[182] They reckon from Villefranche to Remilly about 170 kilomètres.
[183] Each soldier received twenty-five pounds of wheat every fortnight.
[184] It is generally admitted that Bibracte stood on the site of Autun, on account of the inscription discovered at Autun in the seventeenth century, and now preserved in the cabinet of antiquities at the Bibliothèque Impériale. Another opinion, which identifies Bibracte with Mont Beuvray (a mountain presenting a great surface, situated thirteen kilomètres to the west of Autun), had nevertheless already found, long ago, some supporters. It will be remarked first that the Gauls chose for the site of their towns, when they could, places difficult of access: in broken countries, these were steep mountains (as Gergovia, Alesia, Uxellodunum, &c.); in flat countries, they were grounds surrounded by marshes (such as Avaricum). The Ædui, according to this, would not have built their principal town on the site of Autun, situated at the foot of the mountains. It was believed that a plateau so elevated as that of Mont Beuvray (its highest point is 810 mètres above the sea) could not have been occupied by a great town. Yet the existence of eight or ten roads, which lead to this plateau, deserted for so many centuries, and some of which are in a state of preservation truly astonishing, ought to have led to a contrary opinion. Let us add that recent excavations leave no further room for doubt. They have brought to light, over an extent of 120 hectares, foundations of Gaulish towers, some round, others square; of mosaics, of foundations of Gallo-Roman walls, gates, hewn stones, heaps of roof tiles, a prodigious quantity of broken amphoræ, a semicircular theatre, &c.... Everything, in fact, leads us to place Bibracte on Mont Beuvray: the striking resemblance of the two names, the designation of Φροὑριον, which Strabo gives to Bibracte, and even the vague and persistent tradition which, prevailing among the inhabitants of the district, points to Mont Beuvray as a centre of superstitious regard.
[185] The cavalry was divided into turmæ, and the turma into three decuries of ten men each.
[186] The word sarcinæ, the original sense of which is baggage or burthens, was employed sometimes to signify the bundles carried by the soldiers (De Bello Gallico, II. 17), sometimes for the heavy baggage (De Bello Civili, I, 81). Here we must take sarcinæ as comprising both. This is proved by the circumstance that the six legions of the Roman army were on the hill. Now, if Cæsar had sent the heavy baggage forward, towards Bibracte, as General de Gœler believes, he would have sent with it, as an escort, the two legions of the new levy, as he did, the year following, in the campaign against the Nervii. (De Bello Gallico, II. 19.)
[187] De Bello Gallico, I. 24.—In the phalanx, the men of the first rank covered themselves with their bucklers, overlapping one another before them, while those of the other ranks held them horizontally over their heads, arranged like the tiles of a roof.
[188] According to Plutarch (Cæsar, 20), he said, “I will mount on horseback when the enemy shall have taken flight.”
[189] The pilum was a sort of javelin thrown by the hand: its total length was from 1·70 to 2 mètres; its head was a slender flexible blade from 0·60 to 1 mètre long, weighing from 300 to 600 grammes, terminating in a part slightly swelling, which sometimes formed a barbed point.
The shaft, sometimes round, sometimes square, had a diameter of from 25 to 32 millimètres. It was fixed to the head by ferules, or by pegs, or by means of a socket.
Such are the characteristics presented by the fragments of pila found at Alise. They answer in general to the descriptions we find in Polybius (VI. 28), in Dionysius (V. 46), and in Plutarch (Marius). Pila made on the model of those found at Alise, and weighing with their shaft from 700 grammes to 1·200 kilog., have been thrown to a distance of 30 and 40 mètres: we may therefore fix at about 25 mètres the average distance to which the pilum carried.