%
% Holmes' commentary on Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
% Introduction (preface 6).
%
% Contributor: Konrad Schroder <
[email protected]>
%
% Original publication data:
% Holmes, T. Rice. _C._Iuli_Caesaris_Comantarii_Rerum_in_
% _Gallia_Gestarum_VII_A._Hirti_Commentarius_VIII._
% Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914.
%
% Version: 0.01 (Alpha), 9 April 1993
%
% This file is in the Public Domain.
%
\input ks_macros.tex
\centerline{INTRODUCTION}
\bigskip
T{\sc HREE} centuries before the birth of Caesar, while patrician was still
struggling with plebeian, while both were still contending with rival
peoples for supremacy, the Gauls first encountered their destined
conquerors. For a generation or more, the Celtic wanderers, whose kinsmen
had already overflowed Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees, and passed into Britain
and into Ireland, had been pouring, in a resistless stream, down the passes
of the Alps. They spread over Lombardy. They drove the Etruscans from their
strongholds in the north. They crossed the Po, and pushed further and
further southward into Etruria itself. At length they overthrew a Roman
army in the battle of the Allia, and marched unopposed through the Colline
Gate. The story of the sack and burning of the city was noised throughout
the civilized world; yet the disaster itself, though it was never
forgotten, hardly affected the history of Rome. It probably tended to rivet
the bonds of union between her and the other cities of Latium, and to
strengthen her claim to supremacy in Italy. From time to time during the
next century the Gauls returned to plunder: but their incursions were
repelled; and the champion of Italian civilization was Rome.
But the Roman dread of the Gauls long remained; and more than once Rome's
enemies enlisted their services against her. In the last Samnite war
Samnites, Etruscans, and Gauls made a desperate effort to crush the rising
power; and after this attempt had been frustrated, the Etruscans once again
rose in revolt, and their Gallic mercenaries destroyed a Roman army under
the walls of Arretium. It was not until the Senones had in their turn been
defeated and expelled from Italy, and the Boi, who hastened to avenge them,
had been crushed near the Lake of Vadimo, that the republic was finally
released from the fear of Gallic invasion.
Years passed away. Rome became mistress of the peninsula, and determined
to vindicate her natural right to the rich plain on her own side of the
Alpine barrier The Gauls offered a strenuous resistance, and even assumed
the offensive. Reinforced by a swarm of freelances from the valley of the
upper Rh\^one, they boldly crossed the Apennines and plundered Etruria. The
Romans were taken by surprise: but in the great battle of Telamon they
checked the invasion; and within two years they fought their way to the
right bank of the Po. The Insubres on the northern side still held out: but
before the outbreak of the second Punic war Mediolanum, or Milan, their
chief stronghold, was captured; and the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona
were founded.
But the work of conquest was only half completed when Hannibal descended
into the plain, and the exasperated Gauls rallied round him. When Rome
emerged, victorious, from her great struggle, they knew what was in store
for them, and made a last attempt to win back their liberty. Placentia was
sacked, and Cremona was invested. The Roman army which marched to its
relief gained a victory, but was in its turn almost annihilated by the
Insubres. The Gauls, however, could never long act together: their
countrymen beyond the Alps gave them no help: the league of the northern
tribes was rent by discord and treachery; and the Insubres and Cenomani
were compelled to accept a peace, which allowed them indeed to retain their
constitution, but forbade them to acquire the Roman citizenship. South of
the Po the Boi strove frantically to hold their own: but in a series of
battles their fighting men were wellnigh exterminated: the Romans insisted
upon the cession of half their territory; and on both sides of the river
the survivors were gradually lost among Italian settlers.
Eastward and southward and westward the empire of the Romans spread. They
conquered Greece. They conquered Carthage. They conquered Spain. But
between the central and the western peninsula they had no means of
communication by land save what was afforded by the Greek colony of
Massilia. It was an entreaty from the Massiliots for protection that gave
occasion to the wars which resulted in the formation of the Province of
Transalpine Gaul; and the natural willingness of the Senate to support
their most faithful allies was doubtless stimulated by the desire to secure
possession of the indispensable strip of coast between the Alps and the
Pyrenees, partly also perhaps by the idea of creating a Greater Italy for
the growing Italian population. In 155 B.C. the Romans stepped forward as
the champions of Massilia against the Ligurian tribes between the Maritime
Alps and the Rh\^one. The highlanders who inhabited the mountains above the
Riviera were crushed in a single campaign; after an interval of thirty
years their western neighbours, the Salyes, were forced to submit; and
their Seaboard, like that of the other tribes, was given to the Massiliots.
But the Romans had come to stay. The Aedui, who dwelt in the Nivernais and
western Burgundy, calculated that the support of the republic would help
them to secure ascendancy over their rivals; and by a treaty, fraught with
unforeseen issues, they were recognized as Friends and Allies of the Roman
people. The Allobroges, on the other hand, whose home was between the Lake
of Geneva, the Rh\^one, and the Is\`ere, refused to surrender the king of
the Salyes, who had claimed their protection; and Bituitus, King of the
Arverni, with all the hosts of his dependent tribes, marched to support
them. Just twenty years before the birth of Caesar a great battle was
fought at the confluence of the Rh\^one and the Is\`ere.\footnote{$^1$}
{M.~Jullian (H.~G., iii, 17, n.~4), rejecting the tradition,
argues that the battle took place on the Rh\^one at Pont-St.
Esprit.}
The Gauls were beaten; and the bridges over the Rh\^one broke down beneath
the multitude of the fugitives.
This victory was, in the strictest sense, decisive. The Romans were now
masters of the lower Rh\^one; and if they were ever to penetrate into
Further Gaul, their base could be advanced some hundreds of miles. The
Arverni, whose power had extended to the Rhine and the Mediterranean, had
received a blow from which they never recovered.
The Province which was now formed stretched from the Maritime Alps to the
Rh\^one; but the frontier was rapidly extended until it ran along the
Cevennes and the river Tarn down into the centre of the Pyrenees. The
Gallic tribes were obliged to pay tribute and to furnish troops; and,
although, in accordance with Roman principles, they were permitted to
retain their own forms of government, their subjection was assured by the
construction of roads and fortresses. The heavy exactions of the
conquerors provoked frequent insurrections; but year by year the
Provincials became steadily Romanized. Roman nobles acquired estates in
the Province, and sent their stewards to manage them. Roman merchants
built warehouses and counting-houses in the towns; and the language and
civilization of Rome began to take root. Narbo with its spacious harbour
was not only a powerful military station, but in commerce the rival of
Massilia. Nor was the activity of the Romans confined to the Province
itself. Catamantaloedis, King of the Sequani, whose territory lay north of
the Allobroges, received from the Senate the title of Friend; and the same
honour was bestowed upon an Aquitanian noble and upon Ollovico, King of the
Nitiobroges, who ruled the upper valley of the Garonne. These distinctions
were doubtless prized as much by the Gallic chieftains as the title of
Knight Commander of the Star of India by an Indian prince of our own time.
For what services they were conferred, we do not know; but events were
already paving the way for the conquest of the great country that stretched
beyond the Rh\^one and the Cevennes to the Rhine and the Atlantic Ocean.
The aspect of the region was, of course, very different from that of the
beautiful France with which we are familiar. The land of gay cities, of
picturesque old towns dominated by awful cathedrals, of cornfields and
vineyards and sunny hamlets and smiling chateaux, was then covered in many
places by dreary swamps and darkened by huge forests. Gaul extended far
beyond the limits of modern France, including a large part of Switzerland,
Alsace, Lorraine, and the Rhenish Provinces, Belgium, and Southern Holland.
The people were divided into three groups, differing, so Caesar tells us,
in race, language, manners, and institutions. Between the Garonne and the
Pyrenees were the Aquitani. Northeast of the Seine and the Marne, in the
plains of Picardy, Artois, and Champagne, on the mist-laden flats of the
Scheldt and the lower Rhine and in the vast forest of the Ardennes, dwelt
the Belgae, who may have partially mixed and were continually at war with
their German neighbors. The lowlands of Switzerland, Alsace, Lorraine, and
part of the Rhenish Provinces, the great plains and the uplands of central
France, and the Atlantic seaboard, were occupied by the Celtae.
Modern science, however, has established a more precise classification.
During the last fifty years the classical texts, which were once the only
source of knowledge, have been supplemented by geological, archaeological,
and anthropological research; and it has become possible to reconstruct the
prehistory, the very existence of which had hardly been suspected, of every
European land. Skeletons have yielded information about the physical
characters of the people: their implements and weapons, their clothing and
ornaments, their art, and even their religion, have been revealed by relics
extracted from the hill-forts, and buried hoards. The Celts were but the
latest invaders of Gaul; and their life was profoundly influences by the
Ligurians, the Iberians, and the nameless tribes who, during countless
millenniums, had dwelt in Gaul before them. The earliest belonged to the
Quaternary Period, which included the Great Ice Age; and the time,
incalculably long, during which they and their fellows in Britain and on
the Continent existed, is known as the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone, Age.
They saw the volcanoes of Auvergne, which during countless centuries have
slumbered, belching forth flame and discharging lava; mammoths and
rhinoceroses, lions, bears, and hyenas, bisons, gluttons, wolves were their
fellows; and over the vast expanse of the forest-cumbered land, where they
roamed in quest of food, there was no sign, save their rude handiwork, that
they would rise superior to the beasts which the primitive savage regards
with mingled fear and veneration. Yet they buried their dead with
scrupulous care, sometimes placing tools beside them; and we may perhaps
infer that they fancied that the soul would still endure. These ancient
hunters were not all of one type. Men with low brutish foreheads and huge
beetling brows ranged over the whole country between Croatia and the river
Dordogne; gigantic skeletons have been found in the department of the
Dordogne and in the caves of Mentone; and before the end of the Quaternary
Period there were living in the caves of Laugerie-Basse and Chancelade a
people who, if we may judge from their well-formed and capacious skulls,
possessed an intellectual capacity not inferior to that of their modern
descendants. They have indeed left evidence of their powers; for late in
the Palaeolithic Age appeared the dawn of pictorial art. From the caves of
the Tarn-et-Garonne and the Dordogne have been recovered bones and antlers,
engraved or carved with likenesses of mammoths, reindeer, and other
animals, of fishes, and of men. Specimens of their work, which are
recognized by modern artists as true works of art, are preserved in the
museums of France; and reproductions have been published of frescoes with
which, by the dim light of their rude lamps, they covered the walls of
Pyrenean caves. The palaeolithic races had one feature in common: their
heads were long in proportion to their breadth; and the same characteristic
is found in the skulls of the slender stunted people of l'Homme Mort and
Baumes-Chaudes in the department of the Loz\`ere, who, though they were
descended from the older inhabitants, belonged to the Neolithic Age. These
peoples, who are called after the caverns in which the first specimens were
found, appear to have been diffused over the length and breadth of Gaul.
But as the new epoch advanced, new races began to appear; and the invaders,
who came from the east, and gradually mingled with the aborigines, were a
short but sturdy folk, characterized by great breadth of skull. The
palaeolithic hunters had been forced to wander in search of game: their
successors domesticated cattle and ultimately learned to till the soil.
Among them were some whose chiefs erected dolmens, or vast structures of
stone, to cover the sepulchres of their dead. Some are of enormous size,
and could only have been erected by the toil of multitudes, controlled and
organized by chiefs whose motive was to propitiate the spirits that they
believed to survive. At P\'erotte, in the department of the Charente, a
stone was set up which weighed forty tons and had been quarried twenty
miles away: the tumulus of Mont St.~Michel in the Morbihan is a veritable
hill, and contains more than forty thousand cubic yards of stone. The era
in which these monuments were constructed was marked by considerable
commercial activity; for some of them have yielded ornaments of a mineral
resembling turquoise, which must have been imported; amber beads had
already been conveyed from the Baltic by way of the Elbe, the Moldau, and
the Danube; and flint from the factory of the Grand-Pressigny in the
Indre-et-Loire was diffused as far as Switzerland.
Slowly, insensibly, civilization moved onward. There is evidence to show
that the Neolithic Age set in nearly ten millenniums before our era; the
Bronze Age, which succeeded it, began about 2000 {\sc B.~C.}; and it was
not until more than a thousand years had passed that the culture which
derives its name from the Tyrolese settlement of Hallstatt, and in which
bronze, as material for tools and weapons, gradually gave place to iron,
spread westward across the Rhine. The knowledge of metals penetrated into
Gaul by two routes, of which the starting-point was in the Aegean.
South-Eastern Gaul was served by a route that led through Central Europe;
Western Gaul borrowed from Spain. Although the memory of intertribal war is
preserved by earthworks and stone forts which, even in the Neolithic Age,
had been erected upon the hills, commerce, internal and external, advanced
with rapid strides. Forests were gradually cleared; and trackways were laid
out from village to village. Caravans began to cross the Alps from the
valley of the Po. Gold crescent-shaped ornaments, intended to be worn round
the neck, and fancifully decorated with geometrical figures, were brought
from Ireland; comparison of the types of pottery, of knives and axes,
razors and swords, of bracelets, pins, and brooches, shows that many were
derived from Italy and Germany; and before the end of the Hallstatt period
trade was established with the Greeks, while wine was imported and
distributed by the merchants of Massilia.
The earliest inhabitants of Gaul about whom history has anything to tell
were the Ligurians and Iberians, neither of whom are mentioned by Caesar.
According to the ancient geographers, the land which originally belonged to
the Ligurians was the mountainous tract between the Rh\^one, the Durance,
and the Cottian and Maritime Alps: but by the fifth century before Christ
they were mingled with Iberians on the west of the Rh\^one; and from the
evidence of certain geographical names as well as of archaeology, it would
seem that they once possessed the whole of Eastern Gaul as far north as the
Marne. The culture of this region in the Bronze Age differed from that of
the west, but closely resembled that of Northern Italy, where we know that
Ligurians lived. The vast number of sickles which have been discovered in
the south-east show that the Ligurians were industrious tillers of the
soil; and they may have been descended, at least in part, from Swiss
lake-dwellers of the Stone Age, who probably introduced cereals and
domestic animals into Gaul. The origin of the Iberians remains uncertain:
but when they came under the notice of the Greeks they occupied the eastern
part of Spain as well as the country between the Pyrenees and the Rh\^one;
and it should seem that they had crossed the Pyrenees and made conquests in
Aquitania as well as on the Mediterranean coast. There can be little doubt
that in the land which belonged to them, in Spain as well as in Southern
Gaul, there once existed, besides Celtic, at least two forms of
speech,---Basque and a language or languages, still undeciphered, in which
were engraven the so-called Iberian inscriptions. But if the Iberians were
not one race, the bulk of them were small and dark, and not unlike the
neolithic people of l'Homme Mort. In Caesar's time Liguria, as well as the
land of the Iberians, was also peopled by the descendants of Celtic
invaders. It was about the seventh century before the Christian era that
the tall fair Celts began to cross the Rhine, accompanied doubtless by the
descendants of aliens who had joined them during their long sojourn in
Germany. Successive swarms spread over the land, partly subduing and
mingling with the descendants of the palaeolithic peoples and of their
neolithic conquerors, partly perhaps driving them into the mountainous
tracts. Physically, they resembled the Germans whom Caesar and Tacitus
describe; but they differed from them in character and customs as well as
in speech. The Belgic Celts were the latest comers; and if Caesar was
rightly informed, the languages of the Belgae and the Celtae were distinct.
Of the modern Celtic dialects, Gaelic, which is spoken in the Highlands of
Scotland, Manx, and Erse, which is spoken in the west of Ireland, are
descended from an old Celtic language, called Goidelic; while Welsh and
Breton are traceable to the British language called Brythonic, which was
closely akin to Gaulish or Gallo-Brythonic. The difference between the
languages of the Belgae and the Celtae was probably slight; for if a
Goidelic dialect was spoken anywhere in Gaul, the vestiges of Gallic that
remain belong, for the most part, to the Brythonic branch of the Celtic
tongue. In Aquitania the natives remained comparatively pure, and formed a
separate group, which, in Caesar's time, stood politically apart from the
Celtae as well as from the Belgae. They are generally spoken of as an
Iberian people; but the name is misleading. The conquering Celts, as we may
infer from proper names, had advanced, though probably in small numbers,
beyond the Garonne; and evidence supplied by recent measurements of living
inhabitants appears to show that in certain parts of Aquitania the old
broad-headed element was considerable. But it is certain that the Celtic
language was not generally spoken in Aquitania; and the Iberian type was
sufficiently conspicuous to give some support to the popular theory.
Thus when Caesar entered Gaul, the groups whom he called Belgae, Celtae,
and Aquitani were each a medley of different races. The Belgae were the
purest and the least civilized of the three; and both in Belgic and in
Celtican Gaul the Celtic conquerors had imposed their language upon the
conquered peoples. Even in a political sense, the Belgae and the Celtae
were not separated by a hard and fast line; for the Celtican tribe of the
Carnutes was among the dependents of the Belgic Remi, while on the other
hand the Celtican Aedui claimed supremacy over the Belgic Bellovaci. But if
not scientifically complete, the grouping adopted by Caesar was sufficient
for the purpose of his narrative. Just as a modern conqueror, without
troubling himself about questions of ethnology, might say that the people
of Great Britain were composed of Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Welsh, so
Caesar divided the people of Gaul into Belgae, Celtae, and Aquitani.
Setting aside the Aquitani, of whom he had little to tell, the medley of
peoples whom he called `Galli' had probably so far coalesced that they had
acquired certain common traits of character. Perhaps when he described the
features of the Gallic temperament which had most impressed him in the
course of the war, he took little note of the lowest class, the cultivators
and the shepherds, who had not much to do with political life: but we can
hardly suppose that his remarks applied only to the ruling class or to the
purer Celts;\footnote{$^2$}
{See especially {\it B. G.,} ii, 1, \S 3; iii, 19, \S 6; iv, 5,
\S\S 2-3, 13, \S 3; vii, 20-1.}
and, guided by his observations, we cannot go far astray. The Gauls were an
interesting people, enthusiastic, impulsive, quick-witted, versatile,
vainglorious and ostentatious, childishly inquisitive and childishly
credulous, rash, sanguine, and inconstant, arrogant in victory and
despondent in defeat, submissive as women to their priests, impatient of
law and discipline, yet capable of loyalty to a strong and sympathetic
ruler.
The notices which Caesar and other writers have left of their civilization
have been supplemented by the evidence of archaeology. Five centuries
before the birth of Christ the culture of Hallstatt had given place to that
which takes its name from the village of La T\`ene, at the northern end of
the lake of Neuchatel, where, some sixty years ago, was discovered a
precious series of antiquities. The art, essentially Celtic, characterized
by the tasteful use of curves, which was practised in the design and
decoration of these objects, was in part an outgrowth of that of Hallstatt,
but also owed much to classical and even to oriental influences. Imported
into Britain by the Brythonic invaders, it there shook itself free from all
trammels, and attained an even higher level than in Gaul, culminating in
the graceful and exquisitely decorated shield of bronze and red enamel
which adorns the Central Saloon of our National Museum. Specialists have
determined three periods, known as La T\`ene I, II, and III, of which the
last began about forty years before the proconsulship of Caesar. By that
time the Gallic peoples had all risen far above the condition of
barbarians; while the Celticans of the interior had attained a certain
degree of civilization and even of luxury. Their trousers, from which the
Province took its name of Gallia Braccata, and their many-coloured tartan
shirts and cloaks excited the astonishment of their conquerors. The chiefs
wore rings and bracelets and necklaces of gold; and when those tall
fair-haired warriors rode forth to battle with their helmets wrought in the
shape of some fierce beast's head and surmounted by nodding plumes, their
chain armour, their long bucklers, and their clanking swords, they made a
splendid show. About fifty years before Caesar's time, war-chariots, which
had excited the astonishment of the Romans in the battle of Telamon, and
which were still used in Britain, had fallen into disuse, probably because
the wealthy natives had begun to import horses powerful enough for a charge
of cavalry; but from the older graves of the department of the Marne, which
have yielded numerous remains of these cars, bronze horse-trappings of most
delicate open-work and bronze flagons which had been fetched from Greece
have been unearthed. The arts of building and of fortification had made a
considerable advance. Walled towns or large villages, the strongholds of
the various tribes, were conspicuous on numerous hills. The plains were
dotted by scores of open hamlets. The houses, built of timber and
wattle-work, were large and well thatched. Tweezers and ornamented mirrors
of bronze lay on the tables of Gallic dames. Painted pottery, decorated
with spirals or symmetrical curves, was used everywhere, except,
apparently, in the remote north-western peninsula. The fields in summer
were yellow with corn. The vine was not yet cultivated: but the merchants
of Massilia imported wine from Italy; and wealthy Gauls would eagerly
barter a slave for a jar. Roads, suitable for wheeled traffic, ran from
town to town. Rude bridges spanned the rivers; and barges, laden with
merchandise, floated along them. Ships, clumsy indeed but larger than many
that were seen on the Mediterranean, braved the storms of the Bay of Biscay
and carried cargoes between the ports of Brittany and the coast of Britain.
Tolls were exacted on the goods which were transported on the great
water-ways; and it was from the farming of these dues that the nobles
derived a large part of their wealth. The Aeduans were familiar with the
art of enamelling. The miners of Aquitaine, of Auvergne, and of the Berri
were celebrated for their skill. Every tribe had its coinage; and the
knowledge of writing, in Greek and in Roman characters, was not confined to
the priests. Diodorus Siculus\footnote{$^3$}
{v, 28, \S 6.}
remarks that the Gauls threw letters, addressed to the dead, on to funeral
piles; and Caesar, after he had defeated the Helvetii, found in their
encampment a schedule, on which were recorded in Greek characters the names
of individuals, the number of emigrants capable of bearing arms, and the
numbers of old men, women, and children. It would seem, indeed, that some
knowledge of Latin had penetrated even to the rudest tribe of the
Belgae.\footnote{$^4$}
{On the other hand, it must be remembered that Caesar conversed
with Diviciacus through an interpreter ({\it B. G.,} i, 19, \S
3).}
When Caesar was marching to relieve Quintus Cicero, who was besieged by the
Nervii, he wrote to him in Greek characters, for fear the letter might be
intercepted and read. At an earlier time there were natives, at least in
the Province, who acquired a smattering of Greek. Rich enthusiasts resorted
to Massilia as a school of learning, and became so enamoured of Greek
culture that they wrote contracts in the language of their teachers. Indeed
in all that belonged to outward prosperity the peoples of Gaul had made
great strides since their kinsmen first came in contact with Rome; and the
enormous fortunes which Caesar and his staff amassed are evidence of their
wealth.
The coins which have just been mentioned require special notice; for none
of the antiquities of the Later Iron Age have thrown more light upon the
culture of the Gauls. The oldest were copied in the earlier half of the
third century before Christ from gold coins of Philip of Macedon, which had
been introduced through Massilia. For some time they bore no inscription,
except the name of Philip, more or less deformed; but about the middle of
the following century---more than a hundred years before the same change
was made in our island---they began to be stamped with the names of the
rulers by whom they were issued, among whom are to be recognized some who
have been commemorated by Caesar,---notably the great Vercingetorix, whose
coins are worth about fifty times their weight in gold. Greek characters
are sometimes quaintly jumbled with Latin, which gradually became familiar
after the Romans had established their footing in the land. Many Roman
coins, indeed, must have been circulated in Gaul after the colonization of
Narbo; and Roman influence is apparent on many Gallic coins, for example in
a figure of Pegasus, which appears on one that bears the name of Tasgetius,
King of the Carnutes. For many years gold coins were the only medium of
exchange; but, as commercial needs increased, silver and bronze passed
gradually into use, the coins of the latter metal being imitated from those
of Massilia, and, in the case of certain Belgic specimens, even from those
of Campania. The coins, indeed, illustrate not only the commerce of the
Gauls, but also their intertribal relations, their manners and customs, and
perhaps occasionally their religion. Thus, while the extreme rarity of
Arvernian coins in the great mart of Bibracte may perhaps be explained by
the traditional enmity between the Arverni and the Aedui, the discoveries
of British coins in Gaul and of Gallic coins in Britain attest the maritime
trade which Caesar notices; coins of Central Europe found as far west as
Saintonge and Gallic coins found in the Bohemian stronghold of Stradoni\'e
prove that the Gauls had intercourse with the valley of the Danube;
Massilian coins found in various parts of Gaul bear witness to the
enterprise of the Greek colony; and numerous hoards of silver coins of one
type, all of which have been found in the basin of the Garonne, confirm the
impression which we derive from the {\it Commentaries} that the relations
of Aquitania were mainly with Spain. Again, when we notice that horses and
swine are figured on Gallic coins more frequently than any other animals,
we are reminded of the passage\footnote{$^5$}
{{\it B.G.,} iv, 2, \S 2.}
in which Caesar observes that the Gauls imported well-bred horses at great
cost, and of the passage in which Strabo\footnote{$^6$}
{iv, 3, \S 2; 4, \S 3.}
speaks of the hams which the Sequani exported to Italy. Shields and
trumpets remind us of Diodorus's\footnote{$^7$}
{v, 30, \S\S 2-4.}
description of Gallic arms; and the lyre, which is figured on certain
coins, may represent the instrument with which the bards accompanied their
songs. It is remarkable that all the coins which have been found in the
great strongholds are of late date---not earlier than about a hundred years
before the Christian era---which tends to show that none had been founded
more than half a century before Caesar entered Gaul. Probably Avaricum,
Bibracte, Lutecia, and the other towns which he mentions were fortified
during the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutoni, which devastated Gaul
between 113 and 109 B.C.
Of all these towns the one which is best known to us was Bibracte,
described by Caesar as `by far the wealthiest and most important town of
the Aedui', which stood upon Mont Beuvray, a few miles west of Autun. If
Cicero had visited it he might perhaps have spoken with less disdain of the
urban life of the Gauls.\footnote{$^8$}
{See Cicero's speech, {\it De prov. cons.,} 12, \S 29,}
Streets, workshops, ramparts have been revealed by excavation. Fifteen
hundred coins, nine-tenths of which belonged to the period of independence,
testify to the manifold commercial relations of the inhabitants. The houses
show that the round conical wooden huts which Strabo described were only
the more primitive productions of Gaulish domestic architecture. Like them,
indeed, the houses at Bibracte were partly subterranean, this form having
been adopted as a precaution against cold on such a high altitude, and
probably, like the modern cottages of the Morvan, they were thatched with
straw; but their Shape was rectangular, they were built of stone compacted
with clay, and they were entered by an interior staircase. The crucibles,
moulds, and polishing-stones of enamel-workers, broken tools, brooches, and
pottery, all belong, like the coins, to the latest period of the Celtic
Iron Age. Besides these relics of native workmanship were painted vases,
imported from Italy, which Gallic artificers soon learned to imitate.
But the growth of material prosperity had not been matched by true national
progress. The Aquitani, indeed, the maritime tribes, and the Belgae were
untouched by foreign influences; but the Celticans of the interior had been
enfeebled by contact with Roman civilization. Much nonsense has been
written about the enervating effect of luxury. Its effect, however, when it
is suddenly introduced among a half-civilized people, is quite different
from its effect when it is a natural growth. The Gauls had lost the
strength of barbarism, and had not gained the strength of civilization.
They had once, as Caesar remarked,\footnote{$^9$}
{{\it B.G.,} vi, 24, \S 1.}
been more than a match for the Germans; but enervated by imported luxury,
and cowed by a succession of defeats, they no longer pretended to be able
to cope with them.
The reader will have gathered from the foregoing pages that neither the
Belgae, nor the Celtae, nor the Aquitani formed one state or even a
confederation: each of the three was a group of tribes, which Caesar called
{\it civitates.} The tribe was generally an aggregate, more or less
compact, of communities to which he gave the name of {\it pagi,} the
members of which had originally been related by blood or by near
neighbourhood; but it would seem that some of the smaller tribes consisted
each of one {\it pagus} only. Each {\it pagus,} under its own magistrate,
appears to have enjoyed a certain measure of independence, and to have
contributed its separate contingent to the tribal host. Each tribe had its
council, which Caesar called a senate, and had once had its king: but when
Caesar came to Gaul revolutionary forces were at work to which there were
analogies in the earlier history of Greece and Rome. Many of the states had
expelled their kings, whose authority had passed in some cases into the
hands of annually elected magistrates, while in others perhaps the council
kept the government to itself. A rule which prevailed among the Aedui
illustrates the anxiety which was felt lest monarchical power should
revive. In that state the chief magistrate, who was known as the Vergobret,
was forbidden to stir beyond the frontiers of the country, from which it
may be inferred that it was not lawful for him to command the host. The
executive was generally weak. Some of the smaller communities of which a
tribe was composed occasionally acted on their own account, in opposition
to the rest or to the policy of the tribal authorities. Like the
Anglo-Saxon thanes and the Norman barons, the nobles surrounded themselves
with retainers,---loyal followers or enslaved debtors; and none but those
who became their dependents could be sure of protection. On the other hand,
none but those who were strong enough to protect could be sure of
obedience. The oligarchies were no more secure than the monarchs whom they
had supplanted. These men or their descendants sullenly plotted for the
restoration of their dynasties, and, reckless of the common weal, they were
in the mood to court the aid even of a foreign conqueror, and to reign as
his nominees. Here and there some wealthy noble, like Pisistratus in
Athens, armed his retainers, hired a band of mercenaries, won the support
of the populace by eloquence and largess, and, overthrowing the feeble
oligarchy, usurped supreme power. Thus the oligarchies lived in perpetual
unrest: if no one noble was conspicuously strong, there was intestine
strife; if one could make himself supreme, the government was overthrown.
The populace were perhaps beginning to have some consciousness of their own
latent strength; but there is no evidence that anywhere they had any
definite political rights. The Druids and the nobles, or, as Caesar called
them, the knights, enjoyed a monopoly of power and consideration: the bulk
of the poorer freemen, ground down by taxation and strangled with debt, had
no choice but to become serfs.
And if in individual tribes there was anarchy, want of unity was the bane
of them all. It was not only that Belgian and Aquitanian and Celtican were
naturally distinct: the evil was more deeply seated. It is of course true
that disunion is the normal condition of half-civilized peoples. The Old
English tribes showed no genius for combination: it was the strong hand of
an Egbert, an Edgar, an Athelstan, that laid the foundations of the English
kingdom. Nor was the kingdom united, except in the loosest sense, even on
the eve of the Norman Conquest. If Harold was formally king over all
England, his subjects felt themselves Yorkshiremen or men of Kent rather
than Englishmen. Moreover, the circumstances of the Gauls were peculiarly
unfortunate. Their patriotism, if it was latent, was real: they were proud
of what their fathers had achieved in war; and the sense of nationality was
stirring in their hearts. Caesar himself allows that some of the tribes
were comparatively well governed;\footnote{$^{10}$}
{{\it B.G.,} vi, 20.}
and even clientship, which after all harassed our own government until
Henry the Seventh stamped it out, had its noble side. Who does not respect
the `six hundred devoted followers' of Adiatunnus,\footnote{$^{11}$}
{{\it Ib.} iii, 22.}
the four squires whom neither fear nor favour could induce to betray
Ambiorix,\footnote{$^{12}$}
{{\it Ib.} vi, 43, \S 6.}
and those attendants of Litaviccus who remembered that 'Gallic custom
brands it as shameful for retainers to desert their lords even when all is
lost'?\footnote{$^{13}$}
{{\it B.G.,} vii, 40, \S 7}
`If the Gauls had been unmolested or had been exposed to attack only from a
single enemy, it seems probable that, in the fullness of time, some great
ruler might have welded them into a united nation. But menaced as they were
by the Germans on one side and by the Romans on another, their tendency to
disunion was increased. And, though it is foolish to pass sweeping
judgements upon a people of whom, except during the few years that preceded
the loss of their independence, we have only the scantiest knowledge, it
would be a great mistake to leap to the conclusion that, in political
capacity, one race is as good as another. No one would deny that the Greeks
were endowed with a genius for art and literature which their environment
doubtless helped to develop; and it may be that the Celts were but poorly
endowed with political talent, and that circumstances had helped to stunt
its growth. The important fact is, explain it as we may, that the tribal
rulers of Gaul had not achieved even that first step towards unity which
the kings of Wessex achieved when they swallowed up the petty kingdoms of
the Heptarchy. Or perhaps it would be more true to say that, when the
Romans first established themselves on the west of the Alps, the Arvernian
king had achieved that step; but that first his defeat on the banks of the
Rh\^one, and afterwards the revolution which subverted the royal power, had
broken the ascendancy of his house and dealt a fatal blow to the political
development of Gaul. There, as in Latium, the downfall of the monarch
inevitably weakened the power of the tribe; and the oligarchies, if they
had the power, were not granted the time to work out their own salvation.
Individual tribes, such as the Aedui and the Arverni, did indeed achieve
some sort of supremacy over their weaker neighbours; and in certain cases
two tribes, for example the Senones and the Parisii, formed one state.
There were leagues of the Belgae, the Aquitani, and the maritime tribes.
But supremacy had not hardened into sovereignty; and the leagues were
loose, occasional, and uncertain. If some powerful baron, stimulated by
ambition or impressed by the evils of disunion, succeeded in clutching the
power of a Bretwalda,\footnote{$^{14}$}
{The king of one of the seven principal kingdoms of early English
history, if he was strong enough, exercised over the other kings
`an acknowledged, though probably not a very well-defined
supremacy'. See E. A. Freeman's {\it Norman Conquest of England,}
i, 1870, p.~27, 542-8.}
he was forthwith suspected by his brother nobles of a design to revive the
detested monarchy, and was lucky if he escaped the stake. The country
swarmed with outlawed criminals, who had fled from justice, and exiled
adventurers, who had failed to execute {\it coups d'etat.} Nobles and their
clients lived sword in hand; and hardly a year passed without some petty
war. Every tribe, every hamlet, nay, every household was riven by faction.
One was for the Romans and another for the Helvetii; one for the Aedui and
another for the Arverni; one for a Diviciacus and another for a Dumnorix;
one for the constitutional oligarchy and another for the lawless
adventurer. All, in short, were for a party; and none was for the state.
Yet, besides the memory of their glorious past, which, as Caesar once
remarked,\footnote{$^{15}$}
{{\it B.G.,} v, 54, \S 5.}
both saddened the Gauls and spurred them to desperate enterprises, there
were certain influences which tended to make every man feel that he and his
fellows belonged to one nation. If the French are the most united of all
peoples, they owe this fortune to their country, whose unifying tendency
has ever been the same. France, says Vidal de la Blache,\footnote{$^{16}$}
{E. Lavisse, {\it Hist. de la France,} t.~i, 1 (by P.~Vidal de la
Blache), pp.~49, 51---2; {\it Bull. de g\'eogr. hist et descr.,}
1902, pp.~119, 124.}
who of all geographers knows best how to make his readers feel the tie
between motherland and people,---France is a country whose regions are
naturally connected, and whose inhabitants learned early to mingle with and
to know one another. No country of equal extent comprises such diversities;
but they pass off into each other by insensible gradations. `There is ',
says this writer, `a beneficent force---a genius loci---which has guided
our national life,---an indefinable power which, without obliterating
varieties, has blended them in a harmonious whole.' The wayfarer who roams
from the sand-hills of the Channel to the mountains of Auvergne, from the
uplands of the Morvan to the plain of the Berri, conversing with peasant
and townsman in turn, who is touched by the spirit of prehistoric life
wafted from the rude stone monuments of Brittany and by the spirit of
imperial Rome which broods over the mediaeval glories of Bourges and over
that ancient town\footnote{$^{17}$}
{Alesia.}
which is being revealed by the excavator on Mont Auxois---who feels how one
influenced the other and both survive in our Mechanical Age---will
comprehend what the geographer means; and for him the tale which Caesar
told will become real.
And in Gaul, as in England before the Norman Conquest, there was another
influence which in some measure counteracted disunion,---community of
religious ideas, controlled by one ecclesiastical organization. Local
deities of course abounded: but the great gods whom Caesar noticed, however
variously they may have been conceived by various tribes, were common to
Gaul; while every rite and every sacrifice was recognized and regulated by
Druidism.\footnote{$^{18}$}
{See the notes on vi, 13---14, 17---18.}
But though religion might perhaps foster the idea, it could not supply the
instant need of political union. Over the vast wooded plains of Germany
fierce hordes were roaming, looking with hungry eyes towards the rich prize
that lay beyond the Rhine. Moreover, the danger of Gaul was the danger of
Italy. The invader who had been attracted by `the pleasant land of France'
would soon look southward over the cornfields, the vineyards, and the
olive-gardens of Lombardy. When Caesar was entering public life, men who
were not yet old could remember the terror which had been inspired by the
Cimbri and Teutoni,---those fair-haired giants who had come down, like an
avalanche, from the unknown lands that bordered on the northern sea. They
descended into the valley of the Danube. They overthrew a Roman consul in
Carinthia; crossed the Rhine and threaded the passes of the Jura; and
overran the whole of Celtican Gaul. Four years after their first victory
they defeated another consul in the Province. Then they vanished: but four
years later they reappeared; and two more armies were routed on the banks
of the Rh\^one. The panic-stricken Italians dreaded another Allia: but,
while Italy lay at their mercy, the Cimbri turned aside; and when, after
three years' wandering in Spain and Gaul, they rejoined the Teutoni, and
the two swarms headed for the south, Marius was waiting for them on the
Rh\^one, and his brother consul in Cisalpine Gaul. Once more the host
divided; and while the Teutoni encountered Marius, the Cimbri threaded the
Brenner Pass, and descended the valley of the Adige. The Teutoni were
destroyed in the neighbourhood of Aix; the Cimbri at Vercellae, near the
confluence of the Sesia and the Po.
But if this danger had been averted, the movements of the other German
peoples might well cause anxiety. A bitter enmity had for many years
existed between the Aedui and the Arverni, each of whom were overlords of a
group of tribes. The Arverni, in conjunction with the Sequani, hired the
aid of a German chieftain, Ariovistus, who crossed the Rhine with fifteen
thousand men. They were enchanted with the country, its abundance, and its
comparative civilization; and fresh swarms were attracted by the good news.
After a long struggle the Aedui were decisively beaten, and had to cede
territory and give hostages to the Sequani, who apparently usurped the
supremacy which had been exercised by the Arverni. One of the leading
Aeduans, the famous Druid, Diviciacus, went to Rome and implored the Senate
for help. His aim was not merely to get rid of Ariovistus and to free his
country from the yoke of the Sequani, but also to regain his own influence,
which had been eclipsed by that of his younger brother, Dumnorix. He was
treated with marked distinction, made the acquaintance of Caesar, and
discussed religion and philosophy with Cicero; but the Senate did not see
their way to interfere on his behalf. All that they did was to pass a vague
decree that whoever might at any time be Governor of the Province should,
as far as might be consistent with his duty to the republic, make it his
business to protect the Aedui and the other allies of the Roman
people.'\footnote{$^{19}$}
{I agree with Long ({\it D.R.R.,} iii, 477) that the senatorial
decree was aimed against Ariovistus, for there is no evidence
that the Helvetii entered Gaul before 60 {\sc B.C.}}
Meanwhile the Sequani had found that their ally was their master. He was
not going to return to the wilds of Germany when he could get a rich
territory for the asking. He compelled the Sequani to cede to him the
fertile plain of Alsace. At length they and their Gallic allies, including,
as it should seem, even the Aedui, mustered all their forces and made a
desperate effort to throw off the yoke: but they sustained a crushing
defeat; and their conqueror was evidently determined to found a German
kingdom in Gaul.
Meanwhile the Allobroges, who had never yet fairly accepted their dependent
condition, had risen in revolt. They were still embittered by defeat when
the Roman agents in the Province were alarmed by the appearance of bands of
marauders on the right bank of the Rh\^one. They had been sent by the
Helvetii, a warlike Celtic people, who dwelt in that part of Switzerland
which lies between the Rhine, the Jura, the Lake of Geneva, and the Upper
Rh\^one. The Romans had already felt the weight of their arms. A generation
before, the Tigurini, one of the four Helvetian tribes, had thrown in their
lot with the Cimbri. They had spread desolation along the valley of the
Rh\^one, defeated a consular army, and compelled the survivors to pass
under the yoke. Now, in their turn, they were hard pressed by the Germans;
they had reason to fear that the victorious host of Ariovistus would sever
them from their Celtic kinsmen; and they had formed the resolution of
abandoning their country and seeking a new home in the fertile land of
Gaul.
The author of the movement was Orgetorix, the head of the Helvetian
baronage. His story throws a vivid light upon the condition of the Gallic
tribes. He persuaded his brother nobles that they would be able to win the
mastery over Gaul, and undertook a diplomatic mission to the leading
Transalpine states. Two chiefs were ready to listen to him, Casticus, whose
father had been the last king of the Sequani, and Dumnorix, brother of
Diviciacus, who was at that time the most powerful chieftain of the Aedui.
If Diviciacus saw the salvation of his country in dependence upon Rome, his
brother regarded the connexion with abhorrence. He was able, ambitious, and
rich; and the common people adored him. Orgetorix urged him and Casticus to
seize the royal power in their respective states, as he intended to do in
his, and promised them armed support. The three entered into a formal
compact for the conquest and partition of Gaul; and, if they had any aim
beyond their own aggrandizement, they may have hoped that their success
would not only checkmate Ariovistus, but stop the anarchy which paralysed
their country and avert the encroachments of Rome. Their purpose threatened
the republic with a twofold danger. Once they had gone, the lands which
they left vacant would be overrun by the Germans, who would then be in
dangerous proximity to Italy; and there was no telling what mischief they
might do in Gaul. Above the din of party strife at Rome the note of warning
was heard. Men talked anxiously of the prospects of war; and the Senate
sent commissioners to dissuade the Gallic peoples from joining the
invaders. But the ambitious triumvirate had still to reckon with the
Helvetii. They heard that their envoy had broken his trust, and immediately
recalled him to answer for his conduct. He knew that if he were found
guilty, he would be burned alive; and accordingly, when he appeared before
his judges, he was followed by his retainers and slaves, numbering over ten
thousand men. The magistrates, determined to bring him to justice, called
the militia to arms; but in the meantime the adventurer died, perhaps by
his own hand.
But the idea which he had conceived did not die. The Helvetii had no
intention of abandoning their enterprise, nor Dumnorix of abandoning his.
He had married a daughter of Orgetorix; and he was quite ready to help them
if they would make it worth his while. They resolved to spend two years in
preparing for their emigration; bought up wagons and draught cattle; and
laid in large supplies of corn. But in Italy there was a statesman ready to
checkmate them.
One of the consuls for the year 59 was Julius Caesar. About the time of the
election Ariovistus, who had already paid court to Caesar's predecessor,
Metellus, made overtures for an alliance with Rome; and doubtless with the
object of securing his neutrality in view of the threatened Helvetian
invasion, the Senate conferred upon him the title of Friend of the Roman
People. They had already half promised to protect their Gallic allies. They
now practically guaranteed to the conqueror of those allies the security of
his conquest. And in this latter policy Caesar, if we may believe his own
word,\footnote{$^{20}$}
{{\it B.G.,} i, 33, \S 1; 35, \S 1; 43, \S 4.}
fully concurred. He must have seen the impending troubles. But he was not
yet free to encounter them; and he doubtless approved of any expedient for
keeping the barbarian chief inactive until he could go forth in person to
confront him. That time was at hand. In the year of his consulship Caesar
was made Governor of Illyricum, or Dalmatia, and of Gaul, that is to say of
Gallia Cisalpina, or Piedmont and the Plain of Lombardy, and of Gallia
Braccata, or, as it was usually called, the Province. If
Suetonius\footnote{$^{21}$}
{{\it Divus Iulius,} 22.}
was rightly informed, his commission gave him the right to include Gallia
Comata---`the land of the long-haired Gauls'---that is to say the whole of
independent Gaul north of the Province, within his sphere of
action.\footnote{$^{22}$}
{It has been objected (Athenaeum, Jan. 13, 1900, p. 42) that `in
another passage (Gram., c. 3) Suetonius applies the expression
``Gallia Comata'' to a portion [only] of Transalpine Gaul'.
Suetonius (ed. C.~L.~Roth, p. 289, l. 23) there says that
`Munatius Plancus, when he was governor of Gallia Comata, founded
Lugdunum ({\it Munatius Plancus, cum Galliam regeret Comatam,
Lugdunum condidit}), which surely does not prove that the
Province could properly be called Gallia Comata. Still Suetonius
may have used the expression incorrectly.}
As he assumed the responsibility of invading Britain also, it may be well
to say a few words about the people whom he found there. The primitive life
of Britain, in its main features, though more backward, was not very
different from that of Gaul; and from an early period there was intercourse
between the two. Britain, like Gaul, had its Stone Age, its Bronze Age, its
Early Iron Age. Its earlier inhabitants, like those of Gaul, were conquered
by Celts, the latest hordes of whom were Belgae. Druidism flourished in
Britain: the Britons worshipped gods who were also Gallic; and we have seen
that trade was carried on across the Channel. But even in Caesar's time the
Britons lagged behind their continental kinsmen. Though in the social and
the political conditions, the manners and customs of the two countries
there were many points of resemblance, in Britain there is no sign that
either oligarchy or tyranny had yet anywhere supplanted monarchy.
Caesar's appointment carried with it the command of an army consisting of
four legions, perhaps about twenty thousand men. One of them was quartered
in the Province: the other three were at Aquileia, near the site of the
modern Trieste. He could also command the services of slingers from the
Balearic Isles, of archers from Numidia and Crete, and of cavalry from
Spain; but, as his own narrative will show, he raised the bulk of his
cavalry year by year in Gaul itself. The number of the auxiliary infantry
was perhaps generally about one-tenth of that of the regulars; the number
of the cavalry varied greatly, but four hundred for each legion was near
the average. Various military reforms had keen introduced by Marius; and
the legions of Caesar were, in many respects, different from those which
had fought against Hannibal. They were no longer a militia, but an army of
professional soldiers. Each legion consisted of ten cohorts; and the
cohort, formed of three maniples or six centuries, had replaced the maniple
as the tactical Unit of the legion. From the earliest times the legion had
been commanded by an officer called a military tribune. Six were assigned
to each legion; and each one of the number held command in turn. But they
now often owed their appointments to interest rather than to merit; and no
tribune in Caesar's army was ever placed at the head of a legion. They
still had administrative duties to perform, and exercised subordinate
commands. But the principal officers were the {\it legati}, who might
loosely be called generals of division. Their powers were not strictly
defined, but varied according to circumstances and to the confidence which
they deserved. A {\it legatus} might he entrusted with the command of a
legion or of an army corps; he might even, in the absence of his chief, be
entrusted with the command of the entire army. But he was not yet, as such,
the permanent commander of a legion. The officers upon whom the efficiency
of the troops mainly depended were the centurions. They were chosen from
the ranks; and their position has been roughly compared with that of our
own non-commissioned officers. But their duties were, in some respects, at
least as responsible as those of a captain: the centurions of the first
cohort were regularly summoned to councils of war; and the chief centurion
of a legion was actually in a position to offer respectful suggestions to
the legate himself. Every legion included in its ranks a number of skilled
artisans, called {\it fabri,} who have been likened to the engineers in a
modern army; but they were not permanently enrolled in a separate corps.
They fought in the ranks like other soldiers; but when their special
services were required, they were directed by staff-officers called {\it
praefecti fabrum.} It was their duty to execute repairs of every kind, to
superintend the construction of permanent camps, and to plan fortifications
and bridges; and it should seem that they also had charge of the
artillery,---the {\it ballistae} and catapults, which hurled heavy stones
and shot arrows against the defences and the defenders of a besieged town.
The legionary wore a sleeveless woollen shirt, a leathern tunic protected
across breast and back by bands of metal, strips of cloth wound round the
thighs and legs, hobnailed shoes, and, in cold or wet weather, a kind of
blanket or military cloak. His defensive armour consisted of helmet,
shield, and greaves: his weapons were a short, two-edged, cut-and-thrust
sword and a javelin, the blade of which, behind the hardened point, was
made of soft iron, so that, when it struck home, it might bend and not be
available for return. These, however, formed only a part of the load which
he carried on the march. Over his left shoulder he bore a pole, to which
were fastened in a bundle his ration of grain, his cooking vessel, saw,
basket, hatchet, and spade. For it was necessary that he should be a
woodman and navvy as well as a soldier. No Roman army ever halted for the
night without constructing a camp fortified with trench, rampart, and
palisade.
The column was of course accompanied by a host of non-combatants. Each
legion required at least five or six hundred horses and mules to carry its
baggage;\footnote{$^{23}$}
{Caesar nowhere mentions that he used wagons or carts during the
Gallic war, though it seems certain that he must have used some,
to carry artillery and material for mantlets and the like. See
{\it Bell. Afr.,} 9, \S 1; {\it B.C.,} iii, 42, \S 4. The larger
pieces of artillery were of course not conveyed entire, but in
parts, which were put together as occasion required.}
and the drivers, with the slaves who waited on the officers, formed a
numerous body. Among the camp-followers were also dealers who supplied the
wants of the army, and were ready to buy booty of every
kind.\footnote{$^{24}$}
{There is no evidence that there was any medical staff in
Caesar's army or under the republic at all, though it may perhaps
be inferred from a passage in Suetonius ({\it Divus Augustus,}
11) that wealthy officer were attended by their private surgeons.
Moreover, as Long remarks ({\it D.R.R.,} ii, 19), `it is hardly
possible that there were no surgeons or physicians in a Roman
army [in Caesar's time] when they were employed to look after the
health and wounds of gladiators.'}
What line of policy Caesar intended to follow, he has not told us. While he
was going forth to govern a distant land, the government of his own was
lapsing into anarchy. He must have seen that the Germans would soon overrun
Gaul unless the Romans prevented them; and that the presence of the Germans
would revive the peril from which Marius had delivered Rome. We may feel
sure that he had determined to teach them, by a rough lesson if necessary,
that they must advance no further into Gaul, nor venture to cross the
boundaries of the Province or of Italy. Confident in himself and supported
by his fellow triumvirs, Pompey and Crassus, he was prepared to act without
waiting for senatorial sanction; and it can hardly be doubted that he
dreamed of adding a new province to the empire, which should round off its
frontier and add to its wealth. But whether he had definitely resolved to
attempt a conquest of such magnitude, or merely intended to follow, as they
appeared, the indications of fortune, it would be idle to conjecture. The
greatest statesman is, in a sense, an opportunist. When Caesar should find
himself in Gaul, he would know best how to shape his ends.
\bye
