49.
The Gauls, having discovered the matter through their scouts,
abandon the blockade, and march toward Caesar with all
their forces; these were about 60,000 armed men. Cicero, an opportunity being now afforded, again begs of that
Vertico, the Gaul, whom we mentioned above,
to convey back a letter to Caesar; he advises him to
perform his journey warily; he writes in the letter that the enemy had departed
and had turned their entire force against him. When this letter was brought to
him about the middle of the night, Caesar apprises his
soldiers of its contents, and inspires them with courage for fighting: the
following day, at the dawn, he moves his camp, and, having proceeded four miles,
he espies the forces of the enemy on the other side of a considerable valley and
rivulet. It was an affair of great danger to fight with such large forces in a
disadvantageous situation. For the present, therefore, inasmuch as he knew that
Cicero was released from the blockade, and thought
that he might, on that account, relax his speed, he halted there and fortifies a
camp in the most favorable position he can. And this, though it was small in
itself, [there being] scarcely 7,000 men, and these too without baggage, still
by the narrowness of the passages, he contracts as much as he can, with this
object, that he may come into the greatest contempt with the enemy. In the mean
while scouts having been sent in all directions, he examines by what most
convenient path he might cross the valley.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.