Caesar

After twice[*](Once in 55 B.C. (B. G. iv. 20-36); again in 54 B.C. (B. G. v. 1-22).) crossing to the island from the opposite coast of Gaul and in many battles damaging the enemy rather than enriching his own men—for there was nothing worth taking from men who lived in poverty and wretchedness—he brought the war to an end which was not to his liking, it is true; still, he took hostages from the king, imposed tributes, and then sailed away from the island.

In Gaul he found letters which were about to be sent across to him. They were from his friends in Rome, and advised him of his daughter’s death; she died in child-birth at Pompey’s house. Great was the grief of Pompey, and great the grief of Caesar, and their friends were greatly troubled too; they felt that the relationship which alone kept the distempered state in harmony and concord was now dissolved. For the babe also died presently, after surviving its mother a few days. Now Julia, in spite of the tribunes, was carried by the people to the Campus Martius, where her funeral rites were held, and where she lies buried.[*](Cf. the Pompey, chapter liii.)

Caesar’s forces were now so large that he was forced to distribute them in many winter-quarters, while he himself, as his custom was, turned his steps towards Italy. Then all Gaul once more broke out in revolt,[*](Cf. Caesar, B. G. v. 24-51.) and great armies went about attacking the entrenchments and trying to destroy the winter-quarters of the Romans. The most numerous and powerful of the rebels, under Abriorix,[*](Caesar calls him Ambiorix.) utterly destroyed Titurius and Cotta, together with their army,

while the legion under Cicero was surrounded and besieged by sixty thousand of them, and narrowly escaped having its camp taken by storm, although all were wounded and went beyond their powers in the ardour of their defence.. When tidings of these things reached Caesar, who was far on his journey, he turned back quickly, got together seven thousand men in all, and hurried on to extricate Cicero from the siege. But the besiegers became aware of his approach, and went to meet him with the purpose of cutting his forces off at once, despising their small numbers.