ed to impose on
the conquered; that he had not made war upon the Gauls, but the Gauls
upon him; that all the States of Gaul came to attack him, and had
encamped against him; that all their forces had been routed and beaten
by him in a single battle; that if they chose to make a second trial, he
was ready to encounter them again; but if they chose to enjoy peace, it
was unfair to refuse the tribute which of their own free-will they had
paid up to that time. That the friendship of the Roman people ought to
prove to him an ornament and a safeguard, not a detriment; and that he
sought it with that expectation. But if through the Roman people the
tribute was to be discontinued, and those who surrendered to be seduced
from him, he would renounce the friendship of the Roman people no less
heartily than he had sought it. As to his leading over a host of Germans
into Gaul, that he was doing this with a view of securing himself, not
of assaulting Gaul: that there was evidence of this, in that he did not
come without being invited, and in that he did not make war, but merely
warded it off. That he had come into Gaul before the Roman people. That
never before this time did a Roman army go beyond the frontiers of the
province of Gaul. What, said he, does Caesar desire?--why come into his
[Ariovistus's] domains?--that this was his province of Gaul, just as
that is ours. As it ought not to be pardoned in him if he were to make
an attack upon our territories, so likewise that we were unjust to
obstruct him in his prerogative. As for Caesar's saying that the AEdui had
been styled 'brethren' by the Senate, he was not so uncivilized nor so
ignorant of affairs as not to know that the AEdui in the very last war
with the Allobroges had neither rendered assistance to the Romans nor
received any from the Roman people in the struggles which the AEdui had
been maintaining with him and with the Sequani. He must feel suspicious
that Caesar, though feigning friendship as the reason for his keeping an
army in Gaul, was keeping it with the view of crushing him. And that
unless he depart and withdraw his army from these parts, he shall regard
him not as a friend, but as a foe; and that even if he should put him to
death, he should do what would please many of the nobles and leading men
of the Roman people; he had assurance of that from themselves through
their messengers, and could purchase the favor and the friendship of
them all by his [Caesar's] deat