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But the Gauls, not imagining their victory to be so considerable, and overtaken with the present joy, fell to feasting and dividing the spoil, by which means they gave leisure to those who were for leaving the city to make their escape, and to those that remained, to anticipate and prepare for their coming.
The Germans are apt to claim for themselves a pure and Valhallic origin, an exceptionally unmixed descent of the highest attributes. The primogenial origin may be hidden in obscurity, but the German people have absorbed Gauls, Serbs, Poles, Wends, and a medley of Slav and Celtic races which confound all claims to racial purity.
To the state moreover the occasion of the war was this that it could not withstand the sudden combination of the Gauls; that he could easily prove this from his own weakness, since he was not so little versed in affairs as to presume that with his forces he could conquer the Roman people; but that it was the common resolution of Gaul; that that day was appointed for the storming of all Caesar's winter-quarters, in order that no legion should be able to come to the relief of another legion, that Gauls could not easily deny Gauls, especially when a measure seemed entered into for recovering their common freedom.
Yet this is what actually occurred. Rome sent a large force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were later to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the Gauls in check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was shortly to sail for Spain and there give battle to the Carthaginians.
The admiral's galley lay so near the shore that he distinguished the figures of the Gauls separately. Some, obeying the instinct of self preservation, fled from the places which could be reached by the arrows of the archers on the ships, but others pressed toward the shafts. A frightful, heart-rending spectacle, yet how rich in food for the long-darkened eyes of the artist!
Litavicus, with his clansmen, who after the custom of the Gauls consider it a crime to desert their patrons, even in extreme misfortune, flees forth to Gergovia.
Malchus had by this time mastered the differences between the dialect of the Cisalpine Gauls and that of those in Gaul itself and Iberia, with which he was already acquainted. The chief was gratified by the friendship of Hannibal's kinsman, and liked the frank simplicity of his manner.
The Belgae, writes Caesar, were the only people amongst the Gauls who repulsed the invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri. The Batavi, Tacitus tells us, surpassed all the tribes on the Rhine in bravery. This fierce nation paid its tribute in soldiers, and was reserved by its conquerors, like arrow and sword, only for battle.
Encouraged by the indifference of the Gauls, the Romans took possession of Auvergne, and later of the Dauphine, and a little later also of Languedoc and Vivarais despite the heroic defence of their peoples, who, besides being divided among themselves, were left to their own resources.
The Greeks ate snails floating in a sauce of saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port decorated with hard-boiled eggs.
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