There must now have been something which led the Belgians to dread that Cæsar would attack them: from his Commentaries, it appears as if the Gallic peoples had always been mistrustful and ill-disposed, without any reason at all. All the Belgians between the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine, with the exception of the Remi—who were the most distinguished among them—were arrayed in arms against the Romans. I suppose that the Remi intrigued with these last, that they might thus get the other Belgian tribes under their clientship. The weakness of the Gallic and Belgian nations lay in their not having a free population: they had only priests (Druids), knights, and serfs. These last on many occasions could not forget that they were fighting only for their masters, and not for their country, although they often indeed behaved bravely;—sometimes they even fought with the courage of lions, but there was no steadfastness in it. Of a people like the Nervians, one might almost surmise that they had no serfs. This Belgian war Cæsar decided in two battles, on the Aisne and on the Sombre; whereupon he invaded Brabant, then the country of the Nervians. They stood their ground most nobly, but yet they were almost entirely exterminated. The Æduans and the Arvernians now silently acknowledged the supremacy of the Romans; and most of the peoples of Gaul, as far as the Ocean, were completely subdued. Cæsar was already spreading his troops in extensive winter-quarters among the Belgians, from whom he expected to meet with a stouter resistance. Thus he got into collision with the Germans, the Usipetes and the Tenchteri, having crossed the Rhine, and made war against the Belgians on the Meuse. Ever ready to take advantage of such an opportunity, he fell upon them; and here he committed the worst act of his life. Having entered into negotiations with these tribes, he got their chiefs to come to him, threw them into prison, and then attacked the host which he had thus deprived of its leaders—a base deed which he tries in vain to justify. This business was brought before the senate. Cato was for having Cæsar given up to the Germans as one who had broken the law of nations, a motion which of course came to nothing.