The Gauls, endowed with the genius of imitation, struggled by all means possible against the wonderful perseverance of the Roman soldiers. They turned away the rams with pointed heads (falces)[474] by means of nooses, and, when they had once caught hold of them, they dragged them up by means of machines.[475] Accustomed to work in the iron mines, and to the construction of subterranean galleries, they skilfully countermined the terrace, and also provided their walls with towers of several stories, covered with leather. Day and night they made sallies, and set fire to the works of the besiegers. As the daily increase of the terrace heightened the level of the towers, the besieged raised theirs to the same height by means of scaffoldings; they stopped the progress of the subterranean galleries, prevented them from being advanced to the walls by trying to break them open with pointed stakes hardened in the fire (apertos cuniculos prœusta ac prœacuta materia ... morabantur),[476] and by throwing molten pitch and blocks of stone.
The Gauls constructed their walls in this manner: beams were placed horizontally on the ground, in a direction perpendicular to the line of the enclosure,[477] at intervals of two feet from each other; they were bound together on the side of the town; by cross-beams, usually of forty feet in length, firmly fixed in the ground, and the whole covered with a great quantity of earth, except on the exterior side, where the intervals were furnished with large blocks of rock, and formed a facing. After this first layer had been well fixed and rendered compact, they raised upon it a second, absolutely similar, taking care that the beams were not exactly above each other, but corresponded with the intervals filled in with stones, in which they were, as it were, enchased. The work was thus continued until the wall had attained the required height. These successive layers, in which the beams and stones alternated regularly, offered, by their very variety, an agreeable appearance to the eye. This construction had great advantages for the defence of places: the stone preserved it from fire, and the wood from the ram; held together by the cross-beams, the beams could be neither torn down nor driven in. (See Plate 20.)
Notwithstanding the obstinacy of the defence, and the cold and continual rains, the Roman soldiers surmounted all obstacles, and raised in twenty-five days a terrace 330 feet wide by 80 feet high. It already nearly touched the town wall, when, towards the third watch (midnight), clouds of smoke were seen issuing from it. It was the moment when Cæsar, according to his custom, was inspecting the works, and encouraging the soldiers at their labour; the Gauls had set the terrace on fire from the gallery of a mine. At the same instant cries arose from the whole extent of the rampart, and the besieged, rushing out by two gates, made a sally on the two sides where the towers were; from the top of the walls some threw dry wood and torches on the terrace, others pitch and various inflammable materials; nobody knew whither to run nor where to give help. As two legions, however, generally passed the night under arms in front of the camp, whilst the others relieved each other alternately for the work, they were soon able to face the enemy; meanwhile some drew back the towers, and others cut the terrace to intercept the fire; the whole army, in fact, hurried to put out the latter.
When day broke, they were still fighting on every point; the besieged had the more hope of conquering, as the penthouses which protected the approaches to the towers were burnt (deustos pluteos turrium),[478] and as then the Romans, compelled to march without cover, could with difficulty arrive at the burning works. Persuaded that the salvation of Gaul depended on this critical moment, they replaced incessantly the troops which were weary. Then happened a fact worthy of notice: before the gate of the oppidum there was a Gaul who threw balls of grease and pitch into the fire opposite a Roman tower; a dart shot from a scorpion[479] struck him in the right side and killed him. The next man immediately takes his place, and perishes in the same manner; a third succeeds him, then a fourth, and the post is only abandoned after the extinction of the fire and the retreat of the assailants.
After so many fruitless efforts, the Gauls resolved next day to obey the order of Vercingetorix, and evacuate the place. His camp not being far off, they hoped, by favour of the night, to escape without great loss, reckoning on a continuous marsh to protect their flight. But the women, in despair, struggle to retain them, and, seeing that their supplications had no effect, to such an extent does fear extinguish pity, they give warning to the Romans by their cries, and thus compel the Gauls to renounce their intended flight.
The day following Cæsar caused a tower to be advanced, and the works to be prosecuted with vigour; an abundant rain, and the negligence of the enemy in guarding the wall, engaged him to attempt an assault. He thereupon ordered the work to be slackened without entirely stopping it, in order not to awaken suspicions, assembled his legions under arms, sheltered behind the covered galleries (vineas), and informed them that they were going to reap the fruit of so many fatigues. He promised rewards to those who should be first to scale the wall of the town, and gave the signal. The Romans at once rushed forward from every side, and reached the top of the ramparts.
The enemies, terrified by this unexpected attack, and thrown down from the tops of the walls and towers, sought refuge in the public places, and formed in wedges, so as to offer a resistance on all sides; but when they saw that the Romans, instead of descending into the town, went round it on the ramparts, they were afraid of being shut in, and threw down their arms and fled towards the other extremity of the oppidum (where are at present the faubourgs Taillegrain and Saint-Privé). (See Plate 20.) Most of them were killed near the gates, the narrow passage of which they blocked up; the others by the cavalry outside the town. No one among the Roman soldiers thought of plunder. Irritated by the remembrance of the massacre of Genabum, and by the fatigues of the siege, they spared neither old men, women, nor children. Of about 40,000 combatants, scarcely 800 fugitives were able to join Vercingetorix. He, fearing that their presence, if they came in a body, might excite a mutiny, had, in the middle of the night, sent trusty men and the principal chiefs a long way out, to distribute them in fractions among the camps belonging to the different tribes.
The next day Vercingetorix sought, in a general assembly, to revive the courage of his countrymen, by ascribing the success of the Romans to their superiority in the art of sieges, which was unknown to the Gauls. He told them that this reverse ought not to dishearten them; that his advice, they well knew, had never been to defend Avaricum; that a signal revenge would soon console them; that, through his care, the countries separated from the common cause would enter into his alliance, animate Gaul with the one thought, and cement a union capable of resisting the whole world. Then this fearless defender of the national independence shows his genius in taking advantage even of a misfortune to subject his ill-disciplined troops to the rough labours of war, and succeeds in convincing them of the necessity of retrenching their camp in the manner of the Romans, so as to protect it from surprise.
The constancy of Vercingetorix, after so great a reverse, and the foresight which he had shown in recommending, from the beginning of the war, to burn, and afterwards to abandon Avaricum, increased his influence. So the Gauls, for the first time, fortified their camp, and their courage was so much confirmed, that they were ready to undergo all trials.
Vercingetorix, true to his engagements, exerted himself to the utmost to gain over to his cause the other states of Gaul, and to seduce the chiefs by presents and promises; and, for this purpose, he sent to them zealous and intelligent agents. He caused the men who had fled from Avaricum to be clothed and armed anew, and, in order to repair his losses, he required from the divers states a contingent at a stated period, and archers, who were very numerous in Gaul. At the same time Teutomatus, son of Ollovico, King of the Nitiobriges, whose father had received from the Senate the title of friend, came to join him with a numerous corps of cavalry, raised in his own country and in Aquitaine. Cæsar remained some time in Avaricum, where he found great store of provisions, and where the army recovered from its fatigues.[480]