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Julius Caesar · Gallic War §4.26.1-4.26.5

Fierce Shore Combat and the Securing of the Beach

Passage 144 of 404 · Latin

Summary

A fierce battle ensues between the Romans attempting to land and the Britons. Caesar sends reinforcements in small boats, and once on dry land, the Romans put the enemy to flight, though further pursuit is prevented by the absence of the cavalry.

§4.26.1Pugnatum est ab utrisque acriter.
The battle was fought fiercely by both sides.
Nostri tamen, quod neque ordines servare neque firmiter insistere neque signa subsequi poterant atque alius alia ex navi quibuscumque signis occurrerat se adgregabat, magnopere perturbabantur;
Our men, however, because they could neither keep their ranks, nor get a firm footing, nor follow their standards, and because men from different ships associated themselves with whatever standards they happened to meet, were in great confusion.
§4.26.2hostes vero, notis omnibus vadis, ubi ex litore aliquos singulares ex navi egredientes conspexerant, incitatis equis impeditos adoriebantur, §4.26.3plures paucos circumsistebant, alii ab latere aperto in universos tela coniciebant.
But the enemy, since all the shallows were known to them, when from the shore they saw any coming out of a ship one by one, spurred on their horses and attacked them while embarrassed; many surrounded a few, and others threw weapons from their exposed flank upon our collected forces.
§4.26.4Quod cum animadvertisset Caesar, scaphas longarum navium, item speculatoria navigia militibus compleri iussit, et quos laborantes conspexerat, his subsidia submittebat.
When Caesar observed this, he ordered the boats of the warships and likewise the scout vessels to be filled with soldiers, and sent help to those whom he saw struggling.
§4.26.5Nostri, simul in arido constiterunt, suis omnibus consecutis, in hostes impetum fecerunt atque eos in fugam dederunt; neque longius prosequi potuerunt, quod equites cursum tenere atque insulam capere non potuerant.
Our men, as soon as they stood on dry land, after all their comrades had caught up with them, made a charge upon the enemy and put them to flight; but they could not pursue them very far, because the cavalry had not been able to hold their course and reach the island.
Hoc unum ad pristinam fortunam Caesari defuit.
This alone was wanting to Caesar's former good fortune.

Notes

  1. §4.26.1Pugnatum est — An impersonal passive construction using the third-person singular of the intransitive verb pugnare, stating that "a battle was fought." The agent is expressed by ab utrisque ("by both sides").
  2. §4.26.1alius alia ex navi — A characteristically Latin idiom compressing the distributive use of alius ... alius... ("one... another...") into a single clause. It literally means "one from one ship, another from another," i.e., "men from different ships."
  3. §4.26.4quos laborantes conspexerat, his — A construction where the relative clause (quos...) precedes its antecedent, the demonstrative pronoun his. Logically, it should be read as "subsidia submittebat his, quos laborantes conspexerat" ("he sent assistance to those whom he had seen struggling").
  4. §4.26.5simul — Used as a temporal conjunction meaning "as soon as," equivalent to "simul atque" or "simul ac" with the "atque" or "ac" omitted.

Cite this passage

Julius Caesar, Gallic War §4.26.1-4.26.5. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0448.phi001.humanitext-lat2:4.26.1-4.26.5

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