Caesar and concealed themselves in them. He bade his lieutenant Crassus
wall up the entrances. When the Armenians fled before Corbulo--"fuere
qui se speluncis et carissima secum abderent"--he filled the mouths of
the caverns with faggots and burned them out. [Footnote: Tacit.,
"Annals," xvi. 23.]

When Civilis rose in insurrection against Vespasian, he was joined by a
young native, Julius Sabinus from Langres, who boasted that, in the
great war with the Gauls, his great-grandmother had taken the fancy of
Julius Caesar, and that to him he owed his name.

After the death of Nero, the Druids had come forth from the retreats
where they had remained concealed since their proscription by Claudius,
and proclaimed that "the Roman Empire was at an end, and that the
Gallic Empire was come to its birth." Insurgents rose on every side,
and Julius Sabinus assumed the title of Caesar. War broke out;
confusion, hesitation, and actual desertion extended through the
Colonies, and reached the legions. Several towns submitted to the
insurgents. Some legions yielding to persuasion, bribery, or
discontent, killed their officers and went over to the rebels. The
gravity of the situation was perceived in Rome, and Petilius Cerealis
was despatched to crush the revolt. The struggle that ensued was fierce
but brief, and Civilis was constrained to surrender. Vespasian being
disinclined to drive men or matters to an extremity, pardoned him; but
no mercy was to be extended to Julius Sabinus. After the ruin of his
cause, Sabinus took refuge underground in one of those retreats
excavated in the chalk beneath his villa, and two of his freedmen were
alone privy to the secret. The further to conceal him, they set fire to
his house, and gave out that he had poisoned himself and that his dead
body had been consumed in the flames. His young wife, named Eponia, was