That same year, some states of Gaul, under the pressure of heavy debts, attempted a revolt. Its most active instigators were Julius Florus among the Treveri and Julius Sacrovir among the Ædui. Both could show noble birth and signal services rendered by ancestors, for which Roman citizenship had formerly been granted them, when the gift was rare and a recompense only of merit. In secret conferences to which the fiercest spirits were admitted, or any to whom poverty or the fear of guilt was an irresistible stimulus to crime, they arranged that Florus was to rouse the Belgae, Sacrovir the Gauls nearer home. These men accordingly talked sedition before small gatherings and popular assemblies about the perpetual tributes, the oppressive usury, the cruelty and arrogance of their governors, hinting too that there was disaffection among our soldiers, since they had heard of the murder of Germanicus. "It was," they said, "a grand opportunity for the recovery of freedom, if only they would contrast their own vigour with the exhaustion of Italy, the unwarlike character of the city populace, and the utter weakness of Rome's armies in all but their foreign element."
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. reprinted 1942.
