43.
Caesar, observing that several of his men were wounded,
ordered the cohorts to ascend the mountain on all sides, and, under pretense of
assailing the walls, to raise a shout: at which the besieged being frightened,
and not knowing what was going on in other places, call off their armed troops
from attacking our works, and dispose them on the walls. Thus our men without
hazarding a battle, gained time partly to extinguish the works which had caught
fire, and partly to cut off the communication. As the townsmen still continued
to make an obstinate resistance, and even, after losing the greatest part of
their forces by drought, persevered in their resolution: at last the veins of
the spring were cut across by our mines, and turned from their course. By this
their constant spring was suddenly dried up, which reduced them to such despair
that they imagined that it was not done by the art of man, but the will of the
gods; forced, therefore, by necessity, they at length submitted.
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