Gallic Wars

“ The enormous waste of life in the Gallic domestic quarrels, their foreign expeditions, and in their wars with the Romans, was easily supplied. A poor agricultural nation, with such robust women as the Galli had (Diod., v. 32) is exactly the people to produce soldiers. Among such a people more male children are born than the land requires: and those who are not wanted for the plough, the spade, or to watch the cattle, are only fit to handle the sword. ”

“ Although Cæsar wrote with his own hand only seven books of the Gallic campaigns, and the history of the civil wars till the death of his great rival, it seems highly probable, that he revised the last or eighth book of the Gallic war, and communicated information for the history of the Alexandrian and African expeditions, which are now usually published along with his own Commentaries, and may be considered as their supplement, or continuation. ”

“ Go and ask the Romans, whose army was even larger than yours, how many foreign cohorts the sod of old Gaul has devoured! Even the greatest battles that they, the conquerors of the world delivered, did not cost them one-quarter the number of soldiers that our fathers, as insurgent slaves, exterminated with their scythes and forks. Take care! Strong and sharp is the sword of the Gallic soldier; trenchant is the scythe, heavy the fork of the Gallic husbandman in the defense of hearth, family and freedom! ”

“ WAR WITH THE GAULS.—In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. ”

“ For centuries the Gauls had been untrained in arms and habituated to look to the imperial legions for defence against the half-savage races of men, giants in stature and strength, surging like an angry sea against their boundaries. [Pg 21]
The end of the fifth century is the beginning of the evil times of Gallic story: the confederation of Frankish tribes who had conquered and settled in Belgium saw successive waves of invasion pass by, and determined to have their part in the spoils. ”

“ Hereafter there was another hunger to be appeased besides that for food and land; a hunger for conquest, for vengeance, and for glory for the Gallic name. National pride was born.
For years they hovered like wolves about Rome. But skill and superior intelligence tell in the centuries. It took long—and cost no end of blood and treasure; but two hundred years from the capture of Rome, the Gauls were driven out of Italy, and the Alps pronounced a barrier set by nature herself against barbarian encroachments. ”

“ Well, our army has invaded the country of these Gallic tribes. The Gauls are no fools. They know Caius Julius has come to conquer them, and they don’t want to be conquered. Their idea is to invade Rome and conquer us. Well, my boy, we have come into their country, and every man who can fight has been called upon to come and fight against us, so that like a big crop in a cultivated land, what has been planted has come up all over. And this crop is fighting men with swords and spears. ”

“ And, by the snows of Germany we shall plunder you of your old Gaul! Our army is four times as large as yours; you have your palaces, your cities, your wealth, your women, your sun, your fertile earth to defend—we have nothing to defend and everything to gain. We camp in our huts and sleep on the backs of our horses; our only wealth is our sword; we have nothing to lose, everything to gain. And we will gain everything, and we will subjugate your race, you Gallic dog! It will be the end of Gaul! ”

“ In the manuscripts that we are about to read you will encounter an admirable sentiment of the Gallic nationality and of its religious faith—a sentiment all the more irrepressible, all the more exaggerated, perhaps, by reason of the Roman and Frankish conquests being felt as galling yokes by those heroic men and women, who were so proud of their race and who carried their contempt for death to the point of superhuman grandeur. ”

“ The ploughman became a foot-soldier, the shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages of the peasants equalled those of the fiercest barbarians. [22] They asserted the natural rights of men, but they asserted those rights with the most savage cruelty. The Gallic nobles, justly dreading their revenge, either took refuge in the fortified cities, or fled from the wild scene of anarchy. The peasants reigned without control; and two of their most daring leaders had the folly and rashness to assume the Imperial ornaments. ”

“ The peculiar traits of the race in mind and temper are so visible in French history as to show that the nation has never ceased to be essentially Gallic in blood. B. C. 51-A. D. 406; Roman Gaul. Under the control and the teaching of Rome for four centuries and a half, the Gauls were perfected in her civilization and corrupted by the vices of her decay. 5th Century; Frank Conquest. When the invasion of Teutonic barbarism broke the barrier of the Rhine, they were easily but not quickly overwhelmed, and sank under a conquest more complete than that from Rome had been ”

“ This very month I am leading an expedition against the Tectosages. Their tetrarch has been a thorn in my side since I took Galatian territory. We have had border skirmishes, and all the Gallic cantons lean toward Rome and intrigue against me. They must learn who is master. It will not be a great war—an outright conquest would alarm the Romans too much at this stage of things—only a punitive expedition. But the fighting will be brisk and the booty sufficient. ”

“ The Insubrians, a people inhabiting the subalpine region of Italy, strong in their own forces, raised from among the other Gauls aids of mercenary soldiers, called Gæsatæ. And it was a sort of miracle, and special good fortune for Rome, that the Gallic war was not coincident with the Punic, but that the Gauls had with fidelity stood quiet as spectators, while the Punic war continued, as though they had been under engagements to await and attack the victors, and now only were at liberty to come forward. ”

“ The liberal studies were still cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the language of Cicero and Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives. ”

“ Disciplined troops well led cannot but win against barbarians. The end could not be otherwise. And while the Gallic War does not show Cæsar—as the second Punic War did Hannibal—opposed to the strongest military machine in existence, it did show him opposed to generals and troops quite equal to most of those encountered by Alexander. The Gauls must not be underrated. They were distinctly superior to most uncivilized nations. Some of their operations, and all of their fighting, call for genuine admiration. They contended nobly for their independence. Defeat never permanently discouraged them. ”

“ If the misfortune of an age is once made decisive by extraordinary events, the wisest of rulers cannot ward off a state of pressure and distress. Such a calamity, which befell Rome at that time, was the third Gallic invasion in the year 405, a much more frightful one than the second. The Gauls appeared before the city, the Romans did not venture to give them battle ”

“ From every side assistance was eagerly rendered; for the inhabitants of Italy, in their terror at the Gallic invasion, no longer thought of the matter as a question of alliance with Rome, or of the war as undertaken to support Roman supremacy, but each people regarded it as a danger menacing themselves and their own city and territory. ”

“ What did our forefathers do, at the time of the conquest, with a view to subjugate and keep the yoke riveted to the neck of this perverse Gallic race—our vassals by birth and by kind, that has so often risen in rebellion against us? Our ancestors staked them within their separate domains, forbidding them to step outside under penalty of death. ”

“ He recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly till he had obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views of conquest and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the Gallic provinces. ”

“ The Gauls had scattered archers and light-armed infantry here and there, among their cavalry, to give relief to their retreating troops, and sustain the impetuosity of our cavalry. Several of our soldiers were unexpectedly wounded by these, and left the battle. When the Gauls were confident that their countrymen were the conquerors in the action, and beheld our men hard pressed by numbers, both those who were hemmed in by the line of circumvallation and those who had come to aid them, supported the spirits of their men by shouts and yells from every quarter. ”

“ The firmness and the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not inferior to such a struggle. He understood from the outset that he could not cope in the open field with Caesar and the Roman legions; he therefore exerted himself in getting together a body of cavalry numerous enough to harass the Romans during their movements, to attack their scattered detachments, to bear his orders swiftly to all quarters, and to keep up the excitement amongst the different peoplets with some hope of success. ”

“ In fine, it would seem that the Gallic peoples had progressed in civilization as far as their limited political capacity and self-control would allow. These were the limitations set by the Gallic character. It is a Gallic custom, says Caesar, to stop travellers, and insist upon their telling what they know or have heard. In the towns the crowd will throng around a merchant and make him tell where he has come from and give them the news. Upon such hearsay the Gauls enter upon measures of the gravest importance. ”

“ In the mean time the legions were approaching, and several messengers arrived with notice to our men and the enemy that the [Roman] general was near at hand, with his forces in battle array. Upon this intelligence, our men, confiding in the support of the cohorts, fought most resolutely, fearing, lest if they should be slow in their operations they should let the legions participate in the glory of the conquest. The enemy lose courage and attempt to escape by different ways. In vain; for they were themselves entangled in that labyrinth in which they thought to entrap the Romans. ”

“ These Romans, though by the art of war they had been made fine soldiers,—though they had been trained in the Eastern conquests and the Punic wars, and invasions of all nations around them,—were nevertheless, up to this day, greatly afraid even of the Gauls. ”

“ Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valour, as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Galli occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhône ”

“ And if they will not give the land, let them fight with us also in your presence, that ye may tell your countrymen how far we excel all other men in valour." "Nay," said the Romans, "by what right do ye ask land from them that possess it, and threaten war to them that refuse? And what concern have ye, being Gauls, with the men of Etruria?" To this the Gauls made reply in haughty words: "Our right we carry on the points of our swords, for to the brave all things belong."
Thus there was great anger stirred up on both sides; and they made ready for battle. ”

“ If the unsuccessful battle and flight of the Gauls disquieted any, these, if they made inquiries, might discover that, when the Gauls had been tired out by the long duration of the war, Ariovistus, after he had many months kept himself in his camp and in the marshes, and had given no opportunity for an engagement, fell suddenly upon them, by this time despairing of a battle and scattered in all directions, and was victorious more through stratagem and cunning than valor. ”

“ For our men, despising the enemy whom they had conquered the day before, and knowing that the legions were following them, animated both by the disgrace of retreating, and a desire of concluding the battle expeditiously by their own courage, fought most valiantly against the foot: and the enemy, imagining that no more forces would come against them, as they had experienced the day before, thought they had got a favorable opportunity of destroying our whole cavalry. ”