13.
After this engagement, Caesar considered that neither
ought embassadors to be received to audience, nor conditions be accepted by him
from those who, after having sued for peace by way of stratagem and treachery,
had made war without provocation. And to wait until the enemy's forces were
augmented and their cavalry had returned, he concluded, would be the greatest
madness; and knowing the fickleness of the Gauls, he
felt how much influence the enemy had already acquired among them by this one
skirmish. He [therefore] deemed that no time for concerting measures ought to be
afforded them. After having resolved on those things and communicated his plans
to his lieutenants and quaestor in order that he might not suffer any
opportunity for engaging to escape him, a very seasonable event occurred,
namely, that on the morning of the next day, a large body of Germans, consisting of their princes and old men, came to the camp
to him to practice the same treachery and dissimulation; but, as they asserted,
for the purpose of acquitting themselves for having engaged in a skirmish the
day before, contrary to what had been agreed and to what indeed, they themselves
had requested; and also if they could by any means obtain a truce by deceiving
him. Caesar, rejoicing that they had fallen into his
power, ordered them to be detained. He then drew all his forces out of the camp,
and commanded the cavalry, because he thought they were intimidated by the late
skirmish, to follow in the rear.
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