Home Introduction Persons Geogr. Sources Events Mijn blog(Nederlands)
Religion Subjects Images Queries Links Contact Do not fly Iberia
This is a non-commercial site. Any revenues from Google ads are used to improve the site.

Custom Search
Quote of the day: And he likewise invented and published f
Notes
Do not display Latin text
The Gallic War (De Bello Gallico) by Julius Caesar
Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Book IV Chapter 7: War with the Germans. German embassadors.[55 BC]
Next chapter
Return to index
Previous chapter
Having provided corn and selected his cavalry, he [Note 1] began to direct his march toward those parts in which he heard the Germans were. When he was distant from them only a few days' march, embassadors came to him from their state, whose speech was as follows: "That the Germans neither make war upon the Roman people first, nor do they decline, if they are provoked, to engage with them in arms; for that this was the custom of the Germans handed down to them from their forefathers, - to resist whatsoever people make war upon them and not to avert it by entreaty; this, however, they confessed, - that they had come hither reluctantly, having been expelled from their country. If the Romans were disposed to accept their friendship, they might be serviceable allies to them; and let them either assign them lands, or permit them to retain those which they had acquired by their arms; that they are inferior to the Suevi alone, to whom not even the immortal gods can show themselves equal; that there was none at all besides on earth whom they could not conquer."

Note 1: he = Julius Caesar

Event: Caesar's war with the Germans.

[7] Re frumentaria comparata equitibusque delectis iter in ea loca facere coepit, quibus in locis esse Germanos audiebat. A quibus cum paucorum dierum iter abesset, legati ab iis venerunt, quorum haec fuit oratio: Germanos neque priores populo Romano bellum inferre neque tamen recusare, si lacessantur, quin armis contendant, quod Germanorum consuetudo [haec] sit a maioribus tradita, Quicumque bellum inferant, resistere neque deprecari. Haec tamen dicere venisse invitos, eiectos domo; si suam gratiam Romani velint, posse iis utiles esse amicos; vel sibi agros attribuant vel patiantur eos tenere quos armis possederint: sese unis Suebis concedere, quibus ne di quidem immortales pares esse possint; reliquum quidem in terris esse neminem quem non superare possint.