SIXTH COMMENTARY

53 BCE

If we are right to believe that Caesar wrote each commentary in the winter months following the conclusion of that year’s campaigns, we then conclude that he wrote the fifth and sixth commentaries together late in 53 and released them to Roman readers together. There are mild stylistic patterns that make this argument plausible, but certainty remains elusive. If Suetonius is right, it was a shaggy and unkempt Caesar who greeted the year 53. After the disastrous loss of Sabinus and his men, Caesar left his hair and beard to grow until he had taken vengeance. By summer 53, he will presumably have had his shave and a haircut, two bits of grooming, restored.

Quite apart from the events of the year at home and with the army, the commentary on the year 53 is remarkable for its extensive ethnographic description of Gauls and Germans and their ways of life. The Gallic section is all true, mostly, except for some stretchers (as Huck Finn would say) and one quite large gap. He describes the warrior culture and goes at some length into stories about the druids, but the usual ancient descriptions of Gaul include as well a class of bards, the singers of songs and tellers of tales. Caesar is writing to illuminate and impress, not to give here or anywhere a comprehensive factual record. (One scholar suggests that his knowledge is over-determined by his familiarity with the Haedui.) The patronizing ethnographic tone has the effect of firmly distancing the Gauls from the Romans, not merely as “other” but as fundamentally different in kind, as living in a very different world from the Romans. When he comes to the Germans, he begins unreliably and veers off into sheer fantasy by the time he is done.

The year began with a delicate dance as Caesar recruited new soldiers to fill the gaps from the disastrous losses late in the previous year. Pompey himself was still in the vicinity of Rome, seeking to overshadow ordinary politics—“for the republic’s sake” as Caesar puts it in his introduction to this year. That phrase is a bit of a stretcher, for Pompey held an office and title (proconsul of Spain) that at least required him to remain outside the city pomerium and should have sent him about his business to his province. (He let his legates in the field look after things.) His pious pretext was that he was needed to supervise the grain supply at Rome.

The narrative of this commentary is the slackest and least interesting of Caesar’s seven. He mounts a successful raid on the Nervii, punishment for last year’s treachery, and yields a great haul of captured men and cattle, which he then hands over generously to his soldiers. Moving west, based now out of Paris rather than Amiens, he attacks the Senones, then returns northeast to harass again the Eburones and Treveri. Labienus seems always to be in his element in these northeastern frontier territories and had good success with the Treveri. Impatient with the constant need to fight, Caesar makes a particular point of hounding the Eburones to the Rhine and beyond. Though their leader Ambiorix escapes, the Eburones themselves cease to play any part in Gallic affairs afterwards. It is safe to assume the slaughter was substantial.

At campaign’s end this year, he summons a council of Gaul to Reims and there makes a show-trial execution of Acco, the Senones’ rebel leader. Happy, perhaps a little smug, to have made his point so dramatically, Caesar could return to Italy for the first time in two years, confident he was leaving Gaul at peace.

While Caesar was on these campaigns, the collapse of normal politics continued at Rome. Undistinguished consuls, Domitius Corvinus and Messalla Rufus, were finally elected in July of the year. The streets were contested by the gangs of Clodius and of Annius Milo, who had come to the fore as tribune of the people in 57, earning the distinction in the years after of being the oligarch’s thug of choice, leading gangs of slaves and hirelings in the street fighting that grew worse each year. Later in 53, he was a candidate for consul, but once again elections could not be held. His street-fighting main rival Clodius was a candidate for praetor in the same debacle.

With Caesar in further Gaul for two full years and Crassus on his expedition to Parthia, Pompey had the upper hand in Rome if anyone did, but the atmosphere inside the senate was no less poisonous than on the streets. The younger Cato, never to emerge as a power in his own right, was yet a force for obstruction and aggravation of quarrels during the electoral deadlocks of these years.

And then in June, the earth moved under Pompey’s feet. Crassus died in Parthia.

Crassus doubtless thought himself the new Alexander, but when faced with Parthian archers, his imagination failed him. He expected the Parthians to run out of arrows, but they did not. He was heavily defeated on the battle field at Carrhae (modern Harran, on the Turkish/Syrian border 1,500 miles east of Rome). His son Publius, who had fought well as a legate of Caesar’s in Gaul, died in the battle himself.

After the battle, the two forces remained in edgy contact. Taking horse to go forward for a negotiation with the Parthians, Crassus was caught up in a clumsy scuffle that escalated into a brawl and left him dead and his forces leaderless. Cassius Dio says the Parthians poured molten gold into the corpse’s mouth to symbolize his rapacity.

Where in 56 the Lucca meeting, reinforced by the marriage of Caesar’s daughter to Pompey, had created a ruling trio with at least some checks and balances to keep them aligned, now constraints were slackened and Pompey and Caesar could eye each other at a distance with freshened ambitions. The poet Lucan a century later would say that the problem was that Caesar could not stand to have anyone rank ahead of him in Roman politics and Pompey could not stand to have anyone his equal. That’s as good an explanation as any for what would now unfold, probably already inevitable in 53.

The year ended then with the generalissimos staking out their ambitions, the public offices empty, and the gangs of Milo and Clodius battling each other in the streets of Rome.

IN THE CONSULSHIP OF DOMITIUS CORVINUS AND MESSALLA RUFUS

1. Caesar had many reasons to expect a broader Gallic uprising and so ordered conscription conducted by legates Marcus Silanus, Gaius Antistius Reginus, and Titus Sextius.¹ Simultaneously he asks the proconsul Pompey, since he was still in command near the city for the republic’s sake, to order the men he had, as consul, sworn in from Cisalpine Gaul to come to the standards and set out for Caesar. It was important for the future of Gallic opinion for Italy to appear to have such resources that, after any loss in war, strength would be made up and even enhanced in short order. Pompey granted this for the republic’s sake and for friendship, so the draft was quickly completed with three legions—thus double the number of cohorts lost with Sabinus—enrolled and brought together. By his speed and the size of his forces, he taught the Gauls what the Roman people’s wealth and discipline could do.

2. With Indutiomarus dead, as we reported, command is passed to his relatives by the Treveri. They go on wooing the Germans and promising money. Unable to prevail nearby, they solicit nations farther away. Persuading a few, they confirm the deal by swearing mutual oaths and offering them money in return for hostages. They connect with Ambiorix by treaty and alliance.

Caesar found this all out, seeing war prepared everywhere: the Nervii, Aduatuci, and Menapii and all the Germans this side of the Rhine were in arms, the Senones did not come when commanded and were sharing their plans with the Carnutes and other neighbors, and the Germans received from the Treveri frequent embassies wooing them. He thought he would soon have to consider war.

3. The winter not yet over, he collected the four nearest legions and marched to the Nervii. Before they could assemble or flee, he captured a great many cattle and men and assigned his soldiers the booty.² Ravaging their fields, he forced them to surrender and give hostages. With that quickly over, he returned the legions to quarters. Announcing as usual a Gallic council for early spring, when all had arrived except the Senones, Carnutes, and Treveri, he took it as a sign of the beginning of war and revolt and moved the council to Lutetia among the Parisii—seeming to put everything else aside.³ But the Parisii lived near the Senones and had within living memory campaigned with them, but were thought now to be aloof from their plotting. Announcing the council’s move from the tribunal, he left the same day for the Senones and reached them with long marches.

4. Acco, the leading plotter, having heard he was approaching, summons people to gather in the towns. Before they can accomplish this, the Roman arrival is reported. They have to abandon their plan and send legates to Caesar to plead. They approach him using as intermediaries the Haedui, a nation long loyal. On their urging, Caesar willingly forgives the Senones and accepts their excuse, thinking summer a time for war, not inquisition. Demanding a hundred hostages, he leaves them guarded by the Haedui. The Carnutes send representatives there, using the Remi, whose dependents they were, to plead for them: they receive the same answers. Caesar ends the council and orders up cavalry from the nations.

5. With this area of Gaul at peace, he applies himself heart and mind all to war with the Treveri and Ambiorix. He orders Cavarinus and the Senones cavalry to accompany him, to prevent revolt due to Cavarinus’ hot temper or the hatred he had earned there. With all this settled, he took it for granted that Ambiorix would not face open battle, so he reviewed other plans. The Menapii were neighbors of the Eburones, protected by an unbroken line of swamps and woods: the only nation in Gaul never to send peace ambassadors to Caesar. He knew they were guest-friends with Ambiorix and that they had, through the Treveri, become friends with the Germans. He decided to remove these supporters before provoking Ambiorix to war, so he wouldn’t in desperation either hide among the Menapii or join up with people across the Rhine. Adopting this plan, he sends all the army’s baggage to Labienus among the Treveri, and two legions besides. He goes himself with five legions traveling light to the Menapii. They gather no forces and rely on nature for protection, fleeing into the woods and swamps and taking their possessions along.

6. Caesar divides his forces with legate Gaius Fabius and quaestor Marcus Crassus and they build bridges quickly and go in three groups, burning farmhouses and villages, seizing numerous cattle and men. Their hand forced, the Menapii send him ambassadors to sue for peace. He accepts hostages and tells them they will be his enemies if they welcome either Ambiorix or his representatives to their land. With this settled, he leaves Commius of the Atrebates and some cavalry among the Menapii as guards. He himself sets out for the Treveri.

7. While Caesar is doing all this, the Treveri were gathering a huge infantry and cavalry force to approach Labienus, who was wintering in their territory with one legion. Only two days’ march away, they learn the two legions sent by Caesar had arrived. Making camp nearly fifteen miles away, they decide to wait for German reinforcements.

Labienus hears the enemy plan and hopes their impulsiveness will give him the chance to fight. Leaving five cohorts to guard the baggage, he marches against the enemy with twenty-five cohorts and many cavalry, making camp with less than a mile between them. Between Labienus and the enemy was a river, steeply banked and hard to cross. He did not mean to cross nor did he expect the enemy to—their hope for reinforcements was increasing daily. He says straight out in council that since Germans are reported approaching he will not risk his own and his army’s fortunes and so will move camp at dawn the next day. This is swiftly reported to the enemy—some of the many Gallic cavalry naturally favored their countrymen. Labienus summons his tribunes and centurions that night, tells them his plan, and orders them to move camp with more noise and hubbub than was Roman custom, the better to make the enemy suspect fear. Thus he makes departure look like flight. This report too is taken by scouts to the enemy before dawn—the camps were that close.

8. Scarcely had the rear guard left the fortifications when the Gauls were urging each other not to let the plunder they expected get away. With the Romans frightened, waiting for German reinforcements would take too long. Their pride should not let them fail to attack such a small band, fleeing and weighed down, with their great forces. They did not shy from crossing the river and joining battle on uneven ground. Labienus expected as much, going forward steadily as if marching, to lure them across the river. Then he sent the baggage a little ahead and set it on a hill. “Soldiers, you have the chance you wanted: you have the enemy weighed down and on uneven ground. Show your officers here the courage you’ve often shown your general—imagine he is here watching you.”

Then he orders standards to turn about and battle lines to be formed. Leaving a few cavalry squads to guard baggage, he sets the rest of them on the flanks. Quickly our men raise a shout and hurl spears against the enemy. When the enemy unexpectedly saw men they thought were fleeing turn standards and march against them, they could not withstand the assault and were thrown into flight at first encounter, making for nearby woods. Labienus pursued with cavalry, killing many, capturing more, accepting their surrender a few days later. The Germans coming to help saw the Treveri in flight and took themselves home. Indutiomarus’ relatives, fomentors of revolt, went with them and abandoned their nation. Rule and command were handed to Cingetorix, whom we have shown was faithful from the beginning.

9. After arriving among the Treveri from the Menapii, Caesar decided to cross the Rhine for two reasons: first, because troops from there had been sent to the Treveri to fight him; second, so Ambiorix would not have a refuge there. So he began building a bridge a little above where he had crossed before. Knowing now how to proceed, the soldiers enthusiastically accomplish the work in a few days. Leaving a strong guard among the Treveri at the bridge, in case of any sudden uprising, he brings his remaining forces and cavalry across. The Ubii, who had given hostages and surrendered before, send ambassadors to justify themselves to him, explaining they had sent no forces to the Treveri from their nation and betrayed no allegiance. They beg and beseech his forgiveness: a general hatred of Germans should not make the innocent pay penalties instead of the guilty. They promise more hostages if he wants them. Hearing them out, Caesar learns it was the Suebi who had sent troops; he accepts the apology of the Ubii and asks directions for approaching the Suebi.

10. A few days later he learns from the Ubii that the Suebi were gathering all their forces in one place and ordering nations under their authority to send infantry and cavalry. Knowing this, he looks to his grain supply and chooses a good place for camp. He tells the Ubii to take all their cattle and belongings from the countryside into towns, hoping a barbarous and ignorant people could be led by shortage of rations into fighting in unequal conditions. He orders numerous scouts out among the Suebi to learn what they are doing. They do as ordered and report in a few days later. All the Suebi with all their and their allies’ gathered forces, after they heard reliable news of the Roman army, withdrew to the farthest end of their territory. A vast forest there called Bacenis reaches far into their country and is like a natural barrier protecting Cherusci and Suebi from each other’s attacks and incursions. The Suebi had decided to await Roman arrival at the edge of this wood.

11. As we get to this point,⁴ it seems appropriate to set out how Gaul and Germany live and how these nations differ from one another. In Gaul, in all the nations and cantons, even almost in every home, there are factions, whose leaders are the men they judge to have the greatest authority. All affairs and plans come down to their choice and judgment. And so from of old it appears to have been established that no commoner should lack support against the powerful. No aristocrat allows his people to be oppressed or cheated. If he does otherwise, he has no authority among his own people. This state of affairs obtains in all Gaul, for all the nations are divided into the two groups.

12. When Caesar came to Gaul, the Haedui led one faction, the Sequani another.⁵ Less strong, because the greatest influence had long belonged to the Haedui, who had many followers, the Sequani connected themselves with the Germans and Ariovistus, winning them over with lavish expenditures and promises. After several successful battles, where all the Haedui nobles were killed, the Sequani moved so far ahead in power that they brought most Haedui clients over to their side, took the sons of princes as hostages, and made them swear openly they would never conspire against the Sequani. They forcibly occupied some neighboring territory and took leadership of all Gaul. Out of necessity Diviciacus came to Rome to beg help from the senate but went home without success. At Caesar’s coming things changed. Hostages were returned to the Haedui, old clients came back and new were gotten for them through Caesar, because those who joined their friends found a better life and fairer regime. As they advanced again in influence and honor, the Sequani lost the leadership. The Remi replaced them. Because they were thought to stand equally high with Caesar, those who for old enmities would not join the Haedui promised to be clients of the Remi, who looked after them carefully and so acquired sudden new influence. As things stood, the Haedui were by far the first nation, while the Remi held second rank of honor.

13. In all Gaul, two sorts of men stand out in rank and esteem. (For commoners are treated almost like slaves, venturing nothing on their own, being asked no advice. Many, oppressed by debt or huge levies or vengeful potentates, swear themselves into service to nobles who have all the rights over them that masters have with slaves.) One of these two sorts are the druids, the other the knights.

The former busy themselves with affairs of the gods, look after public and private sacrifices, and interpret religious laws. Many young men swarm to them for instruction, for they are highly honored. The druids rule on almost all public and private disputes and if there is a case of a crime committed, a murder done, or a suit about inheritance or property, they decide it and set rewards and penalties. If any individual or group does not stand for their ruling, they are banned from sacrifice—the most serious penalty they have. Those who are banned are counted as wicked and criminal and others all shun them, avoiding their approach and conversation to prevent any defilement. They have no legal standing and share in no office.

One man presides over all the druids, holding highest rank among them. On his death, either some distinguished survivor succeeds or, if there are several equal, they compete for the leadership by vote of the druids, but sometimes by force of arms. At a fixed season, they sit together at a sacred place in land of the Carnutes,⁶ thought to be the center of all Gaul. Here everyone with disputes from everywhere assembles and heeds their decrees and judgments. It’s thought their craft was discovered in Britain and migrated to Gaul, and often even now men who want to learn it more precisely travel there for training.

14. Druids consistently abstain from warfare and do not pay tribute like the rest. Aroused by such rewards, many gather to them for training spontaneously, others are sent by relatives and family. There they are said to memorize a huge number of verses. Some remain in training twenty years. They think it wrong to write these things down, while in most other matters, both public and private records, they use Greek writing. They seem to do this for two reasons: because they did not want the teaching spread among the masses and did not want learners to trust in writing and pay less attention to memory. It is often the case for many that reliance on writing reduces attention to learning and memory. Above all they try to teach that souls do not die but pass from one person to another after death.⁷ They think this specially inspires courage and disregard for fear of death. They debate and transmit to the young much more about the stars and their movements, the extent of the world and its lands, the origins of things, and the strength and power of the immortal gods.

15. The other class is the knights. When necessary and some war arises (which used to happen yearly before Caesar’s coming, nations attacking other nations or repelling attacks), they all take part in war. The most fortunate in family and wealth have the most clients and slaves⁸ about them. This is the only kind of power and influence they recognize.

16. The whole nation of Gauls is much devoted to rituals, so those who suffer serious illness or face battle and danger either sacrifice human victims or promise to do so and use the druids as ministers of these sacrifices. Unless human life is rendered for human life, they think the power of immortal gods cannot be appeased. They conduct sacrifices of this kind publicly. Some have immense artificial figures whose frames made of wicker they fill with living people. Set ablaze, the people die swallowed in flames. They think punishing those who are caught in theft or robbery or some other crime is pleasing to the immortal gods, but when the supply of criminals runs out, they lower themselves to punish even the innocent.

17. The god Mercury they worship most;⁹ of him there are many images, him they claim as inventor of all the arts, him the guide of roads and journeys, and he they think has great influence over business and commerce. After him, Apollo and Mars and Jupiter and Minerva.¹⁰ They think of them about what other nations do: Apollo banishes disease, Minerva teaches rudiments of working and making, Jupiter holds sway in the skies, Mars controls wars. To him, when they decide to wage war, they usually promise to offer what they seize in battle. When they prevail, they sacrifice captured animals and gather the rest of their plunder in one place. In many cities heaping mounds of these things can be seen, nor does anyone much dare to scorn religious practice and hide captured property for themselves or steal from the mounds.¹¹ For that crime the worst punishment, with torture, has been established.

18. Gauls all claim to descend from father Dis,¹² saying this is revealed by druids. So they measure time by the number not of days but nights. Birthdays and first days of months and years are observed with night and the following day. In other customs of life they most differ from others in this, that they do not allow their sons to approach them in public until they are grown enough to take on military service. They think it shameful for a son of boy’s age to be seen in public by his father.

19. Whatever money husbands get as bride-gift from their wives, they add to the bride-gift a similar amount appraised from their own property. A single accounting is kept of all this money and profits are saved. The surviving spouse receives both parts with the accumulated profits. Men have power of life and death over wives, as over children. When a well-born paterfamilias dies, his relatives assemble and, if there is suspicion about the death, they interrogate wives as they would slaves. If they find something, they torture them with fire and rack, then kill them. Funerals, by Gallic standards, are magnificent and lavish. They add to the flames everything the living held dear, even animals. In recent memory, beloved slaves and clients were burned together after the regular funeral was over.

20. Nations thought better governed have it sanctioned by law that anyone hearing rumor or report about the state from neighbors should take it to a magistrate and not share with anyone else, because impulsive and inexperienced men are often known to be frightened by false rumors, to be driven to rash conduct and decisions on highly important matters. Magistrates conceal what they think and share with the public what they judge useful. It is not allowed to speak of the state except in assembly.

21. German ways are very different. They have no druids to manage divine affairs nor are they keen on sacrifices. They count only gods they can see, gods whose riches plainly help them, Sun and Vulcan and Moon. They have not even a rumor of the rest of the gods. Life is all in hunting and military exercise.¹³ From childhood they train for labor and hardship. They have great praise among them for those who remain longest without sexual experience. Some think this makes for height, muscle, and strength. Indeed to have had knowledge of a woman before age twenty they think very shameful, and there is no hiding it, inasmuch as they bathe together indiscriminately in rivers and use skins or small covers of reindeer hide, leaving most of the body naked.¹⁴

22. They are not keen on farming.¹⁵ Most of their food consists of milk, cheese, and meat. No one has a fixed amount of land or his own boundaries. Each year magistrates and leaders assign each family and assembled community as much land as they think best (and where) and require relocation the next year. They offer many reasons for this: to avoid men giving up war for agriculture out of habit; to avoid people trying to extend landholdings far and wide with the powerful driving the weak from their land; to keep people from building with more care than just to avoid cold and heat; to prevent the rise of greed for money, which begets factions and quarrels;¹⁶ to keep the commoners tranquil when they see their wealth equal to that of the most powerful.

23. The greatest boast of their nations is to have desert and wasteland around them as far as possible. This they think proof of courage: neighbors driven from lands and withdrawing, no one daring to settle nearby. They think they will be safer with fear of sudden invasion removed. When a nation either defends itself in war or wages it, magistrates are selected to be in charge of the war with power of life and death. There is no common magistrate in peacetime, but leaders of regions and cantons give judgments and placate quarrels among their people. Brigandage beyond the boundary of a nation is not disreputable, indeed they commend it as training the young and suppressing laziness. And when one of the first men says in council that he will lead and that willing followers should declare themselves, men who like the cause and the man rise to promise support and are praised by the assembly. Those unwilling to follow are thought deserters and traitors and are no longer trusted in anything. Harming a guest they think wrong. Visitors of whatever purpose they keep from harm and regard as inviolable; the homes of all are open to them and food is shared.

24. And there was a time when Gauls outdid Germans in courage, waging war against them and sending colonies across the Rhine because they had too many people and too little land. The most fertile places in Germany are around the Hercynian wood, which I see was known by rumor to Eratosthenes and some Greeks (who called it Orcynian).¹⁷ The Volcae Tectosages claimed this land and settled there, continuing there till now with a high reputation for justice and warrior glory. They live with the same poverty, neediness, and endurance as Germans, using the same food and clothing. Proximity to our provinces and familiarity with seaborne imports bring the Gauls many things to use and keep, so they gradually grew accustomed to defeat, losing many battles and not even claiming to be the Germans’ equals in courage now.

25. This Hercynian wood (mentioned above) extends nine days’ journey across for someone traveling light. It cannot be otherwise delimited and they do not know how to measure distance. It arises in the land of the Helvetians, Nemetes, and Rauraci and stretches straight along the Danube to the land of Dacians and Anartes. Here it bends leftwards away from river lands and touches on the boundaries of many nations in its vastness. No one from this part of Germany claims to have reached the wood’s farthest point, even traveling sixty days, or heard where it begins. We know many kinds of beasts are native there that are not seen elsewhere. Here are the ones most unlike others and worth recording in memory:

26. There is an ox shaped like a deer, with one horn emerging between his ears from mid-forehead, taller and straighter than horns we know; at the top, it spreads wide like a hand’s palm or a tree’s branches. Male and female are alike, with horns the same size and shape.¹⁸

27. There are ones called elk, in shape and mottled pelt like a goat, but a little larger, bereft of horns, and their legs have no joints or ligaments. They do not lie down to rest and if they chance to be struck and fall they cannot rise or lift themselves up. Trees are their beds: they lean against them and recline slightly to take their rest. When hunters learn from their hoof-prints where they usually go to rest, they tear up all the trees there by the roots or hack into them enough to leave them standing in appearance only. When the elk lean on them out of habit, they bear down on them with their weight and collapse along with them.

28. A third species are called uri.¹⁹ They are a little smaller than elephants with the appearance and color and shape of bulls. They are very strong and very fast and unsparing of any man or beast they see. These they carefully snare in pits and kill them. By this work young men harden themselves and practice this kind of hunting. The ones who kill the most, showing the horns publicly as evidence, win great praise. Not even when caught very small can they learn to be with men and become tame. The size and shape and appearance of their horns differ greatly from those of our cattle; these are assiduously sought out, tipped with silver, and used as cups in the most lavish feasts.

29. When Caesar learned from Ubian scouts that the Suebi had retreated to the forest, he feared grain shortage because, as we said, Germans are not keen on farming. He decided to go no farther. Not to relieve the barbarians entirely from fearing his return and to slow their reinforcements, he drew back his troops and had the end of the bridge touching the Ubian shore cut back some 200 feet and built a four-story tower at its end. He left a guard of twelve cohorts to watch the bridge and strengthened the place with heavy fortifications. He put young Gaius Volcatius Tullus in charge of the guard and the place. When grain began to ripen, he left to fight Ambiorix, by way of the Ardennes forest, largest in Gaul, reaching from the Rhine and the Treveri to the Nervii, some five hundred miles broad. He sends Lucius Minucius Basilus and all the cavalry ahead, for what might be accomplished by speedy travel and timeliness. He warns them to prohibit making fires in camp to avoid any sign at a distance of their coming. He says he will follow quickly.

30. Basilus does as ordered. Completing the journey quickly with no one expecting him, he surprises many in the fields unawares. With information from them he makes for Ambiorix himself, to where he was said to be with only a few cavalry. Fortune is powerful in war as in all things. It was a great accident that Basilus fell on Ambiorix unawares and unready, arriving in sight of all ahead of any rumor or messenger. It was also great luck for Ambiorix to escape death when all his military equipment was seized, his carts and horses captured. It happened because his farmhouse was surrounded with forest—as Gallic homes usually are (they look for nearby woods and rivers to ward off the heat) and in a tight spot his comrades and attendants held off our cavalry attack a little while. They fought while some of his men got him on horse and so the woods concealed his flight. Fortune brought him into danger and helped him escape it.

31. It is unclear whether Ambiorix had deliberately not gathered his forces, thinking he would not have to fight, or was caught short by time and the sudden arrival of our cavalry, while thinking the rest of our army was following after. But certainly he sent messengers through the country ordering all to fend for themselves. Some fled into the Ardennes, some into neighboring wetlands. Closer to the ocean they hid themselves on islands the tide predictably forms. Many left their lands and chanced lives and property among strangers. Catuvolcus, king of half of the Eburones, who had plotted with Ambiorix, now weary with age and unable to bear the effort of war or flight, swore every curse at Ambiorix for initiating the scheme and ended his life by eating yew berries, which abound in Gaul and Germany.

32. The Segni and Condrusi, counted among the German population but living between Eburones and Treveri, sent legates to Caesar to ask he not count them as enemies or judge all Germans this side of the Rhine to be of one purpose. They had no thought of war, sending no forces to Ambiorix. Caesar investigated by questioning prisoners and ordered they give back to him any Eburones who had fled to them. If they did that, he said he would not cross their borders. Dividing his forces three ways, he collected the baggage of all legions at Aduatuca—that’s the name of a fort nearly in the midst of the Eburones, where Sabinus and Cotta had settled for winter.²⁰ He liked the spot for various reasons, now especially because the fortifications of last year were still standing—thus reducing work for the soldiers. He left the fourteenth legion, one of the three recently conscripted in Italy, to guard the baggage. He put Quintus Tullius Cicero in charge of legion and camp and gave him two hundred cavalry.

33. Dividing the army, he ordered Titus Labienus and three legions to go toward the ocean near the Menapii. Gaius Trebonius with an equal number of legions he sent to lay waste to land near the Aduatuci. He decided to go with the three remaining to the Sambre river, where it flows into the Meuse,²¹ and to the farthest Ardennes, where he heard Ambiorix had gone with a few cavalry. On leaving, he promises to return in a week, when he knew grain was due the legion left for guard duty. He told Labienus and Trebonius to return by the same day if they could do it without harm to the republic. They would take counsel together again, discuss enemy plans, and so begin war again.

34. As we said, there was no fixed force, no town, no garrison defending itself with arms, but a multitude scattered everywhere. Wherever a hidden valley or wooded spot or boggy wetland offered someone hope of protection or safety, he camped. These places were known locally and the matter required great care, not so much to protect the whole army (no danger could befall when the others were all scattered and frightened), but to save individual soldiers. Eagerness for booty took some too far away and the woods with hidden and unsure paths kept groups from entering. If Caesar wanted the business finished and this nation of criminal men killed, he needed to send out more troops and distribute them. If he wanted to keep companies by their standards, as the set plan and custom of the Roman army demanded, the setting protected the barbarians, who did not lack bravery in laying secret ambushes and surrounding scattered individuals. In difficulties like these, whatever could be foreseen was foreseen. Better to leave some damage undone, even if everyone was on fire for revenge, than suffer injury and lose soldiers. Caesar sent messengers to neighboring peoples, inviting them with hope of booty to plunder the Eburones. Better to risk a Gaul’s life in the woods than a legionary soldier’s; better that the nation’s history and name should be eradicated by an overwhelming force for such a crime. A great number gathered quickly from all sides.

35. While this was going on all over Eburones territory, the seventh day approached, which Caesar had set for returning to the baggage and the legion. Here one sees how much fortune counts in war and what accidents it brings. The enemy, scattered and frightened, as we showed, was no force to offer the slightest cause for fear. Rumor reached the Germans across the Rhine that the Eburones were being plundered and everyone was invited to share. The Sugambri, closest to the Rhine, welcoming the Tencteri and Usipetes in flight as we said— raise two thousand cavalry and cross the Rhine in ships and boats twenty-five miles downriver from the bridge Caesar built and the guard he left. They reach the Eburones’ borders, collect many who had scattered in flight, and seize a great many cattle—for which barbarians are very greedy. Encouraged by booty they go farther: swamps and forests do not slow down men born for war and banditry. They ask prisoners where Caesar is. They find he has gone on farther and his whole army has left. Then one of the prisoners says: “Why do you chase wretched and meager spoils when you could be richly fortunate? In three hours you can reach Aduatuca. There the Roman army collected all their possessions. There is so little guard they cannot even man the wall and no one ventures out of the fort.” Offered this hope, the Germans leave hidden the booty they had gotten and make for Aduatuca following the guide from whom they had learned this.

36. Cicero,²² who all these days had most carefully kept soldiers in camp at Caesar’s behest, allowing not even a servant to leave the fort, on the seventh day, hearing Caesar had gone farther away and no rumor of his return, was unsure Caesar would observe the promised number of days. He was influenced at the same time by some saying his patience meant they were effectively besieged. He had no reason to fear misfortune within three miles of camp with nine whole legions and a huge cavalry on campaign and with the enemy scattered and almost destroyed, so he sent five cohorts foraging in nearby fields, with only one hill between them and camp. A fair number of legionaries were invalids in camp; some 300 of them had recovered enough during these days and were sent out under one standard. A great many servants and a large herd of beasts of burden remaining in camp were allowed to go along with them.

37. Just then by chance German cavalry ride in and without breaking stride try to break into camp through the back gate. Concealed by woods on that side they were not seen before reaching camp. Peddlers camping by the rampart did not have time to retreat. Our men are surprised and confused by the event. The cohort on duty barely withstand the first attack. The enemy pour around the sides looking for entry. Our men hold the gates with difficulty. Other approaches are protected by the lay of land and the fortifications. The whole camp is in fear, everybody asking each other the cause of the uproar. They cannot see where to take the standards or where to form up. Some say the camp was already taken, others that the general and army were destroyed and the barbarians come as victors. Many imagine new superstitions about the place and think about the disaster of Cotta and Sabinus, who fell in the same fort. All are so panicked that the barbarians are convinced, as they had heard from a prisoner, that there was no guard inside. They try to break in and they encourage each other not to let such a prize slip from their hands.

38. Publius Sextius Baculus, a first centurion under Caesar whom we mentioned in earlier battles,²³ had been left behind sick with the garrison and now five days without food. Losing hope for his own and everyone’s safety, he leaves his tent unarmed. He sees the enemy threatening and everything in crisis. He snatches arms from bystanders and takes a stand at the gate. The centurions of the cohort on duty follow him. For a little while they keep up the fight. Sextius faints with serious new wounds; dragged back by hand, he was barely rescued. In this respite, the others recover confidence enough to dare stand on the walls and put up a show of resistance.

39. Foraging done, meanwhile, our soldiers hear shouting. Cavalry rush forward; they realize how dangerous things are. But here is no fortification to welcome them in their fear. New conscripts without military experience²⁴ turn to the military tribune and the centurions, awaiting instruction. No one is so brave as not to be frightened by this news. Seeing standards at a distance, the barbarians leave off attacking, thinking at first it’s the return of the legions that captives said had gone farther; but then, sneering at the small numbers, they attacked from all sides.

40. The servants run to higher ground nearby. Quickly dislodged, they rush among the standards and companies— frightening fearful soldiers the more. Some think they can break out quickly if they form a wedge, with camp so close. Even if some were surrounded and fell, surely the rest can be saved. Others think they can make a stand on high ground and all suffer the same fate. The veteran soldiers, the ones coming out together behind a standard, did not like this. Encouraging each other under command of Gaius Trebonius, the Roman knight who was in charge of them, they break through the enemy’s middle ranks and make it all into camp, safe to a man. The servants and cavalry, following them in the same rush, are saved by their courage. But those who took a stand on high ground, having no military experience, could neither stay with the plan they had chosen (to protect themselves on higher ground) nor imitate the speed and force they had seen save the others. Trying for camp, they came down to difficult ground. Some centurions promoted for courage from lower ranks in other legions to higher ranks in this, wanting not to lose the glory they had already won, fell fighting heroically. Their courage drove back the enemy. Some soldiers, safe beyond all hope, come untouched to camp, but some are surrounded by barbarians and perish.

41. The Germans gave up hope of storming camp, seeing our men now inside the fortifications. They retreated across the Rhine with the booty they had hidden in the woods. Even after the enemy left, there was such terror that when Gaius Volusenus, who had been sent out with cavalry, arrived at camp that night, he could not make them believe Caesar was nearby with his army intact. Fear had so seized minds that they said half-crazed that the cavalry had returned in flight after all the rest were destroyed. The Germans would never have attacked if the army were safe. Caesar’s coming removed this fear.

42. Returning and knowing how war goes, Caesar complained only that cohorts had been sent out from their garrison posts, for nothing should have been left to the least chance. He saw fortune’s power displayed in the sudden arrival of the enemy, much more again in turning the barbarians away at almost the rampart itself and the camp gates. The most astonishing thing was that the Germans, who had crossed the Rhine to plunder the land of Ambiorix, had detoured to the Roman camp and done Ambiorix a most desirable service.

43. Caesar sets out again to harass the enemy, collecting a large force from neighboring states and sending them in all directions. Every town and farmhouse in sight was aflame. Livestock were being slaughtered, booty gathered from everywhere. Grain was not only consumed by so many beasts and men, but was pounded flat by the season and the rains. If anyone hid for now, when the army left they would perish from want of everything. With cavalry out in all directions, it often came to the point that captives would look about for the fleeing Ambiorix, saying he was almost still in sight. Hoping to pursue him and making vast efforts, thinking they would win the highest praise from Caesar, they almost outdid nature, seeming always just a little away from the greatest good fortune. And yet Ambiorix took himself off through hiding places and thickets, making for other regions and places under cover of night, with no protection more than four horsemen, the only people to whom he would trust his life.

44. The countryside was devastated; Caesar took his army, with loss of two cohorts, to Durocortorum²⁵ among the Remi, summoning there a council for Gaul. He conducted an investigation of the conspiracy of the Senones and Carnutes and imposed our ancestors’ punishment²⁶ on Acco, under severe sentence for leading that conspiracy. Some fled, fearing trial. Forbidding them fire and water, he set two legions facing the Treveri, two among the Lingones, and the six remaining among the Senones at Sens for winter quarters. Providing grain for the army, he left for Italy, as he had intended, to hear cases.

The troops were to be raised in Caesar’s part of northern Italy, Cisalpine Gaul, to replace the losses of the preceding fall.

When he is generous with captured spoils, he can mention it. When he keeps them for himself, not.

The settlements of Gallic/Roman Lutetia were on and near the Île de la Cité of modern Paris.

As he sets out to smite the German Suebi, his reader of yearly installments would not remember what he had said about them and their German neighbors at 4.1–4.

In 1.31 Caesar reported that the Haedui said the other faction was led by the Arverni, followed by the Sequani, who together had invoked German support. In that passage he told the story about Diviciacus repeated here with different emphasis.

Medieval and modern Chartres, ever a site of pilgrimage.

This version of metempsychosis may have come from Greek colonists and travelers.

C. borrows here ambactus, a Celtic word for “slave”; exceedingly rare in Latin, he uses it here in a way that assumes it will be understood. Compare 3.22, “loyal men they call soldurii,” marking that Gallic word as unfamiliar.

Toutatis was his Gallic name, rather grander than wing-footed Roman Mercury.

The first three were Belenus, Esus, and Taranis when they were at home, embodying the power of sun, war, and thunder, but Belenus ranked after the other two. Which Gallic god is meant by “Minerva” is not clear.

The hiding and stealing are wrong because they take for private use what should be offered and left to the gods.

In their language, Cerunnos. Taking origin from a god of the underworld means coming up out of the ground and thus claiming an unshakable title to that stretch of earth.

Compare Tacitus Germania 15 a century and a half later: “They don’t do much hunting and prefer to spend their time at leisure, given to eating and sleeping.” Tacitus Germ. 20 does agree with Caesar about their deferral of sexual initiation.

Commentators enjoy this passage, particularly the questions it raises of bathing suit design and visual techniques for detecting sexual experience.

This passage resembles what he says of the German Suebi in 4.1, but there he had them farming enthusiastically.

Tacitus (Germ. 5) thinks the Germans all but immune to the use and lure of money, except a few peoples along the Rhine.

Aristotle had heard of the place as one where rivers ran north. For C., the tract begins with the modern Black Forest and extends east beyond his ken.

This is likely the reindeer, which ranged much farther south in antiquity than today.

Apparently a wild ox, but the word appears here first and is rare after.

Likely modern Tongeren, Belgium.

A good example of C.’s inaccuracies; the Sambre does not flow into the Meuse and probably never did. Writing a few months later back in winter quarters, Caesar could err.

In a surviving fragment of a letter to the elder Cicero back at Rome, C. says that it was reckless of Quintus to stay shut in, rather blaming him for what happened. But in book 5, he had praised Quintus, and so here he goes light on him and the rebuke for him soon at 6.42 is very gentle: C. still needed the support of the elder Cicero back at Rome.

2.25, 3.5.

These had been in Caesar’s army about five months.

Reims.

Shackling, stripping, whipping, and beheading with an axe.