XXXIV.--He therefore determined to send ambassadors to Ariovistus to demand of him to name some intermediate spot for a conference between the two, [saying] that he wished to treat with him on state-business and matters of the highest importance to both of them. To this embassy Ariovistus replied, that if he himself had had need of anything from Caesar, he would have gone to him; and that if Caesar wanted anything from him he ought to come to him. That, besides, neither dare he go without an army into those parts of Gaul which Caesar had possession of, nor could he, without great expense and trouble, draw his army together to one place; that to him, moreover, it appeared strange what business either Caesar or the Roman people at all had in his own Gaul, which he had conquered in war. XXXV.--When these answers were reported to Caesar, he sends ambassadors to him a second time with this message "Since, after having been treated with so much kindness by himself and the Roman people (as he had in his consulship [B.C. 59] been styled 'king and friend' by the senate), he makes this recompense to [Caesar] himself and the Roman people, [viz.] that when invited to a conference he demurs, and does not think that it concerns him to advise and inform himself about an object of mutual interest, these are the things which he requires of him; first, that he do not any more bring over any body of men across the Rhine into Gaul; in the next place, that he restore the hostages which he has from the Aedui, and grant the Sequani permission to restore to them with his consent those hostages which they have, and that he neither provoke the Aedui by outrage nor make war upon them or their allies; if he would accordingly do this," [Caesar says] that "he himself and the Roman people will entertain a perpetual feeling of favour and friendship towards him; but that if he [Caesar] does not obtain [his desires], that he (forasmuch as in the consulship of Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso [B.C. 61] the senate had decreed that, whoever should have the administration of the province of Gaul should, as far as he could do so consistently with the interests of the republic, protect the Aedui and the other friends of the Roman people) will not overlook the wrongs of the Aedui."