History of Julius Caesar Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...spared neither old men, women, nor children. Of about 40,000 combatants, scarcely 800 fugitives were able to join Vercingetorix. He, fearing that their presence, if they came in a body, might excite a mutiny, had, in the middle of the night, sent trusty men and the principal chiefs a long way out, to distribute them in fractions among the camps belonging to the different tribes. The next day Vercingetorix sought, in a general assembly, to revive the courage of his countrymen, by ascribing the success of the Romans to their superiority in the art of sieges, which was unknown to the Gauls. He told them that this reverse ought not to dishearten them; that his advice, they well knew, had never been to defend Avaricum; that a signal revenge would soon console them; that, through his care, the countries separated from the common cause would enter into his alliance, animate Gaul with the one thought, and cement a union capable of resisting the whole world. Then this fearless defender of the national independence shows his genius in taking advantage even of a misfortune to subject his ill-disciplined troops to the rough labours of war, and succeeds in convincing them of the necessity of retrenching their camp in the manner of the Romans, so as to protect it from surprise. The constancy of Vercingetorix, after so great a reverse, and the foresight which he had shown in recommending, from the beginning of the war, to burn, and afterwards to abandon Avaricum, increased his influence. So the Gauls, for the first time, fortified their camp, and their courage was so much confirmed, that they were ready to undergo all trials. Vercingetorix, true to his engagements, exerted himself to the utmost to gain over to his cause the other states of Gaul, and to...