He concluded by declaring that if the army should refuse to march, he would start the next morning with only the tenth legion, upon the courage and obedience of which he could rely. This speech produced an immediate effect. The tenth legion solemnly thanked Cæsar for his confidence in its men and officers, the other legions, one after the other, declared their readiness to follow, and the whole army left Vesontio the very next morning. After a rapid march of seven days, Cæsar found himself within a short distance of the fortified camp of Ariovistus.
57 BC CÆSAR AND ARIOVISTUS.
The German chief now agreed to an interview, and the two leaders met, half-way between the two armies, on the plain of the Rhine. The place is supposed to have been a little to the northward of Basel. Neither Cæsar nor Ariovistus would yield to the demands of the other, and as the cavalry of their armies began skirmishing, the interview was broken off. For several days in succession the Romans offered battle, but the Suevi refused to leave their strong position. This hesitation seemed remarkable, until it was explained by some prisoners, captured in a skirmish, who stated that the German priestesses had prophesied misfortune to Ariovistus, if he should fight before the new moon.
Cæsar, thereupon, determined to attack the German camp without delay. The meeting of the two armies was fierce, and the soldiers were soon fighting hand to hand. On each side one wing gave way, but the greater quickness and superior military skill of the Romans enabled them to recover sooner than the enemy. The day ended with the entire defeat of the Suevi, and the flight of the few who escaped across the Rhine. They did not attempt to reconquer their lost territory, and the three small German tribes, who had long been settled between the Rhine and the Vosges (in what is now Alsatia), became subject to Roman rule.
Two years afterwards, Cæsar, who was engaged in subjugating the Belgæ, in Northern Gaul, learned that two other German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteres, who had been driven from their homes by the Suevi, had crossed the Rhine below where Cologne now stands. They numbered 400,000, and the Northern Gauls, instead of regarding them as invaders, were inclined to welcome them as allies against Rome, the common enemy. Cæsar knew that if they remained, a revolt of the Gauls against his rule would be the consequence. He therefore hastened to meet them, got possession of their principal chiefs by treachery, and then attacked their camp between the Meuse and the Rhine. The Germans were defeated, and nearly all their foot-soldiers slaughtered, but the cavalry succeeded in crossing the river, where they were welcomed by the Sicambrians.
Then it was that Cæsar built his famous wooden bridge across the Rhine, not far from the site of Cologne, although the precise point can not now be ascertained. He crossed with his army into Westphalia, but the tribes he sought retreated into the great forests to the eastward, where he was unable to pursue them. He contented himself with burning their houses and gathering their ripened harvests for eighteen days, when he returned to the other side and destroyed the bridge behind him. From this time, Rome claimed the sovereignty of the western bank of the Rhine to its mouth.
53 BC
While Cæsar was in Britain, in the year 53 BC, the newly subjugated Celtic and German tribes which inhabited Belgium rose in open revolt against the Roman rule. The rapidity of Cæsar's return arrested their temporary success, but some of the German tribes to the eastward of the Rhine had already promised to aid them. In order to secure his conquests, the Roman general determined to cross the Rhine again, and intimidate, if not subdue, his dangerous neighbors. He built a second bridge, near the place where the first had been, and crossed with his army. But, as before, the Suevi and Sicambrians drew back among the forest-covered hills along the Weser river, and only the small and peaceful tribe of the Ubii remained in their homes. The latter offered their submission to Cæsar, and agreed to furnish him with news of the movements of their warlike countrymen, in return for his protection.
When another revolt of the Celtic Gauls took place, the following year, German mercenaries, enlisted among the Ubii, fought on the Roman side and took an important part in the decisive battle which gave Vercingetorix, the last chief of the Gauls, into Cæsar's hands. He was beheaded, and from that time the Gauls made no further effort to throw off the Roman yoke. They accepted the civil and military organization, the dress and habits, and finally the language and religion of their conquerors. The small German tribes in Alsatia and Belgium shared the same fate: their territory was divided into two provinces, called Upper and Lower Germania by the Romans. The vast region inhabited by the independent tribes, lying between the Rhine, the Vistula, the North Sea and the Danube, was thenceforth named Germania Magna, or "Great Germany."
Cæsar's renown among the Germans, and probably also his skill in dealing with them, was so great, that when he left Gaul to return to Rome, he took with him a German legion of 6,000 men, which afterwards fought on his side against Pompey, on the battle-field of Pharsalia. The Roman agents penetrated into the interior of the country, and enlisted a great many of the free Germans who were tempted by the prospect of good pay and booty. Even the younger sons of the chiefs entered the Roman army, for the sake of a better military education.
15 BC THE EXPEDITIONS OF DRUSUS.
No movement of any consequence took place for more than twenty years after Cæsar's last departure from the banks of the Rhine. The Romans, having secured their possession of Gaul, now turned their attention to the subjugation of the Celtic tribes inhabiting the Alps and the lowlands south of the Danube, from the Lake of Constance to Vienna. This work had also been begun by Cæsar: it was continued by the Emperor Augustus, whose step-sons, Tiberius and Drusus, finally overcame the desperate resistance of the native tribes. In the year 15 BC the Danube became the boundary between Rome and Germany on the south, as the Rhine already was on the west. The Roman provinces of Rhætia, Noricum and Pannonia were formed out of the conquered territory.
Augustus now sent Drusus, with a large army, to the Rhine, instructing him to undertake a campaign against the independent German tribes. It does not appear that the latter had given any recent occasion for this hostile movement: the Emperor's design was probably to extend the dominions of Rome to the North Sea and the Baltic. Drusus built a large fleet on the Rhine, descended that river nearly to its mouth, cut a canal for his vessels to a lake which is now the Zuyder Zee, and thus entered the North Sea. It was a bold undertaking, but did not succeed. He reached the mouth of the river Ems with his fleet, when the weather became so tempestuous that he was obliged to return.
The next year, 11 BC, he made an expedition into the land of the Sicambrians, during which his situation was often hazardous; but he succeeded in penetrating rather more than a hundred miles to the eastward of the Rhine, and establishing—not far from where the city of Paderborn now stands—a fortress called Aliso, which became a base for later operations against the German tribes. He next set about building a series of fortresses, fifty in number, along the western bank of the Rhine. Around the most important of these, towns immediately sprang up, and thus were laid the foundations of the cities of Strasburg, Mayence, Coblenz, Cologne, and many smaller places.
9 BC
In the year 9 BC Drusus marched again into Germany. He defeated the Chatti in several bloody battles, crossed the passes of the Thuringian Forest, and forced his way through the land of the Cherusci (the Hartz region) to the Elbe. The legend says that he there encountered a German prophetess, who threatened him with coming evil, whereupon he turned about and retraced his way towards the Rhine. He died, however, during the march, and his dejected army had great difficulty in reaching the safe line of their fortresses.
Tiberius succeeded to the command left vacant by the death of his brother Drusus. Less daring, but of a more cautious and scheming nature, he began by taking possession of the land of the Sicambrians and colonizing a part of the tribe on the west bank of the Rhine. He then gradually extended his power, and in the course of two years brought nearly the whole country between the Rhine and Weser under the rule of Rome. His successor, Domitius Ænobarbus, built military roads through Westphalia and the low, marshy plains towards the sea. These roads,
