The Historians' History of the World 05

As the Morini and Menapii of the north coast (Picardy) had been in league with the Veneti, Cæsar invaded their country, which abounded in woods and marshes, but the approach of the wet season obliged him to retire. Having put his troops into winter quarters, he set out to look after his affairs in Italy. During this summer P. Crassus, who had been sent into Aquitaine to keep it quiet, or rather, as it would appear, to raise a war, routed the people named the Sotitates (Sos), forced their chief town to surrender, and defeated a large army of the adjoining peoples, and the Spaniards who had joined them. Shortly after he left Gaul to join his father in Syria, taking with him one thousand Gallic horse.

Tribes of Germans named Usipetes and Tencteri having crossed the Rhine and entered the Menapian country, Cæsar, fearing lest their presence might induce the Gauls to rise, hastened (55) to oppose them. Some negotiations took place between them, during which a body of eight hundred German horse fell on, and even put to flight, with a loss of seventy-four men, five thousand of Cæsar’s Gallic cavalry; and they then had the audacity, as Cæsar represents it, to send an embassy, in which were all their principal men, to the Roman camp to justify themselves and to seek a truce.c

THE MASSACRE OF THE GERMANS

[55 B.C.]

After this engagement, Cæsar considered that neither ought ambassadors to be received to audience, nor conditions be accepted by him from those who, after having sued for peace by way of stratagem and treachery, had made war without provocation. And to wait till the enemy’s forces were augmented and their cavalry had returned, he concluded, would be the greatest madness; and knowing the fickleness of the Gauls, he felt how much influence the enemy had already acquired among them by this one skirmish. He (therefore) deemed that no time for concerting measures ought to be afforded them. After having resolved on these things and communicated his plans to his lieutenants and quæstor in order that he might not suffer any opportunity for engaging to escape him, a very seasonable event occurred, namely, that on the morning of the next day a large body of Germans, consisting of their princes and old men, came to the camp to him to practise the same treachery and dissimulation; but, as they asserted, for the purpose of acquitting themselves for having engaged in a skirmish the day before, contrary to what had been agreed and to what, indeed, they themselves had requested; and also if they could by any means obtain a truce by deceiving him. Cæsar, rejoicing that they had fallen into his power, ordered them to be detained. He then drew all his forces out of the camp, and commanded the cavalry, because he thought they were intimidated by the late skirmish, to follow in the rear.

Roman Helmet

Having marshalled his army in three lines, and in a short time performed a march of eight miles, he arrived at the camp of the enemy before the Germans could perceive what was going on; who being suddenly alarmed by all the circumstances, both by the speediness of our arrival and the absence of their own officers, as time was afforded neither for concerting measures nor for seizing their arms, are perplexed as to whether it would be better to lead out their forces against the enemy, or to defend their camp, or seek their safety by flight. Their consternation being made apparent by their noise and tumult, our soldiers, excited by the treachery of the preceding day, rushed into the camp; such of them as could readily get their arms for a short time withstood our men, and gave battle among their carts and baggage waggons; but the rest of the people, (consisting) of boys and women (for they had left their country and crossed the Rhine with all their families) began to fly in all directions; in pursuit of whom Cæsar sent the cavalry.

The Germans, when upon hearing a noise behind them (they looked and) saw that their families were being slain, throwing away their arms and abandoning their standards, fled out of the camp, and when they had arrived at the confluence of the Meuse and the Rhine, the survivors despairing of further escape, as a great number of their countrymen had been killed, threw themselves into the river and there perished, overcome by fear, fatigue, and the violence of the stream. Our soldiers, after the alarm of so great a war, for the number of the enemy amounted to 430,000 [including women and children], returned to their camp, all safe to a man, very few being even wounded. Cæsar granted those whom he had detained in the camp liberty of departing. They however, dreading revenge and torture from the Gauls, whose lands they had harassed, said that they desired to remain with him. Cæsar granted them permission.d