Thus, from all we can learn respecting them, we may say that the Germans, during the first century before Christ, were fully prepared, by their habits, laws, and their moral development, for a higher civilization. They were still restless, after so many centuries of wandering; they were fierce and fond of war, as a natural consequence of their struggles with the neighboring races; but they had already acquired a love for the wild land where they dwelt, they had begun to cultivate the soil, they had purified and hallowed the family relation, which is the basis of all good government, and finally, although slavery existed among them, they had established equal rights for free men. If the object of Rome had been civilization, instead of conquest and plunder, the development of the Germans might have commenced much earlier and produced very different results. CHAPTER II. THE WARS OF ROME WITH THE GERMANS. (70 B. C.--9 A. D.) Roman Conquest of Gaul. --The German Chief, Ariovistus. --His Answer to Cæsar. --Cæsar's March to the Rhine. --Defeat of Ariovistus. --Cæsar's Victory near Cologne. --His Bridge. --His Second Expedition. --He subjugates the Gauls. --He enlists a German Legion. --The Romans advance to the Danube, under Augustus. --First Expedition of Drusus. --The Rhine fortified. --Death of Drusus. --Conquests of Tiberius. --The War of the Marcomanni. --The Cherusci. --Tyranny of Varus. --Resistance of the Germans. [Sidenote: 70 B. C.] After the destruction of the Teutons and Cimbrians by Marius, more than forty years elapsed before the Romans again came in contact with any German tribe. During this time the Roman dominion over the greater part of Gaul was firmly established by Julius Cæsar, and in losing their independence, the Celts began to lose, also, their original habits and character. They and the Germans had never been very peaceable neighbors, and the possession of the western bank of the Rhine seems to have been, even at that early day, a subject of contention between them. About the year 70 B. C. two Gallic tribes, the Ædui in Burgundy and the Arverni in Central France, began a struggle for the supremacy in that part of Gaul. The allies of the latter, the Sequani, called to their assistance a chief of the German Suevi, whose name, as we have it through Cæsar, was Ariovistus. With a force of 15,000 men, he joined the Arverni and the Sequani, and defeated the Ædui in several battles. After the complete overthrow of the latter, he haughtily demanded as a recompense one-third of the territory of the Sequani. His strength had meanwhile been increased by new accessions from the German side of the Rhine, and the Sequani were obliged to yield. His followers settled in the new territory: in the course of about fourteen years, they amounted to 120,000, and Ariovistus felt himself strong enough to demand another third of the lands of the Sequani. [Sidenote: UNDER THE CÆSARS.]