"Caius Julius Caesar, cum dimicaret in Gallia, et ab hoste raptus, equo ejus portaretur armatus, occurrit quidam ex hostibus qui cum nosset et insultans ait: Ceco Caesar! quod in lingua Gallorum dimitte significat. Et ita factum est ut dimitteretur.
"Hoc autem dicit ipse Caesar in Ephemeride sua ubi propriam commemorat felicitatem."—Ex Servio LXI. Aeneid, edit. Amstelod, type Elsevir, 1650, ex antiquo Vatic. Extemp. cap. VIII.
"One can see by this passage," adds d'Auvergne, "that Caesar, having been released by the Gaul who had made him prisoner and who was carrying him off on his horse fully armed from the field of battle, believed the saving of his life to be due to the very word which was intended to be his death sentence: to the word sko, which Caesar wrote ceco, and which he falsely interpreted to mean release when the word in Gallic in reality means kill, strike, beat down. Everything points to the conclusion that fear or stupefaction having seized the Gauls, in whose power Caesar completely was, at the mere mention of his name, he owed his safety to the sheer astonishment of his captor."
[11] "During the fight, which lasted from the seventh hour until the evening, not a Gaul was seen turning his back (aversum hostem nemo videre potuit)."—Caesar, De Bello Gallico, ch. XXXVII.
[12] "When the Romans drew near the chariots they came face to face with a new enemy, the war dogs. These were with difficulty exterminated by the archers."—Pliny, book LXXII, chap. C.
[13] The total destruction of the Gallic fleet was the result of an extremely dangerous invention by the Romans, who, by means of scythes fastened to long poles, cut the stays which held the masts. These fell, and the Gallic vessels, deprived of sails and motion, were reduced to impotence. See Caesar, De Bello Gallico, book III, ch. XIV, XV.
[14] See Pliny, Quintilian, Seneca, etc. Cited by Wallon in his History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II, p. 329.
[15] About $100 or $120 in modern money. This was at the time the market price of a slave. (Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II, p. 329.)
[16] Slaves had no name of their own. They were given indiscriminately all sorts of soubriquets, even to the names of animals. (Givin, p. 339.)
[17] It was the custom to throw in "for good measure," upon the purchase of a lot of slaves for labor or for pleasure, a few old men who were nothing but skin and bones. See Plautus, Bachid. IV, Prospera IV; and Terence, Eun. Cited by Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II. p. 56.