province, called GALLIA NARBONENSIS, from the colony of Narbo which
the Romans had founded. The rest of Gaul included all modern France,
and a part of Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium. The inhabitants were
all of the Celtic race, except a few Germans who had crossed the Rhine
and settled in the North, and the AQUITÁNI, who lived in the Southwest
and who are represented by the Basques of to-day.

The Gauls were more or less civilized since they had come into contact
with the Romans, but they still had the tribal form of government,
like the early Romans. There were more than fifty of these tribes,
which were mostly hostile to one another, as well as divided into
factions among themselves. This condition favored a conquest, for the
factions were frequently Roman and non-Roman. Two of the chief tribes
were the AEDUI and SEQUANI. The former had been taken under the
protection of Rome; the latter, impatient of control and Roman
influence, had invited a tribe of Germans under Ariovistus to come
into Gaul and settle, and be their allies. These Germans had attacked
and conquered the Aeduans, taken from them hostages, and with the
Sequanians were in the ascendency.

In Switzerland lived the HELVETII. They had so increased in numbers
that their country was too small for them. They therefore proposed to
emigrate farther into Gaul, and the Sequanians, whose lands bordered
on those of the Helvetians, gave them permission to march through
their country.

Such was the state of affairs when Caesar arrived in Gaul. Feeling
that the passage of such a large body of emigrants (368,000) through
Gaul would be dangerous to the province (Gallia Narbonensis), he
determined to interfere. The Helvetians were met at BIBRACTE, near