pains and with what striking success our armies have undertaken German wars.  All that is notorious.  And to-day it is not to protect Italy that we have occupied the Rhine, but to prevent some second Ariovistus making himself master of All Gaul.[436] Do you imagine that Civilis and his Batavi and the other tribes across the Rhine care any more about you than their ancestors cared about your fathers and grandfathers?  The Germans have always had the same motives for trespassing into Gaul—­their greed for gain and their desire to change homes with you.  They wanted to leave their marshes and deserts, and to make themselves masters of this magnificently fertile soil and of you who live on it.  Of course they use specious pretexts and talk about liberty.  No one has ever wanted to enslave others and play the tyrant without making use of the very same phrases.

’Tyranny and warfare were always rife throughout the length and 74 breadth of Gaul, until you accepted Roman government.  Often as we have been provoked, we have never imposed upon you any burden by right of conquest, except what was necessary to maintain peace.  Tribes cannot be kept quiet without troops.  You cannot have troops without pay; and you cannot raise pay without taxation.  In every other respect you are treated as our equals.  You frequently command our legions yourselves:  you govern this and other provinces yourselves.  We have no exclusive privileges.  Though you live so far away, you enjoy the blessings of a good emperor no less than we do, whereas the tyrant only oppresses his nearest neighbours.  You must put up with luxury and greed in your masters, just as you put up with bad crops or excessive rain, or any other natural disaster.  Vice will last as long as mankind.  But these evils are not continual.  There are intervals of good government, which make up for them.  You cannot surely hope that the tyranny of Tutor and Classicus would mean milder government, or that they will need less taxation for the armies they will have to raise to keep the Germans and Britons at bay.  For if the Romans were driven out—­which Heaven forbid—­what could ensue save a universal state of intertribal warfare?  During eight hundred years, by good fortune and good organization, the structure of empire has been consolidated.  It cannot be pulled down without destroying those who do it.  And it is you who would run the greatest risk of all, since you have gold and rich resources, which are the prime causes of war.  You must learn, then, to love and foster peace and the city of Rome in which you, the vanquished, have the same rights as your conquerors.  You have tried both conditions.  Take warning, then, that submission and safety are better than rebellion and ruin.’  By such words as these he quieted and reassured his audience, who had been afraid of more rigorous measures.