5.
Caesar, having encouraged the Remi, and addressed them courteously, ordered the whole senate to
assemble before him, and the children of their chief men to be brought to him as
hostages; all which commands they punctually performed by the day [appointed].
He, addressing himself to Divitiacus, the Aeduan, with
great earnestness, points out how much it concerns the republic and their common
security, that the forces of the enemy should be divided, so that it might not
be necessary to engage with so large a number at one time. [He asserts] that
this might be affected if the Aedui would lead their forces into
the territories of the Bellovaci, and begin to lay waste their
country. With these instructions he dismissed him from his presence. After he
perceived that all the forces of the Belgae, which had been
collected in one place, were approaching toward him, and learned from the scouts
whom he had sent out, and [also] from the Remi, that
they were then not far distant, he hastened to lead his army over the
Aisne
, which is on the borders of the Remi, and
there pitched his camp. This position fortified one side of his camp by the
banks of the river, rendered the country which lay in his rear secure from the
enemy, and furthermore insured that provisions might without danger be brought
to him by the Remi and the rest of the states. Over
that river was a bridge: there he places a guard; and on the other side of the
river he leaves Q. Titurius Sabinus, his lieutenant,
with six cohorts. He orders him to fortify a camp with a rampart twelve feet in
height, and a trench eighteen feet in breadth.
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