Celtic overpowered!

[Watchman]

You know, I've for a while thought that an awful lot of the German success around Caesar's time seems to revolve around the person of Ariovistus. Kinda seems to me it could be more of a matter of the man's ability as a warlord that was tilting the power balance and allowing the German successes against the Celts, whatever their condition now was...

Put this way: if the German combat troops were so consistently superior to those of the Celts as you argue, why did Ariovistus even feel the need - as he apparently did - to first wear them out by clever strategy and maneuvering before suddenly falling on them when they had already began to break up for want of an actual battle ? (Extended campaigns appear to have been a bit of a problem for the Celtic approach to war.) That's not the strategy you use with superior forces; it's a strategy you use when you think your troops can't be counted to win a straight-up fight.

Not having read Caesar I don't know the context, but it sounds like Ariovistus had to dance around massed Gallic fighting forces on several occasions like that - presumably several chieftains and communities and whatnots joining together to try to deal with him.

Watchman this isn't a dig against you, but what good is logic if you don't have the information to back it up?

When information is unavailable, what you fill the holes in with is logic. Hopefully, anyway. 'Cause the alternatives give worse results.