21.
The battle was long and vigorously contested, since the Sotiates,
relying on their former victories, imagined that the safety of the whole of
Aquitania rested
on their valor; [and] our men, on the other hand, desired it might be seen what
they could accomplish without their general and without the other legions, under
a very young commander; at length the enemy, worn out with wounds, began to turn
their backs, and a great number of them being slain, Crassus began to besiege the [principal] town of the
Sotiates on his march. Upon their valiantly resisting, he
raised vineae and turrets. They at one time attempting a sally, at another
forming mines, to our rampart and vineae (at which the Aquitani are
eminently skilled, because in many places among them there are copper mines);
when they perceived that nothing could be gained by these operations through the
perseverance of our men, they send embassadors to Crassus, and entreat him to admit them to a surrender. Having
obtained it, they, being ordered to deliver up their arms, comply.
C. Julius Caesar. Caesar's Gallic War. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library.
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