56.
When he perceived that they were coming to him voluntarily; that on the one side
the Senones and the Carnutes were stimulated by their
consciousness of guilt, on the other side the Nervii and the
Aduatuci were preparing war against the Romans, and that forces of volunteers would not be wanting to him if
he began to advance from his own territories, he proclaims an armed council
(this according to the custom of the Gauls in the
commencement of war) at which, by a common law, all the youth were wont to
assemble in arms, whoever of them comes last is killed in the sight of the whole
assembly after being racked with every torture. In that council he declares
Cingetorix, the leader of the other faction, his own son-in-law
(whom we have above mentioned, as having embraced the protection of Caesar, and never having deserted him) an enemy and
confiscates his property. When these things were finished, he asserts in the
council that he, invited by the Senones and the Carnutes, and several other states of
Gaul, was about to march thither through the territories of the
Remi, devastate their lands, and attack the camp
of Labienus: before he does that, he informs them of
what he desires to be done.
C. Julius Caesar. Caesar's Gallic War. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library.
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