Caesar
Liber III
1Cvm in Italiam proficisceretur Caesar, Servium Galbam cum legione xii et parte equitatus in Nantuates, Veragros Sedunosque misit, qui a finibus Allobrogum et lacu Lemanno et flumine Rhodano ad summas Alpes pertinent. Causa mittendi fuit, quod iter per Alpes, quo magno cum periculo magnisque cum portoriis mercatores ire consuerant, patefieri volebat. Huic permisit, si opus esse arbitraretur, uti in his locis legionem hiemandi causa collocaret. Galba secundis aliquot proeliis factis castellisque compluribus eorum expugnatis missis ad eum undique legatis obsidibusque datis et pace facta constituit cohortes duas in Nantuatibus collocare et ipse cum reliquis eius legionis cohortibus in vico Veragrorum, qui appellatur Octodurus, hiemare; qui vicus positus in valle non magna adiecta planitie altissimis montibus undique continetur. Cum hic in duas partes flumine divideretur, alteram partem eius vici Gallis ad hiemandum concessit, alteram vacuam ab his relictam cohortibus attribuit. Eum locum vallo fossaque munivit.
Gallic War, Book III
Book III
When he was starting for Italy, Caesar sent Servius Galba with the Twelfth Legion and a detachment of cavalry to the district of the Nantuates, Veragri, and Seduni, which reaches from the borders of the Allobroges, from the Lake of Geneva, and from the river Rhone to the summits of the Alps. The reason for sending him was that he wished to open up a route1 through the Alps by which traders had been accustomed to travel, but at great risk and on payment of great tolls; and Caesar gave him permission to station his legion in this locality for the winter, if he thought it necessary. A certain number of successful engagements were fought; several of the enemy’s forts were taken by storm; then deputies were sent to Galba from all sides, hostages given, and peace made. So Galba decided to station two cohorts in the district of the Nantuates, and to winter himself with the remaining cohorts of the legion in a hamlet of the Veragri called Octodurus. It is set in a valley, with no great space of level about it, and shut in all round by very lofty mountains. As the hamlet was divided in two by a river, Galba granted one part of it to the Gauls, and assigned the other, which the Gauls evacuated, to his cohorts to winter in. He fortified the place with rampart and trench.