Caesar on the Usipetes and Tencteri

Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 - 15 March 44 BCE), Roman statesman, general, author, famous for the conquest of Gaul (modern France and Belgium) and his subsequent coup d'état. He changed the Roman republic into a monarchy and laid the foundations of a truly Mediterranean empire.

The Usipetes and Tencteri were two tribes who originally lived in what would now be called Central Germany. Culturally, they belonged to the La Tène-culture (the "Celts"): Usipetes means in the Celtic language "good horsemen". Expelled in 60 or 59 BCE from their homeland by the Suebi, a "real" German tribe arriving from the north, they wandered along the Rhine and in 56 arrived in the Dutch river area. Here, in the spring of 55, Caesar attacked them, hoping to pose as protector of Gaul against any invader from Germania. In December 2015, Dutch archaeologist Nico Roymans announced that he had identified the site of the massacre at Kessel-Lith in the Dutch river area.note

The incident illustrates the ruthless nature of Roman aggression: Caesar first provoked the refugees and finally attacked them during an armistice. When the genocide became known in Rome, Senator Cato the Younger exclaimed that Caesar, the general of eight legions, was to be handed over to those Germans. Caesar was forced to divert the Senate's attention to other subjects, and spent the second half of the year with an invasion of Germania and an expedition to Britain. From a military point of view, both campaigns were unnecessary, but it gave Caesar great political advantages.

Caesar describes the event in his Commentaries on the war in Gaul, book 4, chapters 4-15. The translation is by Anne and Peter Wiseman.

Book
4
Chapter
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Section
2
3
4
5
6
7

[4.4.2] The Usipetes and the Tencteri had withstood attacks from the Suebians for many years, but they were in the end driven from their land, and after wandering about for three years in various parts of Germania, they reached the Rhine. The area they had come to was inhabited by the Menapians,note who had lands, buildings, and villages on both banks of the river.

[4.4.3] The arrival of such a horde so terrified these people that they abandoned their buildings on the right bank and posted guards on the left bank to stop the Germansnote crossing.

[4.4.4] The Germans tried every means of getting across, but without success; they could not force their way over because they had no boats, and the Menapian guards foiled any attempts at crossing by stealth.

[4.4.5] So they pretended to go back to their own country and home, and for three days marched in that direction. Then they turned back; their cavalry covered the whole distance back in one night, and caught the Menapians when they were off their guard.

[4.4.6] They did not expect to be attacked, because their patrols had told them that the Germans had withdrawn, and so they had gone back with no fears to their settlements across the Rhine.

[4.4.7] The Germans killed them and seizing their boats, crossed the river before news of all this could reach the Menapians on the left bank. Once across, they seized all the buildings that the Menapii had there, and lived on their supplies of food for the rest of the winter.