among the Alps
defeated. But a sudden war sprang up in Gaul.

The occasion of that war was this. P. Crassus, a young man, had taken up
his winter quarters with the seventh legion among the Andes, who border
on the Atlantic Ocean. As corn was scarce, he sent out officers among
the neighbouring states for the purpose of procuring supplies. The most
considerable of these states was the Veneti, who have a very great
number of ships with which they have been accustomed to sail into
Britain, and thus they excel the rest of the states in nautical affairs.
With them arose the beginning of the revolt.

The Veneti detained Silius and Velanius, who had been sent among them,
for they thought they should recover by their means the hostages which
they had given Crassus. The neighbouring people, the Essui and the
Curiosolitae, led on by the influence of the Veneti (as the measures of
the Gauls are sudden and hasty) detained other officers for the same
motive. All the sea-coast being quickly brought over to the sentiments
of these states, they sent a common embassy to P. Crassus to say "If he
wished to receive back his officers, let him send back to them their
hostages."

Caesar, being informed of these things, since he was himself so far
distant, ordered ships of war to be built on the River Loire; rowers to
be raised from the province; sailors and pilots to be provided. These
matters being quickly executed, he hastened to the army as soon as the
season of the year admitted.

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 numbe