rman immigrants met with severe and just censure
in the senate; but, however little it can be excused, the German
encroachments were emphatically checked by the terror
which it occasioned.

Caesar on the Right Bank of the Rhine

Caesar however found it advisable to take yet a further step
and to lead the legions over the Rhine. He was not without connections
beyond the river. the Germans at the stage of culture
which they had then reached, lacked as yet any national coherence;
in political distraction they--though from other causes--fell nothing
short of the Celts. The Ubii (on the Sieg and Lahn), the most
civilized among the German tribes, had recently been made subject
and tributary by a powerful Suebian canton of the interior, and had
as early as 697 through their envoys entreated Caesar to free them
like the Gauls from the Suebian rule. It was not Caesar's design
seriously to respond to this suggestion, which would have involved
him in endless enterprises; but it seemed advisable, with the view
of preventing the appearance of the Germanic arms on the south
of the Rhine, at least to show the Roman arms beyond it. The protection
which the fugitive Usipetes and Tencteri had found among the Sugambri
afforded a suitable occasion. In the region, apparently between
Coblentz and Andernach, Caesar erected a bridge of piles over the Rhine
and led his legions across from the Treverian to the Ubian territory.
Some smaller cantons gave in their submission; but the Sugambri,
against whom the expedition was primarily directed, withdrew,
on the approach of the Roman army, with those under their protection
into the interior. In like manner the powerful Suebian canton
which oppressed the Ubii--presumably the same which subsequently
appears under the name of the Chatti--caused the districts immediately
adjoining the Ubian territory to be evacuated and the non-combatant
portion of the people to be placed in safety, while all the men
capable of arms were directed to assemble at the centre of the canton.
The Roman general had neither occasion nor desire to accept
this challenge; his object--partly to reconnoitre, partly to produce
an impressive effect if possible upon the Germans, or at least
on the Celts and his countrymen at home, by an expedition
over the Rhine--was substantially attained; after remaining
eighteen days on the right bank of the Rhine he again arrived
in Gaul and broke down the Rhine bridge behind him (699).