to attack the Sequani, who had at length obtained the supremacy of all Gaul. It was under these circumstances that Divitiacus had gone to Rome to implore the succour of the Republic, but he had failed;[151] the Senate was too much engaged with intestine quarrels to assume an energetic attitude towards the Germans. The arrival of Cæsar was destined to change the face of things, and restore to the allies of Rome their old preponderance.[152] CHAPTER III. CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII. (Year of Rome 696.) (BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES.”) [Sidenote: Projects of Invasion by the Helvetii.] I. Cæsar, as we have seen, had received from the Senate and people a command which comprised the two Gauls (Transalpine and Cisalpine) and Illyria.[153] Yet the agitation which continued to reign in the Republic was retaining him at the gates of Rome, when suddenly, towards the spring of 696, news came that the Helvetii, returning to their old design, were preparing to invade the Roman province. This intelligence caused a great sensation. The Helvetii, proud of their former exploits, confident in their strength, and incommoded by excess of population, felt humiliated at living in a country the limits of which had been made narrow by nature, and for some years they meditated quitting it to repair into the south of Gaul. As early as 693, an ambitious chieftain, Orgetorix, found no difficulty in inspiring them with the desire to seek elsewhere a more fertile territory and a milder climate. They resolved to go and establish themselves in the country of the Santones (the _Saintonge_), situated on the shores of the ocean, to the north of the Gironde. Two years were to be employed in preparations, and, by a solemn engagement, the departure was fixed for the third year. But Orgetorix, sent to the neighbouring peoples to contract alliances, conspired with two influential personages--one of the country of the Sequani, the other of that of the Ædui. He induced them to undertake to seize the supreme power, promised them the assistance of the Helvetii, and persuaded them that those three powerful nations, leagued together, would easily subjugate the whole of Gaul. This conspiracy failed, through the death of Orgetorix, accused in his own country of a design to usurp the sovereignty. The Helvetii persisted, nevertheless, in their project of emigration. They collected the greatest possible number of wagons and beasts of burden; and, in order to destroy all idea of returning, they burnt their twelve towns, their four hundred hamlets, and all the wheat they could not carry with them. Each furnished himself with meal[154] for three months; and after persuading their neighbours, the Rauraci,[155] the Tulingi, and the Latobriges,[156] to imitate their example and follow them, and having drawn to them those of the Boii who had moved from Noricum to the neighbourhood of the Rhine, they fixed the rendezvous on the banks of