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Caesar saw it, and sent Labienus with six cohorts to their help. Vercingetorix had seen it also, and attacked the interior lines at the same spot. Decimus Brutus was then despatched also, and then Caius Fabius.
Labienus, having learnt the death of Sabinus and the destruction of the cohorts, as all the forces of the Treviri had come against him, beginning to fear lest, if he made a departure from his winter-quarters, resembling a flight, he should not be able to support the attack of the enemy, particularly since he knew them to be elated by their recent victory, sends back a letter to Caesar, informing him with what great hazard he would lead out his legion from winter-quarters; he relates at large the affair which had taken place among the Eburones; he informs him that all the infantry and cavalry of the Treviri had encamped at a distance of only three miles from his own camp.
It is perhaps without a parallel in history, that when the general summoned his soldiers to follow him into the civil war, with the single exception already mentioned of Labienus, no Roman officer and no Roman soldier deserted him. The hopes of his opponents as to an extensive desertion were thwarted as ignominiously as the former attempts to break up his army like that of Lucullus.
As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass for the consulship.
He himself was appointed Judex Quaestionis, or chairman of a committee of investigation; and Catiline, among others, was called to answer for himself a curious commentary on Caesar's supposed connection with him. Titus Labienus, afterward so famous and so infamous, was then tribune of the people.
He ordered Titus Labienus to attend himself, and sent the twelfth legion which had been under him in winter quarters, to Hither Gaul, to protect the Roman colonies, and prevent any loss by the inroads of barbarians, similar to that which had happened the year before to the Tergestines, who were cut off by a sudden depredation and attack.
It was of at least equal importance, that on this news the Belgae, who had hitherto kept aloof from the whole movement, began to bestir themselves. The powerful canton of the Bellovaci rose with the view of attacking in the rear the corps of Labienus, while it confronted at Lutetia the levy of the surrounding cantons of central Gaul.
Whilst he was thus diverting himself and engaged in this boys' play, two dispatches arrived; one from Rome, that his brother Lucius and his wife Fulvia, after many quarrels among themselves, had joined in war against Caesar, and, having lost all, had fled out of Italy; the other bringing little better news, that Labienus, at the head of the Parthians, was overrunning Asia, from Euphrates and Syria as far as Lydia and Ionia.
Lucius Domitius himself was thus treated, and even Labienus had the money and baggage which he had left behind sent after him to the enemy's camp.
Saxa the general was conquered in a set battle through the numbers and ability of the cavalry, and when later by night he made a dash from his entrenchments to get away, he was pursued. His flight was due to his fear that his associates might take up with the cause of Labienus, who labored to prevail upon them by shooting various pamphlets into the camp.
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