nd recovers that state. To this place ambassadors are sent
by the Arverni, who promise that they will execute his commands. He
demands a great number of hostages. He sends the legions to winter
quarters; he restores about twenty thousand captives to the Aedui and
Arverni; he orders Titus Labienus to march into the [country of the]
Sequani with two legions and the cavalry, and to him he attaches Marcus
Sempronius Rutilus; he places Caius Fabius, and Lucius Minucius Basilus,
with two legions in the country of the Remi, lest they should sustain
any loss from the Bellovaci in their neighbourhood. He sends Caius
Antistius Reginus into the [country of the] Ambivareti, Titus Sextius
into the territories of the Bituriges, and Caius Caninius Rebilus into
those of the Ruteni, with one legion each. He stations Quintus Tullius
Cicero, and Publius Sulpicius among the Aedui at Cabillo and Matisco on
the Saone, to procure supplies of corn. He himself determines to winter
at Bibracte. A supplication of twenty days is decreed by the senate at
Rome, on learning these successes from Caesar's despatches.

BOOK VIII

CONTINUATION OF CAESAR'S GALLIC WAR ASCRIBED TO AULUS HIRTIUS

PREFACE

Prevailed on by your continued solicitations, Balbus, I have engaged in
a most difficult task, as my daily refusals appear to plead not my
inability, but indolence, as an excuse. I have compiled a continuation
of the Commentaries of our Caesar's Wars in Gaul, not indeed to be
compared to his writings, which either precede or follow them; and
recently, I have completed what he left imperfect after the transactions
in Alexandria, to the end, not indeed of the civil broils, to which we
see no issue, but of Caesar's life. I wish that those who may read them
could know how unwillingly I undertook to write them, as then I might
the more readily escape the imputation of folly and arrogance, in
presuming to intrude among Caesar's writings. For it is agreed on all
hands, that no composition was ever executed with so great care, that it
is not exceeded in elegance by these Commentaries, which were published
for the use of historians, that they might not want memoirs of such
achievements; and they stand so high in the esteem of all men, that
historians seem rather deprived of than furnished with materials. At
which we have more reason to be surprised than other men; for they can
only appreciate the elegance and correctness with which he finished
them, while we