Gaul was in the most fearful excitement. The rising of Vindex was, as we formerly remarked (p. 82), in itself directed not against the rule of Rome but against the rulers for the time being; but it was none the less on that account a warfare between the armies of the Rhine and the levy _en masse_ of the great majority of the Celtic cantons; and these were none the less subjected to pillage and maltreatment resembling that of the conquered. The tone of feeling which subsisted between the provincials and the soldiers was shown, for instance, by the treatment which the canton of the Helvetii experienced as the troops destined for Italy marched through it. Because a courier despatched by the adherents of Vitellius to Pannonia had here been seized, the columns on the march from the one side, and the Romans stationed as a garrison in Raetia on the other, entered the canton, pillaged the villages far and wide, particularly what is now Baden near Zürich, chased those who had fled to the mountains out of their lurking-places, and put them to death by thousands or sold the captives under martial law. Although the capital Aventicum (Avenches, near Murten) submitted without resistance, the agitators of the army demanded that it should be razed, and all that the general granted was that the question should be referred not, forsooth, to the emperor, but to the soldiers of the great headquarters; these sat in judgment on the fate of the town, and it was merely the turn of their caprice that saved the place from destruction. Outrages of this nature brought the provincials to extremities; even before Vitellius left Gaul, a certain Mariccus, from the canton of the Boii, dependent on the Haedui, came forward a god on earth, as he said, and destined to restore the freedom of the Celts; and people flocked in troops to his banner. But the exasperation in the Celtic country was not of so very great moment. The very rising of Vindex had most clearly shown how utterly incapable the Gauls were of releasing themselves from the Roman embrace. [Sidenote: Rising of the Batavian auxiliaries.] [Sidenote: Civilis.]