Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
The expected capture of Gergovia had been converted into a defeat, and the considerable loss in killed and wounded there were counted 700 soldiers that had fallen, including 46 centurions was the least part of the misfortune suffered. Renewed Insurrection Rising of the Haedui Rising of the Belgae
XXXVI. Caesar, in five days' march, went from that place to Gergovia, and after engaging in a slight cavalry skirmish that day, on viewing the situation of the city, which, being built on a very high mountain, was very difficult of access, he despaired of taking it by storm, and determined to take no measures with regard to besieging it before he should secure a supply of provisions.
That they ought to be grateful to Fortune, through whose favour they had recovered Italy without the effusion of blood; through whose favour they had subdued the two Spains, though protected by a most warlike people under the command of the most skilful and experienced generals: through whose favour they had reduced to submission the neighbouring states that abounded with corn: in fine, that they ought to remember with what success they had been all transported safe through blockading fleets of the enemy, which possessed not only the ports, but even the coasts: that if all their attempts were not crowned with success, the defects of Fortune must be supplied by industry; and whatever loss had been sustained, ought to be attributed rather to her caprices than to any faults in him: that he had chosen a safe ground for the engagement, that he had possessed himself of the enemy's camp; that he had beaten them out, and overcome them when they offered resistance; but whether their own terror or some mistake, or whether Fortune herself had interrupted a victory almost secured and certain, they ought all now to use their utmost efforts to repair by their valour the loss which had been incurred; if they did so, their misfortunes would turn to their advantage, as it happened at Gergovia, and those who feared to face the enemy would be the first to offer themselves to battle.
There was much fighting around the city of Gergovia; but at length, owing to the revolt of the Aedui, another Gallic tribe, Caesar was forced to retreat over the Loire; and the wild peaks of volcanic Auvergne were free again. Everywhere else it was circled in by high hills, and here Caesar resolved to shut these brave men in and bring them to bay.
Immense stores were here accumulated, and the army was ordered thither from Gergovia, having its cavalry raised by resolution of the national assembly to 15,000 horse.
The Haedui, who had hitherto continued vacillating, now made preparations in earnest to join the patriotic party; the body of men, whom Caesar had ordered to Gergovia, had on the march been induced by its officers to declare for the insurgents; at the same time they had begun in the canton itself to plunder and kill the Romans settled there.
It is two hours since every Goth quitted the place, except the dead man in the house of the widow Dubhina, and we are breathing freely for once in our lives. Up they went towards the AEmilian villa with clamour and threats enough to make one's blood run cold, and they must be far on their way to Bordigala Gergovia by this time."
At this moment he heard of the retreat from Gergovia, and of the rebellion of the Aedui. Such news, he understood at once, would be followed by a rising in Belgium. Report had said that Caesar was falling back on the province. He did not believe it. Caesar, he knew, would not desert him. His own duty, therefore, was to make his way back to Sens.
Every feature reappears: the laziness in the culture of the fields; the delight in tippling and brawling; the ostentation we may recall that sword of Caesar hung up in the sacred grove of the Arverni after the victory of Gergovia, which its alleged former owner viewed with a smile at the consecrated spot and ordered the sacred property to be carefully spared; the language full of comparisons and hyperboles, of allusions and quaint turns; the droll humour an excellent example of which was the rule, that if any one interrupted a person speaking in public, a substantial and very visible hole should be cut, as a measure of police, in the coat of the disturber of the peace; the hearty delight in singing and reciting the deeds of past ages, and the most decided gifts of rhetoric and poetry; the curiosity no trader was allowed to pass, before he had told in the open street what he knew, or did not know, in the shape of news and the extravagant credulity which acted on such accounts, for which reason in the better regulated cantons travellers were prohibited on pain of severe punishment from communicating unauthenticated reports to others than the public magistrates; the childlike piety, which sees in the priest a father and asks for his counsel in all things; the unsurpassed fervour of national feeling, and the closeness with which those who are fellow-countrymen cling together almost like one family in opposition to strangers; the inclination to rise in revolt under the first chance-leader that presents himself and to form bands, but at the same time the utter incapacity to preserve a self-reliant courage equally remote from presumption and from pusillanimity, to perceive the right time for waiting and for striking a blow, to attain or even barely to tolerate any organization, any sort of fixed military or political discipline.
Caesar followed close behind, driving Vercingetorix under the lines of the fortress; and the siege of Alesia, one of the most remarkable exploits in all military history, was at once undertaken. Alesia, like Gergovia, is on a hill sloping off all round, with steep and, in places, precipitous sides.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking