Excerpt from Gai Iuli Caesaris De Bello Gallico Liber III: Edited With Notes and Vocabulary for Beginners The events narrated in this book occurred in the winter of b.c. 57 - 56, and the summer of b.c. 56. In the last book Caesar had described his campaign against the Belgae, as the tribes living in Northern France, Belgium, and part of Holland were called. While he was engaged with them his legatus P. Crassus had been employed in obtaining the submission of the Veneti and other tribes living in what are known now as Normandy and Brittany. When the campaigning season was over, the legions were put into winter quarters in various parts of Gaul, while Caesar himself went as usual to Cisalpine Gaul, that is, to Northern Italy, to spend the winter months. The Third Book of his Commentaries opens after this. In the first six chapters we are told of the adventures of one of the garrisons thus left by Caesar in Gaul. It had been stationed near the modern Martigny, then called Octodurus, in the valley of the upper Rhone, to secure the pass over the Alps which goes by the Great St Bernard to Aosta in Italy. It was under the command of Servius Galba, and was suddenly attacked by some of the neighbouring Alpine tribes. The Romans were for some time in great danger, and though they at length made a sally from their camp and drove off the enemy, and were able afterwards to punish the attack by wasting the villages round, Galba thought it best to move down south of the Lake of Geneva for the rest of the winter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.