[172] There is difference of opinion as to the site of Ocelum. The following remark has been communicated to me by M.E. Celesia, who is preparing a work on ancient Italy: Ocelum only meant, in the ancient Celtic or Iberian language, principal passage. We know that, in the Pyrenees, these passages were called ports. There existed places of the name of Ocelum, in the Alps, in Gaul, and as far as Spain. (Ptolemy, II. 6.)—The itineraries found in the baths of Vicarello indicate, between Turin and Susa, an Ocelum, which appears to us to have been that of which Cæsar speaks; there was a place similarly named in Maurienne, on the left bank of the Arc, at an equal distance from the source of that river and the town of Saint-Jean; it is now Usseglio. There was another in the valley of the Lanzo, on the left bank of the Gara, from which appears to be derived the name of Garaceli or Graioceli; it was called Ocelum Lanciensium. The Ocelum of Cæsar, according to M. Celesia, who adopts the opinion of D’Anville, was called Ocelum ad Clusonem fluvium; it was situated in the valley of the Pragelatto, on the road leading from Pignerol to the defile of Fenestrella. This place has continued to preserve its primitive name of Ocelum, Occelum, Oxelum, Uxelum (Charta Adeladis, an. 1064), whence by corruption its modern name of Usseau. According to this hypothesis, Cæsar would have passed from the valley of Chiusone into that of Pragelatto, and thence, by Mount Genèvre, to Briançon, in order to arrive among the Vocontii.—Polyænus (Stratag., VIII. xxiii. 2) relates that Cæsar took advantage of a mist to escape the mountaineers.
[173] “Segusiavi sunt trans Rhodanum primi.” (De Bello Gallico, I. 10.) It is to be supposed that there existed a bridge on the Rhone, near Lyons.
[174] Cæsar had deferred his reply till the Ides of April (April the 8th). If it were then decided to bring the legions from Aquileia, the time necessary to bring them would have been as follows:
| 6 | days employed by the couriers to proceed from Geneva to Aquileia.This time does not appear to us too short, since Cæsar had employed8 days to go from Rome to Geneva, and that the distance from Genevato Aquileia is only 1,000 kilomètres, while it is 1,200 from Genevato Rome; |
| 8 | days to assemble the legions—in 581, it required only elevendays to enroll four legions (Titus Livius, XLIII. 45); |
| 28 | days from Aquileia to Ocelum (Usseau) (681 kilom.)reckoning 24kilomètres for a day’s march; |
| 6 | days’ halts; |
| 7 | days from Ocelum to Grenoble (174 kilom.) (De Bello Gallico, I.10); |
| 5 | days from Grenoble to Lyons (126 kilom.) |
| 60 |
According to this reckoning, Cæsar required 60 days, reckoning from the moment when he decided on this course, to transport his legions from Aquileia to Lyons; that is to say, if he sent, as is probable, couriers on the 8th of April, the day he refused the passage to the Helvetii, the head of his column arrived at Lyons towards the 7th of June.
[175] To estimate the volume and weight represented by the provisions for three months for three hundred and sixty-eight thousand persons of both sexes and of all ages, let us allow that the ration of food was small, and consisted, we may say, only in a reserve of meal, trium mensium molita cibaria, at an average of ¾ of a pound (¾ of a pound of meal gives about a pound of bread); at this rate, the Helvetii must have carried with them 24,840,000 pounds, or 12,420,000 kilogrammes of meal. Let us allow also that they had great four-wheeled carriages, capable each of carrying 2,000 kilogrammes, and drawn by four horses. The 100 kilogrammes of unrefined meal makes 2 cubic hectolitres; therefore, 2,000 kilogrammes of meal make 4 cubic mètres, so that this would lead us to suppose no more than 4 cubic mètres as the average load for the four-wheeled carriages. On our good roads in France, levelled and paved, three horses are sufficient to draw, at a walking pace, during ten hours, a four-wheeled carriage carrying 4,000 kilogrammes. It is more than 1,300 kilogrammes per collar.
We suppose that the horses of the emigrants drew only 500 kilogrammes in excess of the dead weight, which would give about 6,000 carriages and 24,000 draught animals to transport the three months’ provisions.
But these emigrants were not only provided with food, for they had also certainly baggage. It appears to us no exaggeration to suppose that each individual carried, besides his food, fifteen kilogrammes of baggage on an average. We are thus left to add to the 6,000 provision carriages about 2,500 other carriages for the baggage, which would make a total of 8,500 carriages drawn by 34,000 draught animals. We use the word animals instead of horses, as at least a part of the teams would, no doubt, be composed of oxen, the number of which would diminish daily, for the emigrants would be led to use the flesh of these animals for their own food.
Such a column of 8,500 carriages, supposing them to march in file, one carriage at a time, on a single road, could not occupy less than thirty-two leagues in length, if we reckon fifteen mètres to each carriage. This remark explains the enormous difficulties the emigration would encounter, and the slowness of its movements: we need, then, no longer be astonished at the twenty days which it took three quarters of the column to pass the Saône.
We have not comprised the provisions of grain for the animals themselves: yet it is difficult to believe that the Helvetii, so provident for their own wants, had neglected to provide for those of their beasts, and that they had reckoned exclusively for their food on the forage they might find on the road.