Annals of a Fortress

by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

Catognatus had barely time to send troops to defend the two egresses and to protect the retreat of his men. He himself took up a position in the centre of the Oppidum with a chosen band, that he might be able to assist the quarter that should be most closely pressed. Aided by this diversion the Romans, less harassed by darts from the rampart, were able to extinguish the fire. They took advantage of the last hours of the night to advance the tower along the galleries by means of rollers, as far as the edge of the agger, and in the morning the warriors of the Val d'Avon were not a little surprised to see this ponderous wooden structure commanding the whole rampart and the towers of the defences.

At dawn, showers of stones and arrows hurled from the top of the besiegers' tower prevented them from approaching the defences, and two catapults swept the part of the Oppidum in front of it with enormous missiles, which, hissing through the air, killed or shattered to fragments all they encountered. Two onagri overwhelmed with stones the scaffolding set up by the defenders on their front to attack the agger, and smashed it in pieces.

Fig. 12.

A bridge was soon let down on the rampart from the face of the tower, and the Romans, advancing in good order, took possession of the defences ([Fig. 12]).

Catognatus and his retainers, to the number of five or six hundred, had not expected this turn of events, and had taken refuge in the stronghold built beyond the Némède, at the southern part of the Oppidum.

When the besiegers, whom no one thought any longer of resisting, were drawn up in force on the rampart, and had occupied the towers—killing those who occupied them rather as refugees than as defenders—they separated into three large bodies: the two wings marched along the inner side of the rampart, taking one after another the towers upon it, and entered the enclosures and houses, killing those who endeavoured to resist. The centre troop, drawn up in the form of a wedge, marched right on and swept the plateau. The unfortunate defenders fled, and crowded together along the side of the Némède. Many endeavoured to gain the stronghold, but the entrances were closed and the bridge destroyed. Catognatus was thus abandoning the greater part of his followers and leaving them to the mercy of the enemy. The warriors of the Val d'Avon threw away their arms, and with out-stretched hands implored quarter of the Romans. Titurius then stayed the slaughter, and told the defenders that if they gave up Catognatus and the Helvetii who had taken refuge among them, their lives should be spared. Pointing to the lofty fort, beyond the Némède, the besieged replied that it was not in their power to surrender Catognatus, who had taken refuge there with a small number of his followers, but that they would immediately deliver up the Helvetii still among them. The legate wishing to act with mildness, according to Cæsar's instructions, contented himself with this assurance. The Helvetii were immediately delivered up, and the people of Avon, disarmed and stripped of their warlike accoutrements, were sent back to the valley, with the exception of a hundred hostages. The few chiefs, however, who had remained among them, having been put in fetters, were to be kept, with a view to being placed at Cæsar's disposal. As to the Helvetii, who numbered five or six hundred, Titurius kept some as hostages; the rest, having been disarmed, were ordered to return to their country by the most direct route: provisions for the journey were distributed among them.

The buildings of the Némède and its grove prevented Catognatus from seeing what was going on beneath its walls, but as he no longer heard war-cries nor the clash of arms, he concluded that his men had surrendered. As for himself and his retainers, knowing that they had no mercy to hope for, they prepared themselves for defence, and resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

A deep ditch partly cut in the rock separated the stronghold from the Némède. The defences consisted of an enclosure, made in Gallic fashion, of trunks of trees alternating with layers of stone surmounted by wattling. A large quadrangular tower, constructed in the same way, enclosing four stories, and terminated by a roof of reeds covering a crenelation, served as a place of retreat. Within the enclosure were wooden huts for the garrison; as the tower, which was only twenty paces wide by twenty deep, and whose walls were thick (about three paces), could barely contain a hundred men.