¹ The interpolation theory was strongly advanced by e.g. Klotz, A., Caesarstudien (Leipzig, 1910)Google Scholar. Beckmann, F., Geographie und Ethnographie in Caesars Bellum Gallicum (Dortmund, 1930)Google Scholar, on the other hand, argued strongly in favour of the authenticity of the passage. On Klotz and the suspicions held concerning the geographical passages of the Bellum Gallicum, see Krebs, C., ‘“Imaginary geography” in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum’, AJPh 127 (2006), 111–36Google Scholar, at 115 n. 21. Riggsby, A., Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin, TX, 2006), 11–12Google Scholar and 58 n. 37, discusses the arguments in favour of interpolation and their limits. See also Schadee, H., ‘Caesar's construction of northern Europe: inquiry, contact and corruption in De Bello Gallico’, CQ 58 (2008), 158–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at n. 3, for additional bibliography.

² The debate does continue, however: see Schadee (n. 1), 178 n. 62.

³ Caesar's calculated craft in writing the commentarii is well established. See e.g. Rambaud, M., L'art de la déformation historique dans les Commentaires de César (Paris, 1953)Google Scholar, and, more recently, Welch, K. and Powell, A. (edd.), Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments (London, 1998)Google Scholar; also Burns, T. S., ‘Through Caesar's eyes’, in Rome and the Barbarians, 100 b.c.–400 a.d. (Baltimore, MD, and London, 2003), 88–139Google Scholar; Krebs (n. 1), 111 n. 2; and Schadee (n. 1), 158 n. 1. See also below, nn. 24 and 25. Whether and when Caesar made any significant revisions to the commentarii remains a debated issue: see Burns (this note), 89–90. Riggsby (n. 1), 9–15 (n. 31 for bibliographical references), offers a thorough discussion of the question of the composition of the BG. T. P. Wiseman, ‘The publication of De Bello Gallico’, in Welch and Powell (this note), 1–10, at 6, suggests we should distinguish two stages of composition, and place Books 5–7 in the second stage (53–51 b.c.), in which Caesar's style becomes more polished and elevated, moving away from ‘commentarius proper … to something which comes close to the status of full-scale historiography’ as the political stakes were rising. For more on Caesar's style, see Vasaly, A., ‘Characterization and complexity: Caesar, Sallust, and Livy’ in Feldherr, A. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (Cambridge, 2009), 245–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 250–1, with bibliography (n. 8).

⁴ Caesar's inclusion of the entire ethnographic excursus comparing Gauls and Germans has been attributed, since Norden, E., Die Germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania (Leipzig, 1920)Google Scholar, esp. 94, to the principal military and political concern to justify his decision to turn back after crossing the Rhine. See Riggsby (n. 1), 69–70, on how Caesar contrasts the ‘unavailability for conquest of the German nomads’ with the desirable appropriation of the Gauls. Schadee (n. 1), 18–23, points up the positive impression made by the ethnographic digression on the reader despite the lack of any military success to relate on Caesar's part. Zeitler, W. M., ‘Zum Germanenbegriff Caesars: Der Germanenexkurs im sechsten Buch von Caesars Bellum Gallicum’, in Beck, H. (ed.), Germanenprobleme in heutiger Sicht (Berlin, 1986), 41–52Google Scholar, discusses the narrative uses of the ethnography. On Caesar's self-portrait as an ‘ideal leader’ who presents himself as one whose circumspection serves the interests of his troops here as elsewhere, see Krebs (n. 1), esp. 132.

⁵ On the different image of the Germans as portrayed in Book 6 in relation to Book 4, see e.g. Krebs (n. 1), 122–4; Riggsby (n. 1), 60–3; Schadee (n. 1), 175–9. On Caesar's conception and shaping of the Gallic and Germanic barbarians in general, see Dauge, Y.A., Le Barbare: recherches sur la conception romaine de la barbarie et de la civilisation (Brussels, 1981)Google Scholar, 106 n. 116 (with bibliography), and below, nn. 24, 28, and 29. I return to the (artificial) distinction between Germans and Gauls below.

⁶ Schadee (n. 1) analyses the discrete ethnographies throughout the BG, and how these advance Caesar's agenda through the comparisons which he implicitly and explicitly invites his readers to draw between the different categories of barbarians that he establishes.

⁷ For a detailed comparison of the differences between the two, see Lund, A., Die ersten Germanen: Ethnizität und Ethnogenese (Heidelberg, 1990)Google Scholar, esp. 49; and Beck, J.W., ‘Germania’ und ‘Agricola’: zwei Kapitel zu Tacitus' zwei kleinen Schriften (Hildesheim, 1998)Google Scholar.

⁸ Caesar calls attention to the fact that ‘they have no zeal for <it>’, agri culturae non student (6.22.1). Contrast this statement with Book 4, where he describes the Germans drafting their men yearly for warfare in such a way that many remain at home, so that ‘neither agriculture nor the theory and practice of war is interrupted’ (sic neque agri cultura neque ratio atque usus belli intermittitur, 4.1.6). On the lack of agriculture as one of the stereotypical traits of northern, nomadic barbarians, associated with a passion for war by Caesar (6.22.3) and other Roman sources, see Dauge (n. 5), 622–3; Woolf, G., Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West (Chichester and Malden, MA, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 53 n. 19; Krebs, C., ‘Borealism: Caesar, Seneca, Tacitus, and the Roman discourse about the Germanic North’, in Gruen, E. (ed.), Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean (Los Angeles, CA, 2011), 202–21Google Scholar, at n. 56.

⁹ The statement from Book 4: ‘They are much involved in hunting’ (multumque sunt in venationibus, 4.1.8) evolves to a far more radical one in Book 6: ‘their entire life consists of hunting and military practice’ (Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris consistit, 6.21.3). Italics or underlining in the Latin or italics in the corresponding translation, here as elsewhere, reflect my emphasis.

¹⁰ Compare ‘and they do not live much on grain, but mostly on milk and animal flesh’ (neque multum frumento, sed maximam partem lacte atque pecore vivunt, 4.1.8) and ‘the greater part of their diet consists of milk, cheese, and meat’ (maiorque pars eorum victus in lacte, caseo, carne consistit, 6.22.1). In Book 5, Caesar establishes a similar distinction between the more civilized Britons who live near the coast and cultivate their land, and their more barbaric counterparts, who live further inland (hence further from the Gauls and their civilizing influence – see below), by making reference to the fact that the latter subsist on meat and milk. See Schadee (n. 1), 174.

¹¹ See 4.1.7 and 6.22.2. The Scythians, as portrayed in Herodotus, are the quintessential nomads (see Hartog, F., Le Miroir d'Hérodote [Paris, 1980]Google Scholar). Nomadism is the classic barbarian lifestyle, the very antithesis of civilization (see Dauge [n. 5], 620–6).

¹² At 4.2.1, Caesar mentions trade: ‘Traders are granted access to their land, mostly so that they can have someone to whom they can sell what they have acquired in battle’ (Mercatoribus est aditus magis eo, ut quae bello ceperint quibus vendeant habeant), while at 6.23.1–2 he dwells rather on the Suebi's ferocious isolation from all other settlements: ‘For their tribes, the highest source of honour comes from devastating their borders, and thus having as vast an uninhabited area around them as possible’ (Civitatibus maxima laus est quam latissime circum se vastatis finibus solitudines habere). Dauge (n. 5), 620–6, mentions the role played by ‘vast uninhabited areas’ (barbariae inmensas solitudines, quoting from Valerius Maximus 4.6) surrounding nomadic barbarians in maintaining them in a state of primitivism (see ibid., 621 n. 150, which provides multiple references to ancient sources that reflect this belief).

¹³ See 6.21.4: ‘from childhood they dedicate themselves to toil and hardiness’ (a parvulis labori ac duritiae student); compare Book 4, where duritia is implied (see the description of the cold climate and simple animal skins worn by the Germans, who bathe in rivers [4.1.10]) but not explicitly named.

¹⁴ See 6.21.5 on the high esteem in which they hold prolonged virginity, and the role that it is believed to play in developing their youth's strength (a detail absent from Book 4); cf. Tacitus' Germania (20.2), with Riggsby (n. 1), 60–2.

¹⁵ See the description of their customarily bathing in the nude, all together (6.21.5). Chastity and sexual continence are ascribed to the noble savage type, in contrast to the well-attested topos of the sexually promiscuous barbarian (for which see e.g. Amm. Marc. 14.4.4 on the Saracens, and Dauge (n. 5), 661, for other examples).

¹⁶ The Suebi's cultural divorce from human civilization is both a result of and corroborated by their geographical remoteness and lack of physical contact.

¹⁷ See 6.23.6: ‘They do not consider plunder which is perpetrated beyond the frontiers of their community to be disreputable, and they claim that it trains the youth and causes their laziness to diminish’ (Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam quae extra fines cuiusque civitatis fiunt, atque ea iuventutis exercendae ac desidiae minuendae causa fieri praedicant). Far from being considered immoral, plunder as a means of survival was a sign, and even a guarantee, of a people's purity, and the prerogative of those who had remained removed from the corrupting influence of civilization: see Thomas, R., Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical Tradition (PCPhS suppl. 7, Cambridge, 1982), 112Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Riggsby (n. 1), 61–2. On banditry in the Roman Empire (and the separate category formed by the raiders on the edges of the empire), see Shaw, B., ‘Bandits in the Roman Empire’, P&P 105 (1984), 5–52Google Scholar.

¹⁹ On the place and role of set pieces in the Roman historiographic tradition, see Ash, R., Tacitus: Histories Book II (Cambridge, 2007), 4–5Google Scholar, and n. 43 for further bibliographic references. In all Roman historians' accounts of barbarian customs, actual, historic observations mingle with literary stereotypes to a largely unknowable degree. Just before the description of the Hercynian forest (6.24.2), Caesar acknowledges having read Eratosthenes and other Greek geographers; the degree to which he relies on these and other sources remains a matter of speculation.

²⁰ On Caesar's ethnography and its relationship to the ethnographic tradition, see Riggsby (n. 1), 47–71; also Gruen, E., Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ, 2011), 141–2Google Scholar, and Schadee (n. 2), 158 n. 3, with bibliography. For an overview of the ethnographic tradition in prose, see Thomas (n. 17), 1–7. Rives's introduction in Rives, J. (ed.), Tacitus: Germania (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar, offers a useful overview of Roman writers' literary treatments of the Germans.

²¹ This hard primitivism is frequently the purview of the ‘noble savage’. Examples of the morally pure ‘savage’ abound among ancient authors; compare for instance the idealization of another northern people, the Scythians, by Ephorus, as reported in Strabo (fr. 42 Jacoby, quoted by Strabo 7.3.9). Regarding the ancient concept of the noble savage and its various attestations, see Lovejoy, A. and Boas, G., Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, MD, 1935, repr. 1997), 287–367Google Scholar; concerning the definition and characteristics of the ‘hard primitivism’ of the noble savage in particular, see 10–11. On Roman discourse(s) about the North (or ‘Borealism’), see Trzaska-Richter, C., Furor Teutonicus: das römische Germanenbild in Politik und Propaganda von den Anfängen bis zum 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium, Bd. 8, Trier, 1991), 14–8Google Scholar, and Krebs (n. 8). Tacitus' Germans in the Germania possess some of the very same alleged ‘purity’ traits that Caesar seeks to bring out in Book 6: see O'Gorman, E., ‘No place like Rome: identity and difference in the Germania of Tacitus’, Ramus 22 (1993), 135–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at n. 2; Benario, H.W., Tacitus: Germania (Warminster, 1999)Google Scholar; Rives (n. 20), e.g. 200–1. Tacitus' portrayal of the Germans is ambivalent, however: see Gruen (n. 20), 159–78. The British ethnography of Tacitus' Agricola also makes for an interesting comparison; see Woolf (n. 8), 90–2 (with a succinct overview of the conventional paradigms deployed).

²² See Riggsby (n. 1), 60; Schadee (n. 1), 19.

²³ The distinction is the very justification which Caesar provides for launching into his vast ethnographic digression to begin with: ‘It seems not inappropriate, since this point has been reached, to relate the customs of the Gauls and the Germans, and how much these peoples differ from each other …’ (quoniam ad hunc locum perventum est, non alienum esse videtur de Galliae Germaniaeque moribus et, quo differant hae nationes inter sese …, 6.11.1). The Gauls are made to seem far less fierce in the context of the German ethnography relative to earlier passages of BG: they serve as a ‘relatively civilized touchstone’ in contrast with the German barbarian (Schadee [n. 2], 176). Conversely, in his portrayal of the Germans in his Germania, Tacitus actually assimilates the two, by utilizing a different set of available stereotypes: see Krebs (n. 8), 202–21. On the importance of polarity and duality in ancient discourses representing barbarians, see O'Gorman (n. 21), passim.

²⁴ The differentiation between the two is a calculated artifice, and was probably Caesar's invention; see e.g. Burns (n. 3), 118–20. On the artificiality of the distinction between the Gauls and the Germans, see Jullian, C., Histoire de la Gaule (Paris, 1906–28), 231–9Google Scholar; Rambaud (n. 3), 336. In Rambaud, M., Autour de César, ed. Bonjour, M. and Fredouille, J.-C (Lyon, 1987), 223–33Google Scholar, Rambaud stresses the lack of any linguistic or archeological basis for it. For a different view, see Dauge (n. 5), 108–9 and nn. 120–1 for bibliography and discussion. On Caesar's motivations for establishing and featuring this distinction so prominently, see Lund (n. 8); Burns (n. 3), 131–5; Krebs (n. 8), 204–5; Riggsby (n. 1), 50–71; Schadee (n. 1), 175–8. See also Rives (n. 20), 21–7.

²⁵ Gruen (n. 20), 141–58, discusses Caesar's deliberate use of and deviation from conventional Gallic clichés. The distinction between the two peoples and their lands also serves Caesar's goal of self-aggrandizement by enabling him to present the conquest of Gaul as completed, to compensate for the aborted forays into Germany. See Riggsby (n. 1), 69.

²⁶ In Book 4, contact and propinquity are presented as the civilizing factor for a German tribe that offers a perfect antithesis to the Suebi: the Ubii (4.3.3); see below p. 691. Dauge (n. 5), 604 n. 93, lists ancient sources that establish a correlation between barbarians' feritas and ferocia and their distance from Rome. Conversely, Paolo Soverini, in his commentary on Tacitus' Agricola (11.4), Agricola: introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento (Alexandria, 2004), 162, cites ancient sources illustrative of the topos according to which peace and civilization were considered debilitating.

²⁷ Caesar explicitly positions them at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Germans when it comes to their military capabilities (6.24.5–6); see below, p. 692. For an overview of the Roman concept of Gallic acculturation, see Champion, C.B. ‘“Romanization:” cultural assimilation, hybridization, and resistance’, in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources (Malden, MA, and Oxford, 2004), 214–57Google Scholar, and G. Woolf's discussion of Gallic humanitas in his Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge, 1998), esp. ch. 3Google Scholar, ‘The civilizing ethos’.

²⁸ In Book 1, Caesar also creates a contrast between Gauls and Germans, but with the aim of making war with the barbarian tyrant Ariovistus appear necessary and inevitable. To do so, he resorts to another negative ethnic stereotype in his famous depiction of Ariovistus as ‘barbarous, prone to fits of anger, and reckless’ (barbarum, iracundium, temerarium, 1.31), in contrast to the pitiable tribes of loyal Gauls under Diviciacus, who weep for Caesar's assistance (1.32).

²⁹ In Book 1, building on traditional Greco-Roman beliefs, Caesar states that the hardy Belgae have maintained their indomitable strength and exemplary virtus because ‘they are the farthest away from the culture and civilization of the <Narbonensis> province’ (a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, 1.1); see Burns (n. 3), 94, 134–5, and Schadee (n. 1), 163–5. Caesar's positive assessment of those Gauls who remain detached from Roman influence (and particularly those who resist the Germans) and their virtus is not without ambivalent implications regarding Rome's degeneracy: see Gruen (n. 20), 148–58; Riggsby (n. 1), 83–96. Compare the Germans of Tacitus' Germania 5.3, infected by commerce with Rome: see O'Gorman (n. 21), 140–1; Krebs (n. 8), 203. By contrast, the fierceness of the Britons in Tacitus' Agricola (8.1, 16.1, 17.3–4, 21.1, 27.4, 29.3–4, 30.1) is allegedly due to their lack of any debilitating contact with Rome (11.5–6).

³⁰ Four out of the eight sections that make up the ethnographic excursus are devoted to the forest and its animals (6.25–8).

³¹ The description of the forest begins with a paragraph devoted exclusively to its size and to creating an impression of infinite depth through references to its lack of definable borders and incalculable vastness (6.25.1, 3–4). Caesar had already made reference to the vast expanses of wilderness surrounding the Germans (6.23.1–2).

³² There is no mention of trade; outsiders are not likely to settle nearby, since the Suebi deem it ‘the greatest sign of valour’ (hoc proprium virtutis, 6.23.2–3) to drive neighbours out of any land adjoining their own.

³³ The archaic Greeks already considered a boundless (ἀπείρων) space uncrossable, because of the uncertainty attached to formlessness: see Romm, J., The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 10–11Google Scholar. Numerous ancient sources define desolate spaces (solitudines) as an obstacle to civilization and a breeding ground for those barbarians exclusively devoted to war and destruction. Dauge (n. 5), 482–6, provides an overview of Roman accounts of barbarians' relationships to their environment; primitivism is characteristic of forest dwellers (483 n. 172).

³⁴ Schadee (n. 1), 178–9, touches on the strangeness and undefinable qualities of the Hercynian forest as ‘the antithesis of civilization’.

³⁵ In comparing barbarians with animals, Caesar is building on a well-established tradition. The attribution of bestial characteristics to barbarians is pervasive throughout ancient sources (and beyond); they often point up negative traits which the Romans associated with a lack of civilization and social organization, such as irrationality and related forms of savagery. See Dauge (n. 5), 604–9; Isaac, B., The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ, 2004)Google Scholar, esp. 196–207; Sherwin-White, A.N., Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar, passim. Tacitus mentions a ‘fable’ according to which the Hellusii and Oxiones possessed human faces, but the limbs and bodies of wild beasts (Germ. 46.4), though he cautiously refuses to vouch for its veracity.

³⁶ On the propagandistic potential of the exotic in ethnographic discourse, see Woolf (n. 8), 84–5, including bibliographical references.

³⁷ In his Germania, Tacitus describes the Semnones (the most ancient and noble of the Suebi) and their special relationship to a forest which they revere and honour (Germ. 39.1–2). As with the Hellusii and Oxiones (see n. 35 above), there is a fusional relationship of sorts between this Germanic tribe and their environment.

³⁸ Woolf (n. 8), 83–9, discusses the representation of the extraordinary in the ancient world. On thaumata in the Greco-Roman ethnographic tradition more specifically, see Thomas (n. 17), 2; Riggsby (n. 1), 70 nn. 69 and 70, with bibliography.

³⁹ See Burns (n. 1), 128–9.

⁴⁰ The consuetudo being referred to is that of the Gauls.

⁴¹ In his notes on the BG, Garzetti, A., La Guerra Gallica/Gaio Giulio Cesare (Turin, 1996), 574–5Google Scholar, draws attention to the doubly artificial nature of the unicorn passage: even the real creature on whom the fantastical creature is based (namely the reindeer) is to some extent an invention on Caesar's part, for the animal had already been extinct in Germany for some time.

⁴² Aili (a scholar who has participated in Swedish elk hunts) makes an ingenious attempt to rehabilitate Caesar's unlikely account of the Hercynian forest's fauna by suggesting that particular weather conditions and low visibility may have warped his perception (Aili, H., ‘Caesar's elks and other mythical creatures of the Hercynian forest’, in Asztalos, M. and Gejrot, C. [edd.], Symbolae Septentrionales: Latin Studies Presented to Jan Öberg [Stockholm, 1995], 15–37Google Scholar).

⁴³ Similar accounts of animals without articulations can be found among other ancient historians. Ctesias of Cnidus is one possible source for Caesar's present account (our only source is Aristotle's harsh criticism of Ctesias' description of elephants [Hist. an. 2.498a8]). Ctesias himself was probably already importing material from an earlier, perhaps eastern, source. Wiseman, T.P., ‘Lying historians: seven types of mendacity’, in Marincola, J. (ed.), Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford, 2011), 314–36Google Scholar, at 323, quotes Lucian's preface to his True History (1.3), in which Ctesias is featured as one who, like many other writers, presents accounts of his travels that include strange beasts, savages, and peculiar lifestyles, without having ever actually seen or even heard of them.

⁴⁴ Pease, A., ‘Analogues of the Hercynian elks’, CPh 34 (1939), 372–3Google Scholar, includes a discussion of Caesar's possible sources.

⁴⁵ See 4.1.8 (quoted below).

⁴⁶ It is worth noting that, unlike the reindeer, on which Caesar's account of the unicorn was probably based, the aurochs were not extinct at the time Caesar was writing. Fossil evidence points to gigantic beasts weighing up to 4.5 tons. See Provenza, F.D., Villalba, J.J., Haskell, J., MacAdam, J.W., Griggs, T.C., and Wiedmeier, R.D., ‘The value to herbivores of plant physical and chemical diversity in time and space’, Crop Science 47 (2007), 382–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 382. I am grateful to Andrew Riggsby for bringing this article to my attention.

⁴⁷ As here in the case of the aurochs: adsuescere … ne quidem possunt.

⁴⁸ Compare the notorious lack of discipline of Tacitus' Germans; see Beck (n. 7), 26–7 (with bibliography at n. 37).

⁴⁹ In Book 4, when describing the Suebi's dealings with horses, Caesar has already established a particular affinity between the Germans and their beasts, by using the same expression, cotidiana exercitatione, to describe, on the one hand, how the Suebi achieve their remarkable strength through diet, daily exercise, and rigorous devotion to hunting (4.1.8), and on the other, how they make their animals into the most efficient workhorses by subjecting them to a similarly harsh regimen of daily exercise (4.2.2–3).

⁵⁰ See above pp. 685–6 regarding the correlation which Caesar establishes between propinquity and contact with the Romans, and a barbarian people's potential for (or incipient degree of) civilization.

⁵¹ It is noteworthy that the passage occurs a mere four paragraphs before Caesar uses adsuescere concerning the aurochs to convey the beasts' preserved wildness, which results from their complete removal from civilization.

⁵² On the various traditions regarding the Volcae Tectosages ‘rich in gold’ (Strabo in particular), see Woolf (n. 8), 74–6.

⁵³ The seamless progression from notitia to adsuefacti to victi brings out the relationship between cause (propinquity) and effect (enfeeblement). On virtus in the BG and its (positive) connotations, see above n. 29.

⁵⁴ On the depiction of the German barbarian in Seneca's treatise, and its influence on Tacitus' own in his Germania, see Krebs (n. 8), 207–9.

⁵⁵ On the Germans as ‘too primitive to be worth the sacrifice needed to subdue them’, see Burns (n. 3), 137 (with bibliography in n. 77).

⁵⁶ In explaining his decision, Caesar also mentions practical considerations (6.29.1): ‘Caesar, when he discovered through the Ubian scouts that the Suebi had retreated into their forests, fearing a shortage of food (because, as we demonstrated above, the Germans have close to no zeal for agriculture), decided not to progress any further’ (Caesar postquam per Ubios exploratores comperit Suebos se in silvas recepisse, inopiam frumenti veritus, quod, ut supra demonstravimus, minime omnes Germani agriculturae student, constituit non progredi longius). Note that Caesar specifically stresses the fact that the Suebi have retreated into their forests as a major factor in his decision. Yet, as pointed out by Schadee (n. 2), 179, the forest they have retreated to (called Bacenis, 6.10) is actually not the same as the Hercynian forest that he has just described. Regardless of this issue, the entertaining and extensive ethnography also gives the illusion, because of its length (spanning 6.11 to 6.28), of a greater time lapse between Caesar's decision to cross the Rhine and his subsequent volte-face, thus muting the flagrant nature of his change of plans.

⁵⁷ On ethnographic descriptions as deliberate delays in historians' narratives intended to build up tension and highlight the importance of what follows, see Woolf (n. 8), 87–90.