Gaius Volusenus
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Gaius Volusenus Quadratus was a Roman military officer and ally of Julius Caesar.
During the Gallic War he served as Tribunus Militum in the 12th Legion under the legate Servius Galba, and distinguished himself in battle when Galba was defeated by the Nantuates in 57 BC.[1]
In 55 BC Volusenus was sent out by Caesar in a single warship to undertake a week-long survey of the coast of south eastern Britain prior to Caesar's invasion.[2] He probably examined the Kent coast between Hythe and Sandwich. When Caesar set off with his troops however he arrived at Dover and saw that landing would impossible. Instead he travelled north and landed on an open beach, probably near Walmer. Volusenus had evidently failed to find a suitable harbour, which would have prevented the damage Caesar's exposed ships would suffer at high tide. The great natural harbour at Richborough, a little further north, was used by Claudius in his invasion just 100 years later, but we do not know whether Volusenus travelled that far, or indeed whether it existed in a suitable form at that time (our knowledge of the geomorphology of the Wantsum Channel that created that haven is limited).
Volusenus later became Praefectus Equitum (cavalry commander). In 53 BC, during the revolt of Ambiorix, he was sent ahead by Caesar with cavalry to relieve Quintus Cicero, who was besieged by the Sugambri in Atuatuca, but found it difficult to convince the terrified defenders that the rest of Caesar's army was not far behind.[3]
When the legate Titus Labienus discovered that Commius, the formerly loyal king of the Atrebates, was conspiring against them in the winter of 54 or 53 BC, he invited him to a meeting and sent Volusenus and some centurions to execute him for his treachery. Commius escaped, but sustained a wound to the head.[4]
In 51 BC Volusenus was serving as commander of cavalry under Mark Antony, and in the winter of that year was ordered by Antony to pursue Commius, who was conducting a campaign of agitation and guerrilla warfare. He defeated him in several skirmishes, and finally destroyed Commius's forces in a single engagement, although at the cost of a spear-wound to the thigh. Commius himself escaped and later sued for peace on the condition that he never again had to meet a Roman.[5]
In 48 BC, during the Civil War, Roscillus and Aegus, two Gallic noblemen serving in Caesar's cavalry who had been caught defrauding their comrades of pay, decided to defect to Pompey's side, and attempted to assassinate Volusenus in an effort to show Pompey they had performed him some useful service. The task proved too difficult, and they were forced to defect without any such token.[6]
After Caesar's victory, he was Tribune of the Plebs in 43 BC, and following Caesar's assassinating in 44 BC, he was a supporter of Mark Antony.[7]
