Gauls

“ 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. ”

“ This conquest of Gaul, during which he drove the Germans back to their forests, and inaugurated a policy of conciliation and moderation which made the Gauls the faithful allies of Rome, and their country its most fertile and important province, furnishing able men both for the Senate and the Army, was not only a great feat of genius, but a great service--a transcendent service--to the State, which entitled Caesar to a magnificent reward. ”

“ Modern historians, following in their track, and attracted by the splendour of their names, deviated not from the beaten path; and a thick veil still hung over the semi-barbarous neighbours and enemies of Rome. The history of no one of those nations was more interesting, or in many points involved in greater obscurity, than that of the Gauls. ”

“ In the space of four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms of Cæsar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of citizens and subjects: the Western empire was dissolved; and the Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt, or abhorrence, of its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride which the preeminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North ”

“ 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. Towards the end of the fourth century Vandals and Burgundians, Suevi and Alemanni, Goth and Hun, treading on each other’s heels, burst through the Rhine frontier, destroyed the Roman garrisons and forts, and inundated Gaul. ”

“ Beasts of burden are compelled to draw or carry loads which are beyond their strength and, to oblige them to go on, the drivers cut up their hides with twists of the thong. The fierceness of the Gauls is with us still: it is only hidden under the silk of our stockings and neckcloths. ”

“ When the Gauls invaded Italy, and the Roman senators, in their purple robes and chairs of state, sat unmoved in the presence of barbarian conquerors, disdaining to flee and equally disdaining to supplicate mercy, it is applauded as noble—as dying like statesmen and philosophers. ”

“ The Gauls will recollect their former liberty. The rest of the Germans will desert them, as the Usipii have lately done. Nor is there anything formidable behind them: ungarrisoned forts; colonies of old men; municipal towns distempered and distracted between unjust masters and ill-obeying subjects. Here is a general; here an army. There, tributes, mines, and all the train of punishments inflicted on slaves; which whether to bear eternally, or instantly to revenge, this field must determine. March then to battle, and think of your ancestors and your posterity. ”

“ Here were Gauls—but how different from those of Gaul! here were Gauls as thoroughly conversant, and as essentially imbued with the knowledge of all the systems of the East and South, as those of the North were ignorant of all habits foreign to their own. Here then is the people to furnish the emigration from the Holy Land to Spain, and to the Highlands, which their own traditions report: here are the circumstances to fashion them into that peculiar discipline which up to this day they have preserved.
According to their own tradition they had crossed into Spain from Barbary. ”

“ For the Ballon d'Alsace is the knot of Europe, and from that gathering up and ending of the Vosges you look down upon three divisions of men. To the right of you are the Gauls. I do not mean that mixed breed of Lorraine, silent, among the best of people, but I mean the tree Gauls, who are hot, ready, and born in the plains and in the vineyards. They stand in their old entrenchments on either side of the Saône and are vivacious in battle ”

“ It does not escape me, that, of all the nations inhabiting Asia, the Gauls are pre-eminent for military fame. A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth with its arms, has fixed its abode in the midst of a race of men the gentlest in the world. Their tall persons, their long red hair, their vast shields, and swords of enormous length; their songs also, when they are advancing to action, their yells and dances, and the horrid clashing of their armour, while they brandish their shields in a peculiar manner, practised in their original country ”

“ And the movement was not confined within Gaul; the Gauls of every race went, sometimes in very numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder and a settlement. Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa have been in turn the theatre of those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, grand displacements of peoples, and sometimes the formation of new nations. Let us make a slight acquaintance with this outer history of the Gauls; for it is well worth while to follow them a space upon their distant wanderings. ”

“ He is indeed unhistorical who would pretend William the Conqueror, the organizer and maker of what we now call England, Robert the Wizard, the conquerors of Sicily, or any of the great Norman names that light Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to be even partly Scandinavians. They were Gauls: short in stature, lucid in design, vigorous in stroke, positive in philosophy. ”

“ For of the Gauls, those even who stand on the best ground have been compelled once and again, and sorely against their will, to furnish cavalry, money, and corn; and of the rest, some have been deprived of their land in ancient wars, some have been overwhelmed and subdued in war by this very man. ”

“ It is certainly not improbable that the Gauls were amazed when they found the city deserted, and only these old men sitting immovable, that they took them for statues or supernatural visions, and did nothing to them, until one of them struck a Gaul who touched him, whereupon all were slaughtered. ”

“ The first thing that shook the courage of the Gauls was, that their enemies had, contrary to their expectation, the honor of being aggressors. In the next place, the light-armed men, falling upon them before they could get into their usual order or range themselves in their proper squadrons, so disturbed and pressed upon them, that they were obliged to fight at random, without any order at all. ”

“ But chains were on their hands and feet, and the men who had fought so long and well for freedom, were the captive gazing-stock of Rome. Long, long was the line of chained Gauls of every tribe, before the four white horses appeared, all abreast, drawing the gilded car, in which stood a slight form in a purple robe, with the bald head and narrow temples encircled with a wreath of bay, the thin cheeks tinted with vermilion, the eager aquiline face and narrow lips gravely composed to Roman dignity, and the quick eye searching out what impression the display was making on the people. ”

“ The Gauls were not wanting in intelligence or dexterity, but being too free to go quietly under a master’s hand, and too barbarous for self-government, carried away, as they were, by the interest or passion of the moment, they could not long act either in concert or with sameness of purpose. ”

“ For we learn from history, that the Gauls too flourished in warlike prowess and renown: amongst them afterwards, together with peace and idleness, there entered effeminacy; and thus with the loss of their liberty they lost their spirit and magnanimity. The same happened to those of the Britons who were conquered long ago. The rest still continue such as the Gauls once were.
Their principal force consists in their foot. Some nations amongst them make also war in chariots. The more honourable person always drives: under his leading his followers fight. ”

“ The Gauls were settling into peaceful habits. The soil of Gaul was now as well cultivated as Italy. Barges loaded with merchandise were passing freely along the Rhone and the Saône, the Loire, the Moselle, and the Rhine. 8 The best of the chiefs were made senators of Rome, and the people were happy and contented. What he had done for Gaul he might, if he lived, do for Spain, and Africa, and the East. But it was the concern of others more than of himself. “Better,” he said, “to die at once than live in perpetual dread of treason.” ”

“ Meantime the Gauls learnt that their embassy had been treated with contempt, and that honours had actually been conferred upon men who had violated the law of nations. Burning with rage - as a nation they cannot control their passions - they seized their standards and hurriedly set out on their march. At the sound of their tumult as they swept by, the affrighted cities flew to arms and the country folk took to flight. Horses and men, spread far and wide, covered an immense tract of country; wherever they went they made it understood by loud shouts that they were going to Rome. ”

“ When the Fabii had set forth the commission in an assembly of the Gauls, there was made to them this answer: "We have not, indeed, before heard the name of the Romans, but we believe you to be brave men, seeing that the men of Clusium have sought to you for help. Seeing that ye would stand between us and your allies, and would deal by persuasion rather than by force of arms, we accept your conditions; only let the men of Clusium, seeing that they possess more land than they need, give up that which is over and above to the Gauls. ”

“ Their lives must have been the life of all the other Gauls, who, the fetters of slavery notwithstanding, have, step by step and from century to century, conquered through revolt and battle the deliverance of our country.
You will find in the last lines written by our ancestor Fergan, the husband of Genevieve, that despite the vows taken by the Sons of the Mistletoe and despite innumerable uprisings, one of the most formidable of which was chieftained by Sacrovir, the worthy emulator of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, the Roman yoke that Caesar imposed upon Gaul remained unshaken. ”

“ The conqueror treated the Gauls with mildness, and endeavored in every way to make them adopt Roman habits and customs. As they had lost all hope of resisting him, they calmly accepted the situation, and the foundation of the subsequent Romanizing of the west of Europe was laid. Three million Gauls had been conquered, a million had been butchered, and another million taken captive, while eight hundred cities, centres of active life and places of the enjoyment of those social virtues for which the rough inhabitants of the region were noted, had been destroyed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These were the Gauls, a tall strong, brave people, long limbed and red-haired, of the same race as the highlanders of Scotland. They had gradually spread themselves over the middle of Europe, and had for some generations past lived among the Alpine mountains, whence they used to come down upon the rich plans of northern Italy for forays, in which they slew and burnt, and drove off cattle, and now and then, when a country was quite depopulated, would settle themselves in it. ”

“ Instability appears as peculiarly characteristic of the Gauls. They were not barbarians, but an ingenious folk, quick-witted and loquacious. [10] Their domestic customs were reasonable; they had taxes and judicial tribunals; their religion held belief in immortality, and in other respects was not below the paganism of Italy. It was directed by the priestly caste of Druids, who possessed considerable knowledge, and used the Greek alphabet in writing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They whose rashness had brought about the war, having the charge of the thing committed to them, used no more diligence in the levying of an army than if they were dealing with one of the nations round about, but made light of the matter. In the meanwhile the Gauls, when they heard that the very men that had set at nought the law of nations had been promoted to great honour, were filled with fury, and forthwith snatching up their standards, marched towards Rome with all speed. ”

“ Their discontent soon burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable genius of Cæsar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents of innocent blood too often stained his arms. ”