80.
Caesar, having stationed his army on both sides of the
fortifications, in order that, if occasion should arise, each should hold and
know his own post, orders the cavalry to issue forth from the camp and commence
action. There was a commanding view from the entire camp, which occupied a ridge
of hills; and the minds of all the soldiers anxiously awaited the issue of the
battle. The Gauls had scattered archers and light-armed infantry
here and there, among their cavalry, to give relief to their retreating troops,
and sustain the impetuosity of our cavalry. Several of our soldiers were
unexpectedly wounded by these, and left the battle. When the Gauls were confident that their countrymen were the conquerors in
the action, and beheld our men hard pressed by numbers, both those who were
hemmed in by the line of circumvallation and those who had come to aid them,
supported the spirits of their men by shouts and yells from every quarter. As
the action was carried on in sight of all, neither a brave nor cowardly act
could be concealed; both the desire of praise and the fear of ignominy, urged on
each party to valor. After fighting from noon almost to sunset, without victory
inclining in favor of either, the Germans, on one
side, made a charge against the enemy in a compact body, and drove them back;
and, when they were put to flight, the archers were surrounded and cut to
pieces. In other parts, likewise, our men pursued to the camp the retreating
enemy, and did not give them an opportunity of rallying. But those who had come
forth from Alesia returned into the town dejected and almost despairing of
success.
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.