History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Sabinus replied with force that it would be too late to decide when the number of the assailants would be increased by the arrival of the Germans, and when the neighbouring quarters would have experienced some disaster. “The movement requires a prompt decision. Cæsar has, no doubt, started for Italy: otherwise, would the Carnutes have dared to slay Tasgetius, and the Eburones to attack the camp with so much boldness? We must consider the counsel itself, and not him who gives it: the Rhine is at a short distance; the Germans are irritated by the death of Ariovistus, and by their preceding defeats; Gaul is in flames; she supports with impatience the Roman yoke, and the loss of her ancient military glory. Would Ambiorix have engaged without powerful motives in such an enterprise? It is safest, therefore, to follow his counsel, and to gain as quickly as possible the nearest quarters.”

Cotta and the centurions of the first class earnestly maintained the contrary opinion. “Let it then be as you will!” said Sabinus; and then, raising his voice to be heard by the soldiers, he shouted: “Death does not terrify me; but behold, Cotta, those who will require of thee a reckoning for the misfortunes which thou art preparing for them. After to-morrow, if you would agree to it, they could have rejoined the nearest legion, and, united with it, incur together the chances of war; they will know that thou hast preferred leaving them, far from their companions, exposed to perish by the sword or by famine.”

When the council was ended, the lieutenants are surrounded and implored not to compromise the safety of the army by their misunderstanding; let them go or remain, provided they are agreed, everything will be easy. The debate is prolonged into the middle of the night; at last, Cotta, moved, yields to the opinion of Sabinus, and agrees to repair to Cicero, encamped in the country of the Nervii; the departure is fixed for daybreak. The rest of the night is passed in the midst of preparations; the soldier chooses what articles of his winter equipment he will carry with him. And, as if the danger were not sufficiently great, he seems as if he wished to increase it by fatigue and watching. At daybreak, the troops, in full security, begin their march in a long column, encumbered with a numerous baggage.

At the distance of three kilomètres (a millibus passuum circiter duobus) from the town of Tongres is the vale of Lowaige, closed in between two hills, and forming a great defile of about 2,500 mètres in length (magnam convallem). It is traversed by a stream, the Geer. The hills, now denuded, were, only a century ago, covered with wood;427 it was there that the Eburones lay in wait for the Roman army.

Informed of the intended retreat by the noise and tumult, they had divided themselves into two bodies, on the right and left of the vale, and placed themselves in ambush in the middle of the woods. When they saw the greater part of the Roman troops engaged in the defile, they attacked them in rear and in front, profiting by all the advantages of the locality.

Then Sabinus, like a man who had shown no foresight, becomes troubled, hurries hither and thither, hesitates in all his measures – as happens to him who, taken by surprise, is obliged to act decisively in the middle of danger. Cotta, on the contrary, who had calculated the fatal chances of the departure which he had opposed, neglects nothing for the general safety. He encourages the troops, combats in the ranks – a general and a soldier at the same time. As the length of the column prevented the lieutenants from seeing all and ordering all themselves, they caused the soldiers to pass on from mouth to mouth the order to abandon the baggage and form the circle. This resolution, though justified by the circumstances, had, nevertheless, a disastrous effect; it diminished the confidence of the Romans, and increased the ardour of the Eburones, who ascribed so desperate a resolution to fear and discouragement. There resulted from it, too, an inevitable inconvenience: the soldiers quitted their ensigns in crowds to run to the baggage, and take their more valuable effects; and on all parts there was nothing but shouts and confusion.

The barbarians acted with intelligence. Their chiefs, fearing that they would disperse to pillage the baggage of the Romans, sent orders on all points that every one must keep his rank, declaring that the thing important was first to assure themselves of the victory, and that afterwards the booty would fall into their hands.

The Eburones were rough adversaries; but by their number and their courage, the Romans might have maintained the struggle. Although abandoned by their chief and by fortune, they relied upon themselves for everything, and every time that a cohort fell upon the enemies, it made a great carnage of them. Ambiorix perceived this: he shouted loudly his commands that his men should throw their missiles from a distance, and not approach near; that they should retire whenever the Romans rushed forward, and only attack them in their retreat, when they returned to their ensigns – a manœuvre easy to the Eburones, practised in such exercises, and nimble on account of the lightness of their equipment.

The order was faithfully executed. When a cohort quitted the circle to charge the enemies, they fled with speed; but the cohort, in its advance, left its right flank (not protected, like the left flank, by the bucklers) exposed to the missiles; when it resumed its former position, it was surrounded on all sides both by those who had retreated, and by those who had remained on its flanks.

If, instead of sending forward their cohorts in succession, the Romans stood firm in their circle, they lost the advantage of attacking, and their close ranks made them more exposed to the multitude of missiles. Meanwhile, the number of the wounded increased every moment. It was two o’clock; the combat had lasted from sunrise, and yet the Roman soldiers had not ceased to show themselves worthy of themselves. At this moment the struggle becomes more desperate. T. Balventius, a brave and respected man, who, in the previous year, had commanded as primipilus, has his two thighs transpierced by a javelin; Q. Lucanius, an officer of the same grade, is killed fighting valiantly to rescue his son, who is surrounded by enemies. Cotta himself, while he runs from rank to rank to encourage the soldiers, is wounded in the face by a missile from a sling.

At this sight, Sabinus, discouraged, sees no other help but to treat with Ambiorix. Perceiving him at a distance in the act of urging on his troops, he sends to him his interpreter Cn. Pompeius, to pray him to spare him and his men. Ambiorix replies that he is quite willing to enter into negotiations with Sabinus, whose person he undertakes under the obligation of his oath to cause to be respected; that further, he hopes to obtain from the Eburones safety of life for the Roman soldiers. Sabinus communicates this reply to Cotta, who is already wounded, and proposes that they should go together to confer with Ambiorix; this step may secure the safety of themselves and the army. Cotta refuses obstinately, and declares that he will never treat with an enemy in arms.

Sabinus enjoins to the tribunes of the soldiers who stand round him, and to the centurions of the first class, to follow him. Arriving near Ambiorix, he is summoned to lay down his sword: he obeys, and orders his men to imitate his example. While they discuss the conditions in an interview which the chief of the Eburones prolongs intentionally, Sabinus is gradually surrounded and massacred. Then the barbarians, raising, according to their custom, wild cries, rush upon the Romans and break their ranks. Cotta and the greatest part of his soldiers perish with their arms in their hands; the others seek refuge in the camp of Aduatuca, from whence they had started. The ensign-bearer, L. Petrosidius, pressed by a crowd of enemies, throws the eagle into the retrenchments, and dies defending himself bravely at the foot of the rampart. The unfortunate soldiers strive to sustain the combat till night, and that very night they kill one another in despair. A few, however, escaping from the field of battle, cross the forests, and gain by chance the quarters of T. Labienus, to whom they give information of this disaster.428

Attack on Cicero’s Camp.

XIII. Elated by this victory, Ambiorix immediately repairs with his cavalry into the country of the Aduatuci, a people adjoining to his states, and marches without interruption all the night and the following day: the infantry has orders to follow him. He announces his successes to the Aduatuci, and urges them to take up arms. Next day he proceeds to the Nervii, presses them to seize this occasion to avenge their injuries and deliver themselves for ever from the yoke of the Romans; he informs them of the death of two lieutenants, and of the destruction of a great part of the Roman army; he adds that the legion in winter quarters among them, under the command of Cicero, will be easily surprised and annihilated; he offers his alliance to the Nervii, and easily persuades them.

These immediately give information to the Ceutrones, the Grudii, the Levaci, the Pleumoxii, and the Geiduni, tribes under their dependence: they collect all the troops they can, and proceed unexpectedly to the winter quarters of Cicero, before he had learnt the disaster and death of Sabinus. There, as it had happened recently at Aduatuca, some soldiers, occupied in cutting wood in the forest, are surprised by the cavalry. Soon a considerable number of Eburones, Aduatuci, and Nervii, with their allies and clients, proceed to attack the camp. The Romans rush to arms, and mount the vallum; but that day they make head with difficulty against an enemy who has placed all his hope in the promptness of an unforeseen attack, and was convinced that after this victory nothing further could resist him.429

Cæsar marches to the succour of Cicero.

XIV. Cæsar was still at Amiens, ignorant of the events which had just taken place. Cicero immediately wrote to him, and promised great recompenses to those who should succeed in delivering his letters to him; but all the roads were watched, and nobody could reach him. During the night twenty towers were raised, with an incredible celerity, by means of the wood which had been already brought for fortifying the camp,430 and the works were completed. Next day, the enemies, whose forces had increased, returned to the attack and began to fill the fosse. The resistance was as energetic as the day before, and continued during the following days; among these heroic soldiers constancy and energy seemed to increase with the peril. Each night they prepare everything necessary for the defence on the morrow. They make a great number of stakes hardened by fire, and pila employed in sieges; they establish with planks the floors of the towers, and by means of hurdles make parapets and battlements. They work without intermission: neither wounded nor sick take repose. Cicero himself, though a man of feeble health, is day and night at work, in spite of the entreaties of his soldiers, who implore him to spare himself.

Meanwhile, the chiefs and principes of the Nervii proposed an interview to Cicero. They repeated to him what Ambiorix had said to Sabinus: “All Gaul is in arms; the Germans have passed the Rhine; the quarters of Cæsar and his lieutenants are attacked.” They added: “Sabinus and his cohorts have perished; the presence of Ambiorix is a proof of their veracity; Cicero would deceive himself if he reckoned on the succour of the other legions. As to them, they have no hostile intention, provided the Romans will discontinue occupying their country. The legion has full liberty to retire without fear whither it likes.” Cicero replied “that it was not the custom of the Roman people to accept conditions from an enemy in arms; but that, if they consented to lay them down, he would serve them as a mediator with Cæsar, who would decide.”

Deceived in their expectation of intimidating Cicero, the Nervii surrounded the camp with a rampart nine feet high, and a fosse fifteen wide. They had observed the Roman works in the preceding campaigns, and learnt from some prisoners to imitate them. But, as they did not possess the necessary instruments of iron, they were obliged to cut the turf with their swords, to take the earth with their hands, and to carry it in their cloaks. We may judge of their great number by the fact that in less than three hours they completed a retrenchment of 15,000 feet in circuit.431 On the following days, they raised towers to the height of the vallum, prepared hooks (falces), and covered galleries (testudines), which they had similarly been taught by the prisoners.432

On the seventh day of the siege, a great wind having arisen, the enemies threw into the camp fiery darts, and launched from their slings balls of burning clay (ferventes fusili ex argilla glandes).433 The barracks, roofed with straw, in the Gaulish manner, soon took fire, and the wind spread the flames in an instant through the whole camp. Then, raising great shouts, as though they had already gained the victory, they pushed forward their towers and covered galleries, and attempted, by means of ladders, to scale the vallum; but such were the courage and steadiness of the Roman soldiers, that, though surrounded with flames, overwhelmed with a shower of darts, and knowing well that the fire was devouring their baggage and their property, not one of them quitted his post, or even dreamt of turning his head, so much did that desperate struggle absorb their minds. This was their most trying day. Meanwhile, many of the enemies were killed and wounded, because, crowding to the foot of the rampart, the last ranks stopped the retreat of the first. The fire having been appeased, the barbarians pushed up a tower against the vallum.434 The centurions of the third cohort, who happened to be there, drew their men back, and, in bravado, invited, by their gesture and voice, the enemies to enter. Nobody ventured. Then they drove them away by a shower of stones, and the tower was burnt. There were in that legion two centurions, T. Pulio and L. Vorenus, who emulated each other in bravery by rushing into the midst of the assailants. Thrown down in turn, and surrounded by enemies, they mutually rescued each other several times, and returned into the camp without wounds. Defensive arms then permitted individual courage to perform actual prodigies.

Still the siege continued, and the number of the defenders diminished daily; provisions began to fall short, as well as the necessaries for tending the wounded.435 The frequent messengers sent by Cicero to Cæsar were intercepted, and some of them cruelly put to death within view of the camp. At last, Vertico, a Nervian chieftain who had embraced the cause of the Romans, prevailed upon one of his slaves to take charge of a letter to Cæsar. His quality of a Gaul enabled him to pass unperceived, and to give intelligence to the general of Cicero’s danger.

Cæsar received this information at Amiens towards the eleventh hour of the day (four o’clock in the afternoon). He had only at hand three legions – that of Trebonius, at Amiens; that of M. Crassus, whose quarters were at Montdidier, in the country of the Bellovaci, at a distance of twenty-five miles; and lastly, that which, under C. Fabius, was wintering in the country of the Morini, at Saint-Pol.436 (See Plate 14.) He despatched a courier to Crassus, charged with delivering to him his order to start with his legion in the middle of the night, and join him in all haste at Amiens, to relieve there the legion of Trebonius. Another courier was sent to the lieutenant C. Fabius, to direct him to take his legion into the territory of the Atrebates, which Cæsar would cross, and where their junction was to be effected. He wrote similarly to Labienus, to march with his legion towards the country of the Nervii, if he could without peril. As to the legion of Roscius and that of Plancus, which were too far distant, they remained in their quarters.

Crassus had no sooner received his orders than he began his march; and next day, towards the third hour (ten o’clock), his couriers announced his approach. Cæsar left him at Amiens, with one legion, to guard the baggage of the army, the hostages, the archives, and the winter provisions. He immediately started in person, without waiting for the rest of the army, with the legion of Trebonius, and four hundred cavalry from the neighbouring quarters. He followed, no doubt, the direction from Amiens to Cambrai, and made that day twenty miles (thirty kilomètres). He was subsequently joined on his road, probably towards Bourcies, between Bapaume and Cambrai, by Fabius, who had not lost a moment in executing his orders. Meanwhile arrived the reply of Labienus. He informed Cæsar of the events which had taken place among the Eburones, and of their effect among the Treviri. These latter had just risen. All their troops had advanced towards him, and surrounded him at a distance of three miles. In this position, fearing that he should not be able to resist enemies proud of a recent victory, who would take his departure for a flight, he thought that there would be danger in quitting his winter quarters.

Cæsar approved of the resolution taken by Labienus, although it reduced to two the three legions on which he counted; and, although their effective force did not amount to more than 7,000 men, as the safety of the army depended on the celerity of his movements, he proceeded by forced marches to the country of the Nervii; there he learnt from prisoners the perilous situation of Cicero. He immediately engaged, by the promise of great recompenses, a Gaulish horseman to carry a letter to him: it was written in Greek,437 in order that the enemy, if he intercepted it, might not know its meaning. Further, in case the Gaul could not penetrate to Cicero, he had directed him to attach the letter to the amentum (see page 37, note 2) of his javelin, and throw it over the retrenchments. Cæsar wrote that he was approaching in great haste with his legions, and he exhorted Cicero to persevere in his energetic defence. According to Polyænus, the despatch contained these words: θαῥῥεἱν βοἡθειαν προσδἑχου (“Courage! expect succour”).438 As soon as he arrived near the camp, the Gaul, not daring to penetrate to it, did as Cæsar had directed him. By chance his javelin remained two days stuck in a tower. It was only on the third that it was seen and carried to Cicero. The letter, read in the presence of the assembled soldiers, excited transports of joy. Soon afterwards they perceived in the distance the smoke of burning habitations, which announced the approach of the army of succour. At that moment, after a five days’ march, it had arrived within twenty kilomètres of Charleroi, near Binche, where it encamped. The Gauls, when they were informed of it by their scouts, raised the siege, and then, to the number of about 60,000, marched to meet the legions.

Cicero, thus liberated, sent another Gaul to announce to Cæsar that the enemy were turning all their forces against him. At this news, received towards the middle of the night, Cæsar informed his soldiers, and strengthened them in their desire of vengeance. At daybreak next day he raised his camp. After advancing four miles, he perceived a crowd of enemies on the other side of a great valley traversed by the stream of the Haine.439 Cæsar did not consider it prudent to descend into the valley to engage in combat against so great a number of troops. Moreover, Cicero once rescued, there was no need for hurrying his march; he therefore halted, and chose a good position for retrenching – mount Sainte-Aldegonde. Although his camp, containing hardly 7,000 men, without baggage, was necessarily of limited extent, he diminished it as much as possible by giving less width to the streets, in order to deceive the enemy as to his real strength. At the same time he sent out scouts to ascertain the best place for crossing the valley.

That day passed in skirmishes of cavalry on the banks of the stream, but each kept his positions: the Gauls, because they were waiting for re-enforcements; Cæsar, because he counted on his simulated fear to draw the enemies out of their position, and compel them to fight on his side of the Haine, before his camp. If he could not succeed, he obtained time to reconnoitre the roads sufficiently to pass the river and valley with less danger. On the morrow, at daybreak, the enemy’s cavalry came up to the retrenchments, and attacked that of the Romans. Cæsar ordered his men to give way, and return into the camp; at the same time he caused the height of the ramparts to be increased, the gates to be stopped up with mere lumps of turf, and directed his soldiers to execute his directions with tumultuous haste and all the signs of fear.

The Gauls, drawn on by this feint, passed the stream, and formed in order of battle in a disadvantageous place. Seeing that the Romans had even abandoned the vallum, they approached nearer to it, threw their missiles over it from all sides, and caused their heralds to proclaim round the retrenchments that, until the third hour (ten o’clock), every Gaul or Roman who should desert to them should have his life saved. At last, having no hope of forcing the gates, which they supposed to be solidly fortified, they carried their boldness so far as to begin to fill up the fosse, and to pull down the palisades with their hands. But Cæsar held his troops in readiness to profit by the excessive confidence of the Gauls: at a signal given, they rush through all the gates at once; the enemy does not resist, but takes to flight, abandoning their arms, and leaves the ground covered with his dead.

Cæsar did not pursue far, on account of the woods and marshes; he would not have been able, indeed, to inflict further loss; he marched with his troops, without having suffered any loss, towards the camp of Cicero, where he arrived the same day.440 The towers, the covered galleries, and the retrenchments of the barbarians, excited his astonishment. Having assembled the soldiers of Cicero’s legion, nine-tenths of whom were wounded, he could judge how much danger they had run and how much courage they had displayed. He loaded with praise the general and soldiers, addressing individually the centurions and the tribunes who had distinguished themselves. The prisoners gave him more ample details on the deaths of Sabinus and Cotta, whose disaster had produced a deep impression in the army. The next day he reminds the troops convoked for that purpose of the past event, consoles and encourages them, throws the fault of this check on the imprudence of the lieutenant, and exhorts them to resignation the more, because, thanks to the valour of the soldiers and the protection of the gods, the expiation had been prompt, and left no further reason for the enemies to rejoice, or for the Romans to be afflicted.441

We see, from what precedes, how small a number of troops, disseminated over a vast territory, surmounted, by discipline and courage, a formidable insurrection. Quintus Cicero, by following the principle invoked by Cotta, not to enter into negotiations with an enemy in arms, saved both his army and his honour. As to Cæsar, he gave proof, in this circumstance, of an energy and strength of mind which Quintus Cicero did not fail to point out to his brother when he wrote to him.442 If we believe Suetonius and Polyænus, Cæsar felt so great a grief for the check experienced by Sabinus, that, in sign of mourning, he let his beard and hair grow until he had avenged his lieutenants,443 which only happened in the year following, by the destruction of the Eburones and the Nervii.

Cæsar places his Troops in Winter Quarters. Labienus defeats Indutiomarus.

XV. Meanwhile the news of Cæsar’s victory reached Labienus, across the country of the Remi, with incredible speed: his winter quarters were at a distance of about sixty miles from Cicero’s camp, where Cæsar had only arrived after the ninth hour of the day (three o’clock in the afternoon), and yet before midnight shouts of joy were raised at the gates of the camp, the acclamations of the Remi who came to congratulate Labienus. The noise spread in the army of the Treviri, and Indutiomarus, who had resolved to attack the camp of Labienus next day, withdrew during the night, and took all his troops with him.

These events having been accomplished, Cæsar distributed the seven legions he had left in the following manner: he sent Fabius with his legion to his winter quarters among the Morini, and established himself in the neighbourhood of Amiens with three legions, which he separated in three quarters: they were the legion of Crassus, which had remained stationary, that of Cicero, and that of Trebonius. There are still seen, along the Somme, in the neighbourhood of Amiens, three camps at a short distance from each other, which appear to have been those of that period.444 Labienus, Plancus, and Roscius continued to occupy the same positions. The gravity of the circumstances determined Cæsar to remain all the winter with the army. In fact, on the news of the disaster of Sabinus, nearly all the people of Gaul showed a disposition to take arms, sent deputations and messages to each other, communicated their projects, and deliberated upon the point from which the signal for war should be given. They held nocturnal assemblies in bye-places, and during the whole winter not a day passed in which there was not some meeting or some movement of the Gauls to cause uneasiness to Cæsar. Thus he learnt from L. Roscius, lieutenant placed at the head of the 13th legion, that considerable troops of Armorica had assembled to attack him; they were not more than eight miles from his winter quarters, when the news of Cæsar’s victory had compelled them to retreat precipitately and in disorder.