page_title: Ariovistus
section_title: Confrontation with Caesar
hierarchical_section_title: Ariovistus / Confrontation with Caesar
caption_attribution_description: English: Caesar and Ariovistus (meeting before the battle). Woodcut, 1873, by Johann Nepomuk Geiger (1805–1880). From: W. Zimmermann, Geschichte des dt. Volkes, volume 1, Stuttgart 1873. Berlin, private collection.
context_page_description: Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani in defeating their rivals, the Aedui. They then settled in large numbers into conquered Gallic territory, in the Alsace region. They were defeated, however, in the Battle of Vosges and driven back over the Rhine in 58 BC by Julius Caesar.
context_section_description: In 59 BC, while Julius Caesar was consul, Ariovistus had been recognised as "king and friend" by the Roman Senate. He had likely already crossed the Rhine at this point. Cicero indicates that the Aedui's defeat took place in or before 60 BC. Pliny the Elder mentions a meeting between Caesar's predecessor as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, and a king of the Suebi; which took place during Celer's proconsulship in 62 BC. The sequence of events given by Caesar also seems to indicate that, when his governorship began in 58 BC, the Germans had been settled in Gaul for longer than one year. However, without the status of friend, Ariovistus never could have secured Roman tolerance of his Rhine crossing, whenever it was, but would have been treated as hostile.
  However, the Aedui were also allies of Rome, and in 58 BC Diviciacus, one of their senior magistrates, complained of Ariovistus's cruelty and pleaded with Caesar to intervene on their behalf. Caesar sent ambassadors to summon Ariovistus to a conference. Ariovistus refused the summons on the grounds that if Caesar wanted to speak to him, he should come to him; besides, he was not prepared to enter Caesar's territory without his army, which it would be impractical and expensive to gather.
  Caesar, therefore, sent his ambassadors back to Ariovistus with his demands: that he bring no more of his people across the Rhine, and that he and his allies restore the hostages they had taken from the Aedui and undertake not to make war against them. He pointed out that Ariovistus was a friend to Rome and that the Romans had a prior interest, which they certainly would enforce. Ariovistus was welcome to keep the friendship of Rome if he would comply. Otherwise he, Caesar, acting in accordance with the decrees of the senate, could not let the harassment of the Aedui go unpunished.
  Ariovistus refused to comply, asserting the right of conquest and the right of the conqueror to exact tribute from the conquered. Ridiculing Rome's ability to protect its friends and boasting of Germanic invincibility, Ariovistus invited Caesar to attack him if he wished.
  Caesar presents himself as attempting to act as an honest broker in the conflict, offering reasonable terms to settle the matter; however, as Caesar himself relates, Ariovistus later accused him of intending to lead an army against him right from the outset. Cassius Dio, writing more than two centuries later, agrees, characterising Caesar as attempting to provoke a war to win glory and power while he took pains not to look like the aggressor.
  Whatever the motivation, Ariovistus overestimated the strength of his position. He apparently believed his official relationship to Rome was one of equals, but the Romans accepted no equals and saw the relationship as one between patron and client. He also appears to have believed the Romans would not attack him.
  At the same time that Caesar received Ariovistus's message, he heard from his Celtic allies that the Harudes were devastating the country of the Aedui and that 100 units of Suebi under the brothers Nasua and Cimberius were about to cross the Rhine. In response to such provocative acts, Caesar mobilized his troops.
caption: Caesar and Ariovistus (meeting before the battle) by Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger
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