Book 1

CHAPTER 1.1

SECTION 1.1.1All Gaul is divided into three parts, one inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and the third by those who in their own language are called Celts, and in ours Gauls.

SECTION 1.1.2All these peoples differ from one another in language, customs, and laws. The river Garumna separates the Gauls from the Aquitani, and the Matrona and Sequana separate them from the Belgae.

SECTION 1.1.3Of all these peoples, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are farthest removed from the culture and refinement of the Province, and merchants very seldom travel among them and import those things that tend to weaken courage;

SECTION 1.1.4they are also nearest to the Germans who dwell across the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For the same reason, the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, because they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, either keeping them out of their own territory or themselves waging war within the Germans’ borders.

SECTION 1.1.5[The one part occupied by the Gauls, as has been stated, begins at the river Rhodanus; it is bounded by the river Garumna, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae; on the side of the Sequani and Helvetii it also reaches the river Rhine, and it extends toward the north.

SECTION 1.1.6The territory of the Belgae begins at the farthest borders of Gaul, extends to the lower reaches of the Rhine, and faces north and east.

SECTION 1.1.7Aquitania extends from the river Garumna to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Ocean which lies toward Spain; it faces between west and north.]

CHAPTER 1.2

SECTION 1.2.1Among the Helvetii, by far the most noble and wealthy man was Orgetorix. In the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso, driven by a desire for kingship, he formed a conspiracy among the nobility and persuaded his people to leave their territory with all their forces:

SECTION 1.2.2since they surpassed all others in valor, it would be very easy for them to gain dominion over the whole of Gaul.

SECTION 1.2.3He persuaded them of this all the more easily because the Helvetii are hemmed in on every side by the nature of the country: on one side by the Rhine, a very broad and deep river, which separates the Helvetian territory from the Germans; on another by the lofty Jura mountain range, which lies between the Sequani and the Helvetii; and on a third by Lake Lemannus and the river Rhodanus, which separates our Province from the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.2.4These circumstances both restricted the range of their movements and made it less easy for them to wage war upon their neighbors;

SECTION 1.2.5and in this respect, being men eager for war, they were deeply distressed.

SECTION 1.2.6Considering the size of their population and their renown for warfare and courage, they thought their territory too confined, though it extended two hundred and forty miles in length and one hundred and eighty in breadth.

CHAPTER 1.3

SECTION 1.3.1Moved by these considerations and stirred by the authority of Orgetorix, they resolved to prepare everything required for their departure: to purchase as many draft animals and wagons as possible, to sow crops on the largest possible scale so that they would have an ample supply of grain on the march, and to establish peace and friendship with the neighboring peoples.

SECTION 1.3.2They judged that two years would be sufficient to complete these preparations; by law they fixed their departure for the third year.

SECTION 1.3.3Orgetorix was chosen to carry out these plans. He undertook an embassy to the neighboring peoples. On that journey he persuaded Casticus, a Sequanian and the son of Catamantaloedes—whose father had held the kingship among the Sequani for many years and had been called a friend by the Senate of the Roman people—to seize in his own state the kingship that his father had held before him;

SECTION 1.3.4and he likewise persuaded Dumnorix the Aeduan, brother of Diviciacus, who at that time held the leading position in his state and enjoyed the highest favor with the common people, to make the same attempt, and gave him his own daughter in marriage.

SECTION 1.3.5He showed them that it would be very easy to bring their designs to completion, because he himself was certain to secure command over his own state:

SECTION 1.3.6there was no doubt, he said, that the Helvetii were the most powerful people in all Gaul; and he assured them that with his own resources and his own army he would win kingdoms for them.

SECTION 1.3.7Persuaded by this argument, they exchanged pledges and oaths, and hoped that, once they had seized their kingships, they would be able, through the three most powerful and firmly established peoples, to gain possession of the whole of Gaul.

CHAPTER 1.4

SECTION 1.4.1This scheme was revealed to the Helvetii by an informer. In accordance with their custom, they compelled Orgetorix to plead his case in chains; if condemned, the penalty required him to be burned alive.

SECTION 1.4.2On the day appointed for his trial, Orgetorix summoned to the court from every quarter his entire household, numbering about ten thousand persons, and assembled there all his dependents and debtors, of whom he had a great number; by their aid he escaped having to plead his case.

SECTION 1.4.3When the state, enraged by this conduct, attempted to enforce its rights by arms, and the magistrates were gathering a multitude of men from the countryside, Orgetorix died;

SECTION 1.4.4and there is reason to suspect, as the Helvetii believe, that he took his own life.

CHAPTER 1.5

SECTION 1.5.1After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless continued their attempt to carry out their resolve and leave their territory.

SECTION 1.5.2When they considered themselves ready for the undertaking, they set fire to all their towns, about twelve in number, to some four hundred villages, and to all their remaining private buildings;

SECTION 1.5.3they burned all their grain except what they intended to carry with them, so that, with all hope of returning home removed, they might be readier to face every danger; and they ordered every man to carry from home a three-month supply of ground grain for himself. They persuaded their neighbors, the Rauraci, Tulingi, and Latobrigi, to adopt the same plan, burn their towns and villages, and depart together with them; and they admitted as allies and joined to themselves the Boii, who had lived across the Rhine, had crossed into Norican territory, and were besieging Noreia.

CHAPTER 1.6

SECTION 1.6.1There were only two routes by which they could leave their homeland. One ran through the territory of the Sequani, a narrow and difficult passage between the Jura mountain range and the river Rhodanus, where wagons could scarcely be drawn in single file; moreover, a very high mountain overhung the route, so that a very few men could easily block it.

SECTION 1.6.2The other ran through our Province and was far easier and more open, because the Rhodanus flows between the territory of the Helvetii and that of the Allobroges, who had recently been pacified, and in several places the river can be crossed by fords.

SECTION 1.6.3The outermost town of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the territory of the Helvetii, is Genava. From that town a bridge extends to the Helvetian side. They believed that they could either persuade the Allobroges, who did not yet appear well disposed toward the Roman people, or compel them by force to allow passage through their territory. When everything had been prepared for the departure, they appointed a day on which all were to assemble on the bank of the Rhodanus. That day was the fifth before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius.

CHAPTER 1.7

SECTION 1.7.1When Caesar was informed that they were attempting to march through our Province, he hastened to leave Rome, traveled by the longest forced marches he could make into Further Gaul, and arrived at Genava.

SECTION 1.7.2He ordered the entire Province to furnish as many soldiers as possible—for there was only one legion in Further Gaul—and commanded that the bridge at Genava be demolished.

SECTION 1.7.3When the Helvetii learned of his arrival, they sent as envoys to him the most distinguished men of their state, with Nammeius and Verucloetius holding the foremost place in the delegation. They were to say that the Helvetii intended to march through the Province without doing any harm, because they had no other route; and they asked to be permitted to do so with his consent. Caesar, remembering that the consul Lucius Cassius had been killed and his army defeated by the Helvetii and sent beneath the yoke, did not think their request should be granted;

SECTION 1.7.4nor did he believe that men of hostile disposition, if given the opportunity to march through the Province, would refrain from outrage and wrongdoing.

SECTION 1.7.5Nevertheless, to allow time for the soldiers he had ordered to assemble, he replied to the envoys that he would take a period for deliberation: if they wanted anything further, they should return on the Ides of April.

CHAPTER 1.8

SECTION 1.8.1Meanwhile, with the legion he had with him and the soldiers who had assembled from the Province, he constructed a wall nineteen miles long and sixteen feet high, together with a trench, from Lake Lemannus, which empties into the river Rhodanus, to the Jura mountain range, which separates the territory of the Sequani from that of the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.8.2When this work was completed, he posted garrisons and fortified strongpoints, so that he could more easily prevent them from crossing if they attempted it against his will.

SECTION 1.8.3When the day he had appointed with the envoys arrived and they returned to him, he declared that, in accordance with the custom and precedent of the Roman people, he could grant no one passage through the Province, and made it clear that if they attempted to use force, he would prevent them.

SECTION 1.8.4Disappointed in this hope, the Helvetii lashed boats together, built a number of rafts, and at other places attempted to cross by the fords of the Rhodanus where the river was shallowest, sometimes by day but more often by night, to see whether they could break through. Repulsed by the strength of the fortifications, the rapid concentration of the soldiers, and their missiles, they abandoned the attempt.

CHAPTER 1.9

SECTION 1.9.1Only one route remained, through the territory of the Sequani; because of its narrowness they could not take it without the consent of the Sequani.

SECTION 1.9.2Since they could not persuade them on their own, they sent envoys to Dumnorix the Aeduan, hoping through his intercession to obtain the Sequani’s consent.

SECTION 1.9.3Dumnorix possessed very great influence among the Sequani through his popularity and lavish gifts, and he was friendly to the Helvetii because he had married the daughter of Orgetorix, a woman of that state. Driven by a desire for kingship, he favored revolution and wished to have as many states as possible bound to him by favors.

SECTION 1.9.4He therefore undertook the matter and obtained from the Sequani permission for the Helvetii to pass through their territory; he also arranged for them to exchange hostages: the Sequani as a pledge not to obstruct the Helvetii on their march, and the Helvetii as a pledge to pass through without wrongdoing or injury.

CHAPTER 1.10

SECTION 1.10.1Caesar was informed that the Helvetii intended to march through the territories of the Sequani and the Aedui into the lands of the Santoni, who live not far from the territory of the Tolosates, a people within the Province.

SECTION 1.10.2He understood that, if this happened, it would greatly endanger the Province by placing a warlike people, hostile to the Roman people, on the borders of an open and exceptionally fertile region.

SECTION 1.10.3For these reasons he placed his lieutenant Titus Labienus in command of the fortifications he had constructed. He himself hastened by forced marches into Italy, enrolled two legions there, brought out of winter quarters the three that were wintering around Aquileia, and with these five legions pressed forward by the shortest route across the Alps into Further Gaul.

SECTION 1.10.4There the Ceutrones, Graioceli, and Caturiges occupied the higher ground and attempted to block the army’s passage. After routing them in several engagements, Caesar reached the territory of the Vocontii in the Further Province on the seventh day from Ocelum, the outermost town of the Nearer Province. From there he led his army into the territory of the Allobroges, and from the Allobroges into that of the Segusiavi. These are the first people beyond the Province across the Rhodanus.

CHAPTER 1.11

SECTION 1.11.1The Helvetii had already led their forces through the narrow pass and the territory of the Sequani, had reached the lands of the Aedui, and were ravaging their fields.

SECTION 1.11.2Since the Aedui could not defend themselves or their possessions against them, they sent envoys to Caesar to ask for aid:

SECTION 1.11.3they had, they said, deserved so well of the Roman people at all times that their lands ought not to have been laid waste, their children carried off into slavery, and their towns stormed almost within sight of our army. At the same time, the Ambarri, allies and kinsmen of the Aedui, informed Caesar that, with their fields devastated, they could not easily ward off the enemy’s violence from their towns.

SECTION 1.11.4Likewise, the Allobroges, who had villages and estates across the Rhodanus, fled to Caesar and declared that nothing remained to them but the bare soil of their land.

SECTION 1.11.5Moved by these circumstances, Caesar decided that he must not wait until the Helvetii, after consuming all the possessions of his allies, reached the territory of the Santoni.

CHAPTER 1.12

SECTION 1.12.1There is a river called the Arar, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and Sequani into the Rhodanus with such incredible gentleness that the eye cannot determine in which direction it flows. The Helvetii were crossing it on rafts and boats lashed together.

SECTION 1.12.2When Caesar was informed by scouts that the Helvetii had already led three-quarters of their forces across that river, while about one-quarter remained on the near side of the Arar, he left camp during the third watch with three legions and reached the body that had not yet crossed the river.

SECTION 1.12.3Attacking them while they were encumbered and unsuspecting, he cut down a great part of them; the rest fled and concealed themselves in the nearest forests.

SECTION 1.12.4This canton was called the Tigurinus, for the whole Helvetian state is divided into four cantons.

SECTION 1.12.5This one canton, when it had left its homeland within the memory of our fathers, had killed the consul Lucius Cassius and sent his army beneath the yoke.

SECTION 1.12.6Thus, whether by chance or by the design of the immortal gods, that part of the Helvetian state which had inflicted a signal disaster upon the Roman people was the first to pay the penalty.

SECTION 1.12.7In this affair Caesar avenged not only wrongs done to the state but also those done to his own family, because in the same battle in which they killed Cassius, the Tigurini had also killed the lieutenant Lucius Piso, grandfather of Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Piso.

CHAPTER 1.13

SECTION 1.13.1After this battle, in order to overtake the remaining forces of the Helvetii, Caesar had a bridge built across the Arar and led his army over it.

SECTION 1.13.2The Helvetii, alarmed by his sudden arrival, realized that he had accomplished in a single day what they themselves had completed with the greatest difficulty in twenty days—the crossing of the river—and sent envoys to him. The leader of the delegation was Divico, who had commanded the Helvetii in the war against Cassius.

SECTION 1.13.3He addressed Caesar as follows: if the Roman people made peace with the Helvetii, they would go and remain in whatever region Caesar assigned and wished them to occupy;

SECTION 1.13.4but if he persisted in pursuing them with war, he should remember both the former reverse suffered by the Roman people and the ancient valor of the Helvetii. Because Caesar had unexpectedly attacked a single canton when those who had crossed the river could not bring aid to their countrymen, he should neither ascribe too much to his own valor nor despise the Helvetii. They had learned from their fathers and ancestors to contend by courage rather than rely on deceit or ambushes.

SECTION 1.13.5Therefore Caesar should take care not to cause the place where they had taken their stand to derive its name, or hand down its memory, from a disaster to the Roman people and the destruction of an army.

CHAPTER 1.14

SECTION 1.14.1Caesar replied to them as follows: there was all the less room for hesitation in his mind because he remembered the events the Helvetian envoys had mentioned, and he resented them all the more bitterly because they had occurred through no fault of the Roman people;

SECTION 1.14.2if the Roman people had been conscious of having committed any wrong, it would not have been difficult to take precautions; but they had been deceived because they were unaware of having done anything that should cause them fear and did not think they ought to be afraid without cause.

SECTION 1.14.3Even if he were willing to forget that former outrage, could he also cast aside the memory of their recent injuries—their attempt, against his will, to force a passage through the Province, and their attacks upon the Aedui, the Ambarri, and the Allobroges?

SECTION 1.14.4Their insolent boasting of their victory, and their wonder that they had so long committed outrages with impunity, pointed to the same conclusion.

SECTION 1.14.5For the immortal gods were accustomed, when they wished to punish men for their crimes, sometimes to grant them greater prosperity and a longer season of impunity, so that a reversal of fortune might cause them all the greater anguish.

SECTION 1.14.6Nevertheless, such being the case, if they gave him hostages so that he might know they would perform what they promised, and if they made satisfaction to the Haedui for the injuries they had inflicted upon them and their allies, and likewise to the Allobroges, he would make peace with them.

SECTION 1.14.7Divico replied that the Helvetii had been so instructed by their ancestors that they were accustomed to receive hostages, not to give them; the Roman people could bear witness to that fact. Having given this answer, he departed.

CHAPTER 1.15

SECTION 1.15.1The next day they moved camp from that place. Caesar did the same, and sent ahead all his cavalry, about four thousand strong, which he had assembled from the whole Province, from the Haedui, and from their allies, to discover in what direction the enemy was marching. In their eagerness to pursue the enemy’s rear guard, these troops engaged the Helvetian cavalry on unfavorable ground, and a few of our men fell.

SECTION 1.15.2Elated by this encounter, because with five hundred horsemen they had driven back so great a body of cavalry, the Helvetii began at times to halt more boldly and to provoke our men to battle with their rear guard. Caesar restrained his men from fighting and considered it sufficient for the present to prevent the enemy from plundering, foraging, and ravaging the countryside.

SECTION 1.15.3In this manner they marched for about fifteen days, with no more than five or six miles separating the enemy’s rear guard from our vanguard.

CHAPTER 1.16

SECTION 1.16.1Meanwhile Caesar daily demanded from the Haedui the grain they had officially promised.

SECTION 1.16.2For because of the cold climate—Gaul, as stated before, lies toward the north—not only was the grain in the fields not yet ripe, but not even a sufficient abundance of fodder was available;

SECTION 1.16.3and he could make less use of the grain he had brought up in ships along the river Arar, because the Helvetii had turned their march away from the Arar, and he did not wish to leave them.

SECTION 1.16.4The Haedui put him off from day to day, saying that the grain was being collected, was being brought in, was close at hand.

SECTION 1.16.5When he realized that he was being delayed too long, and that the day was approaching on which grain had to be issued to the soldiers, he summoned their leading men, of whom he had a large number in camp, among them Diviciacus and Liscus, who held the highest magistracy, which the Haedui call the vergobret—a magistrate elected annually who holds the power of life and death over his people—and severely accused them,

SECTION 1.16.6because at so critical a time, with the enemy so near, when grain could neither be bought nor taken from the fields, they gave him no assistance, especially since he had undertaken the war largely at their entreaties; and he complained still more bitterly that he had been abandoned.

CHAPTER 1.17

SECTION 1.17.1Then at last, moved by Caesar’s speech, Liscus disclosed what he had previously kept silent: there were certain men whose influence with the common people was supreme and who, though private citizens, possessed more power than the magistrates themselves.

SECTION 1.17.2By seditious and unscrupulous speeches these men were frightening the populace away from contributing the grain they owed:

SECTION 1.17.3if they could no longer retain the leadership of Gaul, it was better to endure the rule of Gauls than that of Romans,

SECTION 1.17.4and they ought not to doubt that, if the Romans defeated the Helvetii, they would strip the Haedui of their liberty along with the rest of Gaul.

SECTION 1.17.5The same men reported our plans and all that took place in camp to the enemy; he was unable to restrain them.

SECTION 1.17.6Indeed, he understood how great a danger he had incurred by being compelled to reveal this necessary information to Caesar, and for that reason had remained silent as long as he could.

CHAPTER 1.18

SECTION 1.18.1From this statement by Liscus, Caesar perceived that Dumnorix, the brother of Diviciacus, was meant; but because he did not wish these matters discussed in the presence of many, he quickly dismissed the council and detained Liscus.

SECTION 1.18.2He questioned him privately about what he had said in the assembly. Liscus spoke more freely and boldly. Caesar made the same inquiries privately of others and found the allegations true:

SECTION 1.18.3the man was Dumnorix, a person of extraordinary audacity, highly popular with the common people because of his generosity, and eager for revolution. For many years he had secured at a low price the right to collect the customs duties and all the other revenues of the Haedui, because whenever he bid, no one dared bid against him.

SECTION 1.18.4By these means he had both increased his personal fortune and acquired ample resources for largesse;

SECTION 1.18.5he always maintained at his own expense and kept about him a large body of cavalry,

SECTION 1.18.6and he possessed great influence not only at home but also among neighboring states; to strengthen that power, he had married his mother among the Bituriges to a man of the highest birth and influence there;

SECTION 1.18.7he himself had a Helvetian wife, and had given his maternal half sisters and other female relatives in marriage into other states.

SECTION 1.18.8He favored the Helvetii and desired their success because of that connection by marriage; he also hated Caesar and the Romans on his own account, because their arrival had diminished his power and restored his brother Diviciacus to his former position of influence and honor.

SECTION 1.18.9If any disaster befell the Romans, he entertained the highest hopes of gaining kingship through the Helvetii; under the dominion of the Roman people, he despaired not only of kingship but even of retaining the influence he already possessed.

SECTION 1.18.10In the course of his inquiry Caesar also discovered that in the unsuccessful cavalry engagement fought a few days before, Dumnorix and his horsemen had begun the flight—for Dumnorix commanded the cavalry the Haedui had sent to Caesar’s aid—and that their flight had thrown the rest of the cavalry into a panic.

CHAPTER 1.19

SECTION 1.19.1When these facts became known, and when these suspicions were reinforced by the most conclusive evidence—that Dumnorix had conducted the Helvetii through the territory of the Sequani, that he had arranged the exchange of hostages between them, that he had done all this not only without Caesar’s orders or those of his state but even without their knowledge, and that he was accused by the chief magistrate of the Haedui—Caesar considered that there was sufficient cause either for him to punish Dumnorix himself or to order his state to punish him.

SECTION 1.19.2One consideration opposed all these facts: Caesar knew the supreme devotion of Dumnorix’s brother Diviciacus to the Roman people, his extraordinary goodwill toward Caesar himself, and his remarkable loyalty, justice, and self-restraint; for he feared that by punishing Dumnorix he might alienate Diviciacus.

SECTION 1.19.3Therefore, before attempting anything, he ordered Diviciacus to be summoned to him and, dismissing his customary interpreters, spoke with him through Gaius Valerius Troucillus, a leading man of the province of Gaul, his intimate friend, in whom he placed the highest confidence in every matter;

SECTION 1.19.4at the same time he reminded him of what had been said about Dumnorix in the council of the Gauls while Diviciacus himself was present, and disclosed what each man had said about him privately to Caesar.

SECTION 1.19.5He asked and urged Diviciacus, without taking offense, either to pass judgment on Dumnorix himself after investigating the case or to order the state to do so.

CHAPTER 1.20

SECTION 1.20.1Diviciacus embraced Caesar with many tears and began to entreat him not to impose too severe a punishment upon his brother:

SECTION 1.20.2he knew that the charges were true, and no one suffered more pain from them than he did, because when he himself possessed the greatest influence at home and throughout the rest of Gaul, while his brother had possessed very little because of his youth, Dumnorix had risen through his support;

SECTION 1.20.3and Dumnorix was now using those resources and that power not only to diminish his influence but almost to destroy him. Yet he was moved both by brotherly love and by concern for public opinion.

SECTION 1.20.4If any severe punishment befell Dumnorix at Caesar’s hands while he himself held such a place in Caesar’s friendship, no one would believe it had been done against his wishes; as a result, the sympathies of all Gaul would turn away from him.

SECTION 1.20.5As Diviciacus pleaded this case at greater length, weeping, Caesar took his right hand, consoled him, and asked him to cease his entreaties. He showed that Diviciacus’s influence with him was so great that, in deference to his wishes and prayers, he forgave both the injury done to the Roman state and his own personal grievance. He summoned Dumnorix and called in his brother; he pointed out what he found blameworthy in Dumnorix, set forth what he himself knew and what the state complained of, and warned him to avoid all grounds for suspicion in the future. He said that, for the sake of his brother Diviciacus, he forgave the past. He placed guards over Dumnorix so that he might know what he did and with whom he spoke.

CHAPTER 1.21

SECTION 1.21.1That same day, after scouts informed him that the enemy had encamped at the foot of a mountain eight miles from his own camp, Caesar sent men to ascertain the character of the mountain and the nature of the ascent on every side.

SECTION 1.21.2They reported that the ascent was easy. During the third watch he ordered Titus Labienus, his lieutenant with praetorian authority, to ascend to the mountain’s highest ridge with two legions and with the guides who had reconnoitered the route; he explained his plan to him.

SECTION 1.21.3He himself, during the fourth watch, hastened toward the enemy by the same route they had taken and sent all his cavalry ahead of him.

SECTION 1.21.4Publius Considius, who was considered highly experienced in military affairs and had served in the army of Lucius Sulla and afterward in that of Marcus Crassus, was sent ahead with the scouts.

CHAPTER 1.22

SECTION 1.22.1At daybreak, when the summit of the mountain was held by Lucius Labienus, while Caesar himself was no more than a mile and a half from the enemy’s camp, and when, as he afterward learned from prisoners, neither his own approach nor Labienus’s had been discovered,

SECTION 1.22.2Considius galloped up to him at full speed and reported that the mountain Caesar had wished Labienus to occupy was held by the enemy; he had recognized this from the Gallic arms and insignia.

SECTION 1.22.3Caesar withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and drew them up in battle order. Labienus, having been instructed by Caesar not to engage unless Caesar’s own forces were seen near the enemy’s camp, so that an assault might be made upon the enemy from every side at the same moment, held the mountain and waited for our men, refraining from battle.

SECTION 1.22.4Only when the day was far advanced did Caesar learn from his scouts both that the mountain was held by his own men and that the Helvetii had broken camp, and that Considius, panic-stricken by fear, had reported as seen what he had not seen. That day Caesar followed the enemy at his customary distance and pitched camp three miles from theirs.

CHAPTER 1.23

SECTION 1.23.1The following day, since only two days remained before grain had to be issued to the army, and since he was no more than eighteen miles from Bibracte, by far the largest and richest town of the Haedui, Caesar judged that he must provide for the grain supply. He therefore turned away from the Helvetii and hastened toward Bibracte.

SECTION 1.23.2This movement was reported to the enemy by deserters from Lucius Aemilius, a decurion of the Gallic cavalry.

SECTION 1.23.3The Helvetii, either because they thought the Romans were withdrawing from them in terror—all the more because, after occupying higher ground the day before, they had not joined battle—or because they trusted that the Romans could be cut off from their grain supply, changed their plan, reversed their march, and began to pursue and harass our rear guard.

CHAPTER 1.24

SECTION 1.24.1When Caesar observed this, he withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and sent out his cavalry to check the enemy’s attack.

SECTION 1.24.2Meanwhile, halfway up the hill, he drew up his four veteran legions in three lines; on the highest ridge he stationed the two legions he had most recently levied in Cisalpine Gaul, together with all the auxiliaries,

SECTION 1.24.3so that the whole mountain above him was filled with men. He ordered all the baggage and packs to be brought together in one place and that position fortified by the troops stationed in the upper line.

SECTION 1.24.4The Helvetii, who had followed with all their wagons, brought their baggage together in one place; then, in an exceedingly close-packed formation, they drove back our cavalry, formed a phalanx, and advanced against our first line.

CHAPTER 1.25

SECTION 1.25.1Caesar had first his own horse and then the horses of all the others removed from sight, so that by making the danger equal for everyone he might take away all hope of flight; then, after encouraging his men, he joined battle.

SECTION 1.25.2From their higher ground the soldiers hurled their pila and easily broke through the enemy’s phalanx. Once it was shattered, they drew their swords and charged.

SECTION 1.25.3The Gauls were greatly hampered in the fighting because a single cast of the pila had pierced and fastened together several of their shields; and since the iron shanks had bent, they could neither wrench the pila free nor fight with sufficient ease while their left arms were encumbered,

SECTION 1.25.4so that many, after shaking their arms for a long time, preferred to cast away their shields and fight with their bodies unprotected.

SECTION 1.25.5At last, exhausted by wounds, they began to give ground and withdraw to a mountain about a mile away.

SECTION 1.25.6After they had taken possession of the mountain and our men were advancing after them, the Boii and Tulingi, who with about fifteen thousand men closed the enemy’s column and protected its rear, attacked our exposed flank directly from the line of march and began to surround us. Seeing this, the Helvetii who had withdrawn to the mountain began once more to press forward and renew the battle.

SECTION 1.25.7The Romans wheeled their standards and advanced in two directions: the first and second lines opposed the enemy who had been defeated and driven back, while the third checked those now advancing.

CHAPTER 1.26

SECTION 1.26.1Thus the battle was fought on two fronts, long and fiercely. When the enemy could no longer withstand the assaults of our men, one body withdrew, as it had begun to do, to the mountain; the other retired to its baggage and wagons.

SECTION 1.26.2For throughout this entire battle, though the fighting lasted from the seventh hour until evening, no one saw an enemy turn his back.

SECTION 1.26.3The battle continued around the baggage until late at night, because the enemy had set their wagons before them as a rampart and, from their higher position, hurled missiles against our men as they advanced; some from between the wagons and wheels thrust their pikes and javelins upward and wounded our men.

SECTION 1.26.4After a long struggle, our men gained possession of the baggage and the camp. There the daughter of Orgetorix and one of his sons were captured.

SECTION 1.26.5About one hundred and thirty thousand persons survived that battle, and they marched continuously throughout the entire night, without halting for any part of it. On the fourth day they reached the territory of the Lingones, since our men, delayed for three days both by the soldiers’ wounds and by the burial of the slain, had been unable to pursue them.

SECTION 1.26.6Caesar sent letters and messengers to the Lingones, warning them not to assist the Helvetii with grain or anything else; if they did assist them, he would regard them in the same light as the Helvetii. After an interval of three days, he himself began to pursue them with all his forces.

CHAPTER 1.27

SECTION 1.27.1Driven by the want of every necessity, the Helvetii sent envoys to him to negotiate their surrender.

SECTION 1.27.2When these envoys met him on the march, threw themselves at his feet, and, speaking as suppliants and weeping, begged for peace, he ordered them to await his arrival in the place where they then were, and they obeyed.

SECTION 1.27.3After Caesar arrived there, he demanded hostages, their weapons, and the slaves who had fled to them.

SECTION 1.27.4While these things were being sought out and brought together, after night had intervened, about six thousand men of the canton called the Verbigenus, either terrified by the fear that, once they had surrendered their arms, they would be put to death, or lured by the hope of escape, because they believed that amid so great a multitude of surrendered men their flight might either be concealed or pass wholly unnoticed, left the Helvetian camp at the beginning of the night and hastened toward the Rhine and the territories of the Germans.

CHAPTER 1.28

SECTION 1.28.1When Caesar learned of this, he ordered the peoples through whose territories they had passed to search for them and bring them back, if they wished to be cleared of blame in his eyes; when they were brought back, he treated them as enemies.

SECTION 1.28.2All the rest, after they had surrendered hostages, arms, and deserters, he accepted in submission.

SECTION 1.28.3He ordered the Helvetii, Tulingi, and Latobrigi to return to their own territories, from which they had set out; and because, with all their crops destroyed, there was nothing at home with which they could stave off hunger, he ordered the Allobroges to provide them with a supply of grain. He ordered the Helvetii themselves to rebuild the towns and villages they had burned. His chief reason for doing this was that he did not wish the region from which the Helvetii had departed to remain vacant, lest, because of the excellence of the land, the Germans who lived across the Rhine should cross from their own territories into those of the Helvetii and become neighbors of the Province of Gaul and of the Allobroges.

SECTION 1.28.4At the request of the Haedui, because the Boii had become known for their outstanding courage, he permitted them to settle the Boii within their own territories. The Haedui gave them lands and later admitted them to the same condition of rights and freedom that they themselves enjoyed.

CHAPTER 1.29

SECTION 1.29.1In the camp of the Helvetii, tablets written in Greek characters were found and brought to Caesar. On these tablets an account had been drawn up by name of the number who had left home and were capable of bearing arms, and likewise, in separate lists, the number of children, old men, and women.

SECTION 1.29.2The total of all these was 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobrigi, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000 Boii. Of these, about 92,000 were capable of bearing arms.

SECTION 1.29.3The total number of all was about 368,000. Of those who returned home, a census taken in accordance with Caesar’s orders showed a total of 110,000.

CHAPTER 1.30

SECTION 1.30.1When the war with the Helvetii was concluded, envoys from nearly all Gaul, the leading men of their states, assembled to congratulate Caesar.

SECTION 1.30.2They declared that they understood that, although Caesar had waged war to exact punishment from the Helvetii for their ancient wrongs against the Roman people, the outcome had nevertheless served the interests of the land of Gaul no less than those of the Roman people,

SECTION 1.30.3because the Helvetii, though their affairs were at their most prosperous, had left their homes with the design of making war upon all Gaul and seizing supreme power; of choosing from the great abundance of places the site they judged most advantageous and fertile in all Gaul as their dwelling place; and of making the remaining states tributary to them.

SECTION 1.30.4They asked that they be permitted, with Caesar’s approval, to appoint a fixed day for a council of all Gaul. They had certain requests which, by common consent, they wished to make of him.

SECTION 1.30.5When permission was granted, they fixed a day for the council and bound one another by oath not to disclose its proceedings except to those entrusted with that task by their common decision.

CHAPTER 1.31

SECTION 1.31.1After that council had been dismissed, the same leading men of the states who had previously come to Caesar returned and asked to be permitted to confer with him privately and in secret concerning their own safety and that of all Gaul.

SECTION 1.31.2Their request was granted, and they all threw themselves weeping at Caesar’s feet. They declared that they strove and labored no less to prevent what they said from being disclosed than to obtain what they desired, because they saw that, if it were disclosed, they would be subjected to the most terrible torture.

SECTION 1.31.3Diviciacus the Haeduan spoke on their behalf: all Gaul was divided into two factions; the Haedui held the leadership of one, the Arverni of the other.

SECTION 1.31.4While these peoples had been contending fiercely with one another for supremacy for many years, the result had been that the Arverni and Sequani hired Germans as mercenaries.

SECTION 1.31.5At first about fifteen thousand of them had crossed the Rhine; later, when those fierce and barbarous men had come to relish the lands, civilization, and wealth of the Gauls, more had been brought across. There were now about 120,000 of them in Gaul.

SECTION 1.31.6The Haedui and their dependents had fought them in arms time and again; defeated, they had suffered a great disaster and had lost all their nobility, all their senate, and all their cavalry.

SECTION 1.31.7Broken by these battles and disasters, the Haedui, who before had held the greatest power in Gaul both through their own valor and through their ties of hospitality and friendship with the Roman people, had been forced to give the Sequani the most distinguished men of their state as hostages and to bind their state by oath that they would neither demand the hostages’ return, nor implore aid from the Roman people, nor refuse to remain forever under the dominion and authority of the Sequani.

SECTION 1.31.8He alone, out of the entire Haeduan state, could not be induced either to take the oath or to give his children as hostages.

SECTION 1.31.9For that reason he had fled from his state and gone to Rome to seek aid from the Senate, because he alone was bound neither by oath nor by hostages.

SECTION 1.31.10Yet a worse fate had befallen the victorious Sequani than the defeated Haedui, because Ariovistus, king of the Germans, had settled within their territory and seized one-third of the land of the Sequani, which was the best in all Gaul; and he was now ordering the Sequani to withdraw from another third, because a few months before twenty-four thousand Harudes had come to join him, and a place and settlements had to be prepared for them.

SECTION 1.31.11Within a few years, all the Gauls would be driven from their territories, and all the Germans would cross the Rhine; for Gallic land could not be compared with that of the Germans, nor could this manner of life be compared with theirs.

SECTION 1.31.12Moreover, ever since Ariovistus had defeated the forces of the Gauls in battle—a battle fought at Magetobriga—he had ruled with arrogance and cruelty, demanding as hostages the children of every man of highest rank and inflicting upon them every kind of exemplary punishment and torture if anything was not done at his nod or according to his pleasure.

SECTION 1.31.13He was a barbarous, hot-tempered, and reckless man; his commands could no longer be endured.

SECTION 1.31.14Unless some aid was to be found in Caesar and the Roman people, all the Gauls would have to do what the Helvetii had done: emigrate from their homes, seek another dwelling place and other settlements far removed from the Germans, and try whatever fortune might befall them. If these words were reported to Ariovistus, Diviciacus had no doubt that he would inflict the most terrible punishment upon all the hostages in his possession.

SECTION 1.31.15Caesar, either by his own authority and that of his army, or by his recent victory, or by the name of the Roman people, could deter a still greater multitude of Germans from being brought across the Rhine and could protect all Gaul from the violence of Ariovistus.

CHAPTER 1.32

SECTION 1.32.1When Diviciacus had delivered this speech, all who were present began, with loud weeping, to seek aid from Caesar.

SECTION 1.32.2Caesar noticed that, alone among all the others, the Sequani did none of the things the rest were doing, but remained sorrowful, gazing at the ground with bowed heads. Wondering at the reason for this, he questioned them.

SECTION 1.32.3The Sequani made no reply, but remained silent in the same dejection. When he questioned them repeatedly and could elicit no answer at all, the same Diviciacus the Haeduan replied:

SECTION 1.32.4the fortune of the Sequani was more wretched and grievous than that of the rest, because they alone dared not even complain in secret or implore aid, and shuddered at the cruelty of Ariovistus in his absence

SECTION 1.32.5as though he were present before them; for the rest still had the opportunity of flight, but the Sequani, who had admitted Ariovistus within their territories and whose towns were all in his power, had to endure every kind of torture.

CHAPTER 1.33

SECTION 1.33.1When Caesar had learned these facts, he reassured the Gauls with his words and promised that he would take the matter under his care. He had great hope that Ariovistus, moved by his favor and authority, would put an end to his wrongs. After delivering this speech, he dismissed the council.

SECTION 1.33.2Besides these considerations, many circumstances urged him to believe that he ought to take thought for the matter and undertake it. Chief among them was that he saw the Haedui, repeatedly styled brothers and kinsmen by the Senate, held in slavery and under the dominion of the Germans, and understood that their hostages were in the hands of Ariovistus and the Sequani. Given the vast power of the Roman people, he considered this deeply disgraceful both to himself and to the Republic.

SECTION 1.33.3Moreover, he saw that it was dangerous to the Roman people for the Germans gradually to become accustomed to crossing the Rhine and for a great multitude of them to enter Gaul. Nor did he think that these fierce and barbarous men would restrain themselves, once they had occupied all Gaul, from marching into the Province, as the Cimbri and Teutones had done before them, and from there advancing into Italy—especially since only the Rhône separated the Sequani from our Province. He therefore believed that these developments must be met as quickly as possible.

SECTION 1.33.4Ariovistus himself, moreover, had assumed such pride and such arrogance that he seemed no longer to be tolerated.

CHAPTER 1.34

SECTION 1.34.1Caesar therefore decided to send envoys to Ariovistus to demand that he choose some place midway between them for a conference. Caesar wished, he said, to discuss with him matters of public concern and of the highest importance to them both.

SECTION 1.34.2To this embassy Ariovistus replied that, if he himself had needed anything from Caesar, he would have gone to him; if Caesar wanted anything from him, Caesar ought to come to him.

SECTION 1.34.3Besides, he dared not come without an army into those parts of Gaul that Caesar possessed, nor could he concentrate his army in one place without a great supply train and enormous exertion.

SECTION 1.34.4Moreover, he found it strange what business either Caesar or the Roman people at large had in his part of Gaul, which he had conquered in war.

CHAPTER 1.35

SECTION 1.35.1When these replies were reported to Caesar, he again sent envoys to Ariovistus with the following instructions:

SECTION 1.35.2since, after receiving so great a favor from Caesar and the Roman people—having been styled king and friend by the Senate during Caesar’s consulship—he now returned this gratitude to Caesar and the Roman people by refusing an invitation to a conference and by judging that he need neither speak nor learn about a matter of common concern, these were Caesar’s demands of him:

SECTION 1.35.3first, that he bring no further multitude of men across the Rhine into Gaul; next, that he return the hostages he held from the Haedui and permit the Sequani, with his consent, to return to them the hostages they held; and that he neither provoke the Haedui by wrongful acts nor make war upon them or their allies.

SECTION 1.35.4If he acted accordingly, Caesar and the Roman people would enjoy lasting favor and friendship with him. If Caesar did not obtain these demands, then, since during the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso the Senate had decreed that whoever governed the Province of Gaul should, so far as he could do so consistently with the interests of the Republic, defend the Haedui and the other friends of the Roman people, Caesar would not overlook the wrongs done to the Haedui.

CHAPTER 1.36

SECTION 1.36.1To these demands Ariovistus replied that the law of war was that those who had conquered should rule those whom they had conquered in whatever manner they wished. The Roman people likewise had been accustomed to rule the conquered, not according to another’s dictates, but according to their own judgment.

SECTION 1.36.2If he did not dictate to the Roman people how they should exercise their rights, he ought not to be hindered by the Roman people in the exercise of his own rights.

SECTION 1.36.3The Haedui had become his tributaries because they had tried the fortune of war, had met him in arms, and had been defeated.

SECTION 1.36.4Caesar was doing him a great wrong, since by his arrival he was diminishing the revenues due him.

SECTION 1.36.5He would not return the hostages to the Haedui, nor would he wrongfully make war upon them or their allies, provided they abided by what had been agreed and paid their tribute each year. If they did not, the fraternal title bestowed upon them by the Roman people would be far from helping them.

SECTION 1.36.6As for Caesar’s warning that he would not overlook the wrongs done to the Haedui, no man had ever contended with Ariovistus except to his own destruction.

SECTION 1.36.7Let Caesar engage him whenever he wished; he would learn what the valor of the unconquered Germans could accomplish—men highly trained in arms who for fourteen years had never passed beneath a roof.

CHAPTER 1.37

SECTION 1.37.1These messages were being reported to Caesar at the same time that envoys arrived from the Haedui and the Treveri:

SECTION 1.37.2the Haedui to complain that the Harudes, who had recently been transported into Gaul, were ravaging their territories, and that even by giving hostages they had been unable to purchase peace from Ariovistus;

SECTION 1.37.3the Treveri to report that one hundred cantons of the Suebi had settled on the banks of the Rhine and were attempting to cross it, and that the brothers Nasua and Cimberius commanded them. Deeply alarmed by these developments, Caesar believed that he must act quickly, lest, if the new host of Suebi joined the old forces of Ariovistus, resistance should become more difficult.

SECTION 1.37.4Accordingly, after securing provisions as rapidly as he could, he hastened against Ariovistus by forced marches.

CHAPTER 1.38

SECTION 1.38.1When he had advanced for three days, word was brought to him that Ariovistus was hastening with all his forces to seize Vesontio, the largest town of the Sequani, and had advanced three days’ march from his own territory. Caesar believed that he must take the greatest precautions to prevent this. For in that town there was a most abundant supply of everything useful for war,

SECTION 1.38.2and the nature of its position fortified it so strongly that it offered a great advantage for conducting a campaign, because the river Dubis, as though traced with a compass, encircles nearly the entire town.

SECTION 1.38.3The remaining space, where the river leaves a gap, is no more than sixteen hundred feet across and is enclosed by a mountain of great height, whose base touches the riverbanks on either side.

SECTION 1.38.4A wall carried around this mountain makes it a citadel and joins it to the town.

SECTION 1.38.5Caesar hastened there by long marches night and day, seized the town, and stationed a garrison in it.

CHAPTER 1.39

SECTION 1.39.1While he remained for a few days at Vesontio to secure grain and other supplies, inquiries by our men and the statements of Gauls and merchants—who proclaimed that the Germans were of enormous physical stature, of incredible valor, and highly trained in arms, and who said that in their frequent encounters with them they had been unable to endure even the expression on their faces or the fierce gaze of their eyes—suddenly filled the entire army with such fear that it profoundly disturbed the minds and spirits of them all.

SECTION 1.39.2This fear first arose among the military tribunes, prefects, and others who had followed Caesar from Rome for friendship’s sake and possessed no great experience in warfare.

SECTION 1.39.3Each of them offered a different excuse, which he claimed made his departure necessary, and asked to be permitted to leave with Caesar’s consent; some, moved by shame and wishing to avoid the suspicion of fear, remained.

SECTION 1.39.4They could neither compose their features nor at times restrain their tears. Hidden away in their tents, they either lamented their own fate or commiserated with their intimate friends over the danger they shared. Wills were being sealed everywhere throughout the camp.

SECTION 1.39.5By their talk and their fear, even those who had great experience in camp—soldiers, centurions, and commanders of cavalry—were gradually thrown into confusion.

SECTION 1.39.6Those among them who wished to be considered less timid said that they did not fear the enemy, but were apprehensive about the narrowness of the route and the vast forests that lay between themselves and Ariovistus, or about the grain supply and whether it could be brought forward with sufficient ease.

SECTION 1.39.7Some even reported to Caesar that when he ordered the camp to be struck and the standards advanced, the soldiers would not obey his command or carry the standards, because of their fear.

CHAPTER 1.40

SECTION 1.40.1When Caesar observed this, he called a council and summoned to it the centurions of every rank. He reproached them bitterly: first, because they thought it their business to inquire or consider in what direction or with what purpose they were being led.

SECTION 1.40.2During his consulship Ariovistus had most eagerly sought the friendship of the Roman people; why should anyone so rashly suppose that he would abandon his duty?

SECTION 1.40.3For his own part, Caesar was convinced that once Ariovistus learned his demands and perceived the fairness of his terms, he would reject neither Caesar’s goodwill nor that of the Roman people.

SECTION 1.40.4But if, driven by rage and madness, he did make war, what, after all, had they to fear? Why should they despair either of their own courage or of their commander’s vigilance?

SECTION 1.40.5Within the memory of their fathers, this enemy had been put to the test when the Cimbri and Teutones were defeated by Gaius Marius [and the army was thought to have earned no less glory than the commander himself]. The Germans had also recently been tested in Italy during the slave uprising, although the slaves had been aided to some extent by the experience and discipline they had acquired from us.

SECTION 1.40.6From this it could be judged how much good there was in steadfastness, since the men whom they had for some time feared without cause while those men were unarmed, they had afterward overcome when they were armed and victorious.

SECTION 1.40.7Finally, these were the same Germans whom the Helvetii had encountered time and again and had generally defeated, not only in their own territory but in German territory as well; yet the Helvetii had been unable to stand against our army.

SECTION 1.40.8If any were disturbed by the Gauls’ defeat and flight, they could discover, if they made inquiry, that after the Gauls had been exhausted by the long duration of the war, Ariovistus had kept within his camp and the marshes for many months without giving them an opportunity to fight; then, when they had despaired of battle and dispersed, he had attacked them suddenly and prevailed more by calculation and strategy than by valor.

SECTION 1.40.9Though such a strategy had succeeded against barbarous and inexperienced men, Ariovistus himself could not expect our armies to be caught by it.

SECTION 1.40.10Those who disguised their fear by professing anxiety about the grain supply and the narrowness of the route were behaving arrogantly, since they appeared either to despair of their commander’s ability to perform his duty or to dictate to him.

SECTION 1.40.11These matters were his concern. The Sequani, Leuci, and Lingones were furnishing grain, and the crops were already ripe in the fields. As for the route, they themselves would soon be able to judge it.

SECTION 1.40.12As for the assertion that they would not obey orders or carry the standards, he was not at all disturbed by it. He knew that whenever an army had failed to obey its commander, either fortune had deserted him through failure in the field, or his greed had been exposed by the discovery of some crime.

SECTION 1.40.13His integrity had been demonstrated throughout his life, and his good fortune in the war against the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.40.14He would therefore do at once what he had intended to postpone until a later day, and would strike camp during the fourth watch of the coming night, so that he might learn as soon as possible whether honor and duty or fear held greater power over them.

SECTION 1.40.15Even if no one else followed, he would nevertheless march with the Tenth Legion alone, for he had no doubts about it, and it would serve as his praetorian cohort. Caesar had always shown this legion particular favor and, because of its courage, placed the greatest confidence in it.

CHAPTER 1.41

SECTION 1.41.1After this speech, the feelings of all were transformed in a remarkable fashion, and the greatest eagerness and desire to wage war arose among them.

SECTION 1.41.2The Tenth Legion was the first, through its military tribunes, to thank him for forming so excellent an opinion of it, and declared that it was entirely ready to wage war.

SECTION 1.41.3Then the remaining legions, through their military tribunes and the centurions of the senior grades, sought to satisfy Caesar. They declared that they had never doubted or been afraid, and had never supposed that judgment concerning the conduct of the whole war belonged to them rather than to their commander.

SECTION 1.41.4Caesar accepted their assurances and, after having the route investigated by Diviciacus—the Gaul in whom he placed the greatest trust—so that he might lead the army by open country on a detour of more than fifty miles, set out during the fourth watch, as he had said he would.

SECTION 1.41.5On the seventh day, having continued the march without interruption, he was informed by scouts that Ariovistus’s forces were twenty-four miles from ours.

CHAPTER 1.42

SECTION 1.42.1When Ariovistus learned of Caesar’s approach, he sent envoys to him. The conference that Caesar had previously requested could now take place, since Caesar had come nearer and Ariovistus believed that he could attend it without danger.

SECTION 1.42.2Caesar did not reject the proposal and now believed that Ariovistus was returning to reason, since he voluntarily offered what he had previously refused when requested.

SECTION 1.42.3He conceived great hope that, in view of the great benefits conferred upon Ariovistus by himself and the Roman people, Ariovistus would learn his demands and abandon his obstinacy.

SECTION 1.42.4The conference was appointed for the fifth day from that day.

SECTION 1.42.5Meanwhile, as envoys were frequently passing back and forth between them, Ariovistus demanded that Caesar bring no infantryman to the conference. He feared, he said, that Caesar might surround him in an ambush. Each should come with cavalry; on no other condition would he attend.

SECTION 1.42.6Caesar did not wish the conference to be canceled upon the introduction of a pretext, but he did not dare entrust his safety to the Gallic cavalry. He therefore decided that the most expedient course was to take all the horses away from the Gallic horsemen and mount upon them legionaries from the Tenth Legion, in which he placed the greatest confidence, so that, if action became necessary, he might have the most devoted possible bodyguard.

SECTION 1.42.7While this was being done, one of the soldiers of the Tenth Legion remarked, not without wit, that Caesar was doing more than he had promised: he had promised to treat the Tenth Legion as his praetorian cohort, but now he was enrolling it among the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.43

SECTION 1.43.1There was a broad plain, and upon it a fairly large earthen mound. This place was almost equally distant from the camps of Ariovistus and Caesar. There, as agreed, they came to hold their conference.

SECTION 1.43.2Caesar stationed the legion he had brought on horseback two hundred paces from the mound. Ariovistus’s horsemen likewise halted at an equal distance.

SECTION 1.43.3Ariovistus demanded that they confer on horseback and that each bring ten men besides himself to the meeting.

SECTION 1.43.4When they arrived, Caesar began his speech by recounting the benefits that he and the Senate had conferred upon Ariovistus: that the Senate had given him the title of king, that he had been declared a friend, and that gifts had been sent to him with the greatest generosity. Caesar explained that such distinctions had fallen to the lot of few men and were customarily bestowed only in return for great services.

SECTION 1.43.5Ariovistus, though he had neither access to the Senate nor any just grounds for making such a request, had obtained these honors through Caesar’s own favor and generosity and that of the Senate.

SECTION 1.43.6Caesar also explained how ancient and how just were the bonds of alliance that existed between the Romans and the Haedui;

SECTION 1.43.7how many decrees of the Senate had been passed in their favor and how honorable those decrees had been; and how the Haedui had at all times held supremacy over all Gaul, even before they had sought our friendship.

SECTION 1.43.8It was the custom of the Roman people not merely to permit their allies and friends to suffer no loss, but to desire that they be increased in influence, dignity, and honor. Who, then, could endure having taken from them what they had possessed when they entered into friendship with the Roman people?

SECTION 1.43.9He then made the same demands that he had entrusted to his envoys: Ariovistus must not make war upon the Haedui or their allies; he must return the hostages; and, if he could not send any part of the Germans back home, he must at least permit no more of them to cross the Rhine.

CHAPTER 1.44

SECTION 1.44.1Ariovistus answered Caesar’s demands briefly, but spoke at length in praise of his own prowess:

SECTION 1.44.2He had crossed the Rhine not of his own accord, but because the Gauls had asked and summoned him. He had not left his home and kindred without great hopes and great rewards. The settlements he held in Gaul had been granted by the Gauls themselves, and the hostages had been given of their own free will. He received tribute by the law of war, which victors were accustomed to impose upon the vanquished.

SECTION 1.44.3He had not made war upon the Gauls; the Gauls had made war upon him. All the states of Gaul had come to attack him and had encamped against him; all their forces had been routed and defeated by him in a single battle.

SECTION 1.44.4If they wished to make another trial, he was ready to fight it out again. If they wished to enjoy peace, it was unjust for them to refuse the tribute that they had paid voluntarily down to that time.

SECTION 1.44.5The friendship of the Roman people ought to bring him honor and protection, not injury, and he had sought it in that hope. If, through the intervention of the Roman people, the tribute were canceled and those who had surrendered were withdrawn from his authority, he would renounce the friendship of the Roman people as gladly as he had sought it.

SECTION 1.44.6As for his bringing a great number of Germans into Gaul, he was doing so to protect himself, not to attack Gaul. The proof was that he had not come except at the Gauls’ request and had not begun the war, but had defended himself.

SECTION 1.44.7He had come into Gaul before the Roman people. Never before this time had an army of the Roman people gone beyond the boundaries of the Province of Gaul.

SECTION 1.44.8What did Caesar want with him? Why had he entered Ariovistus’s possessions? This part of Gaul was his province, just as the other was ours. Just as Ariovistus ought not to be indulged if he made an attack upon our territory, so we were equally unjust to interfere with him in the exercise of his own rights.

SECTION 1.44.9As for Caesar’s assertion that the Haedui had been called brothers by the Senate, Ariovistus was neither so barbarous nor so ignorant of affairs that he did not know that the Haedui had brought no aid to the Romans in the recent war with the Allobroges, and that they themselves had received no aid from the Roman people in the struggles they had waged against him and the Sequani.

SECTION 1.44.10He was bound to suspect that Caesar, under the pretense of friendship, was keeping an army in Gaul for the purpose of crushing him.

SECTION 1.44.11Unless Caesar withdrew and led his army away from these regions, Ariovistus would regard him not as a friend, but as an enemy.

SECTION 1.44.12If he killed Caesar, he would gratify many nobles and leading men of the Roman people—he knew this from messages they themselves had sent—and by Caesar’s death he could purchase the favor and friendship of them all.

SECTION 1.44.13But if Caesar withdrew and surrendered to him the unrestricted possession of Gaul, Ariovistus would reward him magnificently and would bring to a conclusion, without any labor or danger to Caesar, whatever wars Caesar wished to have waged.

CHAPTER 1.45

SECTION 1.45.1Caesar spoke at length to explain why he could not abandon the matter. Neither his own custom nor that of the Roman people permitted them to desert allies who had rendered the greatest services, nor did he judge that Gaul belonged to Ariovistus rather than to the Roman people.

SECTION 1.45.2The Arverni and Ruteni had been defeated in war by Quintus Fabius Maximus, but the Roman people had pardoned them, had neither reduced their country to a province nor imposed tribute upon them.

SECTION 1.45.3If the earliest title in time ought to be regarded, the sovereignty of the Roman people in Gaul was the most just. If the judgment of the Senate ought to be observed, Gaul should be free, since after conquering it in war the Senate had wished it to retain its own laws.

CHAPTER 1.46

SECTION 1.46.1While these matters were being discussed at the conference, Caesar was informed that Ariovistus’s horsemen were drawing nearer to the mound, riding up toward our men, and hurling stones and missiles at them.

SECTION 1.46.2Caesar ended the discussion and withdrew to his own men, whom he ordered not to cast back any missile whatever against the enemy.

SECTION 1.46.3For although he saw that a battle between his chosen legion and the enemy cavalry would involve no danger, he nevertheless did not think it right to engage, lest, after the enemy had been routed, it be said that he had surrounded and attacked them during a conference held under pledge of good faith.

SECTION 1.46.4When word spread among the common soldiers of the arrogance with which Ariovistus had barred the Romans from all Gaul during the conference, and how his horsemen had attacked our men and thereby broken off the meeting, the army was filled with far greater eagerness and a still stronger desire to fight.

CHAPTER 1.47

SECTION 1.47.1Two days later Ariovistus sent envoys to Caesar. He wished, he said, to discuss with him the matters they had begun to consider but had not concluded. Caesar should either appoint another day for a conference or, if he were unwilling to do that, send one of his envoys to Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.2Caesar saw no reason for another conference, especially since on the previous day the Germans could not be restrained from casting missiles at our men.

SECTION 1.47.3He believed that he would be sending any envoy of his own to Ariovistus at great risk and exposing him to savage men.

SECTION 1.47.4It seemed best to send Gaius Valerius Procillus, the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus, a young man of the highest courage and refinement, whose father had been granted Roman citizenship by Gaius Valerius Flaccus. He was chosen both for his loyalty and for his knowledge of the Gallic language, which Ariovistus, through long familiarity, now spoke extensively, and because the Germans had no reason to commit any offense against him. With him Caesar sent Marcus Metius, who enjoyed guest-friendship with Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.5He instructed them to learn what Ariovistus had to say and report it to him. When Ariovistus saw them in his camp, he cried out in the presence of his army: Why had they come to him? Was it to spy? He prevented them from attempting to speak and cast them into chains.

CHAPTER 1.48

SECTION 1.48.1That same day Ariovistus moved his camp forward and established himself beneath a mountain, six miles from Caesar’s camp.

SECTION 1.48.2On the following day he led his forces past Caesar’s camp and made camp two miles beyond it, intending thereby to cut Caesar off from the grain and supplies being brought from the Sequani and Haedui.

SECTION 1.48.3For five successive days from that day, Caesar led his forces out before the camp and kept them drawn up in battle order, so that if Ariovistus wished to contend in battle he would not lack the opportunity.

SECTION 1.48.4Throughout all these days Ariovistus kept his army within camp, but engaged in cavalry combat every day. This was the manner of fighting in which the Germans had trained themselves:

SECTION 1.48.5There were six thousand horsemen and an equal number of the swiftest and bravest infantrymen, each of whom a horseman had personally chosen from the entire force for the protection of his own life.

SECTION 1.48.6The horsemen fought in battle alongside these men and withdrew to them for protection. If the situation became especially dangerous, the infantrymen rushed forward; if any horseman fell from his horse after receiving a serious wound, they surrounded him;

SECTION 1.48.7If they had to advance farther than usual or withdraw more rapidly, their training gave them such speed that, supporting themselves by the horses’ manes, they could keep pace with them at a gallop.

CHAPTER 1.49

SECTION 1.49.1When Caesar realized that Ariovistus was keeping within his camp, he chose a suitable site for a camp beyond the place where the Germans had settled, about six hundred paces from them, so that he might not be cut off from supplies any longer; then, drawing up his army in three lines, he advanced to that spot.

SECTION 1.49.2He ordered the first and second lines to remain under arms and the third to fortify the camp.

SECTION 1.49.3[This position, as has been stated, was about six hundred paces from the enemy.] Ariovistus sent there about sixteen thousand light-armed men with all his cavalry, intending this force to intimidate our men and prevent them from completing the fortifications.

SECTION 1.49.4Nevertheless, Caesar, as he had previously determined, ordered two lines to repel the enemy and the third to complete the work. When the camp had been fortified, he left two legions and part of the auxiliaries there and led the other four legions back to the larger camp.

CHAPTER 1.50

SECTION 1.50.1The next day Caesar, in accordance with his plan, led his forces out of both camps, advanced a short distance from the larger camp, drew up his battle line, and offered the enemy an opportunity to fight.

SECTION 1.50.2When he saw that even then they would not come out, he led his army back into camp at about noon. Only then did Ariovistus send part of his forces to attack the smaller camp. Both sides fought fiercely until evening. At sunset Ariovistus withdrew his troops into camp, after many wounds had been both inflicted and received.

SECTION 1.50.3When Caesar asked the prisoners why Ariovistus would not decide the issue in battle, he discovered this reason: it was the custom among the Germans for their matrons to declare by lots and divinations whether or not it was advantageous to engage in battle; and they were saying

SECTION 1.50.4that it was not ordained for the Germans to conquer if they fought a battle before the new moon.

CHAPTER 1.51

SECTION 1.51.1On the following day Caesar left in each camp what seemed a sufficient garrison and stationed all the auxiliary troops in sight of the enemy before the smaller camp, because, in view of the enemy’s numbers, he was weaker in legionary troops and wished to use the auxiliaries to give the appearance of greater strength; he himself advanced as far as the enemy’s camp with his army drawn up in three lines.

SECTION 1.51.2Then at last the Germans were compelled to lead their forces out of camp. They stationed them by tribes at equal intervals—the Harudes, Marcomani, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suebi—and surrounded their entire battle line with wagons and carts, so that no hope of escape should remain.

SECTION 1.51.3Upon these they placed their women, who, weeping and stretching out their hands, implored the soldiers as they went forth to battle not to deliver them into slavery to the Romans.

CHAPTER 1.52

SECTION 1.52.1Caesar placed a legate and the quaestor in command of each separate legion, so that every man might have them as witnesses to his courage;

SECTION 1.52.2he himself opened the battle from the right wing, because he had observed that this was the enemy’s weakest quarter.

SECTION 1.52.3At the signal our men charged the enemy so fiercely, and the enemy in turn rushed forward so suddenly and swiftly, that there was no room to cast the javelins against them.

SECTION 1.52.4The javelins were discarded, and the fighting was carried on at close quarters with swords. But the Germans quickly formed a phalanx according to their custom and received the assault of the swordsmen.

SECTION 1.52.5Many of our men were found who leaped upon the phalanx, tore away the shields with their hands, and struck the enemy from above.

SECTION 1.52.6Although the enemy’s line had been driven back on the left wing and put to flight, on the right wing the great mass of their men was pressing our line hard.

SECTION 1.52.7When the young Publius Crassus, who commanded the cavalry, observed this, being freer to survey the field than those who were engaged amid the battle line, he sent the third line to support our hard-pressed men.

CHAPTER 1.53

SECTION 1.53.1Thus the battle was restored, and all the enemy turned their backs; nor did they cease their flight until they reached the river Rhine, about fifty miles from the battlefield.

SECTION 1.53.2There a very few, trusting to their strength, attempted to swim across, or found small boats and so gained safety.

SECTION 1.53.3Among them was Ariovistus, who found a little boat moored to the bank and escaped in it; all the rest were overtaken and killed by our cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.4Ariovistus had two wives, one a Sueban by birth, whom he had brought with him from home, the other a Norican, the sister of King Voccio, whom he had married in Gaul after her brother sent her to him. Both perished in the rout. He also had two daughters: one of them was killed, the other captured.

SECTION 1.53.5Gaius Valerius Procillus, as he was being dragged away in the flight by his guards, bound with three chains, fell in with Caesar himself, who was pursuing the enemy with the cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.6This occurrence indeed gave Caesar no less pleasure than the victory itself, because he saw restored to him, rescued from the enemy’s hands, a man of the highest character in the province of Gaul, his own friend and guest; nor had fortune diminished any part of his great delight and rejoicing by bringing calamity upon Procillus.

SECTION 1.53.7Procillus said that, in his presence, the lots had been consulted three times concerning him—whether he should be burned to death at once or reserved for another occasion—and that by the favor of the lots he remained unharmed.

SECTION 1.53.8Marcus Metius was likewise found and brought back to Caesar.

CHAPTER 1.54

SECTION 1.54.1When news of this battle was carried across the Rhine, the Suebi who had come to its banks began to return home. When the peoples who live nearest the Rhine perceived their panic, they pursued them and killed a great number.

SECTION 1.54.2Having concluded two very great wars in a single summer, Caesar led his army into winter quarters among the Sequani somewhat earlier than the season required. He placed Labienus in command of the winter quarters;

SECTION 1.54.3he himself departed for Cisalpine Gaul to hold the assizes.

CHAPTER 1.1

SECTION 1.1.1All Gaul is divided into three parts, one inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and the third by those who in their own language are called Celts and in ours Gauls.

SECTION 1.1.2All these peoples differ from one another in language, customs, and laws. The Garonne River separates the Gauls from the Aquitani, and the Marne and Seine separate them from the Belgae.

SECTION 1.1.3Of all these peoples, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are farthest removed from the civilization and refinement of the Province, and merchants very rarely travel among them and import those things that tend to weaken courage.

SECTION 1.1.4They are also nearest to the Germans, who live across the Rhine, and they wage war with them continually. For the same reason, the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, because they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, either keeping them out of their own territory or themselves waging war within German territory.

SECTION 1.1.5[The one part of these territories that, as has been stated, is occupied by the Gauls begins at the Rhône River and is bounded by the Garonne River, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae. On the side of the Sequani and Helvetii it also reaches the Rhine River and extends toward the north.

SECTION 1.1.6The territory of the Belgae begins at the farthest borders of Gaul and extends to the lower part of the Rhine River; it faces north and east.

SECTION 1.1.7Aquitania extends from the Garonne River to the Pyrenees Mountains and to that part of the Ocean bordering Spain; it faces northwest.]

CHAPTER 1.2

SECTION 1.2.1Among the Helvetii, Orgetorix was by far the noblest and wealthiest man. In the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso, driven by a desire for kingship, he formed a conspiracy among the nobility and persuaded his people to leave their territory with all their forces.

SECTION 1.2.2Since they surpassed everyone in valor, he said, it would be very easy for them to gain dominion over all Gaul.

SECTION 1.2.3He persuaded them of this all the more easily because the Helvetii are hemmed in on every side by the nature of the terrain: on one side by the Rhine, a very broad and deep river that separates the Helvetian territory from the Germans; on another by the very high Jura Mountains, which lie between the Sequani and the Helvetii; and on a third by Lake Geneva and the Rhône River, which separate our Province from the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.2.4These circumstances kept them from ranging widely and made it harder for them to wage war on their neighbors.

SECTION 1.2.5In this respect, as men eager for war, they were deeply distressed.

SECTION 1.2.6Considering the size of their population and their reputation for warfare and courage, they believed that their territory was too confined, though it extended 240 miles in length and 180 in width.

CHAPTER 1.3

SECTION 1.3.1Prompted by these circumstances and influenced by the authority of Orgetorix, they resolved to prepare everything needed for their departure: to buy up as many pack animals and wagons as possible, to sow as much grain as possible so that an adequate supply would be available on the journey, and to establish peace and friendship with the neighboring states.

SECTION 1.3.2They considered two years sufficient to complete these preparations; by law they fixed their departure for the third year.

SECTION 1.3.3Orgetorix was chosen to carry out these plans. He took upon himself the diplomatic mission to the neighboring states. On this journey he persuaded Casticus, a Sequanian and the son of Catamantaloedes, whose father had held the kingship among the Sequani for many years and had been named a friend by the Senate of the Roman people, to seize in his own state the kingship his father had previously held.

SECTION 1.3.4He likewise persuaded Dumnorix the Aeduan, the brother of Diviciacus, who at that time held the leading position in his state and was extremely popular with the common people, to make the same attempt, and he gave him his daughter in marriage.

SECTION 1.3.5He convinced them that it would be very easy to accomplish their designs, because he himself was going to obtain supreme power in his own state.

SECTION 1.3.6There was no doubt, he said, that the Helvetii were the most powerful people in all Gaul; he assured them that with his own resources and army he would secure their kingdoms for them.

SECTION 1.3.7Persuaded by this argument, they pledged their word and swore an oath to one another, hoping that once they had seized their kingships, they could gain control of all Gaul through its three most powerful and steadfast peoples.

CHAPTER 1.4

SECTION 1.4.1This scheme was revealed to the Helvetii by an informer. In accordance with their customs, they compelled Orgetorix to stand trial in chains; if convicted, the penalty he had to suffer was death by burning.

SECTION 1.4.2On the appointed day of his trial, Orgetorix gathered from every quarter all the members of his household, numbering about ten thousand people, and assembled there all his dependents and debtors, of whom he had a great number. Through their intervention he escaped having to stand trial.

SECTION 1.4.3While the state, enraged by this action, was attempting to enforce its law by arms, and the magistrates were gathering a large body of men from the countryside, Orgetorix died.

SECTION 1.4.4Nor, as the Helvetii believe, is there any lack of suspicion that he took his own life.

CHAPTER 1.5

SECTION 1.5.1After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless continued trying to do what they had resolved upon: to leave their territory.

SECTION 1.5.2When they believed they were ready for this undertaking, they burned all their towns, about twelve in number, approximately four hundred villages, and all the remaining private buildings.

SECTION 1.5.3They burned all the grain except what they intended to carry with them, so that, with all hope of returning home removed, they would be more prepared to face every danger. They ordered each person to carry from home a three-month supply of ground grain. They persuaded their neighbors, the Rauraci, Tulingi, and Latobrigi, to adopt the same plan, burn their towns and villages, and set out with them. They also admitted the Boii, who had lived across the Rhine, crossed into Norican territory, and attacked Noreia, and took them as allies.

CHAPTER 1.6

SECTION 1.6.1There were only two routes by which they could leave their homeland. One passed through the territory of the Sequani and was narrow and difficult, lying between the Jura Mountains and the Rhône River, with scarcely enough room for wagons to be drawn through one at a time. A very high mountain overhung the route, so that a very small number of men could easily block it.

SECTION 1.6.2The other route passed through our Province and was much easier and less obstructed, because the Rhône flows between the territory of the Helvetii and that of the Allobroges, who had recently been pacified, and in several places the river can be crossed by fords.

SECTION 1.6.3Geneva is the farthest town of the Allobroges and the one nearest the territory of the Helvetii. A bridge extends from that town into Helvetian territory. They believed that they would either persuade the Allobroges, who did not yet appear well disposed toward the Roman people, or compel them by force to allow them to pass through their territory. When everything had been prepared for the departure, they appointed a day on which everyone was to assemble on the bank of the Rhône. That day was March 28, in the consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius.

CHAPTER 1.7

SECTION 1.7.1When Caesar was informed that they were attempting to march through our Province, he hurried to leave Rome, proceeded by forced marches into Further Gaul, and reached Geneva.

SECTION 1.7.2He ordered the entire Province to furnish as many soldiers as possible—there was only one legion in Further Gaul—and ordered the bridge at Geneva to be destroyed.

SECTION 1.7.3When the Helvetii learned of his arrival, they sent as envoys to him the most distinguished men of their state. Nammeius and Verucloetius held the leading places in this delegation. They were to say that the Helvetii intended to march through the Province without causing any harm, because they had no other route; they asked to be permitted to do so with Caesar’s consent. Because Caesar remembered that the consul Lucius Cassius had been killed and that his army had been routed by the Helvetii and sent under the yoke, he did not think their request should be granted.

SECTION 1.7.4Nor did he believe that men of hostile disposition, if given the opportunity to march through the Province, would refrain from injury and wrongdoing.

SECTION 1.7.5Nevertheless, to allow time for the soldiers he had ordered to assemble, he replied to the envoys that he would take time to consider the matter. If they wanted an answer, they should return on April 13.

CHAPTER 1.8

SECTION 1.8.1Meanwhile, with the legion he had with him and the soldiers who had assembled from the Province, he constructed a wall nineteen miles long and sixteen feet high, together with a trench, from Lake Geneva, which empties into the Rhône River, to the Jura Mountains, which separate the territory of the Sequani from that of the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.8.2When this work was completed, he stationed garrisons and fortified redoubts so that he could more easily stop them if they attempted to cross against his wishes.

SECTION 1.8.3When the day he had appointed with the envoys arrived and they returned to him, he said that, in accordance with the custom and precedent of the Roman people, he could not grant anyone passage through the Province, and he made it clear that if they attempted to use force, he would stop them.

SECTION 1.8.4Disappointed in this hope, the Helvetii joined boats together, built a large number of rafts, and in other places attempted to cross by the fords of the Rhône, where the river was shallowest, sometimes by day but more often by night, to see whether they could break through. Repulsed by the fortifications, the soldiers’ rapid concentration, and their missiles, they abandoned the attempt.

CHAPTER 1.9

SECTION 1.9.1Only one route remained, through the territory of the Sequani, but because of its narrowness they could not take it without the Sequani’s consent.

SECTION 1.9.2Since they could not persuade the Sequani on their own, they sent envoys to Dumnorix the Aeduan so that through his intercession they might obtain permission from them.

SECTION 1.9.3Through his influence and generosity, Dumnorix was extremely powerful among the Sequani, and he was friendly to the Helvetii because he had married the daughter of Orgetorix, a woman from their state. Driven by a desire for kingship, he favored revolution and wanted as many states as possible to be bound to him by personal obligation.

SECTION 1.9.4He therefore undertook the matter and obtained the Sequani’s permission for the Helvetii to pass through their territory. He also arranged for them to exchange hostages: the Sequani as a guarantee that they would not prevent the Helvetii from passing, and the Helvetii as a guarantee that they would pass through without wrongdoing or injury.

CHAPTER 1.10

SECTION 1.10.1Caesar was informed that the Helvetii intended to march through the territories of the Sequani and Aedui into the territory of the Santoni, who live not far from the territory of the Tolosates, a state within the Province.

SECTION 1.10.2He understood that, if this happened, the Province would be in great danger from having a warlike people hostile to the Roman people as neighbors in an open and exceptionally fertile region.

SECTION 1.10.3For these reasons, he placed his lieutenant Titus Labienus in command of the fortifications he had built. Caesar himself hurried to Italy by forced marches, enrolled two legions there, led out of winter quarters the three legions wintering around Aquileia, and with these five legions hurried by the shortest route through the Alps into Further Gaul.

SECTION 1.10.4There the Ceutrones, Graioceli, and Caturiges occupied the higher ground and attempted to block the army’s march. After defeating them in several engagements, Caesar traveled from Ocelum, the farthest town of the Nearer Province, to the territory of the Vocontii in the Further Province in seven days. From there he led the army into the territory of the Allobroges, and from the Allobroges into that of the Segusiavi. These are the first people beyond the Rhône outside the Province.

CHAPTER 1.11

SECTION 1.11.1The Helvetii had already led their forces through the narrow pass and the territory of the Sequani, reached the territory of the Aedui, and begun ravaging their lands.

SECTION 1.11.2Since the Aedui could not defend themselves and their property against them, they sent envoys to Caesar to ask for help.

SECTION 1.11.3They said that their services to the Roman people at all times had been such that their lands should not have been devastated, their children carried off into slavery, and their towns captured almost within sight of our army. At the same time, the Ambarri, close allies and kinsmen of the Aedui, informed Caesar that after their lands had been laid waste, they could not easily keep the enemy’s violence away from their towns.

SECTION 1.11.4Likewise, the Allobroges, who had villages and property across the Rhône, fled to Caesar and told him that nothing remained to them except the bare soil of their land.

SECTION 1.11.5Prompted by these events, Caesar decided that he must not wait until the Helvetii had consumed all the property of Rome’s allies and reached the territory of the Santoni.

CHAPTER 1.12

SECTION 1.12.1There is a river called the Saône, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and Sequani into the Rhône. Its current is unbelievably gentle, so that the eye cannot determine in which direction it flows. The Helvetii were crossing it on rafts and boats lashed together.

SECTION 1.12.2When Caesar was informed by scouts that the Helvetii had already led three-fourths of their forces across that river, while about one-fourth remained on the near side of the Saône, he left camp with three legions during the third watch and reached the division that had not yet crossed the river.

SECTION 1.12.3Attacking them when they were burdened and taken by surprise, he killed a great number of them. The rest fled and concealed themselves in the nearest woods.

SECTION 1.12.4This district was called the Tigurine district, for the entire Helvetian state is divided into four districts.

SECTION 1.12.5Within the memory of our fathers, this single district had left its homeland, killed the consul Lucius Cassius, and sent his army under the yoke.

SECTION 1.12.6Thus, whether by chance or by the design of the immortal gods, the part of the Helvetian state that had inflicted a notorious disaster upon the Roman people was the first to pay the penalty.

SECTION 1.12.7In this matter Caesar avenged not only public but also private injuries, because in the same battle in which they had killed Cassius, the Tigurini had killed Lucius Piso, a lieutenant and the grandfather of Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Piso.

CHAPTER 1.13

SECTION 1.13.1After this battle, so that he could overtake the Helvetii’s remaining forces, Caesar had a bridge built across the Saône and led his army over it.

SECTION 1.13.2The Helvetii were alarmed by his sudden arrival. When they realized that he had accomplished in a single day what they themselves had completed only with the greatest difficulty in twenty days—the crossing of the river—they sent envoys to him. The leader of this delegation was Divico, who had been the Helvetii’s commander in the war against Cassius.

SECTION 1.13.3He addressed Caesar as follows: if the Roman people made peace with the Helvetii, the Helvetii would go to and remain in whatever place Caesar assigned them and wished them to be.

SECTION 1.13.4But if Caesar persisted in pursuing them with war, he should remember both the Roman people’s former defeat and the Helvetii’s traditional valor. Because Caesar had attacked one district by surprise when those who had crossed the river could not bring assistance to their countrymen, he should neither attribute too much to his own valor on that account nor despise the Helvetii. They had learned from their fathers and ancestors to contend by valor rather than rely on trickery or ambushes.

SECTION 1.13.5He should therefore not bring it about that the place where they stood would take its name from a disaster to the Roman people and the destruction of a Roman army, or hand down the memory of such an event.

CHAPTER 1.14

SECTION 1.14.1Caesar replied to them as follows: he had all the less uncertainty because he remembered the events the Helvetian envoys had mentioned, and he resented them all the more because they had happened without the Roman people’s deserving them.

SECTION 1.14.2If the Roman people had been conscious of committing any wrong, it would not have been difficult for them to take precautions. But they had been deceived because they did not understand that they had done anything for which they should be afraid, and they did not think they should be afraid without cause.

SECTION 1.14.3Even if he were willing to forget the former insult, could he also put aside the memory of their recent wrongs—their attempt, against his wishes, to force a passage through the Province, and their attacks upon the Aedui, the Ambarri, and the Allobroges?

SECTION 1.14.4Their insolent boasting about their victory and their amazement that they had borne their injuries for so long without punishment both pointed to the same conclusion.

SECTION 1.14.5For the immortal gods were accustomed, in order that people might suffer more bitterly from a reversal of fortune, sometimes to grant greater success and longer immunity from punishment to those whom they intended to punish for their crimes.

SECTION 1.14.6Even so, if they gave him hostages so that he could be sure they would do what they promised, and if they made amends to the Haedui for the injuries they had inflicted on them and their allies, and likewise to the Allobroges, he would make peace with them.

SECTION 1.14.7Divico replied that the Helvetii had been taught by their ancestors to accept hostages, not to give them; the Roman people could bear witness to that. After giving this reply, he departed.

CHAPTER 1.15

SECTION 1.15.1The next day the Helvetii broke camp and moved on. Caesar did the same and sent ahead all his cavalry, about four thousand men, which he had assembled from the entire province, from the Haedui, and from their allies, to see in what direction the enemy was marching. Eagerly pursuing the enemy’s rear guard, they engaged the Helvetian cavalry on unfavorable ground, and a few of our men fell.

SECTION 1.15.2Elated by this engagement, because with five hundred horsemen they had driven back so large a force of cavalry, the Helvetii began at times to halt more boldly and to provoke our men into battle with their rear guard. Caesar kept his men from fighting and for the moment considered it enough to prevent the enemy from raiding, foraging, and laying waste the countryside.

SECTION 1.15.3They marched in this way for about fifteen days, with no more than five or six miles separating the enemy’s rear guard from our vanguard.

CHAPTER 1.16

SECTION 1.16.1Meanwhile Caesar demanded every day that the Haedui provide the grain they had officially promised.

SECTION 1.16.2For because of the cold—Gaul, as stated before, lies toward the north—not only was the grain in the fields not yet ripe, but even a sufficient supply of fodder was unavailable.

SECTION 1.16.3Moreover, he had less opportunity to use the grain he had transported by ship up the Saône, because the Helvetii had turned their route away from the Saône, and he did not want to break off his pursuit of them.

SECTION 1.16.4The Haedui kept putting him off from one day to the next, saying that the grain was being collected, brought together, and was on its way.

SECTION 1.16.5When he realized that he had been put off too long and that the day was approaching when grain had to be issued to the soldiers, he summoned their leading men, many of whom he had in camp. Among them were Diviciacus and Liscus, who held the highest magistracy, which the Haedui call the vergobret. This official is elected annually and has the power of life and death over his people. Caesar severely reproached them

SECTION 1.16.6because, at so critical a time and with the enemy so near, they were not helping him, although grain could neither be bought nor taken from the fields, especially since he had undertaken the war largely in response to their appeals. He complained still more bitterly that he had been abandoned.

CHAPTER 1.17

SECTION 1.17.1Only then, prompted by Caesar’s speech, did Liscus disclose what he had previously kept silent: there were certain men whose influence with the common people was very great and who, as private citizens, had more power than the magistrates themselves.

SECTION 1.17.2By seditious and unscrupulous speeches, these men were intimidating the people and preventing them from contributing the grain they owed.

SECTION 1.17.3They said that if the Haedui could no longer hold the leading position in Gaul, it was better to endure rule by Gauls than by Romans,

SECTION 1.17.4and that they should have no doubt that if the Romans defeated the Helvetii, they would take away the freedom of the Haedui along with that of the rest of Gaul.

SECTION 1.17.5The same men were reporting our plans and everything done in camp to the enemy, and Liscus was unable to restrain them.

SECTION 1.17.6Indeed, he understood how much danger he had incurred by being compelled to reveal this critical matter to Caesar, and for that reason he had remained silent as long as he could.

CHAPTER 1.18

SECTION 1.18.1From this statement by Liscus, Caesar realized that he was referring to Dumnorix, the brother of Diviciacus. But because he did not want these matters discussed in the presence of so many people, he quickly dismissed the council and detained Liscus.

SECTION 1.18.2He questioned Liscus alone about what he had said at the meeting. Liscus spoke more freely and boldly. Caesar privately asked others about the same matters and found that the reports were true:

SECTION 1.18.3the man was Dumnorix, a man of extraordinary boldness and great popularity among the common people because of his generosity, and one who was eager for revolution. For several years he had held the contracts for collecting customs duties and all the other Haeduan taxes at a low price, because when he bid, no one dared to bid against him.

SECTION 1.18.4By these means he had both increased his personal fortune and acquired abundant resources for dispensing gifts.

SECTION 1.18.5He always maintained a large body of cavalry at his own expense and kept them around him.

SECTION 1.18.6He had great influence not only at home but also among neighboring states, and for the sake of this power he had arranged for his mother to marry a man among the Bituriges who was of the highest birth and influence there.

SECTION 1.18.7He himself had a Helvetian wife, and he had arranged marriages for his maternal half-sisters and other female relatives in different states.

SECTION 1.18.8Because of this marriage connection, he favored the Helvetii and wanted them to succeed. He also personally hated Caesar and the Romans because their arrival had diminished his power and restored his brother Diviciacus to his former position of influence and honor.

SECTION 1.18.9If anything happened to the Romans, he had the highest hopes of gaining kingship through the Helvetii; under Roman rule, he despaired not only of becoming king but even of retaining the influence he already had.

SECTION 1.18.10In the course of his investigation, Caesar also discovered that, in the unsuccessful cavalry engagement fought a few days earlier, Dumnorix and his horsemen had begun the retreat—for Dumnorix commanded the cavalry the Haedui had sent to assist Caesar—and that their flight had terrified the rest of the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.19

SECTION 1.19.1Once these facts were known, the strongest evidence was added to the earlier suspicions: Dumnorix had led the Helvetii through the territory of the Sequani; he had arranged for hostages to be exchanged between them; he had done all this not only without orders from Caesar or his own state but without their knowledge; and he was now being accused by the chief magistrate of the Haedui. Caesar believed there was sufficient reason either for him to punish Dumnorix himself or to order the Haeduan state to punish him.

SECTION 1.19.2One consideration stood against all these facts: Caesar knew of Dumnorix’s brother Diviciacus’s profound devotion to the Roman people, his great goodwill toward Caesar personally, and his exceptional loyalty, justice, and self-control. Caesar feared that punishing Dumnorix would alienate Diviciacus.

SECTION 1.19.3Therefore, before attempting anything, he ordered Diviciacus to be summoned. After dismissing the interpreters he ordinarily used, he spoke with him through Gaius Valerius Troucillus, a leading man of the province of Gaul, Caesar’s personal friend, in whom he had complete confidence in every matter.

SECTION 1.19.4At the same time, he reminded Diviciacus of what had been said about Dumnorix at the council of the Gauls while Diviciacus himself was present, and showed him what each person had said about Dumnorix privately in Caesar’s presence.

SECTION 1.19.5He asked and urged Diviciacus not to take offense if Caesar himself investigated and decided the case against Dumnorix, or ordered the Haeduan state to decide it.

CHAPTER 1.20

SECTION 1.20.1Diviciacus embraced Caesar with many tears and began begging him not to pass too severe a judgment on his brother.

SECTION 1.20.2He said that he knew the accusations were true and that no one suffered more pain from them than he did. For while he himself had held very great influence at home and throughout the rest of Gaul, and his brother, because of his youth, had held almost none, Dumnorix had risen through his support.

SECTION 1.20.3Dumnorix was using the resources and power he had gained not only to diminish Diviciacus’s influence but almost to destroy him. Nevertheless, Diviciacus was moved both by brotherly love and by concern for his reputation among the people.

SECTION 1.20.4If Caesar inflicted any severe punishment on Dumnorix, no one would believe it had been done against Diviciacus’s wishes, since Diviciacus held such a close place in Caesar’s friendship. As a result, the feelings of all Gaul would turn against him.

SECTION 1.20.5As Diviciacus made this request at greater length, weeping, Caesar took his right hand. He consoled him and asked him to stop pleading. Caesar explained that Diviciacus’s influence with him was so great that, in response to his wishes and appeals, he would overlook both the injury done to the Roman state and his own personal grievance. He summoned Dumnorix and had his brother attend. He explained what he found blameworthy in Dumnorix, set out what he himself knew and what the state complained of, and warned Dumnorix to avoid all grounds for suspicion in the future. He said that he forgave his past conduct for the sake of his brother Diviciacus. He placed guards over Dumnorix so that he could learn what he was doing and with whom he was speaking.

CHAPTER 1.21

SECTION 1.21.1That same day, scouts informed Caesar that the enemy had encamped at the foot of a mountain eight miles from his own camp. He sent men to determine the nature of the mountain and what the ascent around it was like.

SECTION 1.21.2They reported that it was easy. During the third watch, Caesar ordered Titus Labienus, his lieutenant with propraetorian authority, to ascend to the summit of the mountain ridge with two legions and with the guides who had reconnoitered the route. He explained his plan to Labienus.

SECTION 1.21.3He himself, during the fourth watch, hurried toward the enemy by the same route they had taken and sent all his cavalry ahead of him.

SECTION 1.21.4Publius Considius, who was considered highly experienced in military affairs and had served in the army of Lucius Sulla and later in that of Marcus Crassus, was sent ahead with the scouts.

CHAPTER 1.22

SECTION 1.22.1At daybreak, while the summit of the mountain was held by Lucius Labienus and Caesar himself was no more than a mile and a half from the enemy’s camp, neither his approach nor Labienus’s had been detected, as Caesar later learned from prisoners.

SECTION 1.22.2Considius galloped up to him and said that the mountain Caesar had wanted Labienus to occupy was held by the enemy; he had recognized them by their Gallic weapons and insignia.

SECTION 1.22.3Caesar withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and drew them up in battle formation. Labienus, in accordance with Caesar’s order not to engage unless Caesar’s forces were seen near the enemy’s camp, so that the attack on the enemy could be made from all sides at the same time, had occupied the mountain and was waiting for our men, refraining from battle.

SECTION 1.22.4At last, well into the day, Caesar learned from his scouts that the mountain was held by his own men, that the Helvetii had broken camp, and that Considius, terrified by fear, had reported as seen something he had not seen. That day Caesar followed the enemy at his customary distance and pitched camp three miles from their camp.

CHAPTER 1.23

SECTION 1.23.1The following day, since only two days remained before grain had to be issued to the army and since he was no more than eighteen miles from Bibracte, by far the largest and best-supplied town of the Haedui, Caesar thought he had to provide for his grain supply. He therefore turned away from the Helvetii and hurried toward Bibracte.

SECTION 1.23.2This was reported to the enemy by deserters from the unit of Lucius Aemilius, a decurion of the Gallic cavalry.

SECTION 1.23.3The Helvetii may have thought that the Romans were withdrawing because they were terrified, especially since the day before they had occupied higher ground but had not engaged in battle; or they may have been confident that they could cut the Romans off from their grain supply. In either case, they changed their plan, reversed their march, and began pursuing and harassing our rear guard.

CHAPTER 1.24

SECTION 1.24.1When Caesar noticed this, he withdrew his forces to the nearest hill and sent the cavalry to hold off the enemy’s attack.

SECTION 1.24.2Meanwhile, halfway up the hill, he drew up his four veteran legions in three lines. On the summit of the ridge he stationed the two legions he had most recently recruited in Cisalpine Gaul, together with all the auxiliary troops,

SECTION 1.24.3so that he filled the entire hill above him with men. He ordered all the baggage and packs to be collected in one place and that position to be fortified by the troops stationed in the upper battle line.

SECTION 1.24.4The Helvetii, who had followed with all their wagons, gathered their baggage in one place. They themselves drove back our cavalry, formed a phalanx in a very tightly packed battle line, and advanced to the foot of our first line.

CHAPTER 1.25

SECTION 1.25.1Caesar first had his own horse, and then everyone else’s, removed from sight, so that by making the danger equal for all he would eliminate any hope of flight. After encouraging his men, he joined battle.

SECTION 1.25.2Our soldiers, throwing their pila from higher ground, easily broke through the enemy’s phalanx. Once it was shattered, they drew their swords and charged.

SECTION 1.25.3It was a great hindrance to the Gauls in fighting that a single cast of the pila had pierced and fastened together several of their shields. Since the iron points had bent, they could neither pull them out nor fight effectively with their left arms obstructed,

SECTION 1.25.4so that many, after shaking their arms for a long time, preferred to let their shields fall from their hands and fight with their bodies unprotected.

SECTION 1.25.5At last, exhausted by wounds, they began to give ground and withdraw to a mountain about a mile away.

SECTION 1.25.6After they had occupied the mountain and our men were advancing after them, the Boi and Tulingi, who numbered about fifteen thousand and had been closing the enemy’s column and guarding its rear, attacked our exposed flank from the line of march and began to surround our men. When the Helvetii who had withdrawn to the mountain saw this, they began to press forward again and renew the battle.

SECTION 1.25.7The Romans turned their standards and advanced in two directions: the first and second lines resisted the enemy who had already been defeated and driven back, while the third held off the newly arriving forces.

CHAPTER 1.26

SECTION 1.26.1Thus the battle continued for a long time, fiercely fought on two fronts. When the enemy could no longer withstand our attacks, one group withdrew to the mountain, as they had begun to do, while the other went to their baggage and wagons.

SECTION 1.26.2Throughout this entire battle, although the fighting lasted from the seventh hour until evening, no one saw an enemy turn his back.

SECTION 1.26.3The fighting around the baggage continued late into the night, because the enemy had placed their wagons in the way as a defensive wall and hurled missiles from higher ground at our men as they approached. Some, from between the wagons and wheels, thrust pikes and light javelins at our men and wounded them.

SECTION 1.26.4After a long struggle, our men took possession of the baggage and the camp. There Orgetorix’s daughter and one of his sons were captured.

SECTION 1.26.5About 130,000 people survived the battle. They marched continuously throughout the entire night, without interrupting their march for any part of it, and reached the territory of the Lingones on the fourth day. Because of the soldiers’ wounds and the need to bury the dead, our men were delayed for three days and had been unable to pursue them.

SECTION 1.26.6Caesar sent letters and messengers to the Lingones ordering them not to assist the Helvetii with grain or anything else; if they did assist them, he would regard them in the same way as the Helvetii. After a three-day interval, he began pursuing them with all his forces.

CHAPTER 1.27

SECTION 1.27.1Driven by a complete lack of supplies, the Helvetii sent envoys to Caesar to negotiate their surrender.

SECTION 1.27.2They met him on the march, threw themselves at his feet, addressed him as suppliants, and tearfully asked for peace. He ordered them to wait for his arrival in the place where they then were, and they obeyed.

SECTION 1.27.3After Caesar arrived there, he demanded hostages, their weapons, and the slaves who had deserted to them.

SECTION 1.27.4While these things were being collected and brought together, after night had intervened, about 6,000 people from the canton called the Verbigenus left the Helvetian camp early in the night and hurried toward the Rhine and the territory of the Germans. Either they were terrified that, once they had surrendered their weapons, they would be put to death, or they were led on by the hope of escape, because they thought that amid such a great multitude of people surrendering, their flight could either be concealed or go entirely unnoticed.

CHAPTER 1.28

SECTION 1.28.1When Caesar learned of this, he ordered the peoples through whose territories they had passed to search for them and bring them back, if they wished to clear themselves in his eyes. Those who were brought back he treated as enemies;

SECTION 1.28.2all the rest he accepted in surrender after they had handed over hostages, weapons, and deserters.

SECTION 1.28.3He ordered the Helvetii, Tulingi, and Latobrigi to return to their own territories, from which they had set out. Since all their crops had been lost and there was nothing at home with which they could stave off hunger, he ordered the Allobroges to provide them with a supply of grain; and he ordered the Helvetii themselves to rebuild the towns and villages they had burned. His chief reason for doing this was that he did not want the region from which the Helvetii had departed to remain empty, for fear that the Germans who lived across the Rhine, attracted by the quality of the land, might cross from their own territory into that of the Helvetii and become neighbors of the Roman province of Gaul and of the Allobroges.

SECTION 1.28.4At the request of the Haedui, because the Boii were known for their outstanding courage, he allowed them to settle the Boii within their territory. The Haedui gave them land and later admitted them to the same legal rights and freedom that they themselves enjoyed.

CHAPTER 1.29

SECTION 1.29.1In the camp of the Helvetii, records written in Greek characters were found and brought to Caesar. These records contained a detailed list by name of the number who had left home and were able to bear arms, and also, in separate totals, the number of children, old people, and women.

SECTION 1.29.2The total of all these was 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobrigi, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000 Boii. Of these, about 92,000 were able to bear arms.

SECTION 1.29.3The total number of them all was about 368,000. When a census was taken of those who returned home, as Caesar had ordered, their number was found to be 110,000.

CHAPTER 1.30

SECTION 1.30.1After the war with the Helvetii had been concluded, delegates from almost all of Gaul, the leading men of their states, came together to congratulate Caesar.

SECTION 1.30.2They said that they understood that, although he had waged war to exact punishment from the Helvetii for their old injuries against the Roman people, the outcome had nevertheless served the interests of the land of Gaul no less than those of the Roman people,

SECTION 1.30.3because the Helvetii had abandoned their homes at the height of their prosperity with the intention of making war on all Gaul and gaining mastery over it, choosing from a wide range of possibilities whatever place in all Gaul they judged the most suitable and productive for their settlement, and making the remaining states pay them tribute.

SECTION 1.30.4They asked that they be permitted to call a council of all Gaul for a fixed date and to do so with Caesar’s approval. They said that there were certain requests they wished to make of him by common agreement.

SECTION 1.30.5After permission was granted, they fixed a date for the council and bound one another by oath not to disclose its proceedings except to those authorized by their common decision.

CHAPTER 1.31

SECTION 1.31.1When that council had been dismissed, the same leaders of the states who had visited Caesar before returned and asked to be allowed to speak with him privately and in secret about their own safety and that of them all.

SECTION 1.31.2When this request was granted, they all threw themselves weeping at Caesar’s feet. They said that they were striving and laboring no less to keep what they said from being disclosed than to obtain what they wanted, because they saw that, if it were disclosed, they would be subjected to the most terrible torture.

SECTION 1.31.3Diviciacus the Haeduan spoke on their behalf. He said that all Gaul was divided into two factions; the Haedui held the leadership of one, and the Arverni of the other.

SECTION 1.31.4Because these peoples had struggled fiercely with one another for supremacy for many years, the result was that the Arverni and Sequani hired Germans as mercenaries.

SECTION 1.31.5At first about 15,000 of them had crossed the Rhine. Later, after those fierce and barbarous men had come to love the lands, civilization, and resources of the Gauls, more were brought across. There were now about 120,000 of them in Gaul.

SECTION 1.31.6The Haedui and their dependents had fought them in arms repeatedly. They had suffered a great disaster in defeat, losing all their nobility, all their senate, and all their cavalry.

SECTION 1.31.7Broken by these battles and disasters, the Haedui, who previously had possessed the greatest influence in Gaul both through their own courage and through their ties of hospitality and friendship with the Roman people, had been forced to give the Sequani the most distinguished men of their state as hostages and to bind their state by oath neither to demand the hostages back, nor to appeal to the Roman people for aid, nor to refuse to remain perpetually under the Sequani’s rule and dominion.

SECTION 1.31.8He himself was the only man in the entire state of the Haedui who could not be induced either to take the oath or to give his children as hostages.

SECTION 1.31.9For that reason he had fled from his state and gone to Rome to ask the Senate for help, because he alone was bound by neither oath nor hostages.

SECTION 1.31.10But a worse fate had befallen the victorious Sequani than the defeated Haedui, because Ariovistus, king of the Germans, had settled within their territory and seized one-third of the Sequanian land, which was the best in all Gaul. He was now ordering the Sequani to withdraw from another third, because a few months earlier 24,000 Harudes had come to him, for whom land and settlements had to be prepared.

SECTION 1.31.11Within a few years, all the Gauls would be driven from the territory of Gaul and all the Germans would cross the Rhine; for Gallic land could not be compared with that of the Germans, nor could this way of life be compared with theirs.

SECTION 1.31.12Ever since Ariovistus had defeated the forces of the Gauls in the battle fought at Magetobriga, he had ruled arrogantly and cruelly. He demanded the children of every leading noble as hostages and inflicted every kind of exemplary punishment and torture upon them if anything was not done at his nod or according to his wishes.

SECTION 1.31.13He was a barbarous, hot-tempered, and reckless man. His commands could no longer be endured.

SECTION 1.31.14Unless there was some help to be found in Caesar and the Roman people, all the Gauls would have to do what the Helvetii had done: emigrate from their homes, seek another country and other settlements far from the Germans, and face whatever fortune might befall them. If these statements were reported to Ariovistus, Diviciacus had no doubt that he would inflict the most terrible punishment on all the hostages in his possession.

SECTION 1.31.15Caesar, either by his own authority and that of his army, by his recent victory, or by the name of the Roman people, could prevent a larger multitude of Germans from being brought across the Rhine and could defend all Gaul from Ariovistus’s violence.

CHAPTER 1.32

SECTION 1.32.1After Diviciacus delivered this speech, all who were present began weeping bitterly and asking Caesar for help.

SECTION 1.32.2Caesar noticed that the Sequani alone did none of the things the others were doing, but remained sad, their heads lowered and their eyes fixed on the ground. Wondering what the reason was, he questioned them directly.

SECTION 1.32.3The Sequani made no reply but remained silent in the same state of dejection. When Caesar questioned them repeatedly but could not draw a single word from them, the same Diviciacus the Haeduan answered:

SECTION 1.32.4the fate of the Sequani was more wretched and oppressive than that of the others, because they alone did not dare even in secret to complain or appeal for help, and they shuddered at Ariovistus’s cruelty even while he was absent,

SECTION 1.32.5just as if he were there in person. The others, after all, still had the possibility of escape; but the Sequani, who had received Ariovistus within their own territory and whose towns were all under his control, had to endure every kind of torture.

CHAPTER 1.33

SECTION 1.33.1After learning these facts, Caesar reassured the Gauls with his words and promised that he would take care of the matter. He said that he had great hope that Ariovistus, influenced by Caesar’s favor and authority, would put an end to his abuses. After making this speech, he dismissed the council.

SECTION 1.33.2Besides these considerations, many circumstances urged him to believe that he should consider and undertake the matter. Most important, he saw that the Haedui, who had repeatedly been called brothers and kinsmen by the Senate, were being held in servitude and under the dominion of the Germans, and he understood that their hostages were in the hands of Ariovistus and the Sequani. Given the vast dominion of the Roman people, he considered this utterly disgraceful both to himself and to the Republic.

SECTION 1.33.3Moreover, it seemed dangerous to the Roman people for the Germans gradually to become accustomed to crossing the Rhine and for a great multitude of them to enter Gaul. He did not believe that these fierce and barbarous people would restrain themselves after seizing all Gaul, but that, as the Cimbri and Teutones had done before, they would march into the province and from there advance into Italy, especially since only the Rhône separated the Sequani from the Roman province. He therefore believed these developments had to be stopped as quickly as possible.

SECTION 1.33.4Ariovistus himself had assumed such pride and arrogance that he seemed intolerable.

CHAPTER 1.34

SECTION 1.34.1For this reason Caesar decided to send delegates to Ariovistus to demand that he choose some place midway between them for a conference. Caesar wished to discuss matters of state and issues of the highest importance to them both.

SECTION 1.34.2Ariovistus replied to this delegation that if he needed anything from Caesar, he would have gone to him; if Caesar wanted anything from him, Caesar ought to come to him.

SECTION 1.34.3Furthermore, he did not dare to enter without an army those parts of Gaul that Caesar controlled, and he could not assemble his army in one place without great supplies and effort.

SECTION 1.34.4He also found it strange that Caesar, or indeed the Roman people at all, had any business in his part of Gaul, which he had conquered in war.

CHAPTER 1.35

SECTION 1.35.1When these replies were reported to Caesar, he again sent delegates to Ariovistus with the following instructions:

SECTION 1.35.2since Ariovistus, despite having received so great a favor from Caesar and the Roman people when during Caesar’s consulship he had been named king and friend by the Senate, was showing his gratitude to Caesar and the Roman people by refusing an invitation to a conference and by not considering it necessary to discuss and learn about a matter of common concern, these were Caesar’s demands:

SECTION 1.35.3first, that he no longer bring any body of people across the Rhine into Gaul; next, that he return the hostages he held from the Haedui and allow the Sequani, with his consent, to return the hostages they held; and that he not provoke the Haedui with acts of violence or make war on them or their allies.

SECTION 1.35.4If he did this, Caesar and the Roman people would enjoy lasting goodwill and friendship with him. If Caesar did not obtain these demands, then, since in the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso the Senate had decreed that whoever governed the province of Gaul should, insofar as he could do so without harm to the Republic, defend the Haedui and the other friends of the Roman people, Caesar would not ignore the wrongs inflicted on the Haedui.

CHAPTER 1.36

SECTION 1.36.1Ariovistus replied to these demands that it was a right of war for victors to rule those they had defeated in whatever manner they wished. Likewise, the Roman people were accustomed to ruling the defeated according to their own judgment, not according to another’s instructions.

SECTION 1.36.2If he did not dictate to the Roman people how they should exercise their rights, then the Roman people ought not to obstruct him in the exercise of his own rights.

SECTION 1.36.3The Haedui had become his tributaries because they had tested the fortunes of war, met him in battle, and been defeated.

SECTION 1.36.4Caesar was doing him a great wrong by coming there and reducing the revenues paid to him.

SECTION 1.36.5He would not return the hostages to the Haedui. He would not wrongfully make war on them or their allies if they abided by the agreement and paid tribute every year; but if they did not, the Roman people’s title of “brothers” would be far from helping them.

SECTION 1.36.6As for Caesar’s warning that he would not ignore the wrongs inflicted on the Haedui, no one had ever fought Ariovistus without bringing destruction upon himself.

SECTION 1.36.7Caesar could engage him whenever he wished. He would then learn what courage the undefeated Germans were capable of—men highly trained in arms who had not been under a roof for fourteen years.

CHAPTER 1.37

SECTION 1.37.1These messages were being reported to Caesar at the same time that delegates were arriving from the Haedui and the Treveri:

SECTION 1.37.2the Haedui came to complain that the Harudes who had recently been transported into Gaul were ravaging their territory; they had been unable to purchase peace from Ariovistus even by giving hostages;

SECTION 1.37.3the Treveri reported that one hundred cantons of the Suebi had settled on the banks of the Rhine and were attempting to cross it; the brothers Nasua and Cimberius were in command of them. Deeply alarmed by these developments, Caesar believed that he had to act quickly, for fear that, if the new force of Suebi joined Ariovistus’s existing troops, resistance would become more difficult.

SECTION 1.37.4Accordingly, after securing grain supplies as quickly as he could, he advanced against Ariovistus by forced marches.

CHAPTER 1.38

SECTION 1.38.1After he had advanced for three days, he was informed that Ariovistus was hurrying with all his forces to seize Vesontio, the largest town of the Sequani, and had advanced three days’ march from his own territory. Caesar believed that he had to take the greatest care to prevent this. The town had an abundant supply of everything useful for war,

SECTION 1.38.2and its natural position fortified it in such a way as to make it an excellent base for conducting a war, because the river Dubis, curving around as though drawn with a compass, almost completely surrounds the town.

SECTION 1.38.3The remaining space, where the river leaves a gap, is no more than 1,600 feet wide and is enclosed by a mountain of great height, whose base reaches the riverbanks on both sides.

SECTION 1.38.4A wall built around this mountain turns it into a citadel and connects it with the town.

SECTION 1.38.5Caesar hurried there by long marches both night and day, seized the town, and stationed a garrison there.

CHAPTER 1.39

SECTION 1.39.1While he remained at Vesontio for a few days to obtain grain and other supplies, the inquiries made by our men and the statements of Gauls and merchants—who declared that the Germans were of enormous physical size, possessed incredible courage, and were highly trained in arms, and who said that, although they had often met them, they had been unable to endure even the expression on their faces and the fierceness of their gaze—suddenly filled the entire army with such great fear that it seriously disturbed the minds and spirits of them all.

SECTION 1.39.2This fear first arose among the military tribunes, prefects, and the others who had followed Caesar from Rome for the sake of friendship and had little experience in military affairs.

SECTION 1.39.3Each of them offered a different reason that he claimed made it necessary for him to leave and asked Caesar’s permission to depart. Some, driven by shame and wishing to avoid the suspicion of fear, remained.

SECTION 1.39.4They could neither control their expressions nor, at times, hold back their tears. Hiding in their tents, they either lamented their own fate or commiserated with their friends over the danger they all shared. Wills were being sealed everywhere throughout the camp.

SECTION 1.39.5Their talk and fear gradually began to unsettle even those who had extensive experience in camp—the soldiers, centurions, and cavalry commanders.

SECTION 1.39.6Those among them who wanted to be considered less afraid said that they did not fear the enemy, but were concerned about the narrow roads and the vast forests lying between themselves and Ariovistus, or about whether the grain supply could be transported adequately.

SECTION 1.39.7Some even reported to Caesar that when he ordered the camp to be struck and the standards carried forward, the soldiers would not obey his command and, because of their fear, would refuse to carry the standards.

CHAPTER 1.40

SECTION 1.40.1When Caesar became aware of this, he called a council, summoned centurions of every rank to attend it, and severely reprimanded them. First, he rebuked them for thinking that it was their place to ask or consider in what direction or for what purpose they were being led.

SECTION 1.40.2During his consulship, Ariovistus had been extremely eager to obtain the friendship of the Roman people. Why should anyone so rashly suppose that he would abandon his obligations?

SECTION 1.40.3For his own part, Caesar was convinced that once Ariovistus learned his demands and understood the fairness of the terms, he would reject neither Caesar’s goodwill nor that of the Roman people.

SECTION 1.40.4But if, driven by rage and madness, he did make war, what, after all, were they afraid of? Why did they despair either of their own courage or of their commander’s vigilance?

SECTION 1.40.5That enemy had been put to the test within the memory of their fathers, when the Cimbri and Teutones were defeated by Gaius Marius [and the army appeared to have earned no less glory than the commander himself]. The Germans had also been tested recently in Italy during the slave uprising, although the slaves had received some assistance from the experience and training they had acquired from the Romans.

SECTION 1.40.6From this it could be judged how much strength there was in steadfastness: although for some time the Romans had been needlessly afraid of them while they were unarmed, they later defeated them when they were armed and victorious.

SECTION 1.40.7Finally, these were the same Germans whom the Helvetii had often confronted and usually defeated, not only in their own territory but also in that of the Germans; yet the Helvetii had been unable to stand against our army.

SECTION 1.40.8If anyone was disturbed by the Gauls’ defeat and flight, he could discover, if he investigated, that after the Gauls had been exhausted by the long duration of the war, Ariovistus had kept himself in his camp and among the marshes for many months without giving them an opportunity to fight. Then, when they had already despaired of battle and had dispersed, he attacked them suddenly and defeated them more by calculation and strategy than by courage.

SECTION 1.40.9Although there had been an opportunity for such a strategy to succeed against barbarous and inexperienced men, not even Ariovistus himself could expect our armies to be caught by it.

SECTION 1.40.10Those who concealed their fear behind the pretense of concern about the grain supply and the narrowness of the route were behaving arrogantly, since they appeared either to despair of their commander’s ability to perform his duty or to dictate to him.

SECTION 1.40.11These matters were his responsibility. The Sequani, Leuci, and Lingones were supplying grain, and the grain in the fields was already ripe. As for the route, they themselves would soon be able to judge it.

SECTION 1.40.12As for the claim that they would not obey his commands or carry the standards, he was not at all disturbed by it. He knew that whenever an army had not obeyed its commander, either he had suffered bad luck because the campaign had been badly conducted, or his greed had been exposed when some crime was discovered.

SECTION 1.40.13His integrity had been demonstrated throughout his life, and his good fortune in the war with the Helvetii.

SECTION 1.40.14He would therefore do immediately what he had intended to postpone until a later day, and would strike camp during the fourth watch of the coming night, so that he could learn as quickly as possible whether honor and duty or fear had more influence over them.

SECTION 1.40.15Even if no one else followed him, he would still go with the Tenth Legion alone. He had no doubts about that legion, and it would serve as his bodyguard cohort. Caesar had shown this legion particular favor and, because of its courage, trusted it more than any other.

CHAPTER 1.41

SECTION 1.41.1After this speech, everyone’s attitude changed remarkably, and the entire army was filled with the greatest enthusiasm and eagerness to wage war.

SECTION 1.41.2The Tenth Legion was the first to thank him, through its military tribunes, for having formed such an excellent opinion of it, and declared that it was completely ready to wage war.

SECTION 1.41.3Then the other legions approached their military tribunes and senior centurions to have them satisfy Caesar on their behalf. They said that they had never doubted or been afraid, and had never thought that judgment concerning the overall conduct of the war belonged to them rather than to their commander.

SECTION 1.41.4After accepting their explanation, Caesar had Diviciacus, the Gaul he trusted more than any other, investigate a route by which he could lead the army through open country, even though it required a detour of more than fifty miles. He then set out during the fourth watch, as he had said he would.

SECTION 1.41.5On the seventh day, during which he had continued the march without interruption, his scouts informed him that Ariovistus’ forces were twenty-four miles from ours.

CHAPTER 1.42

SECTION 1.42.1When Ariovistus learned of Caesar’s arrival, he sent envoys to him. Since Caesar had previously requested a conference, Ariovistus said that it could now take place, because Caesar had come nearer and he believed he could attend it without danger.

SECTION 1.42.2Caesar did not reject the proposal and now believed that Ariovistus was returning to his senses, since he was voluntarily offering what he had previously denied when Caesar requested it.

SECTION 1.42.3Caesar became very hopeful that, in view of the great favors that he and the Roman people had conferred upon Ariovistus, the king would learn his demands and abandon his obstinacy.

SECTION 1.42.4The conference was set for the fifth day from that day.

SECTION 1.42.5Meanwhile, as envoys were frequently passing back and forth between them, Ariovistus demanded that Caesar bring no infantryman to the conference. He said that he was afraid Caesar might surround him in an ambush. Each of them should come with cavalry; otherwise, he would not come.

SECTION 1.42.6Caesar did not want the conference to be canceled because of an imposed condition, but he did not dare entrust his safety to the Gallic cavalry. He therefore decided that the most practical course was to take all the horses away from the Gallic cavalrymen and mount on them legionary soldiers from the Tenth Legion, which he trusted most, so that if any action became necessary, he would have the most loyal possible guard.

SECTION 1.42.7As this was being done, one of the soldiers of the Tenth Legion remarked, not without humor, that Caesar was doing more than he had promised. He had promised to treat the Tenth Legion as his bodyguard cohort, but now he was enrolling it in the cavalry.

CHAPTER 1.43

SECTION 1.43.1There was a large plain, and on it stood a fairly large earthen mound. This place was at approximately the same distance from the camps of Ariovistus and Caesar. As agreed, they came there for the conference.

SECTION 1.43.2Caesar stationed the legion he had brought on horseback two hundred paces from that mound. Ariovistus’ cavalry likewise halted at an equal distance.

SECTION 1.43.3Ariovistus requested that they conduct the conference on horseback and that each of them bring ten men with him to the meeting.

SECTION 1.43.4When they arrived there, Caesar began his speech by recounting the favors that he and the Senate had conferred upon Ariovistus: that the Senate had given him the title of king, that it had declared him a friend, and that magnificent gifts had been sent to him. Caesar explained that such distinctions had fallen to only a few men and were customarily granted in return for great services.

SECTION 1.43.5Although Ariovistus had neither access to Rome nor any legitimate grounds for requesting these honors, he had received those rewards through Caesar’s and the Senate’s kindness and generosity.

SECTION 1.43.6Caesar also explained how old and legitimate were the bonds of friendship between the Romans and the Haedui,

SECTION 1.43.7how many decrees the Senate had passed concerning them and how honorable those decrees were, and how the Haedui had always held the leading position in all Gaul, even before they sought our friendship.

SECTION 1.43.8It was the custom of the Roman people to want their allies and friends not only to lose none of what belonged to them, but also to increase in influence, standing, and honor. Who could permit them to be deprived of what they had possessed when they entered into friendship with the Roman people?

SECTION 1.43.9Caesar then made the same demands that he had given his envoys: Ariovistus must not make war upon either the Haedui or their allies; he must return their hostages; and if he could not send any part of the Germans back home, he must at least permit no more of them to cross the Rhine.

CHAPTER 1.44

SECTION 1.44.1Ariovistus said little in reply to Caesar’s demands but spoke at length about his own merits.

SECTION 1.44.2He had crossed the Rhine not on his own initiative, but at the request and invitation of the Gauls. He had not left his home and relatives without great expectations and great rewards. He occupied settlements in Gaul that the Gauls themselves had granted him; they had given hostages voluntarily; and he collected tribute by the right of war, which victors customarily imposed upon the defeated.

SECTION 1.44.3He had not made war upon the Gauls; the Gauls had made war upon him. All the states of Gaul had come to attack him and had camped against him, and he had routed and defeated all their forces in a single battle.

SECTION 1.44.4If they wanted to try again, he was ready to fight it out again. If they wanted to enjoy peace, it was unjust for them to refuse the tribute that they had paid voluntarily up to that time.

SECTION 1.44.5The friendship of the Roman people ought to bring him honor and protection, not harm, and he had sought it with that expectation. If, through the intervention of the Roman people, the tribute was canceled and his subjects were taken away from him, he would reject the friendship of the Roman people just as gladly as he had sought it.

SECTION 1.44.6As for his bringing a large number of Germans into Gaul, he was doing this to protect himself, not to attack Gaul. The proof was that he had not come except at the Gauls’ request and had not started the war but had defended himself.

SECTION 1.44.7He had come to Gaul before the Roman people. Never before that time had an army of the Roman people gone beyond the borders of the province of Gaul.

SECTION 1.44.8What did Caesar want with him? Why was he coming into his possessions? This part of Gaul was his province, just as the other part was ours. Just as Ariovistus ought not to be permitted to invade our territory, so the Romans were equally unjust to interfere with him in the exercise of his rights.

SECTION 1.44.9As for Caesar’s claim that the Senate had called the Haedui brothers, Ariovistus was not so barbarous or so ignorant of affairs that he did not know that in the recent war with the Allobroges the Haedui had neither brought assistance to the Romans nor themselves received assistance from the Roman people in the struggles they had waged against him and the Sequani.

SECTION 1.44.10He had to suspect that Caesar was pretending friendship and maintaining an army in Gaul for the purpose of destroying him.

SECTION 1.44.11Unless Caesar withdrew and led his army away from these regions, Ariovistus would regard him not as a friend but as an enemy.

SECTION 1.44.12If he killed Caesar, he would be doing a favor to many nobles and leading men of the Roman people—something he had learned from them personally through their messengers—and by Caesar’s death he could purchase the favor and friendship of them all.

SECTION 1.44.13But if Caesar withdrew and surrendered to him the unrestricted possession of Gaul, he would reward him generously and would conclude, without any effort or danger to Caesar, whatever wars Caesar wanted to have waged.

CHAPTER 1.45

SECTION 1.45.1Caesar said much in reply to explain why he could not abandon the matter. Neither his own practice nor that of the Roman people permitted him to abandon allies who had rendered outstanding service, and he did not believe that Gaul belonged to Ariovistus rather than to the Roman people.

SECTION 1.45.2The Arverni and Ruteni had been defeated in war by Quintus Fabius Maximus, but the Roman people had pardoned them, had not reduced their territory to a province, and had not imposed tribute upon them.

SECTION 1.45.3If the most ancient claim had to be considered, then the authority of the Roman people in Gaul was the most legitimate. If the judgment of the Senate had to be respected, then Gaul ought to be free, since the Senate had wished it, although conquered in war, to live under its own laws.

CHAPTER 1.46

SECTION 1.46.1While this discussion was taking place at the conference, Caesar was informed that Ariovistus’ cavalry was approaching nearer to the mound, riding toward our men, and throwing stones and javelins at them.

SECTION 1.46.2Caesar ended the discussion, withdrew to his men, and ordered them not to throw any weapon at all back at the enemy.

SECTION 1.46.3Although he saw that a battle between his chosen legion and the enemy cavalry would involve no danger, he nevertheless thought he must not allow a situation in which, after the enemy had been defeated, it could be said that he had treacherously trapped them during a conference.

SECTION 1.46.4After word spread among the common soldiers of the arrogance with which Ariovistus had barred the Romans from all Gaul during the conference, of the attack his cavalry had made upon our men, and of how that incident had broken off the conference, the army was filled with far greater enthusiasm and a much stronger desire to fight.

CHAPTER 1.47

SECTION 1.47.1Two days later Ariovistus sent envoys to Caesar. He said that he wanted to discuss with him the matters they had begun but had not finished discussing. Caesar should either set another day for a conference or, if he was unwilling to do that, send one of his envoys to Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.2Caesar saw no reason to hold another conference, especially because the day before, the Germans could not be restrained from throwing weapons at our men.

SECTION 1.47.3He believed that sending one of his own envoys to Ariovistus would expose that man to great danger and place him at the mercy of savage men.

SECTION 1.47.4He decided that the most practical course was to send Gaius Valerius Procillus, the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus, a young man of the highest courage and refinement whose father had been granted Roman citizenship by Gaius Valerius Flaccus. He chose Procillus both because of his loyalty and because of his knowledge of the Gallic language, in which Ariovistus, through long familiarity, was now quite fluent, and because the Germans had no reason to mistreat him. With him Caesar sent Marcus Metius, who had ties of hospitality with Ariovistus.

SECTION 1.47.5Caesar instructed them to learn what Ariovistus said and report it to him. When Ariovistus saw them in his camp, he shouted in the presence of his army, “Why have you come to me? Is it to spy?” He prevented them from trying to speak and threw them into chains.

CHAPTER 1.48

SECTION 1.48.1That same day Ariovistus moved his camp forward and established it beneath a mountain, six miles from Caesar’s camp.

SECTION 1.48.2The following day he led his forces past Caesar’s camp and established a camp two miles beyond it, intending to cut Caesar off from the grain and supplies being transported from the Sequani and Haedui.

SECTION 1.48.3For five consecutive days from that day onward, Caesar led his forces out in front of the camp and kept them drawn up in battle formation, so that if Ariovistus wanted to fight, he would have the opportunity.

SECTION 1.48.4Throughout all these days Ariovistus kept his army inside the camp but engaged in cavalry combat every day. This was the method of fighting in which the Germans had trained themselves:

SECTION 1.48.5there were six thousand cavalrymen and an equal number of extremely swift and courageous infantrymen, each of whom an individual cavalryman had selected from the entire force for his personal protection.

SECTION 1.48.6The cavalrymen fought alongside them in battle and withdrew to them for safety. If the situation became especially difficult, the infantrymen rushed forward; if any cavalryman fell from his horse after receiving a serious wound, they surrounded him;

SECTION 1.48.7If they had to advance farther than usual or withdraw more quickly, their training gave them such speed that, supporting themselves by the horses’ manes, they could keep pace with them at a gallop.

CHAPTER 1.49

SECTION 1.49.1When Caesar realized that Ariovistus was remaining in his camp, Caesar chose a suitable site for a camp beyond the place where the Germans had settled, about six hundred paces from them, so that he would not be cut off from supplies any longer. He formed his army in three lines and advanced to that site.

SECTION 1.49.2He ordered the first and second lines to remain under arms and the third to fortify the camp.

SECTION 1.49.3[This site, as has been stated, was about six hundred paces from the enemy.] Ariovistus sent about sixteen thousand lightly equipped men there with all his cavalry to intimidate our men and prevent them from building the fortifications.

SECTION 1.49.4Nevertheless, as Caesar had previously decided, he ordered two lines to drive back the enemy and the third to complete the work. Once the camp was fortified, he left two legions and part of the auxiliary forces there and led the other four legions back to the larger camp.

CHAPTER 1.50

SECTION 1.50.1The next day, following his established plan, Caesar led his forces out of both camps, advanced a short distance from the larger camp, formed his battle line, and gave the enemy an opportunity to fight.

SECTION 1.50.2When he realized that even then they would not come out, he led his army back into camp around noon. Only then did Ariovistus send part of his forces to attack the smaller camp. Both sides fought fiercely until evening. At sunset Ariovistus led his troops back into camp after many wounds had been both inflicted and received.

SECTION 1.50.3When Caesar asked the prisoners why Ariovistus would not decide the issue in battle, he learned that the reason was a German custom under which their married women used lots and prophecies to declare whether or not it would be advantageous to engage in battle. The women said:

SECTION 1.50.4The Germans were not destined to win if they fought a battle before the new moon.

CHAPTER 1.51

SECTION 1.51.1The day after that, Caesar left what seemed to be an adequate garrison in each camp and stationed all the auxiliary troops in full view of the enemy in front of the smaller camp. Because he was at a disadvantage in the number of legionary soldiers compared with the enemy, he intended to use the auxiliaries to create the appearance of greater strength. He himself formed his army in three lines and advanced as far as the enemy’s camp.

SECTION 1.51.2Only then, compelled by necessity, did the Germans lead their forces out of camp. They arranged them by tribe at equal intervals—the Harudes, Marcomani, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suebi—and surrounded their entire battle line with wagons and carts so that no hope of escape would remain.

SECTION 1.51.3They placed their women on the wagons, and as the soldiers set out for battle, the women stretched out their hands, weeping and begging them not to surrender them to slavery under the Romans.

CHAPTER 1.52

SECTION 1.52.1Caesar placed one lieutenant or the quaestor in command of each legion, so that every man would have one of them as a witness to his courage.

SECTION 1.52.2He himself began the battle from the right wing because he had noticed that this was the enemy’s weakest point.

SECTION 1.52.3At the signal, our men charged the enemy so fiercely, and the enemy suddenly rushed forward so quickly, that there was no room to throw the javelins at them.

SECTION 1.52.4The javelins were cast aside, and the fighting was carried on at close quarters with swords. But the Germans quickly formed a phalanx in their customary manner and met the assault of the swords.

SECTION 1.52.5A considerable number of our men were found who leaped onto the phalanx, tore away the shields with their hands, and struck the enemy from above.

SECTION 1.52.6Although the enemy’s line on the left wing had been driven back and put to flight, on their right wing they were pressing our line hard through the sheer weight of their numbers.

SECTION 1.52.7When the young Publius Crassus, who commanded the cavalry, noticed this, he was freer to observe the battle than those engaged in the fighting and sent the third line to reinforce our hard-pressed men.

CHAPTER 1.53

SECTION 1.53.1The battle was thus restored, and all the enemy turned their backs. They did not stop fleeing until they reached the Rhine, about fifty miles from that place.

SECTION 1.53.2There, a very few trusted in their strength and tried to swim across, or found small boats and escaped.

SECTION 1.53.3Among them was Ariovistus, who found a small boat tied to the bank and escaped in it. Our cavalry overtook and killed all the rest.

SECTION 1.53.4Ariovistus had two wives: one was a Suebi by birth, whom he had brought with him from home; the other was a Norican, the sister of King Voccio, whom he had married in Gaul after her brother sent her there. Both died during the flight. He also had two daughters: one of them was killed and the other captured.

SECTION 1.53.5Gaius Valerius Procillus, who was being dragged along by his guards during the flight, bound in three sets of chains, came upon Caesar himself as he pursued the enemy with the cavalry.

SECTION 1.53.6This event gave Caesar no less pleasure than the victory itself, because he saw the most honorable man in the Province of Gaul, his personal friend and guest, rescued from the enemy’s hands and restored to him. Fortune had not diminished the pleasure and rejoicing of so great a victory by bringing disaster upon Procillus.

SECTION 1.53.7Procillus said that, in his presence, the lots had been consulted three times to determine whether he should be burned to death immediately or kept for another time. By the favor of the lots, he was still alive.

SECTION 1.53.8Marcus Metius was likewise found and brought back to Caesar.

CHAPTER 1.54

SECTION 1.54.1When news of this battle was reported across the Rhine, the Suebi who had reached its banks began to return home. When the peoples living nearest the Rhine saw that they were terrified, they pursued them and killed a great number.

SECTION 1.54.2Having concluded two very great wars in a single summer, Caesar led his army into winter quarters among the Sequani somewhat earlier than the season required. He placed Labienus in command of the winter quarters.

SECTION 1.54.3He himself departed for Cisalpine Gaul to hold the judicial assemblies.