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25XXV.This did suppress all the rebellions of the Gauls in those parts, and furthermore he himself in person went in the midst of winter thither, where he heard they did rebel: for that there was come a new supply out of Italy of three whole legions, in their room which he had lost: of the which, two of them Pompey lent him, and the other legion he himself had levied in Gaul about the river Po. During these stirs, brake forth the beginning of the greatest and most dangerous war that he had in all Gaul, the which had been secretly practised of long time by the chiefest and most warlike people of that country, who had levied a wonderful great power.

For everywhere they levied multitudes of men, and great riches besides, to fortify their strongholds. Furthermore the country where they rose was very ill to come unto, and specially at that time, being winter; when the rivers were frozen, the woods and forests covered with snow, the meadows drowned with floods, and the fields so deep of snow that no ways were to be found, neither the marrishes nor rivers to be discerned, all was so overflown and drowned with water: all which troubles together were enough (as they thought) to keep Caesar from setting upon the rebels. Many nations of the Gauls were of this conspiracy, but two of the chiefest were the Avernians and Carnutes: who had chosen

Vercingentorix for their lieutenant-general, whose father the Gauls before had put to death, because they thought he aspired to make himself king.