The History of Rome, Book V eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 917 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book V.

The History of Rome, Book V eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 917 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book V.

The maritime cantons still made an attempt to defend themselves against the Roman domination in concert with their neighbours on the Loire.  Insurgent bands from the Andian, Carnutic, and other surrounding cantons assembled on the lower Loire and besieged in Lemonum (Poitiers) the prince of the Pictones who was friendly to the Romans.  But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy, but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even the maritime ones, sent in their submission.

And in Uxellodunum

The resistance was at an end; save that an isolated leader of free bands still here and there upheld the national banner.  The bold Drappes and the brave comrade in arms of Vercingetorix Lucterius, after the breaking up of the army united on the Loire, gathered together the most resolute men, and with these threw themselves into the strong mountain-town of Uxellodunum on the Lot,(50) which amidst severe and fatal conflicts they succeeded in sufficiently provisioning.  In spite of the loss of their leaders, of whom Drappes had been taken prisoner, and Lucterius had been cut off from the town, the garrison resisted to the uttermost; it was not till Caesar appeared in person, and under his orders the spring from which the besieged derived their water was diverted by means of subterranean drains, that the fortress, the last stronghold of the Celtic nation, fell.  To distinguish the last champions of the cause of freedom, Caesar ordered that the whole garrison should have their hands cut off and should then be dismissed, each one to his home.  Caesar, who felt it all-important to put an end at least to open resistance throughout Gaul, allowed king Commius, who still held out in the region of Arras and maintained desultory warfare with the Roman troops there down to the winter of 703-704, to make his peace, and even acquiesced when the irritated and justly distrustful man haughtily refused to appear in person in the Roman camp.  It is very probable that Caesar in a similar way allowed himself to be satisfied with a merely nominal submission, perhaps even with a de facto armistice, in the less accessible districts of the north-west and north-east of Gaul.(51)

Gaul Subdued

Thus was Gaul—­or, in other words, the land west of the Rhine and north of the Pyrenees—­rendered subject after only eight years of conflict (696-703) to the Romans.  Hardly a year after the full pacification of the land, at the beginning of 705, the Roman troops had to be withdrawn over the Alps in consequence of the civil war, which had now at length broken out in Italy, and there remained nothing but at the most some weak divisions of recruits in Gaul.  Nevertheless the Celts did not again rise against the foreign yoke; and, while in all the old

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The History of Rome, Book V from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.