Ceasar’s de Bello Gallico

Book III; Sections 1-16-Danny Rothermich

Section 1

• Caesar sends Galba with the Twelfth legion and some cavalry to the regions of the Nantuates, Veragri, and Seduni

• His purpose is to keep the passage over the Alps open

• He fought through the region and eventually settled at Octodurus and took half of the village for his army to camp in during the winter

Sections 2 & 3

• One day he learned from his scouts that the Gauls in other half of the village had cleared out on the night

• They planned to attack the Romans from the hills surrounding the village

• The Roman defenses were not quite finished yet and they had a small supply of grain left, but they decided to defend the camp

Sections 4 & 5

• The enemy came down from the hills with great numbers and speed

• The battle went on for more than 6 hours straight and the Romans were running out of weapons

Section 6

• Publius Sextius Baculus and Gaius Volusenus come up with an idea to try a sudden sortie

• The army complied and they encircled the enemy and slaughtered them

• More then one third of the 30,000 enemy Gauls were killed

• Galba then burned the village and returned to the Province

Sections 7-10

• Caesar believes that the Gauls will be subdued after this defeat but he is wrong

• Crassus and the 7th legion are wintering in the Andes but his grain supply is running low so he sends out ambassadors to collect from the Gauls

• The Veneti take the ambassadors hostage and convince other Gallic tribes to join their alliance

• The Veneti are a large naval power so Caesar has ships built in preparation of a battle

Section 11

• Caesar divides his forces to shutdown rebellion• T. Labienus is sent with the cavalry to control the

Belgians• T. Sabinus is sent to fight the Venelli, Curiosolites,

and Lexovii with three legions• Crassus with 12 cohorts is sent to deal with the

southern Gauls• Brutus and Caesar take on the Veneti; Brutus with

the naval forces and Caesar with four legions

Section 12

• Caesar explains the difficulty in taking over the Veneti in this section

• Approach by land is difficult because of the sections of open water

• Approach by sea is difficult because the ships can get caught in the tide and their aren’t many ports to help them navigate

Sections 13-15

• The Veneti ships are superior to the Roman ships• Their hulls are to strong to destroy by ramming

and they are built too tall to attack with projectiles• They use an unconventional tactic to defeat them• They surround the Veneti ships and tear down the

riggings and the Romans are free to board• Luckily for Caesar the ocean calms down during

the battle and the Veneti ships have trouble fleeing so most of them are destroyed

Section 16

• Because of their gross injustice, Caesar decides he needs to be hard on the Veneti and kills their entire senate and the rest of them are sold into slavery

Caesar’s Style

• He presents every battle cleverly. He always says that the enemy is strong and the battle will be hard, but then compliments some aspects of the Roman army

• All of the information is reported by Caesar or Caesar’s officers so they is definitely some bias