Notwithstanding the difficulty of the ground and the increasing danger, the Romans still persevered in their struggle. The battle took place on a height, within sight of the army; loud cries were raised on both sides; each individual sought to rival his fellows in zeal, and the more he was exposed to view, the more courageously he faced the missiles and the fire. Cæsar, as he was sustaining great loss, determined to feign an assault, in order to create a diversion: he ordered some cohorts to climb the hill on all sides, uttering loud cries. This movement terrified the besieged, who, fearing to be attacked on other points, called back to the defence of the wall those who were setting fire to the works. Then the Romans were able to extinguish the fire. Nevertheless, the siege span out in length; the Gauls, although exhausted by thirst and reduced to a small number, did not cease to defend themselves vigorously. At length, the subterranean gallery having reached the veins of the spring, they were taken and turned aside. The besieged, seeing the fountain all at once dried up, believed, in their despair, that it was an intervention of the gods, submitted to necessity, and surrendered. Cæsar considered that the pacification of Gaul would never be completed if the same resistance was encountered in many other towns. He thought it indispensable to spread terror by a severe example, so much the more as “the well-known mildness of his temper,” says Hirtius, “would not allow this necessary rigour to be ascribed to cruelty.” He ordered all those who had carried arms to have their hands cut off, and sent them away, as living witnesses of the chastisement reserved for rebels. Drappes, who had been taken prisoner, starved himself to death; Lucterius, who had been arrested by the Arvernan Epasnactus, a friend of the Romans, was delivered up to Cæsar.[553] [Sidenote: Excavations made at Puy-d’Issolu.] VII. The excavations made at Puy-d’Issolu in 1865 leave no further doubt as to the site of Uxellodunum. (_See Plates 31 and 32._) The Puy d’Issolu is a lofty mountain, situated not far from the right bank of the Dordogne, between Vayrac and Martel; it is isolated on all sides except towards the north, where it is joined by a defile of 400 mètres wide (the Col de Roujon) to heights named the Pech-Demont. Its plateau, crowned by a circle of perpendicular rocks, commands, almost in every direction, the low ground which surrounds it. This is what the author of the VIIIth book _De Bello Gallico_ expresses by these words: _Infima vallis totum pæne montem cingebat in quo positum erat præruptum undique oppidum Uxellodunum_. This plateau, with a surface of eighty hectares in extent, presents strongly-marked undulations: its general incline lies from the north to the south, in the direction of the length of the mountain mass; its highest point is 317 mètres above the level of the sea, and it rises 200 mètres above the valleys which surround it.