the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred. Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero's camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero's aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar's troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar's forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar's troops entered Cicero's camp to find most of the men wounded. Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus's camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus's army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat. Caesar's revenge When the Roman senate heard what had happened, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine. They do not appear in Roman records after this point. Legacy Caesar wrote about Ambiorix in his commentary about his battles against the Gauls, De Bello Gallico. In this text he also famously wrote: "Of these [three regions], the Belgae are the bravest." ("... Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae ..."). Ambiorix remained a relatively obscure figure until the nineteenth century. The independence of Belgium in 1830 spurred a search for national heroes. In Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Ambiorix and his deeds were rediscovered. In 1841, the Belgian poet Joannes Nolet de Brauwere Van Steeland wrote a lyrical epic about Ambiorix. Furthermore, on September 5, 1866,