"De Bello Gallico" and Other CommentariesCaesar, Julius
History
"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries
Caesar, Julius
Gaul -- History -- Gallic Wars, 58-51 B.C.; Rome -- History -- Civil War, 49-48 B.C.
XV.--Trebonius began to provide and repair what had been destroyed, with
much greater zeal on the part of the soldiers; for when they saw that
their extraordinary pains and preparations had an unfortunate issue,
they were fired with indignation that, in consequence of the impious
violation of the truce, their valour should be held in derision. There
was no place left them from which the materials for their mound could be
fetched, in consequence of all the timber, far and wide, in the
territories of the Massilians, having been cut down and carried away;
they began therefore to make an agger of a new construction, never heard
of before, of two walls of brick, each six feet thick, and to lay floors
over them of almost the same breadth with the agger, made of timber. But
wherever the space between the walls, or the weakness of the timber,
seemed to require it, pillars were placed underneath and traversed beams
laid on to strengthen the work, and the space which was floored was
covered over with hurdles, and the hurdles plastered over with mortar.
The soldiers, covered overhead by the floor, on the right and left by
the wall, and in the front by the mantlets, carried whatever materials
were necessary for the building without danger: the business was soon
finished--the loss of their laborious work was soon repaired by the
dexterity and fortitude of the soldiers. Gates for making sallies were
left in the wall in such places as they thought proper.
XVI.--But when the enemy perceived that those works, which they had
hoped could not be replaced without a great length of time, were put
into so thorough repair by a few days' labour and diligence, that there
was no room for perfidy or sallies, and that no means were left them by
which they could either hurt the men by resistance or the works by fire,
and when they found by former examples that their town could be
surrounded with a wall and turrets on every part by which it was
accessible by land, in such a manner that they could not have room to
stand on their own fortifications, because our works were built almost
on the top of their walls by our army, and darts could be thrown from
our hands, and when they perceived that all advantage arising from their
engines, on which they had built great hopes, was totally lost, and that
though they had an opportunity of fighting with us on equal terms from
walls and turrets, they could perceive that they were not equal to our
men in bravery, they had recourse to the same proposals of surrender as
before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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