It is telling that, given how many times the ancient biographers mention that their subject had written commentaries and memoirs of their own lives, very few of these autobiographical writings survive - Caesar's are exemplary among these few and indicate the reverence history has laid at his feet.
So yes, it is certainly one of history's great sadnesses that Sulla's memoirs have been lost to that gaping void of un-ending Time. Had we them in our possession, the comparisons with Caesar's military commentaries in Gaul (and later against his own brethren in Greece and then against the Egyptians in Alexandria) would be fascinating indeed. One can surely regard Sulla as a model, an enemy yet absent mentor for Caesar, much how Xenophon's Romantic Cyrus was for Alexander -- what did the student take from his master and what did the student neglect or abandon? It is a tantalizing question. Caesar is highly pragmatic in these campaigns, and in this he mimics Sulla and shares similarities with Sulla's other protégés, Lucullus and Pompey; yet there are times where Caesar's strategies and decisions belie a desire for spectacle, for grandiosity - in such ways he may be modeling after the jaw-dropping feats of Alexander.
And in so doing, Caesar played his hand by forcing his enemies to play theirs: he sent back to Rome these yearly "reports" of his victories in Gaul, and then had these reports and running memoirs published for wider-spread reading in 51 B.C. These self-glorifying memoirs and brag-sheets which he dictated to a scribe while on horseback in the Gallic forests, or on the banks of the Rhine, or surveying the Cliffs of Dover, were instrumental to how the man won the heart and admiration of the people -- and the fear of his rivals. There are many selections (I.27 stands out) where Caesar seems less like a Republican magistrate and more like a king ordering hostages and arms be brought to him, a monarch who had tribal chieftains of entire nations begging for mercy at his feet -- this must have made his political rival and enemies (none more so than Pompey, assuredly) seethe with envy. "Invidia gloriae comes" - "Envy is glory's companion" wrote Cornelius Nepos of the Athenian general Khabrias; but he could have just as easily been referring to Caesar. It is almost certain that these writings hastened Caesar's rivals -- the great Pompey, Cato, Metellus Scipio et al. -- to move against him. Unfortunately for them, they didn't pay enough attention to Caesar's self-aggrandizing "How to Win a Campaign" instruction manual to know that he would be prepared for whatever they threw at him - he merely needed for them to make the first move, for if he remained reactionary to the hostile movements of his enemies in the Senate, then he could always skirt the blame as originator of the conflict. However, I am getting ahead of myself - the Civil Wars come later; now back to Gaul:
The Celts in Italy
"Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur."
Gallia as a whole is divided into three parts, of which the first the Belgae inhabit, another the Aquitani, the third, who in their own language are called Celtae, in ours are called Galli.
-Caesar, De Bello Gallico I.1. trans. by A.N. Fries
The mighty Alps, though an ever-dangerous boundary, had done little to separate the Celtic/Gallic tribes from their brethren who dwelt since earliest times in the northern Italian peninsula in the Padus (Po) Valley. But by the 6th century B.C, an Italian tribe residing in a small city on the banks of the Tiber River, mid-peninsula on the west coast, were encroaching upon the territory of Etruscans who lived opposite to them across the river. After many centuries of back-and-forth fighting, the destruction of the Etruscan buffer-city Veii by these bellicose Romans in 396 B.C. caused the tribes of the Padus Valley to sweep south into fertile Roman lands.
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| Without the Etruscans to separate them, the Gauls went south to greet their newest neighbors, the Romans. |
These fierce Celtic warriors even sacked the city itself in 390 B.C. The Roman historians record the Gallic chieftain Brennus telling their beaten fore-bearers, "Vae victis" - "Woe to the vanquished", as the Gauls exacted more tribute from them. A lasting humiliation, the Romans never forgot those words and vowed to never allow the Gauls to utter them again.
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| Paul Jamin - Le Brenn et sa part de butin 1893 - hide your kids; hide your wife; the Gauls be snatchin' your people up |
And so the Romans fought back. Fighting between them continued steadily until the Romans beat their conquerors back to the Alps and beyond, claiming the northern peninsula for themselves; a notable capture was the Gallic (more correctly, Insubrian) city of Mediolanum, "The City in the Midst of the Plain", the modern-day Milan, in 222 B.C. The Carthaginian Hannibal famously marched through the Alps with his army in 218 B.C. - along his war-route, he enticed many Gallic tribesmen to join his cause against the Romans and reclaim their fathers' lands of northern Italy. It was a vain hope, for the Romans won that war and thus kept those lands; but the Padus Valley always retained a sort of Gallic flair (much how the southern peninsula was beholden to the Greek city states and so had [and often still do] a Hellenic flavor), and, even though they could claim the honor of birthing some great Romans (Catullus of Verona and Vergil, the Swan of Mantua, were of northern stock) the mid-peninsula looked upon them as somewhat barbaric. For example, an Italian legend of Verona's founding has the very same Roman conqueror Brennus striking ground at what would become the city's center by naming it "Vae Roma" - "Woe Rome" which would become "Verona". How happy would the Romans be at hearing this?
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| An Italian map of the Po Valley |
In the decades leading up to Caesar's ProConsulship of Hinter-Gaul (Gallia Transalpina), the Italian allies of the middle and southern peninsula had fought in an uprising against Rome known as The Social War (91 - 88 B.C.) and thus had won their right to be Roman citizens. It would take a bit longer to extend such perks to the north (Verona became a municipium Romanum in 49 B.C. - a client city under Roman jurisdiction), but the lands at the foot of the Alps were more or less Romanized.
Beyond the Alps, however, where Caesar's campaigns took place, was a wilder, more savage place.
Caesar's ProConsulship
Gaul proper was a contentious place at best. The fertile and heavily-forested land was much colder in Caesar's day than in our own: the deforestation and clearing of the swamps (not to mention the onset of climate change) has made modern-day France more moderate; the Romans, accustomed to Italy's comfortable climate, must have been chilly, especially at night.The southern area of Gaul proper, Hinter-Gaul/Gallia Transalpina, with Massilia (modern-day Marseilles) as its center, was known colloquially as Provincia, "the province", and the name stuck, for even today it is known as Provence (as well as parts of Languedoc). The Romans had maintained a foothold in the area since the early 2nd century B.C. when they aided the Massilian Greeks against the raids of the Ligurine Gauls. The Roman never left, but set up shop (somewhat literally) by instead building roads and cities (Rome's own city Narbo was constructed to compete with Massilia). This was the territory given to Gaius Julius Caesar to govern after his rocky Consulship of 59 B.C. ended at the close of that year.
A few days into January of 58 B.C, just after Caesar's term of office expired, two Praetors called Caesar's Consular legislation into question, and invoked an investigation be carried out into whether the laws had been passed properly. Caesar could not afford such an investigation, and he especially couldn't be caught in Rome - it was unlawful to prosecute a sitting magistrate, and as long as Caesar stayed outside of the city, he was safe from the courts; he had decided, however, that as close as Hinter-Gaul might be to Rome, it wasn't close enough and affairs at the city itself needed his steady hand at this time. He participated in the Senate's debating for three days before he departed from the tiresome proceedings, donned his war-gear as a ProConsul, and then made camp just outside the hallowed boundaries of the city within which no un-sanctified general was permitted - he was safe from them, and they, technically, were safe from him. He was asked by a People's Tribune to return to the city proper and participate in the investigation, but Caesar and the tribunes in his pocket successfully appealed against it, on the grounds that to coerce a ProConsul to enter the city while on his ProConsulship was highly irregular. So there he stayed, unable to pay off any Senators or move any matters himself, until P. Clodius Pulcher, the errant pretty rich-boy turned People's Tribune, pushed into passage four bills of great importance:
- a grain distribution bill, offering free grain to the People. Caesar's rivals scoffed at the influence he and his friends could buy from the People with free grain.
- a bill allowing urban associations to form again. These had been broken up by the Senate in 64 B.C, but now could be re-formed and made extensions of Clodius' (and thereby, the Triumvirate's) gang.
- a bill mandating that only a magistrate could report on divine signs from the sky (bird flights and other auguries, lightning strikes, &c.) and not an intercessor. This drastically cut down on the number of times lightning was politically used to end a Senatorial session (the sight of such an omen required business to close - for example, if one did not like the bill being passed or the matter debated, all one had to do was exclaim that he saw lightning and the matter was to be dropped - it is rather like the way football players fake injuries in order to stop the match).
- a bill which restricted the Censors' powers in striking a Senator's name from the Senatorial roll. This was probably a perk thrown to some less-ethically inclined members.
Caesar's legislation was safe, for no one wished to go up against Clodius. The wild Tribune had become a sort of hero to the people, a fighter for their cause who was effectively giving hell to the establishment. Caesar had to be pleased at Clodius' next move: a fifth piece of legislation was formulated by Clodius, which mandated that any Roman who put to death a citizen without due process of law was to be exiled. This was pointed specifically at Cicero, for it worked retroactively, and Cicero had put to death the Catilinarian conspirators during his Consulship of 63 B.C. without first putting the accused on trial or offering them the right to appeal to the People. Even though Caesar, who had spoken out against the executions from the first, allowed himself to come to the Field of Mars and speak against this bill, it passed. Cicero, without a friend in the world to defend him, removed himself from Rome.
Then, via more skillful manuevering by Clodius, Cato was sent on errand to Cyprus and was thus gone from the city.
And so, by the beginning of March, Caesar had each task ticked-off his list (protect his legislation, get his enemies out of Rome, make sure his creatures patrolled the streets), and could now depart for his province - the sooner the better, for there were rumblings in Gaul, more specifically, in Helvetia (modern-day Switzerland).
Casus Belli
"The Case for War" - how did Caesar justify making war upon the Gallic tribes?In Book I of his own account, Caesar briefly describes the political movements and aspirations of certain Gallic nobles who conspire to make themselves kings of the whole country. In 61 B.C, a Helvetian (modern-day Swiss) nobleman, Orgetorix, was caught nurturing the uprising of the nobles by convincing the entire population to commit themselves to a mass exodus from their territory at the outskirts of Gaul and into the central country proper; complaints of confined borders and constant warfare with the terrifying German neighbors are cited by Caesar as reasons for their move. Once having positioned themselves in the midst of weaker Gallic tribes, they planned on gaining possession of all of Gaul through their superior fighting prowess, as warring with the Germans was good for something. Unfortunately for those who fostered these designs, the intrigue was discovered and, even after Orgetorix's suspicious death, the people still attempted to move into central Gaul by Caesar's arrival at the Provincia in 58 B.C. -- all of this according to his own report.
Certainly, there were inherent dangers to such a mass movement. Modern-day Americans should be very familiar with first-hand accounts of what happens when an ethnic group moves en masse from one place to another. What of the vacuum left behind in a people's wake? This is an observation Caesar explains to the reader, for he views the Helvetians as good buffers to the Germans -- and more reasonable than the latter to boot. What would happen if the Germans entered the empty lands of the Helvetians? The Romans themselves knew the dangers of such migrations - they themselves had suffered defeat at the hands of the Gauls when they destroyed the buffer civilization of the Etruscans and the Gauls moved in to fill the vacuum. More immediate to Caesar, however, is the plan that the Helvetians and their allies would make their mass movement through the Provincia, Roman territory, by the end of March, 58 B.C.
Caesar refused to allow such a thing, and said that he would resort to force if necessary; the Helvetians responded in kind, for they intended to make their march and said that they would resort to force if necessary.
So what began as a tiff between the Helvetians and Caesar then grew into a larger conspiracy involving other pro-Roman tribes, and then erupted into a bloody battle between Caesar's forces and the Helvetians while they were on their march.
Successful and powerful, Caesar is then drawn into further conflicts to ostensibly defend Roman interests in the region and stave off any threats of attack or invasion.
Despite his reasons for declaring war on the various tribes of Gaul, Germany, and Britain, this is not something which Caesar was permitted to do. In no way was a Roman ProConsul allowed to add territory to the empire on a whim - Rome was a Republic and thrived off of checks, balances, and oversight. Of course, certain leeway was given to ProConsuls in their governing of foreign places - troops might need to be assembled quickly and with little delay in order to save lives and Roman investments. However, this leeway did not extend to punitive invasions of the island of Britain or of Germanic lands across the Rhine, or the conquest of all of Gaul without just cause.
Caesar did what he did and he was allowed to do it because he was never seriously challenged in Rome - by the time his enemies realized that there was only enough room at the top for one ruler, it was too late and they were swept aside within a few years' time.
Caesar vs. The Gauls
How were the Romans able to become so successful in fighting the Gauls? Simply, after centuries of fighting each other, and after the Romans grew to hone their skills fighting a vast array of enemies in the greater Mediterranean (while the Gauls were mostly confined to fighting Germans and Britons), the Romans had learned to capitalize on the Gauls weakness in fighting while at the same time playing to their own strengths. The Gauls favored fighting with shields locked in a shield wall -- Caesar favored showering the wall with heavy-tipped javelins to pierce the shields and pin them together, thus rendering them ineffective for personal use again. Roman weapons and arms were excellent counters to the Gallic arsenal, even when the tribes-people turned to tricks, traps, and ambuscades. Roman discipline and training was more than a match for thousands of Gallic warriors charging en masse, for as Caesar sums up well the personal discipline of each officer and soldier in the following episode from his own commentaries, in which his own men are surprised by an ambush (emphasis is my own):
[II.20] Caesar had everything to do at the same time: the camp flag had to be raised, which was the sign when it was necessary to rush to arms; assembly had to be given by trumpet call; from their work the soldiers had to be called; those who had a little further off sought materials for a rampart had to be summoned back; the battle line had to be drawn up; the soldiers had to encouraged; the sound to attack had to be given -- a great many of these tasks did the shortness of time and the charge of the enemy hinder. To these difficulties were there two advantages: the knowledge and experience of our soldiers, who, having been trained by former battles as to what ought to be done, were able to no less conveniently order each himself to act rather than to be ordered by others; and also because each of the legates did Caesar forbid from leaving their own legions at the work unless the camp was fortified. These, on account of the nearness and speed of the enemy, in no way were awaiting Caesar's command, but by themselves took up the task of doing whatever was seemly.
-Caesaris De Bello Gallico II.24. Trans. is my own.
Evidence
Think also of this: no other account of Caesar's time in Gaul survives; only one source other than Caesar can speak as an objective voice to either support the Roman general or contradict him: the physical remnants of the Romans' leavings. If Caesar is correct in his tellings, then there should be evidence of his battles and sieges and architecture which can be archaeologically proven - and evidence has been found and this evidence does indeed point to a "mostly true" classification of Caesar's account.
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