Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
under these apprehensions, rather than sit still and wait their
time. Accordingly he made his approaches to the strong-holds
and hills on which they lay encamped, and so galled and fretted
them, that at last they came down with great fury to engage.
But he gained a signal victory, and pursued them for four
hundred furlongs, as far as the Rhine; all which space was
covered with spoils and bodies of the slain. Ariovistus made
shift to pass the Rhine with the small remains of an army, for
it is said the number of the slain amounted to eighty thousand.
After this action, Caesar left his army at their winter-quarters
in the country of the Sequani, and in order to attend to affairs
at Rome, went into that part of Gaul which lies on the Po, and
was part of his province; for the river Rubicon divides Gaul,
which is on this side the Alps, from the rest of Italy. There
he sat down and employed himself in courting people's favor;
great numbers coming to him continually, and always finding
their requests answered; for he never failed to dismiss all with
present pledges of his kindness in hand, and further hopes for
the future. And during all this time of the war in Gaul, Pompey
never observed how Caesar was on the one hand using the arms of
Rome to effect his conquests, and on the other was gaining over
and securing to himself the favor of the Romans, with the wealth
which those conquests obtained him. But when he heard that the
Belgae, who were the most powerful of all the Gauls, and
inhabited a third part of the country, were revolted, and had
got together a great many thousand men in arms, he immediately
set out and took his way thither with great expedition, and
falling upon the enemy as they were ravaging the Gauls, his
allies, he soon defeated and put to flight the largest and least
scattered division of them. For though their numbers were
great, yet they made but a slender defense, and the marshes and
deep rivers were made passable to the Roman foot by the vast
quantity of dead bodies. Of those who revolted, all the tribes
that lived near the ocean came over without fighting, and he,
therefore, led his army against the Nervii, the fiercest and
most warlike people of all in those parts. These live in a
country covered with continuous woods, and having lodged their
children and property out of the way in the depth of the forest,
fell upon Caesar with a body of sixty thousand men, before he
was prepared for them, while he was making his encampment. They
soon routed his cavalry, and having surrounded the twelfth and
seventh legions, killed all the officers, and had not Caesar
himself snatched up a buckler, and forced his way through his
own men to come up to the barbarians, or had not the tenth
legion, when they saw him in danger, run in from the tops of the
hills, where they lay, and broken through the enemy's ranks to
rescue him, in all probability not a Roman would have been
saved. But now, under the influence of Caesar's bold example,
they fought a battle, as the phrase is, of more than human
courage, and yet with their utmost efforts they were not able to
drive the enemy out of the field, but cut them down fighting in
their defense. For out of sixty thousand men, it is stated that
not above five hundred survived the battle, and of four hundred
of their senators not above three.
When the Roman senate had received news of this, they voted
sacrifices and festivals to the gods, to be strictly observed
for the space of fifteen days, a longer space than ever was
observed for any victory before. The danger to which they had
been exposed by the joint outbreak of such a number of nations
was felt to have been great; and the people's fondness for
Caesar gave additional luster to successes achieved by him. He
now, after settling everything in Gaul, came back again, and
spent the winter by the Po, in order to carry on the designs he
had in hand at Rome. All who were candidates for offices used
his assistance, and were supplied with money from him to corrupt
the people and buy their votes, in return of which, when they
were chosen, they did all things to advance his power. But what
was more considerable, the most eminent and powerful men in Rome
in great numbers came to visit him at Lucca, Pompey, and
Crassus, and Appius, the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos, the
proconsul of Spain, so that there were in the place at one time
one hundred and twenty lictors, and more than two hundred
senators. In deliberation here held, it was determined that
Pompey and Crassus should be consuls again for the following
year; that Caesar should have a fresh supply of money, and that
his command should be renewed to him for five years more. It
seemed very extravagant to all thinking men, that those very
persons who had received so much money from Caesar should
persuade the senate to grant him more, as if he were in want.
Though in truth it was not so much upon persuasion as
compulsion, that, with sorrow and groans for their own acts,
they passed the measure. Cato was not present, for they had
sent him seasonably out of the way into Cyprus; but Favonius,
who was a zealous imitator of Cato, when he found he could do no
good by opposing it, broke out of the house, and loudly
declaimed against these proceedings to the people, but none gave
him any hearing; some slighting him out of respect to Crassus
and Pompey, and the greater part to gratify Caesar, on whom
depended their hopes.
After this, Caesar returned again to his forces in Gaul, where
he found that country involved in a dangerous war, two strong
nations of the Germans having lately passed the Rhine, to
conquer it; one of them called the Usipes, the other the
Tenteritae. Of the war with this people, Caesar himself has
given this account in his commentaries, that the barbarians,
having sent ambassadors to treat with him, did, during the
treaty, set upon him in his march, by which means with eight
hundred men they routed five thousand of his horse, who did not
suspect their coming; that afterwards they sent other
ambassadors to renew the same fraudulent practices, whom he kept
in custody, and led on his army against the barbarians, as
judging it mere simplicity to keep faith with those who had so
faithlessly broken the terms they had agreed to. But Tanusius
states, that when the senate decreed festivals and sacrifices
for this victory, Cato declared it to be his opinion that Caesar
ought to be given into the hands of the barbarians, that so the
guilt which this breach of faith might otherwise bring upon the
state, might be expiated by transferring the curse on him, who
was the occasion of it. Of those who passed the Rhine, there were
four hundred thousand cut off; those few who escaped were
sheltered by the Sugambri, a people of Germany. Caesar took
hold of this pretense to invade the Germans, being at the same
time ambitious of the honor of being the first man that should
pass the Rhine with an army. He carried a bridge across it,
though it was very wide, and the current at that particular
point very full, strong, and violent, bringing down with its
waters trunks of trees, and other lumber, which much shook and
weakened the foundations of his bridge. But he drove great
piles of wood into the bottom of the river above the passage,
to catch and stop these as they floated down, and thus fixing
his bridle upon the stream, successfully finished this bridge,
which no one who saw could believe to be the work but of ten
days.
In the passage of his army over it, he met with no opposition;
the Suevi themselves, who are the most warlike people of all
Germany, flying with their effects into the deepest and most
densely wooded valleys. When he had burnt all the enemy's
country, and encouraged those who embraced the Roman interest,
he went back into Gaul, after eighteen days' stay in Germany.
But his expedition into Britain was the most famous testimony of
his courage. For he was the first who brought a navy into the
western ocean, or who sailed into the Atlantic with an army to
make war; and by invading an island, the reported extent of
which had made its existence a matter of controversy among
historians, many of whom questioned whether it were not a mere
name and fiction, not a real place, he might be said to have
carried the Roman empire beyond the limits of the known world.
He passed thither twice from that part of Gaul which lies over
against it, and in several battles which he fought, did more
hurt to the enemy than service to himself, for the islanders
were so miserably poor, that they had nothing worth being
plundered of. When he found himself unable to put such an end
to the war as he wished, he was content to take hostages from
the king, and to impose a tribute, and then quitted the island.
At his arrival in Gaul, he found letters which lay ready to be
conveyed over the water to him from his friends at Rome,
announcing his daughter's death, who died in labor of a child by
Pompey. Caesar and Pompey both were much afflicted with her
death, nor were their friends less disturbed, believing that the
alliance was now broken, which had hitherto kept the sickly
commonwealth in peace, for the child also died within a few days
after the mother. The people took the body of Julia, in spite
of the opposition of the tribunes, and carried it into the field
of Mars, and there her funeral rites were performed, and her
remains are laid.
Caesar's army was now grown very numerous, so that he was forced
to disperse them into various camps for their winter-quarters,
and he having gone himself to Italy as he used to do, in his
absence a general outbreak throughout the whole of Gaul
commenced, and large armies marched about the country, and
attacked the Roman quarters, and attempted to make themselves
masters of the forts where they lay. The greatest and strongest
party of the rebels, under the command of Abriorix, cut off
Costa and Titurius with all their men, while a force sixty
thousand strong besieged the legion under the command of
Cicero, and had almost taken it by storm, the Roman soldiers
being all wounded, and having quite spent themselves by a
defense beyond their natural strength. But Caesar, who was at a
great distance, having received the news, quickly got together
seven thousand men, and hastened to relieve Cicero. The
besiegers were aware of it, and went to meet him, with great
confidence that they should easily overpower such an handful of
men. Caesar, to increase their presumption, seemed to avoid
fighting, and still marched off, till he found a place
conveniently situated for a few to engage against many, where he
encamped. He kept his soldiers from making any attack upon the
enemy, and commanded them to raise the ramparts higher, and
barricade the gates, that by show of fear, they might heighten
the enemy's contempt of them. Till at last they came without
any order in great security to make an assault, when he issued
forth, and put them to flight with the loss of many men.
This quieted the greater part of the commotions in these parts
of Gaul, and Caesar, in the course of the winter, visited every
part of the country, and with great vigilance took precautions
against all innovations. For there were three legions now come
to him to supply the place of the men he had lost, of which
Pompey furnished him with two, out of those under his command;
the other was newly raised in the part of Gaul by the Po. But
in a while the seeds of war, which had long since been secretly
sown and scattered by the most powerful men in those warlike
nations, broke forth into the greatest and most dangerous war
that ever was in those parts, both as regards the number of men
in the vigor of their youth who were gathered and armed from all