History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

237

De Bello Gallico, I. 53. – The war against Ariovistus became the subject of a poem by P. Terentius Varro Atacinus (De Bello Sequanico). (Priscian, X., p. 877, P.)

238

“Inita æstate.” (De Bello Gallico, II. 2.) —Æstas according to Forcellini, signifies the period comprised between the two equinoxes of spring and autumn.

239

See his biography, Appendix D.

240

Strabo, IV. 171, V. 174.

241

“In the year 642, the consul C. Manlius and the proconsul Q. Cæpio were defeated by the Cimbri and the Teutones, and there perished 80,000 Romans and allies and 40,000 valets (colones et lixæ). Of all the army, ten men only escaped.” (Orosius, V. 16.) These data are no doubt exaggerated, for Titus Livius (XXXVI. 38) pretends that Orosius took his information from Valerius of Antium, who habitually magnified his numbers.

242

This route, the most direct from Besançon to the territory of the Remi, is still marked by the numerous vestiges of the Roman road which joined Vesontio with Durocortorum (Besançon with Rheims).

243

De Bello Gallico, II. 4.

244

The word fines in Cæsar, always signifies territory. We must therefore understand by extremi fines the part of the territory farthest removed from the centre, and not the extreme frontier, as certain translators have thought. The Aisne crossed the northern part of the country of the Remi, and did not form its boundary. (See Plate 2.)

245

The retrenchments of this tête-du-pont, especially the side parallel to the Aisne, are still visible at Berry-au-Bac. The gardens of several of the inhabitants are made upon the rampart itself, and the fosse appears at the outside of the village in the form of a cistern. The excavations have displayed distinctly the profile of the fosse.

246

The excavations undertaken in 1862, by bringing to light the fosses of the camp, showed that they were 18 feet wide, with a depth of 9 or 10. (See Plates 8 and 9.) If, then, we admit that the platform of earth of the parapet was 10 feet wide, it would have measured 8 feet in height, which, with the palisade of 4 feet, would give the crest of the parapet a command of 22 feet above the bottom of the fosse.

247

The following localities have been suggested for Bibrax: Bièvre, Bruyères, Neufchâtel, Beaurieux, and the mountain called Vieux-Laon. Now that the camp of Cæsar has been discovered on the hill of Mauchamp, there is only room to hesitate between Beaurieux and Vieux-Laon, as they are the only localities among those just mentioned which, as the text requires, are eight miles distant from the Roman camp. But Beaurieux will not suit, for the reason that even if the Aisne had passed, at the time of the Gallic war, at the foot of the heights on which the town is situated, we cannot understand how the re-enforcements sent by Cæsar could have crossed the river and penetrated into the place, which the Belgian army must certainly have invested on all sides. This fact is, on the contrary, easily understood when we apply it to the mountain of Vieux-Laon, which presents towards the south impregnable escarpments. The Belgæ would have surrounded it on all parts except on the south, and it was no doubt by that side that, during the night, Cæsar’s re-enforcements would enter the town.

248

De Bello Gallico, II. 7. – (Plate 9 gives the plan of the camp, which has been found entire, and that of the redoubts with the fosses, as they have been exposed to view by the excavations; but we have found it impossible to explain the outline of the redoubts.)

249

De Bello Gallico, II. 12. – Sabinus evidently commanded on both sides the river.

250

De Bello Gallico II. 12. – Sabinus evidently commanded on both sides the river.

251

See the biographies of Cæsar’s lieutenants, Appendix D.

252

De Bello Gallico, II. 11.

253

The vineæ were small huts constructed of light timber work covered with hurdles and hides of animals. (Vegetius, Lib. IV. c. 16.) See the figures on Trajan column.

In a regular siege the vineæ were constructed out of reach of the missiles, and they were then pushed in file one behind the other up to the wall of the place attacked, a process which was termed agere vineas; they thus formed long covered galleries which, sometimes placed at right angles to the wall and sometimes parallel, performed the same part as the branches and parallels in modern sieges.

254

The terrace (agger) was an embankment, made of any materials, for the purpose of establishing either platforms to command the ramparts of a besieged town, or viaducts to conduct the towers and machines against the walls, when the approaches to the place presented slopes which were too difficult to climb. These terraces were used also sometimes to fill up the fosse. The agger was most commonly made of trunks of trees, crossed and heaped up like the timber in a funeral pile. – (Thucydides, Siege of Platæa. – Lucan, Pharsalia. – Vitruvius, book XI., Trajan Column.)

255

Antiquaries hesitate between Beauvais, Montdidier, or Breteuil. We adopt Breteuil as the most probable, according to the dissertation on Bratuspantium, by M. l’Abbé Devic, cure of Mouchy-le-Châtel. In fact, the distance from Breteuil to Amiens is just twenty-five miles, as indicated in the “Commentaries.” We must add, however, that M. l’Abbé Devic does not place Bratuspantium at Breteuil itself, but close to that town, in the space now comprised between the communes of Vaudeuil, Caply, Beauvoir, and their dependencies. – Paris, 1843, and Arras, 1865.

256

De Bello Gallico, II. 15.

257

De Bello Gallico, II. 14, 15, 16. Mons is, in fact, seated on a hill completely surrounded by low meadows, traversed by the sinuous courses of the Haine and the Trouille.

258

According to scholars, the frontier between the Nervii and the Ambiani lay towards Fins and Bapaume. Supposing the three days’ march of the Roman army to be reckoned from this point, it would have arrived, in three days, of twenty-five kilomètres each, at Bavay.

259

If Cæsar had arrived on the right bank of the Sambre, as several authors have pretended, he would already have found that river at Landrecies, and would have had no need to learn, on the third day of this march, that he was only fifteen kilomètres from it.

260

It is worthy of remark, that still at the present day the fields in the neighbourhood of the Sambre are surrounded with hedges very similar to those here described. Strabo (II., p. 161) also mentions these hedges.

261