Of course, it is impossible in the compass of a single chapter, which is all that can be devoted to the subject in this volume, to give any regular narrative of the events of the eight years of Caesar's military career in Gaul.

Marches, negotiations, battles, and victories mingled with and followed each other in a long succession, the particulars of which it would require a volume to detail, every thing resulting most successfully for the increase of Caesar's power and the extension of his fame.
[Sidenote: Account of northern nations.] [Sidenote: Their strange customs.] [Sidenote: Well-trained horses.] Caesar gives, in his narrative, very extraordinary accounts of the customs and modes of life of some of the people that he encountered.
There was one country, for example, in which all the lands were common, and the whole structure of society was based on the plan of forming the community into one great martial band.

The nation was divided into a hundred cantons, each containing two thousand men capable of bearing arms.

If these were all mustered into service together, they would form, of course, an army of two hundred thousand men.

It was customary, however, to organize only one half of them into an army, while the rest remained at home to till the ground and tend the flocks and herds.