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 Topic
“Pure intellectual stimulation that can be popped into Philosophy & Subtopic
the [audio or video player] anytime.” Intellectual History Modern Philosophy
—Harvard Magazine

The Modern

The Modern Intellectual Tradition

“Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s
best lecturers are being captured on tape.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“A serious force in American education.”

Intellectual Tradition:
—The Wall Street Journal
From Descartes to Derrida
Course Guidebook

Professor Lawrence Cahoone

College of the Holy Cross

Professor Lawrence Cahoone has given students fascinating

new perspectives on philosophy for more than 25 years.
Before joining the College of the Holy Cross, where he is
Professor of Philosophy, he taught at Boston University—
where he was twice honored with the Undergraduate
Philosophy Association Teaching Award. Professor Cahoone
is also the author and editor of numerous insightful books on
modern Western philosophy.

THE GREAT COURSES ®

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Chantilly, VA 20151-2299
Guidebook

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Phone: 1-800-832-2412
www.thegreatcourses.com
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Course No. 4790 © 2010 The Teaching Company. PB4790A
 PUBLISHED BY:

THE GREAT COURSES

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Chantilly, Virginia 20151-2299
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Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2010

Printed in the United States of America

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no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of
The Teaching Company.
 Lawrence Cahoone, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
College of the Holy Cross

P
rofessor Lawrence Cahoone was born in
1954 and grew up in a small town outside
Providence, Rhode Island. He received
his B.A. from Clark University, majoring in
Psychology and Philosophy, then received his
Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stony Brook University.
He lived in Brooklyn, New York, for many years
and, after graduate school, taught at several New York–area colleges. He
accepted a position at Boston University, where he taught from 1987 to 2000
and received the Undergraduate Philosophy Association Teaching Award
in 1991 and 1994. He joined the faculty at the College of the Holy Cross
in 2000.

Professor Cahoone has taught more than 50 different course subjects, in many
areas of philosophy. He is the author of Cultural Revolutions: Reason versus
Culture in Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad; Civil Society: The Conservative
Meaning of Liberal Politics; The Ends of Philosophy: Pragmatism,
Foundationalism, and Postmodernism; and The Dilemma of Modernity:
Philosophy, Culture, and Anti-Culture. He is the editor of From Modernism
to Postmodernism: An Anthology. He is currently working on The Orders of
Nature, a systematic naturalist metaphysics. His philosophical background is
primarily in recent European, American, and social and political philosophy,
with interests as well in postmodernism and the relation of metaphysics to
the natural sciences.

Professor Cahoone is married to the philosopher Elizabeth Baeten of Green

Bay, Wisconsin. They currently live with their two children, Isabel Rose
and Harrison, in southeastern Massachusetts. Both children are artistic and
musical; he and his wife do not know how that happened. ■

i
 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Professor Biography ............................................................................i

Course Scope .....................................................................................1

LECTURE GUIDES

LECTURE 1
Philosophy and the Modern Age.........................................................4
LECTURE 2
Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution .......................................7
LECTURE 3
The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes .....................................10
LECTURE 4
Locke’s Empiricism, Berkeley’s Idealism ..........................................13
LECTURE 5
Neo-Aristotelians—Spinoza and Leibniz ..........................................17
LECTURE 6
The Enlightenment and Rousseau ...................................................20
LECTURE 7
The Radical Skepticism of Hume .....................................................23
LECTURE 8
Kant’s Copernican Revolution ..........................................................25
LECTURE 9
Kant and the Religion of Reason ......................................................28
LECTURE 10
The French Revolution and German Idealism ..................................30
LECTURE 11
Hegel—The Last Great System........................................................32

ii
 Table of Contents

LECTURE 12
Hegel and the English Century .........................................................35
LECTURE 13
The Economic Revolution and Its Critic—Marx ................................38
LECTURE 14
Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason .....................................................40
LECTURE 15
Nietzsche’s Critique of Morality and Truth ........................................42
LECTURE 16
Freud, Weber, and the Mind of Modernity ........................................44
LECTURE 17
Rise of 20th-Century Philosophy—Pragmatism ................................47
LECTURE 18
Rise of 20th-Century Philosophy—Analysis ......................................50
LECTURE 19
Rise of 20th-Century Philosophy—Phenomenology..........................53
LECTURE 20
Physics, Positivism, and Early Wittgenstein .....................................55
LECTURE 21
Emergence and Whitehead ..............................................................57
LECTURE 22
Dewey’s American Naturalism ..........................................................60
LECTURE 23
Heidegger’s Being and Time ............................................................62
LECTURE 24
Existentialism and the Frankfurt School ...........................................65

iii
 Table of Contents

LECTURE 25
Heidegger’s Turn against Humanism ...............................................68
LECTURE 26
Culture, Hermeneutics, and Structuralism ........................................71
LECTURE 27
Wittgenstein’s Turn to Ordinary Language .......................................74
LECTURE 28
Quine and the End of Positivism ......................................................76
LECTURE 29
New Philosophies of Science ...........................................................78
LECTURE 30
Derrida’s Deconstruction of Philosophy............................................80
LECTURE 31
The Challenge of Postmodernism ....................................................82
LECTURE 32
Rorty and the End of Philosophy ......................................................85
LECTURE 33
Rediscovering the Premodern ..........................................................87
LECTURE 34
Pragmatic Realism—Reforming the Modern ....................................89
LECTURE 35
The Reemergence of Emergence ....................................................91
LECTURE 36
Philosophy’s Death Greatly Exaggerated .........................................93

iv
 Table of Contents

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Timeline ............................................................................................95
Glossary ...........................................................................................98
Biographical Notes .........................................................................109
Bibliography ....................................................................................121

v
vi
 The Modern Intellectual Tradition:
From Descartes to Derrida

Scope:

E
xperience tells me my desk is solid, but physics says it is mostly
empty space. How can both be right? Is the scientific view of the
world compatible with human experience—or more difficult, with
free will, moral responsibility, and religion? What is the mind’s place in a
physical world? Just what is the ultimate nature of reality, and what are the
limitations of our knowledge of it?

In this course, we explore modern and contemporary Western philosophy

of reality (metaphysics) and knowledge (epistemology), from the 17th
century through the 20th century, spanning movements such as empiricism,
rationalism, idealism, philosophy of language, logical positivism,
existentialism, pragmatism, phenomenology, and postmodernism. In the
process, we examine the thought of René Descartes, John Locke, Baruch
Spinoza, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
Charles Sanders Peirce, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gottlob Frege, Sigmund Freud,
Max Weber, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Martin Heidegger, John Dewey, Willard Van Orman Quine, Thomas S. Kuhn,
Richard Rorty, and Jacques Derrida, among others.

Philosophy and society affect each other. The contributions of philosophers

have an impact on a historical period, but it is also true that historical
changes drive philosophers to create novel theories. Modern Western
philosophy is certainly no exception. Its development was encouraged by
great social changes: the discovery of the Americas, the decline of feudal
aristocratic institutions, the growth of a commercial middle class, the
fragmentation of Christianity by the Protestant Reformation, the growth
of the nation-state, the scientific revolution, and waves of industrial and
technological change. Modernity is, as one of our philosophers has it, an
era of permanent change. Such has been mirrored in the philosophies of
the period.

1
 Modern philosophy rests on the development of ancient and medieval
philosophy. That is, the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, especially
Plato and Aristotle, had been passed down through the Roman Empire and,
in some cases through the Arabic world, before being taken up by medieval
Christian scholars. Many of the problems that concerned the medievals were
the same as those of ancient philosophers, namely, trying to understand
nature, human being, the moral life, the nature of beauty, and what a just
society should be. But in
other respects, philosophy in
the Middle Ages was quite
different. It was the business
of priests, one of the few
literate sectors of society, some
of whom belonged to holy
orders and taught in the great
medieval universities. They
communicated across national

© Photos.com/ © Getty Images/ Thinkstock.

boundaries with a universal
scholarly language, Latin,
the gift of the defunct Roman
Empire. And the medievals of
course had a concern foreign
to the ancients: What is the
nature of the monotheistic
Judeo-Christian God, and how Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) laid the
does God relate to all else? groundwork for later thinkers.

Modern philosophy, beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, marked a

major departure from medieval thought. Certainly the many social and
religious changes of the time helped to fragment the long-stable medieval
worldview, but the greatest blow came with the scientific revolution and
scientific speculations of early modern philosophers. These philosophers
tended to be freelance intellectuals, often supported by aristocratic or royal
patrons. Throughout the 17th-century Age of Reason, scientific change forced
philosophers to reconceive the world and how we know it. Science ripped the
Scope

wiring from the dominant medieval view of the universe, and rethinking was
needed to integrate the new science into a philosophy that could understand

2
it and its relation to ethics and religion. In the 18th-century Enlightenment,
these lofty notions begin to have real-world impact; the modern view that
science, political freedom, and education together yield social progress came
of age. But along with such progress came a new philosophical skepticism.
Then the great political revolutions of the late 18th century began to affect the
political world with new ideas. In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution
remade societies themselves, and there arose great historical philosophical
systems that tried to explain to modern people just how different they were
from ages past. Modern thought became self-conscious about being modern.
At the same time, a host of dissenters sprang up.

In the 20th century, Western philosophy became much more complicated. On

the one hand, as in all disciplines, philosophers became more specialized in
particular subfields. Logic and the physical sciences underwent a series of
revolutions. Those who continued to follow scientific changes had a much
more complex set of theories to deal with. Other philosophers abandoned the
concern for science altogether. Philosophy fragmented as different schools
of thought sought new foundations for knowledge in different places. Then
in the second half of the century, the whole attempt to seek the foundations
of knowledge, a project that had dominated philosophy from the 17th century,
began to be abandoned; with it, attempts at comprehensive or systematic
philosophies became discredited. Some claimed that philosophy itself was
at an end. But by the start of the new millennium, it was clear that reports of
philosophy’s death had been greatly exaggerated. We pursue this complicated
story from the beginning of the 17th century to the end of the 20th century. ■

3
 Philosophy and the Modern Age
Lecture 1

Does God exist? Is belief in a monotheistic God compatible with our

knowledge of the world, and particularly with the existence of evil?
Does history exhibit a pattern of development, or is it either random or
cyclic? Can all reality be reduced to the study of physics? All of these
questions are provided by the unique conditions of the modern world.

“P
hilosophy,” whose etymology means love of wisdom, can be
defined in a variety of ways. One way is to say that philosophy
is the most general or comprehensive type of inquiry; it leaves
nothing out except the particulars that other sciences and their own special
methods investigate. “First philosophy” refers to two philosophical subfields:
epistemology, or the theory of knowledge; and metaphysics, or the theory
of reality. These two, the focus of this course, constitute a very important
family of inquiries, like what is reality, and how do we know it?

Modern philosophy, beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, marked a major
departure from medieval thought. Throughout the Age of Reason in the 17th
century, scientific change forced philosophers to reconceive the world and
Lecture 1: Philosophy and the Modern Age

how we know it. The new science overturned the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic
science that had been woven together with Christianity. This period led to
the 18th century, the Enlightenment, when science, education, and political
freedom were believed to be the keys to remaking society. A sizable educated
public emerged, pressing for more freedom, and new ways of thought began
to have real-world impact.

Along with such progress came a new philosophical skepticism, which

led at the end of the 18th century to the rise of an idealistic philosophy that
dominated the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution remade societies
themselves, and there arose great historical systems that tried to explain to
modern people just how different they were from ages past. Whereas the
ideas of modernity had started in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was only in the
19th century that the lives of most ordinary people began to be transformed
by industrialism, science, and technology.

4
In the early 20th century, Western philosophy became more fragmented,
as different schools of thought sought new foundations for knowledge
in different places. In each new philosophical tradition, wave after wave
of radical philosophies put our knowledge of the world in question,
especially through the analysis of the
knowing mind’s dependence on language
It was only in and culture.
the 19 century
th

that the lives of Modern philosophy is filled with questions that

no other age has had to answer, partly because
most ordinary
modern thought is the thought of a civilization
people began to that invented things that no one had ever
be transformed invented before.
by industrialism,
In the second half of the 20th century, the attempt
science, and
to seek the foundations of knowledge, which
technology. had dominated philosophy from the 17th century,
was generally abandoned. There was a real
recognition that perhaps philosophy could not do
what it had always wanted to do: gain certain knowledge about the nature of
reality and the human prospect. By the end of the 20th century, philosophy
had pushed on to an even more radical question: How can we understand the
nature of human existence and the human hope for meaning in a universe
that, as understood by modern science, apparently has little place for such
meaning, and in which philosophical inquiry itself seems to have come
unmoored and philosophy seems to doubt itself? ■

Suggested Reading

Cahoone, From Modernism to Postmodernism.

Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy.
Randall, The Career of Philosophy.

5
 Questions to Consider

1. How might the role of philosophy in culture change over time?

2. If philosophy is the most general or comprehensive form of inquiry, then

what happens to it in an age of specialization?
Lecture 1: Philosophy and the Modern Age

6
 Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution
Lecture 2

How are we to make the new science compatible with religion and the
soul, the human mind, and freedom and morality—for the new science
is claiming that the universe is a set of material objects … that move
according to mechanical laws of motion. If that’s true … of the Earth
and of the Moon, it must be true of me as well. What does that have to
say about my mind, my freedom, my morality, and my soul?

T
he changes in philosophy are inseparable from the monumental
changes in Western society in the Middle Ages. Medieval Europe
was a collection of feudal states, locally ruled by landed aristocrats,
populated by vast numbers of illiterate peasants, and dimpled by a small
number of towns with merchants. The only literate members of society
were priests, and philosophy was done by priests in the great universities
of the largest cities. After the 13th century, one philosophical school of
thought became so widespread among the major universities that it simply
came to be called Scholasticism, meaning the
philosophy of the schools.
In Scholasticism,
God ruled a finite, Scholasticism combined Aristotle’s
closed universe in logic and metaphysics with Christianity.
which each natural Aristotle’s was a qualitative science of
natural kinds, each being an independent
kind served
physical existent, or primary substance. The aim
divine purpose. of Aristotelian science was to classify all types of
qualitatively different substances: to define them,
relate them, and delineate their causes. Aristotle’s
physics was combined by other ancients with Ptolemy’s geocentric view of
the cosmos. In Scholasticism, God ruled a finite, closed universe in which
each natural kind served divine purpose.

This decline of the Scholastic worldview in the 15th and 16th centuries had
many causes: the discovery of the New World, the Protestant Reformation,
and the rise of royal power and the middle class. But the strongest blow

7
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
were seen accumulating faggots, cutting long poles, and making wicker
screens.
On the morning of the fourteenth day of the siege only a few scattered parties
were seen on the surrounding hills, while in the valley the palisading formed
opposite to the ruined bridge and the raft bridge were alone still occupied by a
considerable number of troops. "It is certain," said Sigild, to the chiefs of the
tribes, "that the enemy is preparing to attack us. We must resist this assault
with vigour, and then we will take advantage of his exhaustion and disorder to
carry out our plan of flight." The besieger's preparations appeared formidable,
and the camp opposite the northern salient of the Oppidum presented a busy
scene. Sigild on his part neglected no means of resistance, though he
calculated on the arrival of the troops summoned to their relief in the evening.
He had the towers well supplied with stones and darts: on the ramparts he
strengthened the wattle parapet, and increased the number of inclines for
reaching it easily.
Both sides were preparing for a decisive conflict. The intrenchment made
behind the salient was well manned, and the Brenn trained his men to pass out
in a body through the two egresses formed at the extremities of the
intrenchment, so as to take the assailants in flank.
That day however, passed without fighting. At sunset the Brenn ascended one
of the towers, and attentively examined the horizon. His attendants thought he
was watching the movements of the enemy; he was, in fact, waiting for
Tomar's signal. The night passed, and no signal appeared.
Repressing all signs of the serious anxiety that had oppressed him through this
tedious night, the sun had no sooner arisen than the Brenn disposed his men at
the points he thought likely to be attacked.
The enemy had formed in two large bodies three hundred paces from the
Oppidum; they had accumulated in front of them an immense quantity of
faggots, beams, and wattles. The sun was already high above the horizon when
they began to move. First came a line of warriors under cover of wicker shields,
which protected them from darts and stones.
In this way they reached the counterscarp of the ditch, despite of missiles from
the towers. There they fixed the wicker shields, and behind these a great
number of the enemy bearing faggots gradually posted themselves. Then over
this screen they threw a great quantity of these faggots into the ditch. When
they judged that there were enough of them, they threw flaming brands upon
them.
The besieged had no means of counteracting this kind of attack. They
showered darts and stones in abundance upon the assailants, but only
wounded a few of them; nor did they seem to mind these missiles. The wind
blew from the north-west. The faggots were soon kindled, and the smoke and
sparks blinded the defenders. Three of the towers took fire, as well as the
wattling of the ramparts.
Sigild, calm and unmoved, had withdrawn his men behind the second
intrenchment. "The enemy," said he, "will not be able to pass till all is
consumed; that will take time; let him mount the rampart and cry victory. Then
will be our time for action." In fact, the green wood burned badly, and
produced much smoke; the besieged threw bushes and chips on the red-hot
faggots to feed the fire, and it continued burning. The enemy were becoming
impatient; the besieged looked on cheerfully. About the middle of the
afternoon, however, the fire went out at some points; the besiegers threw
earth and trunks of trees into the ditch, and, perceiving no defenders, thought
that the ramparts being intenable were abandoned. With shouts they rushed on
to the slopes, leaped the half-consumed wattling, and meeting with no
resistance, descended in a close body into the camp (Fig. 8). There they were
greeted by a sudden shower of darts and stones; but they unhesitatingly
rushed upon the intrenchment, which presented only a slight elevation and a
shallow ditch, thinking to carry it easily.

Fig. 8.

But the intrenchment was strong, and furnished with thick pointed stakes. The
assailants, urging forward and aiding each other, gained its ridge; they were
received with swords and pikes, and fell back dying upon their comrades;
others filled their places. The bodies of the wounded, which in some places
gradually filled up the ditch, afforded them a passage. Many of the enemy had
succeeded in throwing themselves into the midst of the defenders, and in
opening deep passages among them which were instantly occupied by the
most daring. The deep front which the Brenn had formed behind the
intrenchment was broken. Then it was that he unmasked the two egresses at
the extremities, sending out from both the troops of chosen warriors, who,
keeping close along the deserted rampart, fell upon the dense stream of
assailants. So compact was the crowd, and so great the pressure against the
intrenchment, that they had scarcely room to move. The two detachments
above mentioned were mowing away before them to enable them to advance.
But the enemy kept pouring in, and the space regained was immediately filled
with fresh assailants, who, disregarding the attacks on their flanks, pushed
furiously on to the centre.
The bodies of the slain and the faggots had filled the ditch for the length of a
hundred paces, and the loosened stakes formed but a slight protection to the
defenders. The noise of the attack brought a great number of women hurrying
to the spot. They might be seen with bare arms, raising stones above their
heads, and hurling them with shrill cries against the breasts of the assailants,
or despatching the wounded that had fallen inside the intrenchment with the
culinary wooden pestles used for pounding herbs and flesh in hollow stones. A
shout was raised, the crowd of assailants opened, and a hundred men were
seen steadily advancing, bearing on their shoulders an enormous trunk of a
tree, and surrounded by warriors armed with axes. This column overthrowing
all in its passage, whether friend or foe, made a wide lane in the intrenchment,
strewn with dead and wounded. The beam was already more than half way
through on the inside of the defences when the women ran in, and rushing like
she-wolves on the flanks of the column, passed between the warriors, and
clung to the legs of the bearers. The enormous beam swayed, toppled over,
and bore down in its fall both assailants and defenders by its vast weight. Sigild
profiting by the confusion, then dashed into the breach, followed by a troop of
warriors which he had not without difficulty kept in reserve. In his return he cut
himself a passage through the crowd of assailants. Seeing this movement, the
warriors who had issued from the two ends of the inner intrenchment
redoubled their efforts. Others rushed on to the rampart-walk by the side
issues of the intrenchment, and fell upon the enemies within or without the
rampart. The latter, cramped within this narrow space, and with their centre
broken through, were unable to use their arms. Some fell and were suffocated.
Those who were on the projecting part of the rampart began to turn and fly
into the midst of their advancing comrades, who not seeing what was taking
place behind the rampart, were for compelling them to return to the battle.
The crowd fell into confusion, and disregarding the voice of the chiefs,
accumulated in such masses in the ditch, the escarpments and the rampart-
walk, that it could act only by its weight, and offered itself to attack without
power of defence. Most threw down their bucklers which hampered their
movements.
Sigild kept advancing, and all the warriors not engaged in defending the
intrenchment formed behind him in a column which became denser each
moment. As soon as they were outside the intrenchment, these warriors turned
about and threw themselves on the bulk of the assailants, who were separated
into two masses. Caught as in a pair of pincers by Sigild's band, and by those
coming from the terminal egresses of the intrenchment, they were slaughtered
without resistance.
In vain did the chiefs of the enemy sound a retreat. The bulk of assailants, who
were massed between the rampart and the intrenchment, could neither
advance nor recede. Very few succeeded in rejoining their companions. Fatigue
alone stayed the defenders; it was no longer a combat but a massacre.
Although the warriors of the Val d'Avon had suffered considerable loss, the
success of the defence had intoxicated them, and they were eager to take
advantage of the disorder of the enemy to sally forth from the Oppidum and
fall upon them. Sigild was obliged to swear to them by the most terrible of
oaths, that their vengeance would be more effective by delay.
He told them, moreover, that the enemy were very numerous, and that the
losses they had suffered had not weakened them to such a degree as to render
them contemptible; that they were burning for revenge, and that to attack
them in their camp was to give them the very opportunity they desired. The
authority of the chiefs of the tribes of the Druids had, however, to be appealed
to, to keep the warriors within the Oppidum.
Night fell on the narrow battle-field covered with the dead and wounded. The
Brenn took re-possession of the ramparts, had the wattle parapet hastily
repaired, the enemy's wounded put to death, and his own carried into the
middle of the camp, where they were consigned to the care of the women;
then he ascended one of the unburnt towers of that front, hoping to perceive
Tomar's signal. But the night was hazy, and the fires of the enemy three or four
hundred paces distant were scarcely visible.
It was evident that Tomar could not have lighted his fire, or if he had lighted it,
it was impossible to see it through the haze.
The warriors after the laborious day, chilled by the autumn fog, were sleeping
around their fires. The cries of victory had been exchanged for a death-like
silence, broken only by the groans of some of the wounded who had been
forgotten.
The Brenn was considering whether it would not be wise to follow the plan
which he had indicated to the chiefs of the tribes—to leave the camp before
daybreak by crossing the river on a line of rafts, before the enemy had time to
effect a fresh assault. Provisions would certainly fail them soon. But how move
this multitude! The warriors needed rest. "One more day," he said to himself;
"and if I have no news of Tomar, I still must consider it." Then he went out and
ordered to the point attacked a body of warriors some hundreds strong, who,
having guarded the unbroken part of the ramparts during the assault, and
having taken no part in the conflict, were fresh and vigorous. Some women
even mounted the towers. He enjoined all of them to give the alarm vigorously
if they saw the enemy approaching the ramparts, so as to rouse the sleeping
warriors. He despatched several of his trusty friends to the other fronts of the
camp, with injunctions to watch the approaches, and to send out scouts
through the gates to ascertain any movements outside, and to light fires a little
way from the ramparts, so as to illuminate the immediate vicinity. He
proceeded towards the southern extremity of the Oppidum, and saw that the
little camp above the bridge that had been destroyed was guarded; but also
perceived through the mist the fires of the enemy in the valley opposite this
point.
It was midnight, and Sigild, exhausted by fatigue, returned to the northern side
and retired to rest beneath one of the towers. Some of his friends kept watch
outside around a large fire.
The Brenn was sleeping, when a hand placed on his shoulder awaked him. By
the light of a resin torch he saw Tomar standing by him. "Is it really thou,
Tomar?" said he, thinking he was dreaming. "It is I." "Alone?" "Alone here; the
warriors are down there; the fog rendered the signal useless: I am come."
"Hast thou been seen?" "Thy warriors sleep, no one has recognised me; a
woman told me thou wert here." "Why a day late?" "Ditovix has assembled a
thousand warriors." "Ah, Ditovix is with them." A cloud passed over the brow of
the Brenn. "He is a noble fellow," said he, after a pause. "Thou knowest that
we were attacked yesterday?" "I know it; I saw the field of the slain. The
enemy are numerous; they cannot turn back, to-morrow they will make
another attack—they are resolved to succeed." "And then?" "Then Ditovix is to
fall upon them before midday, when he knows the conflict is begun." "Well?" "If
I do not go back to Ditovix, or if he hears nothing from you, he will make the
attack." "Remain with us, then; thou art sure that we shall be assailed in the
morning?" "I passed along the enemy's camp—they are preparing for a fresh
assault; and there are warriors following the course of the river to attack the
west side also."
There was not a moment to lose. Sigild called his friends together, and
informed them that a final effort must be made—that the enemy, harassed on
their rear by neighbouring tribes, must either get possession of the Oppidum
that very day or perish. Tomar was represented as having passed the previous
day in the besiegers' camp, and become acquainted with the position of affairs.
No one doubted the veracity of Tomar, who, so far from exaggerating, never
told a quarter of what he knew.
Sigild scarcely had at his disposal, after the various assaults that had taken
place, three thousand men in a condition to fight, deducting the troop stationed
opposite the burnt bridge. He divided his forces into three bodies, one of about
twelve hundred men to defend the northern ramparts, the second of eight
hundred posted on the western rampart, and the third of a thousand men
which he kept in the centre of the Oppidum under his own direct command.
At the other posts around the Oppidum he placed men unaccustomed to fight
and unprovided with arms, but who were yet able to offer some resistance if
the enemy should present themselves. Women were posted in the towers away
from the points of expected attack. Their only duty was to hurl stones at the
assailants.
The day broke slowly owing to the thick vapours obscuring the sky;
nevertheless the warriors, encouraged by the words of the Brenn and by their
success the day before, awaited the enemy full of ardour. The Druids, informed
by Sigild of the arrival of help, traversed the camp announcing that the hour of
deliverance had come, and that the souls of those who should fall were secure
of the most glorious future. The Druidesses, with dishevelled hair, fastened
sacred boughs to the wattling of the ramparts.
A body of the enemy about two thousand strong now became distinctly visible
opposite the western front of the Oppidum, with the river at its back. Towards
the end of the first quarter of the day, this troop climbed the escarpment and
stopped an arrow's flight off. It then divided itself into eight parties, each of
which, provided with faggots, proceeded towards one of the towers. The
assailants were received with a shower of arrows and stones. They advanced
nevertheless without wavering, and heaped up the faggots at the foot of the
towers, not without considerable loss on their side; for the besieged hurled on
them over the parapets large pebbles and trunks of trees.
The assailants tried several times to set fire to the faggots, but the wood was
damp, and the defenders threw baskets of wet earth on the incipient flames.
The assault on the western side had continued for some time, when a vast
number of the enemy threw themselves on the northern salient, whose towers
were partly destroyed.
As on the previous day, they rushed in such a compact mass upon the salient,
that they were not long in effecting a breach.
Sigild then sent out five hundred men by the western gate to take the
assaulting column in flank, whilst he proceeded with the five hundred of the
reserve body straight to the salient. By the time he had reached this point the
enemy was already within the rampart, and his forces were sheltered behind
the intrenchment.
On seeing the heaps of the slain with which this quarter was strewed, the fury
of the enemy appeared to be redoubled, and they swept along like a flood
through a wide breach. Thinking themselves at last masters of the Oppidum,
they fell in disorder upon the troops led by Sigild. This body, disposed crescent-
wise, formed as it were a second intrenchment, which the assailants vainly
endeavoured to break through.
The five hundred men who had gone out by the eastern gate had reached the
left flank of the throng of besiegers, when a tremendous shout arose from the
enemy's camp.
Horsemen came galloping at the top of their speed towards the Oppidum. The
attacking host wavered. Assailed on their flank they made scarcely any
resistance, and a movement of disorderly retreat became more and more
clearly manifest.
Those who had gained a footing within the rampart, seeing themselves no
longer supported, or rather forced on by new-comers, turned and fled with all
haste towards the wood.
Sigild perceived that Ditovix was making his attack; then, collecting his warriors
and summoning all the men from the various parts of the defences, he formed
a dense column, and overthrowing the assailants who were betwixt him and
the rampart, passed it and rejoined the warriors already outside: "Now," cried
he, "forward! the enemy is ours; let not one escape."
The wretched besiegers, hemmed in between the warriors of Ditovix and those
led by Sigild, although twice as numerous as the forces of their opponents
united, became utterly disorganized, no longer thought of defending
themselves, and rushing now to one side, now to the other, met death
everywhere.
Many attempted to fly towards the river or the rivulet; but at an intimation from
Sigild, Tomar, who had remained in the Oppidum, sent the warriors posted on
the ramparts in pursuit of them.
The assailants on the western front, seeing the disorder into which their party
had been thrown on the plateau, had got down towards the banks. On that
side the warriors poured forth by the western gate, broke the bridge of rafts,
and fell upon the enemy hemmed in by the river.
Those of the besiegers who did not meet their death that day, perished of cold
or hunger in the endeavour to escape pursuit. A thousand, however, were
taken; among others those who guarded the palisade in the valley. They were
slain in the Némède in presence of the Druids and Druidesses. Most of the
bodies were thrown into the river, and for several days the dwellers on the
banks of the river found corpses entangled among the reeds.
 CHAPTER IV.
THE COST OF DEFENDERS.
Ditovix and his warriors had done their duty bravely; the tribes of the Val
d'Avon regarded them as saviours, and when the unfortunate besieged went
back to their devastated homes, they cheerfully divided the little that remained
to them with the new-comers.
In the enemy's camp were found provisions, the fruits of pillage, and upon the
bodies of the slain a little gold, and arms; and all this was equally distributed.
But winter was approaching, the fodder that had been collected was dispersed,
the animals lost or consumed, the stores of grain destroyed. The means of
subsistence had to be procured from the merchants, and the allies to be fed.
Scarcity prevailed in this valley, so prosperous a month before. Its saviours
were exacting, and began to ask where was that wealth and plenty which had
been promised them.
Quartered in the Oppidum with the warriors of Sigild, the followers of Ditovix
assumed a domineering air on the strength of the service rendered to the
inhabitants of the Val d'Avon, and whose importance they were incessantly
magnifying. Quarrels arose continually, and it needed all the influence which
Sigild had acquired among his people to moderate their angry feelings.
Ditovix abstained from interference in these disputes. When assistance had
been asked—he would say to Sigild,—his men had been promised wealth of all
kinds; how could he remonstrate with them if they were left to die of want?
Ditovix had brought a thousand warriors to aid the inhabitants of the Val
d'Avon; and, in spite of the losses suffered during the action, a month after the
dispersion of the enemy's army the number of these auxiliaries was found to
have unaccountably increased.
The Druids then interfered; they represented to Ditovix that though he and his
warriors had saved the families of the valley from total destruction, they were
reduced to poverty; that if they died of hunger the same fate would befal his
men, since there was nothing left to give them; and that in the common
interest it was necessary to come to some understanding.
Then Ditovix adopted a different attitude. "I should be willing to take my
warriors back," said he, "but I cannot. They would refuse to follow me, and
would give themselves up to excesses of all kinds. I can scarcely prevent their
proceeding from murmurs to violence. I had to promise much to induce them
to come, and they must be satisfied. Fighting has been their constant
occupation—for the most part in the countries beyond the mountains. They are
not fitted for tilling the soil or tending cattle. What do you propose?"—"What do
you ask?" said the Druids. "I will call together the leading men among them,
and explain the state of things; and will let you know what they want."
Ditovix and Sigild consulted together, for both saw the necessity of securing the
same advantages for the warriors of the valley and the auxiliaries, if they would
avoid a collision. The two chiefs called in some of the principal merchants who
frequented the valley, to induce them to furnish supplies in consideration of
certain guarantees very advantageous to them.
Matters being thus concluded between Sigild and Ditovix, they called their
adherents together, and had no difficulty in getting them to accept the
conditions on which they themselves had agreed.
These conditions were as follows:—The Oppidum was to be placed under the
guard of the warriors of the vale and the followers of Ditovix exclusively of all
others. Their number amounted to nearly three thousand. The inhabitants of
the valley were to give them one day in four to help them in executing the
works necessary for defence or for building their dwellings. A fourth part of
their crops and of their cattle was to be contributed by every family of the vale
for the maintenance of the three thousand warriors. As Sigild and Ditovix took
upon themselves to supply the wants of the people during the scarcity, all the
merchandise was to be deposited beneath the promontory near the bridge; and
the inhabitants were to receive and exchange it there, being forbidden under
the severest penalties to treat directly with the merchants.
Harsh as these fiscal arrangements were, they were obliged to accept them.
Ditovix, loaded with valuable presents, quitted the Oppidum, leaving his
followers, who accepted Sigild for their Brenn. The bridge was quickly restored,
and there arose at either end dwellings and storehouses for the merchants and
their merchandise. The chiefs of the warriors levied a toll on all the exchanges;
they had the monopoly of the market, as they bought up all the produce that
was exchanged.
Notwithstanding the pressure of fiscal burdens, nay, even as a result of it, the
inhabitants of the Val d'Avon secured a larger return from their land than
formerly, and they had a greater number of cattle. Their commerce became
more extensive, and the population increased. Many merchants came to live in
the town built at the two extremities of the bridge.
Thirty years therefore after the siege we have just described, the valley had
become highly prosperous; though the inhabitants smarted under the
domination of the warrior caste, and considered a quarter of their substance
and of their labour a great deal too much to give to men who lived in idleness,
and whose chiefs displayed an ostentatious luxury. Often, it is true, these
warriors would undertake some expedition, from which all did not return to the
valley; but those who came back safe and sound took care to enforce the
payment of past dues, and would then spend days in eating and drinking, and
were more exacting than ever.
They recruited from among the youth of the valley, and even from among
foreigners, for it was of importance to them that their numbers should not
diminish.
Gradually the remembrance of the events which had led to this state of things
faded from the minds of the population. The grandchildren of the followers of
Sigild and Ditovix regarded the privileges accorded to their ancestors as a
birthright; while the tillers of the soil, and the shepherds and craftsmen of the
vale, became accustomed to submission, and finally adopted the conviction that
they had come into the world to serve and support the men who inhabited the
Oppidum.
 CHAPTER V.
THE SECOND SIEGE.
Two centuries and a half had elapsed, and the Val d'Avon had become the
centre of a numerous and wealthy district of the Lingones. At the base of the
Oppidum, extending on both sides of the river, was a town-a mercantile depôt
of some importance; for as the river is navigable below the promontory, many
boats coming from the Sequani ascended thus far, laden with merchandise
brought from the south, and returned freighted with horses, tanned hides,
ironwork, smoked and salted meat, timber, grains, cheese, &c. &c.
The Oppidum was then partly covered with habitations and gardens belonging
to the descendants of Sigild and Ditovix's warriors. Its ramparts, oftentimes
repaired, were in imperfect condition; earthworks were to be seen there, with a
few towers of dry stone walling—principally on the north side. The part of the
town on the right bank was uninclosed, but that which stood on the southern
slopes of the promontory was surrounded by dry stone walls which reached the
ramparts of the Oppidum. A tête de pont, built of the same materials, appeared
on the right bank nearly contiguous to the houses of the part of the town built
on that side (Fig. 9).
 Fig. 9—The Town and Cité· d'Avon (War of the Gauls).

It must not be supposed that this town presented the aspect of our modern
cities. It consisted of a series of inclosures of wood or dry stone walls,
surrounding gardens, in the middle of which were built the houses—wooden
buildings thatched with straw or reeds.
On the southern point of the Oppidum, however—behind the Némède and
commanding the valley—there rose a structure of wood and stone, which was
conspicuous above the rampart (at A). It was the dwelling of the chief of the
warriors and his Ambactes,[2] who were numerous.
His name was Catognatus: rich by inheritance, he also farmed the tolls and
taxes over a wide district of the Lingones, having thus greatly increased his
wealth. By his liberality he had gained numerous partisans, and was always
surrounded by a troop of cavaliers equipped and fed at his expense. By family
alliances he had acquired considerable influence, extending even among the
Ædui, and took part in the wars which that people were waging against the
Arverni. He was able to muster five or six thousand warriors among his own
adherents and those of his Ambactes.
When Cæsar set out in pursuit of the Helvetian emigrants who persisted in
passing through the Roman province to spread themselves in Gaul, the Ædui
had promised to supply his troops with corn.
The Helvetians, and close upon their track the Romans, had already passed the
Avar,[3] and the promised grain had not arrived. The fact was, that certain
persons of influence among the Ædui were opposed to the Romans, and,
fearing that if once they got a footing in Gaul they would aim at subjugating it,
were using every effort to prevent the fulfilment of the promises made by the
magistrates of the principal city of the Ædui.
Catognatus was one of the chiefs most actively opposed to the Romans, and
had friends among Cæsar's auxiliaries who informed him of all that was going
on in the Roman camp. On his side he communicated to the Helvetii whatever
information he received respecting the movements or position of the Roman
army.
Cæsar having become acquainted with these manœuvres through Liscus, took
his measures accordingly; and after having in great part annihilated the
emigrant horde of the Helvetii, when the scattered remnant sought refuge
among the Lingones, he first sent couriers to prohibit the latter from aiding or
sheltering the fugitives: then, after allowing his troops three days to recruit
themselves, he pushed on again in pursuit of the Helvetii. These quickly
submitted; but Cæsar had not forgotten the share which Catognatus had had in
the matter of supplies promised by the Ædui, and while he was treating with
the latter with a view to relieve part of Gaul from the tyranny of Ariovistus, he
despatched a legion and some auxiliary troops to assure himself of the
disposition of the Lingones, to seize Catognatus and the Helvetii whom he had
harboured, and, if necessary, to chastise the inhabitants of the Val d'Avon—i.e.,
if they persisted in holding to their chief.
Catognatus, who had his informants in Cæsar's army, was soon warned of the
danger that threatened him.
He had, in fact, given an asylum to some Helvetian fugitives, thereby raising
the number of his men to nearly six thousand, supposing the warriors of the
Val d'Avon willing to make a stand against the Roman troops. Assembling his
Ambactes, therefore, and their principal retainers, he urged on their
consideration the inconsiderable size of the Roman army; the fact that it was
already distant from the frontiers of the province, and had been weakened by
preceding conflicts; that though it had defeated the Helvetii in the open field,
the issue would have been different if the enemy had been posted behind
intrenchments; that they ought not to suffer the Romans to busy themselves
with their affairs or differences, since they, the Gauls, did not interfere with the
affairs of the provinces; that the Romans might justly prohibit the Helvetii from
passing through Roman territory, but that they infringed the independence of
their neighbours and allies when they presumed to keep order among them
without being formally requested to do so; that he knew, moreover, that the
Ædui, devoted though they seemed to the Romans, were only waiting for an
opportunity to chastise their presumption; that Cæsar was going to divide his
forces, and that if the men of the Val d'Avon resisted the troops sent against
them, this would be the signal for a general rising which would be fatal to the
Roman armies. He told them also that they ought to remember that their
ancestors made the Romans tremble even in Rome, and that it was disgraceful
to submit to the dictation of those whom they had formerly conquered.
Catognatus also adopted the stratagem of sending emissaries to the houses of
the people under the guise of travellers. They professed to have seen Cæsar's
troops, and to have found them half-starved and utterly destitute; they
affirmed that the best of them had been obliged frequently to retreat before
the Helvetii; that they were reduced by three-fourths, and that the remainder
of their army was composed of raw recruits and of auxiliaries, who were only
waiting for an opportunity to return home.
These reports, spread through the valley, were still more efficacious than
Catognatus's discourse; for the Gauls have always been inclined to lend a
willing ear to representations that flatter their desires, without inquiring
whether they are true or false. If any of the older men shook their heads and
said that it would be as well to know what was asked of them before assuming
a hostile attitude, they were treated with contempt. Catognatus, seeing all the
people inclined to resist, had trunks of trees mingled with earth and pebbles
heaped up before the weaker points of the Oppidum.
They re-dug the ditch before the walls of the left bank and surrounded with
palisades the part of the city that had remained unprotected on the right bank.
In addition to this, Catognatus had a cutting dug at a hundred paces from the
Oppidum between its northern salient and the plateau. These works, hastily
undertaken, were still unfinished when the arrival of the Roman troops was
announced. The infantry were advancing in good order in the valley on the left
bank, while the cavalry followed the hills on the same side. Not a man quitted
the ranks to go and pillage the houses, and neither songs nor shouts were
heard. The helmets of polished bronze worn by the legionaries were shining in
the sun, and, seen from a distance, the troop resembled a long fiery serpent
uncoiling in the meadows.
From the elevated tower occupied by Catognatus the slightest movements of
the Romans were visible. They soon deployed along the rivulet, their left being
against the river and their right protected by the cavalry on the hills. The
lieutenant, Titurius, then sent an envoy into the city. He was commissioned to
announce to the magistrates that the Romans appeared as friends, but that
since Catognatus had given an asylum to some of the Helvetii, and had
notoriously exercised his power to prevent the Ædui from furnishing the
supplies promised to the army commanded by Cæsar, and which had come into
Gaul with the sole purpose of hindering the Helvetii from devastating,—that is,
strictly in the character of allies,—they must deliver up the said Catognatus and
the Helvetian refugees to the lieutenant Titurius without delay: that if this was
done the Romans would only demand provisions for ten days,—a reasonable
requirement, as between allies; after which they would return to the Ædui.
Catognatus, surrounded by his principal Ambactes, was present in the assembly
of the magistrates when the envoy delivered his commission. Seeing them
hesitating, he replied to the summons as follows: "Here is the object of your
search. I am Catognatus; I have afforded an asylum to certain of the Helvetii,
who are my friends, and whose hospitality I myself have shared; I am allied
with the Helvetii as I am allied with the Romans. If the Romans had been
beaten by the Helvetii, and any of them escaped from massacre had taken
refuge here, would they consider it honourable for me to give them up to their
enemies, had they come here in arms to demand them? If such was the usual
conduct of the Romans, I should blush to be their ally. To the vague accusation
respecting the influence I am alleged to have exercised over the policy of the
Ædui, I have nothing to reply. The Ædui act according to their own good
pleasure, and it is not for me to interfere with them. The Romans should
demand satisfaction of the Ædui if they have not fulfilled their engagements. As
to myself, the Romans have asked nothing of me, and I have promised them
nothing: what business have they here? If they had a message to send me,
was it necessary that the bearer should be escorted by a legion? Is this how
allies should treat each other? Go and tell the legate that we are at home here;
that if he comes as a friend we shall treat him as a friend; but that if he
presumes to dictate to us and treat us as children, we shall answer him as men
who know how to act for themselves." "He is right! he is right!" was the
unanimous exclamation of the Ambactes; and overwhelming the envoy with
insults, they thrust him out. Catognatus had to interpose to prevent the crowd
from tearing him to pieces.
Titurius was instructed to show the greatest possible consideration for the
inhabitants, that the neighbouring peoples might not be irritated; and to
adhere scrupulously to the terms of the demand transmitted by the envoy—
simply to require the surrender of the Helvetii and Catognatus.
On the other hand, his orders were to accomplish the expedition with all
possible despatch, as Cæsar had but a few legions with him. The legate,
therefore, refrained from investing the city and the Oppidum, and, as he had
no reason to fear the immediate arrival of help to the enemy, he judged it best
to direct all his efforts to the plateau, hoping to take the fortress by a vigorous
effort. It was, however, to be feared that if the Oppidum was taken by assault,
Catognatus and a part of the Helvetii might succeed in escaping.
At night, therefore, the legate was devising a plan by which, with the eight
thousand men or thereabouts of which his force consisted, he might at the
same time prevent all means of escape from within, and make a vigorous
attack upon the Oppidum, when a centurion came to tell him that some of the
inhabitants requested a private interview with him.
The inhabitants in question were magistrates of the lower town.... Falling at
Titurius's feet, they told him with tears that it was with no good will they
submitted to the dominion of Catognatus and his warriors; that the demands
presented that day to the assembly by the envoy were nothing but reasonable,
since the Helvetii had entered Gaul only as marauders, and that Catognatus
had used his influence to embarrass the march of the Romans their allies, who
had come to destroy the Helvetii; that they the magistrates had no authority
over the warriors, and very little over the populace, enthralled as they were,
and deceived by the agents of Catognatus; that this chief and his men had
taken refuge in the Oppidum, and the part of the town situated at the
extremity of the promontory, abandoning the part built on the right bank; that,
in fact, they entreated the legate to occupy that part of the city with his troops,
who would be well received, and who, they hoped, would not give themselves
up to any excesses, since they were treated as friends.
Titurius raised them, and, speaking kindly to them, promised to do what they
asked; but, fearing treachery, stated that he must keep them as hostages. The
magistrates surrendered themselves to his disposal, declaring that his troops
would find the gates open, the posts unoccupied, and the inhabitants in great
excitement, but by no means hostile, if they were well treated.
On their arrival, the Romans had instituted a ferry on the river below the town.
A reconnoitring party despatched immediately reported that the egresses were
in fact free, and that no one appeared behind the walls.
Titurius therefore invested all the egresses, and towards midnight a thousand
men selected from among the auxiliaries were in possession of the lower town,
without any sound of disturbance or sign of disorder. In the morning the Gallic
warriors posted at the head of the bridge saw the Romans before them, and
were vehement in their abuse of the inhabitants, threatening to burn the town
as soon as they had driven away the Roman troops. Meantime, the Romans
demolished several houses adjoining the head of the bridge, and made use of
the débris to form a semi-circular intrenchment of contravallation, ending
against the river at its two extremities. Titurius established some posts along
the rivulet; and on the larger stream above the city he constructed a bridge of
boats guarded by two posts at either end. This accomplished, he removed with
the bulk of his troops to the northern part of the plateau.
Next day he examined the position, after having filled up a part of the
intrenchment; but Catognatus had done away with the egresses of the
northern front, and completed the rampart at this point. The assault was
vigorously repulsed. This success emboldened the besieged, and they began to
overwhelm the legate with sarcasms. Seeing that he could not take the
Oppidum by storm, in presence of a determined and numerous body of men,
he resolved upon a regular siege.
Although the cutting dug by the defenders between the Oppidum and the
plateau was only a bowshot from the rampart, in a few hours it was almost
entirely filled up, consolidated, and levelled. Then Titurius had a great number
of trees felled in the woods extending along the northern plateau, and brought
in front of the camp.
This wood being duly prepared, an agger was commenced fifteen paces from
the ramparts, in spite of the darts and stones hurled by the besieged.
This agger consisted of a terrace about a hundred paces long, ten feet high
and twenty deep, with a gap in the middle twelve paces wide. From the two
sides of this interval extended at right angles two galleries (vineæ), solidly
constructed with trunks of trees and covered in; these galleries were about a
hundred paces long. The agger was made of trunks of trees piled up, mingled
with earth, with inclines for reaching the summit. This was a work of some
days; and as during that time the Romans made no attack, and thought only of
protecting those engaged in it from the missiles thrown from the ramparts, the
besieged did not cease to ridicule them (for they were within hearing), asking
them if they were intending to build a city and pass the winter there. But one
morning the warriors of the Oppidum saw a wooden tower rising at the
extremity of the two galleries. This tower, the woodwork of which had been
prepared beforehand, was set up within the day; its summit rose more than ten
feet above the top of the towers of the rampart (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10.

The Gauls contemplated this structure with uneasiness, although they did not
comprehend its importance; so Catognatus resolved to set fire to the works
during the night. With this view he had placed on the ramparts, behind the
wattling, barrels filled with pitch, grease, and dry sticks; then he placed two
bodies in readiness to go out by the eastern and western gates, provided with
vessels full of resin, tow, and grease. These troops were to make their way
along the outside of the defences, and simultaneously attack the flanks of the
besiegers, while the men posted on the ramparts were to remove a portion of
the wattling, and to roll the barrels, after setting them on fire, against the
agger whose front was raised on the counterscarp of the ditch.
 Fig. 11.

The Romans had been able to see these preparations from the summit of the
tower; moreover, they stationed a strong guard on the flanks of the plateau
every evening. The legate at nightfall had these points protected by stakes, and
had a quantity of stimuli (Fig. 11) driven into the ground outside. About the
third hour of the night the besieged issued noiselessly from the two gates and
came within half a bowshot of the Roman posts. At a signal given from the
interior, the two bodies rushed at once on the besiegers' flanks. But even
before they could reach the palisades, many of them, wounded by the stimuli,
fell uttering cries of pain. Those who reached the besiegers' posts, thinned by
the darts showered upon them, and hesitating on seeing so many of their party
fall, were more inclined to fly than to continue the attack when they saw
themselves in their turn taken in flank and rear by the besiegers. The
defenders on the ramparts, whom the darkness of the night prevented from
seeing clearly what was taking place, and not knowing whether the confusion
arose from the flight of the Romans or of their own men, dared not discharge
stones and arrows.
Meanwhile the lighted barrels were being rolled in front of the galleries, which
had already begun to take fire. By the glare of the flames they could see the
Roman soldiers mount on the terrace carrying baskets full of wet earth, which
they threw on the barrels; and the defenders killed or wounded many of them.
At this moment some of the fugitives who had taken part in the two sorties, re-
entered the camp calling out that they were pursued by the Romans.
Catognatus had barely time to send troops to defend the two egresses and to
protect the retreat of his men. He himself took up a position in the centre of
the Oppidum with a chosen band, that he might be able to assist the quarter
that should be most closely pressed. Aided by this diversion the Romans, less
harassed by darts from the rampart, were able to extinguish the fire. They took
advantage of the last hours of the night to advance the tower along the
galleries by means of rollers, as far as the edge of the agger, and in the
morning the warriors of the Val d'Avon were not a little surprised to see this
ponderous wooden structure commanding the whole rampart and the towers of
the defences.
At dawn, showers of stones and arrows hurled from the top of the besiegers'
tower prevented them from approaching the defences, and two catapults swept
the part of the Oppidum in front of it with enormous missiles, which, hissing
through the air, killed or shattered to fragments all they encountered. Two
onagri overwhelmed with stones the scaffolding set up by the defenders on
their front to attack the agger, and smashed it in pieces.

Fig. 12.

A bridge was soon let down on the rampart from the face of the tower, and the
Romans, advancing in good order, took possession of the defences (Fig. 12).
Catognatus and his retainers, to the number of five or six hundred, had not
expected this turn of events, and had taken refuge in the stronghold built
beyond the Némède, at the southern part of the Oppidum.
When the besiegers, whom no one thought any longer of resisting, were drawn
up in force on the rampart, and had occupied the towers—killing those who
occupied them rather as refugees than as defenders—they separated into three
large bodies: the two wings marched along the inner side of the rampart,
taking one after another the towers upon it, and entered the enclosures and
houses, killing those who endeavoured to resist. The centre troop, drawn up in
the form of a wedge, marched right on and swept the plateau. The unfortunate
defenders fled, and crowded together along the side of the Némède. Many
endeavoured to gain the stronghold, but the entrances were closed and the
bridge destroyed. Catognatus was thus abandoning the greater part of his
followers and leaving them to the mercy of the enemy. The warriors of the Val
d'Avon threw away their arms, and with out-stretched hands implored quarter
of the Romans. Titurius then stayed the slaughter, and told the defenders that
if they gave up Catognatus and the Helvetii who had taken refuge among
them, their lives should be spared. Pointing to the lofty fort, beyond the
Némède, the besieged replied that it was not in their power to surrender
Catognatus, who had taken refuge there with a small number of his followers,
but that they would immediately deliver up the Helvetii still among them. The
legate wishing to act with mildness, according to Cæsar's instructions,
contented himself with this assurance. The Helvetii were immediately delivered
up, and the people of Avon, disarmed and stripped of their warlike
accoutrements, were sent back to the valley, with the exception of a hundred
hostages. The few chiefs, however, who had remained among them, having
been put in fetters, were to be kept, with a view to being placed at Cæsar's
disposal. As to the Helvetii, who numbered five or six hundred, Titurius kept
some as hostages; the rest, having been disarmed, were ordered to return to
their country by the most direct route: provisions for the journey were
distributed among them.
The buildings of the Némède and its grove prevented Catognatus from seeing
what was going on beneath its walls, but as he no longer heard war-cries nor
the clash of arms, he concluded that his men had surrendered. As for himself
and his retainers, knowing that they had no mercy to hope for, they prepared
themselves for defence, and resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
A deep ditch partly cut in the rock separated the stronghold from the Némède.
The defences consisted of an enclosure, made in Gallic fashion, of trunks of
trees alternating with layers of stone surmounted by wattling. A large
quadrangular tower, constructed in the same way, enclosing four stories, and
terminated by a roof of reeds covering a crenelation, served as a place of
retreat. Within the enclosure were wooden huts for the garrison; as the tower,
which was only twenty paces wide by twenty deep, and whose walls were thick
(about three paces), could barely contain a hundred men.
Titurius reconnoitred the approaches. The ditch interrupted all communication
with the Oppidum, and ended against its ramparts. Towards the south, the
stronghold rose immediately over the escarpment, which on this side was so
steep that no ditch had been required. But a palisade on the outside, fixed in a
mound, prevented approach to the base of the stronghold. As stated before,
the walls of the upper town occupying the southern slopes extended to the
rampart of the Oppidum. But these walls had been abandoned by the warriors
of Catognatus who had taken refuge in the stronghold. On quitting the upper
town they had set fire to the bridge, seeing which, the Romans posted opposite
the head of the bridge had passed this latter without meeting any resistance,
and had succeeded in extinguishing the flames. The bridge was promptly
repaired.
The legate, therefore, effected a communication with his troops in the northern
quarter, who were then occupying the upper town, and completely invested the
stronghold. Time pressed, and as he had already lost twelve days before the
Oppidum, haste was necessary.
In the first place, he sent one of the Gallic prisoners to hold a parley with the
defenders of the stronghold. He promised to spare their lives if they would give
up their chief, and the Helvetii that might be among them. If, on the other
hand, the attack was once commenced, they must expect to be all put to the
sword.
The messenger was received by a shower of stones, and returned bleeding to
the legate, who could no longer hesitate. The order was given to fill up the
ditch, and to speed the work; the centurions, employing threats and blows at
need, compelled a good many of the vanquished to carry faggots and earth.
Protecting themselves with mantelets, the Romans suffered only trifling loss,
for the besieged had but few missiles. Besides, Titurius had brought up the
engines of war, demolished those parts of the wall of the Némède which might
embarrass the operations, and posted the best slingers and archers on the
flanks, so that the rampart of the stronghold, riddled with projectiles, was
scarcely tenable. At night the filling-in of the fosse was consolidated by
timberwork, on which were spread brushwood and turf.
At the first hour of the day a cohort advanced in slow march on the ground
thus made, forming the testudo (Fig. 13).
 Fig. 13

Some of the defenders endeavoured to resist; but they were few in number,
and exposed to the projectiles which the auxiliary troops of slingers and archers
incessantly discharged upon them in an oblique direction. The rampart was
soon taken; but darts, stones, and flaming balls of pitch and tow were hurled
upon the assailants from the tower, and if they attempted to approach it,
planks and pots filled with gravel. It was necessary, therefore, to set up screens
on the rampart even; for to abandon that would have revived the courage of
the defenders. Here the Romans lost several men, and many were wounded. To
set fire to the tower was scarcely possible; for constructions of timber mingled
with stone do not readily take fire Titurius, however, placed one of his catapults
so that the projectiles thrown by it should reach the roof of the tower; and
when satisfied that this object was attained (it was towards sunset), kept up a
continuous discharge of burning missiles—consisting of darts wrapped in tow
saturated with oil and tar—on the roof, which soon caught fire. The legate
made sure that as the floors of the tower were of timber, the roof when it fell in
would communicate the fire to the ground story; and in fact, the roof had not
long fallen in when a dense column of smoke, accompanied by sparks which
appeared as if issuing from a vast chimney, shot forth from the summit of the
tower.
Catognatus, and those of his followers who had crowded into the stronghold,
despairing of maintaining it, then opened a concealed aperture, which gave
egress on the sides of the upper town; and without bucklers, a sword in one
hand, a flaming brand in the other, rushed with terrible cries on the Romans,
who were keeping guard outside the palisading on that side, and who,
surprised by this column of warriors, opposed but a feeble resistance, and
made an attempt to rally and fall upon the flanks of the fugitives. It was night,
and the slopes were steep, occupied here and there by houses and palisading
enclosing gardens. The Romans were ill-acquainted with the ground, and often
got into places whence there was no exit.
Catognatus and his followers, reduced to about two hundred men, rapidly
descended the paths with which they were familiar; and in passing threw their
brands upon the thatched roofs, or into the barns filled with hay and straw. The
inhabitants rushed out in bewilderment, not knowing whence the attack came.
Seeing parties of Romans passing by seeking egress, entering the gardens and
the houses, and breaking through the gates and barricades to reach
Catognatus and his men, they cried "Treachery!" and threw stones at them,
thinking their object was to burn and massacre. The women, with dishevelled
hair, threw themselves in their path, covering them with abuse; others hurled
furniture and whatever came to hand upon them from the windows. Rendered
furious by these obstacles, by the failure of their pursuit, and the attacks of the
inhabitants, and seeing it was useless to reason with these terror-stricken
people, the Romans killed all they encountered.
Hearing this outcry, and seeing the sky lit up by the flames, the legate guessed
what had happened, and sent two cohorts over the ramparts on the town side,
with injunctions to march with orderly pace down the paths, rallying the Roman
troops, and driving the inhabitants before them. At the same time, he sent a
centurion, by the bridge of boats which he had formed across the river above
the town, to warn the Roman detachments that could be got together in the
lower town and at the gateway of the bridge, not to let any one pass out from
the upper town.
Catognatus, with most of his warriors, had in fact got as far as the bridge; but
he found it guarded by a body of Romans. He attempted to cut his way through
them; but as the bridge was somewhat long, the enterprise was hazardous.
The commander of the guard, an old soldier, had marshalled his men at the
first alarm, seeing that this passage must be defended at any cost. Barricading
the entrance with all the materials they could collect, they awaited the fugitives
behind their bucklers. When Catognatus presented himself and—uttering the
war-cry—sought to force his way through, he was met at close quarters with a
shower of darts. The whole foremost rank of the fugitives fell right and left: the
others, rendered frantic by despair, passed over their bodies and threw
themselves upon the front of the Romans, who had now taken to their swords.
A fearful struggle commenced, lighted only by the gleam of the conflagration.
The Romans, having the glare in their faces, aimed badly, while the Gallic
warriors knew where to strike.
The column of fugitives began to melt before the Roman front, whose gaps
were immediately filled up. Then came up the centurion, with fifty men whom
he had rallied. Seeing themselves supported, the Roman guard took the
offensive, and pressed on to the platform of the bridge, hewing down the
remnant of the defenders of the Oppidum like bushes in a thicket. Not one of
these warriors drew back; all met their death in the pass through which they
had thought to make their way.
It was with great difficulty that order was restored in the upper town, and only
when they saw the Romans extinguishing the fires did the inhabitants begin to
understand what had happened.
Next morning the body of Catognatus was found lying on the bridge; his head
was sent to Cæsar, and the expedition being terminated, Titurius led back the
legion and the auxiliaries to their quarters among the Ædui.
 FOOTNOTES:
[2] Fideles—warriors devoted to the chief.
[3] The Saône.
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