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For the Ædui "our brethren" have recently fought a losing battle, and the Helvetii are undoubtedly in arms and making raids upon our province. The senate has decreed that the two consuls should draw lots for the Gauls, that a levy should be held, all exemptions from service be suspended, and legates with full powers be sent to visit the states in Gaul, and see that they do not join the Helvetii.
While the state, incensed at this act, was endeavouring to assert its right by arms, and the magistrates were mustering a large body of men from the country, Orgetorix died; and there is not wanting a suspicion, as the Helvetii think, of his having committed suicide.
V. After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless attempt to do that which they had resolved on, namely, to go forth from their territories.
The Helvetii with the adjoining peoples numbered before their migration 336,000; if we assume that they were at that time already dislodged from the right bank of the Rhine, their territory may be estimated at nearly 1350 square miles.
Caesar had not received definite instructions; to one who was discerning and courageous these were implied in the circumstances with which he had to deal. Here too the negligence of the senate had to be retrieved, and first of all the stream of migration of the German peoples had to be checked. Repulse of the Helvetii
In alliance with the Helvetii, the Cimbri had without difficulty passed from the Seine to the upper valley of the Rhine, had crossed the chain of the Alps by the Brenner pass, and had descended thence through the valleys of the Eisach and Adige into the Italian plain.
We are only able to perceive, that about the end of the seventh century of Rome all the land as far as the Rhine was already lost to the Celts; that the Boii, who were probably once settled in Bavaria and Bohemia, were homeless wanderers; and that even the Black Forest formerly possessed by the Helvetii, if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border- land, and was presumably even then, what it was afterwards called, the Helvetian desert The barbarous strategy of the Germans which secured them from hostile attacks by laying waste the neighbourhood for miles seems to have been applied here on the greatest scale.
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.
The Helvetii were disposed of, but the Germans remained; and till Ariovistus was back across the Rhone, no permanent peace was possible. Hitherto Caesar had only received vague information about Ariovistus. When the diet was over, such of the chiefs as were sincere in their professions came to him privately and explained what the Germans were about.
They made their way through the Alps into Switzerland, where the Helvetii joined them and the united mass rolled over the Jura and down the bank of the Rhone. Roused at last into the exertion, the Senate sent into Gaul the largest force which the Romans had ever brought into the field. They met the Cimbri at Orange, and were simply annihilated.
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