Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

* * *

Caesar arrived in Agedincum with Fabius and his two legions before Decimus Brutus and the Fifteenth got there. "Thank all the Gods!" cried Trebonius, wringing his hand. "I didn't think to see you this side of spring." "Where's Vercingetorix?" "On his way to besiege Gorgobina." "Good! We'll let him do that for the time being." "While we... ?" Caesar grinned. "We have two choices. If we stay inside Agedincum we can eat well and not lose a man. If we march out of Agedincum into winter, we won't eat well and we'll lose men. However, Vercingetorix has had things all his own way, so it's time to teach him that war against Rome isn't nearly as simple as war against his own peoples. I've expended a great deal of energy and thought in getting here, and by now Vercingetorix will know I'm here. That he hasn't moved in the direction of Agedincum is evidence of military talent. He wants us to venture out and meet him on a field of his choosing." "And you intend to oblige him," said Trebonius, who knew very well that Caesar wouldn't stay inside Agedincum. "Not immediately, no. The Fifteenth and the Fourteenth can garrison Agedincum. The rest will march with me for Vellaunodunum. We'll cut Vercingetorix's legs out from under him by going west and destroying his main bases among the Senones, Carnutes and Bituriges. Vellaunodunum first. Then Cenabum. Then into the lands of the Bituriges, to their Noviodunum. After which, Avaricum." "All the while moving closer to Vercingetorix." "But driving east, which separates him from reinforcements on the west. Nor can he call a general muster at Carnutum." "How big a baggage train?" asked Quintus Cicero. "Small," said Caesar. "I'll use the Aedui. They can keep us supplied with grain. We'll take beans, chickpea, oil and bacon with us from Agedincum." He looked at Trebonius. "Unless you think the Aedui are about to declare for Vercingetorix." Fabius answered. "No, Caesar. I've been watching their movements closely, and there's no indication that they're giving Vercingetorix any kind of aid at all." "Then we'll take our chances," said Caesar. From Agedincum to Vellaunodunum was less than one day's march; it fell three days after that. The Senones, to whom it belonged, were compelled to furnish pack animals to carry all the food within it, and furnish hostages as well. Caesar moved immediately to Cenabum, which fell during the night after he had arrived. Because this was where Cita and the civilian traders had been murdered, Cenabum suffered an inevitable fate; it was plundered and burned, the booty given to the troops. After which came Noviodunum, an oppidum belonging to the Bituriges.

"Ideal ground for cavalry," said Vercingetorix exultantly. "Gutruarus, stay here at Gorgobina with the infantry. It's too cold and capricious for a general engagement, but I can hurt Caesar with my horse; he's leading an infantry army." Noviodunum of the Bituriges was in the process of yielding when Vercingetorix appeared, and changed its mind just as the hostages were being handed over. Some centurions and troops within the oppidum were trapped, but fought their way out, the Bituriges howling for their blood. In the midst of this Caesar sent the thousand Remi horse troopers he had with him out of his camp, with the four hundred Ubii in their lead. The speed of the attack took Vercingetorix by surprise; his horsemen were still coming out of their ride formation into battle lines when the Germans, shrieking a ululating cry which hadn't been heard in this part of Gaul in generations, cannoned into them broadside. The savage, almost suicidal assault caught the Gauls unprepared, and the Remi, taking heart from the Germans, followed them in. Vercingetorix broke off the engagement and retired, leaving several hundred cavalrymen dead on the field. "He had Germans with him," said Vercingetorix. "Germans! But they were riding Remi horses. I thought he was busy with the town; I couldn't see how he'd get anyone into the field quickly. But he did. Germans!" He had called a war council, smarting. "We've gone down three times in eight days," growled Drappes of the Senones. "Vellaunodunum, Cenabum, and now Noviodunum." "At the beginning of April he was in Narbo. At the end of April he's marching for Avaricum," said Daderax of the Mandubii. "Six hundred miles in a single month! How can we hope to keep up with him? Will he go on doing this? What are we to do?" "We change our tactics," said Vercingetorix, who felt lighter after this confession of failure. "We have to learn from him, and we have to make him respect us. He walks all over us, but he won't keep on walking all over us. From now on, we make it impossible for him to campaign. We make him retreat to Agedincum and we lock him up in Agedincum." "How?" asked Drappes, looking skeptical. "It will require many sacrifices, Drappes. We make it quite impossible for him to eat. At this time of year and for the next six months there's nothing to be had in the fields. It's all in silos and barns. So we burn our silos and barns. We burn our own oppida. Anything in Caesar's path must go. And we never, never offer battle. We starve him out instead." "If he starves, so will we," said Gutruatus. "We'll go hungry, but we will eat something. We bring food up from those places far from Caesar's path. We send to Lucterius to give us food from the south. We send to the Armorici to bring us food from the west. We also send to the Aedui to make sure they give the Romans nothing. Nothing!" "What of Avaricum?" Biturgo asked. "It's the biggest town in Gaul and so full of food that it's threatening to sink into the marshes. Caesar's marching for it even as we speak." "We follow him and we sit ourselves down just too far away to be compelled to give battle. As for Avaricum" he frowned "do we defend it or burn it?" The thin face tightened. "We burn it," said Vercingetorix with decision. "That's the right course." Biturgo gasped. "No! No! I refuse to consent to that! You made it impossible for us Bituriges to remain aloof, and I tell you now that I will obey your orders burn villages, burn barns, even burn our mine workings but I will not let you burn Avaricum!" "Caesar will take it and eat," said Vercingetorix stubbornly. "We burn it, Biturgo. We have to burn it." "And the Bituriges will starve," said Biturgo bitterly. "He can't take it, Vercingetorix! No one can take Avaricum! Why else has it become the most powerful town in all our wide lands? It sits there so superbly fortified by Nature as well as by its people that it will last forever. No one can take it, I tell you! But if you burn it, Caesar will move on to some other place: Gergovia, maybe, or" he glared at Daderax of the Mandubii " Alesia. I ask you, Daderax could Caesar take Alesia?" "Never," said Daderax emphatically. "Well, I can say the same of Avaricum." Biturgo transferred his gaze to Vercingetorix. "Please, I beg of you! Any stronghold or village or mine working that you like, but not Avaricum! Never Avaricum! Vercingetorix, I beg you! Don't make it impossible for us to follow you with our souls! Lure Caesar to Avaricum! Let him try to take it! He'll still be there trying in the summer! But he won't! He can't! No one can!" "Cathbad?" asked Vercingetorix. The Chief Druid thought, then nodded. "Biturgo is right. Avaricum cannot fall. Let Caesar think he can succeed, and keep him sitting before it until summer. If he's there, he can't be elsewhere. And in the spring you'll call a general muster, summon every people in the whole of Gaul. It's a good plan to keep the Romans occupied in one place. If he finds Avaricum burning, Caesar will march again and we'll lose track of him. He's like trying to eat quicksilver with a knife. Use Avaricum as an anchor." "Very well then, we use Avaricum as an anchor. But for the rest of it, burn everything within fifty miles of him!"

Every Roman deemed Avaricum the only beautiful oppidum in Longhaired Gaul. Like Cenabum only much larger, it functioned as a proper town rather than a place to store foodstuffs and hold tribal meetings. It stood on a slight hill of solid ground in the midst of miles of marshy yet fertile grazing ground; the bulblike end of a spur of forested bedrock a mere three hundred and thirty feet wide outside the gates, Avaricum owed its impregnability to its very high walls and the surrounding marsh. The road into it came across this narrow bedrock causeway, but just before the gates the solid ground took a sudden downward dip which meant that the walls virtually towered right in the only spot where they might have been assailable. Elsewhere they rose out of marsh too soggy and treacherous to take the weight of siege fortifications and engines of war. Caesar sat his seven legions down in a camp on the edge of the bedrock spur just before it narrowed into that last quarter-mile of road with the steep dip rising again to Avaricum's main gates. The city wall was made of murus Gallicus, a cunning interleafing of stones and wooden reinforcing beams forty feet long; the stones rendered it impervious to fire, while the gigantic wooden beams lent it the tensile strength necessary to resist battery. Even if, thought Caesar, gazing at it while the controlled frenzy of camp making went on behind him, even if I could work a ram tilted at such an angle. Or protect the men using the ram.' "This one," said Titus Sextius, "is going to be difficult." "You'll have to build a ramp across the dip to level it out and batter the gates, said Fabius, frowning. "No, not exactly a ramp. Too exposed. The available width is just three hundred and thirty feet. Which means the Bituriges inside have a mere three hundred and thirty feet of wall to man in order to fend us off. No, we'll have to build something more like a terrace," said Caesar, his voice betraying to his legates that he had known exactly what to do almost at first glance. "We start it right where I'm standing, which is the same height as the Avaricum battlements, and advance it fully built. It won't need to be a three-hundred-and-thirty-foot-wide platform, yet it will be three hundred and thirty feet wide. We'll flank each side of the causeway with a wall going from here to Avaricum's walls, level with its battlements. Between our two walls we'll simply ignore the dip until we can almost touch Avaricum. Then we'll build another wall between our two flank walls and connect them to each other. By advancing forward evenly we keep complete control. We'll be three quarters of the way there before we have to worry too much about the defenders' doing us serious damage." "Logs!" exclaimed Quintus Cicero, eyes gleaming. "Thousands of logs! Axe time, Caesar."