Cum esset Caesar in citeriore Gallia [in hibernia], ita uti supra demonstravimus, crebri ad eum rumores adferebantur litterisque item Labieni certior fiebat omnes Belgas, quam tertiam esse Galliae partem dixeramus, contra populum Romanum coniurare obsidesque inter se dare. Coniurandi has esse causas: primum, quod vererentur ne omni pacata Gallia ad eos exercitus noster adduceretur; deinde, quod ab nonnullis Gallis sollicitarentur, partim qui, ut Germanos diutius in Gallia versari noluerant, ita populi Romani exercitum hiemare atque inveterascere in Gallia moleste ferebant, partim qui mobilitate et levitate animi novis imperiis studebant; ab nonnullis etiam, quod in Gallia a potentioribus atque eis qui ad conducendos homines facultates habebant vulgo regna occupabantur, qui minus facile eam rem imperio nostro consequi poterant.
While Caesar was wintering in Hither Gaul, as has been shown above, frequent rumours were brought to him, and despatches also from Labienus informed him, that all the Belgae (whom I have alread described as a third of Gaul) were conspiring against Rome and giving hostages each to other. The causes of their conspiracy, it was said, were as follows. In the first place, they feared that when all Gaul was pacified1 they might themselves be brought face to face with a Roman army; in the second, they were being stirred up by certain of the Gauls, who had either been unwilling that the Germans should stay longer in Gaul, and were now no less distressed that a Roman army should winter and establish itself in Gaul, or who for sheer fickleness and inconstancy were set upon a change of rule; in certain cases, too, the agitation was due to the fact that in Gaul the more powerful chiefs, and such as had the means to hire men, commonly endeavoured to make themselves kings, and this they could not so readily effect under our empire.
1i.e., the Celtic portion of Gaul.
Translation and notes by H.J. Edwards
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