16.
Meanwhile, Caesar kept daily importuning the
Aedui for the corn which they had promised in the name of their
state; for, in consequence of the coldness (Gaul, being as before said,
situated toward the north), not only was the corn in the fields not ripe, but
there was not in store a sufficiently large quantity even of fodder: besides he
was unable to use the corn which he had conveyed in ships up the river
Saone
, because the Helvetii, from whom he was
unwilling to retire had diverted their march from the
Saone
. The Aedui kept deferring from day to day, and saying that
it was being collected-brought in-on the road." When he saw that he was put off
too long, and that the day was close at hand on which he ought to serve out the
corn to his soldiers;-having called together their chiefs, of whom he had a
great number in his camp, among them Divitiacus and
Liscus who was invested with the chief magistracy (whom the
Aedui style the Vergobretus, and who is elected
annually and has power of life or death over his countrymen), he severely
reprimands them, because he is not assisted by them on so urgent an occasion,
when the enemy were so close at hand, and when [corn] could neither be bought
nor taken from the fields, particularly as, in a great measure urged by their
prayers, he had undertaken the war; much more bitterly, therefore does he
complain of his being forsaken.
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