HKB

← back

"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries

Julius Caesar · Commentaries composed during Caesar's Gallic campaigns (and later civil conflict), 58–52 BCE, with additional commentarial material through 49 BCE. primary

passage 117 of 302 · C.W. Bateman, 1882. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, translated by T. Rice Holmes, London, 1908 (see also Holmes' Caesar's Conquest of > BOOK VI (14/18)

in brief
Basilus obeys orders and surprises Ambiorix, who escapes as armed men are sheltered by woods; Ambiorix then scatters his forces into forest, marshes, and islands, while Cativolcus kills himself by yew-juice after cursing Ambiorix.

the person who had been the contriver of that measure, destroyed himself with the juice of the yew tree, of which there is a great abundance in Gaul and Germany.

XXXII.--The Segui and Condrusi, of the nation and number of the Germans, and who are between the Eburones and the Treviri, sent ambassadors to Caesar to entreat that he would not regard them in the number of his enemies, nor consider that the cause of all the Germans on this side the Rhine was one and the same; that they had formed no plans of war, and had sent no auxiliaries to Ambiorix. Caesar, having ascertained this fact by an examination of his prisoners commanded that if any of the Eburones in their flight had repaired to them, they should be sent back to him; he assures them that if they did that, he will not injure their territories. Then, having divided his forces into three parts, he sent the baggage of all the legions to Aduatuca. That is the name of a fort. This is nearly in the middle of the Eburones, where Titurius and Aurunculeius had been quartered for the purpose of wintering. This place he selected as well on other accounts as because the fortifications of the previous year remained, in order that he might relieve the labour of the soldiers. He left the fourteenth legion as a guard for the baggage, one of those three which he had lately raised in Italy and brought over. Over that legion and camp he places Q. Tullius Cicero and gives him 200 horse.

XXXIII.--Having divided the army, he orders T. Labienus to proceed with three legions towards the ocean into those parts which border on the Menappii; he sends C. Trebonius with a like number of legions to lay waste that district which lies contiguous to the Aduatuci; he himself determines to go with the remaining three to the river Sambre, which flows into the Meuse, and to the most remote parts of Arduenna, whither he heard that Ambiorix had gone with a few horse. When departing, he promises that he will return before the end of the seventh day, on which day he was aware corn was due to that legion which was being left in garrison. He directs Labienus and Trebonius to return by the same day, if they can do so agreeably to the interests of the republic; so that their measures having been mutually imparted, and the plans of the enemy having been discovered, they might be able to commence a different line of operations.

← previous passage read in the full work → next passage →

topics: conquest, plunder, and captives · geography and the description of places

"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries · Julius Caesar · 58–49 BCE