The march of the Cimbrian and Teutonic host, composed, as respects
its flower, of German tribes, which had swept with such force fifty
years before over Pannonia, Gaul, Italy, and Spain, seemed to have
been nothing but a grand reconnaissance. Already different German
tribes had formed permanent settlements to the west of the Rhine,
especially of its lower course; having intruded as conquerors,
these settlers continued to demand hostages and to levy annual
tribute from the Gallic inhabitants in their neighbourhood,
as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci,
who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde(28) had grown
into a considerable canton, and a number of other tribes afterwards
comprehended under the name of the Tungri on the Maas in the region
of Liege; even the Treveri (about Treves) and the Nervii
(in Hainault), two of the largest and most powerful peoples
of this region, are directly designated by respectable authorities
as Germans. The complete credibility of these accounts must certainly
remain doubtful, since, as Tacitus remarks in reference to the two
peoples last mentioned, it was subsequently, at least in these regions,
reckoned an honour to be descended of German blood and not to belong
to the little-esteemed Celtic nation; yet the population
in the region of the Scheldt, Maas, and Moselle seems certainly
to have become, in one way or another, largely mingled with German
elements, or at any rate to have come under German influences.
The German settlements themselves were perhaps small;
they were not unimportant, for amidst the chaotic obscurity,
through which we see the stream of peoples on the right bank
of the Rhine ebbing and flowing about this period, we can well perceive
that larger German hordes were preparing to cross the Rhine in the track
of these advanced posts. Threatened on two sides by foreign domination
and torn by internal dissension, it was scarcely to be expected
that the unhappy Celtic nation would now rally and save itself
by its own vigour. Dismemberment, and decay in virtue of dismemberment,
had hitherto been its history; how should a nation, which could
name no day like those of Marathon and Salamis, of Aricia and the Raudine
plain--a nation which, even in its time of vigour, had made
no attempt to destroy Massilia by a united effort--now when evening
had come, defend itself against so formidable foes?
The Roman Policy with Reference to the German Invasion
The less the Celts, left to themselves, were a match for the Germans,
the more reason had the Romans carefully to watch over the complications
in which the two nations might be involved. Although the movements
thence arising had not up to the present time directly affected
them, they and their most important interests were yet concerned
in the issue of those movements. As may readily be conceived,
the internal demeanour of the Celtic nation had become speedily
and permanently influenced by its outward relations. As in Greece
the Lacedaemonian party combined with Persia against the Athenians,
so the Romans from their first appearance beyond the Alps had found
a support against the Arverni, who were then the ruling power among
the southern Celts, in their rivals for the hegemony, the Haedui:
and with the aid of these new "brothers of the Roman nation" they had
not merely reduced to subjection the Allobroges and a great portion
of the indirect territory of the Arverni, but had also, in the Gaul
that remained free, occasioned by their influence the transference
of the hegemony from the Arverni to these Haedui. But while the Greeks
were threatened with danger to their nationality only from one side,
the Celts found themselves hard pressed simultaneously by two
national foes; and it was natural that they should seek from the one
protection against the other, and that, if the one Celtic party
attached itself to the Romans, their opponents should
on the contrary form alliance with the Germans. This course
was most natural for the Belgae, who were brought by neighbourhood
and manifold intermixture into closer relation to the Germans who had
crossed the Rhine, and moreover, with their less-developed culture,
probably felt themselves at least as much akin to the Suebian
of alien race as to their cultivated Allobrogian or Helvetic
countryman. But the southern Celts also, among whom now
as already mentioned, the considerable canton of the Sequani
(about Besangon) stood at the head of the party hostile to the Romans,
had every reason at this very time to call in the Germans against
the Romans who immediately threatened them; the remiss government
of the senate and the signs of the revolution preparing in Rome,
which had not remained unknown to the Celts, made this very moment
seem suitable for ridding themselves of the Roman influence
and primarily for humbling the Roman clients, the Haedui. A rupture
had taken place between the two cantons respecting the tolls
on the Saone, which separated the territory of the Haedui
from that of the Sequani, and about the year 683 the German prince
Ariovistus with some 15,000 armed men had crossed the Rhine
as condottiere of the Sequani.
Ariovistus on the Middle Rhine
The war was prolonged for some years with varying success;
on the whole the results were unfavourable to the Haedui. Their leader
Eporedorix at length called out their whole clients, and marched
forth with an enormous superiority of force against the Germans.
These obstinately refused battle, and kept themselves under cover
of morasses and forests. It was not till the clans, weary
of waiting, began to break up and disperse, that the Germans appeared
in the open field, and then Ariovistus compelled a battle
at Admagetobriga, in which the flower of the cavalry of the Haedui
were left on the field. The Haedui, forced by this defeat
to conclude peace on the terms which the victor proposed, were obliged
to renounce the hegemony, and to consent with their whole adherents
to become clients of the Sequani; they had to bind themselves
to pay tribute to the Sequani or rather to Ariovistus, and to furnish
the children of their principal nobles as hostages; and lastly
they had to swear that they would never demand back these hostages
nor invoke the intervention of the Romans.
Inaction of the Romans
This peace was concluded apparently about 693.(29) Honour
and advantage enjoined the Romans to come forward in opposition to it;
the noble Haeduan Divitiacus, the head of the Roman party in his clan,
and for that reason now banished by his countrymen, went in person
to Rome to solicit their intervention. A still more serious
warning was the insurrection of the Allobroges in 693(30)--
the neighbours of the Sequani--which was beyond doubt connected
with these events. In reality orders were issued to the Gallic
governors to assist the Haedui; they talked of sending consuls
and consular armies over the Alps; but the senate, to whose decision
these affairs primarily fell, at length here also crowned great
words with little deeds. The insurrection of the Allobroges
was suppressed by arms, but nothing was done for the Haedui;
on the contrary, Ariovistus was even enrolled in 695 in the list
of kings friendly with the Romans.(31)
Foundation of a German Empire in Gaul
The German warrior-prince naturally took this as a renunciation
by the Romans of the Celtic land which they had not occupied;
he accordingly took up his abode there, and began to establish
a German principality on Gallic soil. It was his intention that
the numerous bands which he had brought with him, and the still
more numerous bands that afterwards followed at his call from home--
it was reckoned that up to 696 some 120,000 Germans had crossed
the Rhine--this whole mighty immigration of the German nation,
which poured through the once opened sluices like a stream over
the beautiful west, should become settled there and form a basis
on which he might build his dominion over Gaul. The extent
of the German settlements which he called into existence
on the left bank of the Rhine cannot be determined; beyond doubt
it was great, and his projects were far greater still. The Celts
were treated by him as a wholly subjugated nation, and no distinction
was made between the several cantons. Even the Sequani, as whose hired
commander-in-chief he had crossed the Rhine, were obliged, as if they
were vanquished enemies, to cede to him for his people a third
of their territory--presumably upper Alsace afterwards inhabited
by the Triboci--where Ariovistus permanently settled with his followers;
nay, as if this were not enough, a second third was afterwards
demanded of them for the Harudes who arrived subsequently.
Ariovistus seemed as if he wished to take up in Gaul the part
of Philip of Macedonia, and to play the master over the Celts
who were friendly to the Germans no less than over those
who adhered to the Romans.
The Germans on the Lower Rhine
The Germans on the Upper Rhine
Spread of the Helvetian Invasion to the Interior of Gaul
The appearance of the energetic German prince in so dangerous
proximity, which could not but in itself excite the most serious
apprehension in the Romans, appeared still more threatening,
inasmuch as it stood by no means alone. The Usipetes and Tencteri
settled on the right bank of the Rhine, weary of the incessant
devastation of their territory by the overbearing Suebian tribes,
had, the year before Caesar arrived in Gaul (695), set out
from their previous abodes to seek others at the mouth of the Rhine.
They had already taken away from the Menapii there the portion
of their territory situated on the right bank, and it might be
foreseen that they would make the attempt to establish themselves
also on the left. Suebian bands, moreover, assembled between
Cologne and Mayence, and threatened to appear as uninvited guests
in the opposite Celtic canton of the Treveri. Lastly,
the territory of the most easterly clan of the Celts, the warlike
and numerous Helvetii, was visited with growing frequency
by the Germans, so that the Helvetii, who perhaps even apart from this
were suffering from over-population through the reflux of their
settlers from the territory which they had lost to the north
of the Rhine, and besides were liable to be completely isolated
from their kinsmen by the settlement of Ariovistus in the territory
of the Sequani, conceived the desperate resolution of voluntarily
evacuating the territory hitherto in their possession to the Germans,
and acquiring larger and more fertile abodes to the west
of the Jura, along with, if possible, the hegemony in the interior
of Gaul--a plan which some of their districts had already formed
and attempted to execute during the Cimbrian invasion.(32)
the Rauraci whose territory (Basle and southern Alsace) was similarly
threatened, the remains, moreover, of the Boii who had already
at an earlier period been compelled by the Germans to forsake their
homes and were now unsettled wanderers, and other smaller tribes,
made common cause with the Helvetii. As early as 693 their flying
parties came over the Jura and even as far as the Roman province;
their departure itself could not be much longer delayed; inevitably
German settlers would then advance into the important region
between the lakes of Constance and Geneva forsaken by its defenders.
From the sources of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean the German tribes
were in motion; the whole line of the Rhine was threatened by them;
it was a moment like that when the Alamanni and the Franks
threw themselves on the falling empire of the Caesars;
and even now there seemed on the eve of being carried into effect
against the Celts that very movement which was successful
five hundred years afterwards against the Romans.
Caesar Proceeds to Gaul
Caesar's Army
Under these circumstances the new governor Gaius Caesar arrived
in the spring of 696 in Narbonese Gaul, which had been added by decree
of the senate to his original province embracing Cisalpine Gaul
along with Istria and Dalmatia. His office, which was committed
to him first for five years (to the end of 700), then in 699
for five more (to the end of 705), gave him the right to nominate
ten lieutenants of propraetorian rank, and (at least according to
his own interpretation) to fill up his legions, or even to form
new ones at his discretion out of the burgess-population--who were
especially numerous in Cisalpine Gaul--of the territory under his
sway. The army, which he received in the two provinces, consisted,
as regards infantry of the line, of four legions trained and inured
to war, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, or at the utmost
24,000 men, to which fell to be added, as usual, the contingents
of the subjects. The cavalry and light-armed troops, moreover,
were represented by horsemen from Spain, and by Numidian, Cretan,
and Balearic archers and slingers. The staff of Caesar--the elite
of the democracy of the capital--contained, along with not a few
useless young men of rank, some able officers, such as Publius
Crassus the younger son of the old political ally of Caesar,
and Titus Labienus, who followed the chief of the democracy
as a faithful adjutant from the Forum to the battle-field.
Caesar had not received definite instructions; to one
who was discerning and courageous these were implied
in the circumstances with which he had to deal. Here too
the negligence of the senate had to be retrieved, and first of all
the stream of migration of the German peoples had to be checked.
Repulse of the Helvetii
Just at this time the Helvetic invasion, which was closely
interwoven with the German and had been in preparation for years,
began. That they might not make a grant of their abandoned huts
to the Germans and might render their own return impossible,
the Helvetii had burnt their towns and villages; and their long
trains of waggons, laden with women, children, and the best part
of their moveables, arrived from all sides at the Leman lake near
Genava (Geneva), where they and their comrades had fixed their
rendezvous for the 28th of March(33) of this year. According
to their own reckoning the whole body consisted of 368,000 persons,
of whom about a fourth part were able to bear arms. As the mountain
chain of the Jura, stretching from the Rhine to the Rhone, almost
completely closed in the Helvetic country towards the west,
and its narrow defiles were as ill adapted for the passage
of such a caravan as they were well adapted for defence, the leaders
had resolved to go round in a southerly direction, and to open up
for themselves a way to the west at the point, where the Rhone
has broken through the mountain-chain between the south-western
and highest part of the Jura and the Savoy mountains, near
the modern Fort de l'Ecluse. But on the right bank here the rocks
and precipices come so close to the river that there remained only
a narrow path which could easily be blocked up, and the Sequani,
to whom this bank belonged, could with ease intercept the route
of the Helvetii. They preferred therefore to pass over, above the point
where the Rhone breaks through, to the left Allobrogian bank,
with the view of regaining the right bank further down the stream
where the Rhone enters the plain, and then marching on towards
the level west of Gaul; there the fertile canton of the Santones
(Saintonge, the valley of the Charente) on the Atlantic Ocean
was selected by the wanderers for their new abode. This march led,
where it touched the left bank of the Rhone, through Roman territory;
and Caesar, otherwise not disposed to acquiesce in the establishment
of the Helvetii in western Gaul, was firmly resolved not to permit
their passage. But of his four legions three were stationed far
off at Aquileia; although he called out in haste the militia
of the Transalpine province, it seemed scarcely possible with so small
a force to hinder the innumerable Celtic host from crossing
the Rhone, between its exit from the Leman lake at Geneva
and the point of its breaking through the mountains, over a distance
of more than fourteen miles. Caesar, however, by negotiations
with the Helvetii, who would gladly have effected by peaceable means
the crossing of the river and the march through the Allobrogian
territory, gained a respite of fifteen days, which was employed
in breaking down the bridge over the Rhone at Genava, and barring
the southern bank of the Rhone against the enemy by an entrenchment
nearly nineteen miles long: it was the first application
of the system--afterwards carried out on so immense a scale
by the Romans--of guarding the frontier of the empire in a military point
of view by a chain of forts placed in connection with each other
by ramparts and ditches. The attempts of the Helvetii to gain
the other bank at different places in boats or by means of fords
were successfully frustrated by the Romans in these lines,
and the Helvetii were compelled to desist from the passage of the Rhone.
The Helvetii Move towards Gaul
On the other hand, the party in Gaul hostile to the Romans,
which hoped to obtain a powerful reinforcement in the Helvetii,
more especially the Haeduan Dumnorix brother of Divitiacus,
and at the head of the national party in his canton as the latter
wasat the head of the Romans, procured for them a passage
through the passes of the Jura and the territory of the Sequani.
The Romans had no legal title to forbid this; but other and higher
interestswereat stake for them in the Helvetic expedition than
the question of the formal integrity of the Roman territory-- interests
which could only be guarded, if Caesar, instead of confining himself,
as all the governors of the senate and even Marius(34) had done,
to the modest task of watching the frontier, should cross what had hitherto
been the frontier at the head of a considerable army. Caesar was general
not of the senate, but of the state; he showed no hesitation.
He had immediately proceeded from Genava in person to Italy,
and with characteristic speed brought up the three legions
cantoned there as well as two newly-formed legions of recruits.
The Helvetian War
These troops he united with the corps stationed at Genava,
and crossed the Rhone with his whole force. His unexpected appearance
in the territory of the Haedui naturally at once restored the Roman
party there to power, which was not unimportant as regarded
supplies. He found the Helvetii employed in crossing the Saone,
and moving from the territory of the Sequani into that
of the Haedui; those of them that were still on the left bank
of the Saone, especially the corps of the Tigorini, were caught
and destroyed by the Romans rapidly advancing. The bulk
of the expedition, however, had already crossed to the right bank
of the river; Caesar followed them and in twenty-four hours effected
the passage, which the unwieldy host of the Helvetii had not been able
to accomplish in twenty days. The Helvetii, prevented by this passage
of the river on the part of the Roman army from continuing
their march westward, turned in a northerly direction, doubtless
under the supposition that Caesar would not venture to follow them
far into the interior of Gaul, and with the intention, if he should
desist from following them, of turning again toward their proper
destination. For fifteen days the Roman army marched behind
that of the enemy at a distance of about four miles, clinging
to its rear, and hoping for an advantageous opportunity of assailing
the Helvetic host under conditions favourable to victory,
and destroying it. But this moment came not: unwieldy as was the march
of the Helvetic caravan, the leaders knew how to guard against
a surprise, and appeared to be copiously provided with supplies
as well as most accurately informed by their spies of every event
in the Roman camp. On the other hand the Romans began to suffer
from want of necessaries, especially when the Helvetii removed
from the Saone and the means of river-transport ceased. The non-arrival
of the supplies promised by the Haedui, from which this embarrassment
primarily arose, excited the more suspicion, as both armies
were still moving about in their territory. Moreover the considerable
Roman cavalry, numbering almost 4000 horse, proved utterly
untrustworthy--which doubtless admitted of explanation,
for they consisted almost wholly of Celtic horsemen, especially
of the mounted retainers of the Haedui, under the command of Dumnorix
the well-known enemy of the Romans, and Caesar himself had taken
them over still more as hostages than as soldiers. There was good
reason to believe that a defeat which they suffered at the hands
of the far weaker Helvetic cavalry was occasioned by themselves,
and that the enemy was informed by them of all occurrences
in the Roman camp. The position of Caesar grew critical; it was
becoming disagreeably evident, how much the Celtic patriot party
could effect even with the Haedui in spite of their official
alliance with Rome, and of the distinctive interests of this canton
inclining it towards the Romans; what was to be the issue, if they
ventured deeper and deeper into a country full of excitement,
and if they removed daily farther from their means of communication?
The armies were just marching past Bibracte (Autun), the capital
of the Haedui, at a moderate distance; Caesar resolved to seize
this important place by force before he continued his march
into the interior; and it is very possible, that he intended to desist
altogether from farther pursuit and to establish himself
in Bibracte. But when he ceased from the pursuit and turned
against Bibracte, the Helvetii thought that the Romans were making
preparations for flight, and now attacked in their turn.
Battle at Bibracte
Caesar desired nothing better. The two armies posted themselves
on two parallel chains of hills; the Celts began the engagement,
broke up the Roman cavalry which had advanced into the plain,
and rushed on against the Roman legions posted on the slope of the hill,
but were there obliged to give way before Caesar's veterans.
When the Romans thereupon, following up their advantage, descended
in their turn to the plain, the Celts again advanced against them,
and a reserved Celtic corps took them at the same time in flank.
The reserve of the Roman attacking column was pushed forward
against the latter; it forced it away from the main body towards
the baggage and the barricade of waggons, where it was destroyed.
The bulk of the Helvetic host was at length brought to give way,
and compelled to beat a retreat in an easterly direction--the opposite
of that towards which their expedition led them. This day had
frustrated the scheme of the Helvetii to establish for themselves
new settlements on the Atlantic Ocean, and handed them over
to the pleasure of the victor; but it had been a hot day also
for the conquerors. Caesar, who had reason for not altogether trusting
his staff of officers, had at the very outset sent away
all the officers' horses, so as to make the necessity of holding
their ground thoroughly clear to his troops; in fact the battle,
had the Romans lost it, would have probably brought about
the annihilation of the Roman army. The Roman troops
were too much exhausted to pursue the conquered with vigour;
but in consequence of the proclamation of Caesar that he would
treat all who should support the Helvetii as like the Helvetii
themselves enemies of the Romans, all support was refused
to the beaten army whithersoever it went-- in the first instance,
in the canton of the Lingones (about Langres)--and, deprived
of all supplies and of their baggage and burdened by the mass
of camp-followers incapable of fighting, they were under the necessity
of submitting to the Roman general.
The Helvetii Sent back to Their Original Abode
The lot of the vanquished was a comparatively mild one.
The Haedui were directed to concede settlements in their territory
to the homeless Boii; and this settlement of the conquered foe
in the midst of the most powerful Celtic cantons rendered almost
the services of a Roman colony. The survivors of the Helvetii
and Rauraci, something more than a third of the men that had marched
forth, were naturally sent back to their former territory.
It was incorporated with the Roman province, but the inhabitants
were admitted to alliance with Rome under favourable conditions,
in order to defend, under Roman supremacy, the frontier along
the upper Rhine against the Germans. Only the south-western point
of the Helvetic canton was directly taken into the possession
of the Romans, and there subsequently, on the charming shore
of the Leman lake, the old Celtic town Noviodunum (now Nyon)
was converted into a Roman frontier-fortress,
the "Julian equestrian colony."(35)
Caesar and Ariovistus
Negotiations
Thus the threatening invasion of the Germans on the upper Rhine
was obviated, and, at the same time, the party hostile to the Romans
among the Celts was humbled. On the middle Rhine also,
where the Germans had already crossed years ago, and where the power
of Ariovistus which vied with that of Rome in Gaul was daily
spreading, there was need of similar action, and the occasion
for a rupture was easily found. In comparison with the yoke threatened
or already imposed on them by Ariovistus, the Roman supremacy probably
now appeared to the greater part of the Celts in this quarter
the lesser evil; the minority, who retained their hatred
of the Romans, had at least to keep silence. A diet of the Celtic
tribes of central Gaul, held under Roman influence, requested
the Roman general in name of the Celtic nation for aid against
the Germans. Caesar consented. At his suggestion the Haedui stopped
the payment of the tribute stipulated to be paid to Ariovistus,
and demanded back the hostages furnished; and when Ariovistus
on account of this breach of treaty attacked the clients of Rome,
Caesar took occasion thereby to enter into direct negotiation
with him and specially to demand, in addition to the return
of the hostages and a promise to keep peace with the Haedui,
that Ariovistus should bind himself to allure no more Germans
over the Rhine. The German general replied to the Roman, in the full
consciousness of equality of rights, that northern Gaul had become
subject to him by right of war as fairly as southern Gaul
to the Romans; and that, as he did not hinder the Romans from taking
tribute from the Allobroges, so they should not prevent him
from taxing his subjects. In later secret overtures it appeared
that the prince was well aware of the circumstances of the Romans;
he mentioned the invitations which had been addressed to him from Rome
to put Caesar out of the way, and offered, if Caesar would leave
to him northern Gaul, to assist him in turn to obtain the sovereignty
of Italy--as the party-quarrels of the Celtic nation had opened up
an entrance for him into Gaul, he seemed to expect from the party-
quarrels of the Italian nation the consolidation of his rule there.
For centuries no such language of power completely on a footing
of equality and bluntly and carelessly expressing its independence had
been held in presence of the Romans, as was now heard from the king
of the German host; he summarily refused to come, when the Roman
general suggested that he should appear personally before him
according to the usual practice with client-princes.
Ariovistus Attacked
And Beaten
It was the more necessary not to delay; Caesar immediately set out
against Ariovistus. A panic seized his troops, especially his officers
when they were to measure their strength with the flower
of the German troops that for fourteen years had not come
under shelter of a roof: it seemed as if the deep decay of Roman moral
and military discipline would assert itself and provoke desertion
and mutiny even in Caesar's camp. But the general, while declaring
that in case of need he would march with the tenth legion alone
against the enemy, knew not merely how to influence these
by such an appeal to honour, but also how to bind the other regiments
to their eagles by warlike emulation, and to inspire the troops
with something of his own energy. Without leaving them time
for reflection, he led them onward in rapid marches, and fortunately
anticipated Ariovistus in the occupation of Vesontio (Besancon),
the capital of the Sequani. A personal conference between the two
generals, which took place at the request of Ariovistus, seemed
as if solely meant to cover an attempt against the person of Caesar;
arms alone could decide between the two oppressors of Gaul. The war
came temporarily to a stand. In lower Alsace somewhere in the region
of Muhlhausen, five miles from the Rhine,(36) the two armies
lay at a little distance from each other, till Ariovistus
with his very superior force succeeded in marching past the Roman camp,
placing himself in its rear, and cutting off the Romans
from their base and their supplies. Caesar attempted to free himself
from his painful situation by a battle; but Ariovistus did not accept it.
Nothing remained for the Roman general but, in spite of
his inferior strength, to imitate the movement of the Germans,
and to recover his communications by making two legions march past
the enemy and take up a position beyond the camp of the Germans,
while four legions remained behind in the former camp. Ariovistus,
when he saw the Romans divided, attempted an assault on their lesser
camp; but the Romans repulsed it. Under the impression made
by this success, the whole Roman army was brought forward
to the attack; and the Germans also placed themselves in battle array,
in a long line, each tribe for itself, the cars of the army
with the baggage and women being placed behind them to render flight
more difficult. The right wing of the Romans, led by Caesar himself,
threw itself rapidly on the enemy, and drove them before it;
the right wing of the Germans was in like manner successful.
The balance still stood equal; but the tactics of the reserve,
which had decided so many other conflicts with barbarians, decided
the conflict with the Germans also in favour of the Romans;
their third line, which Publius Crassus seasonably sent to render help,
restored the battle on the left wing and thereby decided
the victory. The pursuit was continued to the Rhine; only a few,
including the king, succeeded in escaping to the other bank (696).
German Settlements on the Left Bank of the Rhine
Thus brilliantly the Roman rule announced its advent to the mighty
stream, which the Italian soldiers here saw for the first time;
by a single fortunate battle the line of the Rhine was won.
The fate of the German settlements on the left bank of the Rhine
lay in the hands of Caesar; the victor could destroy them,
but he did not do so. The neighbouring Celtic cantons--the Sequani,
Leuci, Mediomatrici--were neither capable of self-defence
nor trustworthy; the transplanted Germans promised to become
not merely brave guardians of the frontier but also better subjects
of Rome, for their nationality severed them from the Celts,
and their own interest in the preservation of their newly-won
settlements severed them from their countrymen across the Rhine,
so that in their isolated position they could not avoid adhering
to the central power. Caesar here, as everywhere, preferred
conquered foes to doubtful friends; he left the Germans settled
by Ariovistus along the left bank of the Rhine--the Triboci
about Strassburg, the Nemetes about Spires, the Vangiones
about Worms--in possession of their new abodes, and entrusted them
with the guarding of the Rhine-frontier against their countrymen.(37)
The Suebi, who threatened the territory of the Treveri on the middle
Rhine, on receiving news of the defeat of Ariovistus, again retreated
into the interior of Germany; on which occasion they sustained
considerable loss by the way at the hands of the adjoining tribes.
The Rhine Boundary
The consequences of this one campaign were immense; they were felt
for many centuries after. The Rhine had become the boundary
of the Roman empire against the Germans. In Gaul, which was no longer
able to govern itself, the Romans had hitherto ruled on the south
coast, while lately the Germans had attempted to establish themselves
farther up. The recent events had decided that Gaul was to succumb
not merely in part but wholly to the Roman supremacy,
and that the natural boundary presented by the mighty river was also
to become the political boundary. The senate in its better times
had not rested, till the dominion of Rome had reached the natural
bounds of Italy--the Alps and the Mediterranean--and its adjacent
islands. The enlarged empire also needed a similar military
rounding off; but the present government left the matter
to accident, and sought at most to see, not that the frontiers
were capable of defence, but that they should not need to be defended
directly by itself. People felt that now another spirit
and another arm began to guide the destinies of Rome.
Subjugation of Gaul
Belgic Expedition
The foundations of the future edifice were laid; but in order
to finish the building and completely to secure the recognition
of the Roman rule by the Gauls, and that of the Rhine-frontier by
the Germans, very much still remained to be done. All central Gaul
indeed from the Roman frontier as far up as Chartres and Treves
submitted without objection to the new ruler; and on the upper
and middle Rhine also no attack was for the present to be apprehended
from the Germans. But the northern provinces--as well
the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful
confederation of the Belgae--were not affected by the blows
directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit
to the conqueror of Ariovistus. Moreover, as was already remarked,
very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans
over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes
made themselves ready to cross the stream. In consequence of this
Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions,
in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons. Mindful of the brave
and successful resistance which fifty years before they had
with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their
land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them
in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent
their whole first levy--300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba
the king of the Suessiones--to their southern frontier to receive
Caesar there. A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi
(about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners
an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours
the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up
in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul.
The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost
at the same time.
Conflicts on the Aisne
Submission of the Western Cantons
Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times
as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern
Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau
rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river
and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself
with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae
to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications.
When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily
collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly. King Galba
was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal
to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil.
No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent
and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp
of the confederates. The Bellovaci in particular, equal to
the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied that the supreme
command of the confederate army had not fallen to them, could no longer
be detained after news had arrived that the Haedui as allies
of the Romans were making preparations to enter the Bellovacic territory.
They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake
all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten
with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked,
the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated
by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe
which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost
on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne,
the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle.
The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general
to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion
of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences
of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced
into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another
gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful
Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci
(about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened
their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines,
the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit
to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain.
The Conflict with the Nervii
But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more
energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates
(about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above
all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body
of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci,
far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit,
concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces
on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately
of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge,
and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these
districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often
visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations
for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived
on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied
in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while
the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights,
the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's
forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment
the enemy had crossed this also, and stormed the heights of the left
bank with a determination that braved death. Scarcely was there
time left for the entrenching legionaries to exchange the mattock
for the sword; the soldiers, many without helmets, had to fight
just as they stood, without line of battle, without plan, without
proper command; for, owing to the suddenness of the attack
and the intersection of the ground by tall hedges, the several
divisions had wholly lost their communications. Instead of a battle
there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left
wing overthrew the Atrebates and pursued them even across
the river. The Roman central division forced the Viromandui down
the declivity. But the right wing, where the general himself
was present, was outflanked by the far more numerous Nervii
the more easily, as the central division carried away by its
own success had evacuated the ground alongside of it, and even
the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions,
each separately rolled together into a dense mass and assailed
in front and on both flanks, deprived of most of their officers
and their best soldiers, appeared on the point of being broken and cut
to pieces. The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already
fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions,
like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed,
that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home
the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained. Everything
was at stake. The general himself seized his shield and fought
among the foremost; his example, his call even now inspiring enthusiasm,
induced the wavering ranks to rally. They had already in some
measure extricated themselves and had at least restored the connection
between the two legions of this wing, when help came up--
partly down from the crest of the bank, where in the interval
the Roman rearguard with the baggage had arrived, partly
from the other bank of the river, where Labienus had meanwhile penetrated
to the enemy's camp and taken possession of it, and now, perceiving
at length the danger that menaced the right wing, despatched
the victorious tenth legion to the aid of his general. The Nervii,
separated from their confederates and simultaneously assailed
on all sides, now showed, when fortune turned, the same heroic courage
as when they believed themselves victors; still over the pile
of corpses of their fallen comrades they fought to the last man.
According to their own statement, of their six hundred senators
only three survived this day.
Subjugation of the Belgae
After this annihilating defeat the Nervii, Atrebates, and Viromandui
could not but recognize the Roman supremacy. The Aduatuci, who arrived
too late to take part in the fight on the Sambre, attempted still to hold
their ground in the strongest of their towns (on the mount Falhize
near the Maas not far from Huy), but they too soon submitted. A nocturnal
attack on the Roman camp in front of the town, which they ventured
after the surrender, miscarried; and the perfidy was avenged
by the Romans with fearful severity. The clients of the Aduatuci,
consisting of the Eburones between the Maas and Rhine and other
small adjoining tribes, were declared independent by the Romans,
while the Aduatuci taken prisoners were sold under the hammer en masse
for the benefit of the Roman treasury. It seemed as if the fate
which had befallen the Cimbri still pursued even this last
Cimbrian fragment. Caesar contented himself with imposing
on the other subdued tribes a general disarmament and furnishing
of hostages. The Remi became naturally the leading canton
in Belgic, like the Haedui in central Gaul; even in the latter
several clans at enmity with the Haedui preferred to rank
among the clients of the Remi. Only the remote maritime
cantons of the Morini (Artois) and the Menapii (Flanders and Brabant),
and the country between the Scheldt and the Rhine inhabited in great
part by Germans, remained still for the present exempt from Roman
invasion and in possession of their hereditary freedom.
Expeditions against the Maritime Cantons
Venetian War
The turn of the Aremorican cantons came. In the autumn of 697
Publius Crassus was sent thither with a Roman corps; he induced
the Veneti--who as masters of the ports of the modern Morbihan
and of a respectable fleet occupied the first place among all
the Celtic cantons in navigation and commerce--and generally
the coast-districts between the Loire and Seine, to submit
to the Romans and give them hostages. But they soon repented.
When in the following winter (697-698) Roman officers
came to these legions to levy requisitions of grain there,
they were detained by the Veneti as counter-hostages. The example
thus set was quickly followed not only by the Aremorican cantons,
but also by the maritime cantons of the Belgae that still remained
free; where, as in some cantons of Normandy, the common council
refused to join the insurrection, the multitude put them to death
and attached itself with redoubled zeal to the national cause.
The whole coast from the mouth of the Loire to that of the Rhine
rose against Rome; the most resolute patriots from all the Celtic
cantons hastened thither to co-operate in the great work of liberation;
they already calculated on the rising of the whole Belgic confederacy,
on aid from Britain, on the arrival of Germans from beyond the Rhine.
Caesar sent Labienus with all the cavalry to the Rhine, with a view
to hold in check the agitation in the Belgic province, and in case
of need to prevent the Germans from crossing the river; another
of his lieutenants, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, went with three legions
to Normandy, where the main body of the insurgents assembled.
But the powerful and intelligent Veneti were the true centre
of the insurrection; the chief attack by land and sea was directed
against them. Caesar's lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, brought up
the fleet formed partly of the ships of the subject Celtic cantons,
partly of a number of Roman galleys hastily built on the Loire
and manned with rowers from the Narbonese province; Caesar himself
advanced with the flower of his infantry into the territory of the Veneti.
But these were prepared beforehand, and had with equal skill
and resolution availed themselves of the favourable circumstances
which the nature of the ground in Brittany and the possession
of a considerable naval power presented. The country was much
intersected and poorly furnished with grain, the towns
were situated for the most part on cliffs and tongues of land,
and were accessible from the mainland only by shallows which it was
difficult to cross; the provision of supplies and the conducting
of sieges were equally difficult for the army attacking by land,
while the Celts by means of their vessels could furnish the towns
easily with everything needful, and in the event of the worst could
accomplish their evacuation. The legions expended their time
and strength in the sieges of the Venetian townships, only to see
the substantial fruits of victory ultimately carried off in the vessels
of the enemy.
Naval Battle between the Romans and the Veneti
Submission of the Maritime Cantons
Accordingly when the Roman fleet, long detained by storms
at the mouth of the Loire, arrived at length on the coast of Brittany,
it was left to decide the struggle by a naval battle. The Celts,
conscious of their superiority on this element, brought forth their
fleet against that of the Romans commanded by Brutus. Not only
did it number 220 sail, far more than the Romans had been able
to bring up, but their high-decked strong sailing-vessels with flat
bottoms were also far better adapted for the high-running waves
of the Atlantic Ocean than the low, lightly-built oared galleys
of the Romans with their sharp keels. Neither the missiles
nor the boarding-bridges of the Romans could reach the high deck
of the enemy's vessels, and the iron beaks recoiled powerless
from the strong oaken planks. But the Roman mariners cut the ropes,
by which the yards were fastened to the masts, by means of sickles
fastened to long poles; the yards and sails fell down, and, as they
did not know how to repair the damage speedily, the ship was thus
rendered a wreck just as it is at the present day by the falling
of the masts, and the Roman boats easily succeeded by a joint attack
in mastering the maimed vessel of the enemy. When the Gauls
perceived this manoeuvre, they attempted to move from the coast
on which they had taken up the combat with the Romans, and to gain
the high seas, whither the Roman galleys could not follow them;
but unhappily for them there suddenly set in a dead calm,
and the immense fleet, towards the equipment of which the maritime
cantons had applied all their energies, was almost wholly destroyed
by the Romans. Thus was this naval battle--so far as historical
knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean--
just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before,(39)
notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour
of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity.
The consequence of the victory achieved by Brutus was the surrender
of the Veneti and of all Brittany. More with a view to impress
the Celtic nation, after so manifold evidences of clemency towards
the vanquished, by an example of fearful severity now against those
whose resistance had been obstinate, than with the view of punishing
the breach of treaty and the arrest of the Roman officers, Caesar
caused the whole common council to be executed and the people
of the Venetian canton to the last man to be sold into slavery.
By this dreadful fate, as well as by their intelligence
and their patriotism, the Veneti have more than any other Celtic clan
acquired a title to the sympathy of posterity.
Sabinus meanwhile opposed to the levy of the coast-states assembled
on the Channel the same tactics by which Caesar had in the previous
year conquered the Belgic general levy on the Aisne; he stood
on the defensive till impatience and want invaded the ranks of the enemy,
and then managed by deceiving them as to the temper and strength
of his troops, and above all by means of their own impatience,
to allure them to an imprudent assault upon the Roman camp, in which
they were defeated; whereupon the militia dispersed and the country
as far as the Seine submitted.
Expeditins against the Morini and Menapii
The Morini and Menapii alone persevered in withholding their
recognition of the Roman supremacy. To compel them to this, Caesar
appeared on their borders; but, rendered wiser by the experiences
of their countrymen, they avoided accepting battle on the borders
of their land, and retired into the forests which then stretched
almost without interruption from the Ardennes towards the German
Ocean. The Romans attempted to make a road through the forest
with the axe, ranging the felled trees on each side as a barricade
against the enemy's attacks; but even Caesar, daring as he was,
found it advisable after some days of most laborious marching,
especially as it was verging towards winter, to order a retreat,
although but a small portion of the Morini had submitted and the powerful
Menapii had not been reached at all. In the following year (699)
while Caesar himself was employed in Britain the greater part
of the army was sent afresh against these tribes; but this expedition
also remained in the main unsuccessful. Nevertheless the result
of the last campaigns was the almost complete reduction of Gaul
under the dominion of the Romans. While central Gaul had submitted
to it without resistance, during the campaign of 697 the Belgic,
and during that of the following year the maritime, cantons
had been compelled by force of arms to acknowledge the Roman rule.
The lofty hopes, with which the Celtic patriots had begun
the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled. Neither Germans
nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence
of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts
of the previous year.
Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais
While Caesar was thus forming the Roman domain in the west by force
of arms into a compact whole, he did not neglect to open up
for the newly-conquered country--which was destined in fact to fill up
the wide gap in that domain between Italy and Spain-communications both
with the Italian home and with the Spanish provinces. The communication
between Gaul and Italy had certainly been materially facilitated
by the military road laid out by Pompeius in 677 over Mont Genevre;(40)
but since the whole of Gaul had been subdued by the Romans, there was
need of a route crossing the ridge of the Alps from the valley of the Po,
not in a westerly but in a northerly direction, and furnishing a shorter
communication between Italy and central Gaul. The way which leads over
the Great St. Bernard into the Valais and along the lake of Geneva
had long served the merchant for this purpose; to get this road
into his power, Caesar as early as the autumn of 697 caused Octodurum
(Martigny) to be occupied by Servius Galba, and the inhabitants
of the Valais to be reduced to subjection--a result which was,
of course, merely postponed, not prevented, by the brave resistance
of these mountain-peoples.
And with Spain
To gain communication with Spain, moreover, Publius Crassus
was sent in the following year (698) to Aquitania with instructions
to compel the Iberian tribes dwelling there to acknowledge the Roman
rule. The task was not without difficulty; the Iberians held
together more compactly than the Celts and knew better than these
how to learn from their enemies. The tribes beyond the Pyrenees,
especially the valiant Cantabri, sent a contingent to their
threatened countrymen; with this there came experienced officers
trained under the leadership of Sertorius in the Roman fashion,
who introduced as far as possible the principles of the Roman art
of war, and especially of encampment, among the Aquitanian levy
already respectable from its numbers and its valour.
But the excellent officer who led the Romans knew how to surmount
all difficulties, and after some hardly-contested but successful
battles he induced the peoples from the Garonne to the vicinity
of the Pyrenees to submit to the new masters.
Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans
The Usipetes and Tencteri
One of the objects which Caesar had proposed to himself--
the subjugation of Gaul--had been in substance, with exceptions
scarcely worth mentioning, attained so far as it could be attained
at all by the sword. But the other half of the work undertaken
by Caesar was still far from being satisfactorily accomplished,
and the Germans had by no means as yet been everywhere compelled
to recognize the Rhine as their limit. Even now, in the winter
of 698-699, a fresh crossing of the boundary had taken place
on the lower course of the river, whither the Romans had not yet
penetrated. The German tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri
whose attempts to cross the Rhine in the territory of the Menapii
have been already mentioned,(41) had at length, eluding the vigilance
of their opponents by a feigned retreat, crossed in the vessels
belonging to the Menapii--an enormous host, which is said,
including women and children, to have amounted to 430,000 persons.
They still lay, apparently, in the region of Nimeguen and Cleves;
but it was said that, following the invitations of the Celtic
patriot party, they intended to advance into the interior of Gaul;
and the rumour was confirmed by the fact that bands of their
horsemen already roamed as far as the borders of the Treveri.
But when Caesar with his legions arrived opposite to them, the sorely-
harassed emigrants seemed not desirous of fresh conflicts,
but very ready to accept land from the Romans and to till it in peace
under their supremacy. While negotiations as to this were going on,
a suspicion arose in the mind of the Roman general that the Germans
only sought to gain time till the bands of horsemen sent out
by them had returned. Whether this suspicion was well founded or not,
we cannot tell; but confirmed in it by an attack, which in spite
of the de facto suspension of arms a troop of the enemy made
on his vanguard, and exasperated by the severe loss thereby sustained,
Caesar believed himself entitled to disregard every consideration
of international law. When on the second morning the princes
and elders of the Germans appeared in the Roman camp to apologize
for the attack made without their knowledge, they were arrested,
and the multitude anticipating no assault and deprived of their leaders
were suddenly fallen upon by the Roman army. It was rather a manhunt
than a battle; those that did not fall under the swords of the Romans
were drowned in the Rhine; almost none but the divisions detached
at the time of the attack escaped the massacre and succeeded
in recrossing the Rhine, where the Sugambri gave them an asylu
in their territory, apparently on the Lippe. The behaviour of Caesar
towards these German immigrants met with severe and just censure
in the senate; but, however little it can be excused, the German
encroachments were emphatically checked by the terror
which it occasioned.
Caesar on the Right Bank of the Rhine
Caesar however found it advisable to take yet a further step
and to lead the legions over the Rhine. He was not without connections
beyond the river. the Germans at the stage of culture
which they had then reached, lacked as yet any national coherence;
in political distraction they--though from other causes--fell nothing
short of the Celts. The Ubii (on the Sieg and Lahn), the most
civilized among the German tribes, had recently been made subject
and tributary by a powerful Suebian canton of the interior, and had
as early as 697 through their envoys entreated Caesar to free them
like the Gauls from the Suebian rule. It was not Caesar's design
seriously to respond to this suggestion, which would have involved
him in endless enterprises; but it seemed advisable, with the view
of preventing the appearance of the Germanic arms on the south
of the Rhine, at least to show the Roman arms beyond it. The protection
which the fugitive Usipetes and Tencteri had found among the Sugambri
afforded a suitable occasion. In the region, apparently between
Coblentz and Andernach, Caesar erected a bridge of piles over the Rhine
and led his legions across from the Treverian to the Ubian territory.
Some smaller cantons gave in their submission; but the Sugambri,
against whom the expedition was primarily directed, withdrew,
on the approach of the Roman army, with those under their protection
into the interior. In like manner the powerful Suebian canton
which oppressed the Ubii--presumably the same which subsequently
appears under the name of the Chatti--caused the districts immediately
adjoining the Ubian territory to be evacuated and the non-combatant
portion of the people to be placed in safety, while all the men
capable of arms were directed to assemble at the centre of the canton.
The Roman general had neither occasion nor desire to accept
this challenge; his object--partly to reconnoitre, partly to produce
an impressive effect if possible upon the Germans, or at least
on the Celts and his countrymen at home, by an expedition
over the Rhine--was substantially attained; after remaining
eighteen days on the right bank of the Rhine he again arrived
in Gaul and broke down the Rhine bridge behind him (699).
Expeditions to Britain
There remained the insular Celts. From the close connection
between them and the Celts of the continent, especially
the maritime cantons, it may readily be conceived that they had
at least sympathized with the national resistance, and that if they
did not grant armed assistance to the patriots, they gave at any rate
an honourable asylum in their sea-protected isle to every one
who was no longer safe in his native land. This certainly involved
a danger, if not for the present, at any rate for the future; it
seemed judicious--if not to undertake the conquest of the island
itself--at any rate to conduct there also defensive operations
by offensive means, and to show the islanders by a landing
on the coast that the arm of the Romans reached even across the Channel.
The first Roman officer who entered Brittany, Publius Crassus
had already (697) crossed thence to the "tin-islands" at the south-west
point of England (Stilly islands); in the summer of 699 Caesar
himself with only two legions crossed the Channel at its narrowest
part.(42) He found the coast covered with masses of the enemy's
troops and sailed onward with his vessels; but the British war-
chariots moved on quite as fast by land as the Roman galleys
by sea, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that the Roman
soldiers succeeded in gaining the shore in the face of the enemy,
partly by wading, partly in boats, under the protection
of the ships of war, which swept the beach with missiles thrown
from machines and by the hand. In the first alarm the nearest villages
submitted; but the islanders soon perceived how weak the enemy was,
and how he did not venture to move far from the shore. The natives
disappeared into the interior and returned only to threaten
the camp; and the fleet, which had been left in the open roads,
suffered very considerable damage from the first tempest
that burst upon it. The Romans had to reckon themselves fortunate
in repelling the attacks of the barbarians till they had bestowed
the necessary repairs on the ships, and in regaining with these
the Gallic coast before the bad season of the year came on.
Caesar himself was so dissatisfied with the results of this expedition
undertaken inconsiderately and with inadequate means, that he immediately
(in the winter of 699-700) ordered a transport fleet of 800 sail
to be fitted out, and in the spring of 700 sailed a second time
for the Kentish coast, on this occasion with five legions
and 2000 cavalry. The forces of the Britons, assembled
this time also on the shore, retired before the mighty armada
without risking a battle; Caesar immediately set out on his march
into the interior, and after some successful conflicts crossed
the river Stour; but he was obliged to halt very much against his will,
because the fleet in the open roads had been again half destroyed
by the storms of the Channel. Before they got the ships drawn
up upon the beach and the extensive arrangements made
for their repair, precious time was lost, which the Celts wisely
turned to account.
Cassivellaunus
The brave and cautious prince Cassivellaunus, who ruled in what
is now Middlesex and the surrounding district--formerly the terror
of the Celts to the south of the Thames, but now the protector
and champion of the whole nation--had headed the defence of the land.
He soon saw that nothing at all could be done with the Celtic
infantry against the Roman, and that the mass of the general levy--
which it was difficult to feed and difficult to control--was only
a hindrance to the defence; he therefore dismissed it and retained
only the war-chariots, of which he collected 4000, and in which
the warriors, accustomed to leap down from their chariots and fight
on foot, could be employed in a twofold manner like the burgess-
cavalry of the earliest Rome. When Caesar was once more able
to continue his march, he met with no interruption to it;
but the British war-chariots moved always in front and alongside
of the Roman army, induced the evacuation of the country
(which from the absence of towns proved no great difficulty),
prevented the sending out of detachments, and threatened
the communications. The Thames was crossed--apparently
between Kingston and Brentford above London--by the Romans;
they moved forward, but made no real progress; the general achieved
no victory, the soldiers made no booty, and the only actual result,
the submission of the Trinobante in the modern Essex, was less
the effect of a dread of the Romans than of the deep hostility
between this canton and Cassivellaunus. The danger increased
with every onward step, and the attack, which the princes of Kent
by the orders of Cassivellaunus made on the Roman naval camp,
although it was repulsed, was an urgent warning to turn back.
The taking by storm of a great British tree-barricade,
in which a multitude of cattle fell into the hands of the Romans,
furnished a passable conclusion to the aimless advance and a tolerable
pretext for returning. Cassivellaunus was sagacious enough
not to drive the dangerous enemy to extremities, and promised,
as Caesar desired him, to abstain from disturbing the Trinobantes,
to pay tribute and to furnish hostages; nothing was said
of delivering up arms or leaving behind a Roman garrison,
and even those promises were, it may be presumed, so far as
they concerned the future, neither given nor received in earnest.
After receiving the hostages Caesar returned to the naval camp
and thence to Gaul. If he, as it would certainly seem,
had hoped on this occasion to conquer Britain, the scheme
was totally thwarted partly by the wise defensive system
of Cassivellaunus, partly and chiefly by the unserviceableness
of the Italian oared fleet in the waters of the North Sea;
for it is certain that the stipulated tribute was never paid.
But the immediate object--of rousing the islanders out of their haughty
security and inducing them in their own interest no longer to allow
their island to be a rendezvous for continental emigrants--
seems certainly to have been attained; at least no complaints
are afterwards heard as to the bestowal of such protection.
The Conspiracy of the Patriots
The work of repelling the Germanic invasion and of subduing
the continental Celts was completed. But it is often easier
to subdue a free nation than to keep a subdued one in subjection.
The rivalry for the hegemony, by which more even than by the attacks
of Rome the Celtic nation had been ruined, was in some measure set
aside by the conquest, inasmuch as the conqueror took the hegemony
to himself. Separate interests were silent; under the common
oppression at any rate they felt themselves again as one people;
and the infinite value of that which they had with indifference
gambled away when they possessed it--freedom and nationality--
was now, when it was too late, fully appreciated by their infinite
longing. But was it, then, too late? With indignant shame they
confessed to themselves that a nation, which numbered at least
a million of men capable of arms, a nation of ancient and well-
founded warlike renown, had allowed the yoke to be imposed upon it
by, at the most, 50,000 Romans. The submission of the confederacy
of central Gaul without having struck even a blow; the submission
of the Belgic confederacy without having done more than merely
shown a wish to strike; the heroic fall on the other hand
of the Nervii and the Veneti, the sagacious and successful resistance
of the Morini, and of the Britons under Cassivellaunus--
all that in each case had been done or neglected, had failed
or had succeeded--spurred the minds of the patriots to new attempts,
if possible, more united and more successful. Especially
among the Celtic nobility there prevailed an excitement, which seemed
every moment as if it must break out into a general insurrection.
Even before the second expedition to Britain in the spring of 700 Caesar
had found it necessary to go in person to the Treveri, who,
since they had compromised themselves in the Nervian conflict in 697,
had no longer appeared at the general diets and had formed more than
suspicious connections with the Germans beyond the Rhine. At that
time Caesar had contented himself with carrying the men of most
note among the patriot party, particularly Indutiomarus, along
with him to Britain in the ranks of the Treverian cavalry-contingent;
he did his utmost to overlook the conspiracy, that he might not
by strict measures ripen it into insurrection. But when the Haeduan
Dumnorix, who likewise was present in the army destined for Britain,
nominally as a cavalry officer, but really as a hostage,
peremptorily refused to embark and rode home instead, Caesar could
not do otherwise than have him pursued as a deserter; he was accordingly
overtaken by the division sent after him and, when he stood
on his defence, was cut down (700). That the most esteemed knight
of the most powerful and still the least dependent of the Celtic cantons
should have been put to death by the Romans, was a thunder-clap
for the whole Celtic nobility; every one who was conscious
of similar sentiments--and they formed the great majority--
saw in that catastrophe the picture of what was in store for himself.
Insurrection
If patriotism and despair had induced the heads of the Celtic
nobility to conspire, fear and self-defence now drove the conspirators
to strike. In the winter of 700-701, with the exception of a legion
stationed in Brittany and a second in the very unsettled canton
of the Carnutes (near Chartres), the whole Roman army numbering six
legions was encamped in the Belgic territory. The scantiness
of the supplies of grain had induced Caesar to station his troops
farther apart than he was otherwise wont to do--in six different
camps constructed in the cantons of the Bellovaci, Ambiani, Morini,
Nervii, Remi, and Eburones. The fixed camp placed farthest towards
the east in the territory of the Eburones, probably not far
from the later Aduatuca (the modern Tongern), the strongest of all,
consisting of a legion under one of the most respected of Caesar's
leaders of division, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, besides different
detachments led by the brave Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta(43) and amounting
together to the strength of half a legion, found itself all of a sudden
surrounded by the general levy of the Eburones under the kings Ambiorix
and Catuvolcus. The attack came so unexpectedly, that the very men
absent from the camp could not be recalled and were cut off
by the enemy; otherwise the immediate danger was not great,
as there was no lack of provisions, and the assault, which the Eburones
attempted, recoiled powerless from the Roman intrenchments.
But king Ambiorix informed the Roman commander that all the Roman camps
in Gaul were similarly assailed on the same day, and that the Romans
would undoubtedly be lost if the several corps did not quickly set out
and effect a junction; that Sabinus had the more reason to make haste,
as the Germans too from beyond the Rhine were already advancing
against him; that he himself out of friendship for the Romans
would promise them a free retreat as far as the nearest
Roman camp, only two days' march distant. Some things
in these statements seemed no fiction; that the little canton
of the Eburones specially favoured by the Romans(44) should have
undertaken the attack of its own accord was in reality incredible,
and, owing to the difficulty of effecting a communication with the other
far-distant camps, the danger of being attacked by the whole
mass of the insurgents and destroyed in detail was by no means
to be esteemed slight; nevertheless it could not admit of the smallest
doubt that both honour and prudence required them to reject
the capitulation offered by the enemy and to maintain the post
entrusted to them. Yet, although in the council of war numerous
voices and especially the weighty voice of Lucius Aurunculeius
Cotta supported this view, the commandant determined to accept
the proposal of Ambiorix. The Roman troops accordingly marched
off next morning; but when they had arrived at a narrow valley about
two miles from the camp they found themselves surrounded
by the Eburones and every outlet blocked. They attempted to open
a way for themselves by force of arms; but the Eburones would not enter
into any close combat, and contented themselves with discharging
their missiles from their unassailable positions into the dense
mass of the Romans. Bewildered, as if seeking deliverance
from treachery at the hands of the traitor, Sabinus requested
a conference with Ambiorix; it was granted, and he and the officers
accompanying him were first disarmed and then slain. After the fall
of the commander the Eburones threw themselves from all sides
at once on the exhausted and despairing Romans, and broke their
ranks; most of them, including Cotta who had already been wounded,
met their death in this attack; a small portion, who had succeeded
in regaining the abandoned camp, flung themselves on their own
swords during the following night. The whole corps was annihilated.
Cicero Attacked
This success, such as the insurgents themselves had hardly ventured
to hope for, increased the ferment among the Celtic patriots
so greatly that the Romans were no longer sure of a single district
with the exception of the Haedui and Remi, and the insurrection
broke out at the most diverse points. First of all the Eburones
followed up their victory. Reinforced by the levy of the Aduatuci,
who gladly embraced the opportunity of requiting the injury done
to them by Caesar, and of the powerful and still unsubdued Menapii,
they appeared in the territory of the Nervii, who immediately
joined them, and the whole host thus swelled to 60,000 moved
forward to confront the Roman camp formed in the Nervian canton.
Quintus Cicero, who commanded there, had with his weak corps
a difficult position, especially as the besiegers, learning from the foe,
constructed ramparts and trenches, -testudines- and moveable towers
after the Roman fashion, and showered fire-balls and burning
spears over the straw-covered huts of the camp. The only hope
of the besieged rested on Caesar, who lay not so very far off
with three legions in his winter encampment in the region of Amiens.
But--a significant proof of the feeling that prevailed in Gaul-
for a considerable time not the slightest hint reached the general
either of the disaster of Sabinus or of the perilous
situation of Cicero.
Caesar Proceeds to His Relief
The Insurrection Checked
At length a Celtic horseman from Cicero's camp succeeded
in stealing through the enemy to Caesar. On receiving the startling
news Caesar immediately set out, although only with two weak
legions, together numbering about 7000, and 400 horsemen;
nevertheless the announcement that Caesar was advancing sufficed
to induce the insurgents to raise the siege. It was time;
not one tenth of the men in Cicero's camp remained unwounded.
Caesar, against whom the insurgent army had turned, deceived the enemy,
in the way which he had already on several occasions successfully
applied, as to his strength; under the most unfavourable
circumstances they ventured an assault upon the Roman camp
and in doing so suffered a defeat. It is singular, but characteristic
of the Celtic nation, that in consequence of this one lost battle,
or perhaps rather in consequence of Caesar's appearance in person
on the scene of conflict, the insurrection, which had commenced
so victoriously and extended so widely, suddenly and pitiably broke
off the war. The Nervii, Menapii, Aduatuci, Eburones, returned
to their homes. The forces of the maritime cantons, who had made
preparations for assailing the legion in Brittany, did the same.
The Treveri, through whose leader Indutiomarus the Eburones,
the clients of the powerful neighbouring canton, had been chiefly
induced to that so successful attack, had taken arms on the news
of the disaster of Aduatuca and advanced into the territory
of the Remi with the view of attacking the legion cantoned there
under the command of Labienus; they too desisted for the present
from continuing the struggle. Caesar not unwillingly postponed
farther measures against the revolted districts till the spring,
in order not to expose his troops which had suffered much to the whole
severity of the Gallic winter, and with the view of only reappearing
in the field when the fifteen cohorts destroyed should have
been replaced in an imposing manner by the levy of thirty new
cohorts which he had ordered. The insurrection meanwhile pursued
its course, although there was for the moment a suspension of arms.
Its chief seats in central Gaul were, partly the districts
of the Carnutes and the neighbouring Senones (about Sens), the latter
of whom drove the king appointed by Caesar out of their country;
partly the region of the Treveri, who invited the whole Celtic
emigrants and the Germans beyond the Rhine to take part
in the impending national war, and called out their whole force,
with a view to advance in the spring a second time into the territory
of the Remi, to capture the corps of Labienus, and to seek
a communication with the insurgents on the Seine and Loire.
The deputies of these three cantons remained absent from the diet
convoked by Caesar in central Gaul, and thereby declared war just
as openly as a part of the Belgic cantons had done by the attacks
on the camps of Sabinus and Cicero.
And Suppressed
The winter was drawing to a close when Caesar set out
with his army, which meanwhile had been considerably reinforced,
against the insurgents. The attempts of the Treveri to concentrate
the revolt had not succeeded; the agitated districts were kept in check
by the marching in of Roman troops, and those in open rebellion
were attacked in detail. First the Nervii were routed by Caesar
in person. The Senones and Carnutes met the same fate. The Menapii,
the only canton which had never submitted to the Romans,
were compelled by a grand attack simultaneously directed against them
from three sides to renounce their long-preserved freedom.
Labienus meanwhile was preparing the same fate for the Treveri.
Their first attack had been paralyzed, partly by the refusal
of the adjoining German tribes to furnish them with mercenaries,
partly by the fact that Indutiomarus, the soul of the whole movement
had fallen in a skirmish with the cavalry of Labienus. But they did
not on this account abandon their projects. With their whole levy
they appeared in front of Labienus and waited for the German bands
that were to follow, for their recruiting agents found a better
reception than they had met with from the dwellers on the Rhine,
among the warlike tribes of the interior of Germany, especially,
as it would appear, among the Chatti. But when Labienus seemed
as if he wished to avoid these and to march off in all haste, the Treveri
attacked the Romans even before the Germans arrived and in a most
unfavourable spot, and were completely defeated. Nothing remained
for the Germans who came up too late but to return, nothing for
the Treverian canton but to submit; its government reverted to the head
of the Roman party Cingetorix, the son-in-law of Indutiomarus.
After these expeditions of Caesar against the Menapii and of Labienus
against the Treveri the whole Roman army was again united
in the territory of the latter. With the view of rendering
the Germans disinclined to come back, Caesar once more crossed
the Rhine, in order if possible to strike an emphatic blow against
the troublesome neighbours; but, as the Chatti, faithful to their
tried tactics, assembled not on their western boundary,
but far in the interior, apparently at the Harz mountains,
for the defence of the land, he immediately turned back and contented
himself with leaving behind a garrison at the passage of the Rhine.
Retaliatory Expedition against the Eburones
Accounts had thus been settled with all the tribes that took part
in the rising; the Eburones alone were passed over but not forgotten.
Since Caesar had met with the disaster of Aduatuca, he had worn
mourning and had sworn that he would only lay it aside
when he should have avenged his soldiers, who had not fallen
in honourable war, but had been treacherously murdered.
Helpless and passive the Eburones sat in their huts and looked on
as the neighbouring cantons one after another submitted to the Romans,
till the Roman cavalry from the Treverian territory advanced
through the Ardennes into their land. So little were they prepared
for the attack, that the cavalry had almost seized the king
Ambiorix in his house; with great difficulty, while his attendants
sacrificed themselves on his behalf, he escaped into the neighbouring
thicket. Ten Roman legions soon followed the cavalry.
At the same time a summons was issued to the surrounding tribes
to hunt the outlawed Eburones and pillage their land in concert
with the Roman soldiers; not a few complied with the call, including
even an audacious band of Sugambrian horsemen from the other side
of the Rhine, who for that matter treated the Romans no better than
the Eburones, and had almost by a daring coup de main surprised
the Roman camp at Aduatuca. The fate of the Eburones was dreadful.
However they might hide themselves in forests and morasses,
there were more hunters than game. Many put themselves to death
like the gray-haired prince Catuvolcus; only a few saved life
and liberty, but among these few was the man whom the Romans sought
above all to seize, the prince Ambiorix; with but four horsemen
he escaped over the Rhine. This execution against the canton
which had transgressed above all the rest was followed in the other
districts by processes of high treason against individuals. The season
for clemency was past. At the bidding of the Roman proconsul
the eminent Carnutic knight Acco was beheaded by Roman lictors
(701) and the rule of the -fasces- was thus formally inaugurated.
Opposition was silent; tranquillity everywhere prevailed. Caesar
went as he was wont towards the end of the year (701) over the Alps,
that through the winter he might observe more closely
the daily-increasing complications in the capital.
Second Insurrection
The sagacious calculator had on this occasion miscalculated.
The fire was smothered, but not extinguished. The stroke,
under which the head of Acco fell, was felt by the whole Celtic nobility.
At this very moment the position of affairs presented better prospects
than ever. The insurrection of the last winter had evidently failed
only through Caesar himself appearing on the scene of action;
now he was at a distance, detained on the Po by the imminence
of civil war, and the Gallic army, which was collected on the upper Seine,
was far separated from its dreaded leader. If a general insurrection
now broke out in central Gaul, the Roman army might be surrounded,
and the almost undefended old Roman province be overrun before Caesar
reappeared beyond the Alps, even if the Italian complications
did not altogether prevent him from further concerning himself about Gaul.
The Carnutes
The Arverni
Conspirators from all the cantons of central Gaul assembled;
the Carnutes, as most directly affected by the execution of Acco,
offered to take the lead. On a set day in the winter of 701-702
the Carnutic knights Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus gave at Cenabum
(Orleans) the signal for the rising, and put to death in a body
the Romans who happened to be there. The most vehement agitation
seized the length and breadth of the great Celtic land; the patriots
everywhere bestirred themselves. But nothing stirred the nation
so deeply as the insurrection of the Arverni. The government
of this community, which had formerly under its kings been the first
in southern Gaul, and had still after the fall of its principality
occasioned by the unfortunate wars against Rome(45) continued to be
one of the wealthiest, most civilized, and most powerful in all Gaul,
had hitherto inviolably adhered to Rome. Even now the patriot party
in the governing common council was in the minority; an attempt
to induce it to join the insurrection was in vain. The attacks
of the patriots were therefore directed against the common council
and the existing constitution itself; and the more so, that the change
of constitution which among the Arverni had substituted the common
council for the prince(46) had taken place after the victories
of the Romans and probably under their influence.
Vercingetorix
The leader of the Arvernian patriots Vercingetorix, one of those
nobles whom we meet with among the Celts, of almost regal repute
in and beyond his canton, and a stately, brave, sagacious man
to boot, left the capital and summoned the country people,
who were as hostile to the ruling oligarchy as to the Romans, at once
to re-establish the Arvernian monarchy and to go to war with Rome.
The multitude quickly joined him; the restoration of the throne
of Luerius and Betuitus was at the same time the declaration
of a national war against Rome. The centre of unity,
from the want of which all previous attempts of the nation
to shake off the foreign yoke had failed, was now found
in the new self-nominated king of the Arverni. Vercingetorix
became for the Celts of the continent what Cassivellaunus
was for the insular Celts; the feeling strongly pervaded the masses
that he, if any one, was the man to save the nation.
Spread of the Insurrection
Appearance of Caesar
The west from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Seine
was rapidly infected by the insurrection, and Vercingetorix
was recognized by all the cantons there as commander-in-chief;
where the common council made any difficulty, the multitude compelled
it to join the movement; only a few cantons, such as that
of the Bituriges, required compulsion to join it, and these perhaps
only for appearance' sake. The insurrection found a less favourable
soil in the regions to the east of the upper Loire. Everything
here depended on the Haedui; and these wavered. The patriotic
party was very strong in this canton; but the old antagonism
to the leading of the Arverni counterbalanced their influence--
to the most serious detriment of the insurrection, as the accession
of the eastern cantons, particularly of the Sequani and Helvetii,
was conditional on the accession of the Haedui, and generally
in this part of Gaul the decision rested with them. While the insurgents
were thus labouring partly to induce the cantons that still
hesitated, especially the Haedui, to join them, partly to get
possession of Narbo--one of their leaders, the daring Lucterius,
had already appeared on the Tarn within the limits of the old
province--the Roman commander-in-chief suddenly presented himself
in the depth of winter, unexpected alike by friend and foe,
on this side of the Alps. He quickly made the necessary preparations
to cover the old province, and not only so, but sent also a corps
over the snow-covered Cevennes into the Arvernian territory;
but he could not remain here, where the accession of the Haedui
to the Gallic alliance might any moment cut him off from his army
encamped about Sens and Langres. With all secrecy he went to Vienna,
and thence, attended by only a few horsemen, through the territory
of the Haedui to his troops. The hopes, which had induced
the conspirators to declare themselves, vanished; peace continued
in Italy, and Caesar stood once more at the head of his army.
The Gallic Plan of War
But what were they to do? It was folly under such circumstances
to let the matter come to the decision of arms; for these had already
decidedly irrevocably. They might as well attempt to shake
the Alps by throwing stones at them as to shake the legions by means
of the Celtic bands, whether these might be congregated in huge
masses or sacrificed in detail canton after canton. Vercingetorix
despaired of defeating the Romans. He adopted a system of warfare
similar to that by which Cassivellaunus had saved the insular
Celts. The Roman infantry was not to be vanquished; but Caesar's
cavalry consisted almost exclusively of the contingent
of the Celtic nobility, and was practically dissolved by the general
revolt. It was possible for the insurrection, which was in fact
essentially composed of the Celtic nobility, to develop such
a superiority in this arm, that it could lay waste the land far
and wide, burn down towns and villages, destroy the magazines,
and endanger the supplies and the communications of the enemy,
without his being able seriously to hinder it. Vercingetorix
accordingly directed all his efforts to the increase of his cavalry,
and of the infantry-archers who were according to the mode of fighting
of that time regularly associated with it. He did not send the immense
and self-obstructing masses of the militia of the line to their homes,
but he did not allow them to face the enemy, and attempted
to impart to them gradually some capacity of intrenching, marching,
and manoeuvring, and some perception that the soldier is not destined
merely for hand-to-hand combat. Learning from the enemy, he adopted
in particular the Roman system of encampment, on which depended
the whole secret of the tactical superiority of the Romans;
for in consequence of it every Roman corps combined all the advantages
of the garrison of a fortress with all the advantages of an offensive
army.(47) It is true that a system completely adapted to Britain
which had few towns and to its rude, resolute, and on the whole
united inhabitants was not absolutely transferable to the rich
regions on the Loire and their indolent inhabitants on the eve
of utter political dissolution. Vercingetorix at least accomplished
this much, that they did not attempt as hitherto to hold every
town with the result of holding none; they agreed to destroy
the townships not capable of defence before attack reached them,
but to defend with all their might the strong fortresses. At the same
time the Arvernian king did what he could to bind to the cause of their
country the cowardly and backward by stern severity, the hesitating
by entreaties and representations, the covetous by gold, the decided
opponents by force, and to compel or allure the rabble high or low
to some manifestation of patriotism.
Beginning of the Struggle
Even before the winter was at an end, he threw himself on the Boii
settled by Caesar in the territory of the Haedui, with the view
of annihilating these, almost the sole trustworthy allies of Rome,
before Caesar came up. The news of this attack induced Caesar,
leaving behind the baggage and two legions in the winter quarters
of Agedincum (Sens), to march immediately and earlier than he would
doubtless otherwise have done, against the insurgents. He remedied
the sorely-felt want of cavalry and light infantry in some measure
by gradually bringing up German mercenaries, who instead of using
their own small and weak ponies were furnished with Italian
and Spanish horses partly bought, partly procured by requisition
of the officers. Caesar, after having by the way caused Cenabum,
the capital of the Carnutes, which had given the signal for the revolt,
to be pillaged and laid in ashes, moved over the Loire
into the country of the Bituriges. He thereby induced Vercingetorix
to abandon the siege of the town of the Boii, and to resort likewise
to the Bituriges. Here the new mode of warfare was first to be
tried. By order of Vercingetorix more than twenty townships
of the Bituriges perished in the flames on one day; the general
decreed a similar self-devastation as to the neighbour cantons,
so far as they could be reached by the Roman foraging parties.
Caesar before Arvaricum
According to his intention, Avaricum (Bourges), the rich
and strong capital of the Bituriges, was to meet the same fate;
but the majority of the war-council yielded to the suppliant entreaties
of the Biturigian authorities, and resolved rather to defend that city
with all their energy. Thus the war was concentrated in the first
instance around Avaricum, Vercingetorix placed his infantry amidst
the morasses adjoining the town in a position so unapproachable,
that even without being covered by the cavalry they needed not
to fear the attack of the legions. The Celtic cavalry covered
all the roads and obstructed the communication. The town was strongly
garrisoned, and the connection between it and the army before
the walls was kept open. Caesar's position was very awkward.
The attempt to induce the Celtic infantry to fight was unsuccessful;
it stirred not from its unassailable lines. Bravely as his soldiers
in front of the town trenched and fought, the besieged vied
with them in ingenuity and courage, and they had almost succeeded
in setting fire to the siege apparatus of their opponents.
The task withal of supplying an army of nearly 60,000 men
with provisions in a country devastated far and wide and scoured
by far superior bodies of cavalry became daily more difficult.
The slender stores of the Boii were soon used up; the supply promised
by the Haedui failed to appear; the corn was already consumed,
and the soldier was placed exclusively on flesh-rations.
But the moment was approaching when the town, with whatever contempt
of death the garrison fought, could be held no longer. Still it was
not impossible to withdraw the troops secretly by night and destroy
the town, before the enemy occupied it. Vercingetorix made
arrangements for this purpose, but the cry of distress raised
at the moment of evacuation by the women and children left behind
attracted the attention of the Romans; the departure miscarried.
Avaricum Conquered
Caesar Divides His Army
On the following gloomy and rainy day the Romans scaled the walls,
and, exasperated by the obstinate defence, spared neither age
nor sex in the conquered town. The ample stores, which the Celts had
accumulated in it, were welcome to the starved soldiers of Caesar.
With the capture of Avaricum (spring of 702), a first success
had been achieved over the insurrection, and according to former
experience Caesar might well expect that it would now dissolve,
and that it would only be requisite to deal with the cantons
individually. After he had therefore shown himself with his
whole army in the canton of the Haedui and had by this imposing
demonstration compelled the patriot party in a ferment there
to keep quiet at least for the moment, he divided his army and sent
Labienus back to Agedincum, that in combination with the troops
left there he might at the head of four legions suppress
in the first instance the movement in the territory of the Carnutes
and Senones, who on this occasion once more took the lead;
while he himself with the six remaining legions turned to the south
and prepared to carry the war into the Arvernian mountains, the proper
territory of Vercingetorix.
Labienus before Lutetia
Labienus moved from Agedincum up the left bank of the Seine with
a view to possess himself of Lutetia (Paris), the town of the Parisii
situated on an island in the Seine, and from this well-secured
position in the heart of the insurgent country to reduce it again
to subjection. But behind Melodunum (Melun), he found his route
barred by the whole army of the insurgents, which had here taken
up a position between unassailable morasses under the leadership
of the aged Camulogenus. Labienus retreated a certain distance,
crossed the Seine at Melodunum, and moved up its right bank
unhindered towards Lutetia; Camulogenus caused this town to be
burnt and the bridges leading to the left bank to be broken down,
and took up a position over against Labienus, in which the latter
could neither bring him to battle nor effect a passage
under the eyes of the hostile army.
Caesar before Gergovia
Fruitless Blockade
The Roman main army in its turn advanced along the Allier down
into the canton of the Arverni. Vercingetorix attempted to prevent
it from crossing to the left bank of the Allier, but Caesar
overreached him and after some days stood before the Arvernian
capital Gergovia.(48) Vercingetorix, however, doubtless even while
he was confronting Caesar on the Allier, had caused sufficient
stores to be collected in Gergovia and a fixed camp provided
with strong stone ramparts to be constructed for his troops in front
of the walls of the town, which was situated on the summit of a pretty
steep hill; and, as he had a sufficient start, he arrived before
Caesar at Gergovia and awaited the attack in the fortified camp
under the wall of the fortress. Caesar with his comparatively
weak army could neither regularly besiege the place nor even
sufficiently blockade it; he pitched his camp below the rising
ground occupied by Vercingetorix, and was compelled to preserve
an attitude as inactive as his opponent. It was almost a victory
for the insurgents, that Caesar's career of advance from triumph
to triumph had been suddenly checked on the Seine as on the Allier.
In fact the consequences of this check for Caesar were almost
equivalent to those of a defeat.
The Haedui Waver
The Haedui, who had hitherto continued vacillating, now made
preparations in earnest to join the patriotic party; the body
of men, whom Caesar had ordered to Gergovia, had on the march been
induced by its officers to declare for the insurgents; at the same
time they had begun in the canton itself to plunder and kill
the Romans settled there. Caesar, who had gone with two-thirds
of the blockading army to meet that corps of the Haedui which was being
brought up to Gergovia, had by his sudden appearance recalled it
to nominal obedience; but it was more than ever a hollow and fragile
relation, the continuance of which had been almost too dearly
purchased by the great peril of the two legions left behind
in front of Gergovia. For Vercingetorix, rapidly and resolutely
availing himself of Caesar's departure, had during his absence
made an attack on them, which had wellnigh ended in their
being overpowered, and the Roman camp being taken by storm.
Caesar's unrivalled celerity alone averted a second catastrophe
like that of Aduatuca. Though the Haedui made once more fair
promises, it might be foreseen that, if the blockade should still
be prolonged without result, they would openly range themselves
on the side of the insurgents and would thereby compel Caesar to raise
it; for their accession would interrupt the communication between
him and Labienus, and expose the latter especially in his isolation
to the greatest peril. Caesar was resolved not to let matters come
to this pass, but, however painful and even dangerous it was
to retire from Gergovia without having accomplished his object,
nevertheless, if it must be done, rather to set out immediately
and by marching into the canton of the Haedui to prevent
at any cost their formal desertion.
Caesar Defeated before Gergovia
Before entering however on this retreat, which was far
from agreeable to his quick and confident temperament, he made
yet a last attempt to free himself from his painful perplexity
by a brilliant success. While the bulk of the garrison of Gergovia
was occupied in intrenching the side on which the assault
was expected, the Roman general watched his opportunity to surprise
another access less conveniently situated but at the moment
left bare. In reality the Roman storming columns scaled the camp-wall,
and occupied the nearest quarters of the camp; but the whole garrison
was already alarmed, and owing to the small distances Caesar found
it not advisable to risk the second assault on the city-wall.
He gave the signal for retreat; but the foremost legions, carried
away by the impetuosity of victory, heard not or did not wish to hear,
and pushed forward without halting, up to the city-wall, some even
into the city. But masses more and more dense threw themselves
in front of the intruders; the foremost fell, the columns stopped;
in vain centurions and legionaries fought with the most devoted
and heroic courage; the assailants were chased with very considerable
loss out of the town and down the hill, where the troops stationed
by Caesar in the plain received them and prevented greater
mischief. The expected capture of Gergovia had been converted
into a defeat, and the considerable loss in killed and wounded--
there were counted 700 soldiers that had fallen, including 46
centurions--was the least part of the misfortune suffered.
Renewed Insurrection
Rising of the Haedui
Rising of the Belgae
The imposing position of Caesar in Gaul depended essentially
on the halo of victory that surrounded him; and this began to grow pale.
The conflicts around Avaricum, Caesar's vain attempts to compel
the enemy to fight, the resolute defence of the city and its almost
accidental capture by storm bore a stamp different from that
of the earlier Celtic wars, and had strengthened rather than impaired
the confidence of the Celts in themselves and their leader.
Moreover, the new system of warfare--the making head against the enemy
in intrenched camps under the protection of fortresses--had completely
approved itself at Lutetia as well as at Gergovia. Lastly,
this defeat, the first which Caesar in person had suffered
from the Celts crowned their success, and it accordingly gave
as it were the signal for a second outbreak of the insurrection.
The Haedui now broke formally with Caesar and entered into union
with Vercingetorix. Their contingent, which was still with Caesar's
army, not only deserted from it, but also took occasion to carry
off the depots of the army of Caesar at Noviodunum on the Loire,
whereby the chests and magazines, a number of remount-horses,
and all the hostages furnished to Caesar, fell into the hands
of the insurgents. It was of at least equal importance,
that on this news the Belgae, who had hitherto kept aloof
from the whole movement, began to bestir themselves. The powerful
canton of the Bellovaci rose with the view of attacking
in the rear the corps of Labienus, while it confronted
at Lutetia the levy of the surrounding cantons of central Gaul.
Everywhere else too men were taking to arms; the strength
of patriotic enthusiasm carried along with it even the most
decided and most favoured partisans of Rome, such as Commius
king of the Atrebates, who on account of his faithful services had
received from the Romans important privileges for his community
and the hegemony over the Morini. The threads of the insurrection
ramified even into the old Roman province: they cherished the hope,
perhaps not without ground, of inducing the Allobroges themselves
to take arms against the Romans. With the single exception
of the Remi and of the districts--dependent immediately on the Remi--
of the Suessiones, Leuci, and Lingones, whose peculiar isolation
was not affected even amidst this general enthusiasm, the whole Celtic
nation from the Pyrenees to the Rhine was now in reality,
for the first and for the last time, in arms for its freedom
and nationality; whereas, singularly enough, the whole German
communities, who in the former struggles had held the foremost
rank, kept aloof. In fact, the Treveri, and as it would seem
the Menapii also, were prevented by their feuds with the Germans
from taking an active part in the national war.
Caesar's Plan of War
Caesar Unites with Labienus
It was a grave and decisive moment, when after the retreat
from Gergovia and the loss of Noviodunum a council of war was held
in Caesar's headquarters regarding the measures now to be adopted.
Various voices expressed themselves in favour of a retreat over
the Cevennes into the old Roman province, which now lay open
on all sides to the insurrection and certainly was in urgent need
of the legions that had been sent from Rome primarily for its
protection. But Caesar rejected this timid strategy suggested
not by the position of affairs, but by government-instructions
and fear of responsibility. He contented himself with calling
the general levy of the Romans settled in the province to arms,
and having the frontiers guarded by that levy to the best of its
ability. On the other hand he himself set out in the opposite
direction and advanced by forced marches to Agedincum, to which
he ordered Labienus to retreat in all haste. The Celts naturally
endeavoured to prevent the junction of the two Roman armies.
Labienus might by crossing the Marne and marching down the right bank
of the Seine have reached Agedincum, where he had left his reserve
and his baggage; but he preferred not to allow the Celts
again to behold the retreat of Roman troops. He therefore
instead of crossing the Marne crossed the Seine under the eyes
of the deluded enemy, and on its left bank fought a battle
with the hostile forces, in which he conquered, and among many others
the Celtic general himself, the old Camulogenus, was left on the field.
Nor were the insurgents more successful in detaining Caesar
on the Loire; Caesar gave them no time to assemble larger masses there,
and without difficulty dispersed the militia of the Haedui,
which alone he found at that point
Position of the Insurgents at Alesia
Thus the junction of the two divisions of the army was happily
accomplished. The insurgents meanwhile had consulted as to the farthe
conduct of the war at Bibracte (Autun) the capital of the Haeduil
the soul of these consultations was again Vercingetorix,
to whom the nation was enthusiastically attached after the victory
of Gergovia. Particular interests were not, it is true,
even now silent; the Haedui still in this death-struggle of the nation
asserted their claims to the hegemony, and made a proposal
in the national assembly to substitute a leader of their own
for Vercingetorix. But the national representatives had not merely
declined this and confirmed Vercingetorix in the supreme command,
but had also adopted his plan of war without alteration. It was
substantially the same as that on which he had operated at Avaricum
and at Gergovia. As the base of the new position there was
selected the strong city of the Mandubii, Alesia (Alise Sainte
Reine near Semur in the department Cote d'Or)(49) and another
entrenched camp was constructed under its walls. Immense stores
were here accumulated, and the army was ordered thither
from Gergovia, having its cavalry raised by resolution of the national
assembly to 15,000 horse. Caesar with the whole strength
of his army after it was reunited at Agedincum took the direction
of Besancon, with the view of now approaching the alarmed province
and protecting it from an invasion, for in fact bands of insurgents
had already shown themselves in the territory of the Helvii
on the south slope of the Cevennes. Alesia lay almost on his way;
the cavalry of the Celts, the only arm with which Vercingetorix
chose to operate, attacked him on the route, but to the surprise
of all was worsted by the new German squadrons of Caesar
and the Roman infantry drawn up in support of them.
Caesar in Front of Alesia
Siege of Alesia
Vercingetorix hastened the more to shut himself up in Alesia;
and if Caesar was not disposed altogether to renounce the offensive,
no course was left to him but for the third time in this campaign
to proceed by way of attack with a far weaker force against an army
encamped under a well-garrisoned and well-provisioned fortress
and supplied with immense masses of cavalry. But, while the Celts
had hitherto been opposed by only a part of the Roman legions,
the whole forces of Caesar were united in the lines round Alesia,
and Vercingetorix did not succeed, as he had succeeded at Avaricum
and Gergovia, in placing his infantry under the protection of the walls
of the fortress and keeping his external communications open
for his own benefit by his cavalry, while he interrupted those
of the enemy. The Celtic cavalry, already discouraged by that defeat
inflicted on them by their lightly esteemed opponents, was beaten
by Caesar's German horse in every encounter. The line
of circumvallation of the besiegers extending about nine miles
invested the whole town, including the camp attached to it.
Vercingetorix had been prepared for a struggle under the walls,
but not for being besieged in Alesia; in that point of view
the accumulated stores, considerable as they were, were yet
far from sufficient for his army--which was said to amount to 80,000
infantry and 15,000 cavalry--and for the numerous inhabitants
of the town. Vercingetorix could not but perceive that his plan
of warfare had on this occasion turned to his own destruction,
and that he was lost unless the whole nation hastened up to the rescue
of its blockaded general. The existing provisions were still,
when the Roman circumvallation was closed, sufficient for a month
and perhaps something more; at the last moment, when there was still
free passage at least for horsemen, Vercingetorix dismissed
his whole cavalry, and sent at the same time to the heads
of the nation instructions to call out all their forces and lead them
to the relief of Alesia. He himself, resolved to bear in person
the responsibility for the plan of war which he had projected
and which had miscarried, remained in the fortress, to share in good
or evil the fate of his followers. But Caesar made up his mind
at once to besiege and to be besieged. He prepared his line
of circumvallation for defence also on its outer side, and furnished
himself with provisions for a longer period. The days passed;
they had no longer a boll of grain in the fortress, and they
were obliged to drive out the unhappy inhabitants of the town
to perish miserably between the entrenchments of the Celts
and of the Romans, pitilessly rejected by both.
Attempt at Relief
Conflicts before Alesia
At the last hour there appeared behind Caesar's lines
the interminable array of the Celto-Belgic relieving array, said
to amount to 250,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry, from the Channel
to the Cevennes the insurgent cantons had strained every nerve
to rescue the flower of their patriots and the general of their
choice--the Bellovaci alone had answered that they were doubtless
disposed to fight against the Romans, but not beyond their own bounds.
The first assault, which the besieged of Alesia and the relieving
troops without made on the Roman double line, was repulsed;
but, when after a day's rest it was repeated, the Celts
succeeded--at a spot where the line of circumvallation ran over
the slope of a hill and could be assailed from the height above--
in filling up the trenches and hurling the defenders down
from the rampart. Then Labienus, sent thither by Caesar, collected
the nearest cohorts and threw himself with four legions on the foe.
Under the eyes of the general, who himself appeared at the most
dangerous moment, the assailants were driven back in a desperate
hand-to-hand conflict, and the squadrons of cavalry that came
with Caesar taking the fugitives in rear completed the defeat.
Alesia Capitulates
It was more than a great victory; the fate of Alesia, and indeed
of the Celtic nation, was thereby irrevocably decided. The Celtic
army, utterly disheartened, dispersed at once from the battle-field
and went home. Vercingetorix might perhaps have even now taken
to flight, or at least have saved himself by the last means open
to a free man; he did not do so, but declared in a council of war that,
since he had not succeeded in breaking off the alien yoke,
he was ready to give himself up as a victim and to avert as far as
possible destruction from the nation by bringing it on his own
head. This was done. The Celtic officers delivered their general--
the solemn choice of the whole nation--over to the energy of their
country for such punishment as might be thought fit. Mounted
on his steed and in full armour the king of the Arverni appeared
before the Roman proconsul and rode round his tribunal;
then he surrendered his horse and arms, and sat down in silence
on the steps at Caesar's feet (702).
Vercingetorix Executed
Five years afterwards he was led in triumph through the streets
of the Italian capital, and, while his conqueror was offering solemn
thanks to the gods on the summit of the Capitol, Vercingetorix
was beheaded at its foot as guilty of high treason against the Roman
nation. As after a day of gloom the sun may perhaps break through
the clouds at its setting, so destiny may bestow on nations
in their decline yet a last great man. Thus Hannibal stands
at the close of the Phoenician history, and Vercingetorix
at the close of the Celtic. They were not able to save the nations
to which they belonged from a foreign yoke, but they spared them
the last remaining disgrace--an inglorious fall. Vercingetorix,
just like the Carthaginian, was obliged to contend not merely
against the public foe, but also and above all against that anti-national
opposition of wounded egotists and startled cowards, which regularly
accompanies a degenerate civilization; for him too a place
in history is secured, not by his battles and sieges,
but by the fact that he was able to furnish in his own person
a centre and rallying-point to a nation distracted and ruined
by the rivalry of individual interests. And yet there can hardly
be a more marked contrast than between the sober townsman
of the Phoenician mercantile city, whose plans were directed towards
one great object with unchanging energy throughout fifty years,
and the bold prince of the Celtic land, whose mighty deeds and high-
minded self-sacrifice fall within the compass of one brief summer.
The whole ancient world presents no more genuine knight, whether
as regards his essential character or his outward appearance.
But man ought not to be a mere knight, and least of all the statesman.
It was the knight, not the hero, who disdained to escape from Alesia,
when for the nation more depended on him than on a hundred thousand
ordinary brave men. It was the knight, not the hero, who gave
himself up as a sacrifice, when the only thing gained
by that sacrifice was that the nation publicly dishonoured itself
and with equal cowardice and absurdity employed its last breath
in proclaiming that its great historical death-struggle was a crime
against its oppressor. How very different was the conduct
of Hannibal in similar positions! It is impossible to part
from the noble king of the Arverni without a feeling of historical
and human sympathy; but it is a significant trait of the Celtic nation,
that its greatest man was after all merely a knight.
The Last Conflicts
With the Bituriges and Carnutes
The fall of Alesia and the capitulation of the army enclosed
in it were fearful blows for the Celtic insurrection; but blows
quite as heavy had befallen the nation and yet the conflict
had been renewed. The loss of Vercingetorix, however, was irreparable.
With him unity had come to the nation; with him it seemed also
to have departed. We do not find that the insurgents made any attempt
to continue their joint defence and to appoint another generalissimo;
the league of patriots fell to pieces of itself, and every clan
was left to fight or come to terms with the Romans as it pleased.
Naturally the desire after rest everywhere prevailed.
Caesar too had an interest in bringing the war quickly to an end.
Of the ten years of his governorship seven had elapsed, and the last
was called in question by his political opponents in the capital;
he could only reckon with some degree of certainty on two more summers,
and, while his interest as well as his honour required
that he should hand over the newly-acquired regions to his successor
in a condition of tolerable peace and tranquillity, there was
in truth but scanty time to bring about such a state of things.
To exercise mercy was in this case still more a necessity
for the victor than for the vanquished; and he might thank his stars
that the internal dissensions and the easy temperament of the Celts
met him in this respect half way. Where--as in the two most eminent
cantons of central Gaul, those of the Haedui and Arverni--there
existed a strong party well disposed to Rome, the cantons obtained
immediately after the fall of Alesia a complete restoration
of their former relations with Rome, and even their captives, 20,000
in number, were released without ransom, while those of the other
clans passed into the hard bondage of the victorious legionaries.
The greater portion of the Gallic districts submitted like the Haedui
and Arverni to their fate, and allowed their inevitable
punishment to be inflicted without farther resistance.
But not a few clung in foolish frivolity or sullen despair
to the lost cause, till the Roman troops of execution appeared
within their borders. Such expeditions were in the winter of 702-703
undertaken against the Bituriges and the Carnutes.
With the Bellovaci
More serious resistance was offered by the Bellovaci,
who in the previous year had kept aloof from the relief of Alesia;
they seem to have wished to show that their absence on that decisive day
at least did not proceed from want of courage or of love for freedom.
The Atrebates, Ambiani, Caletes, and other Belgic cantons took part
in this struggle; the brave king of the Atrebates Commius,
whose accession to the insurrection the Romans had least of all forgiven,
and against whom recently Labienus had even directed an atrocious
attempt at assassination, brought to the Bellovaci 500 German
horse, whose value the campaign of the previous year had shown.
The resolute and talented Bellovacian Correus, to whom the chief
conduct of the war had fallen, waged warfare as Vercingetorix
had waged it, and with no small success. Although Caesar had gradually
brought up the greater part of his army, he could neither bring
the infantry of the Bellovaci to a battle, nor even prevent it
from taking up other positions which afforded better protection
against his augmented forces; while the Roman horse, especially
the Celtic contingents, suffered most severe losses in various combats
at the hands of the enemy's cavalry, especially of the German cavalry
of Commius. But after Correus had met his death in a skirmish
with the Roman foragers, the resistance here too was broken;
the victor proposed tolerable conditions, to which the Bellovaci
along with their confederates submitted. The Treveri were reduced
to obedience by Labienus, and incidentally the territory
of the outlawed Eburones was once more traversed and laid waste.
Thus the last resistance of the Belgic confederacy was broken.
On the Loire
The maritime cantons still made an attempt to defend themselves
against the Roman domination in concert with their neighbours
on the Loire. Insurgent bands from the Andian, Carnutic, and other
surrounding cantons assembled on the lower Loire and besieged
in Lemonum (Poitiers) the prince of the Pictones who was friendly
to the Romans. But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared
against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated
with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy,
but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon
the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even
the maritime ones, sent in their submission.
And in Uxellodunum