31.
Whether Ambiorix did not collect his forces from cool deliberation,
because he considered he ought not to engage in a battle, or [whether] he was
debarred by time and prevented by the sudden arrival of our horse, when he
supposed the rest of the army was closely following, is doubtful: but certainly,
dispatching messengers through the country, he ordered every one to provide for
himself; and a part of them fled into the forest Arduenna, a part
into the extensive morasses; those who were nearest the ocean concealed
themselves in the islands which the tides usually form; many, departing from
their territories, committed themselves and all their possessions to perfect
strangers. Cativolcus, king of one half of the
Eburones, who had entered into the design together with
Ambiorix, since, being now worn out by age, he was unable to
endure the fatigue either of war or flight, having cursed Ambiorix
with every imprecation, as the person who had been the contriver of that
measure, destroyed himself with the juice of the yew-tree, of which there is a
great abundance in Gaul and Germany .
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.