19.
Cassivellaunus, as we have stated above, all hope [rising out] of
battle being laid aside, the greater part of his forces being dismissed, and
about 4,000 charioteers only being left, used to observe our marches and retire
a little from the road, and conceal himself in intricate and woody places, and
in those neighborhoods in which he had discovered we were about to march, he
used to drive the cattle and the inhabitants from the fields into the woods;
and, when our cavalry, for the sake of plundering and ravaging the more freely,
scattered themselves among the fields, he used to send out charioteers from the
woods by all the well-known roads and paths, and to the great danger of our
horse, engage with them; and this source of fear hindered them from straggling
very extensively. The result was, that Caesar did not
allow excursions to be made to a great distance from the main body of the
legions, and ordered that damage should be done to the enemy in ravaging their
lands, and kindling fires only so far as the legionary soldiers could, by their
own exertion and marching, accomplish it.
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