After remaining a few days at Besançon, Cæsar takes the way to the Rhine, avoids the mountainous spurs of the Jura, proceeds by Pennesières, Arcey, and Belfort, and debouches towards Cernay in the fertile plains of Alsace. The two armies are only twenty-four miles apart. Cæsar and Ariovistus have an interview; its only result is to increase their mutual resentment. The latter conceives the project of cutting the line of operation of the Romans, and, passing near the site of the modern Mulhouse, he proceeds, by a circuitous movement, to establish himself on the stream of the little Doller, to the south of the Roman army, which, encamped on the Thur, supports its rear on the last spurs of the Vosges, near Cernay. In this position, Ariovistus intercepts Cæsar’s communications with Franche-Comté and Burgundy. The latter, to restore them, distributes his troops into two camps, and causes a second camp to be made, less considerable than the first, on his right, near the little Doller. During several days, he seeks in vain to draw Ariovistus to a battle; then, learning that the matrons have advised the Germans not to tempt fortune before the new moon, he unites his legions, places all the auxiliaries on his right, marches resolutely to assault the camp of the Germans, forces them to accept battle, and defeats them after an obstinate resistance. In their flight, they take the same road by which they had advanced, and, pursued for a distance of fifty miles, they re-pass the Rhine towards Rhinau. As to the Suevi, who had assembled near Mayence, when they are informed of the disaster of their allies, they hasten to regain their country. Thus, in his first campaign, Cæsar, by two great battles, had delivered Gaul from the invasion of the Helvetii and the Germans; all the Gauls looked upon him as a liberator. But services rendered are very soon forgotten when people owe their liberty and independence to a foreign army. Cæsar places his troops in winter quarters in Franche-Comté, leaves the command to Labienus, and starts for Cisalpine Gaul, where he is obliged, as proconsul, to preside over the provincial assemblies. Nearer Rome during the winter, he could follow more easily the political events of the metropolis. [Sidenote: Sequel of the Consulship of L. Calpurnius Piso and Aulus Galbinus.]