Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

When the watchers in the citadel saw the activity begin, the surveyors moving for mile after mile all the way around the base of Alesia, the ditches and the wall starting to form, they realized what Caesar was doing. Vercingetorix's instinctive reaction was to send out all his cavalry. But the Gauls found it impossible to conquer their fear of the Germans and went down badly. The worst slaughter occurred at the eastern end of the mount, with the Gauls in full retreat. The gates in Vercingetorix's walls were too narrow to permit the panicked horsemen easy entrance; the Germans, in hot pursuit, cut down the men and made off with the mounts, for it was every German's ambition to own two superb horses. Over the next nights the surviving Gallic troopers rode off eastward across the ridge, which told Caesar that Vercingetorix now realized his fate. He and eighty thousand foot soldiers were marooned inside Alesia. The water-filled ditch, the V-shaped ditch, the earth wall, the breastworks, battlements and towers came into being with a speed Antony, though he had thought himself fully educated in all military matters, found unbelievable. Within thirteen days Caesar's legions had completed all of these structures over a perimeter measuring eleven miles, and dug the trench across any flat ground. They had also finished installing Caesar's "garden" in those four hundred paces of unused land between the water-filled ditch and the trench where it existed. Deep and perpendicular though the trench was, it could be bridged, and was; raiding parties out of Alesia harassed the soldiers working on the fortifications, and did so with increasing expertise. That Caesar had always intended to do what he did was manifest, for the smiths had been casting wicked little barbed goads since camp was established. Thousands and thousands of them, until every sow and sheet of iron plundered from the Bituriges was used up. There were three different hazards planted in those four hundred paces of Caesar's "garden." Closest to the trench the soldiers buried foot-long logs of wood into which the iron goads had been hammered. The barbed goads projected just above the ground, which was covered with rush matting and scattered leaves. Then came a series of pits three feet deep with slightly sloping sides; viciously sharpened stakes as thick as a man's thigh were planted in their bottoms, the pits filled in two-thirds of the way, the earth tamped down. Rush matting was laid over the ground, the tips of the stakes just poking through it, and leaves were sprinkled everywhere. There were eight courses of these devices, which the troops called "lilies," arranged in a most complicated series of quincunxes and diagonals. Closest to the water-filled ditch came five separate and random courses of narrow trenches five feet deep, in which sharpened, fire-hardened antlered branches were fixed on a slant aiming the antlers directly into the face of a man or the breast of a horse. These the soldiers jokingly called "tombstones."

The raiding parties came no more. "Good," said Caesar when the eleven miles were finished. "Now we do it all again on the outside. Fourteen miles by the surveyed route we have to go up and over the tops of most of the hills, which increases the distance, of course. Do you understand that, Antonius?" "Yes, Caesar," said Antony, eyes dancing; he enjoyed being Caesar's butt, and happily played up to the image of shambling oaf. He asked the question Caesar wanted him to ask. "Why?" "Because, Antonius, the Gauls are mustering at Carnutum at this very moment. Before too many days have gone by, they'll arrive at Alesia to rescue Vercingetorix. Therefore we have to have fortifications to keep Vercingetorix in, and fortifications to keep the Gallic relief army out. We will exist between them." "Ah!" cried Antony, striking his brow with the palm of his huge hand. "Like the track laid out on the Campus Martius for the race between the October Horses! We're on the track itself, with the fortifications forming the rails. Alesia is on the inside the middle and the Gallic relief army is on the outside." "Very good, Antonius! An excellent metaphor!" "How long have we got before the relief army gets here?" "My scouts say at least another thirteen days, probably more. But the outer perimeter of fortifications must be finished within the next thirteen days. That's an order." "It's three miles longer!" "The troops," said Trebonius, breaking in, "are three miles better experienced, Antonius. They'll build each mile a lot faster this second time around." They built each mile a lot faster, though the miles were more precipitous. Twenty-six days after Caesar's army arrived at Alesia, it was fenced in between two separate encirclements of fortifications, identical but mirror images of each other. At the same time a total of twenty-three forts were erected inside the lines, a very tall watchtower went up every thousand feet around the outside defenses, and both the legions and the cavalry went into separately fortified camps, the legions on high ground inside the lines, the cavalry on the outside near plenty of good water. "It isn't a new technique," said Caesar when the inspection tour began on completion of the work. "It was used against Hannibal at Capua Scipio Aemilianus used it twice, at Numantia and at Carthage. The idea being to keep the besieged inside and negate any possibility of aid and supplies coming from the outside. Though none of the earlier double circumvallations had to contend with relief armies of a quarter-million. There were more inside Capua than inside Alesia, and the same at Carthage. But we definitely hold the record when it comes to relief armies." "It's been worth the effort, said Trebonius gruffly. "Yes. We won't be afforded the luxury of an Aquae Sextiae hereabouts. The Gauls have learned since I came here. Besides, I have no intention of losing my army." His face lit up. "Aren't they good boys?" he asked, love in his voice. "Such good boys!" His legates received a stern look. "It is our responsibility to do everything in our power to keep them alive, if possible unscathed. I won't see so much work on their part go for nothing, nor so much good will. A quarter-million relief army is to err on the conservative side, so I am informed. All of this has been done to save Roman soldier lives. And to ensure victory. One way or the other, the war in Gaul will end here at Alesia." He smiled in genuine content. "However, I do not intend to lose." The inner line of fortifications lay in the bottom of the vales around Alesia save for the eastern end, where it traversed the end of the ridge; the outer line crossed the beginning of the little plain on the west, climbed to the top of the mount south of Alesia, came down again to the southern river on the east, went over the top of the eastern ridge, down again to the northern river, then up onto the top of the mount north of Alesia. Two of the four infantry camps stood on the high ground of the southern mount, one on the high ground of the northern mount. And here, where the northern mount descended, lay the only real weakness in the circumvallation. The mount to the northwest had proven too big to cross over. A cavalry camp on the outskirts had been connected back to the outer line of fortifications by a very strong extra line, but the fourth infantry camp lay on ground too difficult to strengthen in the same way. For this reason had the camp been put there; it was to protect a gap existing between the lines ascending the northwestern mount and the lines along the site of the infantry camp, which, to make matters worse, lay aslant a steep and rocky slope. "If they scout well enough they'll find the weakness," said Labienus, his leather cuirass creaking as he leaned back to show his eagle's profile against the sky; alone among the senior staff, he rode his own high-stepping Italian horse. "A pity." "Yes," Caesar agreed, "but a worse pity if we ourselves were not acutely aware it exists. The infantry camp will protect it." He looped one leg around the two front pommels a habit of his and turned in the saddle to point back into the southwest. "That's my vantage spot, up there on the southern hill. They'll concentrate on this western end; they'll have too many horse to attack on the north or south. Vercingetorix will come down the western end of Alesia to attack our inside fortifications at the same spot." "Now," sighed Decimus Brutus, "we have to wait."