Caesar, who felt it all-important to put an end at least to open resistance throughout Gaul, allowed king Commius, who still held out in the region of Arras and maintained desultory warfare with the Roman troops there down to the winter of 703-704, to make his peace, and even acquiesced when the irritated and justly distrustful man haughtily refused to appear in person in the Roman camp.

It is very probable that Caesar in a similar way allowed himself to be satisfied with a merely nominal submission, perhaps even with a de facto armistice, in the less accessible districts of the north-west and north-east of Gaul.( 51) Gaul Subdued Thus was Gaul--or, in other words, the land west of the Rhine and north of the Pyrenees--rendered subject after only eight years of conflict (696-703) to the Romans.

Hardly a year after the full pacification of the land, at the beginning of 705, the Roman troops had to be withdrawn over the Alps in consequence of the civil war, which had now at length broken out in Italy, and there remained nothing but at the most some weak divisions of recruits in Gaul.
Nevertheless the Celts did not again rise against the foreign yoke; and, while in all the old provinces of the empire there was fighting against Caesar, the newly-acquired country alone remained continuously obedient to its conqueror.

Even the Germans did not during those decisive years repeat their attempts to conquer new settlements on the left bank of the Rhine.

As little did there occur in Gaul any national insurrection or German invasion during the crises that followed, although these offered the most favourable opportunities.