The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome
History
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome
Literature -- Collections
In the whole of this method of fighting since the engagement took
place under the eyes of all and before the camp, it was perceived that
our men, on account of the weight of their arms, inasmuch as they
could neither pursue [the enemy when] retreating, nor dare quit their
standards, were little suited to this kind of enemy; that the horse
also fought with great danger, because they [the Britons] generally
retreated even designedly, and, when they had drawn off our men a
short distance from the legions, leapt from their chariots and fought
on foot in unequal [and to them advantageous] battle. But the system
of cavalry engagement is wont to produce equal danger, and indeed the
same, both to those who retreat and those who pursue. To this was
added, that they never fought in close order, but in small parties and
at great distances, and had detachments placed [in different parts],
and then the one relieved the other, and the vigorous and fresh
succeeded the wearied.
The following day the enemy halted on the hills, a distance from our
camp, and presented themselves in small parties, and began to
challenge our horse to battle with less spirit than the day before.
But at noon, when Caesar had sent three legions, and all the cavalry
with C. Trebonius, the lieutenant, for the purpose of foraging, they
flew upon the foragers suddenly from all quarters, so that they did
not keep off [even] from the standards and the legions. Our men,
making an attack on them vigorously, repulsed them; nor did they cease
to pursue them until the horse, relying on relief, as they saw the
legions behind them, drove the enemy precipitately before them, and,
slaying a great number of them, did not give them the opportunity
either of rallying, or halting, or leaping from their chariots. After
this retreat the auxiliaries departed; nor after that time did the
enemy ever engage with us in very large numbers.
Caesar, discovering their design, leads his army into the territories
of Cassivelaunus[40] to the river Thames, which river can be forded in
one place only, and that with difficulty. When he had arrived there,
he perceives that numerous forces of the enemy were marshaled on the
other bank of the river; the bank also was defended by sharp
stakes[41] fixt in front, and stakes of the same kind fixt under the
water were covered by the river. These things being discovered from
[some] prisoners and deserters, Caesar, sending forward the cavalry,
ordered the legions to follow them immediately. But the soldiers
advanced with such speed and such ardor, tho they stood above the
water by their heads only, that the enemy could not sustain the attack
of the legions and of the horse, and quitted the banks, and committed
themselves to flight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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