But he found the
mountain unassailable on all sides; and while he was perplexing
himself to no purpose and uttering idle threats, he saw a great
quantity of dust from this light earth carried by the wind against the
barbarians; for the caves are turned, as I have said, to the north,
and the wind which blows from that quarter (some call it "caecias")
prevails most, and is the strongest of all the winds in those parts,
being generated in wet plains and snow-covered mountains; and at that
time particularly, it being the height of summer, it was strong, and
maintained by the melting of the ice in the sub-arctic regions, and it
blew most pleasantly both on the barbarians and their flocks, and
refreshed them. Now, Sertorius, thinking on all these things, and also
getting information from the country people, ordered his soldiers to
take up some of the light ashy earth, and bringing it right opposite
to the hill to make a heap of it there; which the barbarians thought
to be intended as a mound for the purpose of getting at them, and they
mocked him. Sertorius kept his soldiers thus employed till nightfall,
when he led them away. At daybreak a gentle breeze at first began to
blow, which stirred up the lightest part of the earth that had been
heaped together, and scattered it about like chaff; but when the
caecias began to blow strong, as the sun got higher, and the hills
were all covered with dust, the soldiers got on the heap of earth and
stirred it up to the bottom, and broke the clods; and some also rode
their horses up and down through the earth, kicking up the light
particles and raising them so as to be caught by the wind, which
receiving all the earth that was broken and stirred up, drove it
against the dwellings of the barbarians, whose doors were open to the
caecias.
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