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watched when they went to forage, and, notwithstanding their precaution to choose every day different hours and roads, they could not move any distance from the camp without being attacked.
The Romans incessantly demanded provisions from the Ædui and the Boii; but the first showed little haste to send them, and the latter, poor and weak, had exhausted their resources; moreover, their country had just been laid waste by fire. Although, during several days, the troops, deprived of corn, lived only on cattle which had been brought from afar, yet they uttered no complaint unworthy of the Roman name and of their preceding victories. When, visiting the works, Cæsar addressed by turn each of the legions, and offered to the soldiers to raise the siege if they felt their privations too rigorous, they unanimously called upon him to persevere: “they had learned,” they said, “after so many years that they served under his command, never to suffer anything that was humiliating, and to leave nothing unfinished.” They renewed this protest to the centurions and to the tribunes.
The towers already approached the walls, when prisoners informed Cæsar that Vercingetorix, from want of forage, had quitted his camp, leaving in it the mass of his army, and had advanced nearer to Avaricum with his cavalry and light infantry, with the intention of laying an ambush on the spot where he expected that the Romans would go to forage the following day.[473] Upon this information, Cæsar, seeking to take advantage of the absence of Vercingetorix, started silently in the middle of the night, and came in the morning near the camp of the enemies. As soon as they were acquainted with his march, they hid their baggage and wagons in the forests, and drew up their troops on an open height. Cæsar immediately ordered his soldiers to lay down their bundles in one spot, and to keep their arms ready for combat.
The hill occupied by the Gauls rose with an easy slope above a marsh which, surrounding it on nearly all sides, rendered it difficult of access, although it was only fifty feet broad. They had broken the bridges, and, full of confidence in their position, drawn up according to tribes, and guarding all the fords and passages, they were ready to fall upon the Romans, if the latter attempted to overcome this obstacle. With the two armies thus in presence and so near to each other, one would have believed them, by their attitude, animated with the same courage, and offering the combat under equal conditions; but, when we consider the defensive strength of the position of the Gauls, we are soon convinced that the firmness of the latter was only one of ostentation. The Romans, indignant at being thus braved, demanded the order to fight; but Cæsar represented to them that the victory would cost the lives of too many brave men, and that the more they were bent upon daring everything for his glory, the more blamable would it be in him to sacrifice them. These words calmed their impatience, and the same day he led them back to the siege operations.