Note 519 — Chapter X · (Year of Rome 702.) (Book VII. of the “Commentaries.”) REVOLT OF GAUL—CAPTURE OF VELLAUNODUNUM, GENABUM, AND NOVIODUNUM—SIEGES OF AVARICUM AND GERGOVIA—CAMPAIGN OF LABIENUS AGAINST THE PARISII—SIEGE OF ALESIA.
Reading edition
The three Gaulish camps having been established on the heights of Sacquenay, four or five kilomètres behind the position occupied by the infantry during the battle, and the line of retreat towards Alesia lying to the left, in the direction of Pressant and Vesvres, if Vercingetorix had returned to ascend the hills with his 80,000 men, to remove the baggage, that operation would have taken two or three hours, during which Cæsar might have cut off his retreat, or have inflicted a still more serious defeat upon him. But, by immediately hastening his march on Pressant, in order to follow from thence the road which, by Rivières-les-Fosses and Vesvres, joined the great road from Langres to Alise, near Aujeur, he got in advance of the Roman army, which, in the disorder in which it was at that moment, was not able to pursue him at once. And this is what he did.
The text says, also, that Vercingetorix gave orders that the baggage should be taken out of the camps in all haste, to follow him. If the baggage of an army of 100,000 men had accompanied Vercingetorix, on the road followed by the infantry, we cannot understand how the Roman army, which pursued the Gauls as long as daylight lasted, should not have captured it all. But investigations made in the country situated between the field of battle and the Alise, behind the heights of Sacquenay, have brought to light vestiges of a Roman road which, starting from Thil-Châtel, thirteen kilomètres behind Sacquenay, proceeded, by Avelanges, towards the hamlet of Palus, where it branched from the road from Langres to Alise. We may suppose, therefore, that Vercingetorix caused his baggage to follow in his rear as far as Thil-Châtel, where it took the road to Palus.
The Roman road from Langres to Alise, which, without any doubt, marks the direction followed by the two armies, has been traced almost in its whole extent by Commandant Stoffel. Even at the present day, on the territories of Fraignot, Salives, Echalot, and Poiseul-la-Grange, the inhabitants call it the Road of the Romans, or Cæsar’s way.