other
districts by processes of high treason against individuals. The season
for clemency was past. At the bidding of the Roman proconsul
the eminent Carnutic knight Acco was beheaded by Roman lictors
(701) and the rule of the -fasces- was thus formally inaugurated.
Opposition was silent; tranquillity everywhere prevailed. Caesar
went as he was wont towards the end of the year (701) over the Alps,
that through the winter he might observe more closely
the daily-increasing complications in the capital.

Second Insurrection

The sagacious calculator had on this occasion miscalculated.
The fire was smothered, but not extinguished. The stroke,
under which the head of Acco fell, was felt by the whole Celtic nobility.
At this very moment the position of affairs presented better prospects
than ever. The insurrection of the last winter had evidently failed
only through Caesar himself appearing on the scene of action;
now he was at a distance, detained on the Po by the imminence
of civil war, and the Gallic army, which was collected on the upper Seine,
was far separated from its dreaded leader. If a general insurrection
now broke out in central Gaul, the Roman army might be surrounded,
and the almost undefended old Roman province be overrun before Caesar
reappeared beyond the Alps, even if the Italian complications
did not altogether prevent him from further concerning himself about Gaul.

The Carnutes
The Arverni

Conspirators from all the cantons of central Gaul assembled;
the Carnutes, as most directly affected by the execution of Acco,
offered to take the lead. On a set day in the winter of 701-702
the Carnutic knights Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus gave at Cenabum
(Orleans) the signal for the rising, and put to death in a body
the Romans who happened to be there. The most vehement agitation
seized the length and breadth of the great Celtic land; the patriots
everywhere bestirred themselves. But nothing stirred the nation
so deeply as the insurrection of the Arverni. The government
of this community, which had formerly under its kings been the first
in southern Gaul, and had still after the fall of its principality
occasioned by the unfortunate wars against Rome(45) continued to be
one of the wealthiest, most civilized, and most powerful in all Gaul,
had hitherto inviolably adhered to Rome. Even now the patriot party
in the governing common council was in the minority; an attempt
to induce it to join the in