Two immense forests commenced not far from the Rhine, and extended, from west to east, across Germany; these were the Hercynian and Bacenis forests. (_See Plate 2._) The first, beginning from the Black Forest and the Odenwald, covered all the country situated between the Upper Danube and the Maine, and comprised the mountains which, further towards the east, formed the northern girdle of the basin of the Danube; that is, the Boehmerwald, the mountains of Moravia, and the Little Carpathians. It had a breadth which Cæsar represents by nine long days’ march.[201] The other, of much less extent, took its rise in the forest of Thuringia; it embraced all the mountains to the north of Bohemia, and that long chain which separates the basins of the Oder and the Vistula from that of the Danube. The Suevi inhabited, to the south of the forest Bacenis, the countries situated between the forest of Thuringia, the Boehmerwald, the Inn, and the Black Forest, which compose, in our days, the Duchies of Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg, Bavaria, and the greater part of Wurtemberg.[202] To the east of the Suevi were the Boii (_partly in Bohemia and partly in the north-west of Austria_);[203] to the north, the Cherusci, separated from the Suevi by the forest Bacenis; to the west, the Marcomanni (_the upper and middle course of the Maine_) and the Sedusii (_between the Maine and the Neckar_); to the south, the Harudes (_on the north of the Lake of Constance_), the Tulingi, and the Latobriges (_the southern part of the Grand Duchy of Baden_). On the two banks of the Rhine dwelt the Rauraci (_the territory of Bâle and part of the Brisgau_); the Triboces (_part of Alsace and of the Grand Duchy of Baden_): on the right bank were the Nemetes (_opposite Spire_); the Vangiones (_opposite Worms_); the Ubii, from the Odenwald to the watershed of the Sieg and the Ruhr. To the north of the Ubii were the Sicambri, established in Sauerland, and nearly as far as the Lippe. Finally, the Usipetes and the Tencteri were still farther to the north, towards the mouth of the Rhine. (_See Plate 2._) [Sidenote: The Gauls solicit Cæsar to come to their assistance.]