HKB
General de Gœler has supposed that Cæsar had, at this time, brought from Italy the 15th legion; this legion, as we shall see, was only raised at a later period.
[426] More than fourteen different localities have been proposed for identification with Aduatuca. If some writers have advanced good arguments for placing Aduatuca on the right bank of the Meuse, others have believed that they have offered equally good ones for seeking it on the left bank of that river; but the greater part of them have admitted this or that site for the most futile reasons. Nobody has dreamt of resolving the question by the simplest of all means--which consists in seeking if, among the different sites proposed, there is one which, by the form of the ground, agrees with the requirements of the narrative given in the “Commentaries.” Now, Tongres is in this position, and it alone, and so completely satisfies them that we cannot think of placing Aduatuca elsewhere. In fact, Tongres is situated in the country occupied formerly by the Eburones, and, as Cæsar expresses it, in modiis finibus Eburonum, which signifies entirely in the country of the Eburones, and not in the centre of the country. It is moreover enclosed in a circle of a hundred miles radius, comprising all the winter quarters of the Roman army except those of Roscius. This locality fulfils all the conditions required for the establishment of a camp; it is near a river, on a height which commands the neighborhood, and the country produces wheat and forage. At two miles towards the west is a long defile, magna convallis, the vale of Lowaige, where the relation of the massacre of the cohorts of Sabinus is perfectly explained. At three miles from Tongres we find a plain, separated from the town by a single hill; on the same side as this hill rises a rounded eminence--that of Berg, to which the name of tumulus may be fairly applied. Lastly, the Geer, the banks of which were formerly marshy, defended through a large extent the height of Tongres. (See Plate 18.)
[427] De Bello Gallico, V. 25.
[428] See the notice by M. M. F. Driesen on the position of Aduatuca, in the Bulletins de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, 2nd series, tom. XV. No. 3.
[429] De Bello Gallico, V. 37.
[430] De Bello Gallico, V. 39.
[431] The towers of the Romans were constructed of timber of small size, bound together by cross pieces. (See Plate 27, fig. 8.) They still raise scaffolding at Rome in the same manner at the present day.
[432] Although the text has passuum, we have not hesitated in substituting pedum, for it is very improbable that Gauls could have made, in three hours’ time, a countervallation of more than 22 kilomètres.
[433] The siege machine called testudo, “a tortoise,” was ordinarily a gallery mounted upon wheels, made of wood strongly squared, and covered with a solid blindage. It was pushed against the wall of the place besieged. It protected the workmen employed either in filling the fosse, or in mining the wall, or in working the ram. The siege operations of the Gauls lead us to presume that the camp of Cicero was in a fort surrounded by a wall. (See, on the word falces, note (1) on p. 143.)
[434] In the coal-basin, in the centre of which Charleroy is situated, the coal layers crop out of the surface of the soil on different points. Still, at the present day, they knead the clay with small coal. But, what is most curious, people have found at Breteuil (Oise), as in the ruins of Carthage, a quantity of ovoid balls made of pottery.
[435] It will be seen that we use indifferently the terms vallum and rampart.
[436] Dio Cassius, XL. 8.