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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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HISTORY OF JULIUS CAESAR VOLUME 2 OF 2
Napoleon III
PAPHOS PUBLISHERS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
JULIUS CÆSAR.
BOOK III. THE WARS IN GAUL, AFTER THE “COMMENTARIES.”
CHAPTER I. POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE GALLIC WAR.
CHAPTER II. STATE OF GAUL IN THE TIME OF CÆSAR.
CHAPTER III. CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII. (Year of Rome 696.) (Book I. of the “Commentaries.”)
CHAPTER IV. CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARIOVISTUS. (Year of Rome 696.) (Book I. of the “Commentaries.”)
CHAPTER V. WAR AGAINST THE BELGÆ. (Year of Rome 697.) (Book II. of the “Commentaries.”)
CHAPTER VI. (Year of Rome 698.) (Book III. of the “Commentaries.”) WAR OF THE VENETI—VICTORY OVER THE UNELLI—SUBMISSION OF AQUITAINE—MARCH AGAINST THE MORINI AND THE MENAPII.
CHAPTER VII. (Year of Rome 699.) (Book IV of the “Commentaries.”) INCURSIONS OF THE USIPETES AND THE TENCTERI—FIRST PASSAGE OF THE RHINE—FIRST DESCENT IN BRITAIN—CHASTISEMENT OF THE MORINI AND THE MENAPII.
CHAPTER VIII (Year of Rome 700.) (Book V. of the “Commentaries.”) MARCH AGAINST THE TREVIRI—SECOND DESCENT IN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER IX. (Year of Rome 701.) (Book VI. of the “Commentaries.”) CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE NERVII AND THE TREVIRI—SECOND PASSAGE OF THE RHINE—WAR AGAINST AMBIORIX AND THE TREVIRI.
CHAPTER X. (Year of Rome 702.) (Book VII. of the “Commentaries.”) REVOLT OF GAUL—CAPTURE OF VELLAUNODUNUM, GENABUM, AND NOVIODUNUM—SIEGES OF AVARICUM AND GERGOVIA—CAMPAIGN OF LABIENUS AGAINST THE PARISII—SIEGE OF ALESIA.
CHAPTER XI. (Year of Rome 703.) (Book VIII.[540] of the “Commentaries.”)
BOOK IV. RECAPITULATION OF THE WAR IN GAUL, AND RELATION OF EVENTS AT ROME FROM 696 TO 705.
CHAPTER I. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 696.
CHAPTER II. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 697.
CHAPTER III. EVENTS IN ROME DURING THE YEAR 698.
CHAPTER IV. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 699.
CHAPTER V. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 700
CHAPTER VI. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 701.
CHAPTER VII. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 702.
CHAPTER VIII. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.
CHAPTER IX. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 704.
CHAPTER X. EVENTS OF THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR 705.
APPENDIX A. CONCORDANCE OF DATES OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR WITH THE JULIAN STYLE, FOR THE YEARS OF ROME 691-709.
APPENDIX B. CONCORDANCE OF ROMAN AND MODERN HOURS, For the Year of Rome 699 (55 B.C.) and for the Latitude of Paris.
APPENDIX C. NOTE ON THE ANCIENT COINS COLLECTED IN THE EXCAVATIONS AT ALISE.
APPENDIX D. NOTICE ON CÆSAR’S LIEUTENANTS.
FOOTNOTES:
History of Julius Caesar Volume 2 of 2
By Napoleon III
VOL. II.
THE WARS IN GAUL.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1866.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE.
IT is, perhaps, not without interest, in publishing the second volume of the History of Julius Cæsar, written by the Emperor Napoleon III., to call to memory the names of Sovereigns and Princes who have employed themselves upon the same subject.
The King of France, Charles VIII., showed an especial admiration for the Commentaries of Cæsar, and the celebrated monk, Robert Gaguin, presented to him, in 1480, the translation he had made in French of the eight books of the War in Gaul. We are informed of this in the edition of the translation by the learned monk, printed in 1500. This edition, in large 4to, is from the press of Antoine Verard. (See J. Ch. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire et de l’Amateur de Livres, fourth edition, tom. I., p. 518, and the Biographie Universelle, article Charles VIII.)
Charles V., who professed a great admiration for Cæsar, left a copy of the Commentaries filled with marginal notes, written with his own hand. It was at his instigation that the Viceroy of Sicily, Ferdinand Gonzaga, sent a scientific mission into France to study Cæsar’s campaigns on the localities. The forty plans which were made by the members of this commission, and among which that of Alise is found, were published in 1575, in the edition of James Strada.
The Sultan Soliman II., contemporary of Charles V., whom he had taken for his model, sent through all Europe to procure as many copies of Cæsar’s Commentaries as could be found, which he ordered to be collated, and caused a translation to be made into the Turkish language for his own daily reading.
The King of France, Henri IV., translated the two first books of Cæsar’s Commentaries. The manuscript of this translation was deposited in the Bibliothèque du Roi, and M. des Noyers took it thence to deliver it to Louis XIII., who, in his turn, translated the two last books of the Commentaries. These two translations were joined together, and printed at the Louvre in 1630.
Louis XIV. translated the first book of the Commentaries. His translation was printed at Paris in 1651, in folio, with figures. This work has not been reprinted; it is now very rare. The reader may consult on this subject the Méthode d’étudier l’Histoire of the Abbé Lenglet-Dufresnoy, tom. II., p. 481; and J. Ch. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire et de l’Amateur de Livres, fourth edition, tom. I., p. 519.
The great Condé, who had studied with care the campaigns of Cæsar, encouraged the translation of the Commentaries undertaken by Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt; it was the translation most esteemed and the most in vogue during the last century.
Christina, Queen of Sweden, had composed Reflections on the Life and Actions of Cæsar, as we are informed by J. Arckenholz in his work entitled Mémoires concernant Christine, Reine de Suède, Amsterdam, 1751-1760, tom. IV., No. 6, p. 4.
Louis Philippe Joseph d’Orléans, surnamed Egalité, was a great reader of the Commentaries. He caused a map of Cæsar’s campaigns in Gaul to be made.
Lastly, the Emperor Napoleon I., at St. Helena, dictated a Précis des Guerres de César to Comte Marchand, who published it in Paris in 1836, in 8vo.
JULIUS CÆSAR.
BOOK III. THE WARS IN GAUL, AFTER THE “COMMENTARIES.”
CHAPTER I. POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE GALLIC WAR.
I. THERE ARE PEOPLES WHOSE existence in the past only reveals itself by certain brilliant apparitions, unequivocal proofs of an energy which had been previously unknown. During the interval their history is involved in obscurity, and they resemble those long-silent volcanoes, which we should take to be extinct but for the eruptions which, at periods far apart, occur and expose to view the fire which smoulders in their bosom. Such had been the Gauls.
The accounts of their ancient expeditions bear witness to an organisation already powerful, and to an ardent spirit of enterprise. Not to speak of migrations which date back perhaps nine or ten centuries before our era, we see, at the moment when Rome was beginning to aim at greatness, the Celts spreading themselves beyond their frontiers. In the time of Tarquin the Elder (Years of Rome, 138 to 176), two expeditions started from Celtic Gaul: one proceeded across the Rhine and Southern Germany, to descend upon Illyria and Pannonia (now Western Hungary); the other, scaling the Alps, established itself in Italy, in the country lying between those mountains and the Po.[1] The invaders soon transferred themselves to the right bank of that river, and nearly the whole of the territory comprised between the Alps and the Apennines took the name of Cisalpine Gaul. More than two centuries afterwards, the descendants of those Gauls marched upon Rome, and burnt it all but the Capitol.[2] Still a century later (475), we see new bands issuing from Gaul, reaching Thrace by the valley of the Danube,[3] ravaging Northern Greece, and bringing back to Toulouse the gold plundered from the Temple of Delphi.[4] Others, arriving at Byzantium,[5] pass into Asia, establish their dominion over the whole region on this side Mount Taurus, since called Gallo-Græcia, or Galatia, and maintain in it a sort of military feudalism until the time of the war of Antiochus.[6]
These facts, obscure as they may be in history, prove the spirit of adventure and the warlike genius of the Gaulish race, which thus, in fact, inspired a general terror. During nearly two centuries, from 364 to 531, Rome struggled against the Cisalpine Gauls, and more than once the defeat of her armies placed her existence in danger. It was, as it were, foot by foot that the Romans effected the conquest of Northern Italy, strengthening it as they proceeded by the establishment of colonies.
Let us here give a recapitulation of the principal wars against the Gauls, Cisalpine and Transalpine, ich have already been spoken of in the first volume of the present work. In 531 the Romans took the offensive, crossed the Po, and subjugated a great part of the Cisalpine. But hardly had the north of Italy been placed under the supremacy of the Republic, when Hannibal’s invasion (536) caused anew an insurrection of the inhabitants of those countries, who helped to increase the numbers of his army; and even when that great captain was obliged to quit Italy, they continued to defend their independence during thirty-four years. The struggle, renewed in 554, ended only in 588, for we will not take into account the partial insurrections which followed. During this time, Rome had not only to combat the Cisalpines, assisted by the Gauls from beyond the Alps, but also to make war upon the men of their race in Asia (565) and in Illyria. In this last-mentioned province the colony of Aquileia was founded (571), and several wild tribes of Liguria, who held the defiles of the Alps, were subjugated (588).
II. In 600, the Romans, called to the assistance of the Greek town of Marseilles, which was attacked by the Oxybii and the Deciates, Ligurian tribes of the Maritime Alps,[7] for the first time carried their arms to the other side of the Alps. They followed the course of the Corniche, and crossed the Var; but it took, according to Strabo, a struggle of eighty years before they obtained from the Ligures an extent of twelve stadia (2•22 kils.), a narrow passage on the coast of the sea, to enable them to pass through Gaul into Spain.[8] Nevertheless, the legions pushed their encroachments between the Rhone and the Alps. The conquered territory was given to the people of Marseilles, who soon, attacked again by the peoples of the Maritime Alps, implored a second time the support of Rome. In 629, the Consul M. Fulvius Flaccus was sent against the Salluvii; and, three years afterwards,[9] the proconsul C. Sextius Calvinus drove them back far from the sea-coast, and founded the town of Aix (Aquæ Sextiæ).[10]
The Romans, by protecting the people of Marseilles, had extended their dominion on the coast; by contracting other alliances, they penetrated into the interior. The Ædui were at war with the Allobroges and the Arverni. The proconsul Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus united with the former, and defeated the Allobroges, in 633, at Vindalium, on the Sorgue (Sulgas), not far from the Rhone. Subsequently, Q. Fabius Maximus, grandson of Paulus Æmilius, gained, at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone, a decisive victory over the Allobroges, and over Bituitus, king of the Arverni. By this success Q. Fabius gained the surname of Allobrogicus.[11] The Arverni pretended to be descendants of the Trojans, and boasted a common origin with the Romans;[12] they remained independent, but their dominion, which extended from the banks of the Rhine to the neighbourhood of Narbonne and Marseilles, was limited to their ancient territory. The Ruteni, who had been their allies against Fabius, obtained similarly the condition of not being subjected to the Roman power, and were exempted from all tribute.[13]
In 636, the Consul Q. Marcius Rex founded the colony of Narbo Marcius, which gave its name to the Roman province called Narbonensis.[14]
The movement which had long thrust the peoples of the north towards the south had slackened during several centuries, but in the seventh century of the foundation of Rome it seems to have re-commenced with greater intensity than ever. The Cimbri and the Teutones,[15] after ravaging Noricum and Illyria, and defeating the army of Papirius Carbo sent to protect Italy (641), had marched across Rhætia, and penetrated by the valley of the Rhine to the country of the Helvetii. They drew with them a part of that people, spread into Gaul, and for several years carried there terror and desolation. The Belgæ alone offered a vigorous resistance. Rome, to protect her province, sent against them, or against the tribes of the Helvetii, their allies, five generals, who were successively vanquished: the Consul M. Junius Silanus, in 645; M. Aurelius Scaurus, in 646; L. Cassius Longinus, in 647;[16]lastly, in the year 649, the proconsul Q. Servilius Cæpio[17] and Cn. Manlius Maximus. The two last each lost his army.[18] The very existence of Rome was threatened.
Marius, by the victories gained at Aix over the Teutones (652), and at the Campi Raudii, not far from the Adige, over the Cimbri (653), destroyed the barbarians and saved Italy.
The ancients often confounded the Gauls with the Cimbri and Teutones; sprung from a common origin, these peoples formed, as it were, the rear-guard of the great army of invasion which, at an unknown epoch, had brought the Celts into Gaul from the shores of the Black Sea. Sallust[19] ascribes to the Gauls the defeats of Q. Cæpio and Cn. Manlius, and Cicero[20] designates under the same name the barbarians who were destroyed by Marius. The fact is that all the peoples of the north were always ready to unite in the same effort when it was proposed to throw themselves upon the south of Europe.
From 653 to 684, the Romans, occupied with intestine wars, dreamt not of increasing their power beyond the Alps; and, when internal peace was restored, their generals, such as Sylla, Metellus Creticus, Lucullus, and Pompey, preferred the easy and lucrative conquests of the East. The vanquished peoples were abandoned by the Senate to the exactions of governors, which explains the readiness with which the deputies of the Allobroges entered, in 691, into Catiline’s conspiracy; fear led them to denounce the plot, but they experienced no gratitude for their revelations.[21]
The Allobroges rose, seized the town of Vienne,[22] which was devoted to the Romans, and surprised, in 693, Manlius Lentinus, lieutenant of C. Pomptinus, governor of the Narbonnese. Nevertheless, some time after, the latter finally defeated and subdued them. “Until the time of Cæsar,” says Cicero, “our generals were satisfied with repelling the Gauls, thinking more of putting a stop to their aggressions than of carrying the war among them. Marius himself did not penetrate to their towns and homes, but confined himself to opposing a barrier to these torrents of peoples which were inundating Italy. C. Pomptinus, who suppressed the war raised by the Allobroges, rested after his victory. Cæsar alone resolved to subject Gaul to our dominion.”[23]
III. It results from this summary of facts that the constant thought of the Romans was, during several centuries, to resist the Celtic peoples established on either side of the Alps. Ancient authors proclaim aloud the fear which held Rome constantly on the watch. “The Romans,” says Sallust, “had then, as in our days, the opinion that all other peoples must yield to their courage; but that with the Gauls it was no longer for glory, but for safety, that they had to fight.”[24] On his part, Cicero expresses himself thus: “From the beginning of our Republic, all our wise men have looked upon Gaul as the most redoubtable enemy of Rome. But the strength and multitude of those peoples had prevented us until now from combating them all.”[25]
In 694, it will be remembered, rumours of an invasion of the Helvetii prevailed at Rome. All political pre-occupation ceased at once, and resort was had to the exceptional measures adopted under such circumstances.[26] In fact, as a principle, whenever a war against the Gauls was imminent, a dictator was immediately nominated, and a levy en masse ordered. From that time no one was exempted from military service; and, as a provision against an attack of those barbarians, a special treasure had been deposited in the Capitol, which it was forbidden to touch except in that eventuality.[27] Accordingly, when, in 705, Cæsar seized upon it, he replied to the protests of the tribunes that, since Gaul was subjugated, this treasure had become useless.[28]
War against the peoples beyond the Alps was thus, for Rome, the consequence of a long antagonism, which must necessarily end in a desperate struggle, and the ruin of one of the two adversaries. This explains, at the same time, both Cæsar’s ardour and the enthusiasm excited by his successes. Wars undertaken in accord with the traditional sentiment of a country have alone the privilege of moving deeply the fibre of the people, and the importance of a victory is measured by the greatness of the disaster which would have followed a defeat. Since the fall of Carthage, the conquests in Spain, in Africa, in Syria, in Asia, and in Greece, enlarged the Republic, but did not consolidate it, and a check in those different parts of the world would have diminished the power of Rome without compromising it. With the peoples of the North, on the contrary, her existence was at stake, and upon her reverses equally as upon her successes depended the triumph of barbarism or civilisation. If Cæsar had been vanquished by the Helvetii or the Germans, who can say what would have become of Rome, assailed by the numberless hordes of the North rushing eagerly upon Italy?
And thus no war excited the public feeling so intensely as that of Gaul. Though Pompey had carried the Roman eagles to the shores of the Caspian Sea, and, by the tributes he had imposed on the vanquished, doubled the revenues of the State, his triumphs had only obtained ten days of thanksgivings. The Senate decreed fifteen,[29] and even twenty,[30] for Cæsar’s victories, and, in honour of them, the people offered sacrifices during sixty days.[31]
When, therefore, Suetonius ascribes the inspiration of the campaigns of this great man to the mere desire of enriching himself with plunder, he is false to history and to good sense, and assigns the most vulgar motive to a noble design. When other historians ascribe to Cæsar the sole intention of seeking in Gaul a means of rising to the supreme power by civil war, they show, as we have remarked elsewhere, a distorted view; they judge events by their final result, instead of calmly estimating the causes which have produced them.
The sequel of this history will prove that all the responsibility of the civil war belongs not to Cæsar, but to Pompey. And although the former had his eyes incessantly fixed on his enemies at Rome, none the less for that he pursued his conquests, without making them subordinate to his personal interests. If he had sought only his own elevation in his military successes, he would have followed an entirely opposite course. We should not have seen him sustain during eight years a desperate struggle, and incur the risks of enterprises such as those of Great Britain and Germany. After his first campaigns, he need only have returned to Rome to profit by the advantages he had acquired; for, as Cicero says,[32] “he had already done enough for his glory, if he had not done enough for the Republic;” and the same orator adds: “Why would Cæsar himself remain in his province, if it were not to deliver to the Roman people complete a work which was already nearly finished? Is he retained by the agreeableness of the country, by the beauty of the towns, by the politeness and amenity of the individuals and peoples, by the lust of victory, by the desire of extending the limits of our empire? Is there anything more uncultivated than those countries, ruder than those towns, more ferocious than those peoples, and more admirable than the multiplicity of Cæsar’s victories? Can he find limits farther off than the ocean? Would his return to his country offend either the people who sent him or the Senate which has loaded him with honours? Would his absence increase the desire we have to see him? Would it not rather contribute, through lapse of time, to make people forget him, and to cause the laurels to fade which he had gathered in the midst of the greatest perils? If, then, there any who love not Cæsar, it is not their policy to obtain his recall from his province, because that would be to recall him to glory, to triumph, to the congratulations and supreme honours of the Senate, to the favour of the equestrian order, to the affection of the people.”[33]
Thus, after the end of 698, he might have led his army back into Italy, claimed triumph, and obtained power, without having to seize upon it, as Sylla, Marius, Cinna, and even Crassus and Pompey, had done.
If Cæsar had accepted the government of Gaul with the sole aim of having an army devoted to his designs, it must be admitted that so experienced a general would have taken, to commence a civil war, the simplest of the measures suggested by prudence: instead of separating himself from his army, he would have kept it with him, or, at least, brought it near to Italy, and distributed it in such a manner that he could re-assemble it quickly; he would have preserved, from the immense booty taken in Gaul, sums sufficient to supply the expenses of the war. Cæsar, on the contrary, as we shall see in the sequel, sends first to Pompey, without hesitation, two legions which are required from him under the pretext of the expedition against the Parthians. He undertakes to disband his troops if Pompey will do the same, and he arrives at Ravenna at the head of a single legion, leaving the others beyond the Alps, distributed from the Sambre as far as the Saône.[34] He keeps within the limit of his government without making any preparation which indicates hostile intentions,[35] wishing, as Hirtius says, to settle the quarrel by justice rather than by arms.[36] In fact, he has collected so little money in the military chest, that his soldiers club together to procure him the sums necessary for his enterprise, and that all voluntarily renounce their pay.[37] Cæsar offers Pompey an unconditional reconciliation, and it is only when he sees his advances rejected, and his adversaries meditating his ruin, that he boldly faces the forces of the Senate, and passes the Rubicon. It was not, then, the supreme power which Cæsar went into Gaul to seek, but the pure and elevated glory which arises from a national war, made in the traditional interest of the country.
IV. In reproducing in the following chapters the relation of the war in Gaul, we have borne in mind the words of Cicero. “Cæsar,” he says, “has written memoirs worthy of great praise. Deprived of all oratorical art, his style, like a handsome body stripped of clothing, presents itself naked, upright, and graceful. In his desire to furnish materials to future historians, he has, perhaps, done a thing agreeable to the little minds who will be tempted to load these natural graces with frivolous ornaments; but he has for ever deprived men of sense of the desire of writing, for nothing is more agreeable in history than a correct and luminous brevity.”[38] Hirtius, on his part, expresses himself in the following terms: “These memoirs enjoy an approval so general, that Cæsar has much more taken from others than given to them the power of writing the history of the events which they recount. We have still more reasons than all others for admiring it, for others know only how correct and accurate this book is; we know the facility and rapidity with which it was composed.”[39]
If we would act upon the advice of these writers, we must digress as little as possible from the “Commentaries,” but without restricting ourselves to a literal translation. We have, then, adopted the narrative of Cæsar, though sometimes changing the order of the matter: we have abridged passages where there was a prodigality of details, and developed those which required elucidation. In order to indicate in a more precise manner the localities which witnessed so many battles, we have employed the modern names, especially in cases where ancient geography did not furnish corresponding names.
The investigation of the battle-fields and siege operations has led to the discovery of visible and certain traces of the Roman entrenchments. The reader, by comparing the plans of the excavations with the text, will be convinced of the rigorous accuracy of Cæsar in describing the countries he passed over, and the works he caused to be executed.
CHAPTER II. STATE OF GAUL IN THE TIME OF CÆSAR.
(See Plate I.)
I. TRANSALPINE Gaul had for its boundaries the ocean, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine. This portion of Europe, so well marked out by nature, comprised what is now France, nearly the whole of Switzerland, the Rhine Provinces, Belgium, and the south of Holland. It had the form of an irregular pentagon, and the country of the Carnutes (the Orléanais) was considered to be its centre.[40]
An uninterrupted chain of heights divided Gaul, as it divides modern France, from north to south, into two parts. This line commences at the Monts Corbières, at the foot of the Eastern Pyrenees, is continued by the Southern Cévennes and by the mountains of the Vivarais, Lyonnais, and Beaujolais (called the Northern Cévennes), and declines continually with the mountains of the Charolais and the Côte-d’Or, until it reaches the plateau of Langres; after quitting this plateau, it leaves to the east the Monts Faucilles, which unite it to the Vosges, and, inclining towards the north-west, it follows, across the mountains of the Meuse, the western crests of the Argonne and the Ardennes, and terminates, in decreasing undulations, towards Cape Griz-Nez, in the Pas-de-Calais.
This long and tortuous ridge, more or less interrupted, which may be called the backbone of the country, is the great line of the watershed. It separates two slopes. On the eastern slope flow the Rhine and the Rhone, in opposite directions, the first towards the Northern Sea, the second towards the Mediterranean; on the western slope rise the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, which go to throw themselves into the ocean. These rivers flow at the bottom of vast basins, the bounds of which, as is well known, are indicated by the lines of elevations connecting the sources of all the tributaries of the principal stream.
The basin of the Rhine is separated from that of the Rhone by the Monts Faucilles, the southern extremity of the Vosges, called Le trouée de Belfort, the Jura, the Jorat (the heights which surround the Lake of Geneva on the north), and the lofty chain of the Helvetic Alps. In its upper part, it embraces nearly all Switzerland, of which the Rhine forms the northern boundary, in its course, from east to west, from the Lake of Constance to Bâle. Near this town the river turns abruptly towards the north. The basin widens, limited to the east by the mountains which separate it from the Danube and the Weser; to the west, by the northern part of the great line of watershed (the mountains of the Meuse, the Argonne, and the western Ardennes). It is intersected, from Mayence to Bonn, by chains nearly parallel to the course of the river, which separate its tributaries. From Bonn to the point where the Rhine divides into two arms, the basin opens still more; it is flat, and has no longer a definite boundary. The southern arm bore already, in the time of Cæsar, the name of Waal (Vahalis), and united with the Meuse[41] below Nimeguen. To the west of the basin of the Rhine, the Scheldt forms a secondary basin.
The basin of the Rhone, in which is comprised that of the Saône, is sharply bounded on the north by the southern extremity of the Vosges and the Monts Faucilles; on the west, by the plateau of Langres, the Côte-d’Or, and the Cévennes; on the east, by the Jura, the Jorat, and the Alps. The Rhone crosses the Valais and the Lake of Geneva, follows an irregular course as far as Lyons, and runs thence from north to south to the Mediterranean. Among the most important of its secondary basins, we may reckon those of the Aude, the Hérault, and the Var.
The three great basins of the western slope are comprised between the line of watershed of Gaul and the ocean. They are separated from each other by two chains branching from this line, and running from the south-east to the north-west. The basin of the Seine, which includes that of the Somme, is separated from the basin of the Loire by a line of heights which branches from the Côte-d’Or under the name of the mountains of the Morvan, and is continued by the very low hills of Le Perche to the extremity of Normandy. A series of heights, extending from north to south, from the hills of Le Perche to Nantes, enclose the basin of the Loire to the west, and leave outside the secondary basins of Brittany.
The basin of the Loire is separated from that of the Garonne by a long chain starting from Mont Lozère, comprising the mountains of Auvergne, those of the Limousin, the hills of Poitou, and the plateau of Gatine, and ending in flat country towards the coasts of La Vendée.
The basin of the Garonne, situated to the south of that of the Loire, extends to the Pyrenees. It comprises the secondary basins of the Adour and the Charente.
The vast country we have thus described is protected on the north, west, and south by two seas, and by the Pyrenees. On the east, where it is exposed to invasions, Nature, not satisfied with the defences she had given it in the Rhine and the Alps, has further retrenched it behind three groups of interior mountains—first, the Vosges; second, the Jura; third, the mountains of Forez, the mountains of Auvergne, and the Cévennes.
The Vosges run parallel to the Rhine, and are like a rampart in the rear of that river.
The Jura, separated from the Vosges by the Gap (trouée) of Belfort, rises like a barrier in the interval left between the Rhine and the Rhone, preventing, as far as Lyons, the waters of this latter river from uniting with those of the Saône.
The Cévennes and the mountains of Auvergne and Forez form, in the southern centre of Gaul, a sort of citadel, of which the Rhone might be considered as the advanced fosse. The ridges of this group of mountains start from a common centre, take opposite directions, and form the valleys whence flow, to the north, the Allier and the Loire; to the west, the Dordogne, the Lot, the Aveyron, and the Tarn; to the south, the Ardèche, the Gard, and the Hérault.
The valleys, watered by navigable rivers, presented—thanks to the fruitfulness of their soil and to their easy access—natural ways of communication, favourable both to commerce and to war. To the north, the valley of the Meuse; to the east, the valley of the Rhine, conducting to that of the Saône, and thence to that of the Rhone, were the grand routes which armies followed to invade the south. Strabo, therefore, remarks justly that Sequania (Franche-Comté) has always been the road of the Germanic invasions from Gaul into Italy.[42] From east to west the principal chain of the watershed might easily be crossed in its less elevated parts, such as the plateau of Langres and the mountains of Charolais, which have since furnished a passage to the Central Canal. Lastly, to penetrate from Italy into Gaul, the great lines of invasion were the valley of the Rhone and the valley of the Garonne, by which the mountainous mass of the Cévennes, Auvergne, and Forez is turned.
Gaul presented the same contrast of climates which we observe between the north and south of France. While the Roman province enjoyed a mild temperature and an extreme fertility,[43] the central and northern part was covered with vast forests, which rendered the climate colder than it is at present;[44] yet the centre produced in abundance wheat, rye, millet, and barley.[45] The greatest of all these forests was that of the Ardennes. It extended, beginning from the Rhine, over a space of two hundred miles, on one side to the frontier of the Remi, crossing the country of the Treviri; and, on another side, to the Scheldt, across the country of the Nervii.[46] The “Commentaries” speak also of forests existing among the Carnutes,[47] in the neighbourhood of the Saône,[48]among the Menapii[49] and the Morini,[50] and among the Eburones.[51] In the north the breeding of cattle was the principal occupation,[52] and the pastures of Belgic Gaul produced a race of excellent horses.[53] In the centre and in the south the richness of the soil was augmented by productive mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead.[54]
The country was, without any doubt, intersected by carriage roads, since the Gauls possessed a great number of all sorts of wagons,[55] since there still remain traces of Celtic roads, and since Cæsar makes known the existence of bridges on the Aisne,[56] the Rhone,[57] the Loire,[58] the Allier,[59] and the Seine.[60]
It is difficult to ascertain exactly the number of the population; yet we may presume, from the contingents furnished by the different states, that it amounted to more than seven millions of souls.[61]
II. Gaul, according to Cæsar, was divided into three great regions, distinct by language, manners, and laws: to the north, Belgic Gaul, between the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine; in the centre, Celtic Gaul, between the Garonne and the Seine, extending from the ocean to the Alps, and comprising Helvetia; to the south, Aquitaine, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees.[62] (See Plate 2.) We must, nevertheless, comprise in Gaul the Roman province, or the Narbonnese, which began at Geneva, on the left bank of the Rhone, and extended in the south as far as Toulouse. It answered, as nearly as possible, to the limits of the countries known in modern times as Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, Lower Languedoc, and Roussillon. The populations who inhabited it were of different origins: there were found there Aquitanians, Belgæ, Ligures, Celts, who had all long undergone the influence of Greek civilisation, and especially establishments founded by the Phocæans on the coasts of the Mediterranean.[63]
These three great regions were subdivided into many states, called civitates—an expression which, in the “Commentaries,” is synonymous with nations [64]—that is, each of these states had its organisation and its own government. Among the peoples mentioned by Cæsar, we may reckon twenty-seven in Belgic Gaul, forty-three in Celtic, and twelve in Aquitaine: in all, eighty-two in Gaul proper, and seven in the Narbonnese. Other authors, admitting, no doubt, smaller subdivisions, carry this number to three or four hundred;[65] but it appears that under Tiberius there were only sixty-four states in Gaul.[66] Perhaps, in this number, they reckoned only the sovereign, and not the dependent, states.
1. Belgic Gaul. The Belgæ were considered more warlike than the other Gauls,[67] because, strangers to the civilisation of the Roman province and hostile to commerce, they had not experienced the effeminating influence of luxury. Proud of having escaped the Gaulish enervation, they claimed with arrogance an origin which united them with the Germans their neighbours, with whom, nevertheless, they were continually at war.[68] They boasted of having defended their territory against the Cimbri and the Teutones, at the time of the invasion of Gaul. The memory of the lofty deeds of their ancestors inspired them with a great confidence in themselves, and excited their warlike spirit.[69]
The most powerful nations among the Belgæ were the Bellovaci,[70] who could arm a hundred thousand men, and whose territory extended to the sea,[71] the Nervii, the Remi, and the Treviri.
2. Celtic Gaul. [72] The central part of Gaul, designated by the Greek writers under the name of Celtica, and the inhabitants of which constituted in the eyes of the Romans the Gauls properly so named (Galli), was the most extensive and most populous. Among the most important nations of Celtic Gaul were reckoned the Arverni, the Ædui, the Sequani, and the Helvetii. Tacitus informs us that the Helvetii had once occupied a part of Germany.[73]
These three first peoples often disputed the supremacy of Gaul. As to the Helvetii, proud of their independence, they acknowledged no authority superior to their own. In the centre and south of Celtic Gaul dwelt peoples who had also a certain importance. On the west and north-west were various maritime populations designated under the generic name of Armoricans, an epithet which had, in the Celtic tongue, the meaning of maritime. Small Alpine tribes inhabited the valleys of the upper course of the Rhone, at the eastern extremity of Lake Lémon, a country which now forms the Valais.
3. Aquitaine. [74] Aquitaine commenced on the left bank of the Garonne: it was inhabited by several small tribes, and contained none of those agglomerations which were found among the Celts and the Belgæ. The Aquitanians, who had originally occupied a vast territory to the north of the Pyrenees, having been pushed backward by the Celts, had but a rather limited portion of it in the time of Cæsar.
The three regions which composed Gaul were not only, as already stated, divided into a great number of states, but each state (civitas) was farther subdivided into pagi,[75] representing, perhaps, the same thing as the tribe among the Arabs. The proof of the distinct character of these agglomerations is found in the fact that in the army each of them had its separate place, under the command of its own chieftains. The smallest subdivision was called vicus.[76] Such, at least, are the denominations employed in the “Commentaries,” but which were certainly not those of the Celtic language. In each state there existed principal towns, called indifferently by Cæsar urbs or oppidum;[77] yet this last name was given by preference to considerable towns, difficult of access and carefully fortified, placed on heights or surrounded by marshes.[78] It was to these oppida that, in case of attack, the Gauls transported their grain, their provisions, and their riches.[79] Their habitations, established often in the forests or on the bank of a river, were constructed of wood, and tolerably spacious.[80]
III. The Gauls were tall in stature, their skin was white, their eyes blue, their hair fair or chestnut, which they dyed, in order to make the colour more brilliant.[81] They let their beard grow; the nobles alone shaved, and preserved long moustaches.[82] Trousers or breeches, very wide among the Belgæ, but narrower among the southern Gauls, and a shirt with sleeves, descending to the middle of the thighs, composed their principal dress.[83]They were clothed with a mantle or saie,[84] magnificently embroidered with gold or silver among the rich,[85] and held about the neck by means of a metal brooch. The lowest classes of the people used instead an animal’s skin. The Aquitanians covered themselves, probably according to the Iberic custom, with cloth of coarse wool unshorn.[86]
The Gauls wore collars, earrings, bracelets, and rings for the arms, of gold or copper, according to their rank; necklaces of amber, and rings, which they placed on the third finger.[87]
They were naturally agriculturists, and we may suppose that the institution of private property existed among them, because, on the one hand, all the citizens paid the tax, except the Druids,[88] and, on the other, the latter were judges of questions of boundaries.[89] They were not unacquainted with certain manufactures. In some countries they fabricated serges, which were in great repute, and cloths or felts;[90] in others they worked the mines with skill, and employed themselves in the fabrication of metals. The Bituriges worked in iron, and were acquainted with the art of tinning.[91] The artificers of Alesia plated copper with leaf-silver, to ornament horses’ bits and trappings.[92]
The Gauls fed especially on the flesh of swine, and their ordinary drinks were milk, ale, and mead.[93] They were reproached with being inclined to drunkenness.[94]
They were frank and open in temper, and hospitable toward strangers,[95] but vain and quarrelsome;[96] fickle in their sentiments, and fond of novelties, they took sudden resolutions, regretting one day what they had rejected with disdain the day before;[97] inclined to war and eager for adventures, they showed themselves hot in the attack, but quickly discouraged in defeat.[98] Their language was very concise and figurative;[99] in writing, they employed Greek letters.
The men were not exempt from a shameful vice, which we might have believed less common in this county than among the peoples of the East.[100] The women united an extraordinary beauty with remarkable courage and great physical force.[101]
The Gauls, according to the tradition preserved by the Druids, boasted of being descended from the god of the earth, or from Pluto (Dis), according to the expression of Cæsar.[102] It was for this reason that they took night for their starting-point in all their divisions of time. Among their other customs, they had one which was singular: they considered it as a thing unbecoming to appear in public with their children, until the latter had reached the age for carrying arms.[103]
When he married, the man took from his fortune a part equal to the dowry of the wife. This sum, placed as a common fund, was allowed to accumulate with interest, and the whole reverted to the survivor. The husband had the right of life and death over his wife and children.[104] When the decease of a man of wealth excited any suspicion, his wives, as well as his slaves, were put to the torture, and burnt if they were found guilty.
The extravagance of their funerals presented a contrast to the simplicity of their life. All that the defunct had cherished during his life, was thrown into the flames after his death; and even, before the Roman conquest, they joined with it his favourite slaves and clients.[105]
In the time of Cæsar, the greater part of the peoples of Gaul were armed with long iron swords, two-edged (σπἁθη), sheathed in scabbards similarly of iron, suspended to the side by chains. These swords were generally made to strike with the edge rather than to stab.[106] The Gauls had also spears, the iron of which, very long and very broad, presented sometimes an undulated form (materis, σαὑνιον).[107] They also made use of light javelins without amentum,[108] of the bow, and of the sling. Their helmets were of metal, more or less precious, ornamented with the horns of animals, and with a crest representing some figures of birds or savage beasts, the whole surmounted by a high and bushy tuft of feathers.[109] They carried a great buckler, a breastplate of iron or bronze, or a coat of mail—the latter a Gaulish invention.[110] The Leuci and the Remi were celebrated for throwing the javelin.[111] The Lingones had party-coloured breastplates.[112] The Gaulish cavalry was superior to the infantry;[113] it was composed of the nobles, followed by their clients;[114] yet the Aquitanians, celebrated for their agility, enjoyed a certain reputation as good infantry.[115] In general, the Gauls were very ready at imitating the tactics of their enemies.[116] The habit of working mines gave them a remarkable dexterity in all underground operations, applicable to the attack and defence of fortified posts.[117] Their armies dragged after them a multitude of wagons and baggage, even in the less important expeditions.[118]
Although they had reached, especially in the south of Gaul, a tolerably advanced degree of civilisation, they preserved very barbarous customs: they killed their prisoners. “When their army is ranged in battle,” says Diodorus, “some of them are often seen advancing from the ranks to challenge the bravest of their enemies to single combat. If their challenge is accepted, they chaunt a war-song, in which they boast of the great deeds of their forefathers, exalting their own valour and insulting their adversary. After the victory, they cut off their enemy’s head, hang it to their horse’s neck, and carry it off with songs of triumph. They keep these hideous trophies in their house, and the highest nobles preserve them with great care, bathed with oil of cedar, in coffers, which they show with pride to their guests.”[119]
When a great danger threatened the country, the chiefs convoked an armed council, to which the men were bound to repair, at the place and day indicated, to deliberate. The law required that the man who arrived last should be massacred without pity before the eyes of the assembly. As a means of intercommunication, men were placed at certain intervals through the country, and these, repeating the cry from one to another, transmitted rapidly news of importance to great distances. They often, also, stopped travellers on the roads, and compelled them to answer their questions.[120]
The Gauls were very superstitious.[121] Persuaded that in the eyes of the gods the life of a man can only be redeemed by that of his fellow, they made a vow, in diseases and dangers, to immolate human beings by the ministry of the Druids. These sacrifices had even a public character.[122] They sometimes constructed human figures of osier of colossal magnitude, which they filled with living men; to these they set fire, and the victims perished in the flames. These victims were generally taken from among the criminals, as being more agreeable to the gods; but if there were no criminals to be had, the innocent themselves were sacrificed.
Cæsar, who, according to the custom of his countrymen, gave to the divinities of foreign peoples the names of those of Rome, tells us that the Gauls honoured Mercury above all others. They raised statues to him, regarded him as the inventor of the arts, the guide of travellers, and the protector of commerce.[123] They also offered worship to divinities which the “Commentaries” assimilate to Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, without informing us of their Celtic names. From Lucan,[124] we learn the names of three Gaulish divinities, Teutates (in whom, no doubt, we must recognise the Mercury of the “Commentaries”), Hesus or Esus, and Taranis. Cæsar makes the remark that the Gauls had pretty much the same ideas with regard to their gods as other nations. Apollo cured the sick, Minerva taught the elements of the arts, Jupiter was the master of heaven, Mars the arbiter of war. Often, before fighting, they made a vow to consecrate to this god the spoils of the enemy, and, after the victory, they put to death all their prisoners. The rest of the booty was piled up in the consecrated places, and nobody would be so impious as to take anything away from it. The Gauls rendered also, as we learn from inscriptions and passages in different authors, worship to rivers, fountains, trees, and forests: they adored the Rhine as a god, and made a goddess of the Ardenne.[125]
IV. There were in Gaul, says Cæsar, only two classes who enjoyed public consideration and honours,[126] the Druids and the knights. As to the people, deprived of all rights, oppressed with debts, crushed with taxes, exposed to the violences of the great, their condition was little better than that of slaves. The Druids, ministers of religion, presided over the sacrifices, and preserved the deposit of religious doctrines. The youth, greedy of instruction, pressed around them. The dispensers of rewards and punishments, they were the judges of almost all disputes, public or private. To private individuals, or even to magistrates, who rebelled against their decisions, they interdicted the sacrifices, a sort of excommunication which sequestrated from society those who were struck by it, placed them in the rank of criminals, removed them from all honours, and deprived them even of the protection of the law. The Druids had a single head, and the power of this head was absolute. At his death, the next in dignity succeeded him; if there were several with equal titles, these priests had recourse to election, and sometimes even to a decision by force of arms. They assembled every year in the country of the Carnutes, in a consecrated place, there to judge disputes. Their doctrine, it was said, came from the isle of Britain, where, in the time of Cæsar, they still went to draw it as at its source.[127]
The Druids were exempt from military service and from taxes.[128] These privileges drew many disciples, whose novitiate, which lasted sometimes twenty years, consisted in learning by heart a great number of verses containing their religious precepts. It was forbidden to transcribe them. This custom had the double object of preventing the divulgation of their doctrine and of exercising the memory. Their principal dogma was the immortality of the soul and its transmigration into other bodies. A belief which banished the fear of death appeared to them fitted to excite courage. They explained also the movement of the planets, the greatness of the universe, the laws of nature, and the omnipotence of the immortal gods. “We may conceive,” says the eminent author of the Histoire des Gaulois, “what despotism must have been exercised over a superstitious nation by this caste of men, depositaries of all knowledge, authors and interpreters of all law, divine or human, remunerators, judges, and executioners.”[129]
The knights, when required by the necessities of war, and that happened almost yearly, were all bound to take up arms. Each, according to his birth and fortune, was accompanied by a greater or less number of attendants or clients. Those who were called ambacti [130] performed in war the part of esquires.[131] In Aquitaine, these followers were named soldures; they shared the good as well as the evil fortune of the chief to whom they were attached, and, when he died, not one of them would survive him. Their number was considerable: we shall see a king of the Sotiates possess no less than six hundred of them.[132]
The states were governed either by an assembly, which the Romans called a senate, or by a supreme magistrate, annual or for life, bearing the title of king,[133] prince,[134] or vergobret.[135]
The different tribes formed alliances among themselves, either permanent or occasional; the permanent alliances were founded, some on a community of territorial interests,[136] others on affinities of races,[137] or on treaties,[138] or, lastly, on the right of patronage.[139] The occasional alliances were the results of the necessity of union against a common danger.[140]
In Gaul, not only each state and each tribe (pagus), but even each family, was divided into two parties (factiones); at the head of these parties were chiefs, taken from among the most considerable and influential of the knights. Cæsar calls them principes.[141] All those who accepted their supremacy became their clients; and, although the principes did not exercise a regular magistracy, their authority was very extensive. This organisation had existed from a remote antiquity; its object was to offer to each man of the people a protection against the great, since each was thus placed under the patronage of a chief, whose duty it was to take his cause in hand, and who would have lost all credit if he had allowed one of his clients to be oppressed.[142] We see in the “Commentaries” that this class of the principes enjoyed very great influence. On their decisions depended all important resolutions;[143] and their meeting formed the assembly of the whole of Gaul (concilium totius Galliæ).[144] In it everything was decided by majority of votes.[145]
Affairs of the state were allowed to be treated only in these assemblies. It appertained to the magistrates alone to publish or conceal events, according as they judged expedient; and it was a sacred duty for any one who learnt, either from without or from public rumour, any news which concerned the civitas, to give information of it to the magistrate, without revealing it to any other person. This measure had for its object to prevent rash or ignorant men from being led into error by false reports, and from rushing, under this first impression, into extravagant resolutions.
In the same manner as each state was divided into two rival factions, so was the whole of Gaul (with the exception of Belgic Gaul and Helvetia) divided into two great parties,[146] which exercised over the others a sort of sovereignty (principatus);[147] and when, in extraordinary circumstances, the whole of Gaul acknowledged the pre-eminence of one particular state, the chief of the privileged state took the name of princeps totius Galliæ, as had been the case with the Arvernan Celtillus, the father of Vercingetorix.[148]
This supremacy, nevertheless, was not permanent; it passed from one nation to another, and was the object of continual ambitions and sanguinary conflicts. The Druids, it is true, had succeeded in establishing a religious centre, but there existed no political centre. In spite of certain federative ties, each state had been more engaged in the consideration of its own individuality than in that of the country in general. This egoistic carelessness of their collective interests, this jealous rivality among the different tribes, paralysed the efforts of a few eminent men who were desirous of founding a nationality, and the Gauls soon furnished the enemy with an easy means of dividing and combating them. The Emperor Napoleon I. was thus right in saying: “The principal cause of the weakness of Gaul was the spirit of isolation and locality which characterised the population; at this epoch the Gauls had no national spirit or even provincial spirit; they were governed by a spirit of town. It is the same spirit which has since forged chains for Italy. Nothing is more opposed to national spirit, to general ideas of liberty, than the particular spirit of family or of town. From this parcelling it resulted that the Gauls had no army of the line kept up and exercised; and therefore no art and no military science. Every nation which should lose sight of the importance of an army of the line perpetually on foot, and which should trust to levies or national armies, would experience the fate of the Gauls, without even having the glory of opposing the same resistance, which was the effect of the barbarism of the time and of the ground, covered with forests, marshes, and bogs, and without roads, which rendered it difficult to conquer and easy to defend.”[149] Before Cæsar came into Gaul, the Ædui and the Arverni were at the head of the two contending parties, each labouring to carry the day against his rival. Soon these latter united with the Sequani, who, jealous of the superiority of the Ædui, the allies of the Roman people, invoked the support of Ariovistus and the Germans. By dint of sacrifices and promises, they had succeeded in bringing them into their territory. With this aid the Sequani had gained the victory in several combats.[150] The Ædui had lost their nobility, a part of their territory, nearly all their clients, and, after giving up as hostages their children and their chiefs, they had bound themselves by oath never to attack the Sequani, who had at length obtained the supremacy of all Gaul. It was under these circumstances that Divitiacus had gone to Rome to implore the succour of the Republic, but he had failed;[151] the Senate was too much engaged with intestine quarrels to assume an energetic attitude towards the Germans. The arrival of Cæsar was destined to change the face of things, and restore to the allies of Rome their old preponderance.[152]
CHAPTER III. CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII.(YEAR OF ROME 696.) (BOOK I. OF THE “COMMENTARIES.”)
I. CÆSAR, AS WE HAVE seen, had received from the Senate and people a command which comprised the two Gauls (Transalpine and Cisalpine) and Illyria.[153] Yet the agitation which continued to reign in the Republic was retaining him at the gates of Rome, when suddenly, towards the spring of 696, news came that the Helvetii, returning to their old design, were preparing to invade the Roman province. This intelligence caused a great sensation.
The Helvetii, proud of their former exploits, confident in their strength, and incommoded by excess of population, felt humiliated at living in a country the limits of which had been made narrow by nature, and for some years they meditated quitting it to repair into the south of Gaul.
As early as 693, an ambitious chieftain, Orgetorix, found no difficulty in inspiring them with the desire to seek elsewhere a more fertile territory and a milder climate. They resolved to go and establish themselves in the country of the Santones (the Saintonge), situated on the shores of the ocean, to the north of the Gironde. Two years were to be employed in preparations, and, by a solemn engagement, the departure was fixed for the third year. But Orgetorix, sent to the neighbouring peoples to contract alliances, conspired with two influential personages—one of the country of the Sequani, the other of that of the Ædui. He induced them to undertake to seize the supreme power, promised them the assistance of the Helvetii, and persuaded them that those three powerful nations, leagued together, would easily subjugate the whole of Gaul. This conspiracy failed, through the death of Orgetorix, accused in his own country of a design to usurp the sovereignty. The Helvetii persisted, nevertheless, in their project of emigration. They collected the greatest possible number of wagons and beasts of burden; and, in order to destroy all idea of returning, they burnt their twelve towns, their four hundred hamlets, and all the wheat they could not carry with them. Each furnished himself with meal[154]
