History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

It was already rumoured that Cæsar had raised the siege of Gergovia; the news of the defection of the Ædui, and of the progress of the insurrection, had begun already to spread. The Gauls repeated incessantly that Cæsar, arrested in his march by the Loire, had been compelled, by want of provisions, to retire towards the Roman province. The Bellovaci, whose fidelity was doubtful, had no sooner heard of the revolt of the Ædui, than they collected troops and prepared openly for war.

At the news of so many unfavourable events, Labienus felt all the difficulties of his situation. Placed on the right bank of the Seine, he was threatened on one side by the Bellovaci, who had only to cross the Oise to fall upon him; on the other by Camulogenus, at the head of a well-trained army, ready to give battle; lastly, a large river, which he had crossed at Melun, separated him from Sens, where he had his dépôts and baggage. To escape from this perilous position, he thought it advisable to change his plans: he renounced all offensive movements, and resolved to return to his point of departure by an act of daring. Fearing that, if he went by the road on which he had advanced, he should not be able to cross the Seine at Melun, because his boats would not have re-mounted the river without difficulty, he decided on surprising the passage of the Seine below Paris, and returning to Sens by the left bank, marching over the body of the Gaulish army. Towards evening he convoked a council, and urged on his officers the punctual execution of his orders. He entrusted the boats he had brought from Melun to the Roman knights, with orders to descend the river at the end of the first watch (ten o’clock), to advance in silence for the space of four miles (six kilomètres), which would bring them as far down as the village of Point-du-Joir, and to wait for him. The five cohorts which had least experience were left in charge of the camp, and the five others of the same legion received orders to re-ascend on the right bank of the river in the middle of the night, with all their baggage, and attract by their tumult the attention of the enemy. Boats were sent in the same direction, which were rowed with great noise. He himself, a little after, left in silence with the three remaining legions, and, proceeding down the river, repaired to the spot where the first boats waited for him.

When he arrived there, a violent storm enabled him to carry by surprise the Gaulish posts placed along the whole bank. The legions and cavalry had soon passed the Seine with the assistance of the knights. Day began to appear, when the enemy learnt, almost at the same instant, first, that an unusual agitation prevailed in the Roman camp, that a considerable column of troops was ascending the river, and that in the same direction a great noise of oars was heard; lastly, that lower down the stream the troops were crossing the Seine in boats. This news made the Gauls believe that the legions intended to cross it on three points, and that, perplexed by the defection of the Ædui, they had decided on forcing the road by the left bank.503 Camulogenus divided also his forces into three corps: he left one opposite the Roman camp; sent the second, less numerous, in the direction of Melodunum,504 with instructions to regulate its march according to the progress of the enemy’s boats which re-ascended the Seine; and, at the head of the third, went to meet Labienus.

At sunrise the Roman troops had crossed the river, and the enemy’s army appeared drawn up in order of battle. Labienus exhorts his soldiers to recall to mind their ancient valour, and so many glorious exploits, and, as they marched to the combat, to consider themselves under the eye of Cæsar, who had led them so often to victory: he then gives the signal. At the first shock the 7th legion, placed on the right wing, routs the enemy; but on the left wing, although the 12th legion had transpierced the first ranks with their pila, the Gauls defend themselves obstinately, and not one dreams of flight. Camulogenus, in the midst of them, excites their ardour. The victory was still doubtful, when the tribunes of the 7th legion, informed of the critical position of the left wing, lead their soldiers to the back of the enemies, and take them in the rear. The barbarians are surrounded, yet not one yields a step; all die fighting, and Camulogenus perishes with the rest. The Gaulish troops left opposite the camp of Labienus had hurried forward at the first news of the combat, and had taken possession of a hill (probably that of Vaugirard); but they did not sustain the attack of the victorious Romans, and were hurried along in the general rout; all who would not find refuge in the woods and on the heights were cut to pieces by the cavalry.

After this battle Labienus returned to Agedincum; thence he marched with all his troops, and went to join Cæsar.505

The Gauls assume the offensive.

X. The desertion of the Ædui gave the war a greater development. Deputies are sent in all directions: credit, authority, money, everything is put in activity to excite the other states to revolt. Masters of the hostages whom Cæsar had entrusted to them, the Ædui threaten to put to death those who belong to the nations which hesitate. In a general assembly of Gaul, convoked at Bibracte, at which the Remi, the Lingones, and the Treviri only were absent, the supreme command is conferred on Vercingetorix, in spite of the opposition of the Ædui, who claim it, and who, seeing themselves rejected, begin to regret the favours they had received from Cæsar. But they had pronounced for the war, and no longer dare to separate themselves from the common cause. Eporedorix and Viridomarus, young men of great promise, obey Vercingetorix unwillingly. The latter begins by exacting from the other states hostages to be delivered on a fixed day; orders that the cavalry, amounting to 15,000 men, shall be gathered round his person; declares he has infantry enough at Bibracte, for his intention is not to offer a pitched battle to the Romans, but, with a numerous cavalry, to intercept their convoys of grain and forage. He exhorts the Gauls to set fire with a common accord to their habitations and crops, which are only small sacrifices in comparison to their liberty. These measures having been decided, he demands from the Ædui and the Segusiavi, who bordered upon the Roman province, 10,000 foot soldiers, sends them 800 horse, and gives the command of these troops to the brother of Eporedorix, with orders to carry the war into the country of the Allobroges. On another side, he orders the Gabali and the neighbouring cantons of the Arverni to march against the Helvii, and sends the Ruteni and the Cadurci to lay waste the country of the Volcæ Arecomici. At the same time, he labours secretly to gain the Allobroges, in the hope that the remembrance of their ancient struggles against the Romans is not yet effaced. He promises money to their chiefs, and to their country the sovereignty over the whole Narbonnese.

To meet these dangers, twenty-two cohorts, raised in the province, and commanded by the lieutenant Lucius Cæsar,506 had to face the enemy on every side. The Helvii, faithful to the Romans, by their own impulse, attacked their neighbours in the open field; but repulsed with loss, and having to deplore the death of their chiefs, among others that of C. Valerius Donnotaurus, they ventured no more outside their walls. As to the Allobroges, they defended their territory with energy, by placing a great number of posts along the Rhone. The superiority of the enemy in cavalry, the interruption of the communications, the impossibility of drawing succour from Italy or the province, decided Cæsar on demanding from the German peoples on the other side of the Rhine, subdued the year before, cavalry and light infantry accustomed to fight intermingled. On their arrival, finding that the cavalry were not sufficiently well mounted, he distributed amongst them the horses of the tribunes, and even those of the Roman knights and the volunteers (evocati).507

Junction of Cæsar and Labienus. Battle of the Vingeanne.

XI. The line of march followed by Cæsar after he had crossed the Loire has been the subject of numerous controversies. Yet the “Commentaries” appear to us to furnish sufficient data to determine it with precision. On leaving Gergovia, Cæsar’s object was, as he tells us himself, to effect a junction with Labienus; with this view, he marched towards the land of the Senones, after having crossed the Loire at Bourbon-Lancy. On his part, Labienus, after returning to Sens, having advanced to meet Cæsar, their junction must necessarily have taken place on a point of the line from Bourbon-Lancy to Sens; this point, in our opinion, is Joigny. (See Plate 19.) Encamped not far from the confluence of the Armançon and the Yonne, Cæsar could easily receive the contingent which he expected from Germany.

The Roman army was composed of eleven legions: the 1st, lent by Pompey, and the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th.508 The effective force of each of them varied from 4,000 to 5,000 men; for, if we see (lib. V. 49) that on the return from Britain two legions reckoned together only 7,000 men, their effective force was soon increased by considerable re-enforcements which came to the army of Gaul in 702;509 the legion lent by Pompey was of 6,000 men;510 and the 13th, at the breaking out of the civil war, had in its ranks 5,000 soldiers.511 Cæsar had then at his disposal, during the campaigns which ended with the taking of Alesia, 50,000 legionaries, and perhaps 20,000 Numidian or Cretan archers, and 5,000 or 6,000 cavalry, a thousand of whom were Germans, making a total of about 75,000 men, without counting the valets, who were always very numerous.

When the junction of the troops had been effected, Cæsar sought above all to approach the Roman province, in order to carry succour to it with more ease; he could not think of taking the most direct road, which would have led him into the country of the Ædui, one of the centres of the insurrection; he was, therefore, obliged to pass through the territory of the Lingones, who had remained faithful to him, and to proceed into Sequania, where Besançon offered an important place of arms. (See Plate 19.) He started from Joigny, following the road which he had taken when he marched to meet Ariovistus (696),512 and the winter before, when he moved from Vienne to Sens. After reaching the Aube at Dancevoir, he proceeded towards the little river Vingeanne, crossing, as the “Commentaries” say, the extreme part of the territory of the Lingones (per extremos Lingonum fines).513 His intention was, no doubt, to cross the Saône, either at Gray, or at Pontailler.

Whilst the Romans abandoned that part of Gaul which had revolted, in order to approach nearer to the province, Vercingetorix had assembled his army, amounting to more than 80,000 men, at Bibracte; it had come in great part from the country of the Arverni, and counted in its ranks the cavalry furnished by all the states. Having been informed of Cæsar’s march, he started at the head of his troops, to bar the road through Sequania. Passing, as we believe, by Arnay-le-Duc, Sombernon, Dijon, and Thil-Châtel, he arrived at the heights of Occey, Sacquenay, and Montormentier, where he formed three camps, at a distance of 10,000 paces (fifteen kilomètres) from the Roman army. (See Plate 24.) In this position Vercingetorix intercepted the three roads which Cæsar could have taken towards the Saône, either at Gray, or at Pontailler, or at Chalon.514 Resolved on risking a battle, he convoked the chiefs of the cavalry. “The moment of victory,” he told them, “has arrived; the Romans fly into their province, and abandon Gaul. If this retreat delivers us for the present, it ensures neither peace nor rest for the future; they will return with greater forces, and the war will be endless. We must attack them, therefore, in the disorder of their march; for if the legions stop to defend their long convoy, they will not be able to continue their road; or if, which is more probable, they abandon their baggage in order to secure their own safety, they will lose what is indispensable to them, and, at the same time, their prestige. As to their cavalry, they will surely not dare to move away from the column; that of the Gauls must show so much the more ardour, as the infantry, ranged before the camp, will be there to intimidate the enemy.” Then, the cavalry exclaimed, “Let every one swear, by a solemn oath, never to return to the home of his forefathers, his wife, or his children, if he has not ridden twice through the ranks of the enemy!” This proposition was received with enthusiasm, and all took the oath.

The day on which Vercingetorix arrived on the heights of Sacquenay,515 Cæsar, as we have seen, encamped on the Vingeanne, near Longeau. Ignorant of the presence of the Gauls, he started next day, in marching column, the legions at a great distance from each other, separated by their baggage. When his vanguard arrived near Dommarien, it could perceive the hostile army. Vercingetorix was watching the moment they (the Romans) debouched, to attack. He had divided his cavalry in three bodies, and his infantry had descended from the heights of Sacquenay in order to take a position along the Vingeanne and the Badin. (See Plate 24.) As soon as the vanguard of the enemy appears, Vercingetorix bars its way with one of the bodies of cavalry, while the two others show themselves in order of battle on the two wings of the Romans. Taken unexpectedly, Cæsar divides his cavalry also into three bodies, and opposes them to the enemy. The combat engages on all sides; the column of the Roman army halts; the legions are brought into line, and the baggage placed in the intervals. This order, in which the legions were, no doubt, in column of three deep, was easy to execute, and presented the advantages of a square. Wherever the cavalry gives way or is too hotly pressed, Cæsar sends to its support the cohorts, which he draws from the main body to range them in order of battle.516 By this manœuvre he renders the attacks less vigorous, and increases the confidence of the Romans, who are assured of support. Finally, the German auxiliaries, having gained, to the right of the Roman army, the summit of a height (the hill of Montsaugeon), drive the enemies from it, and pursue the fugitives as far as the river, where Vercingetorix stood with his infantry. At the sight of this rout, the rest of the Gaulish cavalry fear to be surrounded, and take to flight. From this time the battle became a mere carnage. Three Ædui of distinction are taken and brought to Cæsar: Cotus, chief of the cavalry, who, at the last election, had contended with Convictolitavis for the sovereign magistracy; Cavarillus, who, since the defection of Litavicus, commanded the infantry; and Eporedorix, whom the Ædui had for chief in their war against the Sequani, before the arrival of Cæsar in Gaul.517

Blockade of Alesia.

XII. Vercingetorix, after the defeat of his cavalry, decided on a retreat; taking his infantry with him, without returning to his camp, he marched immediately towards Alesia, the oppidum of the Mandubii. The baggage, withdrawn from the camp, followed him without delay.518 Cæsar ordered his baggage to be carried to a neighbouring hill, under the guard of two legions, pursued the enemies as long as daylight permitted, killed about 3,000 men of their rear-guard, and established his camp, two days afterwards, before Alesia.519 After having reconnoitred the position of the town, and taking advantage of the disorder of the enemy, who had placed his principal confidence in his cavalry, which was thrown into consternation by its defeat, he resolved to invest Alesia, and exhorted his soldiers to support the labours and fatigues of a siege with constancy.

Alise-Sainte-Reine, in the department of the Côte-d’Or, is, undoubtedly, the Alesia of the “Commentaries.” The examination of the strategic reasons which determined the march of Cæsar, the correct interpretation of the text, and, lastly, the excavations lately made, all combine to prove it.520

Ancient Alesia occupied the summit of the mountain now called Mont Auxois; on the western slope is built the village of Alise-Sainte-Reine. (See Plates 25 and 26.) It is an entirely isolated mountain, which rises 150 to 160 mètres above the surrounding valleys (erat oppidum Alesia in colle summo, admodum edito loco …). Two rivers bathe the foot of the mountain on two opposite sides: they are the Ose and the Oserain (cujus collis radices duo duabus ex partibus flumina subluebant). To the west of Mont Auxois the plain of Laumes extends, the greatest dimension of which, between the village of Laumes and that of Pouillenay, is 3,000 paces or 4,400 mètres (ante oppidum planities circiter millia passuum III in longitudinem patebat). On all other sides, at a distance varying from 1,100 to 1,600 mètres, rises a belt of hills, the plateaux of which are at the same height (reliquis ex omnibus partibus colles, mediocri interjecto spatio, pari altitudinis fastigio oppidum cingebant).

The summit of Mont Auxois has the form of an ellipse, 2,100 mètres in length, and 800 mètres broad in its greatest diameter. Including the first spurs which surround the principal mass, it is found to contain a superficies of 1,400,000 square mètres, 973,100 mètres of which for the upper plateau and 400,000 mètres for the terraces and spurs. (See Plate 25.) The town appears to have crowned the whole of the plateau, which was protected by scarped rocks against all attack.521

This oppidum could, apparently, only be reduced by a complete investment. The Gaulish troops covered, at the foot of the wall, all the slopes of the eastern part of the mountain; they were there protected by a fosse and by a wall of unhewn stones six feet high. Cæsar established his camps in favourable positions, the infantry on the heights, the cavalry near the watercourses. These camps, and twenty-three redoubts or blockhouses,522 formed a line of investment of 11,000 paces (sixteen kilomètres).523 The redoubts were occupied in the day by small posts, to prevent any surprise; by night, strong detachments bivouacked in them.

The works were hardly begun, when a cavalry engagement took place in the plain of Laumes. The combat was very hot on both sides. The Romans were giving way, when Cæsar sent the Germans to their assistance, and ranged the legions in order of battle in front of the camps, so that the enemy’s infantry, kept in awe, should not come to the assistance of the cavalry. That of the Romans recovered confidence on seeing that they were supported by the legions. The Gauls, obliged to fly, became embarrassed by their own numbers, and rushed to the openings left in the wall of unhewn stones, which were too narrow for the occasion. Pursued with fury by the Germans up to the fortifications, some were slain, and others, abandoning their horses, attempted to cross the fosse and climb over the wall. Cæsar then ordered the legions, who were drawn up before his retrenchments, to advance a little. This movement carried disorder into the Gaulish camp. The troops within feared a serious attack, and the cry to arms rose on all sides. Some, struck with terror, threw themselves into the oppidum; Vercingetorix was obliged to order the gates to be closed, for fear the camp should be abandoned. The Germans retired, after having killed a great number of the cavalry, and taken a great number of horses.

Vercingetorix resolved to send away all his cavalry by night, before the Romans had completed the investment. He urges the cavalry, on their departure, to return each to his country, and recruit the men able to carry arms; he reminds them of his services, and implores them to think of his safety, and not to deliver him as a prey to the enemies, him who has done so much for the general liberty: their indifference would entail with his loss that of 80,000 picked men. On an exact calculation, he has only provisions for one month; by husbanding them carefully, he may hold out some time longer. After these recommendations, he causes his cavalry to leave in silence, at the second watch (nine o’clock). It is probable that they escaped by ascending the valleys of the Ose and the Oserain. Then he orders, on pain of death, all the corn to be brought to him. He divides among the soldiers individually the numerous cattle which had been collected by the Mandubii; but as to the grain, he reserves the power of distributing it gradually and in small quantities. All the troops encamped outside withdraw into the oppidum. By these dispositions he prepares to wait for the succour of Gaul, and to sustain the war.

As soon as Cæsar was informed of these measures by the prisoners and deserters, he resolved to form lines of countervallation and circumvallation, and adopted the following system of fortifications: he ordered first of all to be dug, in the plain of Laumes, a fosse twenty feet wide, with vertical walls, that is, as wide at the bottom as at the level of the ground (see Plates 25 and 28), so as to prevent lines so extensive, and so difficult to guard with soldiers along their whole extent, from being attacked suddenly by night, and also to protect the workmen from the darts of the enemy during the day. Four hundred feet behind this fosse, he formed the countervallation. He then made two fosses of fifteen feet wide, of equal depth,524 and filled the interior fosse – that is, the one nearest to the town – with water derived from the river Oserain. Behind these fosses he raised a rampart and a palisade (aggerem ac vallum), having together a height of twelve feet. Against this was placed a fence of hurdles with battlements (loricam pinnasque); strong forked branches were placed horizontally at the junction of the hurdle-fence and the rampart, so as to render them more difficult to scale. (See Plate 27.) Lastly, he established towers on all this part of the countervallation, with a distance of eighty feet between them.

It was necessary at the same time to work at widely extended fortifications, and to fetch in wood and provisions, so that these distant and toilsome expeditions diminished incessantly the effective force of the combatants; and the Gauls, too, often attempted to harass the workmen, and even made vigorous sallies, through several gates at a time. Cæsar judged it necessary to increase the strength of the works, so that they might be defended with a smaller number of men. He ordered trees or large branches to be taken, the extremities of which were sharpened and cut to a point;525 they were placed in a fosse five feet deep; and, that they might not be torn up, they were tied together at the lower part; the other part, furnished with branches, rose above ground. There were five rows of these, contiguous and interlaced; whoever ventured amongst them would be wounded by their sharp points; they were called cippi. In front of these sorts of abatis were dug wolves’ pits (scrobes), trunconic fosses, of three feet deep, disposed in the form of a quincunx. In the centre of each hole was planted a round stake, of the thickness of a man’s thigh, hardened in the fire, and pointed at the top; it only rose about four inches above ground. In order to render these stakes firmer, they were surrounded at the base with earth well stamped down; the rest of the excavation was covered with thorns and brushwood, so as to conceal the trap. There were eight rows of holes, three feet distant from each other: they were called lilies (lilia), on account of their resemblance to the flower of that name. Lastly, in front of these defences were fixed, level with the ground, stakes of a foot long, to which were fixed irons in the shape of hooks. These kind of caltrops, to which they gave the name of stimuli,526 were placed everywhere, and very near each other.

When this work was finished, Cæsar ordered retrenchments to be dug, almost similar, but on the opposite side, in order to resist attacks from the exterior. This line of circumvallation, of fourteen miles in circuit (twenty-one kilomètres), had been formed on the most favourable ground, in conforming to the nature of the locality. If the Gaulish cavalry brought back an army of succour, he sought by these means to prevent it, however numerous it might be, from surrounding the posts established along the circumvallation. In order to avoid the danger which the soldiers would have run in quitting the camps, he ordered that every man should provide himself with provisions and forage for thirty days. Notwithstanding this precaution, the Roman army suffered from want.527