Caesar, de B. G. iii. 14, 15.
Context. In the winter of 57-6 Roman officers, who came to levy requisitions of grain, were detained by the Veneti. Caesar’s attack on their coast-towns failed to reduce them to submission: so he determined to wait for his fleet. This he entrusted to Decimus Brutus, an able and devoted officer. At first the Roman galleys were powerless against the high-decked strong sailing-vessels of the Veneti, but the use of the murales falces, and the opportune calm, enabled Brutus to annihilate their fleet.
11-12 quod . . . gerebatur. Napoleon (Caesar, vol. ii. p. 6) thinks that Caesar was encamped on the heights of Saint Gildas overlooking Quiberon Bay.
23 malacia = a calm, but μαλακία = softness, L. mollities.
Result of the Victory—the surrender of the Veneti and of all Brittany. The earliest historical naval battle fought on the Atlantic Ocean.—M.
THE GALLIC WAR, 58-50 B.C. (3)
Caesar’s Bridge across the Rhine, 55 B.C.
Rationem pontis hanc instituit. Tigna bina sesquipedalia paulum ab imo praeacuta, dimensa ad altitudinem fluminis, intervallo pedum duorum inter se iungebat. Haec cum machinationibus immissa in flumen defixerat fistucisque adegerat—non sublicae 5 modo derecte ad perpendiculum, sed prone ac fastigate, ut secundum naturam fluminis procumberent—eis item contraria duo ad eundem modum iuncta intervallo pedum quadragenum ab inferiore parte contra vim atque impetum fluminis conversa statuebat. 10 Haec utraque insuper bipedalibus trabibus immissis, quantum eorum tignorum iunctura distabat, binis utrimque fibulis ab extrema parte distinebantur; quibus disclusis atque in contrariam partem revinctis, tanta erat operis firmitudo atque 15 ea rerum natura ut, quo maior vis aquae se incitavisset, hoc artius illigata tenerentur. Haec derecta materia iniecta contexebantur ac longuriis cratibusque consternebantur; ac nihilo setius sublicae et ad inferiorem partem fluminis oblique agebantur, quae 20 pro ariete subiectae et cum omni opere coniunctae vim fluminis exciperent; et aliae item supra pontem mediocri spatio, ut, si arborum trunci sive naves deiciendi operis essent a barbaris immissae, his defensoribus earum rerum vis minueretur, neu ponti 25 nocerent.
Caesar, de B. G. iv. 17.