Subjugation of Gaul
Belgic Expedition

The foundations of the future edifice were laid; but in order to finish the building and completely to secure the recognition of the Roman rule by the Gauls, and that of the Rhine-frontier by the Germans, very much still remained to be done.  All central Gaul indeed from the Roman frontier as far up as Chartres and Treves submitted without objection to the new ruler; and on the upper and middle Rhine also no attack was for the present to be apprehended from the Germans.  But the northern provinces—­as well the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful confederation of the Belgae—­were not affected by the blows directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit to the conqueror of Ariovistus.  Moreover, as was already remarked, very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes made themselves ready to cross the stream.  In consequence of this Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons.  Mindful of the brave and successful resistance which fifty years before they had with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent their whole first levy—­300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba the king of the Suessiones—­to their southern frontier to receive Caesar there.  A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi (about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul.  The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost at the same time.

Conflicts on the Aisne
Submission of the Western Cantons

Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications.  When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly.  King Galba was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil.  No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp of the confederates.  The Bellovaci in particular, equal to the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied