34.
There was, as we have above observed, no regular army, nor a town, nor a garrison
which could defend itself by arms; but the people were scattered in all
directions. Where either a hidden valley, or a woody spot, or a difficult morass
furnished any hope of protection or of security to any one, there he had fixed
himself. These places were known to those who dwelt in the neighborhood, and the
matter demanded great attention, not so much in protecting the main body of the
army (for no peril could occur to them altogether from those alarmed and
scattered troops), as in preserving individual soldiers; which in some measure
tended to the safety of the army. For both the desire of booty was leading many
too far, and the woods with their unknown and hidden routes would not allow them
to go in large bodies. If he desired the business to be completed and the race
of those infamous people to be cut off, more bodies of men must be sent in
several directions and the soldiers must be detached on all sides; if he were
disposed to keep the companies at their standards, as the established discipline
and practice of the Roman army required, the
situation itself was a safeguard to the barbarians, nor was there wanting to
individuals the daring to lay secret ambuscades and beset scattered soldiers.
But amid difficulties of this nature as far as precautions could be taken by
vigilance, such precautions were taken; so that some opportunities of injuring
the enemy were neglected, though the minds of all were burning to take revenge,
rather than that injury should be effected with any loss to our soldiers. Caesar dispatches messengers to the neighboring states;
by the hope of booty he invites all to him, for the purpose of plundering the
Eburones, in order that the life of the Gauls might be hazarded in the woods rather than the legionary
soldiers; at the same time, in order that a large force being drawn around them,
the race and name of that state may be annihilated for such a crime. A large
number from all quarters speedily assembles.
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