36.
Cicero, who during all the foregoing days had kept his
soldiers in camp with the greatest exactness, and agreeable to the injunctions
of Caesar, had not permitted even any of the
camp-followers to go beyond the fortification, distrusting on the seventh day
that Caesar would keep his promise as to the number of
days, because he heard that he had proceeded further, and no report as to his
return was brought to him, and being urged at the same time by the expressions
of those who called his tolerance almost a siege, if, forsooth, it was not
permitted them to go out of the camp, since he might expect no disaster, whereby
he could be injured, within three miles of the camp, while nine legions and all
the cavalry were under arms, and the enemy scattered and almost annihilated,
sent five cohorts into the neighboring corn-lands, between which and the camp
only one hill intervened, for the purpose of foraging. Many soldiers of the
legions had been left invalided in the camp, of whom those who had recovered in
this space of time, being about 300, are sent together under one standard; a
large number of soldiers' attendants besides, with a great number of beasts of
burden, which had remained in the camp, permission being granted, follow them.
C. Julius Caesar. Caesar's Gallic War. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library.
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