Cisalpine Gaul

“ It was Rome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the Alps which she had pronounced fixed by nature and insurmountable. Scarcely was she mistress of Cisalpine Gaul when she entered upon a quarrel with the tribes which occupied the mountain-passes. With an unsettled frontier, and between neighbors of whom one is ambitious and the other barbarian, pretexts and even causes are never wanting. It is likely that the Gallic mountaineers were not careful to abstain, they and their flocks, from descending upon the territory that had become Roman. ”

“ There, too, they overlook a region that would always tempt invaders: the great rich plain the Po waters; a land no refugees could well hope to hold. It has been in turn Cisalpine Gaul, the Plain of the Lombards, and the main part of Austrian Italy; this thrice a possession of conquerors from the north. ”

“ In 81 a legislative act of Sulla brought the already conquered{60} Cisalpine Gaul into the same category. The King of Bithynia imitated Attalus in bequeathing his kingdom to Rome. Cyrene also was bequeathed to Rome and united in one province with Crete in 63. In 64 Pompeius the Great deposed the King of Syria and annexed his kingdom. About the same time, on the death of Mithradates, Pontus was added to Bithynia as a united province. In 51 Julius Cæsar completed the conquest of Gaul and added it as Gallia Comata to the old province of Narbonensian Gaul. ”

“ The moment that Cæsar received his governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, which legally commenced on the 1st of March of his consulship, he hurried on the enlistment of troops, so that he soon had an armed force collected at the gates of Rome. Many of Pompey's veterans were likewise invited to the city to support the measures in which their general was interested. ”

“ This assignment Antony altered by a law which granted him Cisalpine Gaul and the Transalpine district outside the Narbonese province for a term of six years in violation of a law of Caesar’s, which limited proconsular commands to two years. Dolabella was to have Syria for a like period and Decimus Brutus was given Macedonia in exchange for Cisalpine Gaul. The consuls were to occupy their provinces at once. To Brutus and Cassius were assigned for the next year the provinces of Crete and Cyrene; while for the present they were given a special commission to collect grain in Sicily and Asia. ”

“ It was fortunate for him that he could draw on the reserves of Cisalpine Gaul, the richest part of Italy, the province which extended over the plains of Lombardy to Tuscany. This province was filled with a hardy race of yeomen cultivators, a mixed population, having its origin in the conquered Celtic tribes and in genuine Roman colonists.
Nowhere else could there be found a better recruiting ground for the legions, and nowhere also, on account of the general intelligence of the inhabitants, would the personal qualities of a general find a more immediate response. ”

“ It was obviously to Caesar’s advantage to take the offensive and to force a decision before his enemies could concentrate against him the resources of the provinces. Hence he determined to act without delay, and, upon receiving news of the Senate’s action on 7 January, he crossed the Rubicon, which divided Cisalpine Gaul and Italy, with a small force, ordering the legions beyond the Alps to join him with all speed. The Italian municipalities opened their gates at his approach and the newly raised levies went over to his side. Everywhere his mildness to his opponents won him new adherents. ”

“ During the winter Cæsar crossed the Alps to attend to the administration of the Cisalpine province, leaving his troops quartered in Gaul under the command of his trusted lieutenant, Labienus. He raised two new legions, and when he returned northward it was already plain that the pacification of the country was far from complete. The Gauls feared the expansion of Roman power, and there were rumors of an uprising to be led by the tribes of the Belgæ. ”

“ They were recruited for the most part among those Cisalpine Gauls from whom Roman civilization had not taken the good qualities of their race, an amiable and brilliant people who loved war and carried it on gaily. ”

“ In virtue of a law of C. Sempronius Gracchus,{543} named lex Sempronia, it had been decided that the Senate should designate, before the election of the consuls, the provinces they were to administer after quitting office. When Cæsar and Bibulus were elected, instead of provinces, the inspection of the public ways was given to them; but Cæsar, unwilling to suffer this affront, obtained, by a plebiscitum, on the motion of Vatinius, the government of Cisalpine Gaul for five years; the Senate added to it Transalpine Gaul, which then formed a separate province independent of the other. ”

“ He brought the coalition about through a bargain which created what is known in history as the First Triumvirate, or supremacy of three. Cæsar in Gaul. Under the terms of the bargain, Cæsar was chosen consul for 59 B. C., and at the end of his term was given the governorship of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, with command of three legions there, for five years. His grand aim was a military command--the leadership of an army--the prestige of a successful soldier. ”

“ To the province of our most resolute and bravest citizens; men who could never have endured him if he had not come bringing war in his train, an intemperate, passionate, insolent, proud man, always making demands, always plundering, always drunk. But he, whose worthlessness even when quiet was more than any one could endure, has declared war upon the province of Gaul; he is besieging Mutina, a valiant and splendid colony of the Roman people; he is blockading Decimus Brutus, the general, the consul elect, a citizen born not for himself, but for us and the republic. ”

“ No human event was ever fraught with such consequences to the human race as the conquest of Gaul by Julius Cæsar.
The Gallic wars had for centuries drained the treasure and taxed the resources of Rome. Cæsar conceived the audacious idea of stopping them at their source—in fact, of making Gaul a Roman province. ”

“ In this cause I am taking more pains and trouble to get them to produce their witnesses, than other advocates for the defence usually take to refute them. I say this boldly, O judges, but I do not assert it rashly. All Gaul is filled with traders,—is full of Roman citizens. No Gaul does any business without the aid of a Roman citizen; not a single sesterce in Gaul ever changes hands without being entered in the account-books of Roman citizens. ”

“ For if Gaul had been open to Marcus Antonius—if after having overwhelmed the municipal towns and colonies unprepared to resist him, he had been able to penetrate into that further Gaul—what great danger would have hung over the republic! That most insane of men, that man so headlong and furious in all his courses, would have been likely, I suppose, to hesitate at waging war against us, not only with his own army, but with all the savage troops of barbarism, so that even the wall of the Alps would not have enabled us to check his frenzy. ”

“ The wolf, though he be a ravenous wolf, brings with him energy and knowledge.
What may have been Cæsar's own aspirations in regard to Gaul, when the government of the provinces was confided to him, we have no means of knowing. We may surmise,—indeed we feel that we know,—that he had a project in hand much greater to him, in his view of its result, than could be the adding of any new province to the Republic, let the territory added be as wide as all Gaul. He had seen enough of Roman politics to know that real power in Rome could only belong to a master of legions. ”

“ Out of eight members Provence, Bordeaux, Périgord and Languedoc had supplied six; and then, growing excited: “Aha, the South is climbing, the South is climbing! Paris is ours. We have everything. It rests with you, gentlemen, to profit by it. For the second time the Latins have conquered Gaul!”
He looked indeed like a Latin of the conquest, his head like a medallion with broad flat surfaces on the cheeks, with his dark complexion and unceremonious ways, his carelessness, so out of place in this Parisian drawing-room. ”

“ Next evening we arrived at Scylla: the Scylla of classical antiquity, hoary and worn with the storms of ages, dark with the lapse of years; the stronghold, successively, of the Greek, the Roman, the fair-haired Goth, the swarthy Saracen, the mail-clad Norman knight, the proud Italian prince, the prouder Spaniard, and, lastly, the grasping Gaul. As we approached it, Castelermo bade me remark the roar of the ocean in the caverns beneath the rock; which rises perpendicularly from the water, and is still of considerable danger to mariners. ”

“ The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. ”

“ Domitius, the consul, is angry, but the chief, or king, as he is styled, of the Allobroges, sends an ambassador in great state and formality to deprecate his anger. The interview is amusing, and the contrast very notable, as between the poetical and romantic Gaul and the cold, matter-of-fact Roman. Out of politeness to the Roman general, the Gaul arrives richly dressed, and having with him a brilliant train, also a number of fine dogs, the sign of an ancient as of a modern gentleman. ”

“ They soon overran Flanders and the north, and at length under Clovis captured Paris and conquered nearly the whole of Gaul.
The end of the fifth century is the beginning of the evil times of Gallic story. That fair land of France, “one of Nature’s choicest masterpieces, one of Ceres’ chiefest barns for corn, one of Bacchus’ prime wine cellars and of Neptune’s best salt-pits,” became the prey of the barbarian. The whole fabric of civilisation seem doomed to destruction. Gaul had become the richest and most populous of Roman provinces; its learning and literature were noised in Rome ”

“ Reign and Conversion of Clovis — His Victories over the Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths — Establishment of the French Monarchy in Gaul — Laws of the Barbarians — State of the Romans — The Visigoths of Spain — Conquest of Britain by the Saxons
The revolutions of Gaul The Gauls, [1] who impatiently supported the Roman yoke, received a memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose weighty sense has been refined and expressed by the genius of Tacitus. [2] "The protection of the republic has delivered Gaul from internal discord and foreign invasions. ”

“ In many places of Gaul, there is something strange and very remarkable, which is not fit to be passed over in silence. For the west and north winds in summer are so fierce and violent, that they fling into the air great stones as big as a man can grasp in his hands, together with a cloud of gravel and dust. ”

“ And now, when this affair of Galba’s had been finished,—when Cæsar, as he tells us, really did think that all Gaul was “pacatam,” tranquillised, or at least subdued,—the Belgians conquered, the Germans driven{57} off, those Swiss fellows cut to pieces in the valley of the Rhone; when he thought that he might make a short visit into that other province of his, Illyricum, so that he might see what that was like,—he is told that another war has sprung up in Gaul! ”

“ Hence various and other strange combinations: in Italy it is the Roman influence which makes itself felt in the manners of the Cisalpines: in the south of Transalpine Gaul it is at first the influence of the Greeks of Massalia, afterwards that of the Italian colonies: and in Galatia there springs up the most singular combination of Gaulish, Phrygian and Greek civilization.
“Next follows the period of national strife and of conquest. ”

“ Look to Rome and you will understand. In 57 B.C., the democratic party, demoralised by discords, upset by the popular agitation to recall Cicero from unjust exile, discredited by scandals, especially the Egyptian scandals, seemed on the point of going to pieces. Cæsar understood that there was but one way to stop this ruin: to stun public opinion and all Italy with some highly audacious surprise. The surprise was the annexation of Gaul. Declaring Gaul a Roman province after the victory over the Belgæ, he convinced Rome that he had in two years overcome all Gallic adversaries. ”

“ It so happens that we can answer these questions very clearly if we fix our eyes on one particular part of the Empire, the famous and highly civilized province of Gaul. We can catch the decline at three points because in three consecutive centuries, Gallo-Roman writers have left us a picture of their life and times. In the fourth century we have Ausonius, in the fifth Sidonius Apollinarius, in the sixth Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus, a stranger from Italy, who made his home in Poitiers. They show us Auvergne and the Bordelais in the evening light. ”

“ Being thus from early youth habituated to the life of war, the youth developed great military talents. Intrepid as the bravest of the soldiers, skilful and cautious as a veteran captain, generous to the full extent that his purse allowed it, of a joyful disposition, open and kind to all, he gained ever more the attachment of the army that soon divided with him its adoration for his mother.
The day finally arrived when Gaul, already almost independent, demanded to share with Rome the government of our country. The power was then divided between a Gallic and a Roman chief. ”