Ch. 79

Title

Interea Commius reliquique duces quibus1 summa2 imperi permissa erat cum omnibus copiis ad Alesiam perveniunt et colle exteriore occupato non longius mille3 passibus ab nostris munitionibus considunt. 2 Postero die equitatu ex castris educto omnem4 eam planitiem, quam in longitudinem tria milia passuum patere demonstravimus, complent pedestresque copias paulum5 ab eo loco abditas in locis superioribus constituunt. 3 Erat ex oppido Alesia despectus6 in campum. Concurrunt7 his auxiliis visis; fit gratulatio inter eos, atque omnium8 animi ad laetitiam excitantur. 4 Itaque productis copiis ante oppidum considunt7 et proximam fossam cratibus9 integunt atque aggere10 explent seque ad eruptionem atque omnes casus11 comparant.

Chapter 80 - English 

 note - in the name of brevity, read this chapter in English

Caesar disposed the whole army on both faces of the entrenchments in such fashion that, if occasion should arise, each man could know and keep his proper station; then he ordered the cavalry to be brought out of camp and to engage. There was a view down from all the camps, which occupied the top of the surrounding ridge, and all the troops were intently awaiting the issue of the fight. The Gauls had placed archers and light-armed skirmishers here and there among the horsemen to give immediate support to their comrades if driven back and to resist the charge of the cavalry. A number of men, wounded unexpectedly by these troops, began to withdraw from the fight. When the Gauls were confident that their own men were getting the better of the battle, and saw ours hard pressed by numbers, with shouts and yells on every side — those who were confined by the entrenchments as well as the others who had come up to their assistance — they sought to inspirit their countrymen. As the action was proceeding in sight of all, and no deed, of honour or dishonour, could escape notice, both sides were stirred to courage by desire of praise and fear of disgrace. The fight lasted, and the victory was doubtful, from noon almost to sunset; then the Germans in one part of the field massed their troops of horse, charged the enemy and routed them, and when they had been put to flight the archers were surrounded and slain. Likewise, from the other parts of the field, our troops pursued the retreating enemy right up to their camp, giving them no chance of rallying. But the Gauls who had come forth from Alesia, almost despairing of victory, sadly withdrew again into the town.

  1. Quibus: dative, to whom ↩

  2. summa imperi permissa erat: the height of command had been entrusted ↩

  3. mille passibus: ablative of comparison with non longius, not more than one mile ↩

  4. omnem eam planitiem: this is your direct object of complent later on ↩

  5. paulum: adverbial accusative, a little bit ↩

  6. despectus: despectus, -us (m) – a view down from, basically a “bird’s eye view”. This gives the Gauls in Alesia a view to the camp of the newly arrived Gauls, which gives them hope and a morale boost ↩

  7. Concurrunt, considunt, etc: the Gauls within Alesia are the subject of these and the rest of the 3rd plural verbs in this chapter ↩ ↩2

  8. omnium animi: animi is nominative, the spirit of all of them ↩

  9. Cratibus: a cratis is another name for the wicker shields used normally to protect troops constructing siege works. They are used here to fill in the enemy ditch ↩

  10. aggere explent: they fill it with earth (aggere). The verb pleo, -ere - to fill (and it’s compounds, like ex-pleo and the adjective plenus, -a, -um) take an ablative of means ↩

  11. casus: casus, -us (m) – downfall, emergency, misfortune ↩

All material is taken, with gratitude, from The Latin Library as well as my own work, available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license CC BY-SA 4.0