Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  "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."

  Perhaps because these days he had no access to wine, Mark Antony found himself so alert, so quivering with interest and energy that he drank in every word the legates said, every look on Caesar's face as well as every word he uttered. To be here at such a moment! Nothing like Alesia had ever been attempted, no matter what Caesar said about Scipio Aemilianus. Fewer than sixty thousand men defending a racetrack twelve miles in circumference, lying between eighty thousand enemy on its inside and a quarter of a million on its outside ...

  I'm here! I'm a part of it! Oh, Antonius, you have luck too! I am a part of it! That's why they labor for him, why they love him almost as much as he loves them. He's their passage to eternal fame because he always shares his victories with them. Without them, he's nothing. But he knows it. Gabinius didn't. Nor any of the others I've served with. He knows how they think. He speaks their language. Watching him with them is like watching him stroll through a crowd of women at a party in Rome. There's lightning in the air. But I have it too. One day they'll love me the way they love him. So all I have to do is pick up his tricks, and then when he's too old for this life, I'm going to march into his place. One day Caesar's men will be Antonius's men. Ten more years and he'll be past it. Ten more years and I'll be coming into my own. And I'll be more than Gaius Julius Caesar. Nor will he be there to eclipse me.

  Vercingetorix and his thanes stood atop the western walls of Alesia where the flat top narrowed to a point jutting further west, like a wayward crystal grown out of the diamond.

  "It looks as if," said Biturgo, "they've just finished riding all the way around their defenses. That's Caesar in the scarlet cloak. Who's the one on the only good horse?"

  "Labienus," said Vercingetorix. "I take it that the others have donated their Italian beasts to the German beasts."

  "They've been in that same spot for a long time," said Daderax.

  "They're looking at the gap in their fortifications. But how when the relief army arrives can I send word to it about the weakness? It's not visible from anywhere but here," Vercingetorix said. He turned away. "Inside. It's time to talk."

  There were four: Vercingetorix, his cousin Critognatus, Biturgo and Daderax.

  "Food," said the King, his own increasing emaciation lending the word poignancy as well as significance. "Daderax, how much have we left?"

  "The grain is gone, but we still have cattle and sheep. A few eggs if there are any chickens left unstrangled. We've been on half-rations for four days. If we halve that again, perhaps another four or five days. After that, we eat shoe leather."

  Biturgo brought his fist down on the table so thunderously that the other three jumped. "Oh, Vercingetorix, stop pretending!" he cried. "The relief army should have been here four days ago, we all know that! And there's something else you're not saying, though you should say it. That you don't expect an army to come."

  A silence ensued; Vercingetorix, seated at the end of the table, put his hands upon it and turned his head to stare out the huge window aperture behind him, shutters open on the mild spring day. He had been growing a beard and moustache since they had realized they were immured in Alesia, and it was easy to see now why he alone had been clean-shaven: his facial hair was scant and silver-white. Nor had he donned his crown, carefully put away.

  "If it were coming," he said at last, "I believe it would be here by now." He sighed. "My hope has gone, it won't come. Therefore the food is our first consideration."

  "The Aedui!" snarled Daderax. "The Aedui have betrayed us!"

  "Do you mean to surrender?" asked Biturgo.

  "I won't. But if any of you want to lead your men out and surrender to Caesar, I understand."

  "We can't surrender," said Daderax. "If we do, then Gaul has nothing to remember."

  "A sortie in full strength, then," said Biturgo. "We can at least go down fighting."

  Critognatus was an older man than Vercingetorix and looked nothing like him; he was physically big, red-haired, blue-eyed, thin-lipped, a perfect Gaul. As if he found his chair at the table too confining, he leaped to his feet and began to pace. "I don't believe it," he said, smacking his right fist into his left palm. "The Aedui have burned their boats; they can't betray us because they daren't. Litaviccus would go in Caesar's baggage to Rome, and walk in Caesar's triumph. He rules the Aedui, no one else! No, I don't believe it. Litaviccus wants us to win because he wants to be King of Gaul, not some tame Roman puppet vergobret. He'll strive with everything in him to help you win, Vercingetorix—then he'll turn traitor! Then he'll make his move." He moved back to the table, looked at Vercingetorix imploringly. "Don't you see I'm right?" he asked. "The relief army will come! I know it will come! Why it's late, I don't know. How long it will be before it comes, I don't know. But it will come!"

  Vercingetorix smiled, held out his hand. "Yes, Critognatus, it will come. I believe that too."

  "A moment ago you said the opposite," growled Biturgo.

  "A moment ago I thought the opposite. But Critognatus is right. The Aedui stand to lose too much by betraying us. No, it may be that the muster took longer because the people were slower reaching it than I had estimated. I keep thinking of how long it would have taken me to organize it, and I shouldn't. Gutruatus is a deliberate man until passion overtakes him, and there's no passion in organizing a muster."

  Enthusiasm returned as Vercingetorix spoke; he looked more alive, less careworn.

  "Then we halve the rations yet again," said Daderax, sighing.

  "There are other things we can do to stretch the food further," said Critognatus.

  "What?" asked Biturgo skeptically.

  "The warriors have to survive, Biturgo. We have to be here and ready to fight when the relief army comes. Can you imagine what it would do to the relief army if they had to beat Caesar only to enter here and find us dead? What it would do to Gaul? The King dead, Biturgo dead, Daderax dead, Critognatus dead, and all the warriors, and all the Mandubii women and children? Because we didn't have enough food? Because we starved?"

  Critognatus walked away a little and took his stand where the other three could see him from head to feet. "I say we do what we did when the Cimbri and the Teutones invaded us! I say we do as our people did then—shut themselves up in the oppida, and, when the food ran out, ate the useless. Those incapable of fighting. A ghastly diet, but a necessary one. That was how we Gauls survived then. And who were our enemies then? Germans! People who grew bored and restless, who drifted off to find other lands, and left us what we had before they came—our liberty, our customs and traditions, our rights. But who are our enemies now? Romans! Who won't drift off. Who will take our lands, our women, our rights, the fruits of our labors. Build their villas, put in heating furnaces, bathrooms, flower gardens! Cast us down, elevate our serfs! Take over our oppida and turn them into cities, with all the evils cities contain! We nobles will be slaves! And I say to you, I would far rather eat human flesh than find myself a Roman slave!"

  Vercingetorix gagged, white-faced. "Awful!" he said.

  "I think we must take this to the army," said Biturgo.

  Daderax had slumped upon the table, head buried in his arms. "My people, my people," he mumbled. "My old ones, my women, their children. My innocents."

  Vercingetorix drew a breath. "I couldn't," he said.

  "I could," said Biturgo. "But leave it to the army to say."

  "If the army is to have the say," said Critognatus, "why do we have a king?"


  The chair scraped as Vercingetorix got to his feet. "Oh, no, Critognatus, this is one decision the King won't make! Kings have councils— even the greatest of the high kings had councils. And in something which brings us down to the level of the basest beasts, all the people must decide," he said. "Daderax, assemble everyone outside the walls on the eastern end of the mount."

  "How clever!" whispered Daderax, hauling himself upright. "You know what the vote will be, Vercingetorix! But you won't have to wear the odium. They'll vote to eat my innocents. They're very hungry, and meat's meat. But I have a better idea. Let us do what all peoples do with those whom they cannot afford to feed. Let us give the innocents to the Tuatha. Let us put the innocents on the hillside, as if they were unwanted babies. Let us be like parents, unwilling to feed them, but praying that someone wanting babies will come to the place and take pity on them. It goes out of our hands and into the hands of the Tuatha. Perhaps the Romans will take pity on them, and let them through the lines. Perhaps the Romans have so much to eat that they can afford to throw scraps. Perhaps the relief army will come. Perhaps they will die on the hillside, abandoned by everyone, including the Tuatha. That I will condone. But do you seriously expect me to consent to an alternative which would force me to eat my own innocent people, or starve? I won't! I won't! What I will do is cast them out as a gift to the Tuatha. If I do that, we'll have several thousand fewer mouths to feed. Not warrior mouths, but the food reserves will go much, much further." His eyes, blackened by dilated pupils, glittered with tears. "And if the relief army isn't here by the time the food runs out, you can eat me first!"

  The last of the livestock grazing the unwalled eastern end of Alesia was driven inside; the women, the children and the old were driven outside. Among them were Daderax's wife, his father, his aged aunt.

  Until darkness fell they huddled in groups below the walls, weeping, pleading, crying out to their warrior men inside. They curled up then and slept an uneasy, hungry sleep. With the dawn they wept, begged, cried out again. No one answered. No one came. And at noon they began the slow descent to the foot of the mount, where they halted on the edge of the great trench and reached out their arms toward the Roman wall, lined with heads along the breastworks, up all the towers. But no one answered. No one beckoned. No one came riding across the exquisitely smooth, leaf-strewn ground to bridge the trench, let them in. No one threw them food. The Romans simply looked until the prospect bored them, then turned away and went about their business.

  In the late afternoon the Mandubii innocents helped each other up the hill again and clustered beneath the walls to weep, to beg, to scream the names of those they knew and loved inside. But no one answered. No one came. The gates remained closed.

  "Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people!" babbled Daderax in the darkness of his room. "Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people! Let the relief army come tomorrow! Go to Esus and intercede, I pray! Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people! Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people! Let the relief army come tomorrow! Go to Esus and intercede, I pray! Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people! Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people...." Over and over again.

  Daderax's prayers were answered. On the morrow the relief army arrived. It rode up from the southwest and took possession of the heights there, not so awesome a sight because the hills were forested, the men partially concealed. But by noon of the following day the three-mile plain of the two rivers was packed from end to end with horsemen, a spectacle no watcher in one of the Roman towers would ever forget. A sea of cavalry, so many thousands they could not be counted.

  "So many thousands," said Caesar, standing at his vantage spot just below the summit of the southern mount on its western side, "that they'll never manage to maneuver. Why don't they ever seem to learn that more isn't necessarily better? If they fielded an eighth of the number down there, they could beat us. They'd still be sufficiently stronger numerically, and they'd have room to do what needs to be done. As it is, their numbers mean nothing."

  "There's no real commander-in-chief out there," Labienus said. "Several joint commanders at least. And not fully agreed."

  Caesar's beloved warhorse, Toes, was nibbling nearby, its strange toed feet almost concealed by the grass. The Roman war command was assembled, those among the legates like Trebonius who didn't already have charge of a section of the field, and thirty tribunes on their German nags ready to ride off with orders to this or that area.

  "It's your day, Labienus," said Caesar. "Make it yours. I won't give you orders. Issue your own."

  "I'll use the four thousand in the three camps on the plain side," said Labienus, looking fierce. "The camp on the north side I'll keep in reserve. They have to fight on the vertical axis of the plain; four thousand of mine will be more than enough. If the front ranks fall back, they'll ride their own rear down."

  The four cavalry camps were extensions outward of the great perimeter rather than built on its inside wall like the infantry camps; they were heavily fortified, but the goads, the lilies and the tombstones did not mine the ground in front of them. While Caesar and his high command watched, the outside gates of the three cavalry camps impinging on the little plain flew open, and the Roman horse rode out.

  "Here comes Vercingetorix," said Trebonius.

  Caesar turned to where the gates at the western end of the citadel's south walls had been flung open; the Gauls were flocking out to scamper down the steep western slope, armed with trestles, ramps, planks, ropes, grapples, screens.

  "At least we know they're hungry," said Quintus Cicero.

  "And that they know what's in the ground waiting for them," said Trebonius. "But they don't have enough gear stored up there; it's going to take them hours to cross the goads and lilies before they have to contend with the tombstones and the real fortifications. The cavalry fight will be finished before they reach us."

  Caesar whistled to Toes, which came to him immediately; he leaped up without a toss from the groom and adjusted his brilliant scarlet paludamentum so that it lay across the horse's rump. "Mount, everyone," he said. "Tribunes, keep your ears open. I don't want to have to repeat an order and I expect an order to reach its destination in exactly the same words you heard from me."

  Though Caesar had every foot soldier at his proper post and every foot soldier knew what was expected of him, he didn't expect an attack from the enemy foot on this first day; whoever was in command clearly expected that the enormous mass of horse would win for Gaul, and soften the Roman troops up for an infantry attack on the following day. But this unknown Gallic commander was clever enough to put a few archers and spearmen among his masses of cavalry, and when the two forces met it was these men on foot who gained ground for the Gauls.

  From noon until almost sunset the outcome of the battle was in doubt, though the Gauls thought they had it won. Then Caesar's four hundred original Germans, fighting together in one group, managed to mass and charge. The Gauls gave way, floundered into the huge number of unengaged horsemen behind them, and exposed the footbound archers and spearmen. Easy meat for the Germans, who killed them all. The tide turned, the German and Remi troopers all over the field pressed an attack, and the Gauls broke into retreat. They were pursued up to the Gallic camp, but Labienus, triumphant, ordered them back before foolhardy courage undid so much good work.

  Vercingetorix and his army, as Trebonius had predicted, were still trying to cross the goads and the lilies when the noises from the plain outside told them where victory had gone. They packed up the gear they had got together so painfully and went back up the hill to their prison on its top. But they didn't encounter the Mandubii innocents, who were still clustered on the eastern end of the mount and too terrified to venture near the sounds of war.

  The next day saw no action at all.

  "They'll come across the plain in the night," said Caesar in council, "and this time they'll use foot. Trebonius, take command of the outside fortifications between the north river and the m
iddle one of Labienus's three camps. Antonius, here's your chance. You'll command the outside fortifications from Labienus's middle camp to my spot on the slope of the southern mount. Fabius, you'll command the inside fortifications from the north to the south river in case Vercingetorix makes it across the goads, the lilies and the tombstones before we beat those attacking on the outside. They don't know what they're in for," Caesar went on with satisfaction, "but they'll have hurdles and ramps to bridge the ditches, so some of them might get through. I want torches everywhere on the ramparts, but held by soldiers, not fixed. The punishment for any man who mishandles his torch and sets fire to our works will be a flogging. I want all the scorpions and bigger catapultae on the towers, ballistae positioned on the ground where they can fire one-pounders further than our far trench. Those on ballistae can find their range while there's still daylight, but those firing bolts from the scorpions and grapeshot from the big catapultae will have to rely on torchlight. It won't be like picking off men at Avaricum, but I expect the artillery to do its best and add to Gallic confusion. Fabius, if Vercingetorix gets further than I think he will, call for reinforcements immediately. Antistius and Rebilus, keep your two legions inside your camp and watch for any sign that the Gauls have found our weakness."

  The attack from the outside came at midnight, and started with a huge bellow from many thousands of throats, the signal to Vercingetorix in the citadel that an assault had begun. The faint sound of trumpets drifting down from Alesia answered the bellow; Vercingetorix was coming out and attacking too.

  It was impossible for fewer than sixty thousand to man a double set of ramparts which together totaled some twenty-five miles. Caesar's strategy depended upon the Gauls' concentrating on particular areas, and sorties in the darkness were feasible only on the flat ground of the plain. Because he never underestimated his foe, Caesar didn't leave the rest of the perimeter completely undefended, but the main duty of the watch-towers was to spot enemy forces approaching and notify the high command at once. Two things governed his campaign in those last few frenzied days around Alesia: speed of troop movements and flexibility in tactics.