The Conquest of Gaul

by Gaius Julius Caesar

Politics at Rome was personal and factional, its significant operation confined within the membership of the Senate.

Constitutionally, Rome was a Republic, with the legislative and electoral sovereignty vested in popular assemblies. In practice, control of government was in the hands of the Senate, itself made up of past and present holders of public office, and the effective policy-making body, although technically it was merely advisory to the magistrates.

The Gracchi had shown that the sovereign power of the people

could be used to break the Senate’s de facto control of government. However, they had no armed power with which to defend themselves against the senators’ reaction.

Marius’ military innovations produced an army for whom soldiering was a means of earning a livelihood and – in the absence of a service gratuities commission – its commander the person to whom the soldiers loo...

Sulla, who himself seized power by force of arms after a civil war, attempted to forestall any repetition of such events by a programme of legislation which regulated the cursus honorum – the sequence of magisterial offices – expanded the judicial system and put it under exclusive senatorial control, and imposed restrictions on the powers of the tribunes. Within less than a decade, virtually his entire construction had been either dismantled or ignored.

Meanwhile, his former consular colleague and rival, Crassus, made various attempts to strengthen his own position at Rome and there are good grounds for believing that Caesar was one of the rising politicians to whom he lent support.

This idea presented no real contribution to solving the political problems of the day; it was merely an attempt to shore up the status quo. In any case, the Senate failed to carry out its role. Instead, it alienated not only Pompey but also Crassus and Caesar.

In the end, he gave up his triumph and secured election as consul – possibly with some help from Crassus and Pompey. The three men, somewhere about this time, formed an unofficial coalition, known to modern historians as the ‘first

triumvirate’, for mutual self-help.

As consul, Caesar secured the immediate wants of Pompey and Crassus and provided for himself as well. The Senate had tried to block his further advancement, before the election, by assigning as provinces for the consuls of 59 trivial responsibi...

Caesar used a tribune to put through the popular assembly a law giving him Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years. When the Governor of Transalpine Gaul died suddenly, the Senate assigned that province to him as well, partly perhaps in order to save themselves the hu...

He had used Gracchan methods to by-pass senatorial opposition; he had intimidated the opposition by the threat of armed force (from veterans supplied by Pompey); and he had carried through legislation in defiance of his consular colleague’s attempt to block business (by the technical device of announcement that he was ‘watching for omens’).

Eventually, Pompey even alleged that he was in danger of his life at the hands of agents of Crassus. Meanwhile, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, a member of the senatorial opposition to the triumvirs, was announcing his own candidature for the consular elections for 55 and his intention of securing Caesar’s recall from Gaul.

Caesar held meetings with the other two triumvirs within his Cisalpine province in the spring of 56, as a result of which a law, jointly sponsored by both, was passed in 55 extending Caesar’s command for a further five years.

Pompey and Crassus secured for themselves consulships for 55 and the passage of a tribunician law assigning them provinces – Syria for Crassus, for a war against the Parthians, and both Spains to Pompey, for five years, with the additional proviso that Pompey could govern in absentia and so remain near Rome.

However, the deaths of Julia (Caesar’s daughter and Pompey’s wife) in 54 and Crassus in 53 drastically weakened the ties between Pompey and Caesar; and then, after several years of public rioting, disorder and violence, Pompey was commission...

One of his first acts as consul was to secure the renewal of his provincial command for a further five years, without making a...

Pompey was now torn two ways – between loyalty to his partner, Caesar, on the one hand, and, on the other, the allurements of the power and recognition now offered by the formerly ho...

It was necessary for Caesar that when he gave up his Gallic command he should immediately take on the consulship and so be immune from prosecution. To achieve this, it was necessary that no successor to his command should be appointed by the Senate until he became consul-elect, and that he should be able to stand as candidate in absentia.

However, this law, unlike the Sempronian law it superseded, was not immune from tribunician veto, and Pompey himself, both in 51 B.C. and again in 50, helped to block discussion of a successor to Caesar.

The tribune Curio countered with the proposal that both Caesar and Pompey should resign. This motion was overwhelmingly carried – and promptly vetoed by another tribune.

Marcellus tried again on the following day and, being vetoed by Curio, declared a state of emergency and called upon Pompey to save the State, authorizing him to command the two legions in Italy (VIII.54–5) and raise additional levies.

The same is true of the further civil fighting after Caesar’s death. Public order and efficient government were restored only when the leader of one faction emerged with such overwhelming strength as to compel obedience. That was Caesar’s great-nephew, the future emperor Augustus.

To these, and more particularly to those in north-western Europe, Greek and Roman writers applied more or less interchangeably the names of ‘Celts’ and ‘Gauls’.

And, as Caesar tells us, further movements, this time on the part of the Helvetii and of the Germanic Suebi, were occasioning disturbance to the neighbours of the Transalpine province and concern to the Romans, when he entered on his command.

The Gallic products exported in return were probably similar in range to those Strabo lists as coming from Britain – ‘corn, cattle, gold, silver, iron . . . together with hides, slaves and hunting dogs’ (IV.5.2). Caesar notes the skill of the native iron and copper miners (III.21; cf. VII.22); metals from Britain also reached the Mediterranean via Gaul.

Those areas most directly in contact with the Province show most signs of being influenced by Roman political institutions. The Celtic tribes in particular, and especially three important sections singled out for mention by Caesar – the Arverni, the Aedui and the Helvetii – had already abandoned hereditary kingship and instead had magistrates, annually elected and answerable to councils, and public codes of law.

The Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine, according to Caesar, were still pastoral, without settled agriculture, accepted a centralized authority only in time of war, and positively rejected what they regarded as the enervating luxuries offered by traders (as did the Nervii – II.15).

Of these groups the first, i.e. primarily the Celtic peoples, were already evolving out of the old tribal system into that of the primitive state, a type of government familiar to the Romans and with which they could deal by familiar methods.

They are impulsive, emotional, easily swayed, fickle, loving change, credulous, prone to panic, scatter-brained. Hirtius, in the eighth book, also comments on their volatile nature (VIII.13). In chapter 25 he says that the Treveri, neighbouring the Germans and sharing their ferocity, could be controlled only by armed force.

The whole race, he says, is madly keen on war, brave and impetuous and easily outwitted. Because of their frankness and straightforwardness their sympathies are easily roused to war in support of friends who think themselves wronged.

Thus personal and political instability are linked to reinforce the theme of the need for military action.

The Helvetii had wronged Rome’s allies (I.11, 14); they were a threat to the Province (I.10, 30) – the latter not very plausible geographically; and they had committed as yet unavenged injuries on the Romans (I.7, 12, 13, 30).

Since Ariovistus was actually a ‘Friend’ the case against him is harder to establish. In the end, Caesar lays most stress on the ‘German menace’ (spec. I.33, 40) and on Ariovistus’ truculence.

His legions had wintered at Besançon, well outside the Province, but strategically justifiable to guard against renewed hostilities by the Suebi. However, the effect, intentional or otherwise, was to provoke the Belgae, whose bravery, ferocity – and connections with some Germanic tribes – are stressed

Caesar is at pains to imply that, as far as he was concerned, Gaul was pacified by the end of the campaigning season of 57 and Illyria was his next objective (II.34, III.7). Most of the legions had wintered in Central Gaul, plausibly enough, in view of the recent fighting with the Belgae; but in which direction had he intended moving them in the campaigning season of 56?

The major revolts in Gaul that occupied the rest of Caesar’s time there go some way to justify his frequently repeated statement about the insecurity of the conquest. In the end, Gaul was pacified and Caesar had the credit of adding a large new province to the Roman empire.

was his swiftness to react to and extricate himself from the consequence of his own errors.

Both his father and his uncle had supported Marius, and the family was therefore regarded as belonging to the populares (’radicals’ or ‘demagogues’, depending on one’s political sympathies) and was viewed with suspicion by the optimates (the ‘good men’) – upholders of the senatorial oligarchy’s entrenched power and privilege.

Within two years, however, he openly showed himself a supporter of popular measures, backing Pompey’s work in undoing the Sullan constitution. From then right down to the Civil War Caesar is consistently found supporting popular legislation and reforms.

His dignitas – the status and prestige within the state which he felt his due – was of prime importance to him, rather than the actual power involved in being dictator.

In his own time, his enemies put about the story that he wanted to make himself a king – even a Hellenistic-type king, worshipped with divine honours. This has been taken seriously by some modern historians.

On account of his matrimonial connection he was a keen partisan of the Helvetii, and he had his own reasons for hating Caesar and the Romans, because their arrival in Gaul had decreased his power and restored his brother Diviciacus to his former position of honour and influence.

disaster should befall the Romans, he felt sure that with the aid of the Helvetii the throne was within his grasp, whereas a Roman conquest of Gaul would mean that he could not hope even to retain his present standing, much less

and earnestly begged him not to take offence, but to consent to his either hearing the case himself and passing judgement on Dumnorix, or else instructing the Aeduan state to do so.

Bursting into tears, Diviciacus embraced Caesar and besought him not to deal too severely with his brother. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that the allegations against him are true, and no one regrets it more than I do.

However, he placed Dumnorix under surveillance in order to ascertain what he was doing and whom he talked with.