If Caesar and the Roman people refuse to aid us, there is nothing left for us but to abandon our lands, as the Helvetians would have done in their case, and go seek, afar from the Germans, another dwelling-place." Caesar, touched by so prompt an appeal to the power of his name and fame gave ear to the prayer of the Gauls.

But he was for trying negotiation before war.

He proposed to Ariovistus an interview "at which they aright treat in common of affairs of importance for both." Ariovistus replied that "if he wanted anything of Caesar, he would go in search of him; if Caesar had business with him, it was for Caesar to come." Caesar thereupon conveyed to him by messenger his express injunctions, "not to summon any more from the borders of the Rhine fresh multitudes of men, and to cease from vexing the AEduans and making war on them, them and their allies.

Otherwise, Caesar would not fail to avenge their wrongs." Ariovistus replied that "he had conquered the AEduans.

The Roman people were in the habit of treating the vanquished after their own pleasure, and not the advice of another; he too, himself, had the same right.
Caesar said he would avenge the wrongs of the AEduans; but no one had ever attacked him with impunity.