who were expert at taking down what was dictated on a journey, and a single soldier behind him armed with a sword.  He used to travel so quick that on his first journey from Rome he reached the Rhodanus[483] in eight days.  From his boyhood he was a good horseman, for he had been accustomed to place his hands behind him and, holding them close together on his back, to put the horse to his full speed.  In that campaign he also practised himself in dictating letters as he was riding and thus giving employment to two scribes, and as Oppius[484] says, to more.  He is said also to have introduced the practice of communicating with his friends by letters, as there was no time for personal interviews on urgent affairs, owing to the amount of business and the size of the city.  This anecdote also is cited as a proof of his indifference as to diet.  On one occasion when he was entertained at supper by his host Valerius Leo[485] in Mediolanum, asparagus was served up with myrum poured on it instead of oil, which Caesar ate without taking any notice of it, and reproved his friends who were out of humour on the occasion.  “You should be content,” he said, “not to eat what you don’t like; but to find fault with your host’s ill-breeding is to be as ill-bred as himself.”  Once upon a journey he was compelled by a storm to take shelter in a poor man’s hut, which contained only a single chamber and that hardly large enough for one person, on which he observed to his friends that the post of honour must be given to the worthiest and the place of safety to the weakest; and he bade Oppius lie down while he and the rest slept in the porch.

XVIII.  Caesar’s first Gallic campaign was against the Helvetii[486] and Tigurini, who had burnt their cities, twelve in number, and their villages, of which there were four hundred, and were advancing through that part of Gaul which was subject to the Romans, like the Cimbri and Teutones of old, to whom they were considered to be not inferior in courage and in numbers equal, being in all three hundred thousand, of whom one hundred and ninety thousand were fighting men.  The Tigurini were not opposed by Caesar in person, but by Labienus, who was sent against them by Caesar and totally defeated them near the Arar.  The Helvetii fell on Caesar unexpectedly as he was leading his forces to a friendly city, but he succeeded in making his way to a strong position, where he rallied his army and prepared for battle.  A horse being brought to him, he said, “I shall want this for the pursuit after I have defeated the enemy; but let us now move on against them;” and accordingly he made the charge on foot.  After a long and difficult contest, the Helvetian warriors were driven back, but the hardest struggle was about the chariots and the camp, for the Helvetians made a stand there and a desperate resistance, and also their wives and children, who fought till they were cut to pieces, and the battle was hardly over at midnight.  This glorious deed of victory Caesar followed up by one still better, for he brought together those who had escaped from the battle and compelled them to re-occupy the tract which they had left and to rebuild the cities which they had destroyed; and the number of these was above one hundred thousand.  His object in this measure was to prevent the Germans from crossing the Rhenus and occupying the vacant country.