Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/293

 OffiSAR. 285 of those who defended them, made it appear impregna- ble ; and meantime, from without the walls, he was assailed by a greater danger than can be expressed. For the choice men of Gaul, picked out of each nation, and well armed, came to relieve Alesia, to the number of three hundred thousand ; nor were there in the town less than one hundred and seventy thousand. So that Caesar being shut up betwixt two such forces, was compelled to pro- tect himself by two walls, one towards the town, the other against the relieving army, as knowing if these forces should join, his affairs would be entirely ruined. The danger that he underwent before Alesia,* justly gained him great honor on many accounts, and gave him an opportunity of showing greater instances of his valor and conduct than any other contest had done. One wonders much how he should be able to engage and defeat so many thousands of men without the town, and not be perceived by those within, but yet more, that the Ro- mans themselves, who guarded their wall which was next the town, should be strangers to it. For even they knew nothing of the victory, till they heard the cries of the men and lamentations of the women who were in the town, and had from thence seen the Romans at a dis- tance carrying into their camp a great quantity of buck- lers, adorned with gold and silver, many breastplates stained with blood, besides cups and tents made in the Gallic fashion. So soon did so vast an army dissolve and vanish like a ghost or dream, the greatest part of them being killed upon the spot. Those who were in Alesia, or with the summit of Mount Aux- Saone upwards, and the Meuse and ois, near Flavigny, not far from Moselle downwards, from Marseilles Dijon. The course of Roman oc- and Lyons to Treves and the cupation, interposing between Cen- Rhine. Alesia is near the head tral Gaul and the German compet- waters of the Saone. itors for its possession, seems to fol-
 * Alesia is identified with Alise, low the line of the Rhone and