Note 10 — Chapter VII
Solon De Leon translation
Here are Caesar's own words on this extraordinary event, taken from his Ephemerides, or diary, wherein with his own hand he was accustomed to enter day by day what of interest had occurred to him. These words are transmitted to us by Servius:
"Caius Julius Caesar, cum dimicaret in Gallia, et ab hoste raptus, equo ejus portaretur armatus, occurrit quidam ex hostibus qui cum nosset et insultans ait: Ceco Caesar! quod in lingua Gallorum dimitte significat. Et ita factum est ut dimitteretur.
"Hoc autem dicit ipse Caesar in Ephemeride sua ubi propriam commemorat felicitatem."—Ex Servio LXI. Aeneid, edit. Amstelod, type Elsevir, 1650, ex antiquo Vatic. Extemp. cap. VIII.
"One can see by this passage," adds d'Auvergne, "that Caesar, having been released by the Gaul who had made him prisoner and who was carrying him off on his horse fully armed from the field of battle, believed the saving of his life to be due to the very word which was intended to be his death sentence: to the word sko, which Caesar wrote ceco, and which he falsely interpreted to mean release when the word in Gallic in reality means kill, strike, beat down. Everything points to the conclusion that fear or stupefaction having seized the Gauls, in whose power Caesar completely was, at the mere mention of his name, he owed his safety to the sheer astonishment of his captor."