were longer than in winter, and
vice versa for the nights. – Galenus (
De San. Tuend., VI. 7) observed that at Rome the longest days were equal to fifteen equinoctial hours. Now, these fifteen hours only reckoning for twelve, it happened that towards the solstice each hour was more than a quarter longer than towards the equinox. This remark was not new, for it is found in Plautus. One of his personages says to a drunkard: “Thou wilt drink four good harvests of Massic wine in an hour!” “Add,” replied the drunkard, “in an hour of winter.” (Plautus,
Pseudolus, v. I, 302, edit. Ritschl.) – Vegetius says that the soldier ought to make twenty miles in five hours, and notes that he speaks of hours in summer, which at Rome, according to the foregoing calculation, would be equivalent to six hours and a quarter towards the equinox. (Vegetius,
Mil., I. 9.)
Pliny (Hist. Nat., VII. 60) remarks that, “at the time when the Twelve Tables were compiled, the only divisions of time known were the rising and setting of the sun; and that, according to the statement of Varro, the first public solar dial was erected near the rostra, on a column, by M. Valerius Messala, who brought it from Catania in 491, thirty years after the one ascribed to Papirius; and that it was in 595 that Scipio Nasica, the colleague of M. Popilius Lænas, divided the hours of night and day, by means of a clepsydra or water-clock, which he consecrated under a covered building.”
Censorinus (De Die Natali, xxiii., a book dated in the year 991 of Rome, or 338 A.D.) repeats, with some additions, the details given by Pliny. “There is,” he says, “the natural day and the civil day. The first is the time which passes between the rising and setting of the sun; on the contrary, the night begins with the setting and ends with the rising of the sun. The civil day comprises a revolution of the heaven – that is, a true day and a true night; so that when one says that a person has lived thirty days, we must understand that he has lived the same number of nights.
“We know that the day and the night are each divided into twelve hours. The Romans were three hundred years before they were acquainted with hours. The word hour is not found in the Twelve Tables. They said in those times, ‘before or after mid-day.’ Others divided the day, as well as the night, into four parts – a practice which is preserved in the armies, where they divide the night into four watches.” Upon these and other data, M. Le Verrier has had the goodness to draw up a table, which will be found at the end of the volume, and which indicates the increase or decrease of the hours with the seasons, and the relationship of the Roman watches with our modern hours. (See Appendix B.)
181
De Bello Gallico, I. 22.
182
They reckon from Villefranche to Remilly about 170 kilomètres.
183
Each soldier received twenty-five pounds of wheat every fortnight.
184
It is generally admitted that Bibracte stood on the site of Autun, on account of the inscription discovered at Autun in the seventeenth century, and now preserved in the cabinet of antiquities at the Bibliothèque Impériale. Another opinion, which identifies Bibracte with Mont Beuvray (a mountain presenting a great surface, situated thirteen kilomètres to the west of Autun), had nevertheless already found, long ago, some supporters. It will be remarked first that the Gauls chose for the site of their towns, when they could, places difficult of access: in broken countries, these were steep mountains (as Gergovia, Alesia, Uxellodunum, &c.); in flat countries, they were grounds surrounded by marshes (such as Avaricum). The Ædui, according to this, would not have built their principal town on the site of Autun, situated at the foot of the mountains. It was believed that a plateau so elevated as that of Mont Beuvray (its highest point is 810 mètres above the sea) could not have been occupied by a great town. Yet the existence of eight or ten roads, which lead to this plateau, deserted for so many centuries, and some of which are in a state of preservation truly astonishing, ought to have led to a contrary opinion. Let us add that recent excavations leave no further room for doubt. They have brought to light, over an extent of 120 hectares, foundations of Gaulish towers, some round, others square; of mosaics, of foundations of Gallo-Roman walls, gates, hewn stones, heaps of roof tiles, a prodigious quantity of broken amphoræ, a semicircular theatre, &c… Everything, in fact, leads us to place Bibracte on Mont Beuvray: the striking resemblance of the two names, the designation of Φροὑριον, which Strabo gives to Bibracte, and even the vague and persistent tradition which, prevailing among the inhabitants of the district, points to Mont Beuvray as a centre of superstitious regard.
185
The cavalry was divided into turmæ, and the turma into three decuries of ten men each.
186
The word sarcinæ, the original sense of which is baggage or burthens, was employed sometimes to signify the bundles carried by the soldiers (De Bello Gallico, II. 17), sometimes for the heavy baggage (De Bello Civili, I, 81). Here we must take sarcinæ as comprising both. This is proved by the circumstance that the six legions of the Roman army were on the hill. Now, if Cæsar had sent the heavy baggage forward, towards Bibracte, as General de Gœler believes, he would have sent with it, as an escort, the two legions of the new levy, as he did, the year following, in the campaign against the Nervii. (De Bello Gallico, II. 19.)
187
De Bello Gallico, I. 24. – In the phalanx, the men of the first rank covered themselves with their bucklers, overlapping one another before them, while those of the other ranks held them horizontally over their heads, arranged like the tiles of a roof.
188
According to Plutarch (Cæsar, 20), he said, “I will mount on horseback when the enemy shall have taken flight.”
189
The pilum was a sort of javelin thrown by the hand: its total length was from 1·70 to 2 mètres; its head was a slender flexible blade from 0·60 to 1 mètre long, weighing from 300 to 600 grammes, terminating in a part slightly swelling, which sometimes formed a barbed point.
The shaft, sometimes round, sometimes square, had a diameter of from 25 to 32 millimètres. It was fixed to the head by ferules, or by pegs, or by means of a socket.
Such are the characteristics presented by the fragments of pila found at Alise. They answer in general to the descriptions we find in Polybius (VI. 28), in Dionysius (V. 46), and in Plutarch (Marius). Pila made on the model of those found at Alise, and weighing with their shaft from 700 grammes to 1·200 kilog., have been thrown to a distance of 30 and 40 mètres: we may therefore fix at about 25 mètres the average distance to which the pilum carried.
190
Latere aperto, the right side, since the buckler was carried on the left arm. We read, indeed, in Titus Livius: “Et cum in latus dextrum, quod parebat, Numidæ jacularentur, translatis in dextrum scutis,” &c. (XXII. 50.)
191
Dio Cassius (XXXVIII. 33) says on this subject that “the Helvetii were not all on the field of battle, on account of their great number, and of the haste with which the first had made the attack. Suddenly those who had remained in the rear came to attack the Romans, when they were already occupied in pursuing the enemy. Cæsar ordered his cavalry to continue the pursuit; with his legions, he turned against the new assailants.”
193
De Bello Gallico, I. 26. – Till now the field of battle where Cæsar defeated the Helvetii has not been identified. The site which we have adopted, between Luzy and Chides, satisfies all the requirements of the text of the “Commentaries.” Different authors have proposed several other localities; but the first cause of error in their reckonings consists in identifying Bibracte with Autun, which we cannot admit; and further, not one of these localities fulfils the necessary topographical conditions. In our opinion, we must not seek the place of engagement to the east of Bibracte, for the Helvetii, to go from the Lower Saône to the Santones, must have passed to the west, and not to the east, of that town. Cussy-la-Colonne, where the field of battle is most generally placed, does not, therefore,
