"A certain number of Gallic cavalrymen chose among the foot-soldiers an equal number of the most agile and courageous. Each of the latter attended a horseman, and followed him in battle. The cavalry fell back upon them if it was in danger, and the footmen ran up; if a wounded horseman fell from his charger, the foot-soldier succored and defended him. When it became necessary to make a rapid advance or retreat, exercise had made these foot-soldiers so agile that, hanging on by the manes of the horses, they kept up with the cavalry in its rapid movement."--Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, book I, ch. XLVIII. [6] In this body of cavalry each horseman was followed by two equerries, mounted and equipped, who remained behind in the body of the army. When the battle was on, should the horseman be dismounted, the equerries gave him one of their horses. If then the horseman's horse was killed, or the horseman himself dangerously wounded, he was carried from the field by one of the equerries, while the other took his place in the ranks. This body of cavalry was called the _trimarkisia_, from two words which in the Gallic tongue signify "three horses."--Amedee Thierry, _History of the Gauls_, vol. I, p. 130. See also Pausanius, book X. [7] "The Gauls had also their Pindars and their Tyrteuses, bards exercising their talent to sing in heroic verse the deeds of great men, and to inculcate in the people the love of glory."--Latour d'Auvergne, _Gallic Origins_, p. 158. [8] "The Gauls hold that it is a disgrace to live subjugated, and that in all war there are but two outcomes for the man of courage--to conquer or to die."--Nicolas Damasc; see also Strabo, serm. XII. [9] "Caesar in his Commentaries, and after him the later historians, took the title of command held by this hero of Gaul for his proper name, and, by corruption, wrote _Vercingetorix_ in place of Ver-cinn-cedo-righ, Chief of the Hundred Valleys," observes Amedee Thierry (_History of the Gauls_, vol. III, p. 86). "Vercingetorix, a native of Auvergne, was the son of Celtil, who, guilty of conspiring against the freedom of his city, expiated on the pyre his ambition and his crime. The young Gaul thus became heir to the goods of his father, whose name he nevertheless blushed to bear. Having become the idol of his people, he traveled to Rome and saw Caesar, who attempted to win his good graces. But the Gaul rejected the friendship of his country's enemy. Returned to his native land he labored secretly to reawaken among his people the spirit of independence, and to raise up enemies against the Romans. When the hour to call the people to arms was come, he showed himself openly, in druid ceremonies, in political meetings; everywhere, in short, he was seen employing his eloquence, his fortune, his credit, in a word all his means of action upon the chiefs and on the multitude, to spur them on to reconquer the rights of old Gaul."--Thierry.