The Saône, which crossed the
countries
of the Ædui and the
Sequani,[177] flowed, then as now, in certain places with an extreme
sluggishness.
Sequani,[177] flowed, then as now, in certain places with an extreme
sluggishness.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - b
[76] Such, at least, are the
denominations employed in the “Commentaries,” but which were certainly
not those of the Celtic language. In each state there existed principal
towns, called indifferently by Cæsar _urbs_ or _oppidum_;[77] yet this
last name was given by preference to considerable towns, difficult of
access and carefully fortified, placed on heights or surrounded by
marshes. [78] It was to these _oppida_ that, in case of attack, the Gauls
transported their grain, their provisions, and their riches. [79] Their
habitations, established often in the forests or on the bank of a river,
were constructed of wood, and tolerably spacious. [80]
[Sidenote: Manners. ]
III. The Gauls were tall in stature, their skin was white, their eyes
blue, their hair fair or chestnut, which they dyed, in order to make the
colour more brilliant. [81] They let their beard grow; the nobles alone
shaved, and preserved long moustaches. [82] Trousers or breeches, very
wide among the Belgæ, but narrower among the southern Gauls, and a
shirt with sleeves, descending to the middle of the thighs, composed
their principal dress. [83] They were clothed with a mantle or
_saie_,[84] magnificently embroidered with gold or silver among the
rich,[85] and held about the neck by means of a metal brooch. The lowest
classes of the people used instead an animal’s skin. The Aquitanians
covered themselves, probably according to the Iberic custom, with cloth
of coarse wool unshorn. [86]
The Gauls wore collars, earrings, bracelets, and rings for the arms, of
gold or copper, according to their rank; necklaces of amber, and rings,
which they placed on the third finger. [87]
They were naturally agriculturists, and we may suppose that the
institution of private property existed among them, because, on the one
hand, all the citizens paid the tax, except the Druids,[88] and, on the
other, the latter were judges of questions of boundaries. [89] They were
not unacquainted with certain manufactures. In some countries they
fabricated serges, which were in great repute, and cloths or felts;[90]
in others they worked the mines with skill, and employed themselves in
the fabrication of metals. The Bituriges worked in iron, and were
acquainted with the art of tinning. [91] The artificers of Alesia plated
copper with leaf-silver, to ornament horses’ bits and trappings. [92]
The Gauls fed especially on the flesh of swine, and their ordinary
drinks were milk, ale, and mead. [93] They were reproached with being
inclined to drunkenness. [94]
They were frank and open in temper, and hospitable toward strangers,[95]
but vain and quarrelsome;[96] fickle in their sentiments, and fond of
novelties, they took sudden resolutions, regretting one day what they
had rejected with disdain the day before;[97] inclined to war and eager
for adventures, they showed themselves hot in the attack, but quickly
discouraged in defeat. [98] Their language was very concise and
figurative;[99] in writing, they employed Greek letters.
The men were not exempt from a shameful vice, which we might have
believed less common in this county than among the peoples of the
East. [100] The women united an extraordinary beauty with remarkable
courage and great physical force. [101]
The Gauls, according to the tradition preserved by the Druids, boasted
of being descended from the god of the earth, or from Pluto (_Dis_),
according to the expression of Cæsar. [102] It was for this reason that
they took night for their starting-point in all their divisions of time.
Among their other customs, they had one which was singular: they
considered it as a thing unbecoming to appear in public with their
children, until the latter had reached the age for carrying arms. [103]
When he married, the man took from his fortune a part equal to the dowry
of the wife. This sum, placed as a common fund, was allowed to
accumulate with interest, and the whole reverted to the survivor. The
husband had the right of life and death over his wife and children. [104]
When the decease of a man of wealth excited any suspicion, his wives, as
well as his slaves, were put to the torture, and burnt if they were
found guilty.
The extravagance of their funerals presented a contrast to the
simplicity of their life. All that the defunct had cherished during his
life, was thrown into the flames after his death; and even, before the
Roman conquest, they joined with it his favourite slaves and
clients. [105]
In the time of Cæsar, the greater part of the peoples of Gaul were armed
with long iron swords, two-edged (σπἁθη), sheathed in
scabbards similarly of iron, suspended to the side by chains. These
swords were generally made to strike with the edge rather than to
stab. [106] The Gauls had also spears, the iron of which, very long and
very broad, presented sometimes an undulated form (_materis_,
σαὑνιον). [107] They also made use of light javelins without
_amentum_,[108] of the bow, and of the sling. Their helmets were of
metal, more or less precious, ornamented with the horns of animals, and
with a crest representing some figures of birds or savage beasts, the
whole surmounted by a high and bushy tuft of feathers. [109] They carried
a great buckler, a breastplate of iron or bronze, or a coat of mail--the
latter a Gaulish invention. [110] The Leuci and the Remi were celebrated
for throwing the javelin. [111] The Lingones had party-coloured
breastplates. [112] The Gaulish cavalry was superior to the
infantry;[113] it was composed of the nobles, followed by their
clients;[114] yet the Aquitanians, celebrated for their agility, enjoyed
a certain reputation as good infantry. [115] In general, the Gauls were
very ready at imitating the tactics of their enemies. [116] The habit of
working mines gave them a remarkable dexterity in all underground
operations, applicable to the attack and defence of fortified
posts. [117] Their armies dragged after them a multitude of wagons and
baggage, even in the less important expeditions. [118]
Although they had reached, especially in the south of Gaul, a tolerably
advanced degree of civilisation, they preserved very barbarous customs:
they killed their prisoners. “When their army is ranged in battle,” says
Diodorus, “some of them are often seen advancing from the ranks to
challenge the bravest of their enemies to single combat. If their
challenge is accepted, they chaunt a war-song, in which they boast of
the great deeds of their forefathers, exalting their own valour and
insulting their adversary. After the victory, they cut off their enemy’s
head, hang it to their horse’s neck, and carry it off with songs of
triumph. They keep these hideous trophies in their house, and the
highest nobles preserve them with great care, bathed with oil of cedar,
in coffers, which they show with pride to their guests. ”[119]
When a great danger threatened the country, the chiefs convoked an armed
council, to which the men were bound to repair, at the place and day
indicated, to deliberate. The law required that the man who arrived last
should be massacred without pity before the eyes of the assembly. As a
means of intercommunication, men were placed at certain intervals
through the country, and these, repeating the cry from one to another,
transmitted rapidly news of importance to great distances. They often,
also, stopped travellers on the roads, and compelled them to answer
their questions. [120]
The Gauls were very superstitious. [121] Persuaded that in the eyes of
the gods the life of a man can only be redeemed by that of his fellow,
they made a vow, in diseases and dangers, to immolate human beings by
the ministry of the Druids. These sacrifices had even a public
character. [122] They sometimes constructed human figures of osier of
colossal magnitude, which they filled with living men; to these they set
fire, and the victims perished in the flames. These victims were
generally taken from among the criminals, as being more agreeable to
the gods; but if there were no criminals to be had, the innocent
themselves were sacrificed.
Cæsar, who, according to the custom of his countrymen, gave to the
divinities of foreign peoples the names of those of Rome, tells us that
the Gauls honoured Mercury above all others. They raised statues to him,
regarded him as the inventor of the arts, the guide of travellers, and
the protector of commerce. [123] They also offered worship to divinities
which the “Commentaries” assimilate to Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and
Minerva, without informing us of their Celtic names. From Lucan,[124] we
learn the names of three Gaulish divinities, Teutates (in whom, no
doubt, we must recognise the Mercury of the “Commentaries”), Hesus or
Esus, and Taranis. Cæsar makes the remark that the Gauls had pretty much
the same ideas with regard to their gods as other nations. Apollo cured
the sick, Minerva taught the elements of the arts, Jupiter was the
master of heaven, Mars the arbiter of war. Often, before fighting, they
made a vow to consecrate to this god the spoils of the enemy, and, after
the victory, they put to death all their prisoners. The rest of the
booty was piled up in the consecrated places, and nobody would be so
impious as to take anything away from it. The Gauls rendered also, as we
learn from inscriptions and passages in different authors, worship to
rivers, fountains, trees, and forests: they adored the Rhine as a god,
and made a goddess of the Ardenne. [125]
[Sidenote: Institutions]
IV. There were in Gaul, says Cæsar, only two classes who enjoyed public
consideration and honours,[126] the Druids and the knights. As to the
people, deprived of all rights, oppressed with debts, crushed with
taxes, exposed to the violences of the great, their condition was little
better than that of slaves. The Druids, ministers of religion, presided
over the sacrifices, and preserved the deposit of religious doctrines.
The youth, greedy of instruction, pressed around them. The dispensers of
rewards and punishments, they were the judges of almost all disputes,
public or private. To private individuals, or even to magistrates, who
rebelled against their decisions, they interdicted the sacrifices, a
sort of excommunication which sequestrated from society those who were
struck by it, placed them in the rank of criminals, removed them from
all honours, and deprived them even of the protection of the law. The
Druids had a single head, and the power of this head was absolute. At
his death, the next in dignity succeeded him; if there were several with
equal titles, these priests had recourse to election, and sometimes even
to a decision by force of arms. They assembled every year in the country
of the Carnutes, in a consecrated place, there to judge disputes. Their
doctrine, it was said, came from the isle of Britain, where, in the time
of Cæsar, they still went to draw it as at its source. [127]
The Druids were exempt from military service and from taxes. [128] These
privileges drew many disciples, whose novitiate, which lasted sometimes
twenty years, consisted in learning by heart a great number of verses
containing their religious precepts. It was forbidden to transcribe
them. This custom had the double object of preventing the divulgation of
their doctrine and of exercising the memory. Their principal dogma was
the immortality of the soul and its transmigration into other bodies. A
belief which banished the fear of death appeared to them fitted to
excite courage. They explained also the movement of the planets, the
greatness of the universe, the laws of nature, and the omnipotence of
the immortal gods. “We may conceive,” says the eminent author of the
_Histoire des Gaulois_, “what despotism must have been exercised over a
superstitious nation by this caste of men, depositaries of all
knowledge, authors and interpreters of all law, divine or human,
remunerators, judges, and executioners. ”[129]
The knights, when required by the necessities of war, and that happened
almost yearly, were all bound to take up arms. Each, according to his
birth and fortune, was accompanied by a greater or less number of
attendants or clients. Those who were called _ambacti_[130] performed in
war the part of esquires. [131] In Aquitaine, these followers were named
_soldures_; they shared the good as well as the evil fortune of the
chief to whom they were attached, and, when he died, not one of them
would survive him. Their number was considerable: we shall see a king of
the Sotiates possess no less than six hundred of them. [132]
The states were governed either by an assembly, which the Romans called
a senate, or by a supreme magistrate, annual or for life, bearing the
title of king,[133] prince,[134] or _vergobret_. [135]
The different tribes formed alliances among themselves, either permanent
or occasional; the permanent alliances were founded, some on a community
of territorial interests,[136] others on affinities of races,[137] or on
treaties,[138] or, lastly, on the right of patronage. [139] The
occasional alliances were the results of the necessity of union against
a common danger. [140]
In Gaul, not only each state and each tribe (_pagus_), but even each
family, was divided into two parties (_factiones_); at the head of these
parties were chiefs, taken from among the most considerable and
influential of the knights. Cæsar calls them _principes_. [141] All those
who accepted their supremacy became their clients; and, although the
_principes_ did not exercise a regular magistracy, their authority was
very extensive. This organisation had existed from a remote antiquity;
its object was to offer to each man of the people a protection against
the great, since each was thus placed under the patronage of a chief,
whose duty it was to take his cause in hand, and who would have lost all
credit if he had allowed one of his clients to be oppressed. [142] We see
in the “Commentaries” that this class of the _principes_ enjoyed very
great influence. On their decisions depended all important
resolutions;[143] and their meeting formed the assembly of the whole of
Gaul (_concilium totius Galliæ_). [144] In it everything was decided by
majority of votes. [145]
Affairs of the state were allowed to be treated only in these
assemblies. It appertained to the magistrates alone to publish or
conceal events, according as they judged expedient; and it was a sacred
duty for any one who learnt, either from without or from public rumour,
any news which concerned the _civitas_, to give information of it to the
magistrate, without revealing it to any other person. This measure had
for its object to prevent rash or ignorant men from being led into error
by false reports, and from rushing, under this first impression, into
extravagant resolutions.
In the same manner as each state was divided into two rival factions, so
was the whole of Gaul (with the exception of Belgic Gaul and Helvetia)
divided into two great parties,[146] which exercised over the others a
sort of sovereignty (_principatus_);[147] and when, in extraordinary
circumstances, the whole of Gaul acknowledged the pre-eminence of one
particular state, the chief of the privileged state took the name of
_princeps totius Galliæ_, as had been the case with the Arvernan
Celtillus, the father of Vercingetorix. [148]
This supremacy, nevertheless, was not permanent; it passed from one
nation to another, and was the object of continual ambitions and
sanguinary conflicts. The Druids, it is true, had succeeded in
establishing a religious centre, but there existed no political centre.
In spite of certain federative ties, each state had been more engaged in
the consideration of its own individuality than in that of the country
in general. This egoistic carelessness of their collective interests,
this jealous rivality among the different tribes, paralysed the efforts
of a few eminent men who were desirous of founding a nationality, and
the Gauls soon furnished the enemy with an easy means of dividing and
combating them. The Emperor Napoleon I. was thus right in saying: “The
principal cause of the weakness of Gaul was the spirit of isolation and
locality which characterised the population; at this epoch the Gauls had
no national spirit or even provincial spirit; they were governed by a
spirit of town. It is the same spirit which has since forged chains for
Italy. Nothing is more opposed to national spirit, to general ideas of
liberty, than the particular spirit of family or of town. From this
parcelling it resulted that the Gauls had no army of the line kept up
and exercised; and therefore no art and no military science. Every
nation which should lose sight of the importance of an army of the line
perpetually on foot, and which should trust to levies or national
armies, would experience the fate of the Gauls, without even having the
glory of opposing the same resistance, which was the effect of the
barbarism of the time and of the ground, covered with forests, marshes,
and bogs, and without roads, which rendered it difficult to conquer and
easy to defend. ”[149] Before Cæsar came into Gaul, the Ædui and the
Arverni were at the head of the two contending parties, each labouring
to carry the day against his rival. Soon these latter united with the
Sequani, who, jealous of the superiority of the Ædui, the allies of the
Roman people, invoked the support of Ariovistus and the Germans. By dint
of sacrifices and promises, they had succeeded in bringing them into
their territory. With this aid the Sequani had gained the victory in
several combats. [150] The Ædui had lost their nobility, a part of their
territory, nearly all their clients, and, after giving up as hostages
their children and their chiefs, they had bound themselves by oath never
to attack the Sequani, who had at length obtained the supremacy of all
Gaul. It was under these circumstances that Divitiacus had gone to Rome
to implore the succour of the Republic, but he had failed;[151] the
Senate was too much engaged with intestine quarrels to assume an
energetic attitude towards the Germans. The arrival of Cæsar was
destined to change the face of things, and restore to the allies of Rome
their old preponderance. [152]
CHAPTER III.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII.
(Year of Rome 696. )
(BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES. ”)
[Sidenote: Projects of Invasion by the Helvetii. ]
I. Cæsar, as we have seen, had received from the Senate and people a
command which comprised the two Gauls (Transalpine and Cisalpine) and
Illyria. [153] Yet the agitation which continued to reign in the Republic
was retaining him at the gates of Rome, when suddenly, towards the
spring of 696, news came that the Helvetii, returning to their old
design, were preparing to invade the Roman province. This intelligence
caused a great sensation.
The Helvetii, proud of their former exploits, confident in their
strength, and incommoded by excess of population, felt humiliated at
living in a country the limits of which had been made narrow by nature,
and for some years they meditated quitting it to repair into the south
of Gaul.
As early as 693, an ambitious chieftain, Orgetorix, found no difficulty
in inspiring them with the desire to seek elsewhere a more fertile
territory and a milder climate. They resolved to go and establish
themselves in the country of the Santones (the _Saintonge_), situated on
the shores of the ocean, to the north of the Gironde. Two years were to
be employed in preparations, and, by a solemn engagement, the departure
was fixed for the third year. But Orgetorix, sent to the neighbouring
peoples to contract alliances, conspired with two influential
personages--one of the country of the Sequani, the other of that of the
Ædui. He induced them to undertake to seize the supreme power, promised
them the assistance of the Helvetii, and persuaded them that those three
powerful nations, leagued together, would easily subjugate the whole of
Gaul. This conspiracy failed, through the death of Orgetorix, accused in
his own country of a design to usurp the sovereignty. The Helvetii
persisted, nevertheless, in their project of emigration. They collected
the greatest possible number of wagons and beasts of burden; and, in
order to destroy all idea of returning, they burnt their twelve towns,
their four hundred hamlets, and all the wheat they could not carry with
them. Each furnished himself with meal[154] for three months; and after
persuading their neighbours, the Rauraci,[155] the Tulingi, and the
Latobriges,[156] to imitate their example and follow them, and having
drawn to them those of the Boii who had moved from Noricum to the
neighbourhood of the Rhine, they fixed the rendezvous on the banks of
the Rhone for the 5th of the Calends of April (the 24th of March, the
day of the equinox). [157]
There were only two roads by which they could leave Helvetia; one
crossed the country of the Sequani, the entrance to which was defended
by a narrow and difficult defile, situated between the Rhone and the
Jura (the _Pas-de-l’Ecluse_), and where the wagons could with difficulty
pass one at a time. As this defile was commanded by a very lofty
mountain, a handful of men was sufficient to prevent the access. The
other road, less contracted and more easy, crossed the Roman province,
after having passed the Rhone, which separated the Allobroges from the
Helvetii, from Lake Léman to the Jura. Within this distance the river
was fordable in several places. [158] At Geneva, the extreme limit of the
territory of the Allobroges towards Helvetia, a bridge established a
communication between the two countries. The Helvetii decided on taking
the most convenient road; they reckoned, moreover, on the co-operation
of this neighbouring people, who, but recently subjugated, could have
but doubtful sympathies for the Romans. [159]
[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Arrival at Geneva. ]
II. Cæsar, learning that the Helvetii intended to pass through the Roman
province, left Rome hastily in the month of March, hurried by forced
marches into Transalpine Gaul, and, according to Plutarch, reached
Geneva in eight days. [160] As he had in the province only a single
legion, he ordered a levy of as many men as possible, and then destroyed
the bridge of Geneva. Informed of his arrival, the Helvetii, who were
probably not yet all assembled, sent their men of noblest rank to demand
a passage through the country of the Allobroges, promising to commit no
injury there; they had, they said, no other road to quit their country.
Cæsar was inclined to refuse their demand at once, but he called to mind
the defeat and death of the Consul L. Cassius; and wishing to obtain
time to collect the troops of which he had ordered the levy, he gave
them hopes of a favourable reply, and adjourned it to the Ides of April
(8th of April). By this delay he gained a fortnight; it was employed in
fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, between Lake Léman and the
Jura. [161] If we estimate at 5,000 men the legion which was in the
province, and at 5,000 or 6,000 the number of soldiers of the new
levies, we see that Cæsar had at his disposal, to defend the banks of
the Rhone, about 10,000 or 11,000 infantry. [162]
[Sidenote: Description of the Retrenchment of the Rhone. ]
III. The distance from Lake Léman to the Jura, following the
sinuosities of the river, is 29½ kilomètres, or 19,000 Roman paces
(_millia passuum decem novem_). [163] It is on the space comprised
between these two points that a retrenchment was raised which is called
in the “Commentaries” _murus fossaque_. This could not be a continuous
work, as the ground to be defended is intersected by rivers and ravines,
and the banks of the Rhone are almost everywhere so precipitous that it
would have been useless to fortify them. Cæsar, pressed for time, can
only have made retrenchments on the weakest points of the line where the
passage of the river was easy; indeed, this is what Dio Cassius tells
us. [164] The labours of the Romans were only supplementary, on certain
points, to the formidable natural obstacles which the Rhone presents in
the greater part of its course. The only places where an attempt could
be made to pass it, because the heights there sink towards the banks of
the river into practicable declivities, are situated opposite the modern
villages of Russin, Cartigny, Avully, Chancy, and Cologny. In these
places they cut the upper part of the slope into a perpendicular, and
afterwards hollowed a trench, the scarp of which thus gained an
elevation of sixteen feet. These works, by uniting the escarpments of
the Rhone, formed, from Geneva to the Jura, a continuous line, which
presented an impassable barrier. Behind and along this line, at certain
distances, posts and closed redoubts rendered it impregnable. (_See
Plate 3. _)[165]
This retrenchment, which required only from two to three days’ labour,
was completed when the deputies returned, at the time appointed, to hear
Cæsar’s reply. He flatly refused the passage, declaring that he would
oppose it with all his means.
Meanwhile the Helvetii, and the people who took part in their
enterprise, had assembled on the right bank of the Rhone. When they
learnt that they must renounce the hope of quitting their country
without opposition, they resolved to open themselves a passage by
force. Several times--sometimes by day, and sometimes by night--they
crossed the Rhone, some by fording, others with the aid of boats joined
together, or of a great number of rafts of timber, and attempted to
carry the heights, but, arrested by the strength of the retrenchment
(_operis munitione_), and by the efforts and missiles of the soldiers
who hastened to the threatened points (_concursu et telis_), they
abandoned the attack. [166]
[Sidenote: The Helvetii begin their March towards the Saône. Cæsar
unites his Troops. ]
IV. The only road which now remained was that which lay across the
country of the Sequani (the Pas-de-l’Ecluse); but this narrow defile
could not be passed without the consent of its inhabitants. The Helvetii
charged the Æduan Dumnorix, the son-in-law of Orgetorix, to solicit it
for them. High in credit among the Sequani, Dumnorix obtained it; and
the two peoples entered into an engagement, one to leave the passage
free, the other to commit no disorder; and, as pledges of their
convention, they exchanged hostages. [167]
When Cæsar learned that the Helvetii were preparing to pass through the
lands of the Sequani and the Ædui on their way to the Santones, he
resolved to oppose them, unwilling to suffer the establishment of
warlike and hostile men in a fertile and open country, neighbouring upon
that of the Tolosates, which made part of the Roman province. [168]
But, as he had not at hand sufficient forces, he resolved on uniting all
the troops he could dispose of in his vast command. He entrusts,
therefore, the care of the retrenchments on the Rhone to his lieutenant
T. Labienus, hastens into Italy by forced marches, raises there in great
haste two legions (the 11th and 12th), brings from Aquileia, a town of
Illyria,[169] the three legions which were there in winter quarters (the
7th, 8th, and 9th), and, at the head of his army, takes across the Alps
(_see Plate 4_) the shortest road to Transalpine Gaul. [170] The
Centrones, the Graioceli, and the Caturiges (see _page_ 24, _note_),
posted on the heights,[171] attempt to bar his road; but he overthrows
them in several engagements, and from Ocelum (_Usseau_),[172] the
extreme point of the Cisalpine, reaches in seven days the territory of
the Vocontii, making thus about twenty-five kilomètres a day. He next
penetrates into the country of the Allobroges, then into that of the
Segusiavi, who bordered on the Roman province beyond the Rhone. [173]
These operations took two months;[174] the same time had been employed
by the Helvetii in negotiating the conditions of their passage through
the country of the Sequani, moving from the Rhone to the Saône, and
beginning to pass the latter river. They had passed the Pas-de-l’Ecluse,
followed the right bank of the Rhone as far as Culoz, then turned to the
east through Virieu-le-Grand, Tenay, and Saint-Rambert, and, thence
crossing the plains of Ambérieux, the river Ain, and the vast plateau of
the Dombes, they had arrived at the Saône, the left bank of which they
occupied from Trévoux to Villefranche. (_See Plate 4. _) The slowness of
their march need not surprise us if we consider that an agglomeration of
368,000 individuals, men, women, and children, dragging after them from
8,000 to 9,000 wagons, through a defile where carriages could only pass
one abreast, would necessarily employ several weeks in passing it. [175]
Cæsar, no doubt, calculated beforehand, with sufficient accuracy, the
time it would take them to gain the banks of the Saône; and we may
therefore suppose that, at the moment when he repaired into Italy, he
hoped to bring thence his army in time to prevent them from passing that
river.
He established his camp near the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône,
on the heights which command Sathonay; thence he could equally
manœuvre on the two banks of the Saône, take the Helvetii in flank as
they marched towards that river, or prevent them, if they crossed it,
from entering into the Roman province by the valley of the Rhone. It was
probably at this point that Labienus joined him with the troops which
had been left with him, and which raised to six the number of his
legions. His cavalry, composed principally of Ædui and men raised in the
Roman province, amounted to 4,000 men. During this time the Helvetii
were ravaging the lands of the Ambarri, those of the Ædui, and those
which the Allobroges possessed on the right bank of the Rhone. These
peoples implored the succour of Cæsar. He was quite disposed to listen
to their prayers. [176]
[Sidenote: Defeat of the Helvetii on the Saône. ]
V.
The Saône, which crossed the countries of the Ædui and the
Sequani,[177] flowed, then as now, in certain places with an extreme
sluggishness. Cæsar says that people could not distinguish the direction
of the current. The Helvetii, who had not learned to make bridges,
crossed the river, between Trévoux and Villefranche, on rafts and boats
joined together. As soon as the Roman general had ascertained by his
scouts that three-quarters of the barbarians were on the other side of
the river, and the others were still on his side, he left his camp
towards midnight (_de tertia vigilia_) (_see note 1 on page 69_) with
three legions, came upon those of the Helvetii who were still on the
left bank, to the north of Trévoux, in the valley of the Formans,
towards six o’clock in the morning, after a march of eighteen
kilomètres, attacked them by surprise in the midst of the confusion of
passing the river, and slew a great number. Those who could escape
dispersed, and concealed themselves in the neighbouring forests. This
disaster fell upon the Tigurini (_the inhabitants of the Cantons of
Vaud, Friburg, and a part of the Canton of Berne_), one of the four
tribes of which the nation of the Helvetii was composed, the same which,
in an expedition out of Helvetia, had formerly slain the Consul L.
Cassius, and made his army pass under the yoke. [178]
After this combat, Cæsar, in order to pursue the other part of the
enemy’s army, and prevent its marching towards the south, threw a bridge
across the Saône, and transported his troops to the right bank. The
barques which followed him for the conveyance of provisions would
necessarily facilitate this operation. It is probable that a detachment
established in the defiles on the right bank of the Saône, at the spot
where Lyons now stands, intercepted the road which would have conducted
the Helvetii towards the Roman province. As to the three legions which
remained in the camp of Sathonay, they soon rejoined Cæsar. The
Helvetii, struck by his sudden approach, and by the rapidity with which
he had effected, in one single day, a passage which had cost them twenty
days’ labour, sent him a deputation, the chief of which, old Divico, had
commanded in the wars against Cassius. In language full of boast and
threatening, Divico reminded Cæsar of the humiliation inflicted formerly
on the Roman arms. The proconsul replied that he was not forgetful of
old affronts, but that recent injuries were sufficient motives for his
conduct. Nevertheless, he offered peace, on condition that they should
give him hostages. “The Helvetii,” replied Divico, “have learned from
their ancestors to receive, but not to give, hostages; the Romans ought
to know that. ” This proud reply closed the interview.
Nevertheless, the Helvetii appear to have been desirous of avoiding
battle, for next day they raised their camp, and, cut off from the
possibility of following the course of the Saône to proceed towards the
south, they took the easiest way to reach the country of the Santones,
by directing their march towards the sources of the Dheune and the
Bourbince. (_See Plate 4. _) This broken country, moreover, permitted
them to resist the Romans with advantage. They followed across the
mountains of Charolais the Gaulish road, on the trace of which was, no
doubt, subsequently constructed the Roman way from Lyons to Autun,
vestiges of which still exist; the latter followed the course of the
Saône as far as Belleville, where it parted from it abruptly, crossing
over the Col d’Avenas, proceeding through the valley of the Grosne to
Cluny, and continuing by Saint-Vallier to Autun. At Saint-Vallier they
would quit this road, and march towards the Loire to pass it at
Decize. [179]
Cæsar followed the Helvetii, and sent before him all his cavalry to
watch their march. These, too eager in the pursuit, came to blows with
the enemy’s cavalry in a position of disadvantage, and experienced some
loss. Proud of having repulsed 4,000 men with 500 horsemen, the Helvetii
became sufficiently emboldened to venture sometimes to harass the Roman
army. But Cæsar avoided engaging his troops; he was satisfied with
following, day by day, the enemies at a distance of five or six miles at
most (about eight kilomètres), opposing the devastations they committed
on their passage, and waiting a favourable occasion to inflict a defeat
upon them.
The two armies continued their march extremely slowly, and the days
passed without offering the desired opportunity. Meanwhile, the
provisionment of the Roman army began to inspire serious uneasiness;
wheat arrived no longer by the Saône, for Cæsar had been obliged to move
from it in order to keep up with the Helvetii. On another hand, the Ædui
delayed, under vain pretexts, sending the grain which they had promised.
The harvest, too, was not yet ripe, and even forage failed. As the day
for distribution approached, Cæsar convoked the Æduan chiefs, who were
numerous in his camp, and overwhelmed them with reproaches. One of them,
Liscus, occupied in his country the supreme magistracy, under the name
of _vergobret_; he denounced Dumnorix, the brother of Divitiacus, as
opposing the sending of provisions; it was the same Dumnorix who had
heretofore secretly negotiated the passage of the Helvetii across the
country of the Sequani, and who, placed at the head of the Æduan
contingent, had, in the last combat, by retreating with his men, led to
the flight of the whole body of the cavalry. Cæsar sent for Divitiacus,
a man devoted to the Roman people, and revealed to him the culpable
conduct of his brother, which merited an exemplary punishment.
Divitiacus expressed the same opinion, but, in tears, implored the
pardon of Dumnorix. Cæsar granted it to him, and contented himself with
placing him under surveillance. It was, indeed, good policy not to
alienate the Æduan people by any excessive severity against a man of
power among them.
The Helvetii, after advancing northward as far as Saint-Vallier, had
turned to the west to reach the valley of the Loire. Arrived near
Issy-l’Evêque, they encamped on the banks of a tributary of the Somme,
at the foot of Mount Tauffrin, eight miles from the Roman army. Informed
of this circumstance, Cæsar judged that the moment had arrived for
attacking them by surprise, and sent to reconnoitre by what circuits the
heights might be reached. He learnt that the access was easy, and
ordered Labienus to gain, with two legions, the summit of the mountain
by bye-roads, without giving alarm to the enemy, and to wait till he
himself, marching at the head of the four other legions, by the same
road as the Helvetii, should appear near their camp; then both were to
attack them at the same time. Labienus started at midnight, taking for
guides the men who had just explored the roads. Cæsar, on his part,
began his march at two o’clock in the morning (_de quarta
vigilia_),[180] preceded by his cavalry. At the head of his scouts was
P. Considius, whose former services under L. Sylla, and subsequently
under M. Crassus, pointed him out as an experienced soldier.
At break of day Labienus occupied the heights, and Cæsar was no more
than 1,500 paces from the camp of the barbarians; the latter suspected
neither his approach nor that of his lieutenant. Suddenly Considius
arrived at full gallop to announce that the mountain of which Labienus
was to take possession was in the power of the Helvetii; he had
recognised them, he said, by their arms and their military ensigns. At
this news, Cæsar, fearing that he was not in sufficient force against
their whole army, with only four legions, chose a strong position on a
neighbouring hill, and drew up his men in order of battle. Labienus,
whose orders were not to engage in battle till he saw the troops of
Cæsar near the enemy’s camp, remained immovable, watching for him. It
was broad daylight when Cæsar learnt that his troops had made themselves
masters of the mountain, and that the Helvetii had left their camp. They
escaped him thus, through the false report of Considius, who had been
blinded by a groundless terror.
Admitting that the Helvetii had passed near Issy-l’Evêque, Mount
Tauffrin, which rises at a distance of four kilomètres to the west of
that village, answers to the conditions of the text. There is nothing to
contradict the notion that Labienus and Cæsar may have, one occupied the
summit, the other approached the enemy’s camp within 1,500 paces,
without being perceived; and the neighbouring ground presents heights
which permitted the Roman army to form in order of battle. [181]
[Sidenote: Defeat of the Helvetii near Bibracte. ]
VI. That day the Helvetii continued their advance to Remilly, on the
Alène. Since the passage of the Saône, they had marched about a
fortnight, making an average of not more than eleven or twelve
kilomètres a day. [182] According to our reckoning, it must have been the
end of the month of June. Cæsar followed the Helvetii at the usual
distance, and established his camp at three miles’ distance from theirs,
on the Cressonne, near Ternant.
Next day, as the Roman army had provisions left for no more than two
days,[183] and as, moreover, Bibracte (_Mont Beuvray_),[184] the
greatest and richest town of the Ædui, was not more than eighteen miles
(twenty-seven kilomètres) distant, Cæsar, to provision his army, turned
from the road which the Helvetii were following, and took that to
Bibracte. (_See Plate 4. _) The enemy was informed of this circumstance
by some deserters from the troop of L. Emilius, decurion[185] of the
auxiliary cavalry. Believing that the Romans were going from them
through fear, and hoping to cut them off from their provisions, they
turned back, and began to harass the rear-guard.
Cæsar immediately led his troops to a neighbouring hill--that which
rises between the two villages called the Grand-Marié and the
Petit-Marié (_see Plate 5_)--and sent his cavalry to impede the enemies
in their march, which gave him the time to form in order of battle. He
ranged, half way up the slope of the hill, his four legions of veterans,
in three lines, and the two legions raised in the Cisalpine on the
plateau above, along with the auxiliaries, so that his infantry covered
the whole height. The heavy baggage, and the bundles (_sarcinæ_)[186]
with which the soldiers were loaded, were collected on one point, which
was defended by the troops of the reserve. While Cæsar was making these
dispositions, the Helvetii, who came followed by all their wagons,
collected them in one place; they then, in close order, drove back the
cavalry, formed in phalanxes, and, making their way up the slope of the
hill occupied by the Roman infantry, advanced against the first
line. [187]
Cæsar, to make the danger equal, and to deprive all of the possibility
of flight, sends away the horses of all the chiefs, and even his
own,[188] harangues his troops, and gives the signal for combat. The
Romans, from their elevated position, hurl the _pilum_,[189] break the
enemy’s phalanxes, and rush upon them sword in hand. The engagement
becomes general. The Helvetii soon become embarrassed in their
movements: their bucklers, pierced and nailed together by the same
_pilum_, the head of which, bending back, can no longer be withdrawn,
deprive them of the use of their left arm; most of them, after having
long agitated their arms in vain, throw down their bucklers, and fight
without them. At last, covered with wounds, they give way, and retire to
the mountain of the castle of La Garde, at a distance of about 1,000
paces; but while they are pursued, the Boii and the Tulingi, who, to the
number of about 15,000, formed the last of the hostile columns, and
composed the rear-guard, rush upon the Romans, and without halting
attack their right flank. [190] The Helvetii, who had taken refuge on the
height, perceive this movement, return to the charge, and renew the
combat. Cæsar, to meet these two attacks, effects a change of front
(_conversa signa bipartito intulerunt_) in his third line, and opposes
it to the new assailants, while the first two lines resist the Helvetii
who had already been repulsed. [191]
This double combat was long and furious. Unable to resist the
impetuosity of their adversaries, the Helvetii were obliged to retire,
as they had done before, to the mountain of the castle of La Garde; the
Boii and Tulingi towards the baggage and wagons. Such was the
intrepidity of these Gauls during the whole action, which lasted from
one o’clock in the afternoon till evening, that not one turned his back.
Far into the night there was still fighting about the baggage. The
barbarians, having made a rampart of their wagons, some threw from
above their missiles on the Romans; others, placed between the wheels,
wounded them with long pikes (_mataræ ac tragulæ_). The women and
children, too, shared desperately in the combat. [192] At the end of an
obstinate struggle, the camp and baggage were taken. The daughter and
one of the sons of Orgetorix were made prisoners.
This battle reduced the Gaulish emigration to 130,000 individuals. They
began their retreat that same evening, and, after marching without
interruption day and night, they reached on the fourth day the territory
of the Lingones, towards Tonnerre (_see Plate 4_): they had, no doubt,
passed by Moulins-en-Gilbert, Lormes, and Avallon. The Lingones were
forbidden to furnish the fugitives with provisions or succour, under
pain of being treated like them. At the end of three days, the Roman
army, having taken care of their wounded and buried the dead, marched in
pursuit of the enemy. [193]
[Sidenote: Pursuit of the Helvetii. ]
VII. The Helvetii, reduced to extremity, sent to Cæsar to treat for
their submission. The deputies met him on his march, threw themselves at
his feet, and demanded peace in the most suppliant terms. He ordered
them to say to their fellow-countrymen that they must halt on the spot
they then occupied, and await his arrival; and they obeyed. As soon as
Cæsar overtook them, he required them to deliver hostages, their arms,
and the fugitive slaves. While they were preparing to execute his
orders, night coming on, about 6,000 men of a tribe named Verbigeni
(_Soleure, Argovie, Lucerne, and part of the Canton of Berne_) fled,
either through fear that, having once delivered up their arms, they
should be massacred, or in the hope of escaping unperceived in the midst
of so great a multitude. They directed their steps towards the Rhine and
the frontiers of Germany.
On receiving news of the flight of the Verbigeni, Cæsar ordered the
peoples whose territories they would cross to stop them and bring them
back, under pain of being considered as accomplices. The fugitives were
delivered up and treated as enemies; that is, put to the sword, or sold
as slaves. As to the others, Cæsar accepted their submission: he
compelled the Helvetii, the Tulingi, and the Latobriges to return to the
localities they had abandoned, and to restore the towns and hamlets they
had burnt; and since, after having lost all their crops, they had no
more provisions of their own, the Allobroges were ordered to furnish
them with wheat. [194] These measures had for their object not to leave
Helvetia without inhabitants, as the fertility of its soil might draw
thither the Germans of the other side the Rhine, who would thus become
borderers upon the Roman province. He permitted the Boii, celebrated for
their brilliant valour, to establish themselves in the country of the
Ædui, who had asked permission to receive them. They gave them lands
between the Allier and the Loire, and soon admitted them to a share in
all their rights and privileges.
In the camp of the Helvetii were found tablets on which was written, in
Greek letters, the number of all those who had quitted their country: on
one side, the number of men capable of bearing arms; and on the other,
that of the children, old men, and women. The whole amounted to 263,000
Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobriges, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000
Boii--together, 368,000 persons, of whom 92,000 were men in a condition
to fight. According to the census ordered by Cæsar, the number of those
who returned home was 110,000. [195] The emigration was thus reduced to
less than one-third.
The locality occupied by the Helvetii when they made their submission is
unknown; yet all circumstances seem to concur in placing the theatre of
this event in the western part of the country of the Lingones. This
hypothesis appears the more reasonable, as Cæsar’s march, in the
following campaign, can only be explained by supposing him to start from
this region. We admit, then, that Cæsar received the submission of the
Helvetii on the Armançon, towards Tonnerre, and it is there that we
suppose him to have been encamped during the events upon the recital of
which we are now going to enter.
[Sidenote: Observations. ]
VIII. The forces of the two armies opposed to each other in the battle
of Bibracte were about equal, for Cæsar had six legions--the 10th, which
he had found in the Roman province; the three old legions (7th, 8th, and
9th), which he had brought from Aquileia; and the two new ones (11th and
12th), raised in the Cisalpine. The effective force of each must have
been near the normal number of 6,000 men, for the campaign had only
begun, and their ranks must have been increased by the veterans and
volunteers of whom we have spoken in the first volume (page 456). The
number of the legionaries was thus 36,000. Adding 4,000 cavalry, raised
in the Roman province and among the Ædui, and probably 20,000
auxiliaries,[196] we shall have a total of 60,000 combatants, not
including the men attached to the machines, those conducting the
baggage, the army servants, &c. The Helvetii, on their side, did not
count more than 69,000 combatants, since, out of 92,000, they had lost
one-fourth near the Saône.
In this battle, it must be remarked, Cæsar did not employ the two
legions newly raised, which remained to guard the camp, and secure the
retreat in case of disaster. Next year he assigned the same duty to the
youngest troops. The cavalry did not pursue the enemies in their rout,
doubtless because the mountainous nature of the locality made it
impossible for it to act.
CHAPTER IV.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARIOVISTUS.
(Year of Rome 696. )
(BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES. ”)
[Sidenote: Seat of the Suevi and other German Tribes. ]
I. On the termination of the war against the Helvetii, the chiefs of
nearly all Celtic Gaul went to congratulate Cæsar, and thank him for
having, at the same time, avenged their old injuries, and delivered
their country from immense danger. They expressed the desire to submit
to his judgment certain affairs, and, in order to concert matters
previously, they solicited his permission to convoke a general assembly.
Cæsar gave his consent.
After the close of the deliberations, they returned, secretly and in
tears, to solicit his support against the Germans and Ariovistus, one of
their kings. These peoples were separated from the Gauls by the Rhine,
from its mouth to the Lake of Constance. Among them the Suevi occupied
the first rank. They were by much the most powerful and the most
warlike. They were said to be divided into a hundred cantons, each of
which furnished, every year, a thousand men for war and a thousand men
for agriculture, taking each other’s place alternately: the labourers
fed the soldiers. No boundary line, among the Suevi, separated the
property of the fields, which remained common, and no one could prolong
his residence on the same lands beyond a year. However, they hardly
lived upon the produce of the soil: they consumed little wheat, and
drank no wine; milk and flesh were their habitual food. When these
failed, they were fed upon grass. [197] Masters of themselves from
infancy, intrepid hunters, insensible to the inclemency of the seasons,
bathing in the cold waters of the rivers, they hardly covered a part of
their bodies with thin skins. They were savages in manners, and of
prodigious force and stature. They disdained commerce and foreign
horses, which the Gauls sought with so much care. Their own horses,
though mean-looking and ill-shaped, became indefatigable through
exercise, and fed upon brushwood. Despising the use of the saddle,
often, in engagements of cavalry, they jumped to the ground and fought
on foot: their horses were taught to remain without moving. [198] The
belief in the dogma of the immortality of the soul, strengthened in them
the contempt for life. [199] They boasted of being surrounded by immense
solitudes: this fact, as they pretended, showed that a great number of
their neighbours had not been able to resist them: and it was reported,
indeed, that on one side (towards the east) their territory was bounded,
for an extent of 600 miles, by desert plains; on the other, they
bordered upon the Ubii, their tributaries, the most civilised of the
German peoples, because their situation on the banks of the Rhine placed
them in relation with foreign merchants, and because, neighbours to the
Gauls, they had formed themselves to their manners. [200]
Two immense forests commenced not far from the Rhine, and extended, from
west to east, across Germany; these were the Hercynian and Bacenis
forests. (_See Plate 2. _) The first, beginning from the Black Forest and
the Odenwald, covered all the country situated between the Upper Danube
and the Maine, and comprised the mountains which, further towards the
east, formed the northern girdle of the basin of the Danube; that is,
the Boehmerwald, the mountains of Moravia, and the Little Carpathians.
It had a breadth which Cæsar represents by nine long days’ march. [201]
The other, of much less extent, took its rise in the forest of
Thuringia; it embraced all the mountains to the north of Bohemia, and
that long chain which separates the basins of the Oder and the Vistula
from that of the Danube.
The Suevi inhabited, to the south of the forest Bacenis, the countries
situated between the forest of Thuringia, the Boehmerwald, the Inn, and
the Black Forest, which compose, in our days, the Duchies of
Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg, Bavaria, and the greater part of
Wurtemberg. [202] To the east of the Suevi were the Boii (_partly in
Bohemia and partly in the north-west of Austria_);[203] to the north,
the Cherusci, separated from the Suevi by the forest Bacenis; to the
west, the Marcomanni (_the upper and middle course of the Maine_) and
the Sedusii (_between the Maine and the Neckar_); to the south, the
Harudes (_on the north of the Lake of Constance_), the Tulingi, and the
Latobriges (_the southern part of the Grand Duchy of Baden_).
On the two banks of the Rhine dwelt the Rauraci (_the territory of Bâle
and part of the Brisgau_); the Triboces (_part of Alsace and of the
Grand Duchy of Baden_): on the right bank were the Nemetes (_opposite
Spire_); the Vangiones (_opposite Worms_); the Ubii, from the Odenwald
to the watershed of the Sieg and the Ruhr. To the north of the Ubii were
the Sicambri, established in Sauerland, and nearly as far as the Lippe.
Finally, the Usipetes and the Tencteri were still farther to the north,
towards the mouth of the Rhine. (_See Plate 2. _)
[Sidenote: The Gauls solicit Cæsar to come to their assistance. ]
II. The Gaulish chiefs who had come to solicit the succour of Cæsar made
the following complaints against Ariovistus:--“The German king,” they
said, “had taken advantage of the quarrels which divided the different
peoples of Gaul; called in formerly by the Arverni and the Sequani, he
had gained, with their co-operation, several victories over the Ædui, in
consequence of which the latter were subjected to the most humiliating
conditions. Shortly afterwards his yoke grew heavy on the Sequani
themselves, to such a degree that, though conquerors with him, they are
now more wretched than the vanquished Ædui. Ariovistus has seized a
third of their territory;[204] another third is on the point of being
given up, by his orders, to 24,000 Harudes, who have joined him some
months ago. There are 120,000 Germans in Gaul. The contingents of the
Suevi have already arrived on the banks of the Rhine. In a few years the
invasion of Gaul by the Germans will be general. Cæsar alone can prevent
it, by his prestige and that of the Roman name, by the force of his
arms, and by the fame of his recent victory. ”
Gaul thus came voluntarily, in the persons of her chiefs, to throw
herself into the arms of Cæsar, take him for the arbiter of her destiny,
and implore him to be her saviour. He spoke encouragingly, and promised
them his support. Several considerations engaged him to act upon these
complaints. He could not suffer the Ædui, allies of Rome, to be brought
under subjection by the barbarians. He saw a substantial danger for the
Republic in the numerous immigrations of fierce peoples who, once
masters of Gaul, would not fail, in imitation of the Cimbri and
Teutones, to invade the Roman province, and thence fall upon Italy.
Resolved to prevent these dangers, he proposed an interview with
Ariovistus, who was probably occupied, since the defeat of the
Helvetii, in collecting an army among the Triboci (towards
Strasburg),[205] as well to oppose the further designs of the Romans, as
to defend the part of the country of the Sequani which he had seized.
Ariovistus, it will be remembered, had been declared, under Cæsar’s
consulate, ally and friend of the Roman people; and this favour would
encourage the expectation that the head of the Germans would be willing
to treat; but he refused with disdain the proposed interview. Then Cæsar
sent messengers to him to reproach him with his ingratitude. “If
Ariovistus cares to preserve his friendship, let him make reparation for
all the injury he has inflicted upon the allies of Rome, and let him
bring no more barbarians across the Rhine; if, on the contrary, he
rejects these conditions, so many acts of violence will be punished in
virtue of the decree rendered by the Senate, under the consulate of M.
Messala and M. Piso, which authorises the governor of Gaul to do that
which he judges for the advantage of the Republic, and enjoins him to
defend the Ædui and the other allies of the Roman people. ”
By this language, Cæsar wished to show that he did not violate the law,
enacted a year before under his consulate, which forbade the governors
to leave their provinces without an order of the Senate. He purposely
appealed to an old decree, which gave unlimited powers to the governor
of Gaul, a province the importance of which had always required
exceptional laws. [206] The reply of Ariovistus was equally proud:--
“Cæsar ought to know as well as he the right of the conqueror: he admits
no interference in the treatment reserved for the vanquished; he has
himself causes of complaint against the proconsul, whose presence
diminishes his revenues; he will not restore the hostages to the Ædui;
the title of brothers and allies of the Roman people will be of little
service to them. He cares little for threats. No one has ever braved
Ariovistus with impunity. Let anybody attack him, and he will learn the
valour of a people which, for fourteen years, has never sought shelter
under a roof. ”[207]
[Sidenote: March of Cæsar upon Besançon. ]
III. This arrogant reply, and news calculated to give alarm, hastened
Cæsar’s decision. In fact, on one side the Ædui complained to him of the
devastation of their country by the Harudes; and, on the other, the
Treviri announced that the hundred cantons of the Suevi were preparing
to cross the Rhine. [208] Cæsar, wishing to prevent the junction of
these new bands with the old troops of Ariovistus, hastened the
collecting of provisions, and advanced against the Germans by forced
marches. The negotiations having probably lasted during the month of
July, it was now the beginning of August. Starting from the
neighbourhood of Tonnerre, where we have supposed he was encamped, Cæsar
followed the road subsequently replaced by a Roman way of which vestiges
are still found, and which, passing by Tanlay, Gland, Laignes, Etrochey,
and Dancevoir, led to Langres. [209] (_See Plate 4. _) After three long
days’ marches, on his arrival towards Arc-en-Barrois, he learnt that
Ariovistus was moving with all his troops to seize Besançon, the most
considerable place in Sequania, and that he had already advanced three
days’ march beyond his territory. Cæsar considered it a matter of
urgency to anticipate him, for this place was abundantly provided with
everything necessary for an army. Instead of continuing his march
towards the Rhine, by way of Vesoul, Lure, and Belfort, he advanced, day
and night, by forced marches, towards Besançon, obtained possession of
it, and placed a garrison there. [210]
The following description, given in the “Commentaries,” is still
applicable to the present town. “It was so well fortified by nature,
that it offered every facility for sustaining war. The Doubs, forming a
circle, surrounds it almost entirely, and the space of sixteen hundred
feet,[211] which is not bathed by the water, is occupied by a high
mountain, the base of which reaches, on each side, to the edge of the
river. The wall which encloses this mountain makes a citadel of it, and
connects it with the _oppidum_. ”[212]
During this rapid movement of the Roman army on Besançon, Ariovistus had
advanced very slowly. We must suppose, indeed, that he halted when he
was informed of this march; for, once obliged to abandon the hope of
taking that place, it was imprudent to separate himself any farther from
his re-enforcements, and, above all, from the Suevi, who were ready to
pass the Rhine towards Mayence, and await the Romans in the plains of
Upper Alsace, where he could advantageously make use of his numerous
cavalry.
[Sidenote: Panic in the Roman Army. ]
IV. During the few days which Cæsar passed at Besançon (the middle of
August), in order to assure himself of provisions, a general panic took
possession of his soldiers.
denominations employed in the “Commentaries,” but which were certainly
not those of the Celtic language. In each state there existed principal
towns, called indifferently by Cæsar _urbs_ or _oppidum_;[77] yet this
last name was given by preference to considerable towns, difficult of
access and carefully fortified, placed on heights or surrounded by
marshes. [78] It was to these _oppida_ that, in case of attack, the Gauls
transported their grain, their provisions, and their riches. [79] Their
habitations, established often in the forests or on the bank of a river,
were constructed of wood, and tolerably spacious. [80]
[Sidenote: Manners. ]
III. The Gauls were tall in stature, their skin was white, their eyes
blue, their hair fair or chestnut, which they dyed, in order to make the
colour more brilliant. [81] They let their beard grow; the nobles alone
shaved, and preserved long moustaches. [82] Trousers or breeches, very
wide among the Belgæ, but narrower among the southern Gauls, and a
shirt with sleeves, descending to the middle of the thighs, composed
their principal dress. [83] They were clothed with a mantle or
_saie_,[84] magnificently embroidered with gold or silver among the
rich,[85] and held about the neck by means of a metal brooch. The lowest
classes of the people used instead an animal’s skin. The Aquitanians
covered themselves, probably according to the Iberic custom, with cloth
of coarse wool unshorn. [86]
The Gauls wore collars, earrings, bracelets, and rings for the arms, of
gold or copper, according to their rank; necklaces of amber, and rings,
which they placed on the third finger. [87]
They were naturally agriculturists, and we may suppose that the
institution of private property existed among them, because, on the one
hand, all the citizens paid the tax, except the Druids,[88] and, on the
other, the latter were judges of questions of boundaries. [89] They were
not unacquainted with certain manufactures. In some countries they
fabricated serges, which were in great repute, and cloths or felts;[90]
in others they worked the mines with skill, and employed themselves in
the fabrication of metals. The Bituriges worked in iron, and were
acquainted with the art of tinning. [91] The artificers of Alesia plated
copper with leaf-silver, to ornament horses’ bits and trappings. [92]
The Gauls fed especially on the flesh of swine, and their ordinary
drinks were milk, ale, and mead. [93] They were reproached with being
inclined to drunkenness. [94]
They were frank and open in temper, and hospitable toward strangers,[95]
but vain and quarrelsome;[96] fickle in their sentiments, and fond of
novelties, they took sudden resolutions, regretting one day what they
had rejected with disdain the day before;[97] inclined to war and eager
for adventures, they showed themselves hot in the attack, but quickly
discouraged in defeat. [98] Their language was very concise and
figurative;[99] in writing, they employed Greek letters.
The men were not exempt from a shameful vice, which we might have
believed less common in this county than among the peoples of the
East. [100] The women united an extraordinary beauty with remarkable
courage and great physical force. [101]
The Gauls, according to the tradition preserved by the Druids, boasted
of being descended from the god of the earth, or from Pluto (_Dis_),
according to the expression of Cæsar. [102] It was for this reason that
they took night for their starting-point in all their divisions of time.
Among their other customs, they had one which was singular: they
considered it as a thing unbecoming to appear in public with their
children, until the latter had reached the age for carrying arms. [103]
When he married, the man took from his fortune a part equal to the dowry
of the wife. This sum, placed as a common fund, was allowed to
accumulate with interest, and the whole reverted to the survivor. The
husband had the right of life and death over his wife and children. [104]
When the decease of a man of wealth excited any suspicion, his wives, as
well as his slaves, were put to the torture, and burnt if they were
found guilty.
The extravagance of their funerals presented a contrast to the
simplicity of their life. All that the defunct had cherished during his
life, was thrown into the flames after his death; and even, before the
Roman conquest, they joined with it his favourite slaves and
clients. [105]
In the time of Cæsar, the greater part of the peoples of Gaul were armed
with long iron swords, two-edged (σπἁθη), sheathed in
scabbards similarly of iron, suspended to the side by chains. These
swords were generally made to strike with the edge rather than to
stab. [106] The Gauls had also spears, the iron of which, very long and
very broad, presented sometimes an undulated form (_materis_,
σαὑνιον). [107] They also made use of light javelins without
_amentum_,[108] of the bow, and of the sling. Their helmets were of
metal, more or less precious, ornamented with the horns of animals, and
with a crest representing some figures of birds or savage beasts, the
whole surmounted by a high and bushy tuft of feathers. [109] They carried
a great buckler, a breastplate of iron or bronze, or a coat of mail--the
latter a Gaulish invention. [110] The Leuci and the Remi were celebrated
for throwing the javelin. [111] The Lingones had party-coloured
breastplates. [112] The Gaulish cavalry was superior to the
infantry;[113] it was composed of the nobles, followed by their
clients;[114] yet the Aquitanians, celebrated for their agility, enjoyed
a certain reputation as good infantry. [115] In general, the Gauls were
very ready at imitating the tactics of their enemies. [116] The habit of
working mines gave them a remarkable dexterity in all underground
operations, applicable to the attack and defence of fortified
posts. [117] Their armies dragged after them a multitude of wagons and
baggage, even in the less important expeditions. [118]
Although they had reached, especially in the south of Gaul, a tolerably
advanced degree of civilisation, they preserved very barbarous customs:
they killed their prisoners. “When their army is ranged in battle,” says
Diodorus, “some of them are often seen advancing from the ranks to
challenge the bravest of their enemies to single combat. If their
challenge is accepted, they chaunt a war-song, in which they boast of
the great deeds of their forefathers, exalting their own valour and
insulting their adversary. After the victory, they cut off their enemy’s
head, hang it to their horse’s neck, and carry it off with songs of
triumph. They keep these hideous trophies in their house, and the
highest nobles preserve them with great care, bathed with oil of cedar,
in coffers, which they show with pride to their guests. ”[119]
When a great danger threatened the country, the chiefs convoked an armed
council, to which the men were bound to repair, at the place and day
indicated, to deliberate. The law required that the man who arrived last
should be massacred without pity before the eyes of the assembly. As a
means of intercommunication, men were placed at certain intervals
through the country, and these, repeating the cry from one to another,
transmitted rapidly news of importance to great distances. They often,
also, stopped travellers on the roads, and compelled them to answer
their questions. [120]
The Gauls were very superstitious. [121] Persuaded that in the eyes of
the gods the life of a man can only be redeemed by that of his fellow,
they made a vow, in diseases and dangers, to immolate human beings by
the ministry of the Druids. These sacrifices had even a public
character. [122] They sometimes constructed human figures of osier of
colossal magnitude, which they filled with living men; to these they set
fire, and the victims perished in the flames. These victims were
generally taken from among the criminals, as being more agreeable to
the gods; but if there were no criminals to be had, the innocent
themselves were sacrificed.
Cæsar, who, according to the custom of his countrymen, gave to the
divinities of foreign peoples the names of those of Rome, tells us that
the Gauls honoured Mercury above all others. They raised statues to him,
regarded him as the inventor of the arts, the guide of travellers, and
the protector of commerce. [123] They also offered worship to divinities
which the “Commentaries” assimilate to Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and
Minerva, without informing us of their Celtic names. From Lucan,[124] we
learn the names of three Gaulish divinities, Teutates (in whom, no
doubt, we must recognise the Mercury of the “Commentaries”), Hesus or
Esus, and Taranis. Cæsar makes the remark that the Gauls had pretty much
the same ideas with regard to their gods as other nations. Apollo cured
the sick, Minerva taught the elements of the arts, Jupiter was the
master of heaven, Mars the arbiter of war. Often, before fighting, they
made a vow to consecrate to this god the spoils of the enemy, and, after
the victory, they put to death all their prisoners. The rest of the
booty was piled up in the consecrated places, and nobody would be so
impious as to take anything away from it. The Gauls rendered also, as we
learn from inscriptions and passages in different authors, worship to
rivers, fountains, trees, and forests: they adored the Rhine as a god,
and made a goddess of the Ardenne. [125]
[Sidenote: Institutions]
IV. There were in Gaul, says Cæsar, only two classes who enjoyed public
consideration and honours,[126] the Druids and the knights. As to the
people, deprived of all rights, oppressed with debts, crushed with
taxes, exposed to the violences of the great, their condition was little
better than that of slaves. The Druids, ministers of religion, presided
over the sacrifices, and preserved the deposit of religious doctrines.
The youth, greedy of instruction, pressed around them. The dispensers of
rewards and punishments, they were the judges of almost all disputes,
public or private. To private individuals, or even to magistrates, who
rebelled against their decisions, they interdicted the sacrifices, a
sort of excommunication which sequestrated from society those who were
struck by it, placed them in the rank of criminals, removed them from
all honours, and deprived them even of the protection of the law. The
Druids had a single head, and the power of this head was absolute. At
his death, the next in dignity succeeded him; if there were several with
equal titles, these priests had recourse to election, and sometimes even
to a decision by force of arms. They assembled every year in the country
of the Carnutes, in a consecrated place, there to judge disputes. Their
doctrine, it was said, came from the isle of Britain, where, in the time
of Cæsar, they still went to draw it as at its source. [127]
The Druids were exempt from military service and from taxes. [128] These
privileges drew many disciples, whose novitiate, which lasted sometimes
twenty years, consisted in learning by heart a great number of verses
containing their religious precepts. It was forbidden to transcribe
them. This custom had the double object of preventing the divulgation of
their doctrine and of exercising the memory. Their principal dogma was
the immortality of the soul and its transmigration into other bodies. A
belief which banished the fear of death appeared to them fitted to
excite courage. They explained also the movement of the planets, the
greatness of the universe, the laws of nature, and the omnipotence of
the immortal gods. “We may conceive,” says the eminent author of the
_Histoire des Gaulois_, “what despotism must have been exercised over a
superstitious nation by this caste of men, depositaries of all
knowledge, authors and interpreters of all law, divine or human,
remunerators, judges, and executioners. ”[129]
The knights, when required by the necessities of war, and that happened
almost yearly, were all bound to take up arms. Each, according to his
birth and fortune, was accompanied by a greater or less number of
attendants or clients. Those who were called _ambacti_[130] performed in
war the part of esquires. [131] In Aquitaine, these followers were named
_soldures_; they shared the good as well as the evil fortune of the
chief to whom they were attached, and, when he died, not one of them
would survive him. Their number was considerable: we shall see a king of
the Sotiates possess no less than six hundred of them. [132]
The states were governed either by an assembly, which the Romans called
a senate, or by a supreme magistrate, annual or for life, bearing the
title of king,[133] prince,[134] or _vergobret_. [135]
The different tribes formed alliances among themselves, either permanent
or occasional; the permanent alliances were founded, some on a community
of territorial interests,[136] others on affinities of races,[137] or on
treaties,[138] or, lastly, on the right of patronage. [139] The
occasional alliances were the results of the necessity of union against
a common danger. [140]
In Gaul, not only each state and each tribe (_pagus_), but even each
family, was divided into two parties (_factiones_); at the head of these
parties were chiefs, taken from among the most considerable and
influential of the knights. Cæsar calls them _principes_. [141] All those
who accepted their supremacy became their clients; and, although the
_principes_ did not exercise a regular magistracy, their authority was
very extensive. This organisation had existed from a remote antiquity;
its object was to offer to each man of the people a protection against
the great, since each was thus placed under the patronage of a chief,
whose duty it was to take his cause in hand, and who would have lost all
credit if he had allowed one of his clients to be oppressed. [142] We see
in the “Commentaries” that this class of the _principes_ enjoyed very
great influence. On their decisions depended all important
resolutions;[143] and their meeting formed the assembly of the whole of
Gaul (_concilium totius Galliæ_). [144] In it everything was decided by
majority of votes. [145]
Affairs of the state were allowed to be treated only in these
assemblies. It appertained to the magistrates alone to publish or
conceal events, according as they judged expedient; and it was a sacred
duty for any one who learnt, either from without or from public rumour,
any news which concerned the _civitas_, to give information of it to the
magistrate, without revealing it to any other person. This measure had
for its object to prevent rash or ignorant men from being led into error
by false reports, and from rushing, under this first impression, into
extravagant resolutions.
In the same manner as each state was divided into two rival factions, so
was the whole of Gaul (with the exception of Belgic Gaul and Helvetia)
divided into two great parties,[146] which exercised over the others a
sort of sovereignty (_principatus_);[147] and when, in extraordinary
circumstances, the whole of Gaul acknowledged the pre-eminence of one
particular state, the chief of the privileged state took the name of
_princeps totius Galliæ_, as had been the case with the Arvernan
Celtillus, the father of Vercingetorix. [148]
This supremacy, nevertheless, was not permanent; it passed from one
nation to another, and was the object of continual ambitions and
sanguinary conflicts. The Druids, it is true, had succeeded in
establishing a religious centre, but there existed no political centre.
In spite of certain federative ties, each state had been more engaged in
the consideration of its own individuality than in that of the country
in general. This egoistic carelessness of their collective interests,
this jealous rivality among the different tribes, paralysed the efforts
of a few eminent men who were desirous of founding a nationality, and
the Gauls soon furnished the enemy with an easy means of dividing and
combating them. The Emperor Napoleon I. was thus right in saying: “The
principal cause of the weakness of Gaul was the spirit of isolation and
locality which characterised the population; at this epoch the Gauls had
no national spirit or even provincial spirit; they were governed by a
spirit of town. It is the same spirit which has since forged chains for
Italy. Nothing is more opposed to national spirit, to general ideas of
liberty, than the particular spirit of family or of town. From this
parcelling it resulted that the Gauls had no army of the line kept up
and exercised; and therefore no art and no military science. Every
nation which should lose sight of the importance of an army of the line
perpetually on foot, and which should trust to levies or national
armies, would experience the fate of the Gauls, without even having the
glory of opposing the same resistance, which was the effect of the
barbarism of the time and of the ground, covered with forests, marshes,
and bogs, and without roads, which rendered it difficult to conquer and
easy to defend. ”[149] Before Cæsar came into Gaul, the Ædui and the
Arverni were at the head of the two contending parties, each labouring
to carry the day against his rival. Soon these latter united with the
Sequani, who, jealous of the superiority of the Ædui, the allies of the
Roman people, invoked the support of Ariovistus and the Germans. By dint
of sacrifices and promises, they had succeeded in bringing them into
their territory. With this aid the Sequani had gained the victory in
several combats. [150] The Ædui had lost their nobility, a part of their
territory, nearly all their clients, and, after giving up as hostages
their children and their chiefs, they had bound themselves by oath never
to attack the Sequani, who had at length obtained the supremacy of all
Gaul. It was under these circumstances that Divitiacus had gone to Rome
to implore the succour of the Republic, but he had failed;[151] the
Senate was too much engaged with intestine quarrels to assume an
energetic attitude towards the Germans. The arrival of Cæsar was
destined to change the face of things, and restore to the allies of Rome
their old preponderance. [152]
CHAPTER III.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII.
(Year of Rome 696. )
(BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES. ”)
[Sidenote: Projects of Invasion by the Helvetii. ]
I. Cæsar, as we have seen, had received from the Senate and people a
command which comprised the two Gauls (Transalpine and Cisalpine) and
Illyria. [153] Yet the agitation which continued to reign in the Republic
was retaining him at the gates of Rome, when suddenly, towards the
spring of 696, news came that the Helvetii, returning to their old
design, were preparing to invade the Roman province. This intelligence
caused a great sensation.
The Helvetii, proud of their former exploits, confident in their
strength, and incommoded by excess of population, felt humiliated at
living in a country the limits of which had been made narrow by nature,
and for some years they meditated quitting it to repair into the south
of Gaul.
As early as 693, an ambitious chieftain, Orgetorix, found no difficulty
in inspiring them with the desire to seek elsewhere a more fertile
territory and a milder climate. They resolved to go and establish
themselves in the country of the Santones (the _Saintonge_), situated on
the shores of the ocean, to the north of the Gironde. Two years were to
be employed in preparations, and, by a solemn engagement, the departure
was fixed for the third year. But Orgetorix, sent to the neighbouring
peoples to contract alliances, conspired with two influential
personages--one of the country of the Sequani, the other of that of the
Ædui. He induced them to undertake to seize the supreme power, promised
them the assistance of the Helvetii, and persuaded them that those three
powerful nations, leagued together, would easily subjugate the whole of
Gaul. This conspiracy failed, through the death of Orgetorix, accused in
his own country of a design to usurp the sovereignty. The Helvetii
persisted, nevertheless, in their project of emigration. They collected
the greatest possible number of wagons and beasts of burden; and, in
order to destroy all idea of returning, they burnt their twelve towns,
their four hundred hamlets, and all the wheat they could not carry with
them. Each furnished himself with meal[154] for three months; and after
persuading their neighbours, the Rauraci,[155] the Tulingi, and the
Latobriges,[156] to imitate their example and follow them, and having
drawn to them those of the Boii who had moved from Noricum to the
neighbourhood of the Rhine, they fixed the rendezvous on the banks of
the Rhone for the 5th of the Calends of April (the 24th of March, the
day of the equinox). [157]
There were only two roads by which they could leave Helvetia; one
crossed the country of the Sequani, the entrance to which was defended
by a narrow and difficult defile, situated between the Rhone and the
Jura (the _Pas-de-l’Ecluse_), and where the wagons could with difficulty
pass one at a time. As this defile was commanded by a very lofty
mountain, a handful of men was sufficient to prevent the access. The
other road, less contracted and more easy, crossed the Roman province,
after having passed the Rhone, which separated the Allobroges from the
Helvetii, from Lake Léman to the Jura. Within this distance the river
was fordable in several places. [158] At Geneva, the extreme limit of the
territory of the Allobroges towards Helvetia, a bridge established a
communication between the two countries. The Helvetii decided on taking
the most convenient road; they reckoned, moreover, on the co-operation
of this neighbouring people, who, but recently subjugated, could have
but doubtful sympathies for the Romans. [159]
[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Arrival at Geneva. ]
II. Cæsar, learning that the Helvetii intended to pass through the Roman
province, left Rome hastily in the month of March, hurried by forced
marches into Transalpine Gaul, and, according to Plutarch, reached
Geneva in eight days. [160] As he had in the province only a single
legion, he ordered a levy of as many men as possible, and then destroyed
the bridge of Geneva. Informed of his arrival, the Helvetii, who were
probably not yet all assembled, sent their men of noblest rank to demand
a passage through the country of the Allobroges, promising to commit no
injury there; they had, they said, no other road to quit their country.
Cæsar was inclined to refuse their demand at once, but he called to mind
the defeat and death of the Consul L. Cassius; and wishing to obtain
time to collect the troops of which he had ordered the levy, he gave
them hopes of a favourable reply, and adjourned it to the Ides of April
(8th of April). By this delay he gained a fortnight; it was employed in
fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, between Lake Léman and the
Jura. [161] If we estimate at 5,000 men the legion which was in the
province, and at 5,000 or 6,000 the number of soldiers of the new
levies, we see that Cæsar had at his disposal, to defend the banks of
the Rhone, about 10,000 or 11,000 infantry. [162]
[Sidenote: Description of the Retrenchment of the Rhone. ]
III. The distance from Lake Léman to the Jura, following the
sinuosities of the river, is 29½ kilomètres, or 19,000 Roman paces
(_millia passuum decem novem_). [163] It is on the space comprised
between these two points that a retrenchment was raised which is called
in the “Commentaries” _murus fossaque_. This could not be a continuous
work, as the ground to be defended is intersected by rivers and ravines,
and the banks of the Rhone are almost everywhere so precipitous that it
would have been useless to fortify them. Cæsar, pressed for time, can
only have made retrenchments on the weakest points of the line where the
passage of the river was easy; indeed, this is what Dio Cassius tells
us. [164] The labours of the Romans were only supplementary, on certain
points, to the formidable natural obstacles which the Rhone presents in
the greater part of its course. The only places where an attempt could
be made to pass it, because the heights there sink towards the banks of
the river into practicable declivities, are situated opposite the modern
villages of Russin, Cartigny, Avully, Chancy, and Cologny. In these
places they cut the upper part of the slope into a perpendicular, and
afterwards hollowed a trench, the scarp of which thus gained an
elevation of sixteen feet. These works, by uniting the escarpments of
the Rhone, formed, from Geneva to the Jura, a continuous line, which
presented an impassable barrier. Behind and along this line, at certain
distances, posts and closed redoubts rendered it impregnable. (_See
Plate 3. _)[165]
This retrenchment, which required only from two to three days’ labour,
was completed when the deputies returned, at the time appointed, to hear
Cæsar’s reply. He flatly refused the passage, declaring that he would
oppose it with all his means.
Meanwhile the Helvetii, and the people who took part in their
enterprise, had assembled on the right bank of the Rhone. When they
learnt that they must renounce the hope of quitting their country
without opposition, they resolved to open themselves a passage by
force. Several times--sometimes by day, and sometimes by night--they
crossed the Rhone, some by fording, others with the aid of boats joined
together, or of a great number of rafts of timber, and attempted to
carry the heights, but, arrested by the strength of the retrenchment
(_operis munitione_), and by the efforts and missiles of the soldiers
who hastened to the threatened points (_concursu et telis_), they
abandoned the attack. [166]
[Sidenote: The Helvetii begin their March towards the Saône. Cæsar
unites his Troops. ]
IV. The only road which now remained was that which lay across the
country of the Sequani (the Pas-de-l’Ecluse); but this narrow defile
could not be passed without the consent of its inhabitants. The Helvetii
charged the Æduan Dumnorix, the son-in-law of Orgetorix, to solicit it
for them. High in credit among the Sequani, Dumnorix obtained it; and
the two peoples entered into an engagement, one to leave the passage
free, the other to commit no disorder; and, as pledges of their
convention, they exchanged hostages. [167]
When Cæsar learned that the Helvetii were preparing to pass through the
lands of the Sequani and the Ædui on their way to the Santones, he
resolved to oppose them, unwilling to suffer the establishment of
warlike and hostile men in a fertile and open country, neighbouring upon
that of the Tolosates, which made part of the Roman province. [168]
But, as he had not at hand sufficient forces, he resolved on uniting all
the troops he could dispose of in his vast command. He entrusts,
therefore, the care of the retrenchments on the Rhone to his lieutenant
T. Labienus, hastens into Italy by forced marches, raises there in great
haste two legions (the 11th and 12th), brings from Aquileia, a town of
Illyria,[169] the three legions which were there in winter quarters (the
7th, 8th, and 9th), and, at the head of his army, takes across the Alps
(_see Plate 4_) the shortest road to Transalpine Gaul. [170] The
Centrones, the Graioceli, and the Caturiges (see _page_ 24, _note_),
posted on the heights,[171] attempt to bar his road; but he overthrows
them in several engagements, and from Ocelum (_Usseau_),[172] the
extreme point of the Cisalpine, reaches in seven days the territory of
the Vocontii, making thus about twenty-five kilomètres a day. He next
penetrates into the country of the Allobroges, then into that of the
Segusiavi, who bordered on the Roman province beyond the Rhone. [173]
These operations took two months;[174] the same time had been employed
by the Helvetii in negotiating the conditions of their passage through
the country of the Sequani, moving from the Rhone to the Saône, and
beginning to pass the latter river. They had passed the Pas-de-l’Ecluse,
followed the right bank of the Rhone as far as Culoz, then turned to the
east through Virieu-le-Grand, Tenay, and Saint-Rambert, and, thence
crossing the plains of Ambérieux, the river Ain, and the vast plateau of
the Dombes, they had arrived at the Saône, the left bank of which they
occupied from Trévoux to Villefranche. (_See Plate 4. _) The slowness of
their march need not surprise us if we consider that an agglomeration of
368,000 individuals, men, women, and children, dragging after them from
8,000 to 9,000 wagons, through a defile where carriages could only pass
one abreast, would necessarily employ several weeks in passing it. [175]
Cæsar, no doubt, calculated beforehand, with sufficient accuracy, the
time it would take them to gain the banks of the Saône; and we may
therefore suppose that, at the moment when he repaired into Italy, he
hoped to bring thence his army in time to prevent them from passing that
river.
He established his camp near the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône,
on the heights which command Sathonay; thence he could equally
manœuvre on the two banks of the Saône, take the Helvetii in flank as
they marched towards that river, or prevent them, if they crossed it,
from entering into the Roman province by the valley of the Rhone. It was
probably at this point that Labienus joined him with the troops which
had been left with him, and which raised to six the number of his
legions. His cavalry, composed principally of Ædui and men raised in the
Roman province, amounted to 4,000 men. During this time the Helvetii
were ravaging the lands of the Ambarri, those of the Ædui, and those
which the Allobroges possessed on the right bank of the Rhone. These
peoples implored the succour of Cæsar. He was quite disposed to listen
to their prayers. [176]
[Sidenote: Defeat of the Helvetii on the Saône. ]
V.
The Saône, which crossed the countries of the Ædui and the
Sequani,[177] flowed, then as now, in certain places with an extreme
sluggishness. Cæsar says that people could not distinguish the direction
of the current. The Helvetii, who had not learned to make bridges,
crossed the river, between Trévoux and Villefranche, on rafts and boats
joined together. As soon as the Roman general had ascertained by his
scouts that three-quarters of the barbarians were on the other side of
the river, and the others were still on his side, he left his camp
towards midnight (_de tertia vigilia_) (_see note 1 on page 69_) with
three legions, came upon those of the Helvetii who were still on the
left bank, to the north of Trévoux, in the valley of the Formans,
towards six o’clock in the morning, after a march of eighteen
kilomètres, attacked them by surprise in the midst of the confusion of
passing the river, and slew a great number. Those who could escape
dispersed, and concealed themselves in the neighbouring forests. This
disaster fell upon the Tigurini (_the inhabitants of the Cantons of
Vaud, Friburg, and a part of the Canton of Berne_), one of the four
tribes of which the nation of the Helvetii was composed, the same which,
in an expedition out of Helvetia, had formerly slain the Consul L.
Cassius, and made his army pass under the yoke. [178]
After this combat, Cæsar, in order to pursue the other part of the
enemy’s army, and prevent its marching towards the south, threw a bridge
across the Saône, and transported his troops to the right bank. The
barques which followed him for the conveyance of provisions would
necessarily facilitate this operation. It is probable that a detachment
established in the defiles on the right bank of the Saône, at the spot
where Lyons now stands, intercepted the road which would have conducted
the Helvetii towards the Roman province. As to the three legions which
remained in the camp of Sathonay, they soon rejoined Cæsar. The
Helvetii, struck by his sudden approach, and by the rapidity with which
he had effected, in one single day, a passage which had cost them twenty
days’ labour, sent him a deputation, the chief of which, old Divico, had
commanded in the wars against Cassius. In language full of boast and
threatening, Divico reminded Cæsar of the humiliation inflicted formerly
on the Roman arms. The proconsul replied that he was not forgetful of
old affronts, but that recent injuries were sufficient motives for his
conduct. Nevertheless, he offered peace, on condition that they should
give him hostages. “The Helvetii,” replied Divico, “have learned from
their ancestors to receive, but not to give, hostages; the Romans ought
to know that. ” This proud reply closed the interview.
Nevertheless, the Helvetii appear to have been desirous of avoiding
battle, for next day they raised their camp, and, cut off from the
possibility of following the course of the Saône to proceed towards the
south, they took the easiest way to reach the country of the Santones,
by directing their march towards the sources of the Dheune and the
Bourbince. (_See Plate 4. _) This broken country, moreover, permitted
them to resist the Romans with advantage. They followed across the
mountains of Charolais the Gaulish road, on the trace of which was, no
doubt, subsequently constructed the Roman way from Lyons to Autun,
vestiges of which still exist; the latter followed the course of the
Saône as far as Belleville, where it parted from it abruptly, crossing
over the Col d’Avenas, proceeding through the valley of the Grosne to
Cluny, and continuing by Saint-Vallier to Autun. At Saint-Vallier they
would quit this road, and march towards the Loire to pass it at
Decize. [179]
Cæsar followed the Helvetii, and sent before him all his cavalry to
watch their march. These, too eager in the pursuit, came to blows with
the enemy’s cavalry in a position of disadvantage, and experienced some
loss. Proud of having repulsed 4,000 men with 500 horsemen, the Helvetii
became sufficiently emboldened to venture sometimes to harass the Roman
army. But Cæsar avoided engaging his troops; he was satisfied with
following, day by day, the enemies at a distance of five or six miles at
most (about eight kilomètres), opposing the devastations they committed
on their passage, and waiting a favourable occasion to inflict a defeat
upon them.
The two armies continued their march extremely slowly, and the days
passed without offering the desired opportunity. Meanwhile, the
provisionment of the Roman army began to inspire serious uneasiness;
wheat arrived no longer by the Saône, for Cæsar had been obliged to move
from it in order to keep up with the Helvetii. On another hand, the Ædui
delayed, under vain pretexts, sending the grain which they had promised.
The harvest, too, was not yet ripe, and even forage failed. As the day
for distribution approached, Cæsar convoked the Æduan chiefs, who were
numerous in his camp, and overwhelmed them with reproaches. One of them,
Liscus, occupied in his country the supreme magistracy, under the name
of _vergobret_; he denounced Dumnorix, the brother of Divitiacus, as
opposing the sending of provisions; it was the same Dumnorix who had
heretofore secretly negotiated the passage of the Helvetii across the
country of the Sequani, and who, placed at the head of the Æduan
contingent, had, in the last combat, by retreating with his men, led to
the flight of the whole body of the cavalry. Cæsar sent for Divitiacus,
a man devoted to the Roman people, and revealed to him the culpable
conduct of his brother, which merited an exemplary punishment.
Divitiacus expressed the same opinion, but, in tears, implored the
pardon of Dumnorix. Cæsar granted it to him, and contented himself with
placing him under surveillance. It was, indeed, good policy not to
alienate the Æduan people by any excessive severity against a man of
power among them.
The Helvetii, after advancing northward as far as Saint-Vallier, had
turned to the west to reach the valley of the Loire. Arrived near
Issy-l’Evêque, they encamped on the banks of a tributary of the Somme,
at the foot of Mount Tauffrin, eight miles from the Roman army. Informed
of this circumstance, Cæsar judged that the moment had arrived for
attacking them by surprise, and sent to reconnoitre by what circuits the
heights might be reached. He learnt that the access was easy, and
ordered Labienus to gain, with two legions, the summit of the mountain
by bye-roads, without giving alarm to the enemy, and to wait till he
himself, marching at the head of the four other legions, by the same
road as the Helvetii, should appear near their camp; then both were to
attack them at the same time. Labienus started at midnight, taking for
guides the men who had just explored the roads. Cæsar, on his part,
began his march at two o’clock in the morning (_de quarta
vigilia_),[180] preceded by his cavalry. At the head of his scouts was
P. Considius, whose former services under L. Sylla, and subsequently
under M. Crassus, pointed him out as an experienced soldier.
At break of day Labienus occupied the heights, and Cæsar was no more
than 1,500 paces from the camp of the barbarians; the latter suspected
neither his approach nor that of his lieutenant. Suddenly Considius
arrived at full gallop to announce that the mountain of which Labienus
was to take possession was in the power of the Helvetii; he had
recognised them, he said, by their arms and their military ensigns. At
this news, Cæsar, fearing that he was not in sufficient force against
their whole army, with only four legions, chose a strong position on a
neighbouring hill, and drew up his men in order of battle. Labienus,
whose orders were not to engage in battle till he saw the troops of
Cæsar near the enemy’s camp, remained immovable, watching for him. It
was broad daylight when Cæsar learnt that his troops had made themselves
masters of the mountain, and that the Helvetii had left their camp. They
escaped him thus, through the false report of Considius, who had been
blinded by a groundless terror.
Admitting that the Helvetii had passed near Issy-l’Evêque, Mount
Tauffrin, which rises at a distance of four kilomètres to the west of
that village, answers to the conditions of the text. There is nothing to
contradict the notion that Labienus and Cæsar may have, one occupied the
summit, the other approached the enemy’s camp within 1,500 paces,
without being perceived; and the neighbouring ground presents heights
which permitted the Roman army to form in order of battle. [181]
[Sidenote: Defeat of the Helvetii near Bibracte. ]
VI. That day the Helvetii continued their advance to Remilly, on the
Alène. Since the passage of the Saône, they had marched about a
fortnight, making an average of not more than eleven or twelve
kilomètres a day. [182] According to our reckoning, it must have been the
end of the month of June. Cæsar followed the Helvetii at the usual
distance, and established his camp at three miles’ distance from theirs,
on the Cressonne, near Ternant.
Next day, as the Roman army had provisions left for no more than two
days,[183] and as, moreover, Bibracte (_Mont Beuvray_),[184] the
greatest and richest town of the Ædui, was not more than eighteen miles
(twenty-seven kilomètres) distant, Cæsar, to provision his army, turned
from the road which the Helvetii were following, and took that to
Bibracte. (_See Plate 4. _) The enemy was informed of this circumstance
by some deserters from the troop of L. Emilius, decurion[185] of the
auxiliary cavalry. Believing that the Romans were going from them
through fear, and hoping to cut them off from their provisions, they
turned back, and began to harass the rear-guard.
Cæsar immediately led his troops to a neighbouring hill--that which
rises between the two villages called the Grand-Marié and the
Petit-Marié (_see Plate 5_)--and sent his cavalry to impede the enemies
in their march, which gave him the time to form in order of battle. He
ranged, half way up the slope of the hill, his four legions of veterans,
in three lines, and the two legions raised in the Cisalpine on the
plateau above, along with the auxiliaries, so that his infantry covered
the whole height. The heavy baggage, and the bundles (_sarcinæ_)[186]
with which the soldiers were loaded, were collected on one point, which
was defended by the troops of the reserve. While Cæsar was making these
dispositions, the Helvetii, who came followed by all their wagons,
collected them in one place; they then, in close order, drove back the
cavalry, formed in phalanxes, and, making their way up the slope of the
hill occupied by the Roman infantry, advanced against the first
line. [187]
Cæsar, to make the danger equal, and to deprive all of the possibility
of flight, sends away the horses of all the chiefs, and even his
own,[188] harangues his troops, and gives the signal for combat. The
Romans, from their elevated position, hurl the _pilum_,[189] break the
enemy’s phalanxes, and rush upon them sword in hand. The engagement
becomes general. The Helvetii soon become embarrassed in their
movements: their bucklers, pierced and nailed together by the same
_pilum_, the head of which, bending back, can no longer be withdrawn,
deprive them of the use of their left arm; most of them, after having
long agitated their arms in vain, throw down their bucklers, and fight
without them. At last, covered with wounds, they give way, and retire to
the mountain of the castle of La Garde, at a distance of about 1,000
paces; but while they are pursued, the Boii and the Tulingi, who, to the
number of about 15,000, formed the last of the hostile columns, and
composed the rear-guard, rush upon the Romans, and without halting
attack their right flank. [190] The Helvetii, who had taken refuge on the
height, perceive this movement, return to the charge, and renew the
combat. Cæsar, to meet these two attacks, effects a change of front
(_conversa signa bipartito intulerunt_) in his third line, and opposes
it to the new assailants, while the first two lines resist the Helvetii
who had already been repulsed. [191]
This double combat was long and furious. Unable to resist the
impetuosity of their adversaries, the Helvetii were obliged to retire,
as they had done before, to the mountain of the castle of La Garde; the
Boii and Tulingi towards the baggage and wagons. Such was the
intrepidity of these Gauls during the whole action, which lasted from
one o’clock in the afternoon till evening, that not one turned his back.
Far into the night there was still fighting about the baggage. The
barbarians, having made a rampart of their wagons, some threw from
above their missiles on the Romans; others, placed between the wheels,
wounded them with long pikes (_mataræ ac tragulæ_). The women and
children, too, shared desperately in the combat. [192] At the end of an
obstinate struggle, the camp and baggage were taken. The daughter and
one of the sons of Orgetorix were made prisoners.
This battle reduced the Gaulish emigration to 130,000 individuals. They
began their retreat that same evening, and, after marching without
interruption day and night, they reached on the fourth day the territory
of the Lingones, towards Tonnerre (_see Plate 4_): they had, no doubt,
passed by Moulins-en-Gilbert, Lormes, and Avallon. The Lingones were
forbidden to furnish the fugitives with provisions or succour, under
pain of being treated like them. At the end of three days, the Roman
army, having taken care of their wounded and buried the dead, marched in
pursuit of the enemy. [193]
[Sidenote: Pursuit of the Helvetii. ]
VII. The Helvetii, reduced to extremity, sent to Cæsar to treat for
their submission. The deputies met him on his march, threw themselves at
his feet, and demanded peace in the most suppliant terms. He ordered
them to say to their fellow-countrymen that they must halt on the spot
they then occupied, and await his arrival; and they obeyed. As soon as
Cæsar overtook them, he required them to deliver hostages, their arms,
and the fugitive slaves. While they were preparing to execute his
orders, night coming on, about 6,000 men of a tribe named Verbigeni
(_Soleure, Argovie, Lucerne, and part of the Canton of Berne_) fled,
either through fear that, having once delivered up their arms, they
should be massacred, or in the hope of escaping unperceived in the midst
of so great a multitude. They directed their steps towards the Rhine and
the frontiers of Germany.
On receiving news of the flight of the Verbigeni, Cæsar ordered the
peoples whose territories they would cross to stop them and bring them
back, under pain of being considered as accomplices. The fugitives were
delivered up and treated as enemies; that is, put to the sword, or sold
as slaves. As to the others, Cæsar accepted their submission: he
compelled the Helvetii, the Tulingi, and the Latobriges to return to the
localities they had abandoned, and to restore the towns and hamlets they
had burnt; and since, after having lost all their crops, they had no
more provisions of their own, the Allobroges were ordered to furnish
them with wheat. [194] These measures had for their object not to leave
Helvetia without inhabitants, as the fertility of its soil might draw
thither the Germans of the other side the Rhine, who would thus become
borderers upon the Roman province. He permitted the Boii, celebrated for
their brilliant valour, to establish themselves in the country of the
Ædui, who had asked permission to receive them. They gave them lands
between the Allier and the Loire, and soon admitted them to a share in
all their rights and privileges.
In the camp of the Helvetii were found tablets on which was written, in
Greek letters, the number of all those who had quitted their country: on
one side, the number of men capable of bearing arms; and on the other,
that of the children, old men, and women. The whole amounted to 263,000
Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobriges, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000
Boii--together, 368,000 persons, of whom 92,000 were men in a condition
to fight. According to the census ordered by Cæsar, the number of those
who returned home was 110,000. [195] The emigration was thus reduced to
less than one-third.
The locality occupied by the Helvetii when they made their submission is
unknown; yet all circumstances seem to concur in placing the theatre of
this event in the western part of the country of the Lingones. This
hypothesis appears the more reasonable, as Cæsar’s march, in the
following campaign, can only be explained by supposing him to start from
this region. We admit, then, that Cæsar received the submission of the
Helvetii on the Armançon, towards Tonnerre, and it is there that we
suppose him to have been encamped during the events upon the recital of
which we are now going to enter.
[Sidenote: Observations. ]
VIII. The forces of the two armies opposed to each other in the battle
of Bibracte were about equal, for Cæsar had six legions--the 10th, which
he had found in the Roman province; the three old legions (7th, 8th, and
9th), which he had brought from Aquileia; and the two new ones (11th and
12th), raised in the Cisalpine. The effective force of each must have
been near the normal number of 6,000 men, for the campaign had only
begun, and their ranks must have been increased by the veterans and
volunteers of whom we have spoken in the first volume (page 456). The
number of the legionaries was thus 36,000. Adding 4,000 cavalry, raised
in the Roman province and among the Ædui, and probably 20,000
auxiliaries,[196] we shall have a total of 60,000 combatants, not
including the men attached to the machines, those conducting the
baggage, the army servants, &c. The Helvetii, on their side, did not
count more than 69,000 combatants, since, out of 92,000, they had lost
one-fourth near the Saône.
In this battle, it must be remarked, Cæsar did not employ the two
legions newly raised, which remained to guard the camp, and secure the
retreat in case of disaster. Next year he assigned the same duty to the
youngest troops. The cavalry did not pursue the enemies in their rout,
doubtless because the mountainous nature of the locality made it
impossible for it to act.
CHAPTER IV.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARIOVISTUS.
(Year of Rome 696. )
(BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES. ”)
[Sidenote: Seat of the Suevi and other German Tribes. ]
I. On the termination of the war against the Helvetii, the chiefs of
nearly all Celtic Gaul went to congratulate Cæsar, and thank him for
having, at the same time, avenged their old injuries, and delivered
their country from immense danger. They expressed the desire to submit
to his judgment certain affairs, and, in order to concert matters
previously, they solicited his permission to convoke a general assembly.
Cæsar gave his consent.
After the close of the deliberations, they returned, secretly and in
tears, to solicit his support against the Germans and Ariovistus, one of
their kings. These peoples were separated from the Gauls by the Rhine,
from its mouth to the Lake of Constance. Among them the Suevi occupied
the first rank. They were by much the most powerful and the most
warlike. They were said to be divided into a hundred cantons, each of
which furnished, every year, a thousand men for war and a thousand men
for agriculture, taking each other’s place alternately: the labourers
fed the soldiers. No boundary line, among the Suevi, separated the
property of the fields, which remained common, and no one could prolong
his residence on the same lands beyond a year. However, they hardly
lived upon the produce of the soil: they consumed little wheat, and
drank no wine; milk and flesh were their habitual food. When these
failed, they were fed upon grass. [197] Masters of themselves from
infancy, intrepid hunters, insensible to the inclemency of the seasons,
bathing in the cold waters of the rivers, they hardly covered a part of
their bodies with thin skins. They were savages in manners, and of
prodigious force and stature. They disdained commerce and foreign
horses, which the Gauls sought with so much care. Their own horses,
though mean-looking and ill-shaped, became indefatigable through
exercise, and fed upon brushwood. Despising the use of the saddle,
often, in engagements of cavalry, they jumped to the ground and fought
on foot: their horses were taught to remain without moving. [198] The
belief in the dogma of the immortality of the soul, strengthened in them
the contempt for life. [199] They boasted of being surrounded by immense
solitudes: this fact, as they pretended, showed that a great number of
their neighbours had not been able to resist them: and it was reported,
indeed, that on one side (towards the east) their territory was bounded,
for an extent of 600 miles, by desert plains; on the other, they
bordered upon the Ubii, their tributaries, the most civilised of the
German peoples, because their situation on the banks of the Rhine placed
them in relation with foreign merchants, and because, neighbours to the
Gauls, they had formed themselves to their manners. [200]
Two immense forests commenced not far from the Rhine, and extended, from
west to east, across Germany; these were the Hercynian and Bacenis
forests. (_See Plate 2. _) The first, beginning from the Black Forest and
the Odenwald, covered all the country situated between the Upper Danube
and the Maine, and comprised the mountains which, further towards the
east, formed the northern girdle of the basin of the Danube; that is,
the Boehmerwald, the mountains of Moravia, and the Little Carpathians.
It had a breadth which Cæsar represents by nine long days’ march. [201]
The other, of much less extent, took its rise in the forest of
Thuringia; it embraced all the mountains to the north of Bohemia, and
that long chain which separates the basins of the Oder and the Vistula
from that of the Danube.
The Suevi inhabited, to the south of the forest Bacenis, the countries
situated between the forest of Thuringia, the Boehmerwald, the Inn, and
the Black Forest, which compose, in our days, the Duchies of
Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg, Bavaria, and the greater part of
Wurtemberg. [202] To the east of the Suevi were the Boii (_partly in
Bohemia and partly in the north-west of Austria_);[203] to the north,
the Cherusci, separated from the Suevi by the forest Bacenis; to the
west, the Marcomanni (_the upper and middle course of the Maine_) and
the Sedusii (_between the Maine and the Neckar_); to the south, the
Harudes (_on the north of the Lake of Constance_), the Tulingi, and the
Latobriges (_the southern part of the Grand Duchy of Baden_).
On the two banks of the Rhine dwelt the Rauraci (_the territory of Bâle
and part of the Brisgau_); the Triboces (_part of Alsace and of the
Grand Duchy of Baden_): on the right bank were the Nemetes (_opposite
Spire_); the Vangiones (_opposite Worms_); the Ubii, from the Odenwald
to the watershed of the Sieg and the Ruhr. To the north of the Ubii were
the Sicambri, established in Sauerland, and nearly as far as the Lippe.
Finally, the Usipetes and the Tencteri were still farther to the north,
towards the mouth of the Rhine. (_See Plate 2. _)
[Sidenote: The Gauls solicit Cæsar to come to their assistance. ]
II. The Gaulish chiefs who had come to solicit the succour of Cæsar made
the following complaints against Ariovistus:--“The German king,” they
said, “had taken advantage of the quarrels which divided the different
peoples of Gaul; called in formerly by the Arverni and the Sequani, he
had gained, with their co-operation, several victories over the Ædui, in
consequence of which the latter were subjected to the most humiliating
conditions. Shortly afterwards his yoke grew heavy on the Sequani
themselves, to such a degree that, though conquerors with him, they are
now more wretched than the vanquished Ædui. Ariovistus has seized a
third of their territory;[204] another third is on the point of being
given up, by his orders, to 24,000 Harudes, who have joined him some
months ago. There are 120,000 Germans in Gaul. The contingents of the
Suevi have already arrived on the banks of the Rhine. In a few years the
invasion of Gaul by the Germans will be general. Cæsar alone can prevent
it, by his prestige and that of the Roman name, by the force of his
arms, and by the fame of his recent victory. ”
Gaul thus came voluntarily, in the persons of her chiefs, to throw
herself into the arms of Cæsar, take him for the arbiter of her destiny,
and implore him to be her saviour. He spoke encouragingly, and promised
them his support. Several considerations engaged him to act upon these
complaints. He could not suffer the Ædui, allies of Rome, to be brought
under subjection by the barbarians. He saw a substantial danger for the
Republic in the numerous immigrations of fierce peoples who, once
masters of Gaul, would not fail, in imitation of the Cimbri and
Teutones, to invade the Roman province, and thence fall upon Italy.
Resolved to prevent these dangers, he proposed an interview with
Ariovistus, who was probably occupied, since the defeat of the
Helvetii, in collecting an army among the Triboci (towards
Strasburg),[205] as well to oppose the further designs of the Romans, as
to defend the part of the country of the Sequani which he had seized.
Ariovistus, it will be remembered, had been declared, under Cæsar’s
consulate, ally and friend of the Roman people; and this favour would
encourage the expectation that the head of the Germans would be willing
to treat; but he refused with disdain the proposed interview. Then Cæsar
sent messengers to him to reproach him with his ingratitude. “If
Ariovistus cares to preserve his friendship, let him make reparation for
all the injury he has inflicted upon the allies of Rome, and let him
bring no more barbarians across the Rhine; if, on the contrary, he
rejects these conditions, so many acts of violence will be punished in
virtue of the decree rendered by the Senate, under the consulate of M.
Messala and M. Piso, which authorises the governor of Gaul to do that
which he judges for the advantage of the Republic, and enjoins him to
defend the Ædui and the other allies of the Roman people. ”
By this language, Cæsar wished to show that he did not violate the law,
enacted a year before under his consulate, which forbade the governors
to leave their provinces without an order of the Senate. He purposely
appealed to an old decree, which gave unlimited powers to the governor
of Gaul, a province the importance of which had always required
exceptional laws. [206] The reply of Ariovistus was equally proud:--
“Cæsar ought to know as well as he the right of the conqueror: he admits
no interference in the treatment reserved for the vanquished; he has
himself causes of complaint against the proconsul, whose presence
diminishes his revenues; he will not restore the hostages to the Ædui;
the title of brothers and allies of the Roman people will be of little
service to them. He cares little for threats. No one has ever braved
Ariovistus with impunity. Let anybody attack him, and he will learn the
valour of a people which, for fourteen years, has never sought shelter
under a roof. ”[207]
[Sidenote: March of Cæsar upon Besançon. ]
III. This arrogant reply, and news calculated to give alarm, hastened
Cæsar’s decision. In fact, on one side the Ædui complained to him of the
devastation of their country by the Harudes; and, on the other, the
Treviri announced that the hundred cantons of the Suevi were preparing
to cross the Rhine. [208] Cæsar, wishing to prevent the junction of
these new bands with the old troops of Ariovistus, hastened the
collecting of provisions, and advanced against the Germans by forced
marches. The negotiations having probably lasted during the month of
July, it was now the beginning of August. Starting from the
neighbourhood of Tonnerre, where we have supposed he was encamped, Cæsar
followed the road subsequently replaced by a Roman way of which vestiges
are still found, and which, passing by Tanlay, Gland, Laignes, Etrochey,
and Dancevoir, led to Langres. [209] (_See Plate 4. _) After three long
days’ marches, on his arrival towards Arc-en-Barrois, he learnt that
Ariovistus was moving with all his troops to seize Besançon, the most
considerable place in Sequania, and that he had already advanced three
days’ march beyond his territory. Cæsar considered it a matter of
urgency to anticipate him, for this place was abundantly provided with
everything necessary for an army. Instead of continuing his march
towards the Rhine, by way of Vesoul, Lure, and Belfort, he advanced, day
and night, by forced marches, towards Besançon, obtained possession of
it, and placed a garrison there. [210]
The following description, given in the “Commentaries,” is still
applicable to the present town. “It was so well fortified by nature,
that it offered every facility for sustaining war. The Doubs, forming a
circle, surrounds it almost entirely, and the space of sixteen hundred
feet,[211] which is not bathed by the water, is occupied by a high
mountain, the base of which reaches, on each side, to the edge of the
river. The wall which encloses this mountain makes a citadel of it, and
connects it with the _oppidum_. ”[212]
During this rapid movement of the Roman army on Besançon, Ariovistus had
advanced very slowly. We must suppose, indeed, that he halted when he
was informed of this march; for, once obliged to abandon the hope of
taking that place, it was imprudent to separate himself any farther from
his re-enforcements, and, above all, from the Suevi, who were ready to
pass the Rhine towards Mayence, and await the Romans in the plains of
Upper Alsace, where he could advantageously make use of his numerous
cavalry.
[Sidenote: Panic in the Roman Army. ]
IV. During the few days which Cæsar passed at Besançon (the middle of
August), in order to assure himself of provisions, a general panic took
possession of his soldiers.
