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The scene of action was at a great distance from Rome, and he seemed to be wholly engaged with the Belgae, the Suevi, and the Britons; but his genius all the while was privately at work among the people of Rome, and he was undermining Pompey in his most essential interests. His war with the barbarians was not his principal object.
Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications.
The Belgae rise from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine; and look towards the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun and the north star.
Indeed, the Belgae are credited with the occupation of territory up to the borders of Devon. The British tribe of the Atrebates, again, were the same people as the Gauls in the district of Arras; and they occupied a large tract of country stretching away from the immediate west of London.
But the northern provinces as well the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful confederation of the Belgae were not affected by the blows directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit to the conqueror of Ariovistus.
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.
Moreover, as was already remarked, very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes made themselves ready to cross the stream. In consequence of this Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons.
In the meantime Caesar's lieutenants, Q. Titurius and L. Cotta, who had led the legions into the territories of the Menapii, having laid waste all their lands, cut down their corn and burnt their houses, returned to Caesar because the Menapii had all concealed themselves in their thickest woods. Caesar fixed the winter quarters of all the legions amongst the Belgae.
All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae.
Moreover, our position is far worse now than it was ten years ago. The Belgae and Dumnonii in the southwest have been crushed after thirty battles; the Dobuni in the centre have been defeated and garrisoned; the Silures have set an example to us all, inflicting many defeats on the Romans; but their power has at last been broken.
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