Eo de media nocte Caesar, isdem ducibus usus qui nuntii ab Iccio venerant, Numidas et Cretas sagittarios et funditores Baleares subsidio oppidanis mittit; quorum adventu et Remis cum spe defensionis studium propugnandi accessit, et hostibus eadem de causa spes potiundi oppidi discessit. Itaque paulisper apud oppidum morati agrosque Remorum depopulati, omnibus vicis aedificiisque quos adire potuerant incensis, ad castra Caesaris omnibus copiis contenderunt et ab milibus passuum minus duobus castra posuerunt; quae castra, ut fumo atque ignibus significabatur, amplius milibus passuum octo in latitudinem patebant.
Using again as guides the men who had come from Iccius to report, Caesar sent off to Bibrax in the middle of the night Numidian and Cretan archers and Balearic slingers, to reinforce the townsfolk. Their arrival brought the Remi not only hope of defence but hope for counter-attack, and for the same reason dissipated the enemy's hope of gaining the town. Therefore, halting for a short space near the town, they laid waste the lands of the Remi and set fire to all the hamlets and farm-buildings they could come nigh unto, and then will all their forces sped on to the camp of Caesar and pitched their own less than two miles from it. Their camp, as smoke and watch-fires showed, extended for more than eight miles in breadth.
Translation and notes by H.J. Edwards
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