t when the legions began to approach, having lost a few
men, they retreated to the next mountains. The delay occasioned by this
battle was of great importance to the security of our men; for having
gained time, they retired to the higher grounds. There were missing that
day about two hundred bow-men, a few horse, and an inconsiderable number
of servants and baggage.

LII.--However, by all these things, the price of provisions was raised,
which is commonly a disaster attendant, not only on a time of present
scarcity, but on the apprehension of future want. Provisions had now
reached fifty denarii each bushel; and the want of corn had diminished
the strength of the soldiers; and the inconveniences were increasing
every day: and so great an alteration was wrought in a few days, and
fortune had so changed sides, that our men had to struggle with the want
of every necessary; while the enemy had an abundant supply of all
things, and were considered to have the advantage. Caesar demanded from
those states which had acceded to his alliance, a supply of cattle, as
they had but little corn. He sent away the camp followers to the more
distant states, and endeavoured to remedy the present scarcity by every
resource in his power.

LIII.--Afranius and Petreius, and their friends, sent fuller and more
circumstantial accounts of these things to Rome, to their acquaintances.
Report exaggerated them so that the war appeared to be almost at an end.
When these letters and despatches were received at Rome, a great
concourse of people resorted to the house of Afranius, and
congratulations ran high: several went out of Italy to Cneius Pompey;
some of them, to be the first to bring him the intelligence; others,
that they might not be thought to have waited the issue of the war, and
to have come last of all.

LIV.--When Caesar's affairs were in this unfavourable position, and all
the passes were guarded by the soldiers and horse of Afranius, and the
bridges could not be prepared, Caesar ordered his soldiers to make ships
of the kind that his knowledge of Britain a few years before had taught
him. First, the keels and ribs were made of light timber, then, the rest
of the hulk of the ships was wrought with wicker-work, and covered over
with hides. When these were finished, he drew them down to the river in
waggons in one night, a distance of twenty-two miles from his camp, and
transported in them some soldiers across the river, and on a sudden