punished for their subsequent treachery by being sold wholesale into
slavery. In the meantime Caesar's lieutenant, P. Crassus, received the
submission of the tribes of the north-east, so that by the close of the
campaign almost the whole of Gaul--except the Aquitani in the
south-west--acknowledged Roman suzerainty.

In 56 B.C., however, the Veneti of Brittany threw off the yoke and detained
two of Crassus's officers as hostages. Caesar, who had been hastily
summoned from Illyricum, crossed the Loire and invaded Brittany, but found
that he could make no headway without destroying the powerful fleet of
high, flat-bottomed boats like floating castles possessed by the Veneti. A
fleet was hastily constructed in the estuary of the Loire, and placed under
the command of Decimus Brutus. The decisive engagement was fought
(probably) in the Gulf of Morbihan and the Romans gained the victory by
cutting down the enemy's rigging with sickles attached to poles. As a
punishment for their treachery, Caesar put to death the senate of the
Veneti and sold their people into slavery. Meanwhile Sabinus was victorious
on the northern coasts, and Crassus subdued the Aquitani. At the close of
the season Caesar raided the territories of the Morini and Menapii in the
extreme north-west.

In 55 B.C. certain German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteri, crossed the
lower Rhine, and invaded the modern Flanders. [Sidenote: Expeditions to
Britain ] Caesar at once marched to meet them, and, on the pretext that
they had violated a truce, seized their leaders who had come to parley with
him, and then surprised and practically destroyed their host. His enemies
in Rome accused him of treachery, and Cato even proposed that he should be
handed over to the Germans. Caesar meanwhile constructed his famous bridge
over the Rhine in ten days, and made a demonstration of force on the right
bank. In the remaining weeks of the summer he made his first expedition to
Britain, and this was followed by a second crossing in 54 B.C. On the first
occasion Caesar took with him only two legions, and effected little beyond
a landing on the coast of Kent. The second expedition consisted of five
legions and 2000 cavalry, and set out from the Portus Itius (Boulogne or
Wissant; see T. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius
Caesar_, 1907, later views in _Classical Review_, May 1909, and H.S. Jones,
in _Eng. Hist. Rev._ xxiv., 1909, p. 115). Caesar now penetrated into