Ariovistus was the leader of the Germanic people of the Suevi, as described by Julius Caesar in the Gallic Wars.
In 75 BC. BC, the Germans finally arrived under the command of Ariovistus in the vicinity of Mogontiacum, where they crossed the Rhine towards Gaul. In 61 BC, at the call of their Sequani allies, the Suevi (perhaps even within a more general Germanic coalition) crossed the Rhine and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Aedui (representative of the "pro-Roman party "in independent Gaul) without Rome coming to the aid of the latter. Ariovistus then decides to establish his one hundred and twenty thousand men on a good third of the territory of his unfortunate Sequani allies (straddling the present-day Alsace and Franche-Comté), a decision he imposes on them by force at the battle of Admagetobriga . Wanting to spare its rather vulnerable northern border (Roman Italy then stops at the southern foot of the Alps and Roman Gaul at the height of Vienna), Rome salutes, in 59 BC (where Caesar is for the first time consul.. .), Ariovistus, still freshly executioner of his most faithful Aedui allies, with the title of "king and friend of the Roman people"!
Beaten and wounded during Caesar's first campaign (in 58 BC), thanks to a ruse (perceived as vicious even by the Romans) responding to the bad faith of the Suevian leader, Ariovistus returns to die in Germania.