Chapter VII: The Subjugation of the West (2)

But the Germans had not remained stationary at the Rhine. The march of the Cimbrian and Teutonic host, composed, as respects its flower, of German tribes, which had swept with such force fifty years before over Pannonia, Gaul, Italy, and Spain, seemed to have been nothing but a grand reconnaissance. Already different German tribes had formed permanent settlements to the west of the Rhine, especially of its lower course; having intruded as conquerors, these settlers continued to demand hostages and to levy annual tribute from the Gallic inhabitants in their neighbourhood, as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci, who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde(28) had grown into a considerable canton, and a number of other tribes afterwards comprehended under the name of the Tungri on the Maas in the region of Liege; even the Treveri (about Treves) and the Nervii (in Hainault), two of the largest and most powerful peoples of this region, are directly designated by respectable authorities as Germans. The complete credibility of these accounts must certainly remain doubtful, since, as Tacitus remarks in reference to the two peoples last mentioned, it was subsequently, at least in these regions, reckoned an honour to be descended of German blood and not to belong to the little-esteemed Celtic nation; yet the population in the region of the Scheldt, Maas, and Moselle seems certainly to have become, in one way or another, largely mingled with German elements, or at any rate to have come under German influences. The German settlements themselves were perhaps small; they were not unimportant, for amidst the chaotic obscurity, through which we see the stream of peoples on the right bank of the Rhine ebbing and flowing about this period, we can well perceive that larger German hordes were preparing to cross the Rhine in the track of these advanced posts. Threatened on two sides by foreign domination and torn by internal dissension, it was scarcely to be expected that the unhappy Celtic nation would now rally and save itself by its own vigour. Dismemberment, and decay in virtue of dismemberment, had hitherto been its history; how should a nation, which could name no day like those of Marathon and Salamis, of Aricia and the Raudine plain--a nation which, even in its time of vigour, had made no attempt to destroy Massilia by a united effort--now when evening had come, defend itself against so formidable foes?

The Roman Policy with Reference to the German Invasion

The less the Celts, left to themselves, were a match for the Germans, the more reason had the Romans carefully to watch over the complications in which the two nations might be involved. Although the movements thence arising had not up to the present time directly affected them, they and their most important interests were yet concerned in the issue of those movements. As may readily be conceived, the internal demeanour of the Celtic nation had become speedily and permanently influenced by its outward relations. As in Greece the Lacedaemonian party combined with Persia against the Athenians, so the Romans from their first appearance beyond the Alps had found a support against the Arverni, who were then the ruling power among the southern Celts, in their rivals for the hegemony, the Haedui: and with the aid of these new "brothers of the Roman nation" they had not merely reduced to subjection the Allobroges and a great portion of the indirect territory of the Arverni, but had also, in the Gaul that remained free, occasioned by their influence the transference of the hegemony from the Arverni to these Haedui. But while the Greeks were threatened with danger to their nationality only from one side, the Celts found themselves hard pressed simultaneously by two national foes; and it was natural that they should seek from the one protection against the other, and that, if the one Celtic party attached itself to the Romans, their opponents should on the contrary form alliance with the Germans. This course was most natural for the Belgae, who were brought by neighbourhood and manifold intermixture into closer relation to the Germans who had crossed the Rhine, and moreover, with their less-developed culture, probably felt themselves at least as much akin to the Suebian of alien race as to their cultivated Allobrogian or Helvetic countryman. But the southern Celts also, among whom now as already mentioned, the considerable canton of the Sequani (about Besangon) stood at the head of the party hostile to the Romans, had every reason at this very time to call in the Germans against the Romans who immediately threatened them; the remiss government of the senate and the signs of the revolution preparing in Rome, which had not remained unknown to the Celts, made this very moment seem suitable for ridding themselves of the Roman influence and primarily for humbling the Roman clients, the Haedui. A rupture had taken place between the two cantons respecting the tolls on the Saone, which separated the territory of the Haedui from that of the Sequani, and about the year 683 the German prince Ariovistus with some 15,000 armed men had crossed the Rhine as condottiere of the Sequani.

Ariovistus on the Middle Rhine

The war was prolonged for some years with varying success; on the whole the results were unfavourable to the Haedui. Their leader Eporedorix at length called out their whole clients, and marched forth with an enormous superiority of force against the Germans. These obstinately refused battle, and kept themselves under cover of morasses and forests. It was not till the clans, weary of waiting, began to break up and disperse, that the Germans appeared in the open field, and then Ariovistus compelled a battle at Admagetobriga, in which the flower of the cavalry of the Haedui were left on the field. The Haedui, forced by this defeat to conclude peace on the terms which the victor proposed, were obliged to renounce the hegemony, and to consent with their whole adherents to become clients of the Sequani; they had to bind themselves to pay tribute to the Sequani or rather to Ariovistus, and to furnish the children of their principal nobles as hostages; and lastly they had to swear that they would never demand back these hostages nor invoke the intervention of the Romans.

Inaction of the Romans

This peace was concluded apparently about 693.(29) Honour and advantage enjoined the Romans to come forward in opposition to it; the noble Haeduan Divitiacus, the head of the Roman party in his clan, and for that reason now banished by his countrymen, went in person to Rome to solicit their intervention. A still more serious warning was the insurrection of the Allobroges in 693(30)-- the neighbours of the Sequani--which was beyond doubt connected with these events. In reality orders were issued to the Gallic governors to assist the Haedui; they talked of sending consuls and consular armies over the Alps; but the senate, to whose decision these affairs primarily fell, at length here also crowned great words with little deeds. The insurrection of the Allobroges was suppressed by arms, but nothing was done for the Haedui; on the contrary, Ariovistus was even enrolled in 695 in the list of kings friendly with the Romans.(31)

Foundation of a German Empire in Gaul

The German warrior-prince naturally took this as a renunciation by the Romans of the Celtic land which they had not occupied; he accordingly took up his abode there, and began to establish a German principality on Gallic soil. It was his intention that the numerous bands which he had brought with him, and the still more numerous bands that afterwards followed at his call from home-- it was reckoned that up to 696 some 120,000 Germans had crossed the Rhine--this whole mighty immigration of the German nation, which poured through the once opened sluices like a stream over the beautiful west, should become settled there and form a basis on which he might build his dominion over Gaul. The extent of the German settlements which he called into existence on the left bank of the Rhine cannot be determined; beyond doubt it was great, and his projects were far greater still. The Celts were treated by him as a wholly subjugated nation, and no distinction was made between the several cantons. Even the Sequani, as whose hired commander-in-chief he had crossed the Rhine, were obliged, as if they were vanquished enemies, to cede to him for his people a third of their territory--presumably upper Alsace afterwards inhabited by the Triboci--where Ariovistus permanently settled with his followers; nay, as if this were not enough, a second third was afterwards demanded of them for the Harudes who arrived subsequently. Ariovistus seemed as if he wished to take up in Gaul the part of Philip of Macedonia, and to play the master over the Celts who were friendly to the Germans no less than over those who adhered to the Romans.

The Germans on the Lower Rhine The Germans on the Upper Rhine Spread of the Helvetian Invasion to the Interior of Gaul

The appearance of the energetic German prince in so dangerous proximity, which could not but in itself excite the most serious apprehension in the Romans, appeared still more threatening, inasmuch as it stood by no means alone. The Usipetes and Tencteri settled on the right bank of the Rhine, weary of the incessant devastation of their territory by the overbearing Suebian tribes, had, the year before Caesar arrived in Gaul (695), set out from their previous abodes to seek others at the mouth of the Rhine. They had already taken away from the Menapii there the portion of their territory situated on the right bank, and it might be foreseen that they would make the attempt to establish themselves also on the left. Suebian bands, moreover, assembled between Cologne and Mayence, and threatened to appear as uninvited guests in the opposite Celtic canton of the Treveri. Lastly, the territory of the most easterly clan of the Celts, the warlike and numerous Helvetii, was visited with growing frequency by the Germans, so that the Helvetii, who perhaps even apart from this were suffering from over-population through the reflux of their settlers from the territory which they had lost to the north of the Rhine, and besides were liable to be completely isolated from their kinsmen by the settlement of Ariovistus in the territory of the Sequani, conceived the desperate resolution of voluntarily evacuating the territory hitherto in their possession to the Germans, and acquiring larger and more fertile abodes to the west of the Jura, along with, if possible, the hegemony in the interior of Gaul--a plan which some of their districts had already formed and attempted to execute during the Cimbrian invasion.(32) the Rauraci whose territory (Basle and southern Alsace) was similarly threatened, the remains, moreover, of the Boii who had already at an earlier period been compelled by the Germans to forsake their homes and were now unsettled wanderers, and other smaller tribes, made common cause with the Helvetii. As early as 693 their flying parties came over the Jura and even as far as the Roman province; their departure itself could not be much longer delayed; inevitably German settlers would then advance into the important region between the lakes of Constance and Geneva forsaken by its defenders. From the sources of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean the German tribes were in motion; the whole line of the Rhine was threatened by them; it was a moment like that when the Alamanni and the Franks threw themselves on the falling empire of the Caesars; and even now there seemed on the eve of being carried into effect against the Celts that very movement which was successful five hundred years afterwards against the Romans.

Caesar Proceeds to Gaul Caesar's Army

Under these circumstances the new governor Gaius Caesar arrived in the spring of 696 in Narbonese Gaul, which had been added by decree of the senate to his original province embracing Cisalpine Gaul along with Istria and Dalmatia. His office, which was committed to him first for five years (to the end of 700), then in 699 for five more (to the end of 705), gave him the right to nominate ten lieutenants of propraetorian rank, and (at least according to his own interpretation) to fill up his legions, or even to form new ones at his discretion out of the burgess-population--who were especially numerous in Cisalpine Gaul--of the territory under his sway. The army, which he received in the two provinces, consisted, as regards infantry of the line, of four legions trained and inured to war, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, or at the utmost 24,000 men, to which fell to be added, as usual, the contingents of the subjects. The cavalry and light-armed troops, moreover, were represented by horsemen from Spain, and by Numidian, Cretan, and Balearic archers and slingers. The staff of Caesar--the elite of the democracy of the capital--contained, along with not a few useless young men of rank, some able officers, such as Publius Crassus the younger son of the old political ally of Caesar, and Titus Labienus, who followed the chief of the democracy as a faithful adjutant from the Forum to the battle-field. Caesar had not received definite instructions; to one who was discerning and courageous these were implied in the circumstances with which he had to deal. Here too the negligence of the senate had to be retrieved, and first of all the stream of migration of the German peoples had to be checked.

Repulse of the Helvetii

Just at this time the Helvetic invasion, which was closely interwoven with the German and had been in preparation for years, began. That they might not make a grant of their abandoned huts to the Germans and might render their own return impossible, the Helvetii had burnt their towns and villages; and their long trains of waggons, laden with women, children, and the best part of their moveables, arrived from all sides at the Leman lake near Genava (Geneva), where they and their comrades had fixed their rendezvous for the 28th of March(33) of this year. According to their own reckoning the whole body consisted of 368,000 persons, of whom about a fourth part were able to bear arms. As the mountain chain of the Jura, stretching from the Rhine to the Rhone, almost completely closed in the Helvetic country towards the west, and its narrow defiles were as ill adapted for the passage of such a caravan as they were well adapted for defence, the leaders had resolved to go round in a southerly direction, and to open up for themselves a way to the west at the point, where the Rhone has broken through the mountain-chain between the south-western and highest part of the Jura and the Savoy mountains, near the modern Fort de l'Ecluse. But on the right bank here the rocks and precipices come so close to the river that there remained only a narrow path which could easily be blocked up, and the Sequani, to whom this bank belonged, could with ease intercept the route of the Helvetii. They preferred therefore to pass over, above the point where the Rhone breaks through, to the left Allobrogian bank, with the view of regaining the right bank further down the stream where the Rhone enters the plain, and then marching on towards the level west of Gaul; there the fertile canton of the Santones (Saintonge, the valley of the Charente) on the Atlantic Ocean was selected by the wanderers for their new abode. This march led, where it touched the left bank of the Rhone, through Roman territory; and Caesar, otherwise not disposed to acquiesce in the establishment of the Helvetii in western Gaul, was firmly resolved not to permit their passage. But of his four legions three were stationed far off at Aquileia; although he called out in haste the militia of the Transalpine province, it seemed scarcely possible with so small a force to hinder the innumerable Celtic host from crossing the Rhone, between its exit from the Leman lake at Geneva and the point of its breaking through the mountains, over a distance of more than fourteen miles. Caesar, however, by negotiations with the Helvetii, who would gladly have effected by peaceable means the crossing of the river and the march through the Allobrogian territory, gained a respite of fifteen days, which was employed in breaking down the bridge over the Rhone at Genava, and barring the southern bank of the Rhone against the enemy by an entrenchment nearly nineteen miles long: it was the first application of the system--afterwards carried out on so immense a scale by the Romans--of guarding the frontier of the empire in a military point of view by a chain of forts placed in connection with each other by ramparts and ditches. The attempts of the Helvetii to gain the other bank at different places in boats or by means of fords were successfully frustrated by the Romans in these lines, and the Helvetii were compelled to desist from the passage of the Rhone.

The Helvetii Move towards Gaul

On the other hand, the party in Gaul hostile to the Romans, which hoped to obtain a powerful reinforcement in the Helvetii, more especially the Haeduan Dumnorix brother of Divitiacus, and at the head of the national party in his canton as the latter wasat the head of the Romans, procured for them a passage through the passes of the Jura and the territory of the Sequani. The Romans had no legal title to forbid this; but other and higher interestswereat stake for them in the Helvetic expedition than the question of the formal integrity of the Roman territory-- interests which could only be guarded, if Caesar, instead of confining himself, as all the governors of the senate and even Marius(34) had done, to the modest task of watching the frontier, should cross what had hitherto been the frontier at the head of a considerable army. Caesar was general not of the senate, but of the state; he showed no hesitation. He had immediately proceeded from Genava in person to Italy, and with characteristic speed brought up the three legions cantoned there as well as two newly-formed legions of recruits.

The Helvetian War

These troops he united with the corps stationed at Genava, and crossed the Rhone with his whole force. His unexpected appearance in the territory of the Haedui naturally at once restored the Roman party there to power, which was not unimportant as regarded supplies. He found the Helvetii employed in crossing the Saone, and moving from the territory of the Sequani into that of the Haedui; those of them that were still on the left bank of the Saone, especially the corps of the Tigorini, were caught and destroyed by the Romans rapidly advancing. The bulk of the expedition, however, had already crossed to the right bank of the river; Caesar followed them and in twenty-four hours effected the passage, which the unwieldy host of the Helvetii had not been able to accomplish in twenty days. The Helvetii, prevented by this passage of the river on the part of the Roman army from continuing their march westward, turned in a northerly direction, doubtless under the supposition that Caesar would not venture to follow them far into the interior of Gaul, and with the intention, if he should desist from following them, of turning again toward their proper destination. For fifteen days the Roman army marched behind that of the enemy at a distance of about four miles, clinging to its rear, and hoping for an advantageous opportunity of assailing the Helvetic host under conditions favourable to victory, and destroying it. But this moment came not: unwieldy as was the march of the Helvetic caravan, the leaders knew how to guard against a surprise, and appeared to be copiously provided with supplies as well as most accurately informed by their spies of every event in the Roman camp. On the other hand the Romans began to suffer from want of necessaries, especially when the Helvetii removed from the Saone and the means of river-transport ceased. The non-arrival of the supplies promised by the Haedui, from which this embarrassment primarily arose, excited the more suspicion, as both armies were still moving about in their territory. Moreover the considerable Roman cavalry, numbering almost 4000 horse, proved utterly untrustworthy--which doubtless admitted of explanation, for they consisted almost wholly of Celtic horsemen, especially of the mounted retainers of the Haedui, under the command of Dumnorix the well-known enemy of the Romans, and Caesar himself had taken them over still more as hostages than as soldiers. There was good reason to believe that a defeat which they suffered at the hands of the far weaker Helvetic cavalry was occasioned by themselves, and that the enemy was informed by them of all occurrences in the Roman camp. The position of Caesar grew critical; it was becoming disagreeably evident, how much the Celtic patriot party could effect even with the Haedui in spite of their official alliance with Rome, and of the distinctive interests of this canton inclining it towards the Romans; what was to be the issue, if they ventured deeper and deeper into a country full of excitement, and if they removed daily farther from their means of communication? The armies were just marching past Bibracte (Autun), the capital of the Haedui, at a moderate distance; Caesar resolved to seize this important place by force before he continued his march into the interior; and it is very possible, that he intended to desist altogether from farther pursuit and to establish himself in Bibracte. But when he ceased from the pursuit and turned against Bibracte, the Helvetii thought that the Romans were making preparations for flight, and now attacked in their turn.

Battle at Bibracte

Caesar desired nothing better. The two armies posted themselves on two parallel chains of hills; the Celts began the engagement, broke up the Roman cavalry which had advanced into the plain, and rushed on against the Roman legions posted on the slope of the hill, but were there obliged to give way before Caesar's veterans. When the Romans thereupon, following up their advantage, descended in their turn to the plain, the Celts again advanced against them, and a reserved Celtic corps took them at the same time in flank. The reserve of the Roman attacking column was pushed forward against the latter; it forced it away from the main body towards the baggage and the barricade of waggons, where it was destroyed. The bulk of the Helvetic host was at length brought to give way, and compelled to beat a retreat in an easterly direction--the opposite of that towards which their expedition led them. This day had frustrated the scheme of the Helvetii to establish for themselves new settlements on the Atlantic Ocean, and handed them over to the pleasure of the victor; but it had been a hot day also for the conquerors. Caesar, who had reason for not altogether trusting his staff of officers, had at the very outset sent away all the officers' horses, so as to make the necessity of holding their ground thoroughly clear to his troops; in fact the battle, had the Romans lost it, would have probably brought about the annihilation of the Roman army. The Roman troops were too much exhausted to pursue the conquered with vigour; but in consequence of the proclamation of Caesar that he would treat all who should support the Helvetii as like the Helvetii themselves enemies of the Romans, all support was refused to the beaten army whithersoever it went-- in the first instance, in the canton of the Lingones (about Langres)--and, deprived of all supplies and of their baggage and burdened by the mass of camp-followers incapable of fighting, they were under the necessity of submitting to the Roman general.

The Helvetii Sent back to Their Original Abode

The lot of the vanquished was a comparatively mild one. The Haedui were directed to concede settlements in their territory to the homeless Boii; and this settlement of the conquered foe in the midst of the most powerful Celtic cantons rendered almost the services of a Roman colony. The survivors of the Helvetii and Rauraci, something more than a third of the men that had marched forth, were naturally sent back to their former territory. It was incorporated with the Roman province, but the inhabitants were admitted to alliance with Rome under favourable conditions, in order to defend, under Roman supremacy, the frontier along the upper Rhine against the Germans. Only the south-western point of the Helvetic canton was directly taken into the possession of the Romans, and there subsequently, on the charming shore of the Leman lake, the old Celtic town Noviodunum (now Nyon) was converted into a Roman frontier-fortress, the "Julian equestrian colony."(35)

Caesar and Ariovistus Negotiations

Thus the threatening invasion of the Germans on the upper Rhine was obviated, and, at the same time, the party hostile to the Romans among the Celts was humbled. On the middle Rhine also, where the Germans had already crossed years ago, and where the power of Ariovistus which vied with that of Rome in Gaul was daily spreading, there was need of similar action, and the occasion for a rupture was easily found. In comparison with the yoke threatened or already imposed on them by Ariovistus, the Roman supremacy probably now appeared to the greater part of the Celts in this quarter the lesser evil; the minority, who retained their hatred of the Romans, had at least to keep silence. A diet of the Celtic tribes of central Gaul, held under Roman influence, requested the Roman general in name of the Celtic nation for aid against the Germans. Caesar consented. At his suggestion the Haedui stopped the payment of the tribute stipulated to be paid to Ariovistus, and demanded back the hostages furnished; and when Ariovistus on account of this breach of treaty attacked the clients of Rome, Caesar took occasion thereby to enter into direct negotiation with him and specially to demand, in addition to the return of the hostages and a promise to keep peace with the Haedui, that Ariovistus should bind himself to allure no more Germans over the Rhine. The German general replied to the Roman, in the full consciousness of equality of rights, that northern Gaul had become subject to him by right of war as fairly as southern Gaul to the Romans; and that, as he did not hinder the Romans from taking tribute from the Allobroges, so they should not prevent him from taxing his subjects. In later secret overtures it appeared that the prince was well aware of the circumstances of the Romans; he mentioned the invitations which had been addressed to him from Rome to put Caesar out of the way, and offered, if Caesar would leave to him northern Gaul, to assist him in turn to obtain the sovereignty of Italy--as the party-quarrels of the Celtic nation had opened up an entrance for him into Gaul, he seemed to expect from the party- quarrels of the Italian nation the consolidation of his rule there. For centuries no such language of power completely on a footing of equality and bluntly and carelessly expressing its independence had been held in presence of the Romans, as was now heard from the king of the German host; he summarily refused to come, when the Roman general suggested that he should appear personally before him according to the usual practice with client-princes.

Ariovistus Attacked And Beaten

It was the more necessary not to delay; Caesar immediately set out against Ariovistus. A panic seized his troops, especially his officers when they were to measure their strength with the flower of the German troops that for fourteen years had not come under shelter of a roof: it seemed as if the deep decay of Roman moral and military discipline would assert itself and provoke desertion and mutiny even in Caesar's camp. But the general, while declaring that in case of need he would march with the tenth legion alone against the enemy, knew not merely how to influence these by such an appeal to honour, but also how to bind the other regiments to their eagles by warlike emulation, and to inspire the troops with something of his own energy. Without leaving them time for reflection, he led them onward in rapid marches, and fortunately anticipated Ariovistus in the occupation of Vesontio (Besancon), the capital of the Sequani. A personal conference between the two generals, which took place at the request of Ariovistus, seemed as if solely meant to cover an attempt against the person of Caesar; arms alone could decide between the two oppressors of Gaul. The war came temporarily to a stand. In lower Alsace somewhere in the region of Muhlhausen, five miles from the Rhine,(36) the two armies lay at a little distance from each other, till Ariovistus with his very superior force succeeded in marching past the Roman camp, placing himself in its rear, and cutting off the Romans from their base and their supplies. Caesar attempted to free himself from his painful situation by a battle; but Ariovistus did not accept it. Nothing remained for the Roman general but, in spite of his inferior strength, to imitate the movement of the Germans, and to recover his communications by making two legions march past the enemy and take up a position beyond the camp of the Germans, while four legions remained behind in the former camp. Ariovistus, when he saw the Romans divided, attempted an assault on their lesser camp; but the Romans repulsed it. Under the impression made by this success, the whole Roman army was brought forward to the attack; and the Germans also placed themselves in battle array, in a long line, each tribe for itself, the cars of the army with the baggage and women being placed behind them to render flight more difficult. The right wing of the Romans, led by Caesar himself, threw itself rapidly on the enemy, and drove them before it; the right wing of the Germans was in like manner successful. The balance still stood equal; but the tactics of the reserve, which had decided so many other conflicts with barbarians, decided the conflict with the Germans also in favour of the Romans; their third line, which Publius Crassus seasonably sent to render help, restored the battle on the left wing and thereby decided the victory. The pursuit was continued to the Rhine; only a few, including the king, succeeded in escaping to the other bank (696).

German Settlements on the Left Bank of the Rhine

Thus brilliantly the Roman rule announced its advent to the mighty stream, which the Italian soldiers here saw for the first time; by a single fortunate battle the line of the Rhine was won. The fate of the German settlements on the left bank of the Rhine lay in the hands of Caesar; the victor could destroy them, but he did not do so. The neighbouring Celtic cantons--the Sequani, Leuci, Mediomatrici--were neither capable of self-defence nor trustworthy; the transplanted Germans promised to become not merely brave guardians of the frontier but also better subjects of Rome, for their nationality severed them from the Celts, and their own interest in the preservation of their newly-won settlements severed them from their countrymen across the Rhine, so that in their isolated position they could not avoid adhering to the central power. Caesar here, as everywhere, preferred conquered foes to doubtful friends; he left the Germans settled by Ariovistus along the left bank of the Rhine--the Triboci about Strassburg, the Nemetes about Spires, the Vangiones about Worms--in possession of their new abodes, and entrusted them with the guarding of the Rhine-frontier against their countrymen.(37) The Suebi, who threatened the territory of the Treveri on the middle Rhine, on receiving news of the defeat of Ariovistus, again retreated into the interior of Germany; on which occasion they sustained considerable loss by the way at the hands of the adjoining tribes.

The Rhine Boundary

The consequences of this one campaign were immense; they were felt for many centuries after. The Rhine had become the boundary of the Roman empire against the Germans. In Gaul, which was no longer able to govern itself, the Romans had hitherto ruled on the south coast, while lately the Germans had attempted to establish themselves farther up. The recent events had decided that Gaul was to succumb not merely in part but wholly to the Roman supremacy, and that the natural boundary presented by the mighty river was also to become the political boundary. The senate in its better times had not rested, till the dominion of Rome had reached the natural bounds of Italy--the Alps and the Mediterranean--and its adjacent islands. The enlarged empire also needed a similar military rounding off; but the present government left the matter to accident, and sought at most to see, not that the frontiers were capable of defence, but that they should not need to be defended directly by itself. People felt that now another spirit and another arm began to guide the destinies of Rome.

Subjugation of Gaul Belgic Expedition

The foundations of the future edifice were laid; but in order to finish the building and completely to secure the recognition of the Roman rule by the Gauls, and that of the Rhine-frontier by the Germans, very much still remained to be done. All central Gaul indeed from the Roman frontier as far up as Chartres and Treves submitted without objection to the new ruler; and on the upper and middle Rhine also no attack was for the present to be apprehended from the Germans. But the northern provinces--as well the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful confederation of the Belgae--were not affected by the blows directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit to the conqueror of Ariovistus. Moreover, as was already remarked, very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes made themselves ready to cross the stream. In consequence of this Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons. Mindful of the brave and successful resistance which fifty years before they had with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent their whole first levy--300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba the king of the Suessiones--to their southern frontier to receive Caesar there. A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi (about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul. The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost at the same time.

Conflicts on the Aisne Submission of the Western Cantons

Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications. When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly. King Galba was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil. No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp of the confederates. The Bellovaci in particular, equal to the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied that the supreme command of the confederate army had not fallen to them, could no longer be detained after news had arrived that the Haedui as allies of the Romans were making preparations to enter the Bellovacic territory. They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked, the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne, the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle. The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci (about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines, the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain.

The Conflict with the Nervii

But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates (about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci, far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit, concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge, and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights, the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment the enemy had crossed this also, and stormed the heights of the left bank with a determination that braved death. Scarcely was there time left for the entrenching legionaries to exchange the mattock for the sword; the soldiers, many without helmets, had to fight just as they stood, without line of battle, without plan, without proper command; for, owing to the suddenness of the attack and the intersection of the ground by tall hedges, the several divisions had wholly lost their communications. Instead of a battle there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left wing overthrew the Atrebates and pursued them even across the river. The Roman central division forced the Viromandui down the declivity. But the right wing, where the general himself was present, was outflanked by the far more numerous Nervii the more easily, as the central division carried away by its own success had evacuated the ground alongside of it, and even the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions, each separately rolled together into a dense mass and assailed in front and on both flanks, deprived of most of their officers and their best soldiers, appeared on the point of being broken and cut to pieces. The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions, like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed, that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained. Everything was at stake. The general himself seized his shield and fought among the foremost; his example, his call even now inspiring enthusiasm, induced the wavering ranks to rally. They had already in some measure extricated themselves and had at least restored the connection between the two legions of this wing, when help came up-- partly down from the crest of the bank, where in the interval the Roman rearguard with the baggage had arrived, partly from the other bank of the river, where Labienus had meanwhile penetrated to the enemy's camp and taken possession of it, and now, perceiving at length the danger that menaced the right wing, despatched the victorious tenth legion to the aid of his general. The Nervii, separated from their confederates and simultaneously assailed on all sides, now showed, when fortune turned, the same heroic courage as when they believed themselves victors; still over the pile of corpses of their fallen comrades they fought to the last man. According to their own statement, of their six hundred senators only three survived this day.

Subjugation of the Belgae

After this annihilating defeat the Nervii, Atrebates, and Viromandui could not but recognize the Roman supremacy. The Aduatuci, who arrived too late to take part in the fight on the Sambre, attempted still to hold their ground in the strongest of their towns (on the mount Falhize near the Maas not far from Huy), but they too soon submitted. A nocturnal attack on the Roman camp in front of the town, which they ventured after the surrender, miscarried; and the perfidy was avenged by the Romans with fearful severity. The clients of the Aduatuci, consisting of the Eburones between the Maas and Rhine and other small adjoining tribes, were declared independent by the Romans, while the Aduatuci taken prisoners were sold under the hammer en masse for the benefit of the Roman treasury. It seemed as if the fate which had befallen the Cimbri still pursued even this last Cimbrian fragment. Caesar contented himself with imposing on the other subdued tribes a general disarmament and furnishing of hostages. The Remi became naturally the leading canton in Belgic, like the Haedui in central Gaul; even in the latter several clans at enmity with the Haedui preferred to rank among the clients of the Remi. Only the remote maritime cantons of the Morini (Artois) and the Menapii (Flanders and Brabant), and the country between the Scheldt and the Rhine inhabited in great part by Germans, remained still for the present exempt from Roman invasion and in possession of their hereditary freedom.

Expeditions against the Maritime Cantons Venetian War

The turn of the Aremorican cantons came. In the autumn of 697 Publius Crassus was sent thither with a Roman corps; he induced the Veneti--who as masters of the ports of the modern Morbihan and of a respectable fleet occupied the first place among all the Celtic cantons in navigation and commerce--and generally the coast-districts between the Loire and Seine, to submit to the Romans and give them hostages. But they soon repented. When in the following winter (697-698) Roman officers came to these legions to levy requisitions of grain there, they were detained by the Veneti as counter-hostages. The example thus set was quickly followed not only by the Aremorican cantons, but also by the maritime cantons of the Belgae that still remained free; where, as in some cantons of Normandy, the common council refused to join the insurrection, the multitude put them to death and attached itself with redoubled zeal to the national cause. The whole coast from the mouth of the Loire to that of the Rhine rose against Rome; the most resolute patriots from all the Celtic cantons hastened thither to co-operate in the great work of liberation; they already calculated on the rising of the whole Belgic confederacy, on aid from Britain, on the arrival of Germans from beyond the Rhine.

Caesar sent Labienus with all the cavalry to the Rhine, with a view to hold in check the agitation in the Belgic province, and in case of need to prevent the Germans from crossing the river; another of his lieutenants, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, went with three legions to Normandy, where the main body of the insurgents assembled. But the powerful and intelligent Veneti were the true centre of the insurrection; the chief attack by land and sea was directed against them. Caesar's lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, brought up the fleet formed partly of the ships of the subject Celtic cantons, partly of a number of Roman galleys hastily built on the Loire and manned with rowers from the Narbonese province; Caesar himself advanced with the flower of his infantry into the territory of the Veneti. But these were prepared beforehand, and had with equal skill and resolution availed themselves of the favourable circumstances which the nature of the ground in Brittany and the possession of a considerable naval power presented. The country was much intersected and poorly furnished with grain, the towns were situated for the most part on cliffs and tongues of land, and were accessible from the mainland only by shallows which it was difficult to cross; the provision of supplies and the conducting of sieges were equally difficult for the army attacking by land, while the Celts by means of their vessels could furnish the towns easily with everything needful, and in the event of the worst could accomplish their evacuation. The legions expended their time and strength in the sieges of the Venetian townships, only to see the substantial fruits of victory ultimately carried off in the vessels of the enemy.

Naval Battle between the Romans and the Veneti Submission of the Maritime Cantons

Accordingly when the Roman fleet, long detained by storms at the mouth of the Loire, arrived at length on the coast of Brittany, it was left to decide the struggle by a naval battle. The Celts, conscious of their superiority on this element, brought forth their fleet against that of the Romans commanded by Brutus. Not only did it number 220 sail, far more than the Romans had been able to bring up, but their high-decked strong sailing-vessels with flat bottoms were also far better adapted for the high-running waves of the Atlantic Ocean than the low, lightly-built oared galleys of the Romans with their sharp keels. Neither the missiles nor the boarding-bridges of the Romans could reach the high deck of the enemy's vessels, and the iron beaks recoiled powerless from the strong oaken planks. But the Roman mariners cut the ropes, by which the yards were fastened to the masts, by means of sickles fastened to long poles; the yards and sails fell down, and, as they did not know how to repair the damage speedily, the ship was thus rendered a wreck just as it is at the present day by the falling of the masts, and the Roman boats easily succeeded by a joint attack in mastering the maimed vessel of the enemy. When the Gauls perceived this manoeuvre, they attempted to move from the coast on which they had taken up the combat with the Romans, and to gain the high seas, whither the Roman galleys could not follow them; but unhappily for them there suddenly set in a dead calm, and the immense fleet, towards the equipment of which the maritime cantons had applied all their energies, was almost wholly destroyed by the Romans. Thus was this naval battle--so far as historical knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean-- just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before,(39) notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity. The consequence of the victory achieved by Brutus was the surrender of the Veneti and of all Brittany. More with a view to impress the Celtic nation, after so manifold evidences of clemency towards the vanquished, by an example of fearful severity now against those whose resistance had been obstinate, than with the view of punishing the breach of treaty and the arrest of the Roman officers, Caesar caused the whole common council to be executed and the people of the Venetian canton to the last man to be sold into slavery. By this dreadful fate, as well as by their intelligence and their patriotism, the Veneti have more than any other Celtic clan acquired a title to the sympathy of posterity.

Sabinus meanwhile opposed to the levy of the coast-states assembled on the Channel the same tactics by which Caesar had in the previous year conquered the Belgic general levy on the Aisne; he stood on the defensive till impatience and want invaded the ranks of the enemy, and then managed by deceiving them as to the temper and strength of his troops, and above all by means of their own impatience, to allure them to an imprudent assault upon the Roman camp, in which they were defeated; whereupon the militia dispersed and the country as far as the Seine submitted.

Expeditins against the Morini and Menapii

The Morini and Menapii alone persevered in withholding their recognition of the Roman supremacy. To compel them to this, Caesar appeared on their borders; but, rendered wiser by the experiences of their countrymen, they avoided accepting battle on the borders of their land, and retired into the forests which then stretched almost without interruption from the Ardennes towards the German Ocean. The Romans attempted to make a road through the forest with the axe, ranging the felled trees on each side as a barricade against the enemy's attacks; but even Caesar, daring as he was, found it advisable after some days of most laborious marching, especially as it was verging towards winter, to order a retreat, although but a small portion of the Morini had submitted and the powerful Menapii had not been reached at all. In the following year (699) while Caesar himself was employed in Britain the greater part of the army was sent afresh against these tribes; but this expedition also remained in the main unsuccessful. Nevertheless the result of the last campaigns was the almost complete reduction of Gaul under the dominion of the Romans. While central Gaul had submitted to it without resistance, during the campaign of 697 the Belgic, and during that of the following year the maritime, cantons had been compelled by force of arms to acknowledge the Roman rule. The lofty hopes, with which the Celtic patriots had begun the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled. Neither Germans nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts of the previous year.

Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais

While Caesar was thus forming the Roman domain in the west by force of arms into a compact whole, he did not neglect to open up for the newly-conquered country--which was destined in fact to fill up the wide gap in that domain between Italy and Spain-communications both with the Italian home and with the Spanish provinces. The communication between Gaul and Italy had certainly been materially facilitated by the military road laid out by Pompeius in 677 over Mont Genevre;(40) but since the whole of Gaul had been subdued by the Romans, there was need of a route crossing the ridge of the Alps from the valley of the Po, not in a westerly but in a northerly direction, and furnishing a shorter communication between Italy and central Gaul. The way which leads over the Great St. Bernard into the Valais and along the lake of Geneva had long served the merchant for this purpose; to get this road into his power, Caesar as early as the autumn of 697 caused Octodurum (Martigny) to be occupied by Servius Galba, and the inhabitants of the Valais to be reduced to subjection--a result which was, of course, merely postponed, not prevented, by the brave resistance of these mountain-peoples.

And with Spain

To gain communication with Spain, moreover, Publius Crassus was sent in the following year (698) to Aquitania with instructions to compel the Iberian tribes dwelling there to acknowledge the Roman rule. The task was not without difficulty; the Iberians held together more compactly than the Celts and knew better than these how to learn from their enemies. The tribes beyond the Pyrenees, especially the valiant Cantabri, sent a contingent to their threatened countrymen; with this there came experienced officers trained under the leadership of Sertorius in the Roman fashion, who introduced as far as possible the principles of the Roman art of war, and especially of encampment, among the Aquitanian levy already respectable from its numbers and its valour. But the excellent officer who led the Romans knew how to surmount all difficulties, and after some hardly-contested but successful battles he induced the peoples from the Garonne to the vicinity of the Pyrenees to submit to the new masters.

Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans The Usipetes and Tencteri