CHAPTER XXX. CAESAR'S CAMPAIGNS IN GAUL. Caesar was now in the prime of manhood, in the full vigor of mind and body. His previous experience in camp life had been comparatively small. His early service in Asia, and his more recent campaigns in Spain, however, had shown his aptitude for military life. The Romans had already obtained a foothold in Gaul. Since 118, the southern part of the country along the seaboard had been a Roman province, called GALLIA NARBONENSIS, from the colony of Narbo which the Romans had founded. The rest of Gaul included all modern France, and a part of Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium. The inhabitants were all of the Celtic race, except a few Germans who had crossed the Rhine and settled in the North, and the AQUITANI, who lived in the Southwest and who are represented by the Basques of to-day. The Gauls were more or less civilized since they had come into contact with the Romans, but they still had the tribal form of government, like the early Romans. There were more than fifty of these tribes, which were mostly hostile to one another, as well as divided into factions among themselves. This condition favored a conquest, for the factions were frequently Roman and non-Roman. Two of the chief tribes were the AEDUI and SEQUANI. The former had been taken under the protection of Rome; the latter, impatient of control and Roman influence, had invited a tribe of Germans under Ariovistus to come into Gaul and settle, and be their allies. These Germans had attacked and conquered the Aeduans, taken from them hostages, and with the Sequanians were in the ascendency. In Switzerland lived the HELVETII. They had so increased in numbers that their country was too small for them. They therefore proposed to emigrate farther into Gaul, and the Sequanians, whose lands bordered on those of the Helvetians, gave them permission to march through their country. Such was the state of affairs when Caesar arrived in Gaul. Feeling that the passage of such a large body of emigrants (368,000) through Gaul would be dangerous to the province (Gallia Narbonensis), he determined to interfere. The Helvetians were met at BIBRACTE, near Autun, and after a terrible battle, which raged from noon until night, were defeated with great slaughter (58). The survivors, about one third, were treated kindly, and most of them sent back to Switzerland. Caesar now turned his attention to the Germans who had settled west of the Rhine. After several fruitless attempts at negotiation, during which the bad faith of Ariovistus became conspicuous, the forces came together. Though the Germans were brave, they were no match for the drilled legionaries, who fought with the regularity of a machine. Few of the barbarians escaped, but among these was Ariovistus.