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On the defeat of the Helvetii, Caesar had planted a colony of them at Gorgobines, near Nevers, on the Loire. These colonists, called Boii, had refused to take part in the rising; and Vercingetorix, turning in contempt from Brutus, had gone off to punish them.
Of such towns the Helvetii had twelve and the Suessiones an equal number; whereas at all events in the more northern districts, such as among the Nervii, while there were doubtless also towns, the population during war sought protection in the morasses and forests rather than behind their walls, and beyond the Thames the primitive defence of the wooden barricade altogether took the place of towns and was in war the only place of refuge for men and herds.
When Messala and Piso were consuls, Orgetorix, the most distinguished of the Helvetii, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, persuading them that, since they excelled all in valour, it would be very easy to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. They made great preparations for the expedition, but suddenly Orgetorix died, nor was suspicion lacking that he committed suicide.
Cæsar must therefore have been subject to these attacks during his quæstorship, or at least his prætorship in Spain. The Helvetii occupied the country between the Rhine, the Jura, the Rhone, and the Rhætian Alps. What territory the Romans considered as belonging to his kingdom does not appear.
He thus treats with Caesar: that, "if the Roman people would make peace with the Helvetii they would go to that part and there remain, where Caesar might appoint and desire them to be; but if he should persist in persecuting them with war, that he ought to remember both the ancient disgrace of the Roman people and the characteristic valour of the Helvetii.
This day had frustrated the scheme of the Helvetii to establish for themselves new settlements on the Atlantic Ocean, and handed them over to the pleasure of the victor; but it had been a hot day also for the conquerors.
The Helvetii were old enemies. They were a branch of the Celtic race, who occupied modern Switzerland, hardy, bold mountaineers, and seasoned in constant war with their German neighbors. On them, too, the tide of migration from the north had pressed continuously. They had hitherto defended themselves successfully, but they were growing weary of these constant efforts.
Evidently, however, there was some general scheme, of which the entry of the Helvetii into Gaul was the essential part; and through the mediation of Dumnorix, an Aeduan and an ardent patriot, the Sequani were induced to agree. The Province had been saved, but the exodus of the enormous multitude could no longer be prevented.
Among their various tribes, both banks of the Upper Rhine were occupied by the powerful and rich Helvetii, who nowhere came into immediate contact with the Romans and so lived in peace and in treaty with them: at this time they seem to have stretched from the lake of Geneva to the river Main, and to have occupied the modern Switzerland, Suabia, and Franconia Adjacent to them dwelt the Boii, whose settlements were probably in the modern Bavaria and Bohemia.
The Helvetii, elated with this battle because they had with five hundred horse repulsed so large a body of horse, began to face us more boldly, sometimes too from their rear to provoke our men by an attack. They marched for about fifteen days in such a manner that there was not more than five or six miles between the enemy's rear and our van.
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