Caesar at once ordered his army, divided into several detachments, to attack the towns of the enemy in different districts.  Many were stormed, yet much of the warfare was vain and much labour was lost, because the Veneti, having numerous ships specially adapted for such a purpose, their keels being flatter than those of our ships, could easily navigate the shallows and estuaries, and thus their flight hither and thither could not be prevented.

At length, in a naval fight, our fleet, being fully assembled, gained a victory so signal that, by that one battle, the war with the Veneti and the whole sea-coast was finished.  Caesar thought that severe punishment should be inflicted, in order that for the future the rights of ambassadors should be respected by barbarians; he therefore put to death all their senate, and sold the rest for slaves.

About the same time P. Crassus arrived in Aquitania, which, as was already said, is, both from its extent and its number of population, a third part of Gaul.  Here, a few years before, L. Valerius Praeconius, the lieutenant, had been killed and his army routed, so that Crassus understood no ordinary care must be used.  On his arrival being known, the Sotiates assembled great forces, and the battle that followed was long and vigorously contested.  The Sotiates being routed, they retired to their principal stronghold, but it was stormed, and they submitted.  Crassus then marched into the territories of the Vocates and the Tarusites, who raised a great host of men to carry on the war, but suffered total defeat, after which the greater part of Aquitania of its own accord surrendered to the Romans, sending hostages of their own accord from different tribes.  A few only—­and those remote nations—­relying on the time of year, neglected to do this.

IV.—­The First Landing in Britain

The following winter, this being the year in which Cn.  Pompey and M. Crassus were consuls [this was the year 699 after the building of Rome, 55 before Christ; it was the fourth year of the Gallic war] the Germans, called the Usipetes, and likewise the Tenchtheri, with a great number of men, crossed the Rhine, not far from the place at which that river falls into the sea.  The motive was to escape from the Suevi, the largest and strongest nation in Germany, by whom they had been for several years harassed and hindered from agricultural pursuits.

The Suevi are said to possess a hundred cantons, from each of which they send forth for war a thousand armed men yearly, the others remaining at home, and going forth in their turn in other years.