"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries
deep valley, required a long and difficult siege. To accomplish these
works, Caius Trebonius sends for a great quantity of carriages and men
from the whole Province, and orders hurdles and materials to be
furnished. These things being provided, he raised a mound eighty feet in
height.
II.--But so great a store of everything necessary for a war had been a
long time before laid up in the town, and so great a number of engines,
that no vineae made of hurdles could withstand their force. For poles
twelve feet in length, pointed with iron, and these too shot from very
large engines, sank into the ground through four rows of hurdles.
Therefore the arches of the vineae were covered over with beams a foot
thick, fastened together, and under this the materials of the agger were
handed from one to another. Before this was carried a testudo sixty feet
long, for levelling the ground, made also of very strong timber, and
covered over with every thing that was capable of protecting it against
the fire and stones thrown by the enemy. But the greatness of the works,
the height of the wall and towers, and the multitude of engines retarded
the progress of our works. Besides, frequent sallies were made from the
town by the Albici, and fire was thrown on our mound and turrets. These
our men easily repulsed, and, doing considerable damage to those who
sallied, beat them back into the town.
III.--In the meantime, Lucius Nasidius, being sent by Cneius Pompey with
a fleet of sixteen sail, a few of which had beaks of brass, to the
assistance of Lucius Domitius and the Massilians, passed the straits of
Sicily without the knowledge or expectation of Curio, and, putting with
his fleet into Messana, and making the nobles and senate take flight
with the sudden terror, carried off one of their ships out of dock.
Having joined this to his other ships, he made good his voyage to
Massilia, and, having sent in a galley privately, acquaints Domitius and
the Massilians of his arrival, and earnestly encourages them to hazard
another battle with Brutus's fleet with the addition of his aid.
IV.--The Massilians, since their former loss, had brought the same
number of old ships from the docks, and had repaired and fitted them out
with great industry: they had a large supply of seamen and pilots. They
had got several fishing-smacks, and covered them over, that the seamen
might be secure against darts: these they filled with archers and
engines. With a fleet thus appointed, encouraged by the entreaties and
tears of all the old men, matrons, and virgins to succour the state in
this hour of distress, they went on board with no less spirit and
confidence than they had fought before. For it happens, from a common
infirmity of human nature, that we are more flushed with confidence, or
more vehemently alarmed at things unseen, concealed, and unknown, as was
the case then. For the arrival of Lucius Nasidius had filled the state
with the most sanguine hopes and wishes. Having got a fair wind, they
sailed out of port and went to Nasidius to Taurois, which is a fort
belonging to the Massilians, and there ranged their fleet and again
encouraged each other to engage, and communicated their plan of
operation. The command of the right division was given to the
Massilians, that of the left to Nasidius.
V.--Brutus sailed to the same place with an augmented fleet: for to
those made by Caesar at Arelas were added six ships taken from the
Massilians, which he had refitted since the last battle and had
furnished with every necessary. Accordingly, having encouraged his men
to despise a vanquished people whom they had conquered when yet
unbroken, he advanced against them full of confidence and spirit. From
Trebonius's camp and all the higher grounds it was easy to see into the
town--how all the youth which remained in it, and all persons of more
advanced years, with their wives and children, and the public guards,
were either extending their hands from the wall to the heavens, or were
repairing to the temples of the immortal gods, and, prostrating
themselves before their images, were entreating them to grant them
victory. Nor was there a single person who did not imagine that his
future fortune depended on the issue of that day; for the choice of
their youth and the most respectable of every age, being expressly
invited and solicited, had gone on board the fleet, that if any adverse
fate should befall them they might see that nothing was left for them to
attempt, and, if they proved victorious, they might have hopes of
preserving the city, either by their internal resources or by foreign
assistance.
VI-.-When the battle was begun, no effort of valour was wanting to the
Massilians, but, mindful of the instructions which they had a little
before received from their friends, they fought with such spirit as if
they supposed that they would never have another opportunity to attempt
a defence, and as if they believed that those whose lives should be
endangered in the battle would not long precede the fate of the rest of
the citizens, who, if the city was taken, must undergo the same fortune
of war. Our ships being at some distance from each other, room was
allowed both for the skill of their pilots and the manoeuvring of their
ships; and if at any time ours, gaining an advantage by casting the iron
hooks on board their ships, grappled with them, from all parts they
assisted those who were distressed. Nor, after being joined by the
Albici, did they decline coming to close engagement, nor were they much
inferior to our men in valour. At the same time, showers of darts,
thrown from a distance from the lesser ships, suddenly inflicted several
wounds on our men when off their guard and otherwise engaged; and two of
their three-decked galleys, having descried the ship of Decimus Brutus,
which could be easily distinguished by its flag, rowed up against him
with great violence from opposite sides: but Brutus, seeing into their
designs, by the swiftness of his ship extricated himself with such
address as to get clear, though only by a moment. From the velocity of
their motion they struck against each other with such violence that they
were both excessively injured by the shock; the beak, indeed, of one of
them being broken off, the whole ship was ready to founder, which
circumstance being observed, the ships of Brutus's fleet, which were
nearest that station, attack them when in this disorder and sink them
both.
VII.--But Nasidius's ships were of no use, and soon left the fight; for
the sight of their country, or the entreaties of their relations, did
not urge them to run a desperate risk of their lives. Therefore, of the
number of the ships not one was lost: of the fleet of the Massilians
five were sunk, four taken, and one ran off with Nasidius: all that
escaped made the best of their way to Hither Spain, but one of the rest
was sent forward to Massilia for the purpose of bearing this
intelligence, and when it came near the city, the whole people crowded
out to hear the tidings, and on being informed of the event, were so
oppressed with grief, that one would have imagined that the city had
been taken by an enemy at the same moment. The Massilians, however,
began to make the necessary preparations for the defence of their city
with unwearied energy.
VIII.--The legionary soldiers who had the management of the works on the
right side observed, from the frequent sallies of the enemy, that it
might prove a great protection to them to build a turret of brick under
the wall for a fort and place of refuge, which they at first built low
and small, [to guard them] against sudden attacks. To it they retreated,
and from it they made defence if any superior force attacked them; and
from it they sallied out either to repel or pursue the enemy. It
extended thirty feet on every side, and the thickness of the walls was
five feet. But afterwards, as experience is the best master in
everything on which the wit of man is employed, it was found that it
might be of considerable service if it was raised to the usual height of
turrets, which was effected in the following manner.
IX.-When the turret was raised to the height for flooring, they laid it
on the walls in such a manner that the ends of the joists were covered
by the outer face of the wall, that nothing should project to which the
enemy's fire might adhere. They, moreover, built over the joists with
small bricks as high as the protection of the plutei and vineae
permitted them; and on that place they laid two beams across, angle-ways,
at a small distance from the outer walls, to support the rafters
which were to cover the turret, and on the beams they laid joists across
in a direct line, and on these they fastened down planks. These joists
they made somewhat longer, to project beyond the outside of the wall,
that they might serve to hang a curtain on them to defend and repel all
blows whilst they were building the walls between that and the next
floor, and the floor of this story they faced with bricks and mortar,
that the enemy's fire might do them no damage; and on this they spread
mattresses, lest the weapons thrown from engines should break through
the flooring, or stones from catapults should batter the brickwork.
They, moreover, made three mats of cable ropes, each of them the length
of the turret walls, and four feet broad, and, hanging them round the
turret on the three sides which faced the enemy, fastened them to the
projecting joists. For this was the only sort of defence which, they had
learned by experience in other places, could not be pierced by darts or
engines. But when that part of the turret which was completed was
protected and secured against every attempt of the enemy, they removed
the plutei to other works. They began to suspend gradually, and raise by
screws from the first-floor, the entire roof of the turret, and then
they elevated it as high as the length of the mats allowed. Hid and
secured within these coverings, they built up the walls with bricks, and
again, by another turn of the screw, cleared a place for themselves to
proceed with the building; and, when they thought it time to lay another
floor, they laid the ends of the beams, covered in by the outer bricks
in like manner as in the first story, and from that story they again
raised the uppermost floor and the mat-work. In this manner, securely
and without a blow or danger, they raised it six stories high, and in
laying the materials left loop-holes in such places as they thought
proper for working their engines.
X.--When they were confident that they could protect the works which lay
around from this turret, they resolved to build a musculus, sixty feet
long, of timber, two feet square, and to extend it from the brick tower
to the enemy's tower and wall. This was the form of it: two beams of
equal length were laid on the ground, at the distance of four feet from
each other; and in them were fastened small pillars, five feet high,
which were joined together by braces, with a gentle slope, on which the
timber which they must place to support the roof of the musculus should
be laid: upon this were laid beams, two feet square, bound with iron
plates and nails. To the upper covering of the musculus and the upper
beams, they fastened laths, four fingers square, to support the tiles
which were to cover the musculus. The roof being thus sloped and laid
over in rows in the same manner as the joists were laid on the braces,
the musculus was covered with tiles and mortar, to secure it against
fire, which might be thrown from the wall. Over the tiles hides are
spread, to prevent the water let in on them by spouts from dissolving
the cement of the bricks. Again, the hides were covered over with