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It was a war of devastation and pillage; and the soldiers threw themselves into it with an eager desire for gain and a love of murder. A considerable portion of the Carnutian population perished of cold and want in the depths of the woods.

This execution was not yet ended, when a general rising of the nations of the north-east obliged him to hasten with four legions to the help of the Remi, who were seriously menaced.

GALLIC SOLDIER (?).

Ambiorix, at length hearing the rumor of war in Belgica, had issued from the forests of Germany, where he lay hidden; and this time the Bellovaci had risen in mass, supported by the nations of the valleys of the Somme and the Scheldt and by those of the Lower Seine. The proconsul marched towards their country: he found it a desert; and when he met them upon Mount Saint Marc(?), in the forest of Compiègne, their position, protected by marshes, was so strong that he dared not attack them. He was himself obliged to think of providing against surprises by constructing in the enemy's neighborhood a veritable fortress for his four legions, a camp with a rampart twelve feet high, and sur

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mounted by towers of three stories, connected by galleries, in which the soldiers could fight under cover; two trenches, each fifteen feet wide, were made in front of it. Several days passed in skirmishes between the foragers. Caesar dared not attempt a direct attack, which would oblige him to cross a marshy ground, and then climb heights bristling with defences. He resolved to resort to his great resource, investment. Three more legions were called up, and the works began. At the sight of the lines so rapidly pushed on by vigorous workers, the Bellovaci remembered Alesia with terror; and one night they sent out of the camp the women, children, and old men, and the numerous carts conveying their baggage. Daylight having overtaken them in that operation, Caesar took advantage of the disorder to approach nearer, in order to find an opportunity of striking some decisive blow. He threw wicker-work bridges over the marshes, and reached a hill adjoining that occupied by the Gauls. The latter lighted great fires along the front of their camp; and behind this curtain of smoke and flames, which the Romans dared not cross for fear of falling into some ambuscade, they escaped. Being overtaken in the neighborhood of the Aisne, they lost the best of their infantry, all their horse, and their chief, Correus, who refused to yield. This reverse

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discouraged them; they implored mercy of the victor; all the cities of the north-east likewise gave hostages. Caesar scoured Belgica, drove Ambiorix, who had entered the territory of his tribe with a few hundred fugitives, back across the Rhine once more, and then returned towards the Loire; for all the cities south of that river had also revolted.

COIN OF DURATIUS.2

Duratius, a friend of the Romans, had put down the insurrection among the Pictones by seizing their capital. The war in

1 These encounters are placed by M. de Sauley (Campagnes de Jules César en Gaule, p. 394 sqq.) and by Napoleon III. in the forest of Compiègne, on the north of that town. Caesar's first camp must have been at Mount Saint Pierre in Châtres, the second at Mount Collet, the Gauls upon Mount Saint Marc. M. Peigné-Delacourt, who discovered a Roman wooden bridge beneath half a yard of peat in the marsh of Breuil-le-Sec, below Clermont (Oise), places the Roman camp on the hill which commands that town.

2 Head of Diana: DVRAT. On the reverse, free horse galloping; above, an aedicula or monogram; in the exergue, IVLIOS. Cf. p. 337, the explanation of this name on the coin of Votomapatis; De Sauley, Numismatique, etc., No. 46.

the west was concentrated round that place, which the Gauls besieged, and the Romans advanced to relieve. The lieutenant Caninius had hastened thither from the frontiers of the Province with two legions: Caesar sent him twenty-five cohorts more, under the command of Fabius. The allies, fearing lest they should be shut in between the stronghold and two Roman armies, tried to regain the Loire. Just as they were crossing it, the cavalry of Fabius appeared and threw them back to the left bank; there the cohorts reached them, and this army, too, was destroyed. The Andes, the remnant of the Carnutes, and the Armorican cities gave hostages.

There were brave men who did honor to these last days of Gaul. Let us piously recall their names; for history, like "Old Mortality," should seek through woods and over mountains the spots where martyrs have fallen, should clear away the moss and brambles from the stone of their sepulchres, and bring back to life their forgotten names. Correus, chief of the Bellovaci, who fell in an ambuscade, fought gallantly. The river and the forests were near he might have fled; he would not, but struck down every

COIN OF GUTRUATUS, OR

CARNUTES.2

COIN OF CORREUS, CHIEF
OF THE BELLOVACI.1

legionary who dared approach him, holding his ground until the enemy overwhelmed him from a distance with a shower of arrows. Gutruatus was the chief of the

COTUATUS, CHIEF OF THE Carnutes, and, like Correus and Vercingetorix, was the instigator of the desperate war which his tribe waged against the Romans. Caesar required that he should be given up, and ordered his lictors to beat with rods and then behead the man who had defended his country against him. Drapethis, a Senonian chieftain, had armed his very slaves for the war of liberty. Even after the last disasters, he continued to attack the Romans; being taken prisoner by them, he starved himself to death. Dumnacus, chief of the Andes, plunged into the

1 Correus, named Cricirus upon coins. Head with helmet and winged horse. (De Sauley, Numismatique, etc., No. 73.)

2 Cotuatus, or Gutruatus, war-chief of the Carnutes in the seventh and eighth campaigns. Head of Venus and a monogram. On the reverse, a winged lion. (De Sauley, Ibid. No. 22.)

COM

COIN OF COMMIUS, CHIEF
OF THE ATREBATES AND
MORINI.1

woods, when there was no longer any hope, and left no trace behind him like Ambiorix, he died unknown, but free. Commius, king of the Atrebates, had expiated by brilliant services to the Gallic cause his error in having at first been Caesar's friend. Labienus, dreading his influence, had enticed him to an interview. It was agreed that at the moment when the Roman officer Volusenus took the Gaul's hand, the centurions who accompanied him should fall upon Commius, and despatch him with their swords. But his friends averted the blow; and Commius, though grievously wounded, escaped. When his people were treating for peace, and wished, in order to save him, to include him among the hostages, he refused. "I have sworn," said he, "never to meet a Roman face to face again;" and he disappeared into the depths of the woods. Some fugitives joined him there. He continued the war with them, infesting the neighborhood of the camps, and cutting off convoys on their way to the quarters of the legions. One day he met the prefect Volusenus at the head of a detachment of cavalry. The sight of his enemy aroused his anger. The Gauls were fewer in number; but Commius entreated them to help him in his vengeance. By feigning flight, he drew Volusenus far ahead of his men, then wheeled round, fell furiously upon him, and wounded him with a javelin. The Romans hastened up. Commius could not despatch his enemy; but his vengeance was satisfied. He sent deputies to Antony, and offered to lay down his arms on condition of being allowed to live where he would be sure of never meeting a Roman.

Some fugitives

The last resistance was offered by an obscure town. The invasion of Caninius in the west had obliged Lucterius, the former lieutenant of Vercingetorix, to give up the idea of another invasion of Gallia Narbonensis, and he had thrown some troops into the little stronghold of Uxellodunum2 (probably Puy d'Issolu), in the territory of the Cadurci (Quercy).

1 Head with helmet. On the reverse, a horse running free. Coin of Commius, chief of the Atrebates and Morini. (De Sauley, Numismatique, etc., No. 34.)

2 At Uxellodunum, Caesar was on the frontier of Aquitania, where he had not yet made his appearance: he went and passed the summer there with two legions, visited Gallia

Caninius immediately laid siege to it. The fortress, built amid steep rocks, was so strong that Caesar had time to arrive from Belgica, and it was only by cutting off the supply of water from the besieged that they were forced to surrender. The proconsul, whom such a war would have ruined in the end, was desirous of making a terrible example of these last defenders of Gallic liberty. All who had borne arms in Uxellodunum had their hands cut off; then, scattered throughout Gaul, they proclaimed to all men the fate reserved by the Romans for rebels. Lucterius, who had escaped, was later given up to Caesar by an Arvernian (51 B.C.).1

This atrocity was the last act of the Gallic war. No struggle left greater memories in the ancient world. "During these eight years," says Plutarch, "Caesar stormed more than eight hundred towns, subdued three hundred nations, and conquered three millions of men, of whom a third perished on the battlefield, and another third were sold." It matters little if the figures are exaggerated: they show how the minds of the ancients were impressed by these gigantic combats. Gaul had an end worthy of the renown that so many victories and conquests had given her; and her sons may be permitted to honor that heroic resistance.

But, after this homage paid to the courage of our forefathers, it is to be acknowledged, that, in view of the general interests of the world, Caesar had brought to a glorious close the list of conquests of the Roman Republic. A great war was ended and a great work commenced. The Roman frontier advanced from the Alps to the Rhine, German barbarism driven back and restrained, Graeco-Latin civilization spread along the banks of the Saône, the Loire, and the Seine, and thus gaining a sufficiently wide base to prevent its ever, in days of misfortune, being crushed out by invaders - such was the service rendered by Caesar, not only to Rome, but to humanity. In this work he had employed eight years, eleven legions, the inexhaustible resources of Roman discipline, his own genius, and his incomparable activity. Till then

Narbonensis, again traversed the whole of Gaul, and stopped at Nemetocena, among the Atrebates, in the heart of Belgica. Before the end of the winter, 51-50 B.C., he returned into Gallia Cisalpina.

1 Napoleon III., Histoire de César, pl. 30.

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