s had begun
the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled. Neither Germans
nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence
of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts
of the previous year.

Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais

While Caesar was thus forming the Roman domain in the west by force
of arms into a compact whole, he did not neglect to open up
for the newly-conquered country--which was destined in fact to fill up
the wide gap in that domain between Italy and Spain-communications both
with the Italian home and with the Spanish provinces. The communication
between Gaul and Italy had certainly been materially facilitated
by the military road laid out by Pompeius in 677 over Mont Genevre;(40)
but since the whole of Gaul had been subdued by the Romans, there was
need of a route crossing the ridge of the Alps from the valley of the Po,
not in a westerly but in a northerly direction, and furnishing a shorter
communication between Italy and central Gaul. The way which leads over
the Great St. Bernard into the Valais and along the lake of Geneva
had long served the merchant for this purpose; to get this road
into his power, Caesar as early as the autumn of 697 caused Octodurum
(Martigny) to be occupied by Servius Galba, and the inhabitants
of the Valais to be reduced to subjection--a result which was,
of course, merely postponed, not prevented, by the brave resistance
of these mountain-peoples.

And with Spain

To gain communication with Spain, moreover, Publius Crassus
was sent in the following year (698) to Aquitania with instructions
to compel the Iberian tribes dwelling there to acknowledge the Roman
rule. The task was not without difficulty; the Iberians held
together more compactly than the Celts and knew better than these
how to learn from their enemies. The tribes beyond the Pyrenees,
especially the valiant Cantabri, sent a contingent to their
threatened countrymen; with this there came experienced officers
trained under the leadership of Sertorius in the Roman fashion,
who introduced as far as possible the principles of the Roman art
of war, and especially of encampment, among the Aquitanian levy
already respectable from its numbers and its valour.
But the excellent officer who led the Romans knew how to surmount
all difficulties, and after some hardly-contested but successful
battles he induced the peoples from the Garonne to the vicinity
of