 1.14.3Even if he were willing to forget the former insult, could he also put aside the memory of their recent wrongs—their attempt, against his wishes, to force a passage through the Province, and their attacks upon the Aedui, the Ambarri, and the Allobroges?

SECTION 1.14.4Their insolent boasting about their victory and their amazement that they had borne their injuries for so long without punishment both pointed to the same conclusion.

SECTION 1.14.5For the immortal gods were accustomed, in order that people might suffer more bitterly from a reversal of fortune, sometimes to grant greater success and longer immunity from punishment to those whom they intended to punish for their crimes.

SECTION 1.14.6Even so, if they gave him hostages so that he could be sure they would do what they promised, and if they made amends to the Haedui for the injuries they had inflicted on 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 taught by their ancestors to accept hostages, not to give them; the Roman people could bear witness to that. After giving this reply, he departed.

CHAPTER 1.15

SECTION 1.15.1The next day the Helvetii broke camp and moved on. Caesar did the same and sent ahead all his cavalry, about four thousand men, which he had assembled from the entire province, from the Haedui, and from their allies, to see in what direction the enemy was marching. Eagerly pursuing the enemy’s rear guard, they engaged the Helvetian cavalry on unfavorable ground, and a few of our men fell.

SECTION 1.15.2Elated by this engagement, because with five hundred horsemen they had driven back so large a force of cavalry, the Helvetii began at times to halt more boldly and to provoke our men into battle with their rear guard. Caesar kept his men from fighting and for the moment considered it enough to prevent the enemy from raiding, foraging, and laying waste the countryside.

SECTION 1.15.3They marched in this way 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 demanded every day that the Haedui provide the grain they had officially promised.

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

SECTION 1.16.3Moreover, he had less opportunity to use the grain he had transported by ship up the Saône, because the Helvetii had turned their route away from the Saône, and he did not want to break off his pursuit of them.

SECTION 1.16.4The Haedui kept putting him off from one day to the next, saying that the grain was being collected, brought together, and was on its way.

SECTION 1.16.5When he realized that he had been put off too long and that the day was approaching when grain had to be issued to the soldiers, he summoned their leading men, many of whom he had in camp. Among them were Diviciacus and Liscus, who held the highest magistracy, which the Haedui call the vergobret. This official is elected annually and has the power of life and death over his people. Caesar severely reproached them

SECTION 1.16.6because, at so critical a time and with the enemy so near, they were not helping him, although grain could neither be bought nor taken from the fields, especially since he had undertaken the war largely in response to their appeals. He complained still more bitterly that he had been abandoned.

CHAPTER 1.17

SECTION 1.17.1Only then, prompted by Caesar’s speech, did Liscus disclose what he had previously kept silent: there were certain men whose influence with the common people was very great and who, as private citizens, had more power than the magistrates themselves.

SECTION 1.17.2By seditious and unscrupulous speeches, these men were intimidating the people and preventing them from contributing the grain they owed.

SECTION 1.17.3They said that if the Haedui could no longer hold the leading position in Gaul, it was better to endure rule by Gauls than by Romans,

SECTION 1.17.4and that they should have no doubt that if the Romans defeated the Helvetii, they would take away the freedom of the Haedui along with that of the rest of Gaul.

SECTION 1.17.5The same men were reporting our plans and everything done in camp to the enemy, and Liscus was unable to restrain them.

SECTION 1.17.6Indeed, he understood how much danger he had incurred by being compelled to reveal this critical matter to Caesar, and for that reason he had remained silent as long as he could.

CHAPTER 1.18

SECTION 1.18.1From this statement by Liscus, Caesar realized that he was referring to Dumnorix, the brother of Diviciacus. But because he did not want these matters discussed in the presence of so many people, he quickly dismissed the council and detained Liscus.

SECTION 1.18.2He questioned Liscus alone about what he had said at the meeting. Liscus spoke more freely and boldly. Caesar privately asked others about the same matters and found that the reports were true:

SECTION 1.18.3the man was Dumnorix, a man of extraordinary boldness and great popularity among the common people because of his generosity, and one who was eager for revolution. For several years he had held the contracts for collecting customs duties and all the other Haeduan taxes at a low price, because when he bid, no one dared to bid against him.

SECTION 1.18.4By these means he had both increased his personal fortune and acquired abundant resources for dispensing gifts.

SECTION 1.18.5He always maintained a large body of cavalry at his own expense and kept them around him.

SECTION 1.18.6He had great influence not only at home but also among neighboring states, and for the sake of this power he had arranged for his mother to marry a man among the Bituriges who was of the highest birth and influence there.

SECTION 1.18.7He himself had a Helvetian wife, and he had arranged marriages for his maternal half-sisters and other female relatives in different states.

SECTION 1.18.8Because of this marriage connection, he favored the Helvetii and wanted them to succeed. He also personally hated Caesar and the Romans because their arrival had diminished his power and restored his brother Diviciacus to his former position of influence and honor.

SECTION 1.18.9If anything happened to the Romans, he had the highest hopes of gaining kingship through the Helvetii; under Roman rule, he despaired not only of becoming king but even of retaining the influence he already had.

SECTION 1.18.10In the course of his investigation, Caesar also discovered that, in the unsuccessful cavalry engagement fought a few days earlier, Dumnorix and his horsemen had begun the retreat—for Dumnorix commanded the cavalry the Haedui had sent to assist Caesar—and that their flight had terrified the rest of the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.19

SECTION 1.19.1Once these facts were known, the strongest evidence was added to the earlier suspicions: Dumnorix had led the Helvetii through the territory of the Sequani; he had arranged for hostages to be exchanged between them; he had done all this not only without orders from Caesar or his own state but without their knowledge; and he was now being accused by the chief magistrate of the Haedui. Caesar believed there was sufficient reason either for him to punish Dumnorix himself or to order the Haeduan state to punish him.

SECTION 1.19.2One consideration stood against all these facts: Caesar knew of Dumnorix’s brother Diviciacus’s profound devotion to the Roman people, his great goodwill toward Caesar personally, and his exceptional loyalty, justice, and self-control. Caesar feared that punishing Dumnorix would alienate Diviciacus.

SECTION 1.19.3Therefore, before attempting anything, he ordered Diviciacus to be summoned. After dismissing the interpreters he ordinarily used, he spoke with him through Gaius Valerius Troucillus, a leading man of the province of Gaul, Caesar’s personal friend, in whom he had complete confidence in every matter.

SECTION 1.19.4At the same time, he reminded Diviciacus of what had been said about Dumnorix at the council of the Gauls while Diviciacus himself was present, and showed him what each person had said about Dumnorix privately in Caesar’s presence.

SECTION 1.19.5He asked and urged Diviciacus not to take offense if Caesar himself investigated and decided the case against Dumnorix, or ordered the Haeduan state to decide it.

CHAPTER 1.20

SECTION 1.20.1Diviciacus embraced Caesar with many tears and began begging him not to pass too severe a judgment on his brother.

SECTION 1.20.2He said that he knew the accusations were true and that no one suffered more pain from them than he did. For while he himself had held very great influence at home and throughout the rest of Gaul, and his brother, because of his youth, had held almost none, Dumnorix had risen through his support.

SECTION 1.20.3Dumnorix was using the resources and power he had gained not only to diminish Diviciacus’s influence but almost to destroy him. Nevertheless, Diviciacus was moved both by brotherly love and by concern for his reputation among the people.

SECTION 1.20.4If Caesar inflicted any severe punishment on Dumnorix, no one would believe it had been done against Diviciacus’s wishes, since Diviciacus held such a close place in Caesar’s friendship. As a result, the feelings of all Gaul would turn against him.

SECTION 1.20.5As Diviciacus made this request at greater length, weeping, Caesar took his right hand. He consoled him and asked him to stop pleading. Caesar explained that Diviciacus’s influence with him was so great that, in response to his wishes and appeals, he would overlook both the injury done to the Roman state and his own personal grievance. He summoned Dumnorix and had his brother attend. He explained what he found blameworthy in Dumnorix, set out what he himself knew and what the state complained of, and warned Dumnorix to avoid all grounds for suspicion in the future. He said that he forgave his past conduct for the sake of his brother Diviciacus. He placed guards over Dumnorix so that he could learn what he was doing and with whom he was speaking.

CHAPTER 1.21

SECTION 1.21.1That same day, scouts informed Caesar that the enemy had encamped at the foot of a mountain eight miles from his own camp. He sent men to determine the nature of the mountain and what the ascent around it was like.

SECTION 1.21.2They reported that it was easy. During the third watch, Caesar ordered Titus Labienus, his lieutenant with propraetorian authority, to ascend to the summit of the mountain ridge with two legions and with the guides who had reconnoitered the route. He explained his plan to Labienus.

SECTION 1.21.3He himself, during the fourth watch, hurried 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 later in that of Marcus Crassus, was sent ahead with the scouts.

CHAPTER 1.22

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

SECTION 1.22.2Considius galloped up to him and said that the mountain Caesar had wanted Labienus to occupy was held by the enemy; he had recognized them by their Gallic weapons and insignia.

SECTION 1.22.3Caesar withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and drew them up in battle formation. Labienus, in accordance with Caesar’s order not to engage unless Caesar’s forces were seen near the enemy’s camp, so that the attack on the enemy could be made from all sides at the same time, had occupied the mountain and was waiting for our men, refraining from battle.

SECTION 1.22.4At last, well into the day, Caesar learned from his scouts that the mountain was held by his own men, that the Helvetii had broken camp, and that Considius, terrified by fear, had reported as seen something he had not seen. That day Caesar followed the enemy at his customary distance and pitched camp three miles from their camp.

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 best-supplied town of the Haedui, Caesar thought he had to provide for his grain supply. He therefore turned away from the Helvetii and hurried toward Bibracte.

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

SECTION 1.23.3The Helvetii may have thought that the Romans were withdrawing because they were terrified, especially since the day before they had occupied higher ground but had not engaged in battle; or they may have been confident that they could cut the Romans off from their grain supply. In either case, they changed their plan, reversed their march, and began pursuing and harassing our rear guard.

CHAPTER 1.24

SECTION 1.24.1When Caesar noticed this, he withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and sent the cavalry to hold off the enemy’s attack.

SECTION 1.24.2Meanwhile, halfway up the hill, he drew up his four veteran legions in three lines. On the summit of the ridge he stationed the two legions he had most recently recruited in Cisalpine Gaul, together with all the auxiliary troops,

SECTION 1.24.3so that he filled the entire hill above him with men. He ordered all the baggage and packs to be collected in one place and that position to be fortified by the troops stationed in the upper battle line.

SECTION 1.24.4The Helvetii, who had followed with all their wagons, gathered their baggage in one place. They themselves drove back our cavalry, formed a phalanx in a very tightly packed battle line, and advanced to the foot of our first line.

CHAPTER 1.25

SECTION 1.25.1Caesar first had his own horse, and then everyone else’s, removed from sight, so that by making the danger equal for all he would eliminate any hope of flight. After encouraging his men, he joined battle.

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

SECTION 1.25.3It was a great hindrance to the Gauls in fighting that a single cast of the pila had pierced and fastened together several of their shields. Since the iron points had bent, they could neither pull them out nor fight effectively with their left arms obstructed,

SECTION 1.25.4so that many, after shaking their arms for a long time, preferred to let their shields fall from their hands 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 occupied the mountain and our men were advancing after them, the Boi and Tulingi, who numbered about fifteen thousand and had been closing the enemy’s column and guarding its rear, attacked our exposed flank from the line of march and began to surround our men. When the Helvetii who had withdrawn to the mountain saw this, they began to press forward again and renew the battle.

SECTION 1.25.7The Romans turned their standards and advanced in two directions: the first and second lines resisted the enemy who had already been defeated and driven back, while the third held off the newly arriving forces.

CHAPTER 1.26

SECTION 1.26.1Thus the battle continued for a long time, fiercely fought on two fronts. When the enemy could no longer withstand our attacks, one group withdrew to the mountain, as they had begun to do, while the other went to their baggage and wagons.

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

SECTION 1.26.3The fighting around the baggage continued late into the night, because the enemy had placed their wagons in the way as a defensive wall and hurled missiles from higher ground at our men as they approached. Some, from between the wagons and wheels, thrust pikes and light javelins at our men and wounded them.

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

SECTION 1.26.5About 130,000 people survived the battle. They marched continuously throughout the entire night, without interrupting their march for any part of it, and reached the territory of the Lingones on the fourth day. Because of the soldiers’ wounds and the need to bury the dead, our men were delayed for three days and had been unable to pursue them.

SECTION 1.26.6Caesar sent letters and messengers to the Lingones ordering them not to assist the Helvetii with grain or anything else; if they did assist them, he would regard them in the same way as the Helvetii. After a three-day interval, he began pursuing them with all his forces.

CHAPTER 1.27

SECTION 1.27.1Driven by a complete lack of supplies, the Helvetii sent envoys to Caesar to negotiate their surrender.

SECTION 1.27.2They met him on the march, threw themselves at his feet, addressed him as suppliants, and tearfully asked for peace. He ordered them to wait for 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 deserted to them.

SECTION 1.27.4While these things were being collected and brought together, after night had intervened, about 6,000 people from the canton called the Verbigenus left the Helvetian camp early in the night and hurried toward the Rhine and the territory of the Germans. Either they were terrified that, once they had surrendered their weapons, they would be put to death, or they were led on by the hope of escape, because they thought that amid such a great multitude of people surrendering, their flight could either be concealed or go entirely unnoticed.

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 clear themselves in his eyes. Those who were brought back he treated as enemies;

SECTION 1.28.2all the rest he accepted in surrender after they had handed over hostages, weapons, and deserters.

SECTION 1.28.3He ordered the Helvetii, Tulingi, and Latobrigi to return to their own territories, from which they had set out. Since all their crops had been lost and there was nothing at home with which they could stave off hunger, he ordered the Allobroges to provide them with a supply of grain; and 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 want the region from which the Helvetii had departed to remain empty, for fear that the Germans who lived across the Rhine, attracted by the quality of the land, might cross from their own territory into that of the Helvetii and become neighbors of the Roman province of Gaul and of the Allobroges.

SECTION 1.28.4At the request of the Haedui, because the Boii were known for their outstanding courage, he allowed them to settle the Boii within their territory. The Haedui gave them land and later admitted them to the same legal rights and freedom that they themselves enjoyed.

CHAPTER 1.29

SECTION 1.29.1In the camp of the Helvetii, records written in Greek characters were found and brought to Caesar. These records contained a detailed list by name of the number who had left home and were able to bear arms, and also, in separate totals, the number of children, old people, 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 able to bear arms.

SECTION 1.29.3The total number of them all was about 368,000. When a census was taken of those who returned home, as Caesar had ordered, their number was found to be 110,000.

CHAPTER 1.30

SECTION 1.30.1After the war with the Helvetii had been concluded, delegates from almost all of Gaul, the leading men of their states, came together to congratulate Caesar.

SECTION 1.30.2They said that they understood that, although he had waged war to exact punishment from the Helvetii for their old injuries 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 had abandoned their homes at the height of their prosperity with the intention of making war on all Gaul and gaining mastery over it, choosing from a wide range of possibilities whatever place in all Gaul they judged the most suitable and productive for their settlement, and making the remaining states pay them tribute.

SECTION 1.30.4They asked that they be permitted to call a council of all Gaul for a fixed date and to do so with Caesar’s approval. They said that there were certain requests they wished to make of him by common agreement.

SECTION 1.30.5After permission was granted, they fixed a date for the council and bound one another by oath not to disclose its proceedings except to those authorized by their common decision.

CHAPTER 1.31

SECTION 1.31.1When that council had been dismissed, the same leaders of the states who had visited Caesar before returned and asked to be allowed to speak with him privately and in secret about their own safety and that of them all.

SECTION 1.31.2When this request was granted, they all threw themselves weeping at Caesar’s feet. They said that they were striving and laboring no less to keep what they said from being disclosed than to obtain what they wanted, 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. He said that all Gaul was divided into two factions; the Haedui held the leadership of one, and the Arverni of the other.

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

SECTION 1.31.5At first about 15,000 of them had crossed the Rhine. Later, after those fierce and barbarous men had come to love the lands, civilization, and resources of the Gauls, more were 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 repeatedly. They had suffered a great disaster in defeat, losing all their nobility, all their senate, and all their cavalry.

SECTION 1.31.7Broken by these battles and disasters, the Haedui, who previously had possessed the greatest influence in Gaul both through their own courage 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 neither to demand the hostages back, nor to appeal to the Roman people for aid, nor to refuse to remain perpetually under the Sequani’s rule and dominion.

SECTION 1.31.8He himself was the only man in the entire state of the Haedui who 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 ask the Senate for help, because he alone was bound by neither oath nor hostages.

SECTION 1.31.10But 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 Sequanian land, which was the best in all Gaul. He was now ordering the Sequani to withdraw from another third, because a few months earlier 24,000 Harudes had come to him, for whom land and settlements had to be prepared.

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

SECTION 1.31.12Ever since Ariovistus had defeated the forces of the Gauls in the battle fought at Magetobriga, he had ruled arrogantly and cruelly. He demanded the children of every leading noble as hostages and inflicted every kind of exemplary punishment and torture upon them if anything was not done at his nod or according to his wishes.

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

SECTION 1.31.14Unless there was some help 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 country and other settlements far from the Germans, and face whatever fortune might befall them. If these statements were reported to Ariovistus, Diviciacus had no doubt that he would inflict the most terrible punishment on all the hostages in his possession.

SECTION 1.31.15Caesar, either by his own authority and that of his army, by his recent victory, or by the name of the Roman people, could prevent a larger multitude of Germans from being brought across the Rhine and could defend all Gaul from Ariovistus’s violence.

CHAPTER 1.32

SECTION 1.32.1After Diviciacus delivered this speech, all who were present began weeping bitterly and asking Caesar for help.

SECTION 1.32.2Caesar noticed that the Sequani alone did none of the things the others were doing, but remained sad, their heads lowered and their eyes fixed on the ground. Wondering what the reason was, he questioned them directly.

SECTION 1.32.3The Sequani made no reply but remained silent in the same state of dejection. When Caesar questioned them repeatedly but could not draw a single word from them, the same Diviciacus the Haeduan answered:

SECTION 1.32.4the fate of the Sequani was more wretched and oppressive than that of the others, because they alone did not dare even in secret to complain or appeal for help, and they shuddered at Ariovistus’s cruelty even while he was absent,

SECTION 1.32.5just as if he were there in person. The others, after all, still had the possibility of escape; but the Sequani, who had received Ariovistus within their own territory and whose towns were all under his control, had to endure every kind of torture.

CHAPTER 1.33

SECTION 1.33.1After learning these facts, Caesar reassured the Gauls with his words and promised that he would take care of the matter. He said that he had great hope that Ariovistus, influenced by Caesar’s favor and authority, would put an end to his abuses. After making this speech, he dismissed the council.

SECTION 1.33.2Besides these considerations, many circumstances urged him to believe that he should consider and undertake the matter. Most important, he saw that the Haedui, who had repeatedly been called brothers and kinsmen by the Senate, were being held in servitude and under the dominion of the Germans, and he understood that their hostages were in the hands of Ariovistus and the Sequani. Given the vast dominion of the Roman people, he considered this utterly disgraceful both to himself and to the Republic.

SECTION 1.33.3Moreover, it seemed 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. He did not believe that these fierce and barbarous people would restrain themselves after seizing all Gaul, but that, as the Cimbri and Teutones had done before, they would march into the province and from there advance into Italy, especially since only the Rhône separated the Sequani from the Roman province. He therefore believed these developments had to be stopped as quickly as possible.

SECTION 1.33.4Ariovistus himself had assumed such pride and arrogance that he seemed intolerable.

CHAPTER 1.34

SECTION 1.34.1For this reason Caesar decided to send delegates to Ariovistus to demand that he choose some place midway between them for a conference. Caesar wished to discuss matters of state and issues of the highest importance to them both.

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

SECTION 1.34.3Furthermore, he did not dare to enter without an army those parts of Gaul that Caesar controlled, and he could not assemble his army in one place without great supplies and effort.

SECTION 1.34.4He also found it strange that Caesar, or indeed the Roman people at all, had any business 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 delegates to Ariovistus with the following instructions:

SECTION 1.35.2since Ariovistus, despite having received so great a favor from Caesar and the Roman people when during Caesar’s consulship he had been named king and friend by the Senate, was showing his gratitude to Caesar and the Roman people by refusing an invitation to a conference and by not considering it necessary to discuss and learn about a matter of common concern, these were Caesar’s demands:

SECTION 1.35.3first, that he no longer bring any body of people across the Rhine into Gaul; next, that he return the hostages he held from the Haedui and allow the Sequani, with his consent, to return the hostages they held; and that he not provoke the Haedui with acts of violence or make war on them or their allies.

SECTION 1.35.4If he did this, Caesar and the Roman people would enjoy lasting goodwill and friendship with him. If Caesar did not obtain these demands, then, since in the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso the Senate had decreed that whoever governed the province of Gaul should, insofar as he could do so without harm to the Republic, defend the Haedui and the other friends of the Roman people, Caesar would not ignore the wrongs inflicted on the Haedui.

CHAPTER 1.36

SECTION 1.36.1Ariovistus replied to these demands that it was a right of war for victors to rule those they had defeated in whatever manner they wished. Likewise, the Roman people were accustomed to ruling the defeated according to their own judgment, not according to another’s instructions.

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

SECTION 1.36.3The Haedui had become his tributaries because they had tested the fortunes of war, met him in battle, and been defeated.

SECTION 1.36.4Caesar was doing him a great wrong by coming there and reducing the revenues paid to him.

SECTION 1.36.5He would not return the hostages to the Haedui. He would not wrongfully make war on them or their allies if they abided by the agreement and paid tribute every year; but if they did not, the Roman people’s title of “brothers” would be far from helping them.

SECTION 1.36.6As for Caesar’s warning that he would not ignore the wrongs inflicted on the Haedui, no one had ever fought Ariovistus without bringing destruction upon himself.

SECTION 1.36.7Caesar could engage him whenever he wished. He would then learn what courage the undefeated Germans were capable of—men highly trained in arms who had not been under a roof for fourteen years.

CHAPTER 1.37

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

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

SECTION 1.37.3the Treveri reported that one hundred cantons of the Suebi had settled on the banks of the Rhine and were attempting to cross it; the brothers Nasua and Cimberius were in command of them. Deeply alarmed by these developments, Caesar believed that he had to act quickly, for fear that, if the new force of Suebi joined Ariovistus’s existing troops, resistance would become more difficult.

SECTION 1.37.4Accordingly, after securing grain supplies as quickly as he could, he advanced against Ariovistus by forced marches.

CHAPTER 1.38

SECTION 1.38.1After he had advanced for three days, he was informed that Ariovistus was hurrying 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 had to take the greatest care to prevent this. The town had an abundant supply of everything useful for war,

SECTION 1.38.2and its natural position fortified it in such a way as to make it an excellent base for conducting a war, because the river Dubis, curving around as though drawn with a compass, almost completely surrounds the town.

SECTION 1.38.3The remaining space, where the river leaves a gap, is no more than 1,600 feet wide and is enclosed by a mountain of great height, whose base reaches the riverbanks on both sides.

SECTION 1.38.4A wall built around this mountain turns it into a citadel and connects it with the town.

SECTION 1.38.5Caesar hurried there by long marches both night and day, seized the town, and stationed a garrison there.

CHAPTER 1.39

SECTION 1.39.1While he remained at Vesontio for a few days to obtain grain and other supplies, the inquiries made by our men and the statements of Gauls and merchants—who declared that the Germans were of enormous physical size, possessed incredible courage, and were highly trained in arms, and who said that, although they had often met them, they had been unable to endure even the expression on their faces and the fierceness of their gaze—suddenly filled the entire army with such great fear that it seriously disturbed the minds and spirits of them all.

SECTION 1.39.2This fear first arose among the military tribunes, prefects, and the others who had followed Caesar from Rome for the sake of friendship and had little experience in military affairs.

SECTION 1.39.3Each of them offered a different reason that he claimed made it necessary for him to leave and asked Caesar’s permission to depart. Some, driven by shame and wishing to avoid the suspicion of fear, remained.

SECTION 1.39.4They could neither control their expressions nor, at times, hold back their tears. Hiding in their tents, they either lamented their own fate or commiserated with their friends over the danger they all shared. Wills were being sealed everywhere throughout the camp.

SECTION 1.39.5Their talk and fear gradually began to unsettle even those who had extensive experience in camp—the soldiers, centurions, and cavalry commanders.

SECTION 1.39.6Those among them who wanted to be considered less afraid said that they did not fear the enemy, but were concerned about the narrow roads and the vast forests lying between themselves and Ariovistus, or about whether the grain supply could be transported adequately.

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

CHAPTER 1.40

SECTION 1.40.1When Caesar became aware of this, he called a council, summoned centurions of every rank to attend it, and severely reprimanded them. First, he rebuked them for thinking that it was their place to ask or consider in what direction or for what purpose they were being led.

SECTION 1.40.2During his consulship, Ariovistus had been extremely eager to obtain the friendship of the Roman people. Why should anyone so rashly suppose that he would abandon his obligations?

SECTION 1.40.3For his own part, Caesar was convinced that once Ariovistus learned his demands and understood the fairness of the 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, were they afraid of? Why did they despair either of their own courage or of their commander’s vigilance?

SECTION 1.40.5That enemy had been put to the test within the memory of their fathers, when the Cimbri and Teutones were defeated by Gaius Marius [and the army appeared to have earned no less glory than the commander himself]. The Germans had also been tested recently in Italy during the slave uprising, although the slaves had received some assistance from the experience and training they had acquired from the Romans.

SECTION 1.40.6From this it could be judged how much strength there was in steadfastness: although for some time the Romans had been needlessly afraid of them while they were unarmed, they later defeated them when they were armed and victorious.

SECTION 1.40.7Finally, these were the same Germans whom the Helvetii had often confronted and usually defeated, not only in their own territory but also in that of the Germans; yet the Helvetii had been unable to stand against our army.

SECTION 1.40.8If anyone was disturbed by the Gauls’ defeat and flight, he could discover, if he investigated, that after the Gauls had been exhausted by the long duration of the war, Ariovistus had kept himself in his camp and among the marshes for many months without giving them an opportunity to fight. Then, when they had already despaired of battle and had dispersed, he attacked them suddenly and defeated them more by calculation and strategy than by courage.

SECTION 1.40.9Although there had been an opportunity for such a strategy to succeed against barbarous and inexperienced men, not even Ariovistus himself could expect our armies to be caught by it.

SECTION 1.40.10Those who concealed their fear behind the pretense of concern 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 responsibility. The Sequani, Leuci, and Lingones were supplying grain, and the grain in the fields was already ripe. As for the route, they themselves would soon be able to judge it.

SECTION 1.40.12As for the claim that they would not obey his commands or carry the standards, he was not at all disturbed by it. He knew that whenever an army had not obeyed its commander, either he had suffered bad luck because the campaign had been badly conducted, or his greed had been exposed when some crime was discovered.

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

SECTION 1.40.14He would therefore do immediately 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 could learn as quickly as possible whether honor and duty or fear had more influence over them.

SECTION 1.40.15Even if no one else followed him, he would still go with the Tenth Legion alone. He had no doubts about that legion, and it would serve as his bodyguard cohort. Caesar had shown this legion particular favor and, because of its courage, trusted it more than any other.

CHAPTER 1.41

SECTION 1.41.1After this speech, everyone’s attitude changed remarkably, and the entire army was filled with the greatest enthusiasm and eagerness to wage war.

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

SECTION 1.41.3Then the other legions approached their military tribunes and senior centurions to have them satisfy Caesar on their behalf. They said that they had never doubted or been afraid, and had never thought that judgment concerning the overall conduct of the war belonged to them rather than to their commander.

SECTION 1.41.4After accepting their explanation, Caesar had Diviciacus, the Gaul he trusted more than any other, investigate a route by which he could lead the army through open country, even though it required a detour of more than fifty miles. He then set out during the fourth watch, as he had said he would.

SECTION 1.41.5On the seventh day, during which he had continued the march without interruption, his scouts informed him that Ariovistus’ forces were twenty-four miles from ours.

CHAPTER 1.42

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

SECTION 1.42.2Caesar did not reject the proposal and now believed that Ariovistus was returning to his senses, since he was voluntarily offering what he had previously denied when Caesar requested it.

SECTION 1.42.3Caesar became very hopeful that, in view of the great favors that he and the Roman people had conferred upon Ariovistus, the king would learn his demands and abandon his obstinacy.

SECTION 1.42.4The conference was set 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 said that he was afraid Caesar might surround him in an ambush. Each of them should come with cavalry; otherwise, he would not come.

SECTION 1.42.6Caesar did not want the conference to be canceled because of an imposed condition, but he did not dare entrust his safety to the Gallic cavalry. He therefore decided that the most practical course was to take all the horses away from the Gallic cavalrymen and mount on them legionary soldiers from the Tenth Legion, which he trusted most, so that if any action became necessary, he would have the most loyal possible guard.

SECTION 1.42.7As this was being done, one of the soldiers of the Tenth Legion remarked, not without humor, that Caesar was doing more than he had promised. He had promised to treat the Tenth Legion as his bodyguard cohort, but now he was enrolling it in the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.43

SECTION 1.43.1There was a large plain, and on it stood a fairly large earthen mound. This place was at approximately the same distance from the camps of Ariovistus and Caesar. As agreed, they came there for the conference.

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

SECTION 1.43.3Ariovistus requested that they conduct the conference on horseback and that each of them bring ten men with him to the meeting.

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

SECTION 1.43.5Although Ariovistus had neither access to Rome nor any legitimate grounds for requesting these honors, he had received those rewards through Caesar’s and the Senate’s kindness and generosity.

SECTION 1.43.6Caesar also explained how old and legitimate were the bonds of friendship between the Romans and the Haedui,

SECTION 1.43.7how many decrees the Senate had passed concerning them and how honorable those decrees were, and how the Haedui had always held the leading position in all Gaul, even before they sought our friendship.

SECTION 1.43.8It was the custom of the Roman people to want their allies and friends not only to lose none of what belonged to them, but also to increase in influence, standing, and honor. Who could permit them to be deprived of what they had possessed when they entered into friendship with the Roman people?

SECTION 1.43.9Caesar then made the same demands that he had given his envoys: Ariovistus must not make war upon either the Haedui or their allies; he must return their 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 said little in reply to Caesar’s demands but spoke at length about his own merits.

SECTION 1.44.2He had crossed the Rhine not on his own initiative, but at the request and invitation of the Gauls. He had not left his home and relatives without great expectations and great rewards. He occupied settlements in Gaul that the Gauls themselves had granted him; they had given hostages voluntarily; and he collected tribute by the right of war, which victors customarily imposed upon the defeated.

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 camped against him, and he had routed and defeated all their forces in a single battle.

SECTION 1.44.4If they wanted to try again, he was ready to fight it out again. If they wanted to enjoy peace, it was unjust for them to refuse the tribute that they had paid voluntarily up to that time.

SECTION 1.44.5The friendship of the Roman people ought to bring him honor and protection, not harm, and he had sought it with that expectation. If, through the intervention of the Roman people, the tribute was canceled and his subjects were taken away from him, he would reject the friendship of the Roman people just as gladly as he had sought it.

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

SECTION 1.44.7He had come to Gaul before the Roman people. Never before that time had an army of the Roman people gone beyond the borders of the province of Gaul.

SECTION 1.44.8What did Caesar want with him? Why was he coming into his possessions? This part of Gaul was his province, just as the other part was ours. Just as Ariovistus ought not to be permitted to invade our territory, so the Romans were equally unjust to interfere with him in the exercise of his rights.

SECTION 1.44.9As for Caesar’s claim that the Senate had called the Haedui brothers, Ariovistus was not so barbarous or so ignorant of affairs that he did not know that in the recent war with the Allobroges the Haedui had neither brought assistance to the Romans nor themselves received assistance from the Roman people in the struggles they had waged against him and the Sequani.

SECTION 1.44.10He had to suspect that Caesar was pretending friendship and maintaining an army in Gaul for the purpose of destroying 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 be doing a favor to many nobles and leading men of the Roman people—something he had learned from them personally through their messengers—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, he would reward him generously and would conclude, without any effort or danger to Caesar, whatever wars Caesar wanted to have waged.

CHAPTER 1.45

SECTION 1.45.1Caesar said much in reply to explain why he could not abandon the matter. Neither his own practice nor that of the Roman people permitted him to abandon allies who had rendered outstanding service, and he did not believe 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 not reduced their territory to a province, and had not imposed tribute upon them.

SECTION 1.45.3If the most ancient claim had to be considered, then the authority of the Roman people in Gaul was the most legitimate. If the judgment of the Senate had to be respected, then Gaul ought to be free, since the Senate had wished it, although conquered in war, to live under its own laws.

CHAPTER 1.46

SECTION 1.46.1While this discussion was taking place at the conference, Caesar was informed that Ariovistus’ cavalry was approaching nearer to the mound, riding toward our men, and throwing stones and javelins at them.

SECTION 1.46.2Caesar ended the discussion, withdrew to his men, and ordered them not to throw any weapon at all back at the enemy.

SECTION 1.46.3Although he saw that a battle between his chosen legion and the enemy cavalry would involve no danger, he nevertheless thought he must not allow a situation in which, after the enemy had been defeated, it could be said that he had treacherously trapped them during a conference.

SECTION 1.46.4After word spread among the common soldiers of the arrogance with which Ariovistus had barred the Romans from all Gaul during the conference, of the attack his cavalry had made upon our men, and of how that incident had broken off the conference, the army was filled with far greater enthusiasm and a much stronger desire to fight.

CHAPTER 1.47

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

SECTION 1.47.2Caesar saw no reason to hold another conference, especially because the day before, the Germans could not be restrained from throwing weapons at our men.

SECTION 1.47.3He believed that sending one of his own envoys to Ariovistus would expose that man to great danger and place him at the mercy of savage men.

SECTION 1.47.4He decided that the most practical course was 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 chose Procillus both because of his loyalty and because of his knowledge of the Gallic language, in which Ariovistus, through long familiarity, was now quite fluent, and because the Germans had no reason to mistreat him. With him Caesar sent Marcus Metius, who had ties of hospitality with Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.5Caesar instructed them to learn what Ariovistus said and report it to him. When Ariovistus saw them in his camp, he shouted in the presence of his army, “Why have you come to me? Is it to spy?” He prevented them from trying to speak and threw them into chains.

CHAPTER 1.48

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

SECTION 1.48.2The following day he led his forces past Caesar’s camp and established a camp two miles beyond it, intending to cut Caesar off from the grain and supplies being transported from the Sequani and Haedui.

SECTION 1.48.3For five consecutive days from that day onward, Caesar led his forces out in front of the camp and kept them drawn up in battle formation, so that if Ariovistus wanted to fight, he would have the opportunity.

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

SECTION 1.48.5there were six thousand cavalrymen and an equal number of extremely swift and courageous infantrymen, each of whom an individual cavalryman had selected from the entire force for his personal protection.

SECTION 1.48.6The cavalrymen fought alongside them in battle and withdrew to them for safety. If the situation became especially difficult, the infantrymen rushed forward; if any cavalryman 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 quickly, 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 remaining in his camp, Caesar chose a suitable site for a camp beyond the place where the Germans had settled, about six hundred paces from them, so that he would not be cut off from supplies any longer. He formed his army in three lines and advanced to that site.

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 site, as has been stated, was about six hundred paces from the enemy.] Ariovistus sent about sixteen thousand lightly equipped men there with all his cavalry to intimidate our men and prevent them from building the fortifications.

SECTION 1.49.4Nevertheless, as Caesar had previously decided, he ordered two lines to drive back the enemy and the third to complete the work. Once the camp was fortified, he left two legions and part of the auxiliary forces there and led the other four legions back to the larger camp.

CHAPTER 1.50

SECTION 1.50.1The next day, following his established plan, Caesar led his forces out of both camps, advanced a short distance from the larger camp, formed his battle line, and gave the enemy an opportunity to fight.

SECTION 1.50.2When he realized that even then they would not come out, he led his army back into camp around noon. Only then did Ariovistus send part of his forces to attack the smaller camp. Both sides fought fiercely until evening. At sunset Ariovistus led his troops back 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 learned that the reason was a German custom under which their married women used lots and prophecies to declare whether or not it would be advantageous to engage in battle. The women said:

SECTION 1.50.4The Germans were not destined to win if they fought a battle before the new moon.

CHAPTER 1.51

SECTION 1.51.1The day after that, Caesar left what seemed to be an adequate garrison in each camp and stationed all the auxiliary troops in full view of the enemy in front of the smaller camp. Because he was at a disadvantage in the number of legionary soldiers compared with the enemy, he intended to use the auxiliaries to create the appearance of greater strength. He himself formed his army in three lines and advanced as far as the enemy’s camp.

SECTION 1.51.2Only then, compelled by necessity, did the Germans lead their forces out of camp. They arranged them by tribe 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 would remain.

SECTION 1.51.3They placed their women on the wagons, and as the soldiers set out for battle, the women stretched out their hands, weeping and begging them not to surrender them to slavery under the Romans.

CHAPTER 1.52

SECTION 1.52.1Caesar placed one lieutenant or the quaestor in command of each legion, so that every man would have one of them as a witness to his courage.

SECTION 1.52.2He himself began the battle from the right wing because he had noticed that this was the enemy’s weakest point.

SECTION 1.52.3At the signal, our men charged the enemy so fiercely, and the enemy suddenly rushed forward so quickly, that there was no room to throw the javelins at them.

SECTION 1.52.4The javelins were cast aside, and the fighting was carried on at close quarters with swords. But the Germans quickly formed a phalanx in their customary manner and met the assault of the swords.

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

SECTION 1.52.6Although the enemy’s line on the left wing had been driven back and put to flight, on their right wing they were pressing our line hard through the sheer weight of their numbers.

SECTION 1.52.7When the young Publius Crassus, who commanded the cavalry, noticed this, he was freer to observe the battle than those engaged in the fighting and sent the third line to reinforce our hard-pressed men.

CHAPTER 1.53

SECTION 1.53.1The battle was thus restored, and all the enemy turned their backs. They did not stop fleeing until they reached the Rhine, about fifty miles from that place.

SECTION 1.53.2There, a very few trusted in their strength and tried to swim across, or found small boats and escaped.

SECTION 1.53.3Among them was Ariovistus, who found a small boat tied to the bank and escaped in it. Our cavalry overtook and killed all the rest.

SECTION 1.53.4Ariovistus had two wives: one was a Suebi by birth, whom he had brought with him from home; the other was a Norican, the sister of King Voccio, whom he had married in Gaul after her brother sent her there. Both died during the flight. He also had two daughters: one of them was killed and the other captured.

SECTION 1.53.5Gaius Valerius Procillus, who was being dragged along by his guards during the flight, bound in three sets of chains, came upon Caesar himself as he pursued the enemy with the cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.6This event gave Caesar no less pleasure than the victory itself, because he saw the most honorable man in the Province of Gaul, his personal friend and guest, rescued from the enemy’s hands and restored to him. Fortune had not diminished the pleasure and rejoicing of so great a victory by bringing disaster upon Procillus.

SECTION 1.53.7Procillus said that, in his presence, the lots had been consulted three times to determine whether he should be burned to death immediately or kept for another time. By the favor of the lots, he was still alive.

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 reported across the Rhine, the Suebi who had reached its banks began to return home. When the peoples living nearest the Rhine saw that they were terrified, 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 judicial assemblies.

CHAPTER 2.1

SECTION 2.1.1While Caesar was in Cisalpine Gaul [in winter quarters], as we have explained above, frequent reports were brought to him, and he was also informed by letters from Labienus, that all the Belgae—who, as we have said, made up one-third of Gaul—were conspiring against the Roman people and exchanging hostages with one another.

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 urged on by certain Gauls. Some of these, just as they had not wanted the Germans to remain in Gaul any longer, resented the Roman people’s army wintering in Gaul and establishing a permanent presence there. Others, because of their fickle and impulsive nature, were eager for new governments.

SECTION 2.1.4Still others urged them on because, in Gaul, kingships were commonly seized by the more powerful men and by those who had the resources to hire retainers; under our rule, these men could not achieve that objective so easily.

CHAPTER 2.2

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

SECTION 2.2.2He himself went to the army as soon as forage began to be available.

SECTION 2.2.3He instructed the Senones and the other Gauls bordering the Belgae to find out what was happening among them and keep him informed of these matters.

SECTION 2.2.4They all consistently reported that armed bands were being assembled and an army was being concentrated in one place. Caesar then concluded that he should have no hesitation about marching against them. After arranging for grain supplies, he broke camp and reached the borders of the Belgae in about fifteen days.

CHAPTER 2.3

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

SECTION 2.3.2They said that they were entrusting 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 prepared to give hostages, carry out his orders, receive him into their towns, and assist him with grain and other supplies.

SECTION 2.3.4All the other Belgae were under arms, and the Germans living on this side of the Rhine had joined them.

SECTION 2.3.5The frenzy of them all was so great that the Remi had been unable to deter even the Suessiones—their own brothers and blood relatives, who enjoyed the same rights and laws and shared one government and one chief magistrate with them—from joining the others.

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 Germans, had crossed the Rhine long ago, had settled there because of the fertility of the land, and had driven out the Gauls who inhabited those regions. They alone were the people who,

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

SECTION 2.4.3As a result, the memory of those events led them to claim great authority and to have great confidence in their military ability.

SECTION 2.4.4The Remi said that they had obtained complete information about the Belgae’s 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 at the general council of the Belgae.

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

SECTION 2.4.6The Suessiones were their neighbors and possessed a very extensive territory and extremely fertile fields.

SECTION 2.4.7Within our own memory their king had been Diviciacus, the most powerful man in all Gaul, who had ruled not only a large part of these regions but also Britain. Galba was now their king. Because of his justice and exceptional judgment, the supreme command of the entire war was being conferred upon him by unanimous consent. They had twelve towns and promised fifty thousand armed men. The Nervii promised the same number,

SECTION 2.4.8and were regarded as the fiercest of all the Belgae 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 2.4.10They estimated that the Condrusi, Eburones, Caerosi, and Paemani, who are collectively called Germans, would supply about forty thousand.

CHAPTER 2.5

SECTION 2.5.1Caesar encouraged the Remi and addressed them graciously. He ordered their entire senate to assemble before him and the children of their leading men to be brought to him as hostages. They carefully fulfilled all these requirements by the appointed day.

SECTION 2.5.2Caesar himself strongly urged Diviciacus the Haeduan to act, explaining how important it was to the Roman state and to their common security for the enemy’s forces to be kept apart, so that they would not have to fight so great a multitude at one time.

SECTION 2.5.3This could be accomplished if the Haedui led their forces into the territory of the Bellovaci and began ravaging their fields.

SECTION 2.5.4After giving him these instructions, Caesar sent him away. When Caesar saw that all the forces of the Belgae had been assembled in one place and were advancing against him, and learned from the scouts he had sent out and from the Remi that they were no longer far away, he hurried to lead his army across the Axona River, which lies at the farthest edge of the Remi’s territory, and pitched camp there.

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

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

CHAPTER 2.6

SECTION 2.6.1A town of the Remi called Bibrax was eight miles from this camp. On their march, the Belgae began to attack it with great force. It was defended with difficulty that day.

SECTION 2.6.2The Gauls and the Belgae use the same method of attacking towns. After a great mass of men has surrounded the entire circuit of the walls, stones begin to be hurled against the wall from every direction. Once the wall has been stripped of defenders, the attackers form a testudo, advance to the gates, and undermine the wall. This was easily done on that occasion.

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

SECTION 2.6.4When night brought the assault to an end, Iccius the Remian, a man of the highest birth and influence among his people, who was then in command of the town and was one of the envoys who had come to Caesar to discuss peace, sent him a message saying that unless reinforcements were sent to him, he could not hold out any longer.

CHAPTER 2.7

SECTION 2.7.1Around midnight Caesar used as guides the same men who had brought the message from Iccius and sent Numidians, Cretan archers, and Balearic slingers to reinforce the townspeople.

SECTION 2.7.2Their arrival gave the Remi both hope of successful defense and greater eagerness to resist, while for the same reason the enemy lost hope of capturing the town.

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

SECTION 2.7.4Their camp, as the smoke and fires indicated, extended more than eight miles across.

CHAPTER 2.8

SECTION 2.8.1At first Caesar decided to avoid battle, both because of the enemy’s great numbers and because of their exceptional reputation for courage.

SECTION 2.8.2Nevertheless, through daily cavalry engagements he tested the enemy’s fighting ability and the boldness of our own men.

SECTION 2.8.3When he realized that our men were not inferior, he chose the naturally advantageous and suitable ground in front of the camp for drawing up his battle line. The hill on which the camp stood rose slightly above the plain and extended across the front only as far as a deployed battle line could occupy. It had steep slopes on both flanks, while at the front it descended gently and gradually returned to the level of the plain. From each side of this hill Caesar dug a crosswise trench about four hundred paces long

SECTION 2.8.4and built redoubts at the ends of the trenches, where he positioned artillery. Thus, when he had formed his battle line, the enemy, who were so powerful because of their numbers, would not be able to fight around the flanks and surround his men.

SECTION 2.8.5After doing this, he left the two legions he had most recently raised in camp so that they could be brought up as reinforcements wherever they were needed, and formed the other six legions in battle line in front of the camp. The enemy likewise led their forces out of camp and formed their line.

CHAPTER 2.9

SECTION 2.9.1There was a small marsh between our army and the enemy’s. The enemy waited to see whether our men would cross it, while our men remained under arms, ready to attack them while they were encumbered if they began crossing first.

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

SECTION 2.9.3The enemy immediately marched from that place to the Axona River, which, as has been explained, lay behind our camp.

SECTION 2.9.4There, after finding fords, they tried 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 assistance 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, Caesar led all the cavalry, the lightly armed Numidians, the slingers, and the archers across the bridge and hurried toward them. There was fierce fighting at that spot.

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

SECTION 2.10.3they drove back with a barrage of missiles the rest, who were making a most daring attempt to cross over the bodies of their comrades, and surrounded with cavalry and killed those who had crossed first.

SECTION 2.10.4When the enemy realized that their hopes had failed both of storming the town and of crossing the river, saw that our men would not advance onto less favorable ground for the sake of fighting, and began themselves to run short of grain, they called a council and decided that the best course was for each people to return home and for them all to assemble from every direction to defend whichever people’s territory the Romans first invaded with their army. In this way they would fight in their own territory rather than another’s and use their domestic supplies of grain.

SECTION 2.10.5Among the other reasons, this consideration also led them to that decision: they had learned that Diviciacus and the Haedui were approaching the territory of the Bellovaci. It was impossible to persuade the Bellovaci to delay any longer and not bring aid to their own people.

CHAPTER 2.11

SECTION 2.11.1Once this decision had been made, they left camp during the second watch with great noise and confusion, without any fixed order or command. Since each man sought the first place on the march for himself and hurried to reach home, their departure looked very much like a rout.

SECTION 2.11.2Caesar immediately learned of this from his scouts, but because he had not yet discovered why they were leaving, he feared an ambush and kept the army and cavalry in camp.

SECTION 2.11.3At daybreak, after scouts confirmed the facts, 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 guard, pursued it for many miles, and cut down a great multitude of the fleeing enemy. The men at the end of the column whom they overtook would halt and bravely withstand the attack of our soldiers,

SECTION 2.11.5but those farther ahead, because they seemed removed from danger and were restrained by neither necessity nor command, broke ranks when they heard the shouting and all sought safety in flight.

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

CHAPTER 2.12

SECTION 2.12.1The next day, before the enemy could recover from their panic and flight, Caesar led his army into the territory of the Suessiones, who were nearest to the Remi, and, after completing a forced march, hurried to the town of Noviodunum.

SECTION 2.12.2He attempted to storm it directly from the march because he had heard that it was without defenders, but despite the small number defending it, he could not take it because of the width of the ditch and the height of the wall.

SECTION 2.12.3After fortifying his camp, he began moving covered galleries forward and preparing everything needed for an assault.

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

SECTION 2.12.5The covered galleries were quickly brought up to the town, a siege ramp was built, and towers were erected. Shaken by the scale of these works, which the Gauls had neither seen nor heard of before, and by the speed of the Romans, they sent envoys to Caesar to negotiate their surrender and, at the request of the Remi, obtained permission for their lives to be spared.

CHAPTER 2.13

SECTION 2.13.1After receiving as hostages the leading men of the state, along with two sons of King Galba himself, and after all the weapons in the town had been handed over, Caesar accepted the surrender of the Suessiones and led his army against the Bellovaci.

SECTION 2.13.2They had taken themselves and all their possessions into the town of Bratuspantium. When Caesar and his army were about five miles from that town, all the older men came out, stretched out their hands toward Caesar, and began declaring aloud that they were placing themselves under his protection and authority and would not take up arms against the Roman people.

SECTION 2.13.3Likewise, when he approached the town and began establishing his camp there, the boys and women, with outstretched hands, asked the Romans for peace from the wall in their customary manner.

CHAPTER 2.14

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

SECTION 2.14.2The Bellovaci had always been loyal to and on friendly terms with the Haeduan state;

SECTION 2.14.3they had been incited by their leaders, who said that Caesar had reduced the Haedui to slavery and that they were enduring every kind of outrage and humiliation, and had therefore revolted from the Haedui and made war on the Roman people.

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

SECTION 2.14.5Not only the Bellovaci but also the Haedui on their behalf were asking Caesar to treat them with his customary clemency and mercy.

SECTION 2.14.6If he did so, he would increase the authority of the Haedui among all the Belgae, by whose military support and resources they were accustomed to sustain themselves whenever wars arose.

CHAPTER 2.15

SECTION 2.15.1Out of regard for Diviciacus and the Haedui, Caesar said that he would accept the Bellovaci under his protection and spare them. Because their state possessed great authority among the Belgae and had a very large population, he demanded six hundred hostages.

SECTION 2.15.2After these had been handed over and all the weapons had been brought out of the town, he proceeded from there into the territory of the Ambiani, who surrendered themselves and all their possessions without delay.

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

SECTION 2.15.4Merchants had no access to them; they permitted no wine or other articles associated with luxury to be imported because they believed that such things weakened their spirit and relaxed their courage;

SECTION 2.15.5they were fierce people of great courage; they rebuked and condemned the other Belgae for surrendering to the Roman people and casting aside their ancestral valor;

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

CHAPTER 2.16

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

SECTION 2.16.2all the Nervii had taken up positions across that river and were awaiting the Romans’ arrival there together with the Atrebates and Viromandui, their neighbors

SECTION 2.16.3(for they had persuaded both peoples to share the same fortunes in the war);

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

SECTION 2.16.5they had gathered the women and those who seemed too young or too old to be useful in battle at a place that an army could not approach because of the marshes.

CHAPTER 2.17

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

SECTION 2.17.2A number of the surrendered Belgae and other Gauls were accompanying Caesar and marching with him. Some of them, as was later learned from prisoners, had observed the army’s marching routine during those days and went to the Nervii by night. They explained that a large quantity of baggage came between each legion and the next and that it would be no difficult matter, once the first legion had entered camp and the remaining legions were still a long distance away, to attack it while it was burdened with its packs;

SECTION 2.17.3once that legion had been routed and the baggage plundered, the others would not dare to stand against them.

SECTION 2.17.4The plan of those bringing this intelligence was also assisted by the fact that from ancient times the Nervii, being powerless in cavalry—for even now they pay no attention to that arm but possess all their strength in infantry—had cut into young trees and bent them over so that numerous branches grew out sideways, then planted brambles and thornbushes among them. In this way they had made these hedges provide a fortification like a wall, which not only could not be penetrated but could not even be seen through, so that they could more easily obstruct the cavalry of neighboring peoples if it entered their territory to raid.

SECTION 2.17.5Since these obstacles hindered the march of our column, the Nervii decided that they must not let this plan pass unused.

CHAPTER 2.18

SECTION 2.18.1The terrain of the place our men had selected for the camp was as follows. A hill sloped evenly downward from its summit to the River Sabis, which we mentioned above.

SECTION 2.18.2Across from and opposite this hill, another rose from the river with an equally steep slope. Its lower two hundred paces were open, but its upper part was wooded, so that it was not easy to see into it.

SECTION 2.18.3The enemy kept themselves hidden within these woods; in the open ground along the river, only a few cavalry outposts could be seen. The river was about three feet deep.

CHAPTER 2.19

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

SECTION 2.19.2Since he was approaching the enemy, Caesar, following his customary practice, led 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 raised brought up the rear of 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 into the woods to their own men and then charged our men again from the woods, while our men did not dare pursue them in retreat beyond the point to which the open ground extended. Meanwhile, the six legions that had arrived first marked out the work and began fortifying the camp.

SECTION 2.19.6When the men concealed in the woods saw the first part of our army’s baggage—the moment they had agreed among themselves to begin the battle—they suddenly charged out with all their forces and attacked our cavalry, having drawn up their battle line and ranks within the woods and encouraged one another.

SECTION 2.19.7After easily routing and driving them off, the enemy ran down to the river with incredible speed, so that almost at the same moment they appeared at the woods, in the river, and already at close quarters with our men.

SECTION 2.19.8With the same speed, they charged uphill toward our camp and the men occupied with the fortification work.

CHAPTER 2.20

SECTION 2.20.1Caesar had to do everything at once: display the flag, which was the signal that the men had to rush to arms; give the trumpet call; recall the soldiers from the work; summon those who had gone a little farther away to gather materials for the rampart; form the battle line; encourage the soldiers; and give the signal for battle.

SECTION 2.20.2The shortage of time and the enemy’s assault prevented a large part of these measures.

SECTION 2.20.3Two things provided support amid these difficulties: the soldiers’ knowledge and experience, because their training in previous battles enabled them to decide for themselves what needed to be done no less effectively than they could be instructed by others; and the fact that Caesar had forbidden each lieutenant to leave the work and his assigned legion until the camp had been fortified.

SECTION 2.20.4Because the enemy was so close and moved so quickly, these officers no longer waited for Caesar’s commands but carried out on their own whatever measures seemed best.

CHAPTER 2.21

SECTION 2.21.1After issuing the necessary orders, Caesar ran down to encourage the soldiers in whatever direction chance presented and came to the Tenth Legion.

SECTION 2.21.2He encouraged the soldiers with no longer a speech than to remember their former courage, not to lose heart, and to withstand the enemy’s attack bravely;

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

SECTION 2.21.4Then, as he set out in another direction to encourage the troops there as well, he found them already fighting.

SECTION 2.21.5So little time was available and so ready was the enemy to fight that there was no time not only to attach their insignia but even to put on their helmets and remove the covers from their shields.

SECTION 2.21.6Each man took his position wherever he happened to arrive from the work and beside whatever standards he first saw, so that he would not waste time for fighting by searching for his own unit.

CHAPTER 2.22

SECTION 2.22.1The army was drawn up more as the nature of the ground, the choice of the hill, and the urgency of the moment demanded than as military method and order required. The separate legions were resisting the enemy in different sectors, and the extremely dense hedges lying between them, as described above, obstructed their view. Consequently, definite reserves could not be posted, what was needed in each sector could not be foreseen, and all commands could not be directed by one man.

SECTION 2.22.2Therefore, amid such unfavorable circumstances, the outcomes produced by fortune also varied.

CHAPTER 2.23

SECTION 2.23.1The soldiers of the Ninth and Tenth Legions, who had taken position on the left side of the battle line, threw their javelins and quickly drove the Atrebates—for that was the enemy assigned to their sector—down from the higher ground into the river, exhausted and out of breath from running and covered with wounds. They pursued them as they tried to cross and killed with their swords a large part of them while they were encumbered in the river.

SECTION 2.23.2They did not hesitate to cross the river themselves, and after advancing onto unfavorable ground, they renewed the battle and put the enemy to flight when they resisted again.

SECTION 2.23.3Likewise, in another sector, two separate legions, the Eleventh and the Eighth, routed the Viromandui, whom they had engaged, and fought from the higher ground along the riverbanks themselves.

SECTION 2.23.4But almost the entire camp had been left exposed at the front and on the left side. The Twelfth Legion was positioned on the right wing, with the Seventh not far from it, and all the Nervii, massed in a very dense formation and led by Boduognatus, who held supreme command, hurried toward that point. Some of them began to outflank the legions on their exposed side, while others made for the highest point of the camp.

CHAPTER 2.24

SECTION 2.24.1At the same time, our cavalry and lightly armed infantry who had been with them—the men I said had been routed by the enemy’s first assault—encountered the enemy head-on as they withdrew into camp and again fled in another direction;

SECTION 2.24.2and the camp servants, who had gone out through the rear gate and from the crest of the hill after seeing our victorious men cross the river, intending to plunder, looked back and saw the enemy moving about in our camp, whereupon they threw themselves headlong into flight.

SECTION 2.24.3At the same time, shouting and uproar arose among those arriving with the baggage, and in their terror they rushed off in different directions.

SECTION 2.24.4Shaken by all these events, the Treveran cavalrymen, whose reputation for courage is outstanding among the Gauls and who had been sent by their state to Caesar as auxiliaries, saw our camp filling with enemy troops, the legions being hard-pressed and nearly surrounded, and the camp servants, cavalrymen, slingers, and Numidians fleeing in different directions and scattering everywhere. Despairing of our situation, they hurried home.

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

CHAPTER 2.25

SECTION 2.25.1After encouraging the Tenth Legion, Caesar went to the right wing. There he saw that his men were being hard-pressed and that, because the standards of the Twelfth Legion had been brought together in one place, the soldiers were packed so tightly that they hindered one another in fighting. All the centurions of the fourth cohort had been killed, its standard-bearer had been slain, and its standard had been lost. Nearly all the centurions of the remaining cohorts had either been 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. Caesar saw that the other soldiers were losing momentum, that some in the rear were abandoning their positions, withdrawing from the battle, and trying to avoid the missiles, that the enemy coming up from lower ground did not let up their frontal attack and were pressing in from both sides, that the situation was desperate, and that there were no reserves available to send in.

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

SECTION 2.25.3His arrival gave the soldiers hope and renewed their spirit. Since each man, even in this most desperate situation, wanted to do his best under the commander’s eyes, the enemy’s attack was slowed somewhat.

CHAPTER 2.26

SECTION 2.26.1When Caesar saw that the Seventh Legion, which had taken its position nearby, was likewise being hard-pressed by the enemy, he instructed the military tribunes to have the two legions gradually join together, turn their standards, and advance against the enemy.

SECTION 2.26.2Once this was done, the men could support one another and no longer feared being surrounded by the enemy from behind, so they began to resist more boldly and fight more fiercely.

SECTION 2.26.3Meanwhile, the soldiers of the two legions that had been guarding the baggage at the rear of the column were informed of the battle, broke into a run, and came into view of the enemy on the crest of the hill.

SECTION 2.26.4Titus Labienus had taken possession of the enemy’s camp and, after observing from the higher ground what was happening in our camp, sent the Tenth Legion to support our men.

SECTION 2.26.5When its soldiers learned from the flight of the cavalry and camp servants what the situation was and how great a danger threatened the camp, the legions, and the commander, they made every possible effort to move quickly.

CHAPTER 2.27

SECTION 2.27.1Their arrival produced such a complete reversal that even our men who had collapsed from their wounds leaned on their shields and resumed the fighting, while the camp servants, seeing the enemy terrified, attacked armed men even though they themselves were unarmed.

SECTION 2.27.2The cavalrymen, meanwhile, wanting to erase the shame of their flight through courage, placed themselves ahead of the legionaries at every point in the battle.

SECTION 2.27.3But even when their last hope of survival was gone, the enemy displayed such courage that, when the men in their front rank fell, those behind them stood on their bodies and fought from there.

SECTION 2.27.4When these men too were struck down and the bodies were piled up, the survivors used the heap as a mound from which to hurl missiles at our men and catch our javelins and throw them back.

SECTION 2.27.5It must therefore be judged that men of such courage had not acted without reason when they dared to cross a very broad river, climb its extremely high banks, and advance over the most unfavorable ground. Their greatness of spirit had turned the most difficult tasks into easy ones.

CHAPTER 2.28

SECTION 2.28.1After this battle, the people and very name of the Nervii had nearly been annihilated. When news of the battle reached the elders, whom, as we said, they had sent with the children and women into the tidal marshes and swamps, they believed that nothing could obstruct the victors and that nowhere was safe for the defeated.

SECTION 2.28.2With the unanimous consent of all the survivors, they sent envoys to Caesar and surrendered to him. In describing their state’s disaster, they said that their senators had been reduced from six hundred to three and that, out of sixty thousand men, barely five hundred remained capable of bearing arms.

SECTION 2.28.3To show that he was treating these wretched suppliants with mercy, Caesar took the greatest care to preserve them. He ordered them to continue using their own territory and towns, and commanded their neighbors to refrain from injuring or mistreating them or their people.

CHAPTER 2.29

SECTION 2.29.1The Atuatuci, whom we mentioned above, were coming with all their forces to assist the Nervii. When they received news of this battle, they turned around on the march and returned home.

SECTION 2.29.2They abandoned all their towns and forts and brought everything they possessed into a single town exceptionally well fortified by nature.

SECTION 2.29.3On every side around it, this town had very high cliffs and steep slopes. On only one side was there a gently rising approach no more than two hundred feet wide. They had fortified this place with a very high double wall and were now placing heavy stones and sharply pointed beams on the wall.

SECTION 2.29.4They were descended from the Cimbri and Teutones. When those peoples were marching toward our province and Italy, they had left on this side of the Rhine the baggage that they could not drive or carry with them, together with six thousand of their own men to guard and defend it.

SECTION 2.29.5For many years after the destruction of the Cimbri and Teutones, these men were continually harassed by neighboring peoples, sometimes attacking them and sometimes defending themselves against attack. At last, after making peace by common agreement with all of them, they chose this place as their home.

CHAPTER 2.30

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

SECTION 2.30.2Later, after they had been surrounded by a rampart twelve feet high and fifteen miles in circumference, with forts at frequent intervals, they kept themselves inside the town.

SECTION 2.30.3When they saw covered galleries being advanced, a siege ramp being constructed, and a tower being erected some distance away, they at first mocked us from the wall and shouted insults because such a massive piece of machinery was being set up so far away.

SECTION 2.30.4With what hands or what strength, they asked, did men of such short stature expect to place a tower of such enormous weight against the wall? For because of their own great size, the Gauls generally regard our shortness with contempt.

CHAPTER 2.31

SECTION 2.31.1But when they saw the tower moving and approaching the walls, they were shaken by this strange and unfamiliar sight and sent envoys to Caesar to negotiate peace. The envoys spoke as follows:

SECTION 2.31.2They did not believe that the Romans were waging war without divine assistance, since they could move forward machines of such great height with such speed.

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

SECTION 2.31.4They had only one request and plea: if Caesar, in keeping with the clemency and gentleness of which they had heard from others, decided to spare the Atuatuci, he should not strip them of their weapons.

SECTION 2.31.5Nearly all their neighbors were their enemies and envied their courage, and they would be unable to defend themselves against them once they had surrendered their weapons.

SECTION 2.31.6If they were reduced to that 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 2.32.1Caesar replied that he would spare their state more because of his own customary practice than because they deserved it, provided that they surrendered before the battering ram touched their wall.

SECTION 2.32.2But there could be no terms of surrender unless they handed over their weapons. He would do what he had done in the case of the Nervii and would order their neighbors not to inflict any injury on people who had surrendered to the Roman people.

SECTION 2.32.3When this reply was reported to their people, they said that they would do as commanded.

SECTION 2.32.4They threw such a great quantity of weapons from the wall into the ditch in front of the town that the piles of weapons almost reached the top of the wall and the siege ramp. Nevertheless, as was later discovered, they concealed and retained about one-third of them in the town. The gates were opened, and for that day they enjoyed peace.

CHAPTER 2.33

SECTION 2.33.1Toward evening Caesar ordered the gates closed and the soldiers to leave the town, so that the townspeople would not suffer any abuse from them during the night.

SECTION 2.33.2As was later learned, the townspeople had already formed a plan. They believed that, once their surrender had been accepted, our men would withdraw their guards or at least keep watch less carefully. Some armed themselves with the weapons they had retained and concealed; others used shields made of bark or woven from wicker, which, because time was short, they had hurriedly covered with hides. During the third watch, at the point where the climb to our fortifications appeared least steep, they suddenly made a sortie from the town with all their forces.

SECTION 2.33.3As Caesar had previously ordered, a signal was quickly given with fires, and men rushed there from the nearest forts.

SECTION 2.33.4The enemy fought as fiercely as brave men in their last hope of survival were bound to fight on unfavorable ground against troops hurling missiles from the rampart and towers, when all hope depended on courage alone.

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

SECTION 2.33.6The next day, since no one was now defending the gates, they were broken down and our soldiers were admitted. Caesar sold the entire population and property of the town at auction.

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

CHAPTER 2.34

SECTION 2.34.1At the same time, Caesar received a report from Publius Crassus, whom he had sent with one legion against the Veneti, Venelli, Osismi, Coriosolites, Esuvii, Aulerci, and Redones—the coastal states bordering the Ocean—that all those states had been brought under the dominion and authority of the Roman people.

CHAPTER 2.35

SECTION 2.35.1After these achievements had brought peace to all Gaul, the fame of this war spread so widely among the barbarians that peoples living across the Rhine sent delegations to Caesar promising to give hostages and obey his commands.

SECTION 2.35.2Because Caesar was hurrying to Italy and Illyricum, he ordered these delegations to return to him at the beginning of the following summer.

SECTION 2.35.3After leading the legions into winter quarters among the Carnutes, Andes, Turoni, and the states near the regions where he had waged war, Caesar himself departed for Italy.

SECTION 2.35.4As a result of these achievements, the Senate, upon receiving Caesar’s dispatches, decreed fifteen days of public thanksgiving, an honor that had never before been granted to anyone.

CHAPTER 3.1

SECTION 3.1.1When Caesar was leaving 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 borders of the Allobroges, Lake Geneva, and the Rhône River to the highest Alps.

SECTION 3.1.2His reason for sending Galba was that he wanted to open the route through the Alps, along which merchants had been accustomed to travel at great risk and after paying heavy tolls.

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

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

SECTION 3.1.5This village lies in a fairly narrow valley with a small area of level ground adjoining it and is enclosed on every side by very high mountains.

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

CHAPTER 3.2

SECTION 3.2.1Several days of the winter had passed, and Galba had ordered grain to be brought there, when his scouts suddenly informed him that all the Gauls had left during the night from the section of the village he had granted them and that a vast force of Seduni and Veragri held the mountains overlooking the village.

SECTION 3.2.2The Gauls had suddenly decided to renew the war and overwhelm the legion for several reasons.

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

SECTION 3.2.4They also believed that, because of the unfavorable terrain, when they charged down from the mountains into the valley and hurled their missiles, not even their first assault could be withstood.

SECTION 3.2.5In addition, they resented having their children taken away from them as hostages and were convinced that the Romans were trying to occupy the summits of the Alps not merely to secure the roads but to hold them permanently and annex the region to the neighboring province.

CHAPTER 3.3

SECTION 3.3.1On receiving these reports, Galba saw that the work on the winter camp and its fortifications was not yet fully completed and that insufficient provision had been made for grain and other supplies, since after the surrender and the acceptance of hostages he had believed there was no reason to fear war. He quickly called a council and began asking for opinions.

SECTION 3.3.2In this council, since so great and unexpected a danger had arisen, nearly all the higher ground could already be seen covered by a mass of armed men, and neither reinforcements nor supplies could reach them because the roads had been cut off,

SECTION 3.3.3some, almost despairing of survival, proposed that they abandon the baggage, break out of the camp, and seek safety by the same routes along which they had come.

SECTION 3.3.4The majority, however, decided to reserve this plan for the last extremity and meanwhile await the outcome and defend the camp.

CHAPTER 3.4

SECTION 3.4.1After a short interval, barely enough time for the men to arrange and carry out the measures they had decided upon, the signal was given and the enemy charged down from every direction, hurling stones and heavy Gallic javelins onto the rampart.

SECTION 3.4.2At first our men, with their strength unimpaired, defended the fortifications bravely and threw no missile from their higher position without effect. Whenever any part of the camp seemed to be stripped of defenders and hard-pressed, they rushed there and brought assistance.

SECTION 3.4.3But they were at a disadvantage because, as the battle continued, enemy soldiers who became tired withdrew from the fighting and others with fresh strength took their places.

SECTION 3.4.4Because of their small numbers, our men could do none of these things. Not only was a soldier exhausted by fighting given no opportunity to withdraw, but even a wounded man could not leave the place where he stood and retire to safety.

CHAPTER 3.5

SECTION 3.5.1The fighting had now continued without interruption for more than six hours, and our men were running out not only of strength but also of missiles. The enemy pressed their attack more fiercely and, as our men weakened, began tearing down the rampart and filling the ditches. The situation had now reached the ultimate crisis.

SECTION 3.5.2Publius Sextius Baculus, the chief centurion whom we said had been disabled by numerous wounds in the battle against the Nervii, and Gaius Volusenus, a military tribune and a man of great judgment and courage, ran to Galba and told him that their one hope of survival was to break out and attempt this last resort.

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

CHAPTER 3.6

SECTION 3.6.1They did as they were ordered, and by suddenly making a sortie from every gate, they left the enemy no opportunity either to understand what was happening or to regroup.

SECTION 3.6.2With the situation thus reversed, they surrounded on every side and cut down the men who had come there hoping to take the camp. Of the more than thirty thousand barbarians known to have come to the camp, they killed over a third, threw the rest into panic and flight, and did not allow them to make a stand even on higher ground.

SECTION 3.6.3Thus, after routing the entire enemy force and stripping them of their weapons, they withdrew within their own fortifications.

SECTION 3.6.4After this battle, Galba was unwilling to test fortune too often. He remembered that he had come to winter quarters with a different plan and saw that he had encountered entirely different circumstances. Moved above all by the shortage of grain and supplies, on the following day he burned all the buildings of that village and hurried to return to the province.

SECTION 3.6.5With no enemy obstructing or delaying his march, he brought the legion safely into the territory of the Nantuates, and from there into that of the Allobroges, where he spent the winter.

CHAPTER 3.7

SECTION 3.7.1After these events, Caesar believed for every reason that Gaul had been pacified—the Belgae had been defeated, the Germans expelled, and the Seduni conquered in the Alps—and so, at the beginning of winter, he had departed for Illyricum because he also wished to visit those peoples and become acquainted with those regions. Then 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 Atlantic Ocean.

SECTION 3.7.3Because grain was scarce in that area, 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 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 coast of those regions. The Veneti had the largest number of ships, in which they regularly sailed to Britain; they surpassed all the others in their knowledge and experience of nautical matters; and, on a coast exposed to the violent open sea, where there were only a few scattered harbors, all of which they controlled, they made nearly everyone accustomed to sailing those waters pay them tribute.

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

SECTION 3.8.3Influenced by their authority, the neighboring peoples—with the sudden and impulsive decision-making characteristic of the Gauls—detained Trebius and Terrasidius for the same reason. They quickly exchanged envoys and, through their leading men, jointly swore that they would do nothing except by common agreement and that they would all accept the same outcome of fortune.

SECTION 3.8.4They urged the remaining states to choose to retain the freedom inherited from their ancestors rather than endure slavery under Rome.

SECTION 3.8.5After quickly bringing the entire coast over to their position, they sent a joint delegation to Publius Crassus, telling him that if he wished to recover his men, he must return their hostages to them.

CHAPTER 3.9

SECTION 3.9.1When Crassus informed Caesar of these events, Caesar, because he himself was some distance away, meanwhile ordered warships to be built on the Liger River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean, rowers to be recruited from the province, and sailors and pilots to be assembled.

SECTION 3.9.2These arrangements were carried out quickly, and as soon as the season allowed, Caesar himself hurried to the army.

SECTION 3.9.3When the Veneti and the other states learned of Caesar’s arrival, they also understood the enormity of the crime they had committed by detaining envoys—a title always regarded as sacred and inviolable among every nation—and throwing them into chains. They therefore began to prepare for war in proportion to the danger and, above all, to provide everything needed for the use of their ships. Their hopes were all the greater because they had great confidence in the natural character of the region.

SECTION 3.9.4They knew that overland routes were broken up by tidal inlets and that navigation was obstructed by ignorance of the area and the small number of harbors.

SECTION 3.9.5They were also confident that because of the shortage of grain, our armies could not remain among them very long.

SECTION 3.9.6Even if everything should turn out contrary to their expectations, they were still far more powerful in ships, while the Romans had no supply of ships at all and were unfamiliar with the shallows, harbors, and islands of the regions where they would be fighting.

SECTION 3.9.7They clearly understood that sailing in an enclosed sea was very different from sailing on the vast and completely open Atlantic Ocean.

SECTION 3.9.8Having formed these plans, they fortified their towns.

SECTION 3.9.9They transported grain from the countryside into the towns and gathered as many ships as they could in the territory of the Veneti, where it was known that Caesar would first conduct the war.

SECTION 3.9.10They enlisted as allies for this 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, but nevertheless many considerations urged Caesar to undertake it:

SECTION 3.10.2the outrage of detaining Roman knights, a revolt after surrender, rebellion after hostages had been given, and the conspiracy of so many states; above all, he feared that if he neglected this region, the remaining peoples would think themselves free to do the same.

SECTION 3.10.3Accordingly, since he understood that nearly all the Gauls were eager for political change and were quickly and readily stirred to war, while all people naturally desire freedom and hate the condition of slavery, he thought that before more states could conspire together, he must divide his army and distribute it more widely.

CHAPTER 3.11

SECTION 3.11.1He therefore sent his lieutenant Titus Labienus with the cavalry to the Treveri, who lived nearest the Rhine River.

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 by force in ships if they attempted to do so.

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

SECTION 3.11.4He sent his lieutenant Quintus Titurius Sabinus with three legions against the Venelli, Coriosolites, and Lexovii, to make sure that force was kept occupied.

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

CHAPTER 3.12

SECTION 3.12.1The towns were generally situated in such a way that, built at the ends of narrow spits and promontories, they could not be reached on foot when the tide had risen from the open sea—something that always happened twice in a period of twelve hours—or by ship, because when the tide receded again, the ships would be stranded in the shallows.

SECTION 3.12.2Thus both circumstances obstructed an assault on the towns.

SECTION 3.12.3If at any time they happened to be overcome by the scale of our siege works, after the sea had been forced back by an embankment and massive earthworks and these had been raised to the level of the town walls, and they began to despair of their fortunes, they would bring in a large number of ships—which they had every ability to do—carry away all their possessions, and withdraw to the nearest towns.

SECTION 3.12.4There they would again defend themselves with the same advantages of terrain.

SECTION 3.12.5They were able to do this all the more easily during a large part of the summer because our ships were held back by storms, and navigation was extremely difficult on the vast and open sea, with its powerful tides and rare, almost nonexistent harbors.

CHAPTER 3.13

SECTION 3.13.1Their ships were built and equipped as follows. Their hulls were considerably flatter than those of our ships, so that they could more easily handle the shallows and the ebbing tide.

SECTION 3.13.2Their bows stood very high, as did their sterns, making them suitable for the size of the waves and the violence of the storms.

SECTION 3.13.3The ships were built entirely of oak, enabling them to withstand any force or impact.

SECTION 3.13.4Their crossbeams were made of timbers a foot thick and fastened with iron nails as thick as a man’s thumb.

SECTION 3.13.5The anchors were secured with iron chains instead of ropes.

SECTION 3.13.6They used hides and thinly dressed leather in place of sails, either because they lacked flax and did not know how to use it, or—more probably—because they believed that ordinary sails could not adequately withstand such violent Atlantic storms and powerful winds or control ships of such great weight.

SECTION 3.13.7When our fleet encountered these ships, it was superior only in speed and the drive provided by its oars; in all other respects, the enemy’s ships were better suited and adapted to the nature of the region 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 could not readily be held fast with grappling hooks.

SECTION 3.13.9Moreover, when the wind began to rage and they let themselves run before it, they could endure the storm more easily, settle more safely in the shallows, and, when left aground by the tide, had nothing to fear from rocks and reefs. Our ships had reason to fear every one of these dangers.

CHAPTER 3.14

SECTION 3.14.1After storming several towns, Caesar realized that so much labor was being spent in vain, since taking the towns neither prevented the enemy’s escape nor enabled him to harm them. He therefore decided that he must wait for the fleet.

SECTION 3.14.2When it assembled and was first seen by the enemy, about 220 of their ships, fully prepared and equipped with every kind of weapon, sailed out of the harbor and took up a position opposite ours.

SECTION 3.14.3Neither Brutus, who commanded the fleet, nor the military tribunes and centurions, each of whom had been assigned an individual ship, were at all certain what they should do or what method of fighting they should adopt.

SECTION 3.14.4They knew that the enemy could not be damaged with the ram. Even after towers had been erected on our ships, the sterns of the barbarians’ ships still rose higher than they did, so that our missiles could not be thrown effectively from the lower position, while those thrown by the Gauls struck with greater force.

SECTION 3.14.5One device prepared by our men proved extremely useful: very sharp hooks inserted into and fastened to long poles, similar in shape to the hooks used against walls.

SECTION 3.14.6With these, they caught and pulled taut the ropes that fastened the yards to the masts; then, when our ship was driven forward by its oars, the ropes snapped.

SECTION 3.14.7Once these ropes were cut, the yards necessarily fell. Since all the Gallic ships’ effectiveness depended on their sails and rigging, when these were taken away, the ships were rendered entirely useless in a single moment.

SECTION 3.14.8The rest of the contest depended on courage, in which our soldiers easily surpassed them, especially because the action was taking place in sight of Caesar and the entire army, so that no particularly courageous deed could go unnoticed.

SECTION 3.14.9The army occupied all the hills and higher ground from which there was a close view down onto 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 would surround each enemy vessel, and the soldiers would strive with all their strength to board it.

SECTION 3.15.2After the barbarians saw this happening and several of their ships had been stormed, they could find no remedy for the situation and attempted to seek safety in flight.

SECTION 3.15.3Their ships had already turned in the direction the wind was carrying them when such a sudden calm and stillness arose that they could not move from the spot.

SECTION 3.15.4This circumstance provided the greatest possible opportunity to finish the engagement.

SECTION 3.15.5Our men pursued and stormed the ships one by one, so that only a very few of their entire number reached land under cover of night, although the fighting lasted from about the fourth hour until sunset.

CHAPTER 3.16

SECTION 3.16.1That battle brought the war against the Veneti and the entire coast to an end.

SECTION 3.16.2Not only had all their young men and all their older men who possessed any judgment or standing gathered there, but they had also assembled in one place every ship they had anywhere.

SECTION 3.16.3After losing these, the survivors had neither anywhere to retreat nor any means of defending their towns.

SECTION 3.16.4They therefore surrendered themselves and all their possessions to Caesar. Caesar decided that they must be punished all the more severely so that in the future the barbarians would more carefully respect the rights of envoys. Accordingly, he executed their entire senate and sold the rest into slavery.

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 3.17.2They were commanded by Viridovix, who also held supreme command over all the states that had rebelled and from which he had assembled an army and large forces.

SECTION 3.17.3During the preceding few days, the Aulerci Eburovices and the Lexovii had killed their own senates because they had been unwilling to support the war, closed their gates, and joined Viridovix.

SECTION 3.17.4In addition, a great multitude of desperate men and brigands had gathered from all over Gaul, drawn away from farming and daily labor by the hope of plunder and enthusiasm for war.

SECTION 3.17.5Sabinus remained in his camp at a location suitable in every respect, while Viridovix had encamped opposite him at a distance of two miles and, each day, led out his forces and offered him the opportunity to fight. As a result, Sabinus was now not only despised by the enemy but was also criticized to some extent in the remarks of our own soldiers.

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

SECTION 3.17.7He acted this way because he did not believe that a lieutenant should fight such a great multitude of enemies—especially in the absence of the man holding supreme command—unless he had level ground or some other favorable opportunity.

CHAPTER 3.18

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

SECTION 3.18.2By promising him great rewards, he persuaded the man to go over to the enemy and instructed him in what he wanted done.

SECTION 3.18.3When the man came to them pretending to be a deserter, he described the Romans’ fear and explained the desperate straits in which Caesar himself was being pressed by the Veneti.

SECTION 3.18.4He said that no later than the following night, Sabinus would secretly lead his army out of camp and set out to bring assistance to Caesar.

SECTION 3.18.5When they heard this, they all shouted that the opportunity for a successful operation must not be lost.

SECTION 3.18.6They must march on the camp. Many considerations encouraged the Gauls to adopt this plan: Sabinus’s hesitation during the preceding days, the deserter’s assurance, their shortage of provisions, for which they had made insufficient preparations, their hopes concerning the war against the Veneti, and the fact that people generally like to believe what they want to believe.

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

SECTION 3.18.8Once this was agreed, they happily set out for the camp as though victory were assured, after gathering brushwood and branches with which to fill the Romans’ trenches.

CHAPTER 3.19

SECTION 3.19.1The camp stood on high ground that rose gradually from the bottom of the slope for about a mile. They rushed up to it at full speed, to give the Romans as little time as possible to assemble and arm themselves, and arrived completely out of breath.

SECTION 3.19.2Sabinus encouraged his men and, when they eagerly demanded it, gave the signal. Since the enemy were encumbered by the loads they were carrying, he ordered a sudden sortie through two gates.

SECTION 3.19.3Because of the favorable terrain, the enemy’s lack of preparation and exhaustion, the soldiers’ courage, and the experience they had gained in earlier battles, the enemy could not withstand even a single charge by our men and immediately turned and fled.

SECTION 3.19.4Our soldiers, still at full strength, overtook them while they were encumbered and killed a great many of them. The cavalry pursued the rest and allowed only a few who had escaped the rout to get away.

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 although the Gauls are eager and ready to undertake wars, their spirits are weak and not at all resilient when it comes to enduring disasters.

CHAPTER 3.20

SECTION 3.20.1At about the same time, Publius Crassus reached Aquitania, which, as stated before, must be regarded as a third of Gaul in both geographical extent and population. He understood that he would have to wage war in the region where, only a few years earlier, the legate Lucius Valerius Praeconinus had been killed after his army was defeated, and from which the proconsul Lucius Manlius had fled after losing his baggage. He therefore realized that he would have to exercise exceptional care.

SECTION 3.20.2Accordingly, after securing the grain supply, assembling auxiliary troops and cavalry, and personally summoning many brave men from Tolosa, Carcaso, and Narbo—communities in the Roman province of Gaul bordering those regions—he led his army into the territory of the Sotiates.

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

SECTION 3.20.4and then, after their cavalry had been driven back and ours were pursuing them, they suddenly revealed the infantry forces they had stationed in ambush in a valley. These attacked our scattered men and renewed the battle.

CHAPTER 3.21

SECTION 3.21.1The fighting was long and fierce. The Sotiates, relying on their earlier victories, believed that the safety of all Aquitania depended on their courage, while our men wanted it to be seen what they could accomplish without their commander and the other legions, under the leadership of a young man. At last, worn down by wounds, the enemy turned and fled.

SECTION 3.21.2After killing a great many of them, Crassus marched directly to the town of the Sotiates and began to besiege it. When they resisted bravely, he brought forward covered siege galleries and towers.

SECTION 3.21.3At times they attempted sorties, and at others they drove tunnels toward the siege ramp and covered galleries. The Aquitani are by far the most skilled at this, because they have copper mines and quarries in many places. When they realized that the vigilance of our men made it impossible to accomplish anything by these methods, they sent envoys to Crassus and asked him to accept their surrender. Their request was granted, and when ordered to hand over their weapons, they did so.

CHAPTER 3.22

SECTION 3.22.1While the attention of all our men was focused on this matter, Adiatunnus, who held supreme command, attempted from another part of the town, together with six hundred devoted retainers whom they call soldurii,

SECTION 3.22.2whose condition is that they share all the benefits of life with those to whose friendship they have devoted themselves, but if anything violent happens to those men, they 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 refused death after the man to whose friendship he had devoted himself was killed—

SECTION 3.22.4Adiatunnus attempted to make a sortie with these men. A shout went up from that part of the fortifications, the soldiers rushed to arms, and a fierce battle was fought there. Although driven back into the town, he nevertheless obtained Crassus’s permission to surrender on the same terms.

CHAPTER 3.23

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

SECTION 3.23.2The natives were now truly alarmed because they had learned that a town fortified both by its natural position and by human labor had been captured within a few days of the Romans’ arrival. They began sending envoys in every direction, swearing mutual oaths, exchanging hostages, and preparing forces.

SECTION 3.23.3Envoys were also sent to the states of Nearer Spain bordering Aquitania, and auxiliary troops and commanders were summoned from there.

SECTION 3.23.4With their arrival, the Aquitani attempted to wage war with great confidence and a large number of men.

SECTION 3.23.5The commanders selected were men who had spent all those years with Quintus Sertorius and were believed to possess the highest degree of military expertise.

SECTION 3.23.6Following Roman practice, they began occupying strategic positions, fortifying their camp, and cutting our men off from supplies.

SECTION 3.23.7When Crassus observed that his forces were too small to be divided easily, while the enemy could roam freely, blockade the roads, and still leave a sufficient guard in camp; that for this reason grain and other supplies were reaching him only with difficulty; and that the enemy’s numbers were increasing daily, he decided that he must not delay giving battle.

SECTION 3.23.8He brought the matter before a council of war, and when he saw that everyone held the same opinion, he set the following day for the battle.

CHAPTER 3.24

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

SECTION 3.24.2Although the enemy believed that, because of their numbers, their old military reputation, and the small size of our force, they could fight safely, they nevertheless considered it safer to blockade the roads, cut off supplies, and win a bloodless victory.

SECTION 3.24.3If the Romans began to retreat because of a shortage of grain, they planned to attack them on the march, when encumbered and carrying their packs and therefore weaker in spirit.

SECTION 3.24.4The commanders approved this plan, and though the Roman forces had been led out, they remained in their camp.

SECTION 3.24.5When Crassus saw this, the enemy’s hesitation and apparent fear made our soldiers more eager to fight, and voices were heard everywhere saying that they should wait no longer before advancing on the camp. Crassus encouraged his men and, with everyone eager for battle, marched against the enemy camp.

CHAPTER 3.25

SECTION 3.25.1There some filled the trenches, while others drove the defenders from the rampart and fortifications by hurling large numbers of missiles. The auxiliaries, in whom Crassus did not place much confidence as fighters, created the appearance and impression that they were taking part in the battle by supplying stones and missiles and carrying blocks of turf to the siege ramp. Meanwhile, the enemy also fought steadily and fearlessly, and the missiles thrown from their higher position did not fall without effect.

SECTION 3.25.2After riding around the enemy camp, the cavalry reported to Crassus that the camp was not fortified with equal care at the rear gate and that access there was easy.

CHAPTER 3.26

SECTION 3.26.1Crassus urged the cavalry commanders to inspire their men by promising great rewards, and explained what he wanted done.

SECTION 3.26.2As ordered, they led out the cohorts that had been left to guard the camp and were still fresh and unworn by exertion. They took them around by a longer route so that they could not be seen from the enemy camp, and, while everyone’s eyes and attention were fixed on the battle, they quickly reached the fortifications already mentioned.

SECTION 3.26.3They tore them down and entered the enemy camp before they could be clearly seen or the enemy could understand what was happening.

SECTION 3.26.4Then, when a shout was heard from that quarter, our men renewed their strength, as usually happens when victory is in sight, and began to attack more fiercely.

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

SECTION 3.26.6The cavalry pursued them across completely open country. Of the fifty thousand men known to have assembled from Aquitania and among the Cantabri, scarcely a quarter were left alive when the cavalry returned to camp late at night.

CHAPTER 3.27

SECTION 3.27.1When news of this battle was received, 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 remote tribes, relying on the season because winter was approaching, neglected to do so.

CHAPTER 3.28

SECTION 3.28.1At about the same time, although summer was now nearly over, Caesar led his army against the Morini and Menapii. All the rest of Gaul had been pacified, but they remained under arms and had never sent him envoys to seek peace, so he believed that this war could be quickly concluded. They began to wage war in a completely different manner from the other Gauls.

SECTION 3.28.2They understood that the greatest nations that had contested the issue in battle had been routed and defeated, and they had vast forests and marshes. They therefore withdrew there 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 out of the forest from every direction while our men were scattered at their work and attacked them.

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

CHAPTER 3.29

SECTION 3.29.1During the following days Caesar began cutting down the forests. To prevent anyone from attacking the unarmed and unsuspecting soldiers from the flank, he placed all the felled timber facing the enemy and piled it up like a rampart on both sides.

SECTION 3.29.2Within a few days an astonishingly large area had been cleared with incredible speed. Our men had already seized the enemy’s livestock and the rearmost parts of their baggage, while the enemy themselves were seeking denser forests, when such storms followed that the work necessarily had to be suspended, and the continuous rain made it impossible to keep the soldiers under canvas any longer.

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

CHAPTER 4.1

SECTION 4.1.1During the following winter, in the year when Gnaeus Pompey and Marcus Crassus were consuls, the German Usipetes and 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 the Suebi had harassed them for several years, oppressed them through warfare, and prevented them from cultivating their land.

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 have a hundred districts, from each of which they annually lead one thousand armed men out of their territory to wage war. The rest, who remain at home, support themselves and the fighting men.

SECTION 4.1.5The following year these in turn bear arms, while the others remain at home.

SECTION 4.1.6In this way, neither agriculture nor the theory and practice of war is interrupted.

SECTION 4.1.7But among them there is no privately owned or separately allotted 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 on grain, but mostly on milk and livestock, and they spend much of their time hunting.

SECTION 4.1.9This way of life—their diet, daily exercise, and freedom, since from childhood they are accustomed to no duty or discipline and do absolutely nothing against their will—both maintains their strength and makes them people of enormous physical size.

SECTION 4.1.10They have trained themselves to such habits that even in the coldest regions they wear nothing but skins, which are so small that a large part of the body remains exposed, and they bathe in rivers.

CHAPTER 4.2

SECTION 4.2.1Merchants are allowed access to them more so that they may have buyers for what they capture in war than because they want anything imported.

SECTION 4.2.2The Germans do not even use imported draft animals, which the Gauls especially prize and purchase at great expense. Instead, through daily exercise they train the animals bred among them, which are small and unattractive, to have the greatest endurance.

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

SECTION 4.2.4According to their customs, nothing is considered more shameful or cowardly than using saddles.

SECTION 4.2.5Consequently, however few they may be, they dare to attack any number of saddled cavalrymen.

SECTION 4.2.6They do not allow wine to be imported at all, because they believe that it makes men soft and effeminate and less able to endure hardship.

CHAPTER 4.3

SECTION 4.3.1As a nation, they consider it their greatest glory to have the land around their borders remain uninhabited for as great a distance as possible. They believe that this demonstrates that a great number of states cannot withstand their power.

SECTION 4.3.2Thus, on one side of the Suebi, the land is said to be uninhabited for about one hundred miles.

SECTION 4.3.3On the other side live the Ubii, whose state was large and prosperous by German standards. Although they are of the same race, they are somewhat more civilized than the others because their territory reaches the Rhine, merchants frequently visit them, and their proximity to Gaul has accustomed them to Gallic customs.

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

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 4.4.2but in the end they were driven from their lands and, after wandering through many parts of Germany for three years, reached the Rhine in regions inhabited by the Menapii. The Menapii had fields, buildings, and villages on both banks of the river.

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

SECTION 4.4.4After trying every possible means, the Germans found that they could neither force a crossing because they lacked boats nor cross secretly because of the Menapii’s guards.

SECTION 4.4.5They pretended to return to their own homes and regions, marched away for three days, and then turned back. Their cavalry covered the entire return journey in a single night and overwhelmed the Menapii, who were unaware and expecting no attack.

SECTION 4.4.6The Menapii had been informed of the Germans’ departure by scouts and had fearlessly moved back across the Rhine into their villages.

SECTION 4.4.7After killing them and seizing their boats, the Germans crossed the river before the part of the Menapii living on this side of the Rhine could learn what had happened. They occupied all their buildings and supported themselves on the Menapii’s provisions for the rest 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 political upheaval, and decided that he should entrust nothing to them.

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

SECTION 4.5.3Influenced by such reports and hearsay, they often form plans concerning matters of the highest importance, only to be forced to regret them immediately afterward, since they are guided by uncertain rumors and most people give them invented answers designed to please them.

CHAPTER 4.6

SECTION 4.6.1Knowing this custom, Caesar set out for the army earlier than usual, to avoid having to confront a more serious war.

SECTION 4.6.2When he arrived there, he learned that what he had suspected would happen had in fact occurred:

SECTION 4.6.3several states had sent delegations to the Germans, inviting them to leave the Rhine and promising that everything they requested would be made ready for them.

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

SECTION 4.6.5After summoning the Gallic leaders, Caesar decided that he should conceal what he had learned. He soothed and reassured them, ordered them to provide cavalry, and resolved to wage war against the Germans.

CHAPTER 4.7

SECTION 4.7.1After securing provisions and selecting his cavalrymen, he began marching toward the places where he heard the Germans were located.

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

SECTION 4.7.3The Germans did not make war on the Roman people first, but neither did they refuse to fight with weapons if attacked, because the Germans had inherited from their ancestors the custom of resisting anyone who made war on them and never begging for mercy. They had nevertheless come to say that they were in Gaul against their will, driven from their homeland.

SECTION 4.7.4If the Romans wanted their goodwill, they could be useful friends to them. The Romans should either assign them lands of their own or allow them to retain those they had taken by force of arms.

SECTION 4.7.5They yielded only to the Suebi, whom not even the immortal gods could equal; as for everyone else on earth, there was no one they could not defeat.

CHAPTER 4.8

SECTION 4.8.1Caesar gave the reply he thought appropriate, but the conclusion of his statement was that no friendship between him and them was possible if they remained in Gaul;

SECTION 4.8.2that it was not right for men who had been unable to defend their own territory to seize that of others; and that no lands in Gaul were unoccupied and could be granted, especially to so great a multitude, without wronging others.

SECTION 4.8.3But, if they wished, they could settle in the territory of the Ubii, whose delegates were then with him complaining about the injuries inflicted by the Suebi and requesting his assistance. He would order the Ubii to accept them.

CHAPTER 4.9

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

SECTION 4.9.2Caesar said that he could not grant even that request.

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

CHAPTER 4.10

SECTION 4.10.1[The Meuse rises in the Vosges Mountains, which are 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 Atlantic Ocean.

SECTION 4.10.2No more than eighty miles from the Atlantic, it flows into the Rhine.

SECTION 4.10.3The Rhine, however, rises in the territory of the Lepontii, who inhabit the Alps, and flows swiftly for a great distance through the territories of the Nantuates, Helvetii, Sequani, Mediomatrici, Triboci, and Treveri.

SECTION 4.10.4As it approaches the Atlantic, it divides into several branches, forming many enormous islands, a large number of which are inhabited by fierce barbarian peoples,

SECTION 4.10.5including some who are believed to live on fish and birds’ eggs, and it flows into the Atlantic through many mouths.]

CHAPTER 4.11

SECTION 4.11.1When Caesar was no more than twelve miles from the enemy, their delegates returned to him as agreed. Meeting him on the march, they earnestly begged him not to advance any farther.

SECTION 4.11.2When they failed to obtain this request, they asked him to send orders ahead to the cavalrymen who had advanced in front of the column and prevent them from fighting, and to give the Germans an opportunity to send delegates to the Ubii.

SECTION 4.11.3They explained that if the leaders and senate of the Ubii guaranteed their good faith under oath, they would accept the terms offered by Caesar. They asked him to give them three days to settle these matters.

SECTION 4.11.4Caesar believed that all these requests had the same purpose: to create a three-day delay in which their absent cavalry could return. Nevertheless, he said that he would advance no more than four miles that day in order to obtain water.

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

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

CHAPTER 4.12

SECTION 4.12.1But as soon as the enemy saw our cavalry, which numbered five thousand, although they themselves had no more than eight hundred cavalrymen because those who had gone across the Meuse to obtain grain had not yet returned, they launched an attack and quickly threw our men into confusion. Our men suspected nothing, because the enemy’s delegates had left Caesar only a short time before and had requested a truce for that day.

SECTION 4.12.2When our men resisted in turn, the Germans followed their usual practice and jumped down to fight on foot. They stabbed several of our horses from below, threw our riders down, put the rest to flight, and drove them on in such terror that they did not stop fleeing until they came within sight of our marching column.

SECTION 4.12.3Seventy-four of our cavalrymen were killed in that battle.

SECTION 4.12.4Among them was the exceptionally brave Aquitanian Piso, a man of the highest birth, whose grandfather had held royal power in his state and had been officially named a friend by our Senate.

SECTION 4.12.5When Piso went to the assistance of his brother, who had been cut off by the enemy, he rescued him from danger. Piso himself was thrown when his horse was wounded, but he resisted with the greatest courage for as long as he could.

SECTION 4.12.6After he had been surrounded, suffered many wounds, and fallen, his brother, who had already withdrawn from the battle, noticed this from a distance, spurred his horse forward, threw himself upon the enemy, and was killed.

CHAPTER 4.13

SECTION 4.13.1After this battle, Caesar believed that he should no longer listen to delegates or accept terms from people who had sought peace as a trick and an ambush and then made an unprovoked attack.

SECTION 4.13.2He judged that it would be the height of madness to wait until the enemy’s forces increased and their cavalry returned.

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

SECTION 4.13.4After making these decisions and sharing his plan with his staff officers and quaestor, so that he would not let any opportunity for battle pass, an extremely favorable event occurred. On the morning of the following day, employing the same treachery and deception, the Germans came in great numbers to his camp, bringing all their leaders and elders with them.

SECTION 4.13.5Their purpose, as they claimed, was partly to clear themselves of blame for having engaged in battle the day before, contrary to what had been said and to what they themselves had requested, and partly, if they could, to obtain a truce by deception.

SECTION 4.13.6Caesar was pleased that they had placed themselves in his hands and ordered them detained. He then led all his forces out of camp and ordered the cavalry, which he believed had been badly frightened by the recent battle, to follow behind the column.

CHAPTER 4.14

SECTION 4.14.1He formed his army in three lines and, after rapidly completing an eight-mile march, reached the enemy’s camp before the Germans could realize what was happening.

SECTION 4.14.2Terrified by everything at once—by the speed of our arrival and by the absence of their leaders—and given no time either to form a plan or to take up arms, they were thrown into confusion over whether it would be better to lead their forces against the enemy, defend the camp, or seek safety in flight.

SECTION 4.14.3When their fear became evident in their shouting and frantic rushing about, our soldiers, enraged by the treachery of the previous day, burst into the camp.

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

SECTION 4.14.5But the rest of the population, including the children and women—for they had left their homeland and crossed the Rhine with all their families—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 and despaired of escaping any farther, a great number were killed. The rest threw themselves into the river and perished there, overcome by fear, exhaustion, and the force of the current.

SECTION 4.15.3Our men, every one of them safe and only a very few wounded, returned to camp freed from the fear of so great a war, although the enemy’s total population had numbered 430,000.

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

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

CHAPTER 4.16

SECTION 4.16.1After the German war was concluded, Caesar decided for many reasons that he had to cross the Rhine. The strongest of these was that, since he saw how easily the Germans could be induced to enter Gaul, he wanted them to fear for their own possessions as well, when they understood that an army of the Roman people both could and would dare to cross the Rhine.

SECTION 4.16.2Another consideration was that the part of the cavalry of the Usipetes and Tencteri which, as I mentioned above, had crossed the Meuse to plunder and obtain grain and had not taken part in the battle, had retreated after the flight of their people across the Rhine into the territory of the Sugambri and had joined them.

SECTION 4.16.3Caesar sent messengers to the Sugambri demanding that they surrender to him those who had made war on him and on Gaul. They replied:

SECTION 4.16.4“The Rhine marks the limit of the Roman people’s rule. If Caesar thinks it unjust for Germans to cross into Gaul against his wishes, why does he claim any rule or authority beyond the Rhine?”

SECTION 4.16.5The Ubii, however, who alone among the peoples across the Rhine had sent delegates to Caesar, established friendship with him, and given hostages, urgently begged him to assist them because they were being severely oppressed by the Suebi.

SECTION 4.16.6Or, if the affairs of the Republic prevented him from doing so, they asked him merely to transport his army across the Rhine. That would be enough to help them and give them hope for the future.

SECTION 4.16.7They said that, after the defeat of Ariovistus and this latest battle, the fame and reputation of Caesar’s army were so great, even among the most distant German peoples, that the Ubii could remain safe through the prestige and friendship of the Roman people.

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

CHAPTER 4.17

SECTION 4.17.1For the reasons I have mentioned, Caesar had decided to cross the Rhine. But he believed that crossing in boats would not be sufficiently safe and considered it inconsistent with both his own dignity and that of the Roman people.

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

SECTION 4.17.3He designed the bridge as follows. He joined pairs of timbers, each a foot and a half thick, sharpened slightly at the lower end and cut to match the depth of the river, fastening them two feet apart.

SECTION 4.17.4He had these pairs lowered into the river by machinery, planted in the riverbed, and driven in with pile drivers—not straight down vertically like ordinary pilings, but slanting forward at an incline, so that they leaned in the direction of the current.

SECTION 4.17.5Opposite each pair, forty feet downstream, he placed two more timbers joined in the same way, angled against the force and impact of the current.

SECTION 4.17.6The two pairs were held apart by beams two feet thick inserted across their tops, matching the distance between the joined timbers, and were secured by two clamps, one on each side, at the outer ends.

SECTION 4.17.7With the pairs held apart and fastened in opposite directions, the structure had such strength, and its design was such, that the greater the force with which the water drove against it, the more tightly its components were locked together.

SECTION 4.17.8These supports were connected by laying timbers lengthwise across them, and these were covered with poles and wickerwork.

SECTION 4.17.9In addition, pilings were driven obliquely into the riverbed downstream. These were set beneath the bridge like buttresses and connected with the entire structure so that they would absorb the force of the current.

SECTION 4.17.10Other pilings were likewise driven a moderate distance upstream from the bridge, so that if the barbarians sent tree trunks or boats downstream to demolish the structure, these defenses would 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 the gathering of timber began, the entire structure was completed and the army was taken across.

SECTION 4.18.2Caesar left strong guards at both ends of the bridge and hurried into the territory of the Sugambri.

SECTION 4.18.3Meanwhile, delegates came to him from several states. When they asked for peace and friendship, he answered them generously and ordered them to bring him hostages.

SECTION 4.18.4But from the moment construction of the bridge began, the Sugambri had prepared to flee. At the urging of the Tencteri and Usipetes whom they had among them, they had left their territory, carried away all their possessions, and hidden themselves in the wilderness and forests.

CHAPTER 4.19

SECTION 4.19.1Caesar remained in their territory for a few days, burned all their villages and buildings, cut down their grain, and then withdrew into the territory of the Ubii. He promised them his assistance 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 held a council 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 have every man capable of bearing arms assemble in one place.

SECTION 4.19.3The place selected was approximately at the center of the regions occupied by the Suebi. There they had decided to await the Romans’ arrival and fight a decisive battle.

SECTION 4.19.4When Caesar learned this, having accomplished everything for which he had decided to lead his army across—to strike fear into the Germans, punish the Sugambri, and free the Ubii from siege—and having spent a total of eighteen days across the Rhine, he considered that he had achieved enough for both honor and practical advantage. He therefore withdrew into Gaul and destroyed 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 lies toward the north, Caesar nevertheless made determined preparations to set out for Britain, because he understood that in nearly all the Gallic wars assistance had been supplied to our enemies from there.

SECTION 4.20.2Even if there were not enough time left in the year to conduct a war, he still thought it would be of great use to him if he merely visited the island, observed what kind of people lived there, and learned about the terrain, harbors, and approaches—all of which were almost entirely unknown to the Gauls.

SECTION 4.20.3For hardly anyone except merchants goes there without good reason, and even they know nothing beyond the seacoast and the regions facing Gaul.

SECTION 4.20.4Accordingly, he summoned merchants from every quarter, but he could not discover how large the island was, what peoples inhabited it or how numerous they were, what experience they had in warfare or what customs they followed, or which harbors were suitable for a large number of ships.

CHAPTER 4.21

SECTION 4.21.1To learn these things before taking the risk himself, Caesar considered 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 set out with all his forces for 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 from every direction, along with the fleet he had built the previous summer for the war against the Veneti.

SECTION 4.21.5Meanwhile, after his plan became known and was reported to the Britons by merchants, envoys came to him from several states of the island, 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 sent them home and dispatched Commius with them. After defeating the Atrebates, Caesar himself had appointed Commius king over them; he approved of his courage and judgment, believed him loyal to himself, and knew that his authority 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 arrive there.

SECTION 4.21.9Volusenus surveyed all the regions as far as he had the opportunity, since he did not dare leave his ship and entrust himself to the barbarians. On the fifth day he returned to Caesar and reported what he had observed there.

CHAPTER 4.22

SECTION 4.22.1While Caesar remained in that area to prepare the ships, envoys came to him from a large part of the Morini. They offered excuses for their conduct in the recent past, saying that, as barbarous people unfamiliar with our customs, they had made war on the Roman people, and they promised to do whatever he commanded.

SECTION 4.22.2Caesar considered their arrival quite timely, because he did not want to leave an enemy behind him, had no opportunity to wage war because of the season, and did not think that dealing with such minor matters should take precedence over Britain. He demanded a large number of hostages from them.

SECTION 4.22.3When the hostages were brought, he accepted the Morini under his protection. After gathering and assembling about eighty transports, as many as he considered sufficient to carry two legions across, he distributed the warships he had in addition among his quaestor, legates, and prefects.

SECTION 4.22.4There were also eighteen transports that were being prevented by the wind from reaching the same harbor from a place eight miles away. 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, board their ships, and follow him.

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

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

SECTION 4.23.4Considering this place completely unsuitable for landing, he 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 wanted done, and warned them that, as military practice—and especially naval operations—required, since conditions at sea involved rapid and unstable movement, they must carry out every action at his signal and at the proper moment.

SECTION 4.23.6After dismissing them, Caesar took advantage of a favorable wind and tide occurring at the same time. He gave the signal, raised anchor, advanced about seven miles from that place, and stationed his ships off an open, level beach.

CHAPTER 4.24

SECTION 4.24.1But the barbarians, understanding the Romans’ plan, sent their cavalry and chariot fighters ahead—the kind of force they generally used in battle—and followed with the rest of their troops, preventing our men from disembarking from the ships.

SECTION 4.24.2The difficulty was extreme for these reasons: because of their size, the ships could not be stationed except in deep water, while the soldiers, in unfamiliar surroundings, with their hands encumbered and weighed down by the great, heavy burden of their armor, had to jump down from the ships, keep their footing in the waves, and fight the enemy all at the same time.

SECTION 4.24.3The enemy, meanwhile, either stood on dry ground or advanced only a short distance into the water. With all their limbs unencumbered and in terrain completely familiar to them, they boldly hurled their weapons and spurred forward horses accustomed to such conditions.

SECTION 4.24.4Terrified by these circumstances and completely inexperienced in this kind of fighting, our men did not display the same energy and enthusiasm they usually showed in battles on land.

CHAPTER 4.25

SECTION 4.25.1When Caesar noticed this, he ordered the warships, whose appearance was more unfamiliar to the barbarians and whose maneuverability made them better suited for the purpose, to move a short distance away from the transports, be driven forward by their oars, and take up positions against the enemy’s exposed flank. From there the enemy was to be driven back and dislodged with slings, arrows, and artillery. This was of great assistance to our men.

SECTION 4.25.2For the barbarians, alarmed 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 4.25.3While our soldiers were hesitating, chiefly because of the depth of the water, the man who carried the eagle of the Tenth Legion called upon the gods to make his action turn out successfully for the legion. “Jump down, soldiers,” he said, “unless you want to betray your eagle to the enemy. I, at least, will 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 toward the enemy.

SECTION 4.25.5Then our men urged one another not to allow so great a disgrace, and all jumped down from the ship.

SECTION 4.25.6When the soldiers in the nearest ships saw them, the first among them followed and advanced toward 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, maintain a firm footing, nor follow their own standards; instead, each man joined whatever standard he happened to encounter after leaving his particular ship.

SECTION 4.26.2The enemy, by contrast, knew all the shallows, and whenever they saw individuals leaving a ship separately, they spurred their horses forward and attacked them while they were encumbered.

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

SECTION 4.26.4When Caesar noticed this, he ordered the boats belonging to the warships, as well as the scout vessels, to be filled with soldiers, and sent reinforcements to those he saw in difficulty.

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

CHAPTER 4.27

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

SECTION 4.27.2Commius the Atrebate came with these envoys—the man I explained above had been sent ahead to Britain by Caesar.

SECTION 4.27.3When Commius disembarked and delivered Caesar’s instructions to them in the capacity of an envoy, they had seized him and put him in chains.

SECTION 4.27.4After the battle, they released him. In seeking peace, they blamed the general population for this act and asked to be pardoned because of their ignorance.

SECTION 4.27.5Caesar complained that, although they had voluntarily sent envoys to the mainland to ask him for peace, they had made war without cause. He said that he would pardon their ignorance and demanded hostages.

SECTION 4.27.6They gave some of these at once and said that they would send for the rest from more distant places and deliver them within a few days.

SECTION 4.27.7Meanwhile, they ordered their people to return to their farms, and their leading men began assembling from every direction and entrusting themselves and their states to Caesar.

CHAPTER 4.28

SECTION 4.28.1With peace established by these actions, on the fourth day after the arrival in Britain, the eighteen ships mentioned above, which had taken the cavalry aboard, put to sea from the farther harbor in a gentle wind.

SECTION 4.28.2As they approached Britain and came into view from the camp, so violent a storm suddenly arose that none of them could maintain its course. Some were carried back to the same place from which they had departed, while others were driven, at great danger to themselves, toward the lower part of the island, which lies closer to the setting sun.

SECTION 4.28.3Although they dropped anchor, the ships began filling with water from the waves. They were therefore forced to put out to sea during the adverse night and make for the mainland.

CHAPTER 4.29

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

SECTION 4.29.2Thus, at the same time, the tide flooded the warships [in which Caesar had arranged for the army to be transported], which Caesar had hauled onto dry land, while the storm battered the transports that were secured at anchor. Our men had no opportunity either to handle the ships or to assist them.

SECTION 4.29.3Several ships were wrecked, and the rest, having lost their ropes, anchors, and other equipment, were unfit for sailing. As was inevitable, this caused great alarm throughout the entire army.

SECTION 4.29.4There were no other ships in which they could be carried back, everything needed to repair the ships was lacking, and because everyone knew that they had to winter in Gaul, no grain had been provided in that region for the winter.

CHAPTER 4.30

SECTION 4.30.1When the leading men of Britain who had come to Caesar after the battle learned of these circumstances, they conferred among themselves. They understood that the Romans had no cavalry, ships, or grain, and they recognized the small number of soldiers from the limited size of the camp, which was even smaller because Caesar had transported the legions without baggage.

SECTION 4.30.2They concluded that the best course was to renew the rebellion, prevent our men from obtaining grain and other supplies, and prolong the affair into the winter, because they were confident that, if this force were defeated or prevented from returning, no one would afterward cross into Britain to make war.

SECTION 4.30.3Accordingly, they formed another conspiracy and began gradually leaving the camp and secretly bringing their people in from the countryside.

CHAPTER 4.31

SECTION 4.31.1Although Caesar did not yet know their plans, he nevertheless suspected, both from the fate of his ships and from the fact that they had stopped delivering hostages, that what did happen was going to happen.

SECTION 4.31.2He therefore prepared safeguards against every possibility. Each day he brought grain from the countryside into the camp, used the timber and bronze from the ships that had been most seriously damaged to repair the others, and ordered the materials needed for this work to be brought over from the mainland.

SECTION 4.31.3Accordingly, because the soldiers carried out the work with the greatest effort, he lost twelve ships but made the others sufficiently seaworthy for reasonably convenient navigation.

CHAPTER 4.32

SECTION 4.32.1While this work was being done, 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 people remained in the countryside, while others continued visiting the camp. The men stationed on guard before the camp gates reported to Caesar that an unusually large cloud of dust could be seen in the direction in which the legion had marched.

SECTION 4.32.2Caesar suspected—correctly—that the barbarians had begun some new plan. He ordered the cohorts on guard to set out with him in that direction, two of the remaining cohorts to take their place on guard, and the rest to arm themselves and follow him immediately.

SECTION 4.32.3When he had advanced a little distance from the camp, he saw that our men were being hard-pressed by the enemy and were barely holding out, and that, with the legion packed tightly together, weapons were being hurled at it from every direction.

SECTION 4.32.4Since all the grain in the other areas had been harvested and only one section remained, the enemy, suspecting that our men would come there, had hidden in the woods during the night.

SECTION 4.32.5They then made a sudden attack on our men while they were scattered, had laid down their weapons, and were occupied with reaping. After killing a few, they threw the rest into disorder before they could form definite ranks, while at the same time surrounding them with cavalry and chariots.

CHAPTER 4.33

SECTION 4.33.1This is their method of fighting from chariots. First they drive in every direction, hurling weapons, and generally disrupt the ranks by the very terror inspired by the horses and by the noise of the wheels. Once they have worked their way in among the cavalry squadrons, they leap down from their chariots and fight on foot.

SECTION 4.33.2Meanwhile, the drivers gradually withdraw from the battle and position their chariots so that, if the fighters are hard-pressed by a large number of enemies, they have an unobstructed retreat to their own men.

SECTION 4.33.3Thus in battle they combine the mobility of cavalry with the steadiness of infantry. Through daily experience and training they acquire such skill that, even on a sloping and precipitous site, they can check their horses at full gallop, control and turn them in a short distance, run along the chariot pole, stand on the yoke, and then return from there to their chariots with the greatest speed.

CHAPTER 4.34

SECTION 4.34.1While our men were disordered by these circumstances [and by the unfamiliar kind 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 considered the time unsuitable for provoking the enemy and beginning a battle, so he held his position and, after a short interval, led the legions back to camp.

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

SECTION 4.34.4Several days of storms followed without interruption, keeping our men in camp and preventing 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 obtain plunder and free themselves forever if they drove the Romans from their camp. In this way they quickly assembled a large force of infantry and cavalry and came to 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 driven back, they would escape danger by their speed—he nevertheless formed the legions in battle line before the camp, having obtained about thirty cavalrymen whom Commius the Atrebatian, mentioned above, had brought across with him.

SECTION 4.35.2When battle was joined, the enemy could not withstand the attack of our soldiers for long and turned and fled.

SECTION 4.35.3Our men pursued them as far as their speed and strength allowed and killed many of them. Then, after setting fire to every building over a wide area, they returned to camp.

CHAPTER 4.36

SECTION 4.36.1That same day, envoys sent by the enemy came to Caesar to ask for peace.

SECTION 4.36.2Caesar doubled the number of hostages he had previously demanded from them and ordered them to be brought to the mainland, because the day of the equinox was near and he did not think that his damaged ships should be exposed to winter sailing.

SECTION 4.36.3When he obtained suitable weather, he himself set sail shortly after midnight,

SECTION 4.36.4and all the ships reached the mainland safely. Two of the transports, however, could not make the same harbors as the others and were carried a little farther down the coast.

CHAPTER 4.37

SECTION 4.37.1About three hundred soldiers disembarked from these ships and were making for the camp when the Morini, whom Caesar had left at peace when he departed for Britain, were drawn by the hope of plunder. At first, they surrounded the soldiers with a force of their own that was not very large and ordered them to lay down their arms if they did not want to be killed.

SECTION 4.37.2When the soldiers 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 assist his men.

SECTION 4.37.3Meanwhile, our soldiers withstood the enemy’s attack and fought with the greatest courage for more than four hours. They suffered only a few wounds and killed many of the enemy.

SECTION 4.37.4But when our cavalry came into sight, the enemy threw down their weapons, turned and fled, 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 4.38.2Because the marshes had dried up, the Morini had no place to retreat to—the refuge they had used the previous year—and 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, returned to Caesar after ravaging all their fields, cutting down their grain, and burning their buildings, since the Menapii had all hidden themselves in the densest forests.

SECTION 4.38.4Caesar established the winter quarters of all the legions among the Belgae. Only two states in Britain sent hostages there; the rest failed 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 left winter quarters for Italy, as he had made a practice of doing every year. He 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 make loading and hauling ashore faster, he had them built somewhat lower than the ships we normally use on our own sea. He did this all the more because he had learned that the frequent changes of the tides made the waves there less high. To carry cargo and large numbers of draft animals, he had them built somewhat broader than the ships we use on other seas.

SECTION 5.1.3He ordered all of them to be built for sailing and rowing, a purpose for which their low profile was a great advantage.

SECTION 5.1.4He ordered the equipment needed to outfit the ships to be brought from Spain.

SECTION 5.1.5After completing his judicial sessions in Cisalpine Gaul, he himself left for Illyricum because he heard that the Pirustae were raiding and ravaging a neighboring part of the province.

SECTION 5.1.6When he arrived there, he ordered the states to provide soldiers and directed them to assemble at a specified place.

SECTION 5.1.7When this was reported to them, the Pirustae sent envoys to tell him that none of these acts had been committed by public decision, and they declared that they were ready to make full compensation for the injuries by every means.

SECTION 5.1.8After hearing their statement, Caesar demanded hostages and ordered them to be brought by a specified day. He informed them that unless they did so, 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 his judicial sessions, he returned to Cisalpine Gaul and from there departed for the army.

SECTION 5.2.2When he arrived, he toured all the winter quarters and found that, through the extraordinary zeal of the soldiers and despite an extreme shortage of all supplies, about six hundred ships of the kind described above and twenty-eight warships had been fully equipped and were not far from being ready to launch within a few days.

SECTION 5.2.3After warmly praising the soldiers and those who had supervised the work, he explained what he wanted done and ordered everyone to assemble at Portus Itius, from which he had learned that the crossing to Britain was most convenient, a passage of about thirty miles from the mainland. He left behind as many soldiers as seemed sufficient for this task;

SECTION 5.2.4he himself set out for the territory of the Treveri with four lightly equipped legions and eight hundred cavalry, because they neither attended the councils nor obeyed his authority and were said to be soliciting the Germans across the Rhine.

CHAPTER 5.3

SECTION 5.3.1This state has by far the strongest cavalry in all Gaul, possesses large infantry forces, and borders the Rhine, as we explained above.

SECTION 5.3.2In that state, two men, Indutiomarus and Cingetorix, were competing 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 and assured him that he and all his people would remain loyal and would not abandon their friendship with the Roman people. He also informed Caesar of what was taking place among the Treveri.

SECTION 5.3.4Indutiomarus, however, began assembling cavalry and infantry and preparing for war. He concealed in the Ardennes Forest those who were too old or too young to bear arms. This forest is immense and extends through the middle of the territory of the Treveri from the Rhine to the borders of the Remi.

SECTION 5.3.5But afterward, when several 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 personal requests of him concerning their own affairs, since they could not provide for the welfare of their state, Indutiomarus, fearing that everyone would desert him, sent envoys to Caesar:

SECTION 5.3.6he had refused to leave his people and come to Caesar so that he could more easily keep the state loyal and prevent the common people, through their lack of judgment, from going astray when all the nobles had departed;

SECTION 5.3.7the state was therefore under his control, and, if Caesar permitted it, he would come to him in camp and entrust his own fortunes and those of his state to Caesar’s protection.

CHAPTER 5.4

SECTION 5.4.1Although Caesar understood why these statements were being made and what circumstance was deterring Indutiomarus from his original plan, he did not want to be forced to spend the summer among the Treveri when all preparations had been made for the war in Britain. He therefore 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, Caesar summoned the leading men of the Treveri and individually reconciled them with Cingetorix. He understood that Cingetorix’s conduct deserved this treatment from him, and he also considered it highly important that the influence among his own people of a man whose exceptional goodwill toward Caesar he had recognized should become as great as possible.

SECTION 5.4.4Indutiomarus deeply resented this action because it diminished his influence among his own people. Though he had already been hostile toward us, this humiliation made his resentment flare up much 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, numbering four thousand, assembled there as well, together with the leading men from every state.

SECTION 5.5.4Caesar had decided to leave in Gaul only a very few whose loyalty toward him he had verified, and to take the rest with him as hostages, because he feared an uprising in Gaul while he was away.

CHAPTER 5.6

SECTION 5.6.1Among the others was the Aeduan Dumnorix, whom we have mentioned before. Caesar was especially determined to take him along because he knew that Dumnorix was eager for revolution, eager for power, bold in spirit, and highly influential among the Gauls.

SECTION 5.6.2There was the additional fact that Dumnorix had said in the council of the Aedui that Caesar was offering him the kingship of the state. The Aedui bitterly resented this statement, but did not dare send envoys to Caesar to object or appeal against it.

SECTION 5.6.3Caesar had learned of this from his own guest-friends among them. At first Dumnorix urgently begged in every possible way to be left in Gaul, partly because he was unaccustomed to sailing and feared the sea, and partly because, as he claimed, religious obligations prevented him from going.

SECTION 5.6.4After he saw that his request was being firmly refused and all hope of obtaining it had been taken away, he began to solicit the leading men of Gaul, take them aside one by one, and urge them to remain on the mainland.

SECTION 5.6.5He tried to frighten them by saying that it was not without reason that Gaul was being stripped of its entire nobility; that Caesar’s plan was to transport to Britain and kill all those whom he was afraid to execute in full view of Gaul.

SECTION 5.6.6He pledged his word to the others and demanded an oath from them that they would jointly carry out whatever they judged to be in Gaul’s interest. Many people reported these activities to Caesar.

CHAPTER 5.7

SECTION 5.7.1When Caesar learned of this, because he attached such great importance to the standing of the Aeduan state, he decided that Dumnorix must be restrained and deterred by any means available.

SECTION 5.7.2Since he saw that Dumnorix’s recklessness was going too far, he believed precautions must be taken to prevent him from harming Caesar himself or the Republic. Caesar therefore remained in that place for about twenty-five days,

SECTION 5.7.3because the northwest wind, which usually blows in this region for a large part of the time, was preventing the voyage. He made every effort to keep Dumnorix loyal, while nevertheless continuing to learn of all his plans.

SECTION 5.7.4At last, when he obtained suitable weather, he ordered the soldiers and cavalry to board the ships.

SECTION 5.7.5But while everyone was preoccupied, Dumnorix left the camp with the Aeduan cavalry and began making his way home without Caesar’s knowledge.

SECTION 5.7.6When this was reported, Caesar halted the departure, set everything else aside, and sent a large part of the cavalry in pursuit of Dumnorix, ordering them to bring him back.

SECTION 5.7.7He ordered them to kill Dumnorix if he used force and refused to obey, judging that a man who had disregarded his command while he was present would do nothing rational while he was away.

SECTION 5.7.8When called back, Dumnorix began to resist, defend himself by force, and appeal to his followers to keep faith with him, repeatedly shouting that he was a free man and belonged to a free state.

SECTION 5.7.9As they had been ordered, the cavalry surrounded and killed him. All the Aeduan cavalry then returned to Caesar.

CHAPTER 5.8

SECTION 5.8.1After this was done, Caesar left Labienus on the mainland with three legions and two thousand cavalry to defend the harbors, secure the grain supply, learn what was happening in Gaul, and make decisions according to the circumstances and the situation.

SECTION 5.8.2Caesar himself set sail at sunset with five legions and the same number of cavalry as he had left on the mainland. Carried forward by a gentle southwest wind, he failed to hold his course when the wind died around midnight. Swept too far by the tide, at daybreak he saw that he had left Britain behind on his left.

SECTION 5.8.3Then, following the tide as it reversed, he pressed forward under oars to reach the part of the island where he had learned the previous summer that landing was best.

SECTION 5.8.4In this effort, the soldiers’ courage was especially deserving of praise: without pausing in their labor at the oars, they made the transports and heavily laden vessels match 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 later learned from prisoners, although large forces had assembled there, they had been frightened by the great number of ships. More than eight hundred vessels, including those from the previous year and the privately owned ships that individuals had built for their own convenience, had appeared there at one time. The enemy had therefore withdrawn from the shore and concealed themselves on higher ground.

CHAPTER 5.9

SECTION 5.9.1Caesar disembarked the army and selected a suitable site for the 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 marched against the enemy during the third watch. He was less concerned about the ships because he was leaving them tied at anchor on a soft, open beach,

SECTION 5.9.2and he placed Quintus Atrius in command of the guard for the ships. Advancing by night for about twelve miles, Caesar sighted the enemy’s forces.

SECTION 5.9.3The enemy advanced to the river with cavalry and chariots and, from higher ground, began trying to block our men and engaging them in battle.

SECTION 5.9.4Driven back by our cavalry, they concealed themselves in the woods, where they had found a place exceptionally well fortified both by nature and by construction. They appeared to have prepared it earlier for use in a war among themselves,

SECTION 5.9.5for all the entrances had been blocked by felling trees at close intervals.

SECTION 5.9.6Scattered individuals fought from the woods and prevented our men from entering the defenses.

SECTION 5.9.7But the soldiers of the Seventh Legion formed a tortoise, built a ramp against the fortifications, and captured the position. They drove the enemy from the woods while suffering only a few wounds.

SECTION 5.9.8Caesar, however, forbade his men to pursue the fugitives very far, both because he did not know the terrain and because much of the day had been spent and he wanted to leave time for fortifying the camp.

CHAPTER 5.10

SECTION 5.10.1Early the next morning, 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, cavalrymen came to Caesar from Quintus Atrius to report that a tremendous storm had arisen the previous night and that almost all the ships had been damaged and cast ashore, because neither the anchors nor the cables had held, and the sailors and helmsmen had been unable to withstand the force of the storm;

SECTION 5.10.3and so the ships’ collisions with one another had caused extensive damage.

CHAPTER 5.11

SECTION 5.11.1When Caesar learned of these events, he ordered the legions and cavalry to be recalled and to halt on the march, while he himself returned to the ships;

SECTION 5.11.2there he saw in person almost exactly what he had learned from the messengers and dispatches: about forty ships had been lost, but it appeared that the rest could still be repaired, 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 he could with the legions under his command.

SECTION 5.11.5For his own part, although the undertaking required a great deal of effort and labor, he decided that the best course was to haul all the ships ashore and connect them with the camp inside a single fortification.

SECTION 5.11.6He spent about ten days on these operations, without interrupting the soldiers’ work even at night.

SECTION 5.11.7After the ships had been hauled ashore and the camp had been exceptionally well fortified, he left the same forces as before to guard the ships and set out himself for the place from which he had returned.

SECTION 5.11.8When he arrived there, larger British forces had already assembled at that place from every direction, and by common agreement supreme command and direction of the war had been entrusted to Cassivellaunus, whose territory is separated from the coastal states by a river called the Thames, about eighty miles from the sea.

SECTION 5.11.9In earlier times Cassivellaunus 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 all their forces.

CHAPTER 5.12

SECTION 5.12.1The interior of Britain is inhabited by people who say that their own tradition records that they were born on the island,

SECTION 5.12.2while the coastal region is inhabited by people who crossed over from Belgium for the sake of plunder and warfare. Nearly all of them are called by the names of the states from which they originated before coming there, and after making war they remained and began to cultivate the land.

SECTION 5.12.3The population is immense, the buildings are extremely numerous and generally resemble those of Gaul, and there are great numbers of livestock.

SECTION 5.12.4They use bronze, gold coins, or iron bars weighed to a fixed standard 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 there, as in Gaul, except for beech and fir.

SECTION 5.12.6They consider it unlawful to eat hare, chicken, or goose, though they raise them for pleasure and amusement. The climate is milder than in Gaul, with less severe cold.

CHAPTER 5.13

SECTION 5.13.1The island is naturally triangular, with one side facing Gaul. Of the two corners of this side, the one by Kent, where almost all ships from Gaul make landfall, faces east, while the lower corner faces south. This side extends for about five hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.2The second side runs toward Spain and the west. On that side lies Ireland, which is estimated to be half the size of Britain, but the crossing to it from Britain is the same distance as the crossing from Gaul to Britain.

SECTION 5.13.3Midway across this passage is an island called Mona. In addition, a number of smaller islands are believed to lie nearby, and some writers have stated that at the winter solstice there is continuous night on these islands for thirty days.

SECTION 5.13.4We could discover nothing about this through inquiry, except that by precise measurements with a water clock we observed that the nights were shorter than on the mainland.

SECTION 5.13.5According to the inhabitants’ estimate, the length of this side is seven hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.6The third side faces north. No land lies opposite this part, but the corner of that side points mainly toward Germany. It is estimated to be eight hundred miles long.

SECTION 5.13.7Thus the entire island has a circumference of two thousand miles.

CHAPTER 5.14

SECTION 5.14.1Of all these inhabitants, by far the most civilized are those who live in Kent, an entirely coastal region, and their customs differ little from those of the Gauls.

SECTION 5.14.2Most of the people of the interior do not sow grain but live on milk and meat and wear animal skins. All the Britons, however, stain themselves with woad, which produces a blue color, and this makes them more terrifying in appearance in battle;

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 share wives in common, especially brothers with brothers and fathers with sons; but children born from these unions are regarded as the children of the man to whose household each woman was first brought as a virgin.

CHAPTER 5.15

SECTION 5.15.1The enemy’s cavalry and chariot warriors fought fiercely with our cavalry along the route, but our men proved superior in every sector 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 guard and occupied with fortifying the camp, the enemy suddenly rushed out of the woods, attacked the men posted on guard in front of the camp,

SECTION 5.15.4and fought fiercely. Caesar sent two cohorts to reinforce them—the leading cohorts of two legions—but although these took position with only a very small space between them, the enemy, after terrifying our men with this unfamiliar kind of fighting, broke through between them with great daring and withdrew safely.

SECTION 5.15.5That day Quintus Laberius Durus, a military tribune, was killed. The enemy was driven back when more cohorts were sent forward.

CHAPTER 5.16

SECTION 5.16.1Throughout this entire action, which was fought in full view of everyone and in front of the camp, it became clear that because of the weight of their armor, since they could neither pursue the enemy when they retreated nor dared leave the standards, our men were poorly suited to fighting this kind of enemy,

SECTION 5.16.2while the cavalry fought at great risk because the enemy usually retreated deliberately and, once they had drawn our men a short distance away from the legions, leaped down from their chariots and fought on foot under unequal conditions.

SECTION 5.16.3The nature of the cavalry action, moreover, exposed both those retreating and those pursuing to the same degree and kind of danger.

SECTION 5.16.4Another factor was that the enemy never fought in close formation but were spread out with wide intervals between them, and they had relief forces stationed at various points, so that one group after another could receive them and fresh, rested men could replace those who were exhausted.

CHAPTER 5.17

SECTION 5.17.1The next day the enemy took position on the hills some distance from the camp, showed themselves only in scattered groups, and began to challenge our cavalry to battle less aggressively than the day before.

SECTION 5.17.2But at midday, when Caesar had sent three legions and all the cavalry under his lieutenant Gaius Trebonius to gather forage, the enemy suddenly rushed at the foragers from every direction, pressing so close that they did not keep away from the standards and legions.

SECTION 5.17.3Our men attacked them fiercely, drove them back, and did not stop pursuing until the cavalry, relying on the support of the legions they saw behind them,

SECTION 5.17.4drove the enemy headlong, killed a great number of them, and 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 direction dispersed, and from that time onward the enemy never again engaged us with their full strength.

CHAPTER 5.18

SECTION 5.18.1After learning of their plan, Caesar led his army to the River Thames, into the territory of Cassivellaunus. The 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 had drawn up on the opposite bank of the river;

SECTION 5.18.3the bank had been fortified with sharpened stakes fixed along its edge, and stakes of the same kind had been driven into the riverbed and were concealed beneath the water.

SECTION 5.18.4After learning these details from prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent the cavalry ahead and ordered the legions to follow immediately.

SECTION 5.18.5The soldiers advanced with such speed and force, although only their heads remained above the water, that the enemy could not withstand the assault of the legions and cavalry, abandoned the banks, and fled.

CHAPTER 5.19

SECTION 5.19.1Cassivellaunus, as explained above, gave up all hope of fighting a pitched battle, dismissed his larger forces, and kept about four thousand chariot warriors. He watched our line of march, moved a short distance away from the road, and concealed himself in difficult, wooded country. In the districts through which he had learned that we intended to march, he drove the livestock and people from the fields into the woods, and,

SECTION 5.19.2whenever our cavalry spread out more freely across the countryside to plunder and devastate it, he sent his chariot warriors out of the woods by every road and path. They engaged our cavalry at great risk to our men, and the fear of these attacks prevented them from ranging very far.

SECTION 5.19.3The result was that Caesar would not allow the cavalry to move far from the marching column of legions, and the enemy could be harmed by the devastation of their fields and the burning of their property only to the extent that the legionaries could accomplish through their labor and marching.

CHAPTER 5.20

SECTION 5.20.1Meanwhile the Trinovantes, 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 had come to Caesar on the mainland of Gaul and placed himself under his protection. Mandubracius’s father had held the kingship in that state and had been killed by Cassivellaunus, while Mandubracius himself had escaped death by fleeing;

SECTION 5.20.2they asked Caesar to protect Mandubracius from injury by Cassivellaunus and send him back to the state to rule and hold supreme authority.

SECTION 5.20.3Caesar ordered them to provide forty hostages and grain for the army, and he sent Mandubracius to them.

SECTION 5.20.4They quickly carried out his commands and sent the required number of hostages and the grain.

CHAPTER 5.21

SECTION 5.21.1After the Trinovantes had been protected and secured against any mistreatment by the soldiers, the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, and Cassi sent delegations and surrendered to Caesar.

SECTION 5.21.2From them he learned that Cassivellaunus’s stronghold was not far from that place, that it was protected by woods and marshes, and that a fairly large number of people and livestock had gathered there.

SECTION 5.21.3The Britons call it a stronghold when they fortify a dense woodland with a rampart and ditch and use it as their customary place of refuge from enemy raids.

SECTION 5.21.4Caesar marched there with the legions and found the place exceptionally well fortified both by nature and by human construction. Nevertheless, he attempted to assault it from two sides.

SECTION 5.21.5The enemy held out for a short time, but could not withstand our soldiers’ assault and rushed out through another side of the stronghold.

SECTION 5.21.6A great number of livestock was found there, and many of the enemy were caught and killed as they fled.

CHAPTER 5.22

SECTION 5.22.1While these events were taking place in that region, Cassivellaunus sent messengers to Kent, which, as explained above, lies by the sea. Four kings ruled that region—Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segovax—and Cassivellaunus ordered them to assemble all their forces and launch a surprise assault on the naval camp.

SECTION 5.22.2When they reached the camp, our men made a sortie, killed many of them, captured even their distinguished leader Lugotorix, and brought their own men back safely.

SECTION 5.22.3When Cassivellaunus received news of this battle, after suffering so many losses and seeing his territory devastated, and especially because he was alarmed by the defection of the states, he sent envoys through Commius the Atrebatian to negotiate his surrender to Caesar.

SECTION 5.22.4Caesar had decided to winter on the mainland because of the sudden unrest in Gaul. Since little of the summer remained and he understood that the negotiations could easily be prolonged, he demanded hostages and fixed the annual tribute Britain was to pay the Roman people;

SECTION 5.22.5he strictly ordered Cassivellaunus not to harm Mandubracius or the Trinovantes.

CHAPTER 5.23

SECTION 5.23.1After receiving the hostages, Caesar led the army back to the sea and found the ships repaired.

SECTION 5.23.2After the ships had been launched, because he had a large number of prisoners and some ships had been lost in the storm, he decided to transport the army back in two voyages.

SECTION 5.23.3And so it happened that, despite the great number of ships and all the voyages made, neither in this year nor in the previous one was any ship carrying soldiers lost at all;

SECTION 5.23.4but of the ships sent back to him empty from the mainland—both those that had landed the soldiers of the first crossing and the sixty that Labienus had later arranged to have built—very few reached their destination, and almost 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 would prevent him from sailing,

SECTION 5.23.6because the equinox was approaching. He therefore had no choice but to pack the soldiers more tightly aboard the ships. When the sea became completely calm, he set sail at the beginning of the second watch, reached land at first light, and brought every ship safely ashore.

CHAPTER 5.24

SECTION 5.24.1After the ships had been hauled ashore and a council of the Gauls had been held at Samarobriva, Caesar was compelled to station his army in winter quarters differently from previous years and to distribute the legions among a greater number of states, because the grain harvest in Gaul that year had been unusually poor because of drought;

SECTION 5.24.2of these legions, he assigned one to his lieutenant Gaius Fabius to lead into the territory of the Morini, another to Quintus Cicero to lead into the territory of the Nervii, and a third to Lucius Roscius to lead into the territory of the Essuvii. He ordered a fourth to winter among the Remi under Titus Labienus, on the border of the Treveri. He stationed three among the Belgae;

SECTION 5.24.3he placed these under the command of the quaestor Marcus Crassus and the lieutenants Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius.

SECTION 5.24.4He sent one legion, which he had most recently raised north of the Po, and five cohorts into the territory of the Eburones, most of whom live between the Meuse and the Rhine and were under the rule of Ambiorix and Catuvolcus.

SECTION 5.24.5He ordered his lieutenants Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta to command these troops.

SECTION 5.24.6He believed that by distributing the legions in this way he could most easily deal with 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 an entirely peaceful and quiet region, were contained within a radius of one hundred miles.

SECTION 5.24.8Meanwhile, Caesar decided to remain in Gaul until he had received confirmation that the legions were in position 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 5.25.2Because of his courage and goodwill toward Caesar, whose exceptional service Caesar had employed in all his wars, Caesar had restored him to the rank his ancestors had held.

SECTION 5.25.3He had now been king for three years when his enemies killed him, with many members of his state openly supporting them.

SECTION 5.25.4The matter was reported to Caesar. Fearing that, because many people were involved, their tribe might revolt at their instigation, he ordered Lucius Plancus to set out quickly from Belgium with his legion for the territory of the Carnutes and spend the winter there, and to arrest those whom he learned had been responsible for Tasgetius’s murder and send them to him.

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 that the sites had been fortified.

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 messengers from Indutiomarus of the Treveri and stirred up their people. Then, after suddenly overpowering some soldiers who were out gathering wood, they came in great force to attack the camp.

SECTION 5.26.3Our men quickly took up arms and mounted the rampart, and after Spanish cavalry had been sent out from one side, they gained the advantage in a cavalry engagement. The enemy, abandoning hope of success, withdrew their men from the attack.

SECTION 5.26.4Then, in their usual way, they called out for one of our men to come forward for a conference. They said that they had matters of common concern to discuss and hoped that what they had to say could reduce the points in dispute.

CHAPTER 5.27

SECTION 5.27.1Gaius Arpineius, a Roman knight and close friend of Quintus Titurius, and a certain Quintus Junius from Spain were sent to confer with them. Junius had already been accustomed to visit Ambiorix on Caesar’s instructions. Ambiorix spoke to them as follows:

SECTION 5.27.2He acknowledged that he owed Caesar a very great debt for the favors Caesar had done him: through Caesar’s intervention he had been freed from the tribute that he had regularly paid to the Aduatuci, his neighbors, and Caesar had returned to him both his son and his brother’s son, whom the Aduatuci had held among their hostages in slavery and chains.

SECTION 5.27.3As for his attack on the camp, he had not acted by his own judgment or inclination but under compulsion from his tribe. His authority was such that the people had no less power over him than he had over the people.

SECTION 5.27.4The reason the tribe had gone to war was that it could not resist the sudden conspiracy of the Gauls. He could easily prove this from his own humble position, since he was not so inexperienced as to believe that the Roman people could be defeated by his forces.

SECTION 5.27.5But it was the common plan of all Gaul: this day had been appointed for attacks on all Caesar’s winter quarters, so that no legion could come to the aid of another.

SECTION 5.27.6It had not been easy for Gauls to refuse other Gauls, especially when the plan appeared to concern the recovery of their common freedom.

SECTION 5.27.7Since he had now satisfied the demands of patriotism, he was taking account of his duty in return for Caesar’s favors. Because of their bond of hospitality, he warned and begged 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 march either to Cicero or to Labienus, one of whom was about fifty miles away and the other a little farther.

SECTION 5.27.10He promised, and confirmed by oath, that he would grant them safe passage through his territory.

SECTION 5.27.11In doing so, he was both helping his own tribe by relieving it of the winter quarters and repaying Caesar for his favors. After delivering 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 development, the legates still thought that the warning should not be disregarded, even though it came from an enemy. They were especially troubled because it was scarcely believable that the obscure and insignificant tribe of the Eburones would have dared to make war on the Roman people on its own initiative.

SECTION 5.28.2They therefore referred the matter to a council of war, and a great dispute arose among them.

SECTION 5.28.3Lucius Aurunculeius, several military tribunes, and the senior centurions believed that nothing should be done rashly and that they should not leave winter quarters without Caesar’s orders. They pointed out that however large the forces—even German forces—fortified winter quarters could withstand them. The facts were proof: they had held out with the greatest courage against the enemy’s first assault while inflicting many wounds on them into the bargain. They were not suffering from any shortage of grain. Meanwhile, reinforcements would arrive both from the nearest winter quarters and from Caesar. Finally, what could be more irresponsible or more disgraceful than to make a decision on matters of the greatest importance on the advice of an enemy?

CHAPTER 5.29

SECTION 5.29.1Against this, Titurius kept shouting that they would act too late once larger enemy forces had assembled with the Germans added to them, or once some disaster had been suffered in the nearest winter quarters. Their opportunity for making a decision was brief. He believed that Caesar had left for Italy.

SECTION 5.29.2Otherwise, the Carnutes would not have formed their plan to murder Tasgetius, nor, if Caesar were present, would the Eburones have come against the camp with such contempt for us.

SECTION 5.29.3He was not considering the enemy as an adviser, but the facts themselves: the Rhine was close at hand; the death of Ariovistus and our previous victories caused the Germans great pain.

SECTION 5.29.4Gaul was burning with resentment at the many humiliations it had suffered in being brought under the rule of the Roman people, with its former military glory extinguished.

SECTION 5.29.5Finally, who could persuade himself that Ambiorix had adopted such a plan without reliable information?

SECTION 5.29.6His own proposal was safe under either possibility. If there were no greater danger, they would reach the nearest legion without any risk; but if all Gaul were acting in concert 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 offer? Even if it involved no immediate danger, they would certainly have to fear starvation during a prolonged siege.

CHAPTER 5.30

SECTION 5.30.1After the arguments had been presented on both sides, and Cotta and the senior centurions continued to resist fiercely, Sabinus said, “Have it your way, if that is what you want,” speaking loudly enough for a large part of the soldiers to hear.

SECTION 5.30.2“I am not the man among you who is most terrified by the danger of death,” he said. “These men will understand. If any serious disaster occurs, they will demand an accounting from you,

SECTION 5.30.3because, 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 others, instead of being cast off and isolated far from everyone else to die by the sword or from starvation.”

CHAPTER 5.31

SECTION 5.31.1The council rose. The officers took hold of both men and begged them not to bring the situation into the greatest danger through their disagreement and stubbornness.

SECTION 5.31.2The matter was easy, whether they remained or departed, provided only that they all held and approved one opinion. In disagreement, by contrast, they could see no hope of safety. The debate continued until midnight.

SECTION 5.31.3At last Cotta yielded under the pressure. Sabinus’s proposal prevailed. It was announced that they would leave at daybreak.

SECTION 5.31.4The rest of the night was spent awake, as every soldier looked over his possessions to see what he could carry with him and what equipment from the winter quarters he would be forced to leave behind.

SECTION 5.31.5Every reason was devised to show that they could not remain without danger, while the danger was increased by the soldiers’ exhaustion and lack of sleep.

SECTION 5.31.6At daybreak they left the camp as though they were convinced that the advice had come not from an enemy but from their closest friend, Ambiorix. They marched in an extremely long column with an enormous amount of baggage.

CHAPTER 5.32

SECTION 5.32.1But after the enemy realized from the nighttime noise and wakefulness that the Romans intended to depart, they divided into two groups and set an ambush in the woods at a suitable, concealed place 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 valley, they suddenly revealed themselves on both sides of it and began pressing the rear of the column, preventing the front from climbing out, and engaging our men on ground that was extremely unfavorable to them.

CHAPTER 5.33

SECTION 5.33.1Only then did Titurius, who had foreseen nothing, become agitated, run about, and arrange the cohorts—and even these actions he performed timidly and in a way that made him appear at a complete loss, as commonly happens to those who are forced to make their plans in the midst of the action itself.

SECTION 5.33.2Cotta, however, who had considered that these things might happen on the march and for that reason had not advocated departure, failed in no duty to their common safety. In addressing and encouraging the soldiers he performed the duties of a commander, and in battle those of a soldier.

SECTION 5.33.3Because the length of the column made it difficult for them personally to be everywhere and determine what had to be done at each point, they ordered an announcement that the soldiers should abandon the baggage and form a circle.

SECTION 5.33.4Although this decision cannot be criticized in such circumstances, it nevertheless had unfortunate consequences.

SECTION 5.33.5It both reduced the confidence of our soldiers and made the enemy more eager to fight, since it appeared that the measure had not been taken without the greatest fear and desperation. In addition, what was inevitable happened: soldiers everywhere left their standards, hurried to the baggage to seek out and seize whatever each of them held most dear, and filled the whole place with shouting and weeping.

CHAPTER 5.34

SECTION 5.34.1But the barbarians knew what to do. Their commanders ordered it proclaimed throughout the battle line that no one was to leave his position: the plunder belonged to them, and whatever the Romans abandoned was being reserved for them. They should therefore consider that everything depended on victory.

SECTION 5.34.2The two sides were equal in courage and eagerness to fight. Although our men were being abandoned by their commander and by fortune, they nevertheless placed all their hope of safety in courage, and whenever any cohort charged forward, a large number of the enemy fell in that sector.

SECTION 5.34.3Noticing this, Ambiorix ordered it proclaimed that his men should throw their weapons from a distance and not come closer, and that they should give way in whatever direction the Romans charged, since their light equipment and daily training would keep them from suffering any harm.

SECTION 5.34.4When the Romans withdrew again to their standards, they were to pursue them.

CHAPTER 5.35

SECTION 5.35.1The enemy followed this instruction with the greatest care. Whenever a cohort left the circle and made a charge, the enemy retreated with the utmost speed.

SECTION 5.35.2Meanwhile, that part of the circle was necessarily left unprotected and exposed to missiles on its open flank.

SECTION 5.35.3Then, when the Romans began returning to the position from which they had advanced, they were surrounded both by those who had retreated and by those who had remained nearby.

SECTION 5.35.4But if they chose to hold their position, there was no opportunity for courage, and packed closely together, they could not evade the missiles thrown by so great a multitude.

SECTION 5.35.5Nevertheless, though struggling against so many disadvantages and suffering many wounds, they continued to resist. After a large part of the day had passed, with the fighting lasting 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 had served as chief centurion the previous year, 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 greatest courage as he went to the aid of his surrounded son.

SECTION 5.35.8The legate Lucius Cotta was wounded full in the face by a sling stone while encouraging all the cohorts and ranks.

CHAPTER 5.36

SECTION 5.36.1Deeply affected by these events, Quintus Titurius saw Ambiorix in the distance encouraging his men and sent his interpreter, Gnaeus Pompeius, to ask him to spare Titurius and the soldiers.

SECTION 5.36.2When approached, Ambiorix replied that if Titurius wished to confer with him, he was free to do so. He hoped that he could persuade his people to grant what concerned the soldiers’ safety; Titurius himself would certainly not be harmed, and on this point he pledged his own word. Titurius then consulted the wounded Cotta,

SECTION 5.36.3proposing that, if Cotta approved, they should withdraw from the fighting and confer with Ambiorix together. He hoped that they could persuade Ambiorix to spare them and the soldiers. Cotta said that he would not go to an armed enemy, and he persisted in that decision.

CHAPTER 5.37

SECTION 5.37.1Sabinus ordered the military tribunes and senior centurions whom he happened to have around him to follow. When he came closer to Ambiorix, he was ordered to throw down his weapons. He obeyed and ordered his men to do the same.

SECTION 5.37.2Meanwhile, as they discussed terms, Ambiorix deliberately prolonged the conversation. Sabinus was gradually surrounded and killed.

SECTION 5.37.3Then the enemy, in their usual way, shouted out their victory, raised a howling cry, charged our men, and threw the ranks into confusion.

SECTION 5.37.4There Lucius Cotta was killed fighting, along 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 he was being overwhelmed by a great mass of the enemy, threw the eagle inside the rampart. He himself was killed while fighting with the greatest courage in front of the camp. The survivors barely held out against the attack until nightfall.

SECTION 5.37.6During the night, despairing of survival, every last one of them killed himself.

SECTION 5.37.7A few escaped from the battle and, traveling by uncertain routes through the woods, reached 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 traveled without stopping by night or day and ordered the infantry to follow him.

SECTION 5.38.2After explaining what had happened and rousing the Aduatuci, he reached the Nervii the next day and urged them not to let slip the opportunity to free themselves forever and take revenge on the Romans for the injuries they had suffered.

SECTION 5.38.3He pointed out that two legates had been killed and a large part of the army destroyed.

SECTION 5.38.4There would be no difficulty in suddenly overwhelming and destroying the legion wintering with Cicero; he declared himself ready to assist in the undertaking. With this speech he easily persuaded the Nervii.

CHAPTER 5.39

SECTION 5.39.1They therefore immediately sent messengers to the Ceutrones, Grudii, Levaci, Pleumoxii, and Geidumni, all of whom were under their rule. They gathered the largest forces they could and rushed unexpectedly to Cicero’s winter quarters, before news of Titurius’s death had yet reached him.

SECTION 5.39.2The inevitable happened to him as well: some soldiers who had gone into the woods to gather timber and materials for fortifications were intercepted by the cavalry’s sudden arrival.

SECTION 5.39.3After surrounding them, the Eburones, Nervii, Aduatuci, and all their allies and dependents began attacking the legion in great force. Our men quickly rushed to arms and mounted the rampart.

SECTION 5.39.4They barely held out that day, because the enemy placed all their hope in speed and were confident that, if they gained this victory, they would remain victorious forever.

CHAPTER 5.40

SECTION 5.40.1Cicero immediately sent letters to Caesar, offering large rewards to the messengers if they delivered them. Since every road was under blockade, all those sent were intercepted.

SECTION 5.40.2During the night, using the timber they had brought in for the fortifications, they erected about 120 towers with incredible speed. Whatever appeared to be lacking in the defensive works was completed.

SECTION 5.40.3The next day the enemy assembled much larger forces, attacked the camp, and filled in the ditch. Our men resisted in the same way as the day before.

SECTION 5.40.4The same thing continued to happen on each of the following days.

SECTION 5.40.5No part of the night was left free from work; neither the sick nor the wounded were given any chance to rest.

SECTION 5.40.6Everything needed to meet the next day’s attack was prepared at night. Large numbers of stakes were sharpened and charred at the tips, and a great quantity of heavy fortification javelins was made; the towers were fitted with platforms, and battlements and breastworks were woven from wicker.

SECTION 5.40.7Cicero himself, though in extremely poor health, did not reserve even the nighttime for his own rest, so that the soldiers had to gather around him of their own accord and insist that he spare himself.

CHAPTER 5.41

SECTION 5.41.1Then the leaders and chiefs of the Nervii who had some basis for speaking with Cicero and some claim to his friendship said that they wished to confer with him.

SECTION 5.41.2When permission was granted, they repeated the same claims that Ambiorix had made to Titurius: all Gaul was under arms;

SECTION 5.41.3the Germans had crossed the Rhine; and Caesar’s winter quarters and those of the other commanders were under attack.

SECTION 5.41.4They also reported Sabinus’s death and produced Ambiorix as proof of the truth of their statement.

SECTION 5.41.5They said the Romans were mistaken if they expected any help from men who had no confidence in their own position. Nevertheless, they claimed that their attitude toward Cicero and the Roman people was such that they objected only to the winter quarters and did not want this practice to become permanent:

SECTION 5.41.6the Romans might, with their permission, leave their winter quarters unharmed and set out without fear in whatever direction they wished.

SECTION 5.41.7Cicero gave only one answer to these proposals: 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 could use him as an intermediary and send envoys to Caesar; he hoped that, in view of Caesar’s sense of 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 nine-foot rampart and a fifteen-foot ditch.

SECTION 5.42.2They had learned these methods from us through their experience in previous years, and they were also instructed by some prisoners they held from our army.

SECTION 5.42.3But because they had no supply of iron tools suitable for this purpose, they had to cut out the turf with their swords and remove the earth with their hands and cloaks.

SECTION 5.42.4This very fact showed how great their numbers were, for in less than three hours they completed a fortification fifteen thousand feet in circumference,

SECTION 5.42.5and on the following days they began to prepare and construct towers as high as the rampart, as well as grappling hooks and covered assault sheds, which the same prisoners had taught them to make.

CHAPTER 5.43

SECTION 5.43.1On the seventh day of the attack, when a very strong wind arose, they began slinging red-hot bullets of molded clay and throwing heated javelins onto 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 spread the flames throughout the camp.

SECTION 5.43.3With tremendous shouting, as though victory were already won and assured, the enemy began moving forward their towers and covered assault sheds and climbing the rampart with ladders.

SECTION 5.43.4But the soldiers showed such courage and such presence of mind that, although they were scorched by flames on every side, were overwhelmed by an enormous quantity of missiles, and understood that all their baggage and every possession they owned were burning, not only did no one leave the rampart to move away, but hardly anyone even looked back; instead, they all fought then with the utmost determination and bravery.

SECTION 5.43.5This was by far the hardest day for our men. Nevertheless, its outcome was that on that day the greatest number of the enemy were wounded and killed, because they had packed themselves together directly beneath the rampart, and those in the rear gave those in front no room to withdraw.

SECTION 5.43.6When the flames had subsided a little and a tower had been pushed forward at one point until it touched the rampart, the centurions of the third cohort withdrew from the position where they were standing and removed all their men. Then, with gestures and shouts, they began inviting the enemy to come in if they wished; but not one of them dared advance.

SECTION 5.43.7Then stones were hurled from every direction and drove them off, and the tower was set on fire.

CHAPTER 5.44

SECTION 5.44.1In that legion there were two exceptionally brave centurions, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, who were approaching promotion to the highest ranks.

SECTION 5.44.2They were constantly disputing between themselves over which should take precedence, and every year they competed for the highest positions with intense personal rivalry.

SECTION 5.44.3While the fighting at the fortifications was at its fiercest, Pullo said, “Why are you hesitating, Vorenus? What opportunity are you waiting for to prove your courage?

SECTION 5.44.4This day will decide our dispute.” Having said this, he went outside the fortifications and charged into the point where the enemy’s line appeared most densely packed.

SECTION 5.44.5Vorenus also did not remain behind the rampart but, fearing what everyone would think of him, followed close behind.

SECTION 5.44.6When he was a short distance away, Pullo threw his heavy javelin at the enemy and pierced one man who was running forward from the crowd. After the man was struck and killed, the enemy covered his body with their shields, all hurled missiles at Pullo, and gave him no opportunity to retreat.

SECTION 5.44.7Pullo’s shield was pierced, and a light javelin lodged in his sword belt.

SECTION 5.44.8This mishap twisted his scabbard aside and obstructed his right hand as he tried to draw his sword, and the enemy surrounded him while he was entangled.

SECTION 5.44.9His rival Vorenus came to his aid and assisted him in his difficulty.

SECTION 5.44.10The entire crowd immediately turned away from Pullo against Vorenus,

SECTION 5.44.11because they thought Pullo had been killed by the javelin. Vorenus fought them at close quarters with his sword, killed one, and drove the others back a short distance.

SECTION 5.44.12But as he pressed forward too eagerly, he stumbled down into a lower place 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 inside the fortifications, covered with the highest distinction.

SECTION 5.44.14Thus fortune treated each of them in their rivalry and contest in such a way that each rival saved and assisted the other, and it was impossible to decide which of the two appeared superior in courage.

CHAPTER 5.45

SECTION 5.45.1As the attack became more difficult and severe day by day—and especially since a large proportion of the soldiers had been disabled by wounds, leaving only a small number of defenders—letters and messengers were sent to Caesar more and more frequently. Some of the messengers were caught and tortured to death in full view of our soldiers.

SECTION 5.45.2Inside the camp was a Nervian named Vertico, a man of distinguished birth, who at the beginning of the siege had fled to Cicero for protection and had demonstrated his loyalty to him.

SECTION 5.45.3By promising one of his slaves freedom and great rewards, he persuaded him to carry a letter to Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.4The slave carried it out tied to a javelin and, moving among the Gauls as one Gaul among others without arousing any suspicion, reached Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.5From him Caesar learned of the danger facing Cicero and the legion.

CHAPTER 5.46

SECTION 5.46.1On 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 him to march with his legion at midnight and come to him quickly.

SECTION 5.46.3Crassus set out with the messenger. Caesar sent another messenger to his lieutenant Gaius Fabius, instructing him to bring his legion into the territory of the Atrebates, through which Caesar knew he would have to march.

SECTION 5.46.4He wrote to Labienus to come with his legion to the borders of the Nervii if he could do so without harming the public interest. He did not think he should wait for the rest of the army because it was somewhat farther away, and he assembled about four hundred cavalrymen from the nearest winter quarters.

CHAPTER 5.47

SECTION 5.47.1At about the third hour, Caesar was informed by his advance scouts of Crassus’s approach, and that day he 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 given by the Gallic 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, delayed little and met Caesar on the march with his legion.

SECTION 5.47.4Labienus had learned of Sabinus’s death and the massacre of the cohorts, and all the forces of the Treveri had come against him. He feared that if he departed from his winter quarters in a way that resembled flight, he would be unable to withstand an enemy attack, especially since he knew that their recent victory had made them overconfident. He therefore sent a letter back to Caesar explaining how dangerous it would be to lead his legion out of its winter quarters. He gave a full account of what had happened among the Eburones and informed Caesar that all the cavalry and infantry forces of the Treveri had encamped three miles from his own camp.

CHAPTER 5.48

SECTION 5.48.1Caesar approved his decision. Although his expectation of having three legions had fallen to two, he still placed the sole hope of their common safety in speed. He reached the territory of the Nervii by forced marches.

SECTION 5.48.2There he learned from prisoners what was happening at Cicero’s camp and how dangerous the situation was.

SECTION 5.48.3He then persuaded one of his Gallic cavalrymen, with the promise of great rewards, to carry a letter to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.4He sent the letter written in Greek characters so that, if it were intercepted, the enemy would not discover our plans.

SECTION 5.48.5If the cavalryman could not approach the camp, Caesar instructed him to throw a spear with the letter tied to its throwing strap 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 was afraid of the danger and, as instructed, threw the spear.

SECTION 5.48.8By chance it stuck in a tower and went unnoticed by our men for two days. On the third day a soldier spotted it, removed it, and took it to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.9After reading the letter through, Cicero read it aloud to 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 from their scouts, they abandoned the siege and hurried against Caesar with all their forces. These numbered about sixty thousand armed men.

SECTION 5.49.2Given the opportunity, Cicero once again asked the same Vertico mentioned above to provide a Gaul to carry a letter to Caesar. He warned the man to make the journey cautiously and carefully.

SECTION 5.49.3In the letter he gave a full report that the enemy had withdrawn from him and had turned their entire host against Caesar.

SECTION 5.49.4The letter was delivered to Caesar at about midnight. He informed his men of its contents and encouraged them to prepare mentally for battle.

SECTION 5.49.5At first light the next day he broke camp, and after advancing about four miles, he sighted the enemy host across a valley and stream.

SECTION 5.49.6It was extremely dangerous to fight with such a small force on unfavorable ground. Since he now knew that Cicero had been freed from the siege, he believed he could safely relax the speed of his advance.

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 for barely seven thousand men, especially since they had no baggage, he made it as cramped as possible by narrowing its streets. His purpose was to make the enemy hold him in the greatest possible contempt.

SECTION 5.49.8Meanwhile, he sent scouts in every direction to discover the most convenient route by which he could 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 positions:

SECTION 5.50.2the Gauls because they were waiting for larger forces

SECTION 5.50.3that had not yet assembled; Caesar because he hoped that by pretending to be afraid he might lure the enemy onto his own ground and fight a battle in front of his camp on this side of the valley, or, if he could not accomplish this,

SECTION 5.50.4that after reconnoitering the routes he might cross the valley and stream with less danger. At first light the enemy cavalry approached the camp and engaged our cavalry in battle.

SECTION 5.50.5Caesar deliberately ordered his cavalry to give way and withdraw into the camp. At the same time, he ordered the rampart around the camp to be raised on every side and the gates to be barricaded, and he instructed the men to rush about as much as possible while carrying out these tasks and to act as though they were afraid.

CHAPTER 5.51

SECTION 5.51.1Encouraged by all this, the enemy brought their forces across the valley and formed their battle line on unfavorable ground. When our men were even withdrawn from the rampart, they came closer and threw missiles from every direction inside the fortifications.

SECTION 5.51.2They sent heralds around and ordered them to proclaim that any Gaul or Roman who wished to come over to them before the third hour could do so without danger; after that time there would be no further opportunity.

SECTION 5.51.3They held our men in such contempt that, because the gates had been barricaded for appearance’s sake with only a single row of turf blocks and they did not think they could force their way 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, quickly putting the enemy to flight so completely that not one of them made any attempt to stand and fight. He killed a great number of them and stripped them all of their weapons.

CHAPTER 5.52

SECTION 5.52.1Caesar was afraid to pursue them farther because woods and marshes lay in the way, and he saw no opportunity to inflict even slight additional losses on them. With all his forces unharmed, he reached Cicero that same day.

SECTION 5.52.2He was astonished by the towers, covered assault sheds, and fortifications the enemy had constructed. When the legion was paraded before him, he found that not one soldier in ten remained unwounded.

SECTION 5.52.3From all these facts he judged how great the danger had been and how courageously the operation had been conducted.

SECTION 5.52.4He praised Cicero as his achievement deserved and highly commended the legion. He addressed individually the centurions and military tribunes whose exceptional courage he had learned of from Cicero’s testimony. From prisoners he obtained more definite information about the fate of Sabinus and Cotta.

SECTION 5.52.5The next day he called an assembly, presented an account of what had happened, and consoled and encouraged the soldiers.

SECTION 5.52.6He explained that the loss caused by the lieutenant’s error and recklessness should be borne with greater composure because, through the favor of the immortal gods and their own courage, the disaster had been avenged, leaving the enemy no lasting joy and themselves no prolonged grief.

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 Cicero until after the ninth hour of the day, before midnight shouting 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 decided 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 and his legion back to their winter quarters. He himself decided to winter with three legions in three separate winter camps around Samarobriva, 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 news of the disaster and Sabinus’s death reached them, nearly all the states of Gaul were deliberating about war, sending messengers and delegations in every direction, investigating what further course they should take and where the war should begin, and holding councils at night in isolated places.

SECTION 5.53.5Almost no part of the entire winter passed without causing Caesar anxiety, for he was constantly receiving some report about the plans and movements of the Gauls.

SECTION 5.53.6Among these reports, Lucius Roscius, whom Caesar 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 been no more than eight miles from his winter quarters, but that, when news arrived of Caesar’s victory, they had withdrawn so rapidly that their departure looked like a rout.

CHAPTER 5.54

SECTION 5.54.1But Caesar summoned the leading men of each state to meet with him and kept a large part of Gaul obedient, in some cases by frightening them when he warned them that he knew what was going on, and in others by encouraging them.

SECTION 5.54.2Nevertheless, the Senones, a state that was among the strongest and possessed great authority among the Gauls, made a public decision to attempt to kill Cavarinus, whom Caesar had appointed king over them. Cavarinus’s brother Moritasgus had held the kingship when Caesar arrived in Gaul, as had his ancestors. When Cavarinus discovered the plot and fled, they pursued him all the way to the borders of their territory,

SECTION 5.54.3drove him from his kingdom and home, and sent envoys to Caesar to make amends; but when Caesar ordered their entire senate to come before him, they did not obey his command.

SECTION 5.54.4Among these barbarous people, the mere fact that some leaders had been found willing to begin a war had such influence and produced such a complete change in everyone’s attitude that, apart from the Aedui and Remi, whom Caesar had always treated with special honor—the former because of their old and unbroken loyalty to the Roman people, the latter because of their recent services in the Gallic War—there was hardly a state that we did not regard with suspicion.

SECTION 5.54.5I hardly know whether this should be considered surprising. There were many other reasons, but the chief one was that these men, who were ranked above all other peoples for courage in war, deeply resented having lost so much of that reputation that they now had to submit to the commands of the Roman people.

CHAPTER 5.55

SECTION 5.55.1The Treveri and Indutiomarus, however, let no part of the entire winter pass without sending envoys across the Rhine, stirring up 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 5.55.2Nevertheless, no German state could be persuaded to cross the Rhine. They said that they had tried their luck twice, in the war of Ariovistus and during the crossing of the Tencteri, and would not test fortune again. Though disappointed in this hope, Indutiomarus nevertheless began to gather forces,

SECTION 5.55.3train them, obtain horses from neighboring peoples, and attract exiles and condemned men from all over Gaul by offering them large rewards.

SECTION 5.55.4By these measures he had already acquired such authority in Gaul that delegations came to him from every direction, publicly and privately seeking his favor and friendship.

CHAPTER 5.56

SECTION 5.56.1When he realized that people were coming to him of their own accord, that the Senones and Carnutes were being driven on by their guilty awareness of what they had done, that the Nervii and Aduatuci were preparing for war against the Romans, and that he would have no shortage of volunteers if he began to advance beyond his own territory, he summoned an armed council. By Gallic custom, this marks the beginning of a war,

SECTION 5.56.2and under their common law all adult males customarily assemble there under arms. The last of them to arrive is tortured to death in sight of the assembled crowd.

SECTION 5.56.3At this council Indutiomarus declared Cingetorix—his own son-in-law and the leader of the opposing faction, who, as stated above, had remained loyal to Caesar and had not deserted him—a public enemy, and confiscated his property.

SECTION 5.56.4After completing these measures, he announced in the council that the Senones, Carnutes, and many other Gallic states had summoned him;

SECTION 5.56.5that he would go to them through the territory of the Remi and ravage their lands; and that before doing so he would attack Labienus’s camp. He issued orders for what he wanted done.

CHAPTER 5.57

SECTION 5.57.1Because the natural position of his camp and its fortifications made it extremely secure, Labienus had no fear for either himself or his legion. Instead, he was considering how not to let any opportunity for a successful action escape him.

SECTION 5.57.2Accordingly, after learning from Cingetorix and his relatives what Indutiomarus had said in the council, he sent messengers to the neighboring states and summoned cavalry from every direction, setting a definite day for them to assemble.

SECTION 5.57.3Meanwhile, Indutiomarus roamed around beneath his camp almost every day with all his cavalry, sometimes to examine the camp’s position and sometimes to seek a conference or intimidate the Romans. Usually all his cavalrymen hurled missiles inside the rampart.

SECTION 5.57.4Labienus kept his men inside the fortifications and did everything he could to strengthen the impression that he was afraid.

CHAPTER 5.58

SECTION 5.58.1As Indutiomarus approached the camp each day with increasing contempt, Labienus admitted during a single night the cavalrymen from all the neighboring states whom he had arranged to summon. He then kept all his men inside the camp under guard with such care that there was no possible way for the matter to be reported or the news to reach the Treveri.

SECTION 5.58.2Meanwhile, following his daily custom, Indutiomarus approached the camp and spent a large part of the day there. His cavalrymen hurled missiles and, with highly insulting language, challenged our men to fight.

SECTION 5.58.3When our men made no reply, the enemy, when they thought it appropriate, withdrew toward evening, scattered and dispersed.

SECTION 5.58.4Suddenly Labienus sent all his cavalry out through two gates. He gave strict orders that, once the terrified enemy had been put to flight—which he foresaw would happen, just as it did—they must all make for Indutiomarus alone, and that no one was to wound anyone else before seeing him killed. Labienus did not want Indutiomarus to gain time to escape because of a delay caused by pursuit of the others. He offered large 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 everyone made for Indutiomarus alone, he was caught and killed at the very ford of the river, and his head was carried back to the camp. On their return, the cavalrymen pursued and killed all those they could.

SECTION 5.58.7When this became known, all the forces of the Eburones and Nervii that had assembled withdrew, and for a short time after this event Caesar found Gaul somewhat quieter.