http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/13919
Actually, Metellus Celer was proconsul in Gaul in 63 BCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Caecilius_Metellus_Celer_(consul)
which means that Rome had friendly relations with Ariovistus in 63
BCE, which means that A. was not at war with the Aedui, the friends of
the Romans at that time.
DBG 1.44. Ariovistus says: "As for Caesar's saying that the Aedui had
been styled 'brethren' by the senate, he was not so uncivilized nor so
ignorant of affairs, as not to know that the Aedui in the very last
war with the Allobroges had neither rendered assistance to the Romans,
nor received any from the Roman people in the struggles which the
Aedui had been maintaining with him and with the Sequani."
'Quod fratres a senatu Haeduos appellatos diceret, non se tam barbarum
neque tam imperitum esse rerum ut non sciret neque bello Allobrogum
proximo Haeduos Romanis auxilium tulisse neque ipsos in iis
contentionibus quas Haedui secum et cum Sequanis habuissent auxilio
populi Romani usos esse.'
That would have been during their uprising under Catugnatus in 62 BCE.
At that time, then, the Aedui were 'Friends of the Roman People'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allobroges
Torsten