Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

armies came together. The Germans adopted the phalanx formation used by the Helvetii, with their line bristling with long spears, which, in theory, would keep them out of range of the short Roman swords.
    Undaunted, men of the 10th brushed aside the spears and literally threw themselves on the front line of German shields. Some wrenched shields out of the hands of their owners. Others reached over the top of the shields and stabbed the points of their swords into German faces.
    Using these aggressive tactics, the 10th soon routed the German left.
    Meanwhile, the German right was pushing back the Roman left. Seeing this, young Publius Crassus, whom Caesar had left behind in charge of the cavalry, ordered the stationary third line to advance to the relief of the Roman left. Their arrival turned the battle, and soon the entire German army was on the run. The legions pursued them all the way to the Rhine. A few Germans managed to swim the river. King Ariovistus and one or two others escaped in boats. But all the rest, including the king’s wives and daughters, were hunted down and killed or captured by the Roman cavalry. East of the Rhine, when the Suebi reinforcements heard of the disastrous battle, they turned and fled for home. The 10th Legion could add another victory to its growing roll of honor.

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    CONQUERING GAUL
    t had been a short but profitable campaign for the men of the 10th. They had stripped thousands of dead Swiss and German I troops. They had looted their camps and baggage trains. All with only minimal casualties in their own ranks. By the fall they had settled into a massive camp in Alsace not far from Besançon, to spend a leisurely six months waiting out the winter before Caesar led them on new adventures in Gaul the following spring. Caesar himself had gone to northern Italy to carry out his duties as chief judge of his provinces, leaving the legions under the command of General Labienus. But as winter arrived, Labienus began sending Caesar intelligence reports that the tribes of northern Gaul, the Belgae, were planning to attack the Roman forces to prevent them from advancing farther into Gaul. Caesar had his own spies among the tribes, and when these insiders added credence to Labienus’s reports, he acted quickly.
    Raising two new legions in northern Italy, the 13th and the 14th, Caesar returned to Gaul to confront the rebellious tribes. Collecting his six existing legions then wintering in Alsace, he marched his bolstered army up into the present-day region of Champagne-Ardenne, northeast of Paris, the home territory of the Remi people, allies of Rome, who had their capital at Rheims. Against him it was estimated that the tribes of the Belgae could muster 260,000 men, although the actual number who met him at the Aisne River north of Rheims was perhaps a third of that.
    After each army tried to outmaneuver the other, Caesar dealt the Belgae a defeat using just his cavalry and auxiliaries, and the tribes split up and retreated in disorder to their home territories. This allowed Caesar to march on individual tribes and defeat them piecemeal over the coming weeks, often accepting their surrender after laying siege to their chief towns.
    In this way he bloodlessly conquered the Suessiones, the Bellovaci—the largest of the Belgic tribes—and the Ambiani, then marched into the ter-
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    ritory of the Nervii, who occupied an area in central Belgium east of the Scheldt River.
    The Nervii were a proud people, famous fighters originally from Germany who even barred traders from selling wine in their territory because they believed it made men soft, and they had no intention of submitting to the Romans. From spies they learned the Roman order of march—Cae-sar was advancing with each legion separated by its baggage train from the next—and saw an opportunity to attack part of the column before more legions