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He fell suddenly on the Nervii with four legions, seized their cattle, wasted their country, and carried off thousands of them to be sold into slavery. Returning to Amiens, he again called the chiefs about him, and, the Seine tribes refusing to put in an appearance, he transferred the council to Paris, and, advancing by rapid marches, he brought the Senones and Carnutes to pray for pardon.
There is a panic among the Romans, but it is brief. Eight veteran Roman legions, with the world's victor at their head, are too much for the brave but undisciplined Nervii. Snatching a shield from a soldier, and otherwise unarmed, Caesar throws himself into the hottest of the fight.
XXIV. The ships having been drawn up and a general assembly of the Gauls held at Samarobriva, because the corn that year had not prospered in Gaul by reason of the droughts, he was compelled to station his army in its winter-quarters, differently from the former years, and to distribute the legions among several states: one of them he gave to C. Fabius, his lieutenant, to be marched into the territories of the Morini; a second to Q. Cicero, into those of the Nervii; a third to L. Roscius, into those of the Essui; a fourth he ordered to winter with T. Labienus among the Remi in the confines of the Treviri; he stationed three in Belgium; over these he appointed M. Crassus, his questor, and L. Munatius Plancus and C. Trebonius, his lieutenants.
He therefore ordered his ranks and files to open, so that his legionaries, closed in mass, paralyzed and forced to give way to a very strong pressure, might be able to kill and consequently demoralize the enemy. And indeed, as soon as a man in the front rank of the Nervii fell under the blows of the legionaries, there was a halt, a falling back.
It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods we who had run to fires before barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. "It's Baker's barn," cried one.
Neocaesarea, the capital of Ponts, on the river Licus, now called Tocat Nervii, an ancient people of Gallia Belgica, thought to have dwelt in the now diocese of Cambray. They attacked Caesar on his march, and fought until they were almost annihilated, G. ii. 17
Vercingetorix, the son of Celtillus, receives the title of king from his followers, G. vii. 4; his plans, G. vii. 8; is accused of treachery, G. vii. 20; his acts, G. vii. 8; surrenders to Caesar, G. vii. 82 Vergasillaunus, the Arvernian, one of the Gallic leaders, G. vii. 76; taken prisoner, G. vii. 88 It has yet several remains of antiquity Vertico, one of the Nervii.
Cæsar next learned that the Nervii, a savage and very brave people, whose territories bordered those just conquered, had upbraided the rest of the Belgæ who had surrendered themselves to the Roman people, and had declared that they themselves would neither send ambassadors nor accept any condition of peace.
The baggage-wagons began presently to appear at the crest of the hill, the signal for which the Nervii had waited; and in a moment all along the river sixty thousand of them rushed out of the forest, sent the cavalry flying, and came on so impetuously that, as Caesar said, they seemed to be in the wood, in the water, and up the opposite bank at sword's point with the legions at the same moment.
The hardy, brave, and water-drinking Nervii remained defiant. The Nervii would send no envoys; they would listen to no terms of peace. Caesar learnt that they were expecting to be joined by the Aduatuci, a tribe of pure Germans, who had been left behind near Liege at the time of the invasion of the Teutons.
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