The Belgians considered
that they too were menaced, and that now or never was the time to strike
for their independence. They had not been infected with Roman manners.
They had kept the merchants from their borders with their foreign
luxuries. The Nervii, the fiercest of them, as the abstemious Caesar marks
with approbation, were water-drinkers, and forbade wine to be brought
among them, as injurious to their sinews and their courage. Caesar learnt
while in Italy from Labienus that the Belgae were mustering and combining.
A second vast horde of Germans were in Flanders and Artois; men of the
same race with the Belgae and in active confederacy with them. They might
have been left in peace, far off as they were, had they sat still; but the
notes of their preparations were sounding through the country and feeding
the restless spirit which was stunned but not subdued.
Caesar, on his own responsibility, raised two more legions and sent them
across the Alps in the spring. When the grass began to grow he followed
himself. Suddenly, before any one looked for him, he was on the Marne with
his army. The Remi (people of Rheims), startled by his unexpected
appearance, sent envoys with their submission and offers of hostages. The
other Belgian tribes, they said, were determined upon war, and were
calling all their warriors under arms.
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