[429] De Bello Gallico, V. 37.
[430] De Bello Gallico, V. 39.
[431] The towers of the Romans were constructed of timber of small size, bound together by cross pieces. (See Plate 27, fig. 8.) They still raise scaffolding at Rome in the same manner at the present day.
[432] Although the text has passuum, we have not hesitated in substituting pedum, for it is very improbable that Gauls could have made, in three hours’ time, a countervallation of more than 22 kilomètres.
[433] The siege machine called testudo, “a tortoise,” was ordinarily a gallery mounted upon wheels, made of wood strongly squared, and covered with a solid blindage. It was pushed against the wall of the place besieged. It protected the workmen employed either in filling the fosse, or in mining the wall, or in working the ram. The siege operations of the Gauls lead us to presume that the camp of Cicero was in a fort surrounded by a wall. (See, on the word falces, note (1) on p. 143.)
[434] In the coal-basin, in the centre of which Charleroy is situated, the coal layers crop out of the surface of the soil on different points. Still, at the present day, they knead the clay with small coal. But, what is most curious, people have found at Breteuil (Oise), as in the ruins of Carthage, a quantity of ovoid balls made of pottery.
[435] It will be seen that we use indifferently the terms vallum and rampart.
[436] Dio Cassius, XL. 8.
[437] It has appeared to us that the movement of concentration of Cæsar and Fabius did not allow the winter quarters of the latter to be placed at Therouanne or at Montreuil-sur-Mer, as most authors have supposed. These localities are too far distant from the route from Amiens to Charleroy to have enabled Fabius to join Cæsar on the territory of the Atrebates, as the text of the Commentaries requires. For this reason, we place Fabius at Saint-Pol.
[438] The “Commentaries” say, Græcis conscriptam litteris; but Polyænus and Dio Cassius affirm that the letter was written in Greek.