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The basin of the Loire is separated from that of the Garonne by a long chain starting from Mont Loz?re, comprising the mountains of Auvergne, those of the Limousin, the hills of Poitou, and the plateau of Gatine, and ending in flat country towards the coasts of La Vend?e.

The basin of the Garonne, situated to the south of that of the Loire, extends to the Pyrenees. It comprises the secondary basins of the Adour and the Charente.

The vast country we have thus described is protected on the north, west, and south by two seas, and by the Pyrenees. On the east, where it is exposed to invasions, Nature, not satisfied with the defences she had given it in the Rhine and the Alps, has further retrenched it behind three groups of interior mountains--first, the Vosges; second, the Jura; third, the mountains of Forez, the mountains of Auvergne, and the C?vennes.

The Vosges run parallel to the Rhine, and are like a rampart in the rear of that river.

The C?vennes and the mountains of Auvergne and Forez form, in the southern centre of Gaul, a sort of citadel, of which the Rhone might be considered as the advanced fosse. The ridges of this group of mountains start from a common centre, take opposite directions, and form the valleys whence flow, to the north, the Allier and the Loire; to the west, the Dordogne, the Lot, the Aveyron, and the Tarn; to the south, the Ard?che, the Gard, and the H?rault.

The valleys, watered by navigable rivers, presented--thanks to the fruitfulness of their soil and to their easy access--natural ways of communication, favourable both to commerce and to war. To the north, the valley of the Meuse; to the east, the valley of the Rhine, conducting to that of the Sa?ne, and thence to that of the Rhone, were the grand routes which armies followed to invade the south. Strabo, therefore, remarks justly that Sequania has always been the road of the Germanic invasions from Gaul into Italy. From east to west the principal chain of the watershed might easily be crossed in its less elevated parts, such as the plateau of Langres and the mountains of Charolais, which have since furnished a passage to the Central Canal. Lastly, to penetrate from Italy into Gaul, the great lines of invasion were the valley of the Rhone and the valley of the Garonne, by which the mountainous mass of the C?vennes, Auvergne, and Forez is turned.

Gaul presented the same contrast of climates which we observe between the north and south of France. While the Roman province enjoyed a mild temperature and an extreme fertility, the central and northern part was covered with vast forests, which rendered the climate colder than it is at present; yet the centre produced in abundance wheat, rye, millet, and barley. The greatest of all these forests was that of the Ardennes. It extended, beginning from the Rhine, over a space of two hundred miles, on one side to the frontier of the Remi, crossing the country of the Treviri; and, on another side, to the Scheldt, across the country of the Nervii. The "Commentaries" speak also of forests existing among the Carnutes, in the neighbourhood of the Sa?ne, among the Menapii and the Morini, and among the Eburones. In the north the breeding of cattle was the principal occupation, and the pastures of Belgic Gaul produced a race of excellent horses. In the centre and in the south the richness of the soil was augmented by productive mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead.

The country was, without any doubt, intersected by carriage roads, since the Gauls possessed a great number of all sorts of wagons, since there still remain traces of Celtic roads, and since Caesar makes known the existence of bridges on the Aisne, the Rhone, the Loire, the Allier, and the Seine.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly the number of the population; yet we may presume, from the contingents furnished by the different states, that it amounted to more than seven millions of souls.

The most powerful nations among the Belgae were the Bellovaci, who could arm a hundred thousand men, and whose territory extended to the sea, the Nervii, the Remi, and the Treviri.

The Gauls wore collars, earrings, bracelets, and rings for the arms, of gold or copper, according to their rank; necklaces of amber, and rings, which they placed on the third finger.

They were naturally agriculturists, and we may suppose that the institution of private property existed among them, because, on the one hand, all the citizens paid the tax, except the Druids, and, on the other, the latter were judges of questions of boundaries. They were not unacquainted with certain manufactures. In some countries they fabricated serges, which were in great repute, and cloths or felts; in others they worked the mines with skill, and employed themselves in the fabrication of metals. The Bituriges worked in iron, and were acquainted with the art of tinning. The artificers of Alesia plated copper with leaf-silver, to ornament horses' bits and trappings.

The Gauls fed especially on the flesh of swine, and their ordinary drinks were milk, ale, and mead. They were reproached with being inclined to drunkenness.

They were frank and open in temper, and hospitable toward strangers, but vain and quarrelsome; fickle in their sentiments, and fond of novelties, they took sudden resolutions, regretting one day what they had rejected with disdain the day before; inclined to war and eager for adventures, they showed themselves hot in the attack, but quickly discouraged in defeat. Their language was very concise and figurative; in writing, they employed Greek letters.

The men were not exempt from a shameful vice, which we might have believed less common in this county than among the peoples of the East. The women united an extraordinary beauty with remarkable courage and great physical force.

The Gauls, according to the tradition preserved by the Druids, boasted of being descended from the god of the earth, or from Pluto , according to the expression of Caesar. It was for this reason that they took night for their starting-point in all their divisions of time. Among their other customs, they had one which was singular: they considered it as a thing unbecoming to appear in public with their children, until the latter had reached the age for carrying arms.

When he married, the man took from his fortune a part equal to the dowry of the wife. This sum, placed as a common fund, was allowed to accumulate with interest, and the whole reverted to the survivor. The husband had the right of life and death over his wife and children. When the decease of a man of wealth excited any suspicion, his wives, as well as his slaves, were put to the torture, and burnt if they were found guilty.

The extravagance of their funerals presented a contrast to the simplicity of their life. All that the defunct had cherished during his life, was thrown into the flames after his death; and even, before the Roman conquest, they joined with it his favourite slaves and clients.

Although they had reached, especially in the south of Gaul, a tolerably advanced degree of civilisation, they preserved very barbarous customs: they killed their prisoners. "When their army is ranged in battle," says Diodorus, "some of them are often seen advancing from the ranks to challenge the bravest of their enemies to single combat. If their challenge is accepted, they chaunt a war-song, in which they boast of the great deeds of their forefathers, exalting their own valour and insulting their adversary. After the victory, they cut off their enemy's head, hang it to their horse's neck, and carry it off with songs of triumph. They keep these hideous trophies in their house, and the highest nobles preserve them with great care, bathed with oil of cedar, in coffers, which they show with pride to their guests."

When a great danger threatened the country, the chiefs convoked an armed council, to which the men were bound to repair, at the place and day indicated, to deliberate. The law required that the man who arrived last should be massacred without pity before the eyes of the assembly. As a means of intercommunication, men were placed at certain intervals through the country, and these, repeating the cry from one to another, transmitted rapidly news of importance to great distances. They often, also, stopped travellers on the roads, and compelled them to answer their questions.

The Gauls were very superstitious. Persuaded that in the eyes of the gods the life of a man can only be redeemed by that of his fellow, they made a vow, in diseases and dangers, to immolate human beings by the ministry of the Druids. These sacrifices had even a public character. They sometimes constructed human figures of osier of colossal magnitude, which they filled with living men; to these they set fire, and the victims perished in the flames. These victims were generally taken from among the criminals, as being more agreeable to the gods; but if there were no criminals to be had, the innocent themselves were sacrificed.

Caesar, who, according to the custom of his countrymen, gave to the divinities of foreign peoples the names of those of Rome, tells us that the Gauls honoured Mercury above all others. They raised statues to him, regarded him as the inventor of the arts, the guide of travellers, and the protector of commerce. They also offered worship to divinities which the "Commentaries" assimilate to Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, without informing us of their Celtic names. From Lucan, we learn the names of three Gaulish divinities, Teutates , Hesus or Esus, and Taranis. Caesar makes the remark that the Gauls had pretty much the same ideas with regard to their gods as other nations. Apollo cured the sick, Minerva taught the elements of the arts, Jupiter was the master of heaven, Mars the arbiter of war. Often, before fighting, they made a vow to consecrate to this god the spoils of the enemy, and, after the victory, they put to death all their prisoners. The rest of the booty was piled up in the consecrated places, and nobody would be so impious as to take anything away from it. The Gauls rendered also, as we learn from inscriptions and passages in different authors, worship to rivers, fountains, trees, and forests: they adored the Rhine as a god, and made a goddess of the Ardenne.

The different tribes formed alliances among themselves, either permanent or occasional; the permanent alliances were founded, some on a community of territorial interests, others on affinities of races, or on treaties, or, lastly, on the right of patronage. The occasional alliances were the results of the necessity of union against a common danger.

The Helvetii, proud of their former exploits, confident in their strength, and incommoded by excess of population, felt humiliated at living in a country the limits of which had been made narrow by nature, and for some years they meditated quitting it to repair into the south of Gaul.

As early as 693, an ambitious chieftain, Orgetorix, found no difficulty in inspiring them with the desire to seek elsewhere a more fertile territory and a milder climate. They resolved to go and establish themselves in the country of the Santones , situated on the shores of the ocean, to the north of the Gironde. Two years were to be employed in preparations, and, by a solemn engagement, the departure was fixed for the third year. But Orgetorix, sent to the neighbouring peoples to contract alliances, conspired with two influential personages--one of the country of the Sequani, the other of that of the AEdui. He induced them to undertake to seize the supreme power, promised them the assistance of the Helvetii, and persuaded them that those three powerful nations, leagued together, would easily subjugate the whole of Gaul. This conspiracy failed, through the death of Orgetorix, accused in his own country of a design to usurp the sovereignty. The Helvetii persisted, nevertheless, in their project of emigration. They collected the greatest possible number of wagons and beasts of burden; and, in order to destroy all idea of returning, they burnt their twelve towns, their four hundred hamlets, and all the wheat they could not carry with them. Each furnished himself with meal for three months; and after persuading their neighbours, the Rauraci, the Tulingi, and the Latobriges, to imitate their example and follow them, and having drawn to them those of the Boii who had moved from Noricum to the neighbourhood of the Rhine, they fixed the rendezvous on the banks of the Rhone for the 5th of the Calends of April .

There were only two roads by which they could leave Helvetia; one crossed the country of the Sequani, the entrance to which was defended by a narrow and difficult defile, situated between the Rhone and the Jura , and where the wagons could with difficulty pass one at a time. As this defile was commanded by a very lofty mountain, a handful of men was sufficient to prevent the access. The other road, less contracted and more easy, crossed the Roman province, after having passed the Rhone, which separated the Allobroges from the Helvetii, from Lake L?man to the Jura. Within this distance the river was fordable in several places. At Geneva, the extreme limit of the territory of the Allobroges towards Helvetia, a bridge established a communication between the two countries. The Helvetii decided on taking the most convenient road; they reckoned, moreover, on the co-operation of this neighbouring people, who, but recently subjugated, could have but doubtful sympathies for the Romans.

This retrenchment, which required only from two to three days' labour, was completed when the deputies returned, at the time appointed, to hear Caesar's reply. He flatly refused the passage, declaring that he would oppose it with all his means.

Meanwhile the Helvetii, and the people who took part in their enterprise, had assembled on the right bank of the Rhone. When they learnt that they must renounce the hope of quitting their country without opposition, they resolved to open themselves a passage by force. Several times--sometimes by day, and sometimes by night--they crossed the Rhone, some by fording, others with the aid of boats joined together, or of a great number of rafts of timber, and attempted to carry the heights, but, arrested by the strength of the retrenchment , and by the efforts and missiles of the soldiers who hastened to the threatened points , they abandoned the attack.

When Caesar learned that the Helvetii were preparing to pass through the lands of the Sequani and the AEdui on their way to the Santones, he resolved to oppose them, unwilling to suffer the establishment of warlike and hostile men in a fertile and open country, neighbouring upon that of the Tolosates, which made part of the Roman province.

But, as he had not at hand sufficient forces, he resolved on uniting all the troops he could dispose of in his vast command. He entrusts, therefore, the care of the retrenchments on the Rhone to his lieutenant T. Labienus, hastens into Italy by forced marches, raises there in great haste two legions , brings from Aquileia, a town of Illyria, the three legions which were there in winter quarters , and, at the head of his army, takes across the Alps the shortest road to Transalpine Gaul. The Centrones, the Graioceli, and the Caturiges , posted on the heights, attempt to bar his road; but he overthrows them in several engagements, and from Ocelum , the extreme point of the Cisalpine, reaches in seven days the territory of the Vocontii, making thus about twenty-five kilom?tres a day. He next penetrates into the country of the Allobroges, then into that of the Segusiavi, who bordered on the Roman province beyond the Rhone.

These operations took two months; the same time had been employed by the Helvetii in negotiating the conditions of their passage through the country of the Sequani, moving from the Rhone to the Sa?ne, and beginning to pass the latter river. They had passed the Pas-de-l'Ecluse, followed the right bank of the Rhone as far as Culoz, then turned to the east through Virieu-le-Grand, Tenay, and Saint-Rambert, and, thence crossing the plains of Amb?rieux, the river Ain, and the vast plateau of the Dombes, they had arrived at the Sa?ne, the left bank of which they occupied from Tr?voux to Villefranche. The slowness of their march need not surprise us if we consider that an agglomeration of 368,000 individuals, men, women, and children, dragging after them from 8,000 to 9,000 wagons, through a defile where carriages could only pass one abreast, would necessarily employ several weeks in passing it. Caesar, no doubt, calculated beforehand, with sufficient accuracy, the time it would take them to gain the banks of the Sa?ne; and we may therefore suppose that, at the moment when he repaired into Italy, he hoped to bring thence his army in time to prevent them from passing that river.

He established his camp near the confluence of the Rhone and the Sa?ne, on the heights which command Sathonay; thence he could equally manoeuvre on the two banks of the Sa?ne, take the Helvetii in flank as they marched towards that river, or prevent them, if they crossed it, from entering into the Roman province by the valley of the Rhone. It was probably at this point that Labienus joined him with the troops which had been left with him, and which raised to six the number of his legions. His cavalry, composed principally of AEdui and men raised in the Roman province, amounted to 4,000 men. During this time the Helvetii were ravaging the lands of the Ambarri, those of the AEdui, and those which the Allobroges possessed on the right bank of the Rhone. These peoples implored the succour of Caesar. He was quite disposed to listen to their prayers.

After this combat, Caesar, in order to pursue the other part of the enemy's army, and prevent its marching towards the south, threw a bridge across the Sa?ne, and transported his troops to the right bank. The barques which followed him for the conveyance of provisions would necessarily facilitate this operation. It is probable that a detachment established in the defiles on the right bank of the Sa?ne, at the spot where Lyons now stands, intercepted the road which would have conducted the Helvetii towards the Roman province. As to the three legions which remained in the camp of Sathonay, they soon rejoined Caesar. The Helvetii, struck by his sudden approach, and by the rapidity with which he had effected, in one single day, a passage which had cost them twenty days' labour, sent him a deputation, the chief of which, old Divico, had commanded in the wars against Cassius. In language full of boast and threatening, Divico reminded Caesar of the humiliation inflicted formerly on the Roman arms. The proconsul replied that he was not forgetful of old affronts, but that recent injuries were sufficient motives for his conduct. Nevertheless, he offered peace, on condition that they should give him hostages. "The Helvetii," replied Divico, "have learned from their ancestors to receive, but not to give, hostages; the Romans ought to know that." This proud reply closed the interview.

Nevertheless, the Helvetii appear to have been desirous of avoiding battle, for next day they raised their camp, and, cut off from the possibility of following the course of the Sa?ne to proceed towards the south, they took the easiest way to reach the country of the Santones, by directing their march towards the sources of the Dheune and the Bourbince. This broken country, moreover, permitted them to resist the Romans with advantage. They followed across the mountains of Charolais the Gaulish road, on the trace of which was, no doubt, subsequently constructed the Roman way from Lyons to Autun, vestiges of which still exist; the latter followed the course of the Sa?ne as far as Belleville, where it parted from it abruptly, crossing over the Col d'Avenas, proceeding through the valley of the Grosne to Cluny, and continuing by Saint-Vallier to Autun. At Saint-Vallier they would quit this road, and march towards the Loire to pass it at Decize.

Caesar followed the Helvetii, and sent before him all his cavalry to watch their march. These, too eager in the pursuit, came to blows with the enemy's cavalry in a position of disadvantage, and experienced some loss. Proud of having repulsed 4,000 men with 500 horsemen, the Helvetii became sufficiently emboldened to venture sometimes to harass the Roman army. But Caesar avoided engaging his troops; he was satisfied with following, day by day, the enemies at a distance of five or six miles at most , opposing the devastations they committed on their passage, and waiting a favourable occasion to inflict a defeat upon them.

The Helvetii, after advancing northward as far as Saint-Vallier, had turned to the west to reach the valley of the Loire. Arrived near Issy-l'Ev?que, they encamped on the banks of a tributary of the Somme, at the foot of Mount Tauffrin, eight miles from the Roman army. Informed of this circumstance, Caesar judged that the moment had arrived for attacking them by surprise, and sent to reconnoitre by what circuits the heights might be reached. He learnt that the access was easy, and ordered Labienus to gain, with two legions, the summit of the mountain by bye-roads, without giving alarm to the enemy, and to wait till he himself, marching at the head of the four other legions, by the same road as the Helvetii, should appear near their camp; then both were to attack them at the same time. Labienus started at midnight, taking for guides the men who had just explored the roads. Caesar, on his part, began his march at two o'clock in the morning , preceded by his cavalry. At the head of his scouts was P. Considius, whose former services under L. Sylla, and subsequently under M. Crassus, pointed him out as an experienced soldier.

At break of day Labienus occupied the heights, and Caesar was no more than 1,500 paces from the camp of the barbarians; the latter suspected neither his approach nor that of his lieutenant. Suddenly Considius arrived at full gallop to announce that the mountain of which Labienus was to take possession was in the power of the Helvetii; he had recognised them, he said, by their arms and their military ensigns. At this news, Caesar, fearing that he was not in sufficient force against their whole army, with only four legions, chose a strong position on a neighbouring hill, and drew up his men in order of battle. Labienus, whose orders were not to engage in battle till he saw the troops of Caesar near the enemy's camp, remained immovable, watching for him. It was broad daylight when Caesar learnt that his troops had made themselves masters of the mountain, and that the Helvetii had left their camp. They escaped him thus, through the false report of Considius, who had been blinded by a groundless terror.

Admitting that the Helvetii had passed near Issy-l'Ev?que, Mount Tauffrin, which rises at a distance of four kilom?tres to the west of that village, answers to the conditions of the text. There is nothing to contradict the notion that Labienus and Caesar may have, one occupied the summit, the other approached the enemy's camp within 1,500 paces, without being perceived; and the neighbouring ground presents heights which permitted the Roman army to form in order of battle.

Next day, as the Roman army had provisions left for no more than two days, and as, moreover, Bibracte , the greatest and richest town of the AEdui, was not more than eighteen miles distant, Caesar, to provision his army, turned from the road which the Helvetii were following, and took that to Bibracte. The enemy was informed of this circumstance by some deserters from the troop of L. Emilius, decurion of the auxiliary cavalry. Believing that the Romans were going from them through fear, and hoping to cut them off from their provisions, they turned back, and began to harass the rear-guard.

Caesar immediately led his troops to a neighbouring hill--that which rises between the two villages called the Grand-Mari? and the Petit-Mari? --and sent his cavalry to impede the enemies in their march, which gave him the time to form in order of battle. He ranged, half way up the slope of the hill, his four legions of veterans, in three lines, and the two legions raised in the Cisalpine on the plateau above, along with the auxiliaries, so that his infantry covered the whole height. The heavy baggage, and the bundles with which the soldiers were loaded, were collected on one point, which was defended by the troops of the reserve. While Caesar was making these dispositions, the Helvetii, who came followed by all their wagons, collected them in one place; they then, in close order, drove back the cavalry, formed in phalanxes, and, making their way up the slope of the hill occupied by the Roman infantry, advanced against the first line.

This double combat was long and furious. Unable to resist the impetuosity of their adversaries, the Helvetii were obliged to retire, as they had done before, to the mountain of the castle of La Garde; the Boii and Tulingi towards the baggage and wagons. Such was the intrepidity of these Gauls during the whole action, which lasted from one o'clock in the afternoon till evening, that not one turned his back. Far into the night there was still fighting about the baggage. The barbarians, having made a rampart of their wagons, some threw from above their missiles on the Romans; others, placed between the wheels, wounded them with long pikes . The women and children, too, shared desperately in the combat. At the end of an obstinate struggle, the camp and baggage were taken. The daughter and one of the sons of Orgetorix were made prisoners.

This battle reduced the Gaulish emigration to 130,000 individuals. They began their retreat that same evening, and, after marching without interruption day and night, they reached on the fourth day the territory of the Lingones, towards Tonnerre : they had, no doubt, passed by Moulins-en-Gilbert, Lormes, and Avallon. The Lingones were forbidden to furnish the fugitives with provisions or succour, under pain of being treated like them. At the end of three days, the Roman army, having taken care of their wounded and buried the dead, marched in pursuit of the enemy.

On receiving news of the flight of the Verbigeni, Caesar ordered the peoples whose territories they would cross to stop them and bring them back, under pain of being considered as accomplices. The fugitives were delivered up and treated as enemies; that is, put to the sword, or sold as slaves. As to the others, Caesar accepted their submission: he compelled the Helvetii, the Tulingi, and the Latobriges to return to the localities they had abandoned, and to restore the towns and hamlets they had burnt; and since, after having lost all their crops, they had no more provisions of their own, the Allobroges were ordered to furnish them with wheat. These measures had for their object not to leave Helvetia without inhabitants, as the fertility of its soil might draw thither the Germans of the other side the Rhine, who would thus become borderers upon the Roman province. He permitted the Boii, celebrated for their brilliant valour, to establish themselves in the country of the AEdui, who had asked permission to receive them. They gave them lands between the Allier and the Loire, and soon admitted them to a share in all their rights and privileges.

In the camp of the Helvetii were found tablets on which was written, in Greek letters, the number of all those who had quitted their country: on one side, the number of men capable of bearing arms; and on the other, that of the children, old men, and women. The whole amounted to 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobriges, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000 Boii--together, 368,000 persons, of whom 92,000 were men in a condition to fight. According to the census ordered by Caesar, the number of those who returned home was 110,000. The emigration was thus reduced to less than one-third.

The locality occupied by the Helvetii when they made their submission is unknown; yet all circumstances seem to concur in placing the theatre of this event in the western part of the country of the Lingones. This hypothesis appears the more reasonable, as Caesar's march, in the following campaign, can only be explained by supposing him to start from this region. We admit, then, that Caesar received the submission of the Helvetii on the Arman?on, towards Tonnerre, and it is there that we suppose him to have been encamped during the events upon the recital of which we are now going to enter.

In this battle, it must be remarked, Caesar did not employ the two legions newly raised, which remained to guard the camp, and secure the retreat in case of disaster. Next year he assigned the same duty to the youngest troops. The cavalry did not pursue the enemies in their rout, doubtless because the mountainous nature of the locality made it impossible for it to act.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARIOVISTUS.

After the close of the deliberations, they returned, secretly and in tears, to solicit his support against the Germans and Ariovistus, one of their kings. These peoples were separated from the Gauls by the Rhine, from its mouth to the Lake of Constance. Among them the Suevi occupied the first rank. They were by much the most powerful and the most warlike. They were said to be divided into a hundred cantons, each of which furnished, every year, a thousand men for war and a thousand men for agriculture, taking each other's place alternately: the labourers fed the soldiers. No boundary line, among the Suevi, separated the property of the fields, which remained common, and no one could prolong his residence on the same lands beyond a year. However, they hardly lived upon the produce of the soil: they consumed little wheat, and drank no wine; milk and flesh were their habitual food. When these failed, they were fed upon grass. Masters of themselves from infancy, intrepid hunters, insensible to the inclemency of the seasons, bathing in the cold waters of the rivers, they hardly covered a part of their bodies with thin skins. They were savages in manners, and of prodigious force and stature. They disdained commerce and foreign horses, which the Gauls sought with so much care. Their own horses, though mean-looking and ill-shaped, became indefatigable through exercise, and fed upon brushwood. Despising the use of the saddle, often, in engagements of cavalry, they jumped to the ground and fought on foot: their horses were taught to remain without moving. The belief in the dogma of the immortality of the soul, strengthened in them the contempt for life. They boasted of being surrounded by immense solitudes: this fact, as they pretended, showed that a great number of their neighbours had not been able to resist them: and it was reported, indeed, that on one side their territory was bounded, for an extent of 600 miles, by desert plains; on the other, they bordered upon the Ubii, their tributaries, the most civilised of the German peoples, because their situation on the banks of the Rhine placed them in relation with foreign merchants, and because, neighbours to the Gauls, they had formed themselves to their manners.

Two immense forests commenced not far from the Rhine, and extended, from west to east, across Germany; these were the Hercynian and Bacenis forests. The first, beginning from the Black Forest and the Odenwald, covered all the country situated between the Upper Danube and the Maine, and comprised the mountains which, further towards the east, formed the northern girdle of the basin of the Danube; that is, the Boehmerwald, the mountains of Moravia, and the Little Carpathians. It had a breadth which Caesar represents by nine long days' march. The other, of much less extent, took its rise in the forest of Thuringia; it embraced all the mountains to the north of Bohemia, and that long chain which separates the basins of the Oder and the Vistula from that of the Danube.

The Suevi inhabited, to the south of the forest Bacenis, the countries situated between the forest of Thuringia, the Boehmerwald, the Inn, and the Black Forest, which compose, in our days, the Duchies of Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg, Bavaria, and the greater part of Wurtemberg. To the east of the Suevi were the Boii ; to the north, the Cherusci, separated from the Suevi by the forest Bacenis; to the west, the Marcomanni and the Sedusii ; to the south, the Harudes , the Tulingi, and the Latobriges .

On the two banks of the Rhine dwelt the Rauraci ; the Triboces : on the right bank were the Nemetes ; the Vangiones ; the Ubii, from the Odenwald to the watershed of the Sieg and the Ruhr. To the north of the Ubii were the Sicambri, established in Sauerland, and nearly as far as the Lippe. Finally, the Usipetes and the Tencteri were still farther to the north, towards the mouth of the Rhine.

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