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Updated: June 16, 2025
Attempt at Relief Conflicts before Alesia At the last hour there appeared behind Caesar's lines the interminable array of the Celto-Belgic relieving array, said to amount to 250,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry, from the Channel to the Cevennes the insurgent cantons had strained every nerve to rescue the flower of their patriots and the general of their choice the Bellovaci alone had answered that they were doubtless disposed to fight against the Romans, but not beyond their own bounds.
The Atrebates, Ambiani, Caletes, and other Belgic cantons took part in this struggle; the brave king of the Atrebates Commius, whose accession to the insurrection the Romans had least of all forgiven, and against whom recently Labienus had even directed an atrocious attempt at assassination, brought to the Bellovaci 500 German horse, whose value the campaign of the previous year had shown.
No general was ever so careful of his soldiers' lives. Soissons, a fortified Belgian town, surrendered the next day. From Soissons Caesar marched on Breteuil and thence on Amiens, which surrendered also. The Bellovaci sent in their submission, the leaders of the war party having fled to Britain.
XXII. Caesar reminded the ambassadors who made these supplications, that the Bellovaci had at the same season the year before, in conjunction with other states of Gaul, undertaken a war, and that they had persevered the most obstinately of all in their purpose, and were not brought to a proper way of thinking by the submission of the rest; that he knew and was aware that the guilt of a crime was easily transferred to the dead; but that no one person could have such influence, as to be able by the feeble support of the multitude to raise a war and carry it on without the consent of the nobles, in opposition to the senate, and in despite of every virtuous man; however he was satisfied with the punishment which they had drawn upon themselves.
But after Correus had met his death in a skirmish with the Roman foragers, the resistance here too was broken; the victor proposed tolerable conditions, to which the Bellovaci along with their confederates submitted. The Treveri were reduced to obedience by Labienus, and incidentally the territory of the outlawed Eburones was once more traversed and laid waste.
Such expeditions were in the winter of 702-703 undertaken against the Bituriges and the Carnutes. With the Bellovaci More serious resistance was offered by the Bellovaci, who in the previous year had kept aloof from the relief of Alesia; they seem to have wished to show that their absence on that decisive day at least did not proceed from want of courage or of love for freedom.
The first levy of the Belgic cantons exclusive of the Remi, that is, of the country between the Seine and the Scheldt and eastward as far as the vicinity of Rheims and Andernach, from 9000 to 10,000 square miles, is reckoned at about 300,000 men; in accordance with which, if we regard the proportion of the first levy to the whole men capable of bearing arms specified for the Bellovaci as holding good generally, the number of the Belgae capable of bearing arms would amount to 500,000 and the whole population accordingly to at least 2,000,000.
Insurrection If patriotism and despair had induced the heads of the Celtic nobility to conspire, fear and self-defence now drove the conspirators to strike. The scantiness of the supplies of grain had induced Caesar to station his troops farther apart than he was otherwise wont to do in six different camps constructed in the cantons of the Bellovaci, Ambiani, Morini, Nervii, Remi, and Eburones.
XIV. After spending several days in the same camp, the guards of the Bellovaci, learning that Caius Trebonius was advancing nearer with his legions, and fearing a siege like that of Alesia, send off by night all who were disabled by age or infirmity, or unarmed, and along with them their whole baggage.
V. IV. The New Relations of the Romans in the East, V. IV. Galatia V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects V. VII. Wars and Revolts There V. IX. Repulse of the Parthians V. IX. Counter-Arrangements of Caesar V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies and the Jury-System V. VII. With the Bellovaci
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