Hello and welcome back to epochs where I should be continuing my narrative of the decline of fall of the Roman Republic

and specifically the career of Julius Caesar and specifically the portion of his career where he's invading Gaul over many, many years.

So let's just continue the story. If you remember last time we left off at the end of the year 56 BC with an indecisive campaign against the

marini so the next year 55 BC this is the year where caesar has incursions across the

ryan i.e into germany and into great britain i mentioned before i've done a little bit of content

before a while ago in the old studio all about Caesar in Britain.

Well it wasn't all about that, but we talked about it a bit.

So going to it in more detail this time, and that does cover pretty much the whole of the year, 55 BC.

So first of all then, just to say, what it looks like Caesar is doing, or what Caesar is doing, is he's conquered Gaul nominally,

lots of rebellions have risen up, he's put them down, and now he's trying to sort of shore up the edges,

trying to make sure he doesn't have any big incursions, firstly from the Germans, really.

The Britons are a whole different kettle of fish, but just trying to make sure, trying to make his position, the Roman position in Gaul, as safe as possible, and it's still far from safe. So first of all, he tells us about a giant massacre of the Eucopetes and the Tengturi, both German tribes. So once again, this is the year 55 BC and he tells us this.

Quote,

In the following winter in which the consulship of Pompey and Crassus began,

the German tribes of the Eusepates and the Tentguri

crossed the Rhine in large numbers, not far from its mouth.

They were forced to migrate because for several years

they had been subjected to harassing attacks by the Suebe and prevented from tilling their land.

So the Sueby are often called certainly one of the biggest, but definitely one of, if not the

most warlike of the German tribes. I often think of the suaby as sort of one of the inner core, or one of,

certainly just one of the most important Germanic tribes.

So if they're on the move, or if they're doing some sort of large-scale offensive operations,

...