Pompey believes himself threatened by a Slave of Clodius.
VII. A singular occurrence determined his reconciliation with the Senate: on the 3rd of the Ides of Sextilis (the 5th of August), a slave of Clodius let a dagger fall in Pompey’s way, as he was entering the curia; arrested by the lictors, and questioned by the consul A. Gabinius, the slave declared that his master had ordered him to assassinate the great citizen.[576] This attempt, whether serious or not, produced a sufficient impression on Pompey to prevent him, for a long time, from going to the Forum, or showing himself in public.[577]
The demands in favour of Cicero were renewed; and on the 4th of the Calends of November (the 20th of October) eight tribunes of the people, most of them men devoted to Pompey, proposed formally in the Senate the recall of the exile. One of these was T. Annius Milo, a violent, bold man, without scruples, and resembling Clodius in all things, but his open adversary. Clodius and his brother, the prætor Appius, again succeeded in defeating this motion.[578] At last, with the extreme of audacity, the turbulent tribune, when near the close of his functions, dared to attack Cæsar himself, and tried to obtain the revocation of the Julian laws; but this attempt was powerless in face of the splendour of the victories gained over the Helvetii and the Germans.
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 697.
War against the Belgæ.
I. CÆSAR’S victories had awakened among the Gauls feelings of admiration, but also of distrust; they could not see without fear that it had required only six legions to scatter two invasions, each counting 100,000 combatants. There are successes which, by their very brilliancy, alarm even those who profit by them. Nearly all Gaul looks on with jealousy at events which prove the superiority of permanent armies over populations without military organization. A small number of experienced and disciplined soldiers, under the guidance of a great captain, make all the peoples tremble from the Rhine to the ocean, and even the islanders of Great Britain feel themselves unsafe against the attacks of the Roman power; the Belgæ especially, proud of having formerly alone repulsed the invasion of the Cimbri and the Teutones, feel their warlike instincts revive. Provocations which have come from the other side of the Straits increase their distrust; these picture to them the abode of the Roman army in Franche-Comté as a threat against the independence of the whole of Gaul. The greatest part of the peoples comprised between the Rhine, the Scheldt, the Ocean, and the Seine, agitate, combine, and assemble an army of 300,000 men.
Informed in Italy of these preparations, Cæsar raises two new legions, rejoins his army in Franche-Comté, and decides immediately on invading the country of the Belgæ. The first who present themselves on his road are the people of Champagne. Surprised by his sudden arrival, they submit, and even offer him subsidies and auxiliaries. Cæsar is able to add to his eight legions and his light troops the contingents from Rheims, and join them with those of Burgundy and Trèves. In spite of this augmentation of his forces, the enemy he has to combat is four times more numerous. To defeat them, he sends the Burgundians to make a diversion and ravage the territory of Beauvais, then he crosses the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, and selects, behind the Miette, a marshy stream, a defensive position which he renders inexpugnable.
The Belgæ, whose army occupies, on the right bank of the Miette, an extent of twelve kilomètres, are powerless to force the position of the Romans, and fail in all their attempts to cross the Aisne at Pontavert. Soon, discouraged by the want of provisions, disputes among themselves, and the news that the Burgundians have just invaded the territory of Beauvais, they separate, because each, believing his own country threatened, thinks only of going to its defence. The Belgian league is thus dissolved almost without combat. Cæsar then hastens to chastise each people one after the other; he seizes in their turn Soissons and Breteuil, the principal citadels of the Soissonais and Beauvaisis, and arrives at Amiens.
But the coalitions of the peoples of the north succeed each other like the waves of the sea; after the Helvetii, the Germans; after the Germans, the people of the Beauvaisis; after them, the inhabitants of Hainault. These have assembled on the Sambre, and wait to be re-enforced by the peoples of German origin established in the neighbourhood of Namur. Cæsar then marches towards the Sambre by its left bank. When he arrives near the enemy concealed in the woods of the right bank, on the heights of Haumont, he unites six legions, places the two others in reserve with the baggage of the army, and, reaching the heights of Neuf-Mesnil, begins to fortify his camp; but hardly have the soldiers commenced their work, when the Belgæ debouch from all the issues of the forest, cross the shallow waters of the Sambre, scale the abrupt slopes, and fall upon the Romans, who, taken by surprise and unable to form their line of battle, range themselves without order under the first ensigns which offer themselves. The confusion is extreme; Cæsar is obliged, sword in hand, to throw himself into the thick of the fight. Nevertheless, the fortune of the battle is gradually restored; the centre and left wing have repulsed their assailants; the latter arrives to succour the right wing in its peril; the two legions of the rear-guard hasten to the field of battle; then victory decides for the Romans, and the peoples of Hainault are nearly annihilated. In this engagement the experience and valour of the old veteran soldiers save the Roman army from the impetuosity of the Belgæ. After this exploit, Cæsar marches towards Namur, in which the inhabitants of the whole country have shut themselves up on the news of the defeat of their allies, and he makes himself master of that place.
While he was completing the conquest of Belgic Gaul, one of his lieutenants, the young Publius Crassus, detached, after the battle of the Sambre, into Normandy and Brittany, reduced to submission the peoples of those provinces, so that at that time the greatest part of Gaul acknowledged the authority of the Republic: the effect of Cæsar’s victories was such that the Ubii, a German people from beyond the Rhine, established between the Maine and the Sieg, sent their congratulations to the conqueror with the offer of their services.