KOMM OF THE ATREBATES

I

In a land of mists, near a shore which was beaten by the restless

sea and swept by billowy waves of sand raised by the Ocean winds,

the Atrebates had settled on the shifting banks of a broad stream.

There, amid pools of water and in forests of oak and of birch, they

lived protected by their stockades of felled tree-trunks. There they

bred horses excellent for draught-work, large-headed, short-necked,

broad-chested and muscular, and with powerful haunches. On the

outskirts of the forest they kept huge swine, wild as boars. With their

great dogs they hunted wild beasts, the skulls of which they nailed on

to the walls of their wooden houses. They lived on the flesh of these

creatures and on fish, both of the salt-water and the fresh. They

grilled their meat and seasoned it with salt, vinegar and cumin. They

drank wine, and, at their stupendous feasts, seated at their round

tables, they grew drunken. There were among them women who, acquainted

with the virtue of herbs, gathered henbane, vervain and that healing

plant called savin, which grows in the moist hollows of rocks. From the

sap of the yew-tree they concocted a poison. The Atrebates had also

priests and poets who knew things hidden from ordinary men.

These forest-dwellers, these men of the marsh and the beach, were of

high stature. They wore their fair hair long, and they wrapped their

great white bodies in mantles of wool of the colour of the vine-leaf

when it grows purple in the autumn. They were subject to chiefs who

held sway over the tribes.

The Atrebates knew that the Romans had come to make war on the peoples

of Gaul, and that whole nations with all their possessions had been

sold beneath their lance. News of happenings on the Rhone and the

Loire had reached them speedily. Words and signs fly like birds. And

that which, at sunrise, had been said in Genabum of the Carnutes was

heard in the first watch of the night on the Ocean strand. But the

fate of their brethren did not trouble them, or rather, being jealous

of them, they rejoiced in the sufferings which they endured at Cæsar's

hand. They did not hate the Romans, for they did not know them.

Neither did they fear them, since it seemed to them impossible for an

army to penetrate through the forests and marshes which surrounded

their dwellings. They had no towns, although they gave the name to

Nemetacum,[1] a vast enclosure encircled by a palisade, which, in case

of attack, served as a refuge for warriors, women and herds. As we have

said, they had throughout their country other similar places of refuge,

but these were smaller. To them, also, they gave the name of towns.

It was not upon their enclosures of felled trees that they relied for

resistance to the Romans, whom they knew to be skilled in the capture

of cities defended by stone walls and wooden towers. But they relied

rather on their country's lack of roads. The Roman soldiers, however,

themselves constructed the roads over which they marched. They dug the

ground with a strength and rapidity unknown to the Gauls of the dense

forest, among whom iron was rarer than gold. And one day the Atrebates

were astounded to learn that the Roman road, with its milestones and

its fine paved highway, was approaching their thickets and marshes.

Then they made alliance with the people scattered through the forest

which they called the Impenetrable, and numerous tribes entered into

a league against Cæsar. The chiefs of the Atrebates uttered their

war-cry, girded themselves with their baldrics of gold and of coral,

donned their helmets adorned with the antlers of the stag, or the elk,

or with buffalo horns, and drew their daggers, which were not equal to

the Roman sword. They were vanquished, but because they were courageous

they had to be twice conquered.

Now among them was a chief who was very rich. His name was Komm. He

had a great store of torques, bracelets and rings in his coffers.

Human heads he had also, embalmed in oil of cedar. They were the heads

of hostile chiefs slain by himself or by his father or his father's

father. Komm enjoyed the life of a man who is strong, free and powerful.

Followed by his weapons, his horses, his chariots and his Breton

bulldogs, by the multitude of his fighting men and his women, he would

wander without let or hindrance over his boundless dominions, through

forest or along river-bank, until he came to a halt in one of those

woodland shelters, one of those primitive farms of which he possessed

a great number. There, at peace, surrounded by his faithful followers,

he would fish, hunt the wild beasts, break in his horses and recall

his adventures in war. And, as soon as the desire seized him, he would

move on. He was a violent, crafty, subtle-minded man excelling in deed

and in word. When the Atrebates shouted their war-cry, he forbore to

don the helmet which was adorned with the horns of an ox. He remained

quietly in one of his wooden houses full of gold, of warriors, or

horses, of women, of wild pigs and smoked fish. After the defeat of

his fellow-countrymen, he went and found Cæsar and placed his brains

and his influence at the service of the Romans. He was well received.

Concluding rightly that this clever, powerful Gaul would be able to

pacify the country and hold it in subjection to Rome, Cæsar bestowed

upon him great powers and nominated him King of the Atrebates. Thus

Komm, the chieftain, became Commius Rex. He wore the purple, and coined

money whereon appeared his likeness in profile, his head encircled by

a diadem with sharp points like those of the Greek and barbarian kings

who wore their crowns as tokens of their friendship with Rome.

He was not execrated by the Atrebates. His sagacious and

self-interested behaviour did not discredit him with a people devoid

of Greek and Roman ideas of patriotism and citizenship. These savage,

inglorious Gauls, ignorant of public life, esteemed cunning, yielded to

force and marvelled at royal power, which seemed to them a magnificent

innovation. The majority of these people, rough woodlanders or

fishermen of the misty coast, had a still better reason for not blaming

the conduct and the prosperity of their chieftain; not knowing that

they were Atrebates, nor even that Atrebates existed, the King of the

Atrebates concerned them but little. Wherefore Komm was not unpopular.

And if the favour of Rome meant danger to him, that danger did not come

from his own people.

Now in the fourth year of the war, towards the end of summer, Cæsar

armed a fleet for a descent upon Britain. Desiring to secure allies

in the great Island, he resolved to send Komm as his ambassador to

the Celts of the Thames, with the offer of an alliance with Rome.

Sagacious, eloquent and by birth akin to the Britons--for certain

tribes of the Atrebates had settled on both banks of the Thames--Komm

was eminently fitted for this mission.

Komm was proud of his friendship with Cæsar. But he was in no hurry to

discharge this mission, of the dangers of which he was fully aware.

To induce him to undertake it Cæsar was compelled to grant him many

favours. From the tribute paid by other Gallic towns he exempted

Nemetacum, which was already growing into a city and a metropolis, so

rapidly did the Romans develop the countries which they conquered. He

somewhat relaxed the rigorous rule of the conquerors by restoring to

it its rights and its own laws. Further, he gave Komm to rule over the

Morini, who were the neighbours of the Atrebates on the sea-shore.

Komm set sail with Caius Volusenus Quadratus, prefect of cavalry,

appointed by Cæsar to conduct a reconnaissance in Britain. But when the

ship approached the sandy beach at the foot of the bird-haunted white

cliffs, the Roman refused to disembark, fearing unknown danger and

certain death. Komm landed with his horses and his followers and spoke

to the British chiefs who had come to meet him. He counselled them to

prefer profitable friendship with the Romans to their pitiless wrath.

But these chiefs, the descendants of Hu, the Powerful, and of his

comrades in arms, were proud and violent. They listened impatiently to

Komm's words. Anger clouded their woad-stained countenances, and they

swore to defend their Island against the Romans.

"Let them land here," they cried, "and they will disappear like the

snow on the sand of the sea-shore when the south wind blows upon it."

Holding Cæsar's counsel to be an insult, they were already drawing

their daggers from their belts and preparing to put to death the herald

of shame.

Standing bowed over his shield in the attitude of a suppliant, Komm

invoked the name of brother by which he was entitled to call them. They

were sons of the same fathers.

Wherefore the Britons forbore to slay him. They conducted him in chains

to a great village near the coast. Passing down a road bordered by

huts of wattle-work, he noticed high flat stones, fixed in the ground

at irregular intervals, and covered with signs which he thought to be

sacred, for it was not easy to decipher their meaning. He perceived

that the huts of this great village, though poorer, were not unlike

those of the villages of the Atrebates. In front of the chiefs'

dwellings poles were erected from which hung the antlers of deer, the

skulls of boars and the fair-haired heads of men. Komm was taken into

a hut which contained nothing save a hearthstone still covered with

ashes, a bed of dried leaves and the image of a god shapen from the

trunk of a lime-tree. Bound to the pillar which supported the thatched

roof, the Atrebate meditated on his ill luck and sought in his mind for

some magic word of power or some ingenious device which should deliver

him from the wrath of the British chieftains.

And to beguile his wretchedness, after the manner of his ancestors, he

composed a song of menace and complaint, coloured by pictures of his

native woods and mountains, the memory of which filled his heart.

Women with babes at the breast came and looked at him curiously and

questioned him as to his country, his race and his adventures. He

answered them kindly. But his soul was sad and wracked by cruel anxiety.

[1] The modern Arras.--_Trans._

2

Detained until the end of summer on the Morini shore, Cæsar set sail

one night about the third watch, and by the fourth hour of day had

sight of the Island. The Britons awaited him on the beach. But neither

their arrows of hard wood nor their scythed chariots, nor their

long-haired horses trained to swim in the sea among the shoals, nor

their countenances made terrible with paint gave check to the Romans.

The Eagle surrounded by legionaries touched the soil of the barbarians'

Island. The Britons fled beneath a shower of stone and lead hurled from

machines which they believed to be monsters. Struck with terror, they

ran like a herd of elks before the spear of the hunter.

When towards evening they had reached the great village near the coast,

the chiefs sat down on stones ranged in a circle by the road-side

and took counsel. All night they continued to deliberate; and when

dawn began to gleam on the horizon, while the larks' song pierced the

grey sky, they went into the hut where Komm of the Atrebates had been

enchained for thirty days. They looked at him respectfully because of

the Romans. They unbound him. They offered him a drink made of the

fermented juice of wild cherries. They restored to him his weapons, his

horses, his comrades, and, addressing him with flattering words, they

entreated him to accompany them to the camp of the Romans and to ask

pardon for them from Cæsar the Powerful.

"Thou shalt persuade him to be our friend," they said to him, "for

thou art wise and thy words are nimble and penetrating as arrows. Among

all the ancestors whose memory is enshrined in our songs, there is not

one who surpasses thee in sagacity."

It was with joy Komm of the Atrebates heard these words. But he

concealed his pleasure, and, curling his lips into a bitter smile, he

said to the British chiefs, pointing to the fallen willow leaves that

were driven in eddies by the wind:

"The thoughts of vain men are stirred like these leaves and ceaselessly

carried in every direction. Yesterday they took me for a madman and

said I had eaten of the herb of Erin that maddens the grazing beasts.

To-day they perceive in me the wisdom of their ancestors. Nevertheless

I am as good a counsellor one day as another, for my words depend

neither upon the sun nor upon the moon, but upon my understanding. As

the reward of your ill-doing, I ought to deliver you up to the wrath

of Cæsar, who would cut off your hands and put out your eyes, so that

begging bread and beer in the wealthy villages you would testify to his

might and justice throughout the Island of Britain. Notwithstanding I

will forget the wrong you have done me. I will remember that we are

brethren, that the Britons and the Atrebates are the fruit of the same

tree. I will act for the good of my brethren who drink the waters of

the Thames. Cæsar's friendship, which I came to their Island to offer

them, I will restore to them now that they have lost it through their

folly. Cæsar, who loves Komm, and has made him to be King over the

Atrebates and the Morini who wear collars of shells, will love the

British chiefs, painted with glowing colours, and will establish them

in their wealth and power, because they are the friends of Komm, who

drinketh the waters of the Somme."

And Komm of the Atrebates spake again and said: "Learn from me that

which Cæsar shall say unto you when you bend over your shields at the

foot of his tribunal and that which it behooveth you in your wisdom to

reply unto him. He will say unto you: 'I grant you peace. Deliver up

to me noble children as hostages.' And you will make answer: 'We will

deliver up unto you our noble children. And we will bring you certain

of them this very day. But the greater number of our noble children are

in the distant places of this Island, and to bring them hither will

take many days.'"

The chiefs marvelled at the subtle mind of the Atrebate. One of them

said to him:

"Komm, thou art possessed of a great understanding, and I believe

thy heart to be filled with kindness toward thy British brethren who

drink the waters of the Thames. If Cæsar were a man, we should have

courage to fight against him, but we know him to be a god because his

vessels and his engines of war are living creatures and endowed with

understanding. Let us go and ask him to pardon us for having fought

against him and to leave us in possession of our sovereignty and of our

riches."

Having thus spoken, the chiefs of the Island of Fogs leapt upon their

horses, and set forth towards the sea-shore where the Romans were

encamped near the cove where their deep-keeled ships lay at anchor, not

far from the beach up which they had drawn their galleys. Komm rode

beside them. When they beheld the Roman camp, which was surrounded by

ditches and palisades, traversed by wide and regular thoroughfares and

covered with tents over which soared the Roman eagles and floated the

wreaths of the standards, they paused in amazement and inquired by what

art the Romans had built in one day a town more beautiful and greater

than any in the Isle of Mists.

"What is that?" cried one of them.

"It is Rome," replied the Atrebate. "The Romans bear Rome with them

everywhere."

Introduced into the camp, they repaired to the foot of the tribunal,

where the Proconsul sat surrounded by the fasces. His eyes were like

the eagle's; and he was pale in his purple.

Komm assumed a suppliant's attitude and entreated Cæsar to pardon the

British chiefs.

"When they fought against you," he said, "these chiefs did not act

according to their own heart, the dictates of which are always noble.

When they drove against you their chariots of war, they obeyed,

they commanded not. They yielded to the will of the poor and humble

tribesmen who assembled in great numbers against you; for they lacked

understanding and were incapable of comprehending your might. You know

that in all things the poor are inferior to the rich. Deny not your

friendship to these men, who possess great wealth and can pay tribute."

Cæsar granted the pardon which the chiefs implored, and said unto them:

"Deliver up to me as hostages the sons of your princes."

The most venerable of the chiefs replied:

"We will deliver up unto you our noble children. And some of them we

will bring to you this very day. But the children of our nobles are

most of them in the distant places of our Isle, and to bring them

hither will take many days."

Cæsar inclined his head as a sign of assent. Thus, by the Atrebate's

counsel, the chiefs surrendered but a few young boys and those not of

the highest nobility.

Komm remained in the camp. At night, being unable to sleep, he climbed

the cliff and looked out to sea. The surf was breaking on the rocks.

The wind from the Channel mingled its sinister moaning with the roaring

of the waves. The wild moon, in its stately passage through the clouds,

cast a fleeting light on to the water. The Atrebate, with the keen eye

of the savage, piercing through the shadow and the mist, perceived

ships, surprised by the tempest, toiling in the waves and the wind.

Some, helpless and drifting, were being driven by the billows, the foam

of which shone upon their sides like a pale gleam; others were putting

out to sea. Their sails swept the waves like the wings of some fishing

bird. These were the ships that were bringing Cæsar's cavalry, and they

were being scattered by the storm. The Gaul, joyfully breathing the sea

air, paced awhile along the edge of the cliff; and soon he descried

the little bay, where the Roman galleys which had alarmed the Britons

lay dry upon the sand. He saw the tide approach them gradually, then

reach them, raise them, hurl them one against the other and batter

them, while the deep-keeled ships in the cove were tossed to and fro

at anchor by a furious wind which carried away their masts and rigging

like so many wisps of straw. Dimly he discerned the confused movements

of the panic-stricken legionaries running along the beach. Their

shouts reached his ear like the noise of a storm. Then he raised his

eyes to the divine moon, worshipped by the Atrebates who dwell on

river-banks and in the deep forests. In the stormy British sky she hung

like a shield. He knew that it was she, the copper moon at the full,

that had brought this spring tide and caused the tempest, which was now

destroying the Roman fleet. And on the cliff, in the majestic night, by

the furious sea, there came to the Atrebate the revelation of a secret,

mysterious force, more invincible than that of Rome.

When they heard of the disaster that had overtaken the fleet the

Britons joyfully realized that Cæsar commanded neither the Ocean nor

the moon, the friend of lonely shores and deep forests. They saw that

the Roman galleys were not invincible dragons, since the tide had

shattered them and cast them, with their sides rent open, on the sand

of the beach. Filled once again with the hope of destroying the Romans,

they thought of slaying a great number by the arrow and the sword, and

of throwing those that were left into the sea. Wherefore every day

they appeared more and more assiduous in Cæsar's camp. They brought

the legionaries smoked meats and the skins of the elk. They assumed a

kindly expression; they spoke honeyed words, and admiringly they felt

the muscular arms of the centurions.

In order to appear more submissive still, the chiefs surrendered their

hostages; but they were the sons of enemies on whom they wished to

be revenged, or uncomely children not born of families who were the

issue of the gods. And, when they believed that the little dark men

confidently relied upon their friendliness, they gathered together the

warriors of all the villages on the banks of the Thames, and, uttering

loud cries, they hurled themselves against the camp gates. These gates

were defended by wooden towers. The Britons, unacquainted with the art

of carrying fortified positions, could not penetrate through the outer

circle, and many of the chiefs with woad-stained visages fell at the

foot of the towers. Once again the Britons knew that the Romans were

endowed with superhuman strength. Therefore on the morrow they came to

implore Cæsar's pardon and to promise him their friendship.

Cæsar received them with a passive countenance, but that very night he

caused his legions to embark in the hastily repaired ships and made

for the Morini coast. Having lost hope of receiving his support of his

cavalry which the tempest had scattered, he abandoned for the time the

conquest of the Isle of Mists.

Komm of the Atrebates accompanied the army on its return to the Morini

shore. He had embarked on the vessel which bore the Proconsul. Cæsar,

curious concerning the customs of the barbarians, asked him whether the

Gauls did not consider themselves the descendants of Pluto and whether

it were not on that account that they reckoned time by nights instead

of by days. The Atrebate could not give him the true reason for this

custom. But he told Cæsar that in his opinion at the birth of the world

night had preceded day.

"I believe," he added, "that the moon is more ancient than the sun. She

is a very powerful divinity and the friend of the Gauls."

"The divinity of the moon," answered Cæsar, "is recognized by Romans

and Greeks. But think not, Commius, that this planet, which shines upon

Italy and upon the whole earth, is especially favourable to the Gauls."

"Take heed, Julius," replied the Atrebate, "and weigh your words.

The moon that you here behold fleeing through the clouds is not the

moon which at Rome shines on your marble temples. Though she be big

and bright, this moon could not be seen in Italy. The distance is too

great."

3

Winter came and covered Gaul with darkness, with ice and with snow.

The hearts of the warriors in their wattle huts were moved as they

thought on the chiefs and their retainers whom Cæsar had slain or sold

by auction. Sometimes to the door of the hut came à man begging bread

and showing his wrists with the hands cut off by a lictor. And the

warriors' hearts revolted. Words of wrath passed from mouth to mouth.

They assembled by night in the depths of the woods and the hollows of

the rocks.

Meanwhile King Komm with his faithful followers hunted in the forests,

in the land of the Atrebates. Every day, a messenger in a striped

mantle and red braces came by secret paths to the King, and, slackening

the speed of his horse as he drew near to him, said in a low voice:

"Komm, will you not be a free man in a free country? Komm, will you any

longer submit to be a slave of the Romans?"

Then the messenger disappeared along the narrow path, where the fallen

leaves deadened the sound of his galloping horse.

Komm, King of the Atrebates, remained the Romans' friend. But gradually

he persuaded himself that it behooved the Atrebates and the Morini to

be free, since he was their King. It annoyed him to see Romans, settled

at Nemetacum, sitting in tribunals, where they dispensed justice, and

geometricians from Italy planning roads through the sacred forests. And

then he admired the Romans less since he had seen their ships broken

against the British cliffs and their legionaries weeping by night on

the beach. He continued to exercise sovereignty in Cæsar's name. But to

his followers he darkly hinted at the approach of war.

Three years later the hour had struck: Roman blood had flowed in

Genabum. The chieftains allied against Cæsar assembled their fighting

men in the Arverni Hills. Komm did not love these chiefs. Rather did

he hate them, some because they were richer than he in men, in horses

and in lands; others because of the profusion of the gold and the

rubies which they possessed; others, again, because they said that

they were braver than he and of nobler race. Nevertheless he received

their messengers, to whom he gave an oak-leaf and a hazel twig as a

sign of affection. And he corresponded with the chiefs who were hostile

to Cæsar by means of twigs cut and knotted in such a manner as to be

unintelligible save to the Gauls, who knew the language of leaves.

He uttered no war-cry. But he went to and fro among the villages of the

Atrebates, and, visiting the warriors in their huts, to them he said:

"Three things were the first to be born: man, liberty, light."

He made sure that, whenever he should utter the war-cry, five thousand

warriors of the Morini and four thousand warriors of the Atrebates

would at his call buckle on their baldrics of bronze. And, joyfully

thinking that in the forest the fire was smouldering beneath its ashes,

he secretly passed over to the Treviri in order to win them for the

Gallic cause.

Now, while he was riding with his followers beneath the willows on the

banks of the Moselle, a messenger wearing a striped mantle brought

him an ash bough bound to a spray of heather, in order to give him to

understand that the Romans had suspected his designs and to enjoin him

to be prudent. For such was the meaning of the heather tied to the

ash. But he continued on his way and entered into the country of the

Treviri. Titus Labienus, Cæsar's lieutenant, was encamped there with

ten legions. Having been warned that King Commius was coming secretly

to visit the chiefs of the Treviri, he suspected that his object was to

seduce them from their allegiance to Rome. Having had him followed by

spies, he received information which confirmed his suspicions. He then

resolved to get rid of this man. He was a Roman, a son of the divine

City, an example to the world, and by force of arms he had extended

the Roman peace to the ends of the earth. He was a good general and

an expert in mathematics and mechanics. During the leisure of peace,

beneath the terebinths in the garden of his Campanian villa, he held

converse with magistrates touching the laws, the morals and the

customs of peoples. He praised the virtues of antiquity and liberty.

He read the works of Greek historians and philosophers. His was a rare

and polished intellect. And because Komm was a barbarian, unacquainted

with things Roman, it seemed to Titus Labienus good and fitting that he

should have him assassinated.

Being informed of the place where he was, he sent to him his master

of horse, Caius Volusenus Quadratus, who knew the Atrebate, for they

had been commissioned to reconnoitre together the coasts of the isle

of Britain before Cæsar's expedition hither; but Volusenus had not

ventured to land. Therefore, by the command of Labienus, Cæsar's

lieutenant, Volusenus chose a few centurions and took them with him

to the village where he knew Komm to be. He could rely upon them.

The centurion was a legionary promoted from the ranks, who as a sign

of his office carried a vine-stock with which he used to strike his

subordinates. His chiefs did what they liked with him. As an instrument

of conquest he was second only to the navy. Volusenus said to his

centurions:

"A man will approach me. You will suffer him to advance. I shall hold

out my hand to him. At that moment you will strike him from behind, and

you will kill him."

Having given these orders, Volusenus set forth with his escort. In a

sunken way, near the village, he met Komm with his followers. The King

of the Atrebates, aware that he was suspected, would have turned his

horse. But the master of the horse called him by name, assured him of

his friendship and held out his hand to him.

Reassured by those signs of friendship, the Atrebate approached. As he

was about to take the proffered hand a centurion struck him on the head

with his sword and caused him to fall bleeding from his horse. Then

the King's followers threw themselves upon the little band of Romans,

scattered them, took up Komm and carried him away to the nearest

village, while Volusenus, who believed his task accomplished, crept

back to the camp with his horsemen.

King Komm was not dead. He was carried secretly into the country of the

Atrebates, where he was cured of his terrible wound. Having recovered,

he took this oath:

"I swear never to meet a Roman save to kill him." Soon he learnt that

Cæsar had suffered a severe defeat at the foot of the Gergovian Mount

and forty-six centurions of his army had fallen beneath the walls

of the town. Later he was told that the confederates commanded by

Vercingétorix were besieged in the country of the Mandubi, at Alesia,

a famous Gallic fortress founded by Hercules of Tyre. Then, with a

following of warriors, Morini and Atrebates, he marched to the frontier

of the Edni, where an army was assembling to relieve the Gauls in

Alesia. The army was numbered and was found to consist of two hundred

and forty thousand foot and eight thousand horse. The command was

entrusted to Virdumar and Eporedorix of the Edni, Vergasillaun of the

Averni and Komm of the Atrebates.

After a long and arduous march, Komm, with his chiefs and fighting-men,

reached the mountainous country of the Edni. From the heights

surrounding the plateau of Alesia he beheld the Roman camp and the

earthworks dug all around it by those little dark men, who waged war

with the mattocks and the spade rather than with the javelin and the

sword. This seemed to him to augur ill, for he knew that against

trenches and machines the Gauls were of less avail than against

human breasts. He himself, though well versed in the stratagems of

war, understood little of the engineering art of the Romans. After

three great battles, during which no break was made in the enemy's

fortifications, the terrific rout of the Gauls carried off Komm as

a blade of grass is whirled away in a storm. In the mêlée he had

perceived Cæsar's red mantle and taken it for an omen of defeat. Now he

fled furiously down the track cursing the Romans, but content that the

Gallic chieftains, of whom he was jealous, were suffering with him.

4

For a year Komm lived in hiding in the forests of the Atrebates. There

he was safe, because the Gauls hated the Romans, and having themselves

submitted to the conquerors they had a great respect for those who

refused them obedience. On the river-bank and in the green-wood,

accompanied by his followers, he led a life not differing greatly from

that he had lived as the chief of many tribes. He gave himself up to

hunting and fishing, devised stratagems and drank fermented drinks,

which, though depriving him of the knowledge of human affairs, enabled

him to understand those that are divine. But his soul had suffered a

change, and it pained him to be no longer free. All the chiefs of his

people had been killed in battle, or had died beneath the lash, or,

bound by the lictor, had been led away to a Roman prison. No longer

did a bitter envy of them possess him; for now all his hatred was

concentrated upon the Romans. He bound to his horse's tail the golden

circlet which he, as the friend of the Senate and the Roman people,

had received from the Dictator. To his dogs he gave the names of

Cæsar, Caius and Julius. When he saw a pig he stoned it, calling it

Volusenus. And he composed songs like those which he had heard in his

youth, eloquently expressing the love of liberty.

Now, it happened that one day, absorbed in the chase, having wandered

away from his followers, he climbed the high, heather-clad table-land

which commands Nemetacum, and, gazing thence, he saw with amazement

that the huts and stockades of his town had vanished, and that in a

wall-encircled enclosure rose temples and houses of an architecture

so prodigious as to inspire him with the horror and fear caused by

works of magic. For he could not believe that in so short a time such

dwellings could have been constructed by natural means.

He forgot the birds on the moorland, and, prone on the red earth,

he lay and gazed long upon the strange town. Curiosity, stronger

than fear, kept his eyes wide open. Until evening he gazed upon the

spectacle. Then there came to him an overpowering desire to enter the

town. Beneath a stone on the heath he hid his golden torques, his

bracelets, his jewelled belts and his weapons of chase. Retaining

only his knife, hidden under his mantle, he descended the wooded

hill-side. As he passed through the moist undergrowth, he gathered some

mushrooms, so that he might appear as a poor man coming to sell his

wares in the market. And in the third watch of the night he entered the

town through the Golden Gate. It was kept by legionaries who allowed

peasants bringing in food to pass. Thus the King of the Atrebates,

disguised as a poor man, was readily enabled to penetrate as far as the

Julian way. This was bordered by villas; it led to the Temple of Diana,

the white façade of which was already adorned with interlacing arches

of purple, azure and gold. In the grey morning light Komm saw figures

painted on the walls of the houses. They were ethereal pictures of

dancing girls and scenes drawn from a history of which he was ignorant:

a young virgin whom heroes were offering up as a sacrifice, a mother

in her fury plunging a dagger into her two children as yet unweaned,

a man with the hoofs of a goat raising his pointed ears in surprise,

when, unrobing a sleeping and reclining virgin, he discovers her to

be at once a youth and a woman. And there were in the courtyard other

pictures representing modes of love unknown to the peoples of Gaul.

Though passionately addicted to wine and women, he had no idea of

Ausonian voluptuousness, because he had no clear idea of the variety

of human forms and because he was untroubled by the desire for beauty.

Having come to this town, which had once been his, in order to satisfy

his hatred and inflame his wrath, he filled his heart with fury and

loathing. He detested Roman art and the mysterious devices of the

Roman painters. And in all these census figures on the city portals he

saw but little, because his eyes lacked discernment save in observing

the foliage of trees or the clouds in a dark sky.

Bearing his mushrooms in a fold of his mantle, he passed along

the broad-paved streets. Beneath a door over which was a phallus

illuminated by a little lamp he saw women wearing transparent tunics,

who were watching for the passers-by. He approached with the intention

of offering them violence. An old woman appeared, who in a squeaky

voice said sharply.

"Go thy way. This is not a house for peasants who reek of cheese.

Return to thy cows, herdsman." Komm replied that he had had fifty

women, the most beautiful of the Atrebates, and possessed coffers full

of gold. The courtesans began to laugh, and the old woman cried:

"Be off, drunkard!"

And it seemed to him that the duenna was a centurion armed with a

vine-stock, with such splendour did the majesty of the Roman people

shine throughout the Empire!

With one blow of his fist Komm broke her jaw and serenely pursued his

way, while the narrow passage of the house was filled with shrieks,

howls and lamentations. On the left he passed the temple of Diana of

the Ardeni and crossed the forum between two rows of porches. When he

recognized the goddess Roma standing on her marble pedestal, wearing

a helmet, with her arm outstretched to command the peoples, in order

to insult her, he performed before her the most ignoble of natural

functions.

He was now coming to the end of the buildings of the town. Before him

extended the stone circle of the amphitheatre as yet barely outlined,

but already immense. He sighed:

"O race of monsters!"

And he advanced among the shattered and trampled vestiges of Gallic

huts, the thatched roofs of which once extended like some motionless

army and which were now degraded into less even than ruins--into little

more than a heap of manure spread upon the ground. And he reflected:

"Behold what remains of so many ages of men! Behold what they have made

of the dwellings wherein the chiefs of the Atrebates hung their arms!"

The sun had risen over the grades of the amphitheatre, and with

insatiable and inquisitive hatred the Gaul wandered among the vast

enclosures filled with bricks and stones. His large blue eyes gazed on

these stony monuments of conquest, and he shook his long fair locks

in the fresh breeze. Thinking himself alone, he muttered curses. But

not far from the stone-masons' yard he perceived, at the foot of an

oak-crowned hillock, a man seated on a mossy stone in a crouching

position, with his mantle thrown over his head. He wore no insignia;

but on his finger was the knight's ring, and the Atrebate knew enough

of a Roman camp to recognize a military tribune. This soldier was

writing on tablets of wax and appeared wrapt in thought. Having long

remained motionless, he raised his head, pensive, with his style to his

lips, looked about him vacantly, then gazed down again and resumed his

writing. Komm saw his full face and perceived that he was young, and

that he had a gentle, high-born air.

Then the Atrebate chief recalled his oath. He felt for his knife

beneath his cloak, slipped behind the Roman with the agility of the

savage and plunged the blade into the middle of his back. It was a

Roman blade. The tribune uttered a deep groan and sank down. A trickle

of blood flowed from one corner of his mouth. The waxen tablets

remained on his tunic between his knees. Komm took them and looked

eagerly at the signs traced thereon, thinking them to be magic signs

the knowledge of which would give him great power. They were letters

which he could not read and which were taken from the Greek alphabet

then preferred to the Latin alphabet by the young _littérateurs_ of

Italy. Most of these letters were effaced by the flat end of the

style; those which remained were Latin lines in Greek metre, and here

and there they were intelligible: