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The west from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Seine was rapidly infected by the insurrection, and Vercingetorix was recognized by all the cantons there as commander-in-chief; where the common council made any difficulty, the multitude compelled it to join the movement; only a few cantons, such as that of the Bituriges, required compulsion to join it, and these perhaps only for appearance' sake.
On his arrival, the Bituriges send ambassadors to the Aedui, under whose protection they were, to solicit aid in order that they might more easily resist the forces of the enemy. The Aedui, by the advice of the lieutenants whom Caesar had left with the army, send supplies of horse and foot to succour the Bituriges.
To reward them he promised to give by way of prize-money two hundred sestertii to each soldier and two thousand to each centurion. He then sent them into their winter quarters and returned to Bibracte after an absence of forty days. While he was there, dispensing justice, the Bituriges came to implore his support against the attacks of the Carnutes.
To this all the allies agreed, and twenty towns in one district were burnt in a single day; but when they came to the city of Avaricum, now called Bourges, the tribe of Bituriges, to whom it belonged, entreated on their knees not to be obliged to destroy the most beautiful city in the country, representing that, as it had a river on one side, and a morass everywhere else, except at a very narrow entrance, it might be easily held out against the enemy, and to their entreaties Vercingetorix yielded, though much against his own judgment.
Thus the Bituriges, seeing that Caesar offered them an easy way to recover his protection, and that the neighboring states had suffered no other chastisement than that of having to deliver hostages, did not hesitate in submitting. The soldiers of the Eleventh and Thirteenth legions had, during the winter, supported with rare constancy the fatigues of very difficult marches in intolerable cold.
When these affairs were accomplished, Caesar marched to the Avaricum, which was the largest and best fortified town in the territories of the Bituriges, and situated in a most fertile tract of country; because he confidently expected that on taking that town, he would reduce beneath his dominion the state of the Bituriges.
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