History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Battle on the Aisne.

III. Having made these dispositions, and having left in the camp his two newly-raised legions to serve as a reserve in case of need, Cæsar placed the six others in array of battle, the right resting on the retrenchments. The enemy also drew out his troops and deployed them in face of the Romans. The two armies remained in observation, each waiting till the other passed the marsh of the Miette, as the favourable moment for attack. Meanwhile, as they remained thus stationary, the cavalry were fighting on both sides. After a successful charge, Cæsar, perceiving that the enemies persisted in not entering the marshes, withdrew his legions. The Belgæ immediately left their position to move towards the Aisne, below the point where the Miette entered it. Their object was to cross the river between Gernicourt and Pontavert, where there were fords, with part of their troops, to carry, if they could, the redoubt commanded by the lieutenant Q. Titurius Sabinus, and to cut the bridge, or, at least, to intercept the convoys of provisions, and ravage the country of the Remi, to the south of the Aisne, whence the Romans drew their supplies.

The barbarians were already approaching the river, when Sabinus perceived them from the heights of Berry-au-Bac;249 he immediately gave information to Cæsar, who, with all his cavalry, the light-armed Numidians, the slingers, and the archers, passed the bridge, and, descending the left bank, marched to meet the enemies towards the place threatened. When he arrived there, some of them had already passed the Aisne. An obstinate struggle takes place. Surprised in their passage, the Belgæ, after having experienced considerable loss, advance intrepidly over the corpses to cross the river, but are repulsed by a shower of missiles; those who had reached the left bank are surrounded by the cavalry and massacred.250

Retreat of the Belgæ.

IV. The Belgæ having failed in taking the oppidum of Bibrax, in drawing the Romans upon disadvantageous ground, in crossing the river, and suffering, also, from want of provisions, decided on returning home, to be ready to assemble again to succour the country which might be first invaded by the Roman army. The principal cause of this decision was the news of the threatened invasion of the country of the Bellovaci by Divitiacus and the Ædui: the Bellovaci refused to lose a single instant in hurrying to the defence of their hearths. Towards ten o’clock in the evening, the Belgæ withdrew in such disorder that their departure resembled a flight. Cæsar was informed immediately by his spies, but, fearing that this retreat might conceal a snare, he retained his legions, and even his cavalry, in the camp. At break of day, better informed by his scouts, he sent all his cavalry, under the orders of the lieutenants Q. Pedius and L. Aurunculeius Cotta,251 and ordered Labienus, with three legions, to follow them. These troops fell upon the fugitives, and slew as many as the length of the day would permit. At sunset they gave up the pursuit, and, in obedience to the orders they had received, returned to the camp.252

The coalition of the Belgæ, so renowned for their valour, was thus dissolved. Nevertheless, it was of importance to the Roman general, in order to secure the pacification of the country, to go and reduce to subjection in their homes the peoples who had dared to enter into league against him. The nearest were the Suessiones, whose territory bordered upon that of the Remi.

Capture of Noviodunum and Bratuspantium.

V. The day after the flight of the enemy, before they had recovered from their fright, Cæsar broke up his camp, crossed the Aisne, descended its left bank, invaded the country of the Suessiones, arrived after a long day’s march (45 kilomètres) before Noviodunum (Soissons) (see Plate 7), and, informed that this town had a weak garrison, he attempted the same day to carry it by assault; he failed, through the breadth of the fosses and the height of the walls. He then retrenched his camp, ordered covered galleries to be advanced (vineas agere),253 and all things necessary for a siege to be collected. Nevertheless, the crowd of fugitive Suessiones threw themselves into the town during the following night. The galleries having been pushed rapidly towards the walls, the foundations of a terrace254 to pass the fosse (aggere jacto) were established, and towers were constructed. The Gauls, astonished at the greatness and novelty of these works, so promptly executed, offered to surrender. They obtained safety of life at the prayer of the Remi.

Cæsar received as hostages the principal chiefs of the country, and even the two sons of King Galba, exacted the surrender of all their arms, and accepted the submission of the Suessiones. He then conducted his army into the country of the Bellovaci, who had shut themselves up, with all they possessed, in the oppidum of Bratuspantium (Breteuil).255 The army was only at about five miles’ distance from it, when all the aged men, issuing from the town, came, with extended hands, to implore the generosity of the Roman general; when he had arrived under the walls of the place, and while he was establishing his camp, he saw the women and children also demanding peace as suppliants from the top of the walls.

Divitiacus, in the name of the Ædui, interceded in their favour. After the retreat of the Belgæ and the disbanding of his troops, he had returned to the presence of Cæsar. The latter, who had, at the prayer of the Remi, just shown himself clement towards the Suessiones, displayed, at the solicitation of the Ædui, the same indulgence towards the Bellovaci. Thus obeying the same political idea of increasing among the Belgæ the influence of the peoples allied to Rome, he pardoned them; but, as their nation was the most powerful in Belgic Gaul, he required from them all their arms and 600 hostages. The Bellovaci declared that the promoters of the war, seeing the misfortune they had drawn upon their country, had fled into the isle of Britain.

It is curious to remark the relations which existed at this epoch between part of Gaul and England. We know, in fact, from the “Commentaries,” that a certain Divitiacus, an Æduan chieftain, the most powerful in all Gaul, had formerly extended his power into the isle of Britain, and we have just seen that the chiefs in the last struggle against the Romans had found a refuge in the British isles.

Cæsar next marched from Bratuspantium against the Ambiani, who surrendered without resistance.256

March against the Nervii.

VI. The Roman army was now to encounter more formidable adversaries. The Nervii occupied a vast territory, one extremity of which touched upon that of the Ambiani. This wild and intrepid people bitterly reproached the other Belgæ for having submitted to foreigners and abjured the virtues of their fathers. They had resolved not to send deputies, nor to accept peace on any condition. Foreseeing the approaching invasion of the Roman army, the Nervii had drawn into alliance with them two neighbouring peoples, the Atrebates and the Veromandui, whom they had persuaded to risk with them the fortune of war: the Aduatuci, also, were already on the way to join the coalition. The women, and all those whose age rendered them unfit for fighting, had been placed in safety, in a spot defended by a marsh, and inaccessible to an army, no doubt at Mons.257

After the submission of the Ambiani, Cæsar left Amiens to proceed to the country of the Nervii; and after three days’ march on their territory, he arrived probably at Bavay (Bagacum), which is considered to have been their principal town. There he learnt by prisoners that he was no more than ten miles (fifteen kilomètres) distant from the Sambre, and that the enemy awaited him posted on the opposite bank of the river.258 He thus found himself on the left bank, and the Nervii were assembled on the right bank.259 (See Plate 7.)

In accordance with the informations he had received, Cæsar sent out a reconnoitring party of scouts and centurions, charged with the selection of a spot favourable for the establishment of a camp. A certain number of the Belgæ, who had recently submitted, and other Gauls, followed him, and accompanied him in his march. Some of them, as was known subsequently by the prisoners, having observed during the preceding days the usual order of march of the army, deserted during the night to the Nervii, and informed them that behind each of the legions there was a long column of baggage; that the legion which arrived first at the camp being separated by a great space from the others, it would be easy to attack the soldiers, still charged with their bundles (sarcinæ); that this legion once routed and its baggage captured, the others would not dare to offer any resistance. This plan of attack was the more readily embraced by the Belgæ, as the nature of the locality favoured its execution. The Nervii, in fact, always weak in cavalry (their whole force was composed of infantry), were accustomed, in order to impede more easily the cavalry of their neighbours, to notch and bend horizontally young trees, the numerous branches of which, interlaced and mingled with brambles and brushwood, formed thick hedges, a veritable wall which nothing could pass through, impenetrable even to the eye.260 As this kind of obstacle was very embarrassing to the march of the Roman army, the Nervii resolved to hide themselves in the woods which then covered the heights of Haumont, to watch there the moment when it would debouch on the opposite heights of the Sambre, to wait till they perceived the file of baggage, and then immediately to rush upon the troops which preceded.261 (See Plate 10.)

Battle on the Sambre.

VII. The centurions sent to reconnoitre had selected for the establishment of the camp the heights of Neuf-Mesnil. These descend in a uniform slope to the very banks of the river. Those of Boussières, to which they join, end, on the contrary, at the Sambre, in sufficiently bold escarpments, the elevation of which varies from five to fifteen mètres, and which, inaccessible near Boussières, may be climbed a little lower, opposite the wood of Quesnoy. The Sambre, in all this extent, was no more than about three feet deep. On the right bank, the heights of Haumont, opposite those of Neuf-Mesnil, descend on all sides in gentle and regular slopes to the level of the river. In the lower part, they were bare for a breadth of about 200 Roman paces (300 mètres), reckoning from the Sambre; and then the woods began, which covered the upper parts. It was in these woods, impenetrable to the sight, that the Belgæ remained concealed. They were there drawn up in order of battle: on the right, the Atrebates; in the centre, the Veromandui; on the left, the Nervii; these latter facing the escarpments of the Sambre. On the open part, along the river, they had placed some posts of cavalry. (See Plate 10.)

Cæsar, ignorant of the exact position where the Belgæ were encamped, directed his march towards the heights of Neuf-Mesnil. His cavalry preceded him, but the order of march was different from that which had been communicated to the Nervii by the deserters; as he approached the enemy, he had, according to his custom, united six legions, and placed the baggage in the tail of the column, under the guard of the two legions recently raised, who closed the march.

The cavalry, slingers, and archers passed the Sambre and engaged the cavalry of the enemy, who at one moment took refuge in the woods, and at another resumed the offensive, nor were ever pursued beyond the open ground. Meanwhile, the six legions debouched. Arrived on the place chosen for the camp, they began to retrench, and shared the labour among them. Some proceeded to dig the fosses, while others spread themselves over the country in search of timber and turf. They had hardly begun their work, when the Belgæ, perceiving the first portion of the baggage (which was the moment fixed for the attack), suddenly issue from the forest with all their forces, in the order of battle they had adopted, rush upon the cavalry and put it to rout, and run towards the Sambre with such incredible rapidity that they seem to be everywhere at once – at the edge of the wood, in the river, and in the midst of the Roman troops; then, with the same celerity, climbing the hill, they rush towards the camp, where the soldiers are at work at the retrenchments. The Roman army is taken off its guard.

Cæsar had to provide against everything at the same time. It was necessary to raise the purple standard as the signal for hastening to arms,262 to sound the trumpets to recall the soldiers employed in the works, to bring in those who were at a distance, form the lines, harangue the troops, give the word of order.263 In this critical situation, the experience of the soldiers, acquired in so many combats, and the presence of the lieutenants with each legion, helped to supply the place of the general, and to enable each to take, by his own impulse, the dispositions he thought best. The impetuosity of the enemy is such that the soldiers have time neither to put on the ensigns,264 nor to take the covering from their bucklers, nor even to put on their helmets. Each, abandoning his labours, runs to range himself in the utmost haste under the first standard which presents itself.

The army, constrained by necessity, was drawn up on the slope of the hill, much more in obedience to the nature of the ground and the exigencies of the moment than according to military rules. The legions, separated from one another by thick hedges, which intercepted their view, could not lend each other mutual succour; they formed an irregular and interrupted line: the 9th and 10th legions were placed on the left of the camp, the 8th and 11th in the centre, the 7th and 12th on the right. In this general confusion, in which it became as difficult to carry succour to the points threatened as to obey one single command, everything was ruled by accident.

Cæsar, after taking the measures most urgent, rushes towards the troops which chance presents first to him, takes them as he finds them in his way, harangues them, and, when he comes to the 10th legion, he recalls to its memory, in a few words, its ancient valour. As the enemy was already within reach of the missiles, he orders the attack; then, proceeding towards another point to encourage his troops, he finds them already engaged.

The soldiers of the 9th and 10th legions throw the pilum, and fall, sword in hand, upon the Atrebates, who, fatigued by their rapid advance, out of breath, and pierced with wounds, are soon driven back from the hill they have just climbed. These two legions, led no doubt by Labienus, drive them into the Sambre, slay a great number, cross the river at their heels, and pursue them up the slopes of the right bank. The enemy, then thinking to take advantage of the commanding position, form again, and renew the combat; but the Romans repulse them anew, and, continuing their victorious march, take possession of the Gaulish camp. In the centre, the 8th and 11th legions, attacked by the Veromandui, had driven them back upon the banks of the Sambre, to the foot of the heights, where the combat still continued.

While on the left and in the centre victory declared for the Romans, on the right wing, the 7th and 12th legions were in danger of being overwhelmed under the efforts of the whole army of the Nervii, composed of 60,000 men. These intrepid warriors, led by their chief, Boduognatus, had dashed across the Sambre in face of the escarpments of the left bank; they had boldly climbed these, and thrown themselves, in close rank, upon the two legions of the right wing. These legions were placed in a position the more critical, as the victorious movements of the left and centre, by stripping almost entirely of troops that part of the field of battle, had left them without support. The Nervii take advantage of these circumstances: some move towards the summit of the heights to seize the camp, others outflank the two legions on the right wing (aperto latere).

As chance would have it, at this same moment, the cavalry and light-armed foot, who had been repulsed at the first attack, regained pell-mell the camp; finding themselves unexpectedly in face of the enemy, they are confounded, and take to flight again in another direction. The valets of the army, who, from the Decuman gate and the summit of the hill, had seen the Romans cross the river victoriously, and had issued forth in hope of plunder, look back; perceiving the Nervii in the camp, they fly precipitately. The tumult is further increased by the cries of the baggage-drivers, who rush about in terror. Among the auxiliaries in the Roman army, there was a body of Treviran cavalry, who enjoyed among the Gauls a reputation for valour. When they saw the camp invaded, the legions pressed and almost surrounded, the valets, the cavalry, the slingers, the Numidians, separated, dispersed, and flying on all sides, they believed that all was lost, took the road for their own country, and proclaimed everywhere in their march that the Roman army was destroyed.

Cæsar had repaired from the left wing to the other points of the line. When he arrived at the right wing, he had found the 7th and 12th legions hotly engaged, the ensigns of the cohorts of the 12th legion collected on the same point, the soldiers pressed together and mutually embarrassing each other, all the centurions of the 4th cohort and the standard-bearer killed; the standard lost; in the other cohorts most of the centurions were either killed or wounded, and among the latter was the primipilus Sextius Baculus, a man of rare bravery, who was destined soon afterwards to save the legion of Galba in the Valais. The soldiers who still resisted were exhausted, and those of the last ranks were quitting the ranks to avoid the missiles; new troops of enemies continually climbed the hill, some advancing to the front against the Romans, the others turning them on the two wings. In this extreme danger, Cæsar judges that he can hope for succour only from himself: having arrived without buckler, he seizes that of a legionary of the last ranks and rushes to the first line; there, calling the centurions by their names and exciting the soldiers, he draws the 12th legion forward, and causes more interval to be made between the files of the companies in order to facilitate the handling of their swords. His example and encouraging words restore hope to the combatants and revive their courage. Each man, under the eyes of their general, shows new energy, and this heroic devotedness begins to cool the impetuosity of the enemy. Not far thence, the 7th legion was pressed by a multitude of assailants. Cæsar orders the tribunes gradually to bring the two legions back to back, so that each presented its front to the enemy in opposite directions. Fearing no longer to be taken in the rear, they resist with firmness, and fight with new ardour. While Cæsar is thus occupied, the two legions of the rear-guard, which formed the escort of the baggage (the 13th and 14th), informed of what was taking place, arrive in haste, and appear in view of the enemy at the top of the hill. On his part, T. Labienus, who, at the head of the 9th and 10th legions, had made himself master of the enemy’s camp on the heights of Haumont, discovers what is passing in the Roman camp. He judges, by the flight of the cavalry and servants, the greatness of the danger with which Cæsar is threatened, and sends the 10th legion to his succour, which, re-passing the Sambre, and climbing the slopes of Neuf-Mesnil, runs in haste to fall upon the rear of the Nervii.

On the arrival of these re-enforcements, the whole aspect of things changes: the wounded raise themselves, and support themselves on their bucklers in order to take part in the action; the valets, seeing the terror of the enemy, throw themselves unarmed upon men who are armed; and the cavalry,265 to efface the disgrace of their flight, seek to outdo the legionaries in the combat. Meanwhile the Nervii fight with the courage of despair. When those of the first ranks fall, the nearest take their places, and mount upon their bodies; they are slain in their turn; the dead form heaps; the survivors throw, from the top of this mountain of corpses, their missiles upon the Romans, and send them back their own pila. “How can we, then, be astonished,” says Cæsar, “that such men dared to cross a broad river, climb its precipitous banks, and overcome the difficulties of the ground, since nothing appeared too much for their courage?” They met death to the last man, and 60,000 corpses covered the field of battle so desperately fought, in which the fortune of Cæsar had narrowly escaped wreck.

After this struggle, in which, according to the “Commentaries,” the race and name of the Nervii were nearly annihilated, the old men, women, and children, who had sought refuge in the middle of the marshes, finding no hopes of safety, surrendered.266 In dwelling on the misfortune of their country, they said that, of 600 senators, there remained only three; and that, of 60,000 combatants, hardly 500 had survived. Cæsar, to show his clemency towards the unfortunate who implored it, treated these remains of the Nervii with kindness; he left them their lands and towns, and enjoined the neighbouring peoples not only not to molest them, but even to protect them from all outrage and violence.267

Siege of the Oppidum of the Aduatuci.

VIII. This victory was gained, no doubt, towards the end of July. Cæsar detached the 7th legion, under the orders of young P. Crassus, to reduce the maritime peoples of the shores of the ocean: the Veneti, the Unelli, the Osismii, the Curiosolitæ, the Essuvii, the Aulerci, and the Redones. He proceeded in person, with the seven other legions, following the course of the Sambre, to meet the Aduatuci, who, as we have seen above, were marching to join the Nervii. They were the descendants of those Cimbri and Teutones who, in their descent upon the Roman province and Italy in the year 652, had left on this side the Rhine 6,000 men in charge of as much of the baggage as was too heavy to be carried with them. After the defeat of their companions by Marius, and many vicissitudes, these Germans had established themselves towards the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse, and had there formed a state.

As soon as the Aduatuci were informed of the disaster of the Nervii, they returned to their own country, abandoned their towns and forts, and retired, with all they possessed, into one oppidum, remarkably fortified by nature. Surrounded in every direction by precipitous rocks of great elevation, it was accessible only on one side by a gentle slope, at most 100 feet wide, defended by a fosse and double wall of great height, on which they placed enormous masses of rock and pointed beams. The mountain on which the citadel of Namur is situated268 answers sufficiently to this description. (See Plate 11.)

On the arrival of the army, they made at first frequent sorties, and engaged in battles on a small scale. Later, when the place was surrounded by a countervallation of twelve feet high in a circuit of 15,000 feet,269 with numerous redoubts, they kept close in their oppidum. The Romans pushed forward their covered galleries, raised a terrace under shelter of these galleries, and constructed a tower of timber, intended to be pushed against the wall. At the sight of these preparations, the Aduatuci, who, like most of the Gauls, despised the Romans on account of their small stature, addressed the besiegers ironically from their walls, not understanding how a great machine, placed at a great distance, could be put in motion by men so diminutive. But when they saw this tower move and approach the walls, struck with a sight so strange and so new to them, they sent to implore peace, demanding, as the only condition, that they should be left in possession of their arms. Cæsar refused this condition, but declared that, if they surrendered before the ram had struck their wall, they should be placed, like the Nervii, under the protection of the Roman people, and preserved from all violence. The besieged thereupon threw such a quantity of arms into the fosses that they filled them almost to the height of the wall and the terrace; yet, as was afterwards discovered, they had retained about one-third. They threw open their gates, and that day remained quiet.

The Romans had occupied the town; towards evening, Cæsar ordered them to leave it, fearing the violences which the soldiers might commit on the inhabitants during the night. But these, believing that after the surrender of the place the posts of the countervallation would be guarded with less care, resume the arms they had concealed, furnish themselves with bucklers of bark of trees, or wicker, covered hastily with skins, and, at midnight, attack the part of the works which seems most easy of access. Fires, prepared by Cæsar, soon announce the attack. The soldiers rush to the spot from the nearest redoubts; and, though the enemies fight with the obstinacy of despair, the missiles thrown from the entrenchments and the towers disperse them, and they are driven back into the town with a loss of 4,000 men. Next day the gates were broken in without resistance, and, the town once taken, the inhabitants were sold publicly to the number of 53,000.270