as friendly
to the Romans. But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared
against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated
with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy,
but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon
the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even
the maritime ones, sent in their submission.

And in Uxellodunum

The resistance was at an end; save that an isolated leader of free
bands still here and there upheld the national banner. The bold
Drappes and the brave comrade in arms of Vercingetorix Lucterius,
after the breaking up of the army united on the Loire, gathered
together the most resolute men, and with these threw themselves
into the strong mountain-town of Uxellodunum on the Lot,(50)
which amidst severe and fatal conflicts they succeeded in sufficiently
provisioning. In spite of the loss of their leaders, of whom
Drappes had been taken prisoner, and Lucterius had been cut off
from the town, the garrison resisted to the uttermost; it was not
till Caesar appeared in person, and under his orders the spring
from which the besieged derived their water was diverted by means
of subterranean drains, that the fortress, the last stronghold
of the Celtic nation, fell. To distinguish the last champions
of the cause of freedom, Caesar ordered that the whole garrison should
have their hands cut off and should then be dismissed, each one
to his home. Caesar, who felt it all-important to put an end at least
to open resistance throughout Gaul, allowed king Commius, who still
held out in the region of Arras and maintained desultory warfare
with the Roman troops there down to the winter of 703-704, to make
his peace, and even acquiesced when the irritated and justly
distrustful man haughtily refused to appear in person in the Roman
camp. It is very probable that Caesar in a similar way allowed
himself to be satisfied with a merely nominal submission, perhaps
even with a de facto armistice, in the less accessible districts
of the north-west and north-east of Gaul.(51)

Gaul Subdued

Thus was Gaul--or, in other words, the land west of the Rhine
and north of the Pyrenees--rendered subject after only eight years
of conflict (696-703) to the Romans. Hardly a year after the full
pacification of the land, at the beginning of 705, the Roman troops
had to be withdrawn over the Alps in consequence of the civil war,
which had now at length broken o