That, moreover, the Germans should by degrees become accustomed toД¬ross the Rhine, and that a great body of them should come into Gaul,

The danger to Rome from the Germans was not only in the lack of the civilizing influence of the Rome, but in the perception that they could not be contained to Germania if they succeeded in overrunning Gaul. The land of the Germans, nor must the habit of living of the latter beДЄlthough it is hard to pick out specific passages, the threat posed by the Germans was that they were much more aggressive. The consequence would be, that in a few years they would allД«e driven from the territories of Gaul, and all the Germans wouldД¬ross the Rhine for neither must the land of Gaul be compared with The Harudes had come to him, for whom room and settlements must be Was the best in the whole of Gaul, and was now ordering them to departДЇrom another third part, because a few months previously 24,000 men of In their territories, and had seized upon a third of their land, which Vanquished Aedui, for Ariovistus the king of the Germans, had settled By further comparison to the comparative cultural merits of the Gauls and Germans, he notes in chapter 31 ( my emphasis):Д«ut a worse thing had befallen the victorious Sequani than the Simply put, the closer to the influence of Roman culture, the more civilized the population. The last section is typical of the attitude of the Romans (and very similar to colonizing powers throughout history), as it portrays Rome itself as the source of civilization. Least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend toД®ffeminate the mind and they are the nearest to the Germans, whoДwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthestДЇrom the civilization and refinement of Province, and merchants The Aquitani the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from The Aquitani another, those who in their own language are calledД¬elts, in our Gauls, the third. Julius Caesar starts the book with a description of the political landscape at the time:ДЄll Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, I would suggest reading Book 1 of The Gallic Wars (link has both English and Latin if you want to see the untranslated text), which is as much a political history of the conquest of Gaul as it is a military history. But a more direct citation would be wonderful. So yes, this quote would certainly appear to agree with Caesar's personal views and actions, as they have been recorded with history. Indeed, this was the pretext for the Gallic Wars for a start, after a few Gallic tribes had sought Rome's assistance in driving off Germanic incursions from across the Rhine, as far as I remember. Clearly he found the German tribes rather more barbaric and felt the need to launch two swift punitive expeditions across the Rhine and into Greater Germania (which certainly had the desired effect of scaring the tribes and preventing further raids into Gallic territory). On the tenor of the quoted text, it would at least to seem to accord with my readings on Caesar (which is not insignificant), in that he found the Celts savage and primitive in most ways, but not beyond redemption. So any proper citation or hints as to its origin would be much appreciated. This is a fascinating quote in any case, and one that is relevant both to Julius Caesar as a man and on a macrohistorical level in some ways. Savage and were a threat to Roman Gaul and so had to be conquered. Warlike, could be civilized, but the Germanic tribesmen were far more I was hoping someone could find a reliable source (ideally the primary source, which is probably Caesar's Gallic Wars, or a translation thereof).Д¬aesar described the cultural differences between the Germanic

I encountered an interesting quote on the English Wikipedia page for Germania some time ago, which seems to have persisted, albeit without citation.

Celtic warlike