As in the preceding years, Cæsar believed he might repair into Italy; but Gaul still chafed under the yoke of the foreigner, and, while the people of Orleans massacred Tasgetius, who had been given them for their king three years before, events of a more serious character were in preparation in the countries situate between the Rhine and the Meuse. The people of Liége, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus, revolt and attack, at Tongres, the camp occupied by Sabinus and Cotta with fifteen cohorts. Unable to take it by assault, they have recourse to stratagem: they spread abroad the report of the departure of Cæsar, and of the revolt of the whole of Gaul; they offer the two lieutenants to let them go, without obstacle, to rejoin the nearest winter quarters. Sabinus assembles a council of war, in which Cotta, an old experienced soldier, refused all arrangement with the enemy; but, as often happens in such meetings, the majority rallies to the least energetic opinion; the fifteen cohorts, trusting in the promise of the Gauls, abandon their impregnable position, and begin their march. On arriving at the defile of Lowaige, they are attacked and massacred by the barbarians, who had placed themselves in an ambuscade in the woods. Ambiorix, emboldened by this success, raises all the peoples on his way, and hastens, at Charleroi, to attack the camp of Cicero. The legion, though taken unexpectedly, defends itself bravely, but the Gauls have learnt from deserters the art of besieging fortresses in the Roman manner; they raise towers, construct covered galleries, and surround the camp with a countervallation. Meanwhile Cicero has found the means of informing Cæsar of his critical position. The latter was at Amiens; the morrow of the day on which he receives this news, he starts with two legions, and sends a Gaul to announce his approach. The assailants, informed on their part of Cæsar’s march, abandon the siege, and go to meet him. The two armies encounter near the little stream of the Haine, at fourteen kilomètres from Charleroi. Shut up in his retrenchments on Mont Sainte-Aldegonde, Cæsar counterfeits fear, in order to provoke the Gauls to attack him; and when they rush upon the ramparts to storm them, he sallies out through all the gates, puts the enemies to the rout, and strews the ground with their dead. The same day he rejoins Cicero, congratulates the soldiers on their courage, and his lieutenant for having been faithful to the Roman principle of never entering into negotiation with an enemy in arms. For the moment this victory defeated at one blow the aggressive attempts of the populations on the banks of the Rhine against Labienus, and those of the maritime peoples on the coasts of the Straits against Roscius; but soon new disturbances arose: the inhabitants of the state of Sens expelled Cavarinus, whom Cæsar had given them for king; and, a little later, Labienus was forced to combat the inhabitants of the country of Trèves, whom he defeated in an