The first episode in the Gallic War is the migration of the Helvetii. Cæsar tells us that this enterprise was undertaken by the Helvetian state at the instance of a great noble named Orgetorix, and that Orgetorix was commissioned to take charge of the preparations. Before all was ready, an accusation was brought forward against him of aiming at the subversion of the republican constitution of the state and at the usurpation of supreme power. This was not a tort, a matter for private litigation. The Helvetii, says Cæsar, according to their custom (it was, therefore, no exceptional proceeding) sought to compel Orgetorix to stand his trial under arrest [_ex vinculis_]. If found guilty, Cæsar adds, the penalty which he must duly incur was death by burning. Here we have the crime, the State tribunal, the executive authority, and the penalty fore-ordained; not exactly features of "the primitive boycott." Orgetorix, we are told, was by far the greatest and wealthiest noble of his people. He stood in no fear of a boycott. Cæsar continues: "On the day fixed for the trial, Orgetorix gathered from every side and brought with him to the place of judgment all his slaves to the number of ten thousand, and all his dependents and rent-payers, of whom he had a great number. By this array, he extricated himself from being placed on trial." Here was a crucial test of the question, whether there was or was not what Mr. Orpen calls "machinery" for enforcing the law. The State, says Cæsar, (_civitas_ is his word) was provoked by this conduct and set about the enforcement of its law by force of arms. The magistrates, meaning in the Roman sense the principal officers of State, collected from the land a large body of men. But while this was going on, Orgetorix died; and it was suspected, so the Helvetii believe, that he committed suicide. All this is related in the first four chapters of the first book of Cæsar's Gallic War. It is not to the purpose, and so we are invited to judge the case from a blue-pencilled extract from book vi., chapter 13.