Veneti and of all Brittany.  More with a view to impress the Celtic nation, after so manifold evidences of clemency towards the vanquished, by an example of fearful severity now against those whose resistance had been obstinate, than with the view of punishing the breach of treaty and the arrest of the Roman officers, Caesar caused the whole common council to be executed and the people of the Venetian canton to the last man to be sold into slavery.  By this dreadful fate, as well as by their intelligence and their patriotism, the Veneti have more than any other Celtic clan acquired a title to the sympathy of posterity.

Sabinus meanwhile opposed to the levy of the coast-states assembled on the Channel the same tactics by which Caesar had in the previous year conquered the Belgic general levy on the Aisne; he stood on the defensive till impatience and want invaded the ranks of the enemy, and then managed by deceiving them as to the temper and strength of his troops, and above all by means of their own impatience, to allure them to an imprudent assault upon the Roman camp, in which they were defeated; whereupon the militia dispersed and the country as far as the Seine submitted.

Expeditins against the Morini and Menapii

The Morini and Menapii alone persevered in withholding their recognition of the Roman supremacy.  To compel them to this, Caesar appeared on their borders; but, rendered wiser by the experiences of their countrymen, they avoided accepting battle on the borders of their land, and retired into the forests which then stretched almost without interruption from the Ardennes towards the German Ocean.  The Romans attempted to make a road through the forest with the axe, ranging the felled trees on each side as a barricade against the enemy’s attacks; but even Caesar, daring as he was, found it advisable after some days of most laborious marching, especially as it was verging towards winter, to order a retreat, although but a small portion of the Morini had submitted and the powerful Menapii had not been reached at all.  In the following year (699) while Caesar himself was employed in Britain the greater part of the army was sent afresh against these tribes; but this expedition also remained in the main unsuccessful.  Nevertheless the result of the last campaigns was the almost complete reduction of Gaul under the dominion of the Romans.  While central Gaul had submitted to it without resistance, during the campaign of 697 the Belgic, and during that of the following year the maritime, cantons had been compelled by force of arms to acknowledge the Roman rule.  The lofty hopes, with which the Celtic patriots had begun the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled.  Neither Germans nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts of the previous year.

Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais