ancient claim to precedency among the Gaulish states, and relinquished the command of the combined armies to the brave Arvenian. Having seized at Noviodunum the Gaulish hostages whom Cæsar kept there in honourable custody, they made use of them to confirm the fidelity of some tribes, and to stimulate the sluggishness of others. So successfully did they wield this instrument of coercion, that when the general assembly met at Bibracte, there were only three states, it was said, from whom no deputies arrived. These were the Remi, the Lingones and the Treviri: the first had been uniformly devoted to Rome; the second were controlled by the presence or proximity of the Roman armies; the third had suffered severely in previous struggles, and as they had been left to defend themselves without assistance from the states of Southern Gaul, so they did not now choose to form a combination with them.'

towards the

While Vercingetorix was preparing to march in quest of Cæsar with an overwhelming force, he did not neglect ulterior measures. He sent a division of his troops Cæsar retreats to organize a diversion against the Romans in from Belgium the Narbonensis, by a combination of force and Province. intrigue. With the Allobroges he adopted a similar course; though he could not persuade them to unite their arms with his, they took measures to defend the points at which the upper Rhone could be crossed, so as to anticipate any attempt the proconsul might make to regain the Province in that direction. They rightly conjectured the plan which Cæsar's necessities would cause him to adopt. It was impossible for him to remain in his actual position, having lost all communication with the south: but his united forces were formidable, from their numbers as well as their valour, and he might presume on cutting his way to the Province through all opposition. What were his ulterior views he gives us no intimation; but he left no troops in garrison behind him; nothing but the terror of his name and the deep discouragement inflicted by so many triumphant campaigns. He conducted

1 Cæs. B. G. vii. 63, 64.

2 Cæs. B. G. vii. 65.

his march without hurry or confusion, and seemed to court rather than avoid the attack of the enemy. But he abandoned the direct route through the territory of the Ædui, and repaired to the left bank of the Saone, expecting perhaps to experience from the Sequani less organized and effective resistance.

sonal danger of Cæsar.

Vercingetorix came up with the Roman army in the high country of the upper Saone; but, adhering still to his old A great battle tactics, delayed an engagement. For some days ensues per- he followed its movements at a short distance; possibly he distrusted the power of the Allobroges to check it on the Rhone; possibly the ardour of the Gallic chieftains was too impetuous to be withstood. In an evil hour, trembling lest his enemy should at length escape him, he, too, was carried away by the vain confidence of the national character, and gave the signal for battle.' Never, indeed, was the chivalrous spirit of a gallant people more thoroughly awakened. The chiefs engaged themselves by mutual oaths not to return from the field till they had twice ridden through the enemy's ranks. Cavalry was the force in which the Romans were most deficient, and in which the Gauls most boasted of their strength; for their horsemen belonged to the class of the rich and noble, better armed and equipped, and inspired with a more martial spirit than the multitudes which followed them to the field on foot. Cæsar, always found at the point where the danger was greatest, was this day engaged with the cavalry, as in his great battle with the Nervians he had done the duty of a legionary. At one moment he was so nearly captured that his sword was wrested from him, and remained in the hands of his enemies." The Arvernians caused it to be suspended in one of their temples, and of all military trophies this assuredly was the noblest.

The steady Roman and the impetuous Gaul were well matched in the desperate struggle of that day. At length a dexterous movement of the German squadrons checked the hot onset of the Gaulish horse, and Cæs. B. G. vii. 67. 2 Plut. Cæs. 25.

The Gauls are defeated.

gave the legionaries room to open their lines and charge in their turn. The unwieldly masses of the barbarian infantry had not yet learnt to face this formidable shock. The men, hastily imagining that they were outflanked, lost their presence of mind, broke their ranks, and fled precipitately. Their careful leader had provided a retreat for them in three camps which he had fortified in the rear. The Gauls rallied, but it was only for a moment; many of their principal chieftains had been slain or taken; the panic became more than ever irretrievable; and Vercingetorix was compelled to abandon the defence of his position, and guide the flying multitudes to the neighbouring city of Alesia. Here, besides the enclosure of the place itself, situated on the level summit of a high escarped hill, a large camp had also been constructed and fortified with every appliance of art for the reception of eighty thousand men.1

Bold resolution tack the Gauls in their forti

of Cæsar to at

fied camp at

Thus failed the rash attempt to bring the retreating lion to bay. But even though the battle was lost, the cause might have been maintained by recurrence to the harassing system in which the Gauls had hitherto, with one exception, so steadfastly persevered. If their vast forces had been dispersed or drawn Alesia. out of Cæsar's immediate reach, and the country wasted around him, he would not, we may presume, have ventured to protract an indecisive warfare under pressure of the circumstances which urged him to seek the Roman frontiers. The victory he had gained would in that case have been destitute of any decisive result. But the fatal mistake of assembling the whole Gaulish army in one spot, and there tying it, as it were, to the stake, offered an opportunity for a daring and decisive exploit. Few strokes in warfare have been more prompt and bold than the last Cæsar now made in his retreat, and his turning to attack the enemy and terminate the struggle at a blow. At this moment Cæsar risked every thing;

1 Cæs. B. G. vii. 69. Alesia is supposed to be the modern Alise, to the west of Dijon. Mannert, II. i. 175.

all the plans of conquest which he had established and matured in Gaul; all the schemes of ulterior aggrandizement over which he had so long brooded; his life, his reputation, all were hazarded at this eventful crisis. For if he now escaped into the Province, he might hope to organize a future invasion; another series of campaigns might restore him to that supremacy which he had just forfeited beyond the Rhone; or he might leave the unfinished task to a successor, and hasten himself to retrieve his fortunes by some popular act of audacity in Rome. But he saw the whole flower and strength of Gaul self-cooped in a single encampment, and determined to abide his attack. He had thoroughly calculated his own strength. He was at the head of a larger force than he had ever mustered before; and he collected his energies for one decisive struggle, with just confidence in a crowning

success.

The preparations which Cæsar made to carry out his resolve were on a scale proportioned to its grandeur. He formed a line of circumvallation round the whole of the

He forms a

blockade exas

armies.

peration of both enemy's works, thus blockading in one sweep both the camp and the city, an army of eighty thousand men, and the population of the place swelled with an innumerable crowd of fugitives. The exultation they had felt at their late triumphs, and their indignation at their recent reverses; the taste of blood they had obtained in the massacres of Genabum and Avaricum; their horror at the slaughter of their countrymen at Noviodunum and Bibracte; all they had done and all they had suffered, had combined to harden the minds of the legionaries, and divest both men and officers of the common feelings of humanity. The Gauls, too, had had their moments of triumph and exasperation, of vengeance and despair; the same causes had produced on them no less frightful effects; the nerves of both parties were strung to the uttermost, and both were equally prepared for every extreme of infliction or endurance.

If it was with these feelings that the two armies faced each other from behind their breast works, the events of the

Ver

The Romans

successful in a

cavalry skir

mish: they

pass the block

ade despera

tion of the

Gauls.

siege daily added to them fresh bitterness. cingetorix, discovering the fault he had committed, made an attempt to break the Roman lines by means of his cavalry. But here again the Germans turned the fortune of the day, and the Gauls, beaten back with loss into their entrenchments, suffered sore discouragement. Their leader felt increasing alarm. He knew how rapid must be the progress of scarcity in such a host as was cooped up with him, which he dared not again lead forth to combat. He dismissed a great part of his horse, with the commission to scour the country far and near, and summon tribes and cities to his assistance. But this could not be done effectively in the short period during which he might hope to maintain his post; as the operations of the enemy were pressed more resolutely and decisively, it became necessary to repel the approach of famine by extraordinary measures. The Gaulish chieftains were animated with the most desperate resolution; it was deliberately proposed to sanction the killing and eating of human beings. For the present, indeed, this horrible counsel was rejected. But another alternative, hardly less shocking, was adopted: all the non-military population which had crowded within the lines, the women and children, the sick and the aged, were expelled from the city and the entrenchments. The Roman general was unrelenting; he too was steeled in this last struggle against every ordinary feeling of humanity, and he ordered the helpless multitude to be driven back upon their countrymen with showers of stones and darts. Between the trenches of their friends and the bristling ranks of their enemies, the miserable victims perished by wounds or hunger.'

are attacked

The Roman general, apprehending the arrival of the enemy's succours, had not only completed a line of circumvallation in front of the Gaulish fortifications, but The Romans had strongly entrenched himself in the rear also. The confederate states had hastened to send reinforcements to Vercingetorix; they had

1 Cæs. B. G. vii. 78.

not

by a Gaulish rear, but repulse and dis

army in the

perse them.