Book 5

CHAPTER 5.1

SECTION 5.1.1In the consulship of Lucius Domitius and Appius Claudius, Caesar, on leaving winter quarters for Italy, as he was accustomed to do every year, ordered the lieutenants whom he had placed in command of the legions to see that as many ships as possible were built during the winter and that the old ones were repaired. He specified their dimensions and design.

SECTION 5.1.2To permit rapid loading and hauling ashore, he made them somewhat lower than the vessels we ordinarily use on our own sea, especially because he had learned that the frequent changes of the tides prevented the waves there from becoming very large; to carry cargo and transport large numbers of pack animals, he made them somewhat broader than those we use on other seas.

SECTION 5.1.3He ordered all these ships to be built for swift movement under oars, a purpose greatly aided by their low profile.

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

SECTION 5.1.5He himself, after completing the assizes in Cisalpine Gaul, set out for Illyricum, because he had heard that the Pirustae were ravaging the neighboring part of the province with their incursions.

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

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

SECTION 5.1.8After hearing their plea, Caesar demanded hostages and ordered them to be brought by a fixed date; unless they did so, he declared that he would wage war against their state.

SECTION 5.1.9When the hostages were brought on the appointed day, as he had ordered, he appointed arbitrators between the states to assess the damages and determine the penalty.

CHAPTER 5.2

SECTION 5.2.1After settling these matters and completing the assizes, he returned to Cisalpine Gaul and from there set out for the army.

SECTION 5.2.2When he arrived, he made a circuit of all the winter quarters and found that, despite an extreme scarcity of every material, the extraordinary zeal of the soldiers had produced about six hundred ships of the kind described above and twenty-eight warships, all fully equipped and not far from being ready for launching within a few days.

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

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

CHAPTER 5.3

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

SECTION 5.3.2In this state two men, Indutiomarus and Cingetorix, were contending with each other for supremacy;

SECTION 5.3.3one of them, as soon as Caesar’s approach with the legions became known, came to him, affirmed that he and all his followers would remain loyal and would not abandon the friendship of the Roman people, and informed him of what was taking place among the Treveri.

SECTION 5.3.4Indutiomarus, however, began gathering cavalry and infantry and preparing for war, after concealing in the Ardennes Forest those who by reason of age were unable to bear arms. This forest, immense in extent, stretches through the middle of the Treveran territory from the Rhine to the borders of the Remi.

SECTION 5.3.5But afterward, when a number of leading men of that state, influenced by their friendship with Cingetorix and alarmed by the arrival of our army, came to Caesar and began making private requests concerning their own affairs, since they could do nothing for the state, Indutiomarus, fearing that everyone would desert him, sent envoys to Caesar:

SECTION 5.3.6he had been unwilling, they said, to leave his people and come to Caesar so that he might more easily keep the state loyal, and so that, with all the nobles gone, the common people might not stray through lack of judgment;

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

CHAPTER 5.4

SECTION 5.4.1Although Caesar understood why this was being said and what circumstance was deterring Indutiomarus from his original plan, nevertheless, to avoid being forced to spend the summer among the Treveri when all preparations had been made for the war in Britain, he ordered Indutiomarus to come to him with two hundred hostages.

SECTION 5.4.2When these were brought, including his son and all his relatives, whom Caesar had summoned by name, Caesar reassured Indutiomarus and urged him to remain loyal;

SECTION 5.4.3nevertheless, he summoned the leading men of the Treveri to him and reconciled each of them individually to Cingetorix. He understood that Cingetorix’s services deserved this treatment from him, and he also considered it highly important that the authority of a man whose exceptional devotion to him he had clearly perceived should carry the greatest possible weight among his own people.

SECTION 5.4.4Indutiomarus bitterly resented this action, since it diminished his influence among his people; and though he had already been hostile to us, this indignity inflamed his resentment far more fiercely.

CHAPTER 5.5

SECTION 5.5.1After settling these matters, Caesar reached Portus Itius with the legions.

SECTION 5.5.2There he learned that sixty ships built in the territory of the Meldi had been driven back by a storm, had been unable to hold their course, and had returned to the place from which they had departed. He found the rest ready to sail and fully equipped with everything necessary.

SECTION 5.5.3The cavalry of all Gaul, four thousand strong, assembled there as well, together with the leading men from every state.

SECTION 5.5.4Of these Caesar had decided to leave in Gaul only a very few whose loyalty to him he had proved, and to take the rest with him as hostages, because he feared a rising in Gaul during his absence.

CHAPTER 5.6

SECTION 5.6.1Among the others was the Aeduan Dumnorix, whom we have mentioned before. Caesar had particularly resolved to take him along, because he knew him to be eager for revolution, eager for power, bold in spirit, and a man of great authority among the Gauls.

SECTION 5.6.2Added to this was the fact that Dumnorix had declared in the council of the Aedui that Caesar was offering him the kingship of the state. The Aedui deeply resented this statement, yet did not dare send envoys to Caesar either to reject the proposal or to entreat him not to carry it out.

SECTION 5.6.3Caesar had learned of the matter from his personal guests. At first Dumnorix strove with every entreaty to be left in Gaul, partly because, being unaccustomed to sailing, he feared the sea, and partly because he said that religious scruples prevented him.

SECTION 5.6.4When he saw that his request was being firmly refused and that all hope of obtaining it had been taken away, he began soliciting the leading men of Gaul, taking them aside one by one and urging them to remain on the continent;

SECTION 5.6.5he tried to frighten them, saying that it was not without reason that Gaul was being stripped of all her nobility; this was Caesar’s design—to carry over to Britain and kill there all those whom he was afraid to put to death before the eyes of Gaul;

SECTION 5.6.6he pledged his word to the others and demanded an oath that they would act by common agreement in whatever manner they judged best for the interests of Gaul. These activities were reported to Caesar by a number of men.

CHAPTER 5.7

SECTION 5.7.1When Caesar learned of this, because he attached so much importance to the standing of the Aeduan state, he determined that Dumnorix must be restrained and deterred by whatever means he could employ;

SECTION 5.7.2and since he saw that the man’s madness was going too far, he had to take precautions lest Dumnorix be able to harm either him or the republic. He therefore remained in that place for about twenty-five days,

SECTION 5.7.3because the northwest wind, which commonly blows in that region for a large part of every season, was preventing the voyage. During this time he took care to keep Dumnorix loyal, while nevertheless learning of all his designs.

SECTION 5.7.4At last, finding favorable weather, he ordered the soldiers and cavalry to embark.

SECTION 5.7.5But while everyone’s attention was occupied, Dumnorix, without Caesar’s knowledge, began leaving the camp for home with the Aeduan cavalry.

SECTION 5.7.6When this was reported, Caesar suspended the departure, set every other matter aside, and sent a large part of the cavalry in pursuit, with orders to bring him back;

SECTION 5.7.7if he offered resistance and refused to obey, Caesar ordered them to kill him, judging that a man who had disregarded his authority while he was present would do nothing rational during his absence.

SECTION 5.7.8For when Dumnorix was ordered to return, he began to resist, defend himself by force, and appeal to the loyalty of his followers, repeatedly shouting that he was a free man and belonged to a free state.

SECTION 5.7.9The cavalrymen, as they had been ordered, surrounded the man and killed him; all the Aeduan horsemen then returned to Caesar.

CHAPTER 5.8

SECTION 5.8.1After these events, Caesar left Labienus on the continent with three legions and two thousand cavalry to guard the ports, provide for the grain supply, learn what was happening in Gaul, and adopt whatever measures circumstances and events required.

SECTION 5.8.2He himself, with five legions and a number of cavalry equal to that which he had left on the continent, set sail at sunset. Carried forward by a gentle southwest wind, he failed to hold his course when the wind died about midnight; borne too far by the tide, at daybreak he saw Britain lying behind him on the left.

SECTION 5.8.3Then, following the turn of the tide, he again strained at the oars to reach that part of the island where he had learned the preceding summer that a landing could best be made.

SECTION 5.8.4In this the soldiers’ courage was especially worthy of praise, for in transports and heavily laden vessels, without any respite from the labor of rowing, they matched the speed of the warships.

SECTION 5.8.5All the ships reached Britain at about noon, and no enemy was seen at that place;

SECTION 5.8.6but, as Caesar afterward learned from prisoners, although large forces had assembled there, they had been terrified by the multitude of ships—more than eight hundred appearing at one time when those from the previous year and the private vessels each man had built for his own convenience were included—and had withdrawn from the shore and concealed themselves on the higher ground.

CHAPTER 5.9

SECTION 5.9.1Caesar disembarked the army and selected a suitable site for camp. When he learned from prisoners where the enemy’s forces had taken position, he left ten cohorts and three hundred cavalry by the sea to guard the ships and, during the third watch, marched against the enemy. He felt less concern for the ships because he was leaving them moored at anchor on a soft, open shore,

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

SECTION 5.9.3They advanced with cavalry and chariots to the river and, from the higher ground, began trying to bar our advance and engaging us in battle.

SECTION 5.9.4Driven back by our cavalry, they concealed themselves in the woods, having found a position exceptionally well fortified both by nature and by human labor, which they appeared to have prepared earlier for a war among themselves;

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

SECTION 5.9.6They themselves fought from the woods in scattered groups and prevented our men from entering the fortifications.

SECTION 5.9.7But the soldiers of the Seventh Legion formed a tortoise, raised an earthwork against the fortifications, captured the position, and drove them from the woods, suffering only a few wounds.

SECTION 5.9.8Caesar, however, forbade them to pursue the fugitives too far, both because he did not know the nature of the terrain and because, with a large part of the day already spent, he wished to leave time for fortifying the camp.

CHAPTER 5.10

SECTION 5.10.1Early the following day he sent the infantry and cavalry out in three divisions to pursue those who had fled.

SECTION 5.10.2After they had advanced some distance, when the rear of the column was still in sight, horsemen came to Caesar from Quintus Atrius to report that a violent storm had arisen the previous night and that almost all the ships had been damaged and cast upon the shore, since neither anchors nor cables had held fast, nor had the sailors and helmsmen been able to withstand the force of the tempest;

SECTION 5.10.3and thus the collision of the ships had caused heavy damage.

CHAPTER 5.11

SECTION 5.11.1On learning this, Caesar ordered the legions and cavalry to be recalled and to halt on the march; he himself returned to the ships.

SECTION 5.11.2He saw with his own eyes almost exactly what he had learned from the messengers and dispatches: about forty ships had been lost, while the rest appeared capable of repair, though only with great difficulty.

SECTION 5.11.3He therefore selected craftsmen from the legions and ordered others to be summoned from the mainland;

SECTION 5.11.4he wrote to Labienus instructing him to build as many ships as possible with the legions under his command.

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

SECTION 5.11.6He spent about ten days on these operations, without suspending the soldiers’ labor even during the night.

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

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

SECTION 5.11.9In former times he had been continually at war with the other states; but the Britons, alarmed by our arrival, had placed him in command of the entire war and of all their forces.

CHAPTER 5.12

SECTION 5.12.1The interior of Britain is inhabited by people who, according to their own tradition, were born on the island;

SECTION 5.12.2the coastal region, by those who crossed over from Belgic territory for the sake of plunder and warfare—all of whom are called, for the most part, by the names of the states from which they sprang and from which they came there—and who, after making war, remained there and began to cultivate the land.

SECTION 5.12.3The population is immense, the farmsteads exceedingly numerous and generally like those of Gaul, and the number of cattle is great.

SECTION 5.12.4They use either bronze, or gold coins, or iron bars adjusted to a fixed weight as currency.

SECTION 5.12.5Tin is found there in the inland regions and iron along the coast, though only in small quantities; the bronze they use is imported. Timber of every kind is found as in Gaul, except beech and fir.

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

CHAPTER 5.13

SECTION 5.13.1The island is triangular by nature, and one of its sides faces Gaul. Of the two corners of this side, the one by Kent, where almost all ships from Gaul put in, faces east; the lower one faces south. This side extends for about five hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.2The second side slopes toward Spain and the west; on this side lies Ireland, believed to be half the size of Britain, though the crossing to it is equal in distance to that from Gaul to Britain.

SECTION 5.13.3Midway on this passage is an island called Mona; in addition, several smaller islands are believed to lie offshore, and some writers have recorded that at the winter solstice night lasts there for thirty consecutive days.

SECTION 5.13.4We could discover nothing about this from our inquiries, except that, by exact measurements with a water clock, we observed that the nights were shorter than on the mainland.

SECTION 5.13.5The length of this side, according to their reckoning, is seven hundred miles.

SECTION 5.13.6The third side faces north; no land lies opposite it, but the corner of this side points chiefly toward Germany. It is believed to extend eight hundred miles in length.

SECTION 5.13.7Thus the whole island measures two thousand miles in circumference.

CHAPTER 5.14

SECTION 5.14.1Of all these peoples, by far the most civilized are those who inhabit Kent, a region lying wholly along the coast, and their customs differ little from those of the Gauls.

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

SECTION 5.14.3they wear their hair long and shave every part of the body except the head and upper lip.

SECTION 5.14.4Groups of ten or twelve men have wives in common, especially brothers with brothers and fathers with sons; but the children born of these unions are regarded as belonging to the man to whom each woman was first given as a virgin.

CHAPTER 5.15

SECTION 5.15.1The enemy’s cavalry and charioteers fought fiercely with our cavalry along the line of march; nevertheless, our men gained the advantage everywhere and drove them into the woods and hills.

SECTION 5.15.2But after killing a number of them, our men pursued too eagerly and lost some of their own.

SECTION 5.15.3After an interval, however, while our men were off their guard and occupied in fortifying the camp, the enemy suddenly burst from the woods, charged those who had been posted on guard before the camp,

SECTION 5.15.4and fought fiercely. Caesar sent two cohorts to their support, the leading cohorts of two legions; but though these had taken position with only a very narrow space between them, the enemy, while our men were dismayed by this unfamiliar manner of fighting, dashed through their midst with the greatest daring and withdrew safely.

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

CHAPTER 5.16

SECTION 5.16.1Throughout this entire engagement, fought before the eyes of everyone and in front of the camp, it became clear that the weight of our men’s armor made them less suited to fight an enemy of this kind, since they could neither pursue them when they retreated nor dared leave the standards;

SECTION 5.16.2the cavalry, meanwhile, fought at great peril, because the enemy often retreated deliberately and, after drawing our horsemen a short distance away from the legions, leaped down from their chariots and fought on foot on unequal terms.

SECTION 5.16.3The nature of the cavalry action, moreover, exposed both those who retreated and those who pursued to equal and identical danger.

SECTION 5.16.4Added to this was the fact that they never fought in a close mass, but in scattered groups with wide intervals between them, and had detachments posted in reserve; each group relieved another in succession, and fresh, unwearied men took the place of those who were exhausted.

CHAPTER 5.17

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

SECTION 5.17.2But at noon, when Caesar had sent three legions and all the cavalry under the legate Gaius Trebonius to forage, they suddenly swept down upon the foragers from every quarter, pressing so close that they did not draw away from the standards and legions.

SECTION 5.17.3Our men charged them fiercely and drove them back, never ceasing their pursuit, until the cavalry, confident of support when they saw the legions behind them,

SECTION 5.17.4drove the enemy headlong and, after killing a great number of them, gave them no opportunity to rally, make a stand, or leap down from their chariots.

SECTION 5.17.5Immediately after this rout, the auxiliary forces that had assembled from every quarter dispersed, and from that time onward the enemy never again opposed us with their full strength.

CHAPTER 5.18

SECTION 5.18.1Having learned their plan, Caesar led his army to the River Thames, into the territory of Cassivellaunus. This river can be crossed on foot at only one place, and even there only with difficulty.

SECTION 5.18.2When he arrived, he observed that large enemy forces were drawn up on the opposite bank of the river;

SECTION 5.18.3the bank was fortified with sharp stakes planted along it, and stakes of the same kind had been driven beneath the water and were concealed by the river.

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

SECTION 5.18.5But the soldiers advanced with such speed and force, though only their heads rose above the water, that the enemy could not withstand the charge of the legions and cavalry, but abandoned the banks and took to flight.

CHAPTER 5.19

SECTION 5.19.1Cassivellaunus, as we have explained above, abandoned all hope of a pitched struggle, dismissed the greater part of his forces, and retained about four thousand charioteers. He watched our line of march, withdrew a short distance from the road, and concealed himself in rough and wooded country. In those districts through which he had learned that we intended to march, he drove the cattle and inhabitants from the fields into the woods; and,

SECTION 5.19.2whenever our cavalry ranged more freely into the countryside for the sake of plunder and devastation, he sent his charioteers out of the woods by every road and path. They engaged our horsemen at great risk to our men and, by inspiring this fear, prevented them from roaming farther afield.

SECTION 5.19.3The only course left was for Caesar not to permit his men to move any great distance from the column of legions, and for the enemy to suffer no more harm from the devastation of their fields and the burning of their property than the legionaries could inflict through their own labor and the extent of their march.

CHAPTER 5.20

SECTION 5.20.1Meanwhile the Trinobantes, nearly the strongest state in that region, sent envoys to Caesar and promised to surrender to him and obey his commands. From this state the young Mandubracius, placing himself under Caesar’s protection, had come to him on the mainland of Gaul. Mandubracius’s father had held the kingship in that state and had been killed by Cassivellaunus, while Mandubracius himself had escaped death by flight.

SECTION 5.20.2They asked Caesar to protect Mandubracius from violence at the hands of Cassivellaunus and to send him back to their state to govern it and hold supreme authority.

SECTION 5.20.3Caesar demanded forty hostages and grain for the army, and sent Mandubracius to them.

SECTION 5.20.4They swiftly fulfilled his commands, sending the required number of hostages and the grain.

CHAPTER 5.21

SECTION 5.21.1After the Trinobantes had been taken under his protection and safeguarded from every injury by the soldiers, the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, and Cassi sent embassies and surrendered to Caesar.

SECTION 5.21.2From them he learned that Cassivellaunus’s stronghold lay not far from that place, protected by woods and marshes, and that a considerable number of people and cattle had gathered there.

SECTION 5.21.3The Britons call it a stronghold when they fortify a dense woodland with rampart and ditch, a place where they are accustomed to assemble in order to escape hostile incursions.

SECTION 5.21.4He marched there with the legions and found the place excellently fortified both by nature and by human labor; nevertheless, he undertook to assault it from two sides.

SECTION 5.21.5The enemy held their ground for a short time, but could not withstand the assault of our soldiers and rushed out from another side of the stronghold.

SECTION 5.21.6A great number of cattle were found there, and many of the enemy were overtaken and killed in their flight.

CHAPTER 5.22

SECTION 5.22.1While these operations were taking place in that region, Cassivellaunus sent messengers to Kent, which, as we explained above, lies by the sea. Four kings ruled those districts—Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segovax—and he ordered them to collect all their forces and make a sudden assault upon the naval camp.

SECTION 5.22.2When they came to the camp, our men made a sortie, killed many of them, captured even the distinguished leader Lugotorix, and brought their own men back unharmed.

SECTION 5.22.3When news of this battle reached Cassivellaunus, after he had suffered so many reverses and seen his territory laid waste, and especially because he was deeply shaken by the defection of the states, he sent envoys through Commius the Atrebatian to Caesar to negotiate his surrender.

SECTION 5.22.4Caesar had decided to winter on the mainland because of the sudden disturbances in Gaul. Since little of the summer remained and he understood that the negotiations could easily be drawn out, he demanded hostages and fixed the annual tribute Britain was to pay to the Roman people;

SECTION 5.22.5he strictly commanded Cassivellaunus not to harm Mandubracius or the Trinobantes.

CHAPTER 5.23

SECTION 5.23.1After receiving the hostages, Caesar led the army back to the sea and found the ships repaired.

SECTION 5.23.2When they had been launched, because he had a great number of prisoners and some of the ships had been lost in the storm, he decided to carry the army back in two crossings.

SECTION 5.23.3And so it happened that, despite so many ships and so many voyages, not a single ship carrying soldiers was lost, either that year

SECTION 5.23.4or the year before; but of those sent back empty to him from the mainland, both after landing the soldiers of the first crossing and among the sixty that Labienus had afterward caused to be built, very few reached their destination, while nearly all the rest were driven back.

SECTION 5.23.5After Caesar had waited for them in vain for some time, he feared that the season of the year would prevent him from sailing,

SECTION 5.23.6since the equinox was approaching. He therefore had no choice but to crowd the soldiers more closely aboard; and when a perfect calm came on, he set sail at the beginning of the second watch, reached land at daybreak, and brought every ship safely into port.

CHAPTER 5.24

SECTION 5.24.1After the ships had been hauled ashore and a council of the Gauls held at Samarobriva, Caesar was compelled, because the grain crop in Gaul that year had been scantier on account of drought, to quarter his army for the winter differently from previous years and to distribute the legions among a larger number of states.

SECTION 5.24.2Of these, he assigned one legion to the legate Gaius Fabius to lead into the territory of the Morini, another to Quintus Cicero among the Nervii, and a third to Lucius Roscius among the Esubii; he ordered a fourth to winter among the Remi with Titus Labienus, on the frontier of the Treveri. He stationed three among the Belgae,

SECTION 5.24.3placing the quaestor Marcus Crassus and the legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in command of them.

SECTION 5.24.4He sent one legion, which he had most recently raised beyond the Po, and five cohorts into the territory of the Eburones, the greater part of whom dwell between the Meuse and the Rhine and were under the rule of Ambiorix and Catuvolcus.

SECTION 5.24.5He ordered the legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta to command these troops.

SECTION 5.24.6By distributing the legions in this manner, he believed that he could most easily remedy the shortage of grain.

SECTION 5.24.7Nevertheless, the winter quarters of all these legions, except the one he had assigned to Lucius Roscius to lead into a thoroughly pacified and tranquil region, lay within a radius of one hundred miles.

SECTION 5.24.8Meanwhile Caesar himself decided to remain in Gaul until he learned that the legions had been stationed and their winter quarters fortified.

CHAPTER 5.25

SECTION 5.25.1Among the Carnutes there was a man of the highest birth named Tasgetius, whose ancestors had held the kingship in their state.

SECTION 5.25.2In recognition of his courage and goodwill toward Caesar, whose exceptional services Caesar had employed in all his wars, Caesar had restored him to the position of his ancestors.

SECTION 5.25.3He was now in the third year of his reign when his enemies murdered him, with many men of his state openly supporting the deed.

SECTION 5.25.4The matter was reported to Caesar. Fearing, because many men were implicated, that their influence might cause the state to revolt, he ordered Lucius Plancus to march rapidly with his legion from Belgic territory into the country of the Carnutes and winter there, and to arrest and send to him those whom he learned to have been responsible for Tasgetius’s murder.

SECTION 5.25.5Meanwhile, all the legates and the quaestor to whom he had entrusted the legions informed him that they had reached their winter quarters and had fortified their positions.

CHAPTER 5.26

SECTION 5.26.1About fifteen days after the troops had entered winter quarters, a sudden uprising and revolt began under Ambiorix and Catuvolcus.

SECTION 5.26.2Although they had met Sabinus and Cotta at the borders of their kingdom and had brought grain into the winter quarters, they were incited by messages from Indutiomarus of the Treveri, roused their people, suddenly overpowered the soldiers who were gathering wood, and came with a large force to attack the camp.

SECTION 5.26.3Our men quickly took up arms and mounted the rampart; and when, by sending out the Spanish cavalry on one side, they gained the advantage in the cavalry engagement, the enemy despaired of success and withdrew their men from the attack.

SECTION 5.26.4Then, in their customary manner, they shouted that one of our men should come forward for a conference: they had something to say concerning the common interest, and hoped that what they had to offer might lessen the points at issue.

CHAPTER 5.27

SECTION 5.27.1Gaius Arpineius, a Roman knight and friend of Quintus Titurius, and a certain Quintus Junius from Spain, who had previously been accustomed to visit Ambiorix on Caesar’s missions, were sent to confer with them. To these men Ambiorix spoke as follows:

SECTION 5.27.2He acknowledged that he owed Caesar a very great debt for the benefits Caesar had conferred upon him: through Caesar’s intervention he had been freed from the tribute he had been accustomed to pay to the Aduatuci, his neighbors; and Caesar had restored to him both his son and his brother’s son, whom the Aduatuci, after receiving them as hostages, had kept among themselves in slavery and in chains.

SECTION 5.27.3As for his attack upon the camp, he had acted neither upon his own judgment nor of his own free will, but under compulsion from his people; and his authority was of such a kind that the multitude had no less power over him than he himself had over the multitude.

SECTION 5.27.4The reason his state had gone to war was that it had been unable to resist the sudden conspiracy of the Gauls. He could readily prove this from his own humble position, for he was not so inexperienced in affairs as to trust that the Roman people could be defeated by his forces.

SECTION 5.27.5But this was the common design of Gaul: the present day had been appointed for attacks upon all Caesar’s winter quarters, so that no legion could come to the assistance of another.

SECTION 5.27.6It had not been easy for Gauls to refuse Gauls, especially when the design appeared to have been undertaken for the recovery of their common liberty.

SECTION 5.27.7Since he had now satisfied their claims upon his loyalty, he was mindful of the duty he owed in return for Caesar’s benefits: in the name of their bond of hospitality, he warned and implored Titurius to provide for his own safety and that of his soldiers.

SECTION 5.27.8A large force of hired Germans had crossed the Rhine and would arrive in two days.

SECTION 5.27.9It was for the Romans themselves to decide whether, before the neighboring peoples learned of it, they wished to lead their soldiers out of winter quarters and take them either to Cicero or to Labienus, one of whom was about fifty miles away, the other a little farther.

SECTION 5.27.10This much he promised and confirmed by oath: he would grant them safe passage through his territory.

SECTION 5.27.11In doing so, he would both serve his own state, which would be relieved of the winter quarters, and repay Caesar’s kindness for the benefits he had conferred. Having delivered this speech, Ambiorix departed.

CHAPTER 5.28

SECTION 5.28.1Arpineius and Junius reported to the legates what they had heard. Though deeply disturbed by the sudden turn of events, the legates judged that, even if the statements came from an enemy, they should not be disregarded. They were especially troubled by the fact that it was scarcely credible that the obscure and insignificant state of the Eburones would have dared on its own initiative to make war upon the Roman people.

SECTION 5.28.2They therefore referred the matter to a council, and a great dispute arose among them.

SECTION 5.28.3Lucius Aurunculeius, several military tribunes, and the centurions of the senior ranks believed that nothing should be done rashly and that they should not leave winter quarters without Caesar’s orders. They pointed out that forces of any size, even large bodies of Germans, could be held off from fortified winter quarters. The facts themselves bore witness to this, since they had withstood the enemy’s first assault with the greatest courage and had inflicted many wounds besides. They were not pressed for provisions; meanwhile, relief would arrive both from the nearest winter quarters and from Caesar. Finally, what could be more frivolous or more shameful than to take counsel on matters of the highest importance at an enemy’s prompting?

CHAPTER 5.29

SECTION 5.29.1Titurius, on the other hand, kept shouting that they would act too late once larger forces of the enemy had assembled with the Germans added to them, or once some disaster had been suffered in the nearest winter quarters. The opportunity for deliberation was brief. He believed that Caesar had departed for Italy.

SECTION 5.29.2Otherwise, the Carnutes would never have formed their plan to kill Tasgetius, nor, if Caesar were present, would the Eburones have come against the camp with such contempt for us.

SECTION 5.29.3He was looking not to the enemy as an adviser, but to the facts: the Rhine was close at hand; the death of Ariovistus and our previous victories caused the Germans bitter resentment.

SECTION 5.29.4Gaul, reduced beneath the dominion of the Roman people after suffering so many humiliations and seeing its former military glory extinguished, was ablaze with anger.

SECTION 5.29.5Finally, who could persuade himself that Ambiorix would have resorted to such a plan without certain knowledge of the facts?

SECTION 5.29.6His own proposal was safe in either event: if nothing very serious was afoot, they would reach the nearest legion without any danger; but if all Gaul were in league with the Germans, their only hope of safety lay in speed.

SECTION 5.29.7What outcome could Cotta’s plan, and that of those who disagreed with him, possibly have? Even if it held no immediate danger, they must certainly fear starvation in a protracted siege.

CHAPTER 5.30

SECTION 5.30.1After these arguments had been advanced on both sides, and while Cotta and the senior centurions continued to resist vehemently, Sabinus said, “Have it your way, if that is what you wish,” speaking in a louder voice so that a large part of the soldiers could hear him.

SECTION 5.30.2“I am not the man among you,” he said, “who is most terrified by the danger of death. These men will understand; if anything more serious happens, they will demand an accounting from you,

SECTION 5.30.3when, if you allowed it, they could join the nearest winter quarters the day after tomorrow and face the common fortunes of war together with the rest, instead of being cast off and banished far from their comrades to perish either by the sword or by starvation.”

CHAPTER 5.31

SECTION 5.31.1The council rose. The members took hold of both commanders and begged them not to bring matters into the greatest danger through their disagreement and obstinacy.

SECTION 5.31.2The situation would be manageable, whether they remained or departed, provided only that all held and approved a single view; in disagreement, on the other hand, they could see no hope of safety. The debate continued until midnight.

SECTION 5.31.3At last Cotta, overcome by their appeals, yielded. Sabinus’s opinion prevailed. It was announced that they would depart at daybreak.

SECTION 5.31.4The remainder of the night was spent awake, as each soldier looked over his belongings to see what he could carry with him and what part of the equipment of the winter quarters he would be forced to leave behind.

SECTION 5.31.5Every possible reason was devised to show that remaining would not be without danger, while the soldiers’ exhaustion and loss of sleep only increased that danger.

SECTION 5.31.6At daybreak they marched out of the camp as though they had been convinced that the advice had come not from an enemy but from their dearest friend Ambiorix, proceeding in a very long column and burdened with an enormous train of baggage.

CHAPTER 5.32

SECTION 5.32.1But when the enemy learned from the nighttime commotion and wakefulness that the Romans intended to depart, they divided their forces in two and laid ambushes in the woods at a favorable and concealed position about two miles away, where they waited for the Romans to arrive.

SECTION 5.32.2When the greater part of the column had descended into a broad, deep valley, they suddenly revealed themselves on both sides of it and began pressing the rear, blocking the vanguard from climbing out, and engaging our men on ground most unfavorable to them.

CHAPTER 5.33

SECTION 5.33.1Only then did Titurius, who had foreseen nothing, begin to panic, run to and fro, and arrange the cohorts—and even these tasks he performed timidly and in such a way that he appeared at a loss in everything, as commonly happens to men who are forced to form their plans in the very midst of action.

SECTION 5.33.2Cotta, however, who had considered that such things might happen on the march and for that reason had not favored their departure, failed the common safety in no respect. In calling upon and encouraging the soldiers he performed the duties of a commander, and in battle those of a common soldier.

SECTION 5.33.3Because the length of the column made it difficult for them personally to attend to everything and determine what should be done at every point, they ordered an announcement to be made that the soldiers should abandon the baggage and form a circle.

SECTION 5.33.4Although this decision cannot be condemned in such circumstances, it nevertheless had an unfortunate effect.

SECTION 5.33.5It both diminished the confidence of our soldiers and made the enemy more eager for battle, since it appeared that such an order could have been given only in the utmost fear and desperation. Moreover, what was bound to happen did happen: soldiers everywhere left their standards, and each man hurried to the baggage to seek out and seize whatever he valued most, while shouting and weeping filled the whole scene.

CHAPTER 5.34

SECTION 5.34.1But the barbarians were not at a loss for a plan. Their leaders ordered it proclaimed throughout the line that no man was to leave his position: the booty was theirs, and whatever the Romans abandoned was being reserved for them; therefore they should consider that everything depended upon victory.

SECTION 5.34.2The two sides were evenly matched in courage and eagerness to fight. Although our men were abandoned by both their commander and fortune, they nevertheless placed all hope of safety in their valor; and whenever any cohort charged forward, a great number of the enemy fell on that side.

SECTION 5.34.3Observing this, Ambiorix ordered it proclaimed that his men should cast their missiles from a distance and not approach too closely, but should give way in whatever direction the Romans attacked—for, because of their light arms and daily training, the Romans could do them no harm—

SECTION 5.34.4and then pursue them as they withdrew again to their standards.

CHAPTER 5.35

SECTION 5.35.1They observed this command with the greatest care: whenever any cohort left the circle and made a charge, the enemy retreated with the utmost speed.

SECTION 5.35.2Meanwhile, that part of the formation was necessarily left exposed and received missiles upon its unprotected flank.

SECTION 5.35.3Then, when the soldiers began to return to the position from which they had advanced, they were surrounded both by those who had given way and by those who had remained close by.

SECTION 5.35.4But if they chose to hold their ground, there was no scope left for valor, and, packed closely together, they could not evade the missiles cast by so great a multitude.

SECTION 5.35.5Nevertheless, though beset by so many disadvantages and suffering many wounds, they continued to resist; and after a great part of the day had passed—for the fighting lasted from daybreak until the eighth hour—they did nothing unworthy of themselves.

SECTION 5.35.6Then Titus Balventius, a brave man of great authority who in the previous year had served as chief centurion, had both thighs pierced by a heavy javelin.

SECTION 5.35.7Quintus Lucanius, a centurion of the same rank, was killed while fighting with the utmost courage as he went to the aid of his surrounded son.

SECTION 5.35.8Lucius Cotta, the legate, while encouraging all the cohorts and ranks, was struck full in the face by a sling-stone.

CHAPTER 5.36

SECTION 5.36.1Shaken by these events, Quintus Titurius, seeing Ambiorix in the distance encouraging his men, sent his interpreter, Gnaeus Pompeius, to ask him to spare himself and his soldiers.

SECTION 5.36.2When addressed, Ambiorix replied that if Titurius wished to confer with him, he was free to do so; he hoped that the multitude could be persuaded to grant what concerned the soldiers’ safety; Titurius himself, however, would suffer no harm, and upon this he pledged his word. Titurius communicated the proposal to the wounded Cotta:

SECTION 5.36.3if Cotta approved, they should withdraw from the fighting and confer together with Ambiorix; Titurius hoped that they could obtain from him their own safety and that of the soldiers. Cotta refused to go to an armed enemy and persisted in his refusal.

CHAPTER 5.37

SECTION 5.37.1Sabinus ordered the military tribunes and centurions of the senior ranks who were then around him to follow. When he had approached nearer to Ambiorix and was ordered to throw down his arms, he obeyed the command and ordered his men to do the same.

SECTION 5.37.2Meanwhile, as they negotiated the terms and Ambiorix deliberately prolonged the conversation, Sabinus was gradually surrounded and killed.

SECTION 5.37.3Then indeed the enemy, in their customary manner, shouted out their victory, raised a great howl, charged our men, and threw the ranks into confusion.

SECTION 5.37.4There Lucius Cotta was killed fighting, together with the greater part of the soldiers. The rest withdrew into the camp from which they had set out.

SECTION 5.37.5Among them, Lucius Petrosidius, the eagle-bearer, when hard pressed by a great mass of the enemy, hurled the eagle inside the rampart; he himself was killed while fighting with the utmost courage before the camp. The survivors barely sustained the attack until nightfall.

SECTION 5.37.6During the night, despairing of safety, every one of them killed himself.

SECTION 5.37.7A few who escaped from the battle made their way by uncertain paths through the woods to the winter quarters of the legate Titus Labienus and informed him of what had happened.

CHAPTER 5.38

SECTION 5.38.1Elated by this victory, Ambiorix immediately set out with his cavalry for the Aduatuci, whose territory bordered his kingdom. He halted neither by night nor by day and ordered the infantry to follow him.

SECTION 5.38.2After explaining what had happened and rousing the Aduatuci, he reached the Nervii on the following day and urged them not to let slip the opportunity to free themselves forever and avenge upon the Romans the injuries they had suffered.

SECTION 5.38.3He pointed out that two legates had been killed and that a large part of the army had perished.

SECTION 5.38.4It would be no difficult matter, he said, to take by surprise and destroy the legion wintering with Cicero; he declared himself ready to assist in the undertaking. By this speech he easily persuaded the Nervii.

CHAPTER 5.39

SECTION 5.39.1Accordingly, they immediately sent messengers to the Ceutrones, Grudii, Levaci, Pleumoxii, and Geidumni, all of whom were under their rule, mustered the largest forces they could, and swept unexpectedly upon Cicero’s winter quarters before news of Titurius’s death had yet reached him.

SECTION 5.39.2There too the inevitable occurred: several soldiers who had gone into the woods to gather timber and obtain material for the fortifications were cut off by the sudden arrival of the cavalry.

SECTION 5.39.3After surrounding them, the Eburones, Nervii, Aduatuci, and the allies and dependents of all these peoples began, in great force, to attack the legion. Our men quickly rushed to arms and mounted the rampart.

SECTION 5.39.4That day was sustained only with difficulty, because the enemy placed all their hope in speed and trusted that, if they won this victory, they would be victorious forever.

CHAPTER 5.40

SECTION 5.40.1Cicero immediately sent letters to Caesar, offering great rewards to the messengers if they delivered them; but because all the roads were beset, those he sent were intercepted.

SECTION 5.40.2During the night, from the timber they had brought in for the fortifications, they raised about one hundred and twenty towers with incredible speed; whatever appeared to be lacking in the defensive works was completed.

SECTION 5.40.3The next day the enemy, having assembled far greater forces, attacked the camp and filled in the ditch. Our men resisted in the same manner as on the day before.

SECTION 5.40.4The same thing continued to happen on each succeeding day.

SECTION 5.40.5No part of the night was left free from labor; neither the sick nor the wounded were given any opportunity to rest.

SECTION 5.40.6Whatever was needed for the next day’s assault was prepared by night: great numbers of stakes hardened in the fire and a large supply of heavy wall-javelins were made ready; the towers were furnished with floors, and battlements and breastworks of wicker were constructed.

SECTION 5.40.7Cicero himself, though in extremely poor health, did not allow himself even the nighttime for rest, until the soldiers of their own accord crowded around him and by their entreaties compelled him to spare himself.

CHAPTER 5.41

SECTION 5.41.1Then the leaders and chief men of the Nervii who had some means of addressing Cicero and some claim to his friendship declared that they wished to confer with him.

SECTION 5.41.2When permission was granted, they repeated the same assertions that Ambiorix had made to Titurius: all Gaul was under arms;

SECTION 5.41.3the Germans had crossed the Rhine; Caesar’s winter quarters and those of the other commanders were under attack.

SECTION 5.41.4They added an account of Sabinus’s death and displayed Ambiorix as a pledge of their truthfulness.

SECTION 5.41.5They said that the Romans were mistaken if they expected any protection from men who had no confidence in their own position. Nevertheless, their own feelings toward Cicero and the Roman people were such that they objected to nothing but the establishment of winter quarters and did not wish this practice to become permanent:

SECTION 5.41.6the Romans might depart from their winter quarters unharmed by them and proceed without fear in whatever direction they wished.

SECTION 5.41.7To this Cicero made only one reply: it was not the custom of the Roman people to accept terms from an enemy under arms.

SECTION 5.41.8If they were willing to lay down their arms, they might employ him as their advocate and send envoys to Caesar; he hoped that, in view of Caesar’s justice, they would obtain what they requested.

CHAPTER 5.42

SECTION 5.42.1Disappointed in this hope, the Nervii surrounded the winter quarters with a rampart nine feet high and a ditch fifteen feet wide.

SECTION 5.42.2They had learned these methods from observing us in previous years and were also instructed by certain prisoners whom they held from our army;

SECTION 5.42.3but since they possessed no supply of iron tools suited to this work, they were forced to cut the turf with their swords and remove the earth with their hands and cloaks.

SECTION 5.42.4From this feat some idea of their great numbers could be formed, for in less than three hours they completed a circuit of fortifications fifteen thousand feet in circumference,

SECTION 5.42.5and during the following days they began to prepare and construct towers as high as the rampart, grappling hooks, and covered galleries, all of which the same prisoners had taught them to make.

CHAPTER 5.43

SECTION 5.43.1On the seventh day of the assault, when a violent wind arose, they began to sling red-hot bullets of molded clay and to hurl heated javelins upon the huts, which in the Gallic fashion were roofed with thatch.

SECTION 5.43.2The huts quickly caught fire, and the force of the wind carried the flames throughout the camp.

SECTION 5.43.3With a tremendous shout, as though victory were already won and assured, the enemy began to move forward their towers and covered galleries and to scale the rampart with ladders.

SECTION 5.43.4But such was the courage and presence of mind of our soldiers that, though they were scorched by flames on every side, overwhelmed by a vast shower of missiles, and aware that all their baggage and all their possessions were burning, not only did no one leave the rampart to withdraw from the danger, but scarcely anyone even looked back; and at that moment they all fought with the greatest fierceness and bravery.

SECTION 5.43.5This day was by far the most terrible for our men; nevertheless, it had this result: on that day the greatest number of the enemy were wounded and killed, because they had crowded together immediately beneath the rampart and those in the rear gave those in front no room to retreat.

SECTION 5.43.6When the flames had somewhat subsided and a tower had been brought up at one point until it touched the rampart, the centurions of the third cohort withdrew from the place where they stood and removed all their men; then with gestures and shouts they began inviting the enemy to enter if they wished. Not one of them dared advance.

SECTION 5.43.7Then, pelted with stones from every side, they were driven off, and the tower was set on fire.

CHAPTER 5.44

SECTION 5.44.1In that legion there were two centurions of outstanding bravery, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, both of whom were approaching promotion to the first rank.

SECTION 5.44.2These men were constantly disputing which of them should take precedence, and every year they contended for the highest positions with the bitterest rivalry.

SECTION 5.44.3Of the two, Pullo, when the fighting at the fortifications was at its fiercest, said: “Why do you hesitate, Vorenus? What opportunity are you waiting for to prove your courage?

SECTION 5.44.4This day shall decide our disputes.” With these words he went outside the fortifications and charged into the place where the enemy’s line appeared thickest.

SECTION 5.44.5Vorenus then could not keep himself within the rampart either, but, fearing what everyone would think of him, followed close behind.

SECTION 5.44.6After advancing a moderate distance, Pullo hurled his pilum at the enemy and pierced one man who was running forward from the multitude. When the man had been struck and killed, the enemy covered his body with their shields, all hurled their weapons at Pullo, and gave him no opportunity to retreat.

SECTION 5.44.7Pullo’s shield was pierced, and a light spear lodged in his sword belt.

SECTION 5.44.8This accident turned his scabbard aside and hindered his right hand as he tried to draw his sword; while he was thus encumbered, the enemy surrounded him.

SECTION 5.44.9His rival Vorenus came to his aid and rescued him in his distress.

SECTION 5.44.10At once the whole multitude turned away from Pullo against Vorenus,

SECTION 5.44.11believing Pullo had been killed by the spear. Vorenus fought them at close quarters with his sword, killed one, and drove the rest back a short distance;

SECTION 5.44.12but as he pressed forward too eagerly, he stumbled down into a hollow and fell. When he in turn was surrounded, Pullo came to his aid,

SECTION 5.44.13and after killing several of the enemy, both men withdrew unharmed within the fortifications, covered with the highest distinction.

SECTION 5.44.14Thus fortune dealt with both men in their rivalry and contest: each, though the other’s rival, became his helper and preserver, and it could not be determined which of the two should be judged superior in courage.

CHAPTER 5.45

SECTION 5.45.1The more severe and bitter the assault became from day to day—and especially because a large part of the soldiers had been disabled by wounds and the number of defenders had been reduced—the more frequently letters and messengers were sent to Caesar. Some of the messengers were caught and tortured to death in sight of our soldiers.

SECTION 5.45.2Inside the camp was a Nervian named Vertico, a man of honorable birth, who at the beginning of the siege had fled for protection to Cicero and had proved his loyalty to him.

SECTION 5.45.3By promising freedom and great rewards, he persuaded a slave to carry a letter to Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.4The man carried it out fastened to a javelin and, moving as a Gaul among Gauls without arousing any suspicion, reached Caesar.

SECTION 5.45.5From him Caesar learned of the dangers threatening Cicero and the legion.

CHAPTER 5.46

SECTION 5.46.1Upon receiving the letter at about the eleventh hour of the day, Caesar immediately sent a messenger into the territory of the Bellovaci to Marcus Crassus, his quaestor, whose winter quarters were twenty-five miles away.

SECTION 5.46.2He ordered the legion to set out at midnight and come to him with all speed.

SECTION 5.46.3Crassus departed with the messenger. Caesar sent another to his lieutenant Gaius Fabius, ordering him to bring his legion into the territory of the Atrebates, through which Caesar knew he himself would have to march.

SECTION 5.46.4He wrote to Labienus, directing him to come with his legion to the borders of the Nervii if he could do so without injury to the public interest. He did not think it necessary to wait for the rest of the army, since it was somewhat farther away; from the nearest winter quarters he assembled about four hundred cavalry.

CHAPTER 5.47

SECTION 5.47.1At about the third hour, the scouts informed him that Crassus was approaching, and that day Caesar advanced twenty miles.

SECTION 5.47.2He placed Crassus in command at Samarobriva and assigned him a legion, because he was leaving there the army’s baggage, the hostages of the states, the official records, and all the grain he had brought there to sustain the army through the winter.

SECTION 5.47.3Fabius, as ordered, made no great delay and met Caesar on the march with his legion.

SECTION 5.47.4Labienus, having learned of the destruction of Sabinus and the slaughter of the cohorts, and with all the forces of the Treveri now gathered against him, feared that if he made a departure from his winter quarters resembling a flight, he would be unable to withstand the enemy’s attack, especially since he knew they were elated by their recent victory. He therefore sent a letter back to Caesar explaining the great danger involved in leading his legion out of winter quarters. He gave a full account of what had happened among the Eburones and informed Caesar that all the cavalry and infantry of the Treveri had encamped three miles from his camp.

CHAPTER 5.48

SECTION 5.48.1Caesar approved his decision. Although the expectation of having three legions had been disappointed and he was reduced to two, he still believed that the one means of securing the common safety lay in speed. By forced marches he entered the territory of the Nervii.

SECTION 5.48.2There he learned from prisoners what was happening at Cicero’s camp and how critical the situation was.

SECTION 5.48.3Then, by promising great rewards, he persuaded one of his Gallic horsemen to carry a letter to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.4He sent it written in Greek characters, so that if the letter were intercepted, the enemy might not discover our plans.

SECTION 5.48.5If the man could not reach Cicero, Caesar instructed him to bind the letter to the thong of a throwing spear and cast it inside the camp’s fortifications.

SECTION 5.48.6In the letter he wrote that he had set out with the legions and would soon be there; he urged Cicero to maintain his former courage.

SECTION 5.48.7The Gaul, fearing the danger, hurled the spear as he had been instructed.

SECTION 5.48.8By chance it lodged against a tower and remained unnoticed by our men for two days. On the third day a soldier saw it, took it down, and carried it to Cicero.

SECTION 5.48.9After reading the letter through, Cicero recited it before an assembly of the soldiers and filled them all with the greatest joy.

SECTION 5.48.10Then the smoke of fires could be seen in the distance, and this removed all doubt that the legions were approaching.

CHAPTER 5.49

SECTION 5.49.1When the Gauls learned of this through their scouts, they abandoned the siege and hastened against Caesar with all their forces. These amounted to about sixty thousand armed men.

SECTION 5.49.2Given the opportunity, Cicero again obtained from the same Vertico mentioned above a Gaul to carry a letter to Caesar. He warned the man to make the journey cautiously and attentively.

SECTION 5.49.3In the letter he reported fully that the enemy had withdrawn from him and had turned their entire multitude against Caesar.

SECTION 5.49.4The letter was delivered to Caesar at about midnight. He informed his men of its contents and strengthened their resolve for battle.

SECTION 5.49.5At first light the next day he broke camp, and after advancing about four miles he sighted the multitude of the enemy across a valley and a stream.

SECTION 5.49.6It would have been extremely dangerous to fight on unfavorable ground with so small a force. Since he now knew that Cicero had been relieved from the siege, he thought he could set aside his haste without anxiety.

SECTION 5.49.7He halted and fortified a camp on the most favorable ground he could find. Although the camp was already small in itself, since his force scarcely numbered seven thousand men and had no baggage, he contracted it as much as possible by making the passageways narrow, intending thereby to bring himself into the utmost contempt in the eyes of the enemy.

SECTION 5.49.8Meanwhile, he sent scouts in every direction to discover by what route he could most conveniently cross the valley.

CHAPTER 5.50

SECTION 5.50.1That day, after a few minor cavalry skirmishes near the water, both sides remained in their own positions:

SECTION 5.50.2the Gauls because they were waiting for larger forces,

SECTION 5.50.3which had not yet assembled; Caesar because he hoped that by feigning fear he might entice the enemy onto his own ground and fight a battle before his camp on this side of the valley—or, if he could not accomplish that,

SECTION 5.50.4that after reconnoitering the routes he might cross the valley and stream with less danger. At first light the enemy’s cavalry approached the camp and engaged our horsemen.

SECTION 5.50.5Caesar deliberately ordered his cavalry to give way and withdraw into the camp. At the same time he ordered the camp to be fortified on every side with a higher rampart and the gates to be barricaded; and in carrying out these measures he commanded his men to run about as conspicuously as possible and act as though terrified.

CHAPTER 5.51

SECTION 5.51.1Enticed by all these signs, the enemy brought their forces across and drew up their battle line on unfavorable ground. When our men were even withdrawn from the rampart, they came closer and hurled missiles from every side inside the fortifications.

SECTION 5.51.2They sent heralds around and ordered them to proclaim that if any Gaul or Roman wished to come over to them before the third hour, he might do so without danger; after that time there would be no opportunity.

SECTION 5.51.3They held our men in such contempt that, because the gates had been blocked merely for appearance with a single row of turf at each entrance and they did not think they could break in through them, some began tearing down the rampart with their hands, while others began filling the ditches.

SECTION 5.51.4Then Caesar launched a sortie from every gate and sent out the cavalry. He quickly put the enemy to flight, so that not one of them stood his ground with any intention of fighting. He killed a great number of them and stripped them all of their weapons.

CHAPTER 5.52

SECTION 5.52.1Fearing to pursue them any farther because woods and marshes intervened, and seeing that they had no opportunity to make even the slightest stand, Caesar reached Cicero that same day with all his forces unharmed.

SECTION 5.52.2He marveled at the towers, covered galleries, and fortifications the enemy had constructed. When the legion was paraded before him, he discovered that not one soldier in ten remained unwounded.

SECTION 5.52.3From all these circumstances he judged how great the danger had been and how courageously the defense had been conducted.

SECTION 5.52.4He praised Cicero as his merit deserved and commended the legion. He addressed individually those centurions and military tribunes whose exceptional bravery he had learned of from Cicero’s testimony. From the prisoners he obtained a more certain account of the fate of Sabinus and Cotta.

SECTION 5.52.5The next day he called an assembly, set forth what had happened, and consoled and encouraged the soldiers.

SECTION 5.52.6He explained that the loss suffered through the fault and recklessness of a lieutenant ought to be borne with greater composure because, through the favor of the immortal gods and their own courage, the disaster had been avenged, leaving neither lasting joy to the enemy nor prolonged grief to themselves.

CHAPTER 5.53

SECTION 5.53.1Meanwhile, news of Caesar’s victory was carried through the Remi to Labienus with incredible speed. Although he was about sixty miles from Cicero’s winter quarters and Caesar had not reached them until after the ninth hour of the day, before midnight a shout arose at the gates of Labienus’s camp, by which the Remi announced the victory and offered him their congratulations.

SECTION 5.53.2When this report reached the Treveri, Indutiomarus, who had determined to attack Labienus’s camp the next day, fled during the night and led all his forces back into the territory of the Treveri.

SECTION 5.53.3Caesar sent Fabius back to winter quarters with his legion. He himself resolved to winter with three legions around Samarobriva, each in separate quarters; and because such great disturbances had arisen throughout Gaul, he determined to remain personally with the army for the entire winter.

SECTION 5.53.4For when the disastrous news of Sabinus’s death was reported, nearly all the states of Gaul were deliberating about war, dispatching messengers and embassies in every direction, seeking to discover what course the others intended to take and where the war should begin, and holding councils by night in deserted places.

SECTION 5.53.5Indeed, scarcely any period of the entire winter passed without anxiety for Caesar, and without his receiving some report of the plans and movements of the Gauls.

SECTION 5.53.6Among these reports, Lucius Roscius, whom he had placed in command of the Thirteenth Legion, informed him that large forces of Gauls from the states called the Armorican states had assembled to attack him

SECTION 5.53.7and had come within eight miles of his winter quarters, but that, when news of Caesar’s victory arrived, they had withdrawn so hastily that their departure appeared more like a rout.

CHAPTER 5.54

SECTION 5.54.1Caesar, meanwhile, summoned the leading men of each state to appear before him and kept a large part of Gaul obedient, sometimes by intimidation, declaring that he knew what was being done, and sometimes by exhortation.

SECTION 5.54.2Nevertheless, the Senones, a state of exceptional strength and great authority among the Gauls, attempted by public resolution to kill Cavarinus, whom Caesar had established as king among them, and whose brother Moritasgus had held the kingship at the time of Caesar’s arrival in Gaul, as his ancestors had done before him. When Cavarinus learned of the plot and fled, they pursued him as far as the borders,

SECTION 5.54.3drove him from his kingdom and home, and sent envoys to Caesar to offer satisfaction; but when Caesar ordered their entire senate to come before him, they refused to obey his command.

SECTION 5.54.4Among these barbarous peoples, the mere fact that some leaders had been found ready to make war carried such weight and produced so great a change in the sentiments of them all that, apart from the Aedui and the Remi—whom Caesar had always held in especial honor, the former because of their ancient and unbroken loyalty to the Roman people, the latter because of their recent services in the Gallic War—there was scarcely a state that did not become an object of suspicion to us.

SECTION 5.54.5And I am not sure that this should be thought so surprising, for besides many other reasons, those who had been esteemed superior to every nation in martial valor deeply resented having forfeited so much of that reputation that they were now compelled to submit to the commands of the Roman people.

CHAPTER 5.55

SECTION 5.55.1The Treveri, however, and Indutiomarus allowed no part of the entire winter to pass without sending envoys across the Rhine, soliciting the states there, promising money, and declaring that, since a large part of our army had been destroyed, only a much smaller part remained.

SECTION 5.55.2Yet no German state could be persuaded to cross the Rhine. They said that they had twice made the trial, in the war of Ariovistus and at the crossing of the Tencteri, and that they would not tempt fortune again. Though disappointed in this hope, Indutiomarus nevertheless began to raise forces,

SECTION 5.55.3train them, procure horses from the neighboring peoples, and entice to his side, with great rewards, exiles and condemned men from all over Gaul.

SECTION 5.55.4By these means he had already acquired such authority in Gaul that embassies flocked to him from every quarter, publicly and privately seeking his favor and friendship.

CHAPTER 5.56

SECTION 5.56.1When he perceived that men were coming to him of their own accord, that on the one side the Senones and Carnutes were being spurred on by consciousness of their crime, and on the other the Nervii and Aduatuci were preparing war against the Romans, and that he would lack no bands of volunteers if he began to advance beyond his own borders, he proclaimed an armed council. By Gallic custom, this marks the beginning of war,

SECTION 5.56.2and under their common law all men of military age are accustomed to assemble there under arms; whoever comes last is tortured to death in the sight of the multitude.

SECTION 5.56.3At that council he declared Cingetorix, the leader of the opposing faction and his own son-in-law—who, as we have shown above, had embraced Caesar’s cause and had not deserted it—a public enemy, and confiscated his property.

SECTION 5.56.4When these measures had been completed, he announced in the council that he had been summoned by the Senones, the Carnutes, and several other states of Gaul;

SECTION 5.56.5that he would march there through the territory of the Remi and lay waste their lands, but before doing so would attack Labienus’s camp. He then gave orders for the measures he wished carried out.

CHAPTER 5.57

SECTION 5.57.1Labienus, since he occupied a camp exceptionally well fortified both by the nature of the ground and by human labor, had no fear for his own safety or that of the legion; rather, he was considering how he might avoid letting slip any opportunity for a successful action.

SECTION 5.57.2Accordingly, when he learned from Cingetorix and his kinsmen what Indutiomarus had said in the council, he sent messengers to the neighboring states and summoned cavalry from every quarter, appointing a fixed day for them to assemble.

SECTION 5.57.3Meanwhile, almost every day Indutiomarus ranged beneath his camp with all his cavalry, sometimes to learn the position of the camp, at other times to seek a conference or inspire terror; and nearly all his horsemen hurled missiles inside the rampart.

SECTION 5.57.4Labienus kept his men within the fortifications and by every means in his power strengthened the impression that he was afraid.

CHAPTER 5.58

SECTION 5.58.1As Indutiomarus approached the camp each day with greater contempt, Labienus admitted one night the cavalrymen from all the neighboring states whom he had arranged to summon, and with such vigilance kept all his men confined within the camp by guards that there was no possible means by which the matter could be disclosed or reported to the Treveri.

SECTION 5.58.2Meanwhile, in accordance with his daily custom, Indutiomarus approached the camp and spent a large part of the day there; his horsemen hurled missiles and, with many insulting words, challenged our men to battle.

SECTION 5.58.3When our men made no reply, the enemy, as soon as they thought fit, departed toward evening, scattered and dispersed.

SECTION 5.58.4Suddenly Labienus sent all his cavalry out through two gates. He commanded and strictly enjoined them, once the enemy had been terrified and put to flight—as he foresaw would happen, and as it did—that every man should make for Indutiomarus alone, and that no one should wound any other enemy until he had seen Indutiomarus slain. He did not want the delay caused by pursuit of the others to give Indutiomarus time to escape. He offered great rewards to those who killed him,

SECTION 5.58.5and sent cohorts forward to support the cavalry.

SECTION 5.58.6Fortune confirmed the wisdom of his plan. Since every man made for Indutiomarus alone, he was overtaken and killed in the very ford of the river, and his head was carried back to the camp. As the horsemen returned, they pursued and killed all whom they could overtake.

SECTION 5.58.7When this became known, all the forces of the Eburones and Nervii that had assembled withdrew, and after this event Caesar enjoyed somewhat greater tranquility in Gaul.

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.