17.
Having learned these things, he sends forward scouts and centurions to choose a
convenient place for the camp. And as a great many of the surrounding
Belgae and other Gauls, following
Caesar, marched with him; some of these, as was
afterwards learned from the prisoners, having accurately observed, during those
days, the army's method of marching, went by night to the Nervii,
and informed them that a great number of baggage-trains passed between the
several legions, and that there would be no difficulty, when the first legion
had come into the camp, and the other legions were at a great distance, to
attack that legion while under baggage, which being routed, and the
baggage-train seized, it would come to pass that the other legions would not
dare to stand their ground. It added weight also to the advice of those who
reported that circumstance, that the Nervii, from early times,
because they were weak in cavalry, (for not even at this time do they attend to
it, but accomplish by their infantry whatever they can,) in order that they
might the more easily obstruct the cavalry of their neighbors if they came upon
them for the purpose of plundering, having cut young trees, and bent them, by
means of their numerous branches [extending] on to the sides, and the
quick-briars and thorns springing up between them, had made these hedges present
a fortification like a wall, through which it was not only impossible to enter,
but even to penetrate with the eye. Since [therefore] the march of our army
would be obstructed by these things, the Nervii thought that the
advice ought not to be neglected by them.
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