Caesar

After a long and hard struggle he routed the enemy’s fighting men, but had the most trouble at their rampart of waggons, where not only did the men themselves make a stand and fight, but also their wives and children defended themselves to the death and were cut to pieces with the men. The battle was hardly over by midnight.

To the noble work of victory Caesar added a nobler still, that of settling those of the Barbarians who had escaped alive from the battle (there were more than one hundred thousand of them), and compelling them to resume the territory which they had abandoned and the cities which they had destroyed. He did this because he feared that if the territory became vacant the Germans would cross the Rhine and occupy it.

His second war, directly in defence of the Gauls, was against the Germans,[*](Cf. Caesar, B. G. i. 30-53.) although previously, in Rome, he had made their king Ariovistus an ally.[*](Acting as consul, in 59 B.C.) But they were intolerable neighbours of Caesar’s subjects, and if an opportunity presented itself it was thought that they would not remain quietly in their present homes, but would encroach upon and occupy Gaul.

Seeing that his officers were inclined to be afraid, and particularly all the young men of high rank who had come out intending to make the campaign with Caesar an opportunity for high living and money-making, he called them together[*](Cf. Caesar, B. G. i. 40.) and bade them be off, since they were so unmanly and effeminate, and not force themselves to face danger; as for himself, he said he would take the tenth legion alone and march against the Barbarians; the enemy would be no better fighters than the Cimbri, and he himself was no worse a general than Marius.