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Mindful of the brave and successful resistance which fifty years before they had with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their land, and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent their whole first levy 300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba the king of the Suessiones to their southern frontier to receive Caesar there.
The Aduatuci within its walls were sold into slavery, and the contractors who followed the army returned the number of prisoners whom they had purchased at 53,000. Such captives were the most valuable form of spoil. The Belgae were thus crushed as completely as the Gauls had been crushed in the previous year.
An immigration of Belgic Celts to Britain continuing for a considerable time seems indicated by the names of English tribes on both banks of the Thames borrowed from Belgic cantons; such as the Atrebates, the Belgae, and even the Britanni themselves, which word appears to have been transferred from the Brittones settled on the Somme below Amiens first to an English canton and then to the whole island.
Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time, Gaul was divided politically into three nationalities the Belgae, the Celtae, and the Aquitani; and that the last were very widely different, both in language and in physical characteristics, from the two former. The Belgae and the Celtae, on the other hand, differed comparatively little either in physique or in language.
The modern appellation of the Walloons points to the affinity of their ancestors with the Gallic, Welsh, and Gaelic family. The Belgae were in many respects a superior race to most of their blood-allies. They were, according to Caesar's testimony, the bravest of all the Celts.
Then, indeed, he thought that he ought not to hesitate about proceeding towards them, and having provided supplies, moves his camp, and in about fifteen days arrives at the territories of the Belgae.
The military capability of the nation felt the reflex influence of these political and social relations. The cavalry was throughout the predominant arm; alongside of which among the Belgae, and still more in the British islands, the old national war-chariots appear in remarkable perfection.
These were the Belgae, the Galli, and the Aquitani, the last of whom, however, were not Celts, but, like the Iberians in Spain, belonged to a pre-Celtic race. The Helvetii and Vindelici were in Switzerland. The Celts of Gaul had attained to a considerable degree of civilization. Their gods were the various objects of nature personified.
On the left of the river dwelt the Belgae, on its right the Frisii, and the Batavi on the island which its two arms then formed with the ocean. All these several nations were sooner or later reduced into subjection by the Romans, but the conquerors themselves give us the most glorious testimony to their valor.
The Nervii, separated from their confederates and simultaneously assailed on all sides, now showed, when fortune turned, the same heroic courage as when they believed themselves victors; still over the pile of corpses of their fallen comrades they fought to the last man. According to their own statement, of their six hundred senators only three survived this day. Subjugation of the Belgae
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