The sail yards (of the enemy) as we have said, being brought down, although two and (in some cases) three ships (of theirs) surrounded each one (of ours), the soldiers strove with the greatest energy to board the ships of the enemy; and, after the barbarians observed this taking place, as a great many of their ships were beaten, and as no relief for that evil could be discovered, they hastened to seek safety in flight. And, having now turned their vessels to that quarter in which the wind blew, so great a calm and lull suddenly arose, that they could not move out of their place, which circumstance, truly, was exceedingly opportune for finishing the business; for our men gave chase and took them one by one, so that very few out of all the number, (and those) by the intervention of night, arrived at the land, after the battle had lasted almost from the fourth hour till sunset.[d]
The Veneti were forced to sue for peace, and as they had only detained his agents, Cæsar was mercifully content with putting their whole senate to death, and selling the people for slaves,—a characteristic exhibition of Roman clemency towards conquered “barbarians.”
[56-55 B.C.]
As the Morini and Menapii of the north coast (Picardy) had been in league with the Veneti, Cæsar invaded their country, which abounded in woods and marshes, but the approach of the wet season obliged him to retire. Having put his troops into winter quarters, he set out to look after his affairs in Italy. During this summer P. Crassus, who had been sent into Aquitaine to keep it quiet, or rather, as it would appear, to raise a war, routed the people named the Sotitates (Sos), forced their chief town to surrender, and defeated a large army of the adjoining peoples, and the Spaniards who had joined them. Shortly after he left Gaul to join his father in Syria, taking with him one thousand Gallic horse.
Tribes of Germans named Usipetes and Tencteri having crossed the Rhine and entered the Menapian country, Cæsar, fearing lest their presence might induce the Gauls to rise, hastened (55) to oppose them. Some negotiations took place between them, during which a body of eight hundred German horse fell on, and even put to flight, with a loss of seventy-four men, five thousand of Cæsar’s Gallic cavalry; and they then had the audacity, as Cæsar represents it, to send an embassy, in which were all their principal men, to the Roman camp to justify themselves and to seek a truce.[c]
THE MASSACRE OF THE GERMANS
[55 B.C.]
After this engagement, Cæsar considered that neither ought ambassadors to be received to audience, nor conditions be accepted by him from those who, after having sued for peace by way of stratagem and treachery, had made war without provocation. And to wait till the enemy’s forces were augmented and their cavalry had returned, he concluded, would be the greatest madness; and knowing the fickleness of the Gauls, he felt how much influence the enemy had already acquired among them by this one skirmish. He (therefore) deemed that no time for concerting measures ought to be afforded them. After having resolved on these things and communicated his plans to his lieutenants and quæstor in order that he might not suffer any opportunity for engaging to escape him, a very seasonable event occurred, namely, that on the morning of the next day a large body of Germans, consisting of their princes and old men, came to the camp to him to practise the same treachery and dissimulation; but, as they asserted, for the purpose of acquitting themselves for having engaged in a skirmish the day before, contrary to what had been agreed and to what, indeed, they themselves had requested; and also if they could by any means obtain a truce by deceiving him. Cæsar, rejoicing that they had fallen into his power, ordered them to be detained. He then drew all his forces out of the camp, and commanded the cavalry, because he thought they were intimidated by the late skirmish, to follow in the rear.
