58.
Since Indutiomarus was daily advancing up to the camp with greater
defiance, all the cavalry of the neighboring states which he [Labienus] had taken care to have sent for, having been admitted in
one night, he confined all his men within the camp by guards with such great
strictness, that that fact could by no means be reported or carried to the Treviri . In the mean while, Indutiomarus, according to
his daily practice, advances up to the camp and spends a great part of the day
there: his horse cast their weapons, and with very insulting language call out
our men to battle. No reply being given by our men, the enemy, when they thought
proper, depart toward evening in a disorderly and scattered manner, Labienus unexpectedly sends out all the cavalry by two
gates; he gives this command and prohibition, that, when the enemy should be
terrified and put to flight (which he foresaw would happen, as it did), they
should all make for Indutiomarus, and no one wound any man before
he should have seen him slain, because he was unwilling that he should escape,
in consequence of gaining time by the delay [occasioned by the pursuit] of the
rest. He offers great rewards for those who should kill him: he sends up the
cohorts as a relief to the horse. The issue justifies the policy of the man, and
since all aimed at one, Indutiomarus is slain, having been
overtaken at the very ford of the river, and his head is carried to the camp,
the horse, when returning, pursue and slay all whom they can. This affair having
been known, all the forces of the Eburones and the
Nervii which had assembled, depart; and for a short time after
this action, Caesar was less harassed in the government
of Gaul.
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.