became necessary to scatter the legions in arranging for their winter
quarters. There were eight legions, and the half of another, and they
were located in eight camps. Two of these camps were in Normandy (Seez
and Chartres), two in Picardy (Amiens and Montdidier), one in Artois
(St. Pol), and three in Belgium (Charleroi, Tongres, and Lavacherie
on the Ourthe). One of the last three, that at Tongres, which was
under the command of two legates, Sabinus and Cotta, was attacked by
a detachment from one of the tribes in the neighbourhood. Force not
succeeding, treachery was tried. One of the local chiefs, Ambiorix by
name, proposed a conference. He was friendly, he said, to the Romans,
Cæsar having done him a kindness, though he had been compelled to pose
as an enemy. His advice to the generals was to leave the camp, which
it would not be possible to hold. A multitude of Germans had crossed
the Rhine, and were on their way to attack the camp. If the troops
were withdrawn to one of the other camps in Eastern Gaul, he would
guarantee them a safe-conduct. The two officers in command were divided
in opinion. Finally Sabinus, who was in favour of evacuating the camp,
had his way. At dawn next day they started; after proceeding two miles
they fell into an ambush. Forming into a circle they resisted, till the
severity of their losses made them ask for terms. These were granted,
and immediately broken. Sabinus and some officers laid down their arms
and were massacred; Cotta died fighting; the survivors of the day's
battle made their way back into the camp. Seeing that they could not
possibly hold it against the enemy, they committed suicide during
the night. A few stragglers escaped to the camp at Lavacherie, where
Labienus was in command.
The camp at Charleroi, in the country of the Nervii, where Q. Cicero,
younger brother of the great orator, was in command, was next attacked.
The Gauls, now largely increased in number, assaulted it with the
greatest fury, but were repulsed. Cæsar was informed of the position
of affairs, and acted with his usual promptitude. He was able to
concentrate a force of two legions, and with these he promptly relieved
Cicero, having inflicted a severe defeat on a force of Gauls which
attacked him on the way.
The next year (53 B.C.) was entirely devoted to exacting vengeance for
the massacre of Sabinus and Cotta with their men. It is needless to
follow the operations of Cæsar. It must suffice to say that though one
somewhat serious reverse was sustained, they were successful on the
whole. But much yet remained to be done before Gaul could be said to
have been thoroughly "pacified." Cæsar was yet to be reduced to greater
straits than he had yet experienced.
The year 52 B.C. was one of furious party strife in Rome, and Cæsar
gives us clearly to understand that this state of things had its effect
on the Gauls. Chafing under the newly imposed yoke, they naturally
exaggerated the troubles of their masters. In one matter in particular,
their "wish was father to their thought." They dreaded, and with
excellent reason, the commanding personality of Cæsar. He had done in
seven years more than his predecessors had been able to accomplish in
seventy. What an inestimable advantage it would be if he were to be
kept away from the scene of war by these party quarrels! The report
that this was the case was spread about and eagerly believed. In a very
short time all Gaul was in a blaze of revolt, the news spreading with
extraordinary rapidity. What had happened at Gennabum (Orleans) at
sunrise was known in the country of the Auverni, nearly 150 miles away,
before 9 p.m. It was shouted from field to field.
Vercingetorix, an Auvernian, was the hero of the new movement. All
the tribes of Western Gaul joined him immediately. He began his own
operations in the south-west on the borders of the old _Provincia_.
While occupied with them, Cæsar suddenly appeared on the scene,
bringing with him new levies from the other side of the Alps. His
coming caused an immediate change in the aspect of affairs. Moving with
his usual speed, he concentrated his army at Sens (80 miles to the
south-east of Paris). He then proceeded to attack one after another of
the revolting tribes. His successes were so numerous and so rapid that
Vercingetorix felt that he must change his plan of campaign. Unable
to meet Cæsar in the field, he must starve him out. To do this it was
necessary to lay the whole country waste. Even the towns would have to
be burnt. Only the policy, to be useful, had to be thorough. This was
more than Vercingetorix could effect. When it came to the question of
destroying Avaricum (_Bourges_) he had to give way. Its inhabitants
pleaded for it too earnestly, for it was the finest city in Gaul. If it
had been burnt with all the stores that it contained the Roman campaign
must have ended in disaster. As it was, the town was besieged by Cæsar.
The Gallic chief, who had his camp sixteen miles away, did all he could
to annoy and injure the besiegers. But he could not stop them. He threw
10,000 men into the city, but though the defence was prolonged, the
skill and determination of the Romans would not be denied. When the
prospect seemed desperate the garrison resolved to leave the city, but
the shrieks of the women revealed their intention to the besiegers.
Finally Avaricum was stormed, and all its inhabitants massacred.
Great as was this disaster, Vercingetorix felt his position to be
strengthened by it. He could now say to his countrymen, "Avaricum has
perished, after all, but the Romans have got the stores." Cæsar's
next proceeding was to lay siege to Gergovia, a town which cannot be
identified. Here he met with a decided reverse. One division of his
army persisted in an attack upon the walls after the recall had been
sounded, and were repulsed with heavy loss, 700 men, of whom nearly
fifty were officers, falling in the action. Cæsar himself seems to
have had a narrow escape. He does not mention it himself, not thinking,
perhaps, that it was of sufficient importance to be recorded. But
Servius, an ancient commentator on Virgil, relates it on the authority
of a Diary (_Ephemeris_) which was extant in his time. In Virgil,
Tarchon, an Etrurian chief and ally of Æneas, drags one Venulus, in
full armour, from off his horse. The same thing, he says, happened to
Cæsar at Gergovia. One of the Gauls recognised him as he was being
carried away, and shouted out _Cæsar_! The name was very like the
Gallic words for "Let him go!" And Cæsar's captor relaxing his hold,
the great man escaped. Plutarch tells another story of how the Auverni
had a sword hanging up in one of their temples which they declared to
be Cæsar's, and that when it was shown to him, he smiled. Nor was the
defeat at Gergovia the last of his troubles. The Ædui, who had been
loyal to Rome from the beginning, now joined the rebellion. They seized
Cæsar's _depôt_ at Noviodunum (site unknown), slaughtered the garrison,
and possessed themselves of the stores, and with them, of the hostages,
who were pledges of the fidelity of the other tribes. They then tried
to stop him from crossing the Loire. As usual, he was too quick for
them. His legions forded the river, though the river, swollen with the
melted snows, was breast-high.
Labienus, who was operating in the neighbourhood of Paris, had had
difficulties of his own, but had surmounted them with his usual skill.
He was Cæsar's ablest lieutenant, as useful to his chief as Lord
Hill was to Wellington in the Peninsula. He now succeeded in joining
the main army. Notwithstanding this addition of strength, the Roman
commander was compelled to retreat. He was not far from the _Provincia_
when he turned upon Vercingetorix and defeated him, largely by the help
of the German cavalry. The Romans, among other qualifications of a
ruling race, had the gift of turning to the best account the qualities
of others. Eight or nine years before there was not a trooper of German
race in the Roman army; now that nation furnishes it with an efficient
arm.
Vercingetorix now threw himself into Alesia, a strong place in the
hills, probably to be identified with Alise-Sainte-Reine in Burgundy.
He sent messengers to the various States in alliance, asking for a
_levée-en-masse_. This was not made, but a huge army was gathered,
250,000 infantry and 8,000 horse. It was the last great effort of
Gaul for freedom, and it failed. The Gauls came on, convinced that
they must triumph, but the Romans stood firm during a struggle that
lasted from noon till sunset, and the enemy were driven back to their
camp. Another attack, made after a brief rest, failed also. Then came
the last desperate struggle. One of the chiefs of the relieving army,
a kinsman of Vercingetorix, threw himself on a weak spot in the lines
of investment, where the Roman camp had been constructed on ground
that sloped towards the town. He had 60,000 men with him; the Roman
force consisted of two legions. The besieged made a simultaneous
effort to break out. The struggle was long and fierce. Cæsar directed
the Roman battle from a point of advantage. When the time came, he
himself, conspicuous in the scarlet cloak of command, took personal
part in the struggle. His trusted lieutenant Labienus got together
forty cohorts from all parts of the lines of investment, and Cæsar
put himself at their head. The Gallic host was utterly broken. The
slaughter on the field was great, and the survivors dispersed during
the night that followed, every man seeking his native State. The next
day Vercingetorix surrendered himself to the conqueror. He was kept in
prison for seven years, was led in the triumph which Cæsar celebrated
in 45 B.C. and put to death afterwards. The war in Gaul lasted for
two years more. One after another the rebellious States were subdued,
and dealt with mercifully or severely as policy dictated. Cæsar, who
recognised the duty, or, anyhow, the policy, of forgiveness where his
countrymen were concerned, was wholly proof against any emotion of
the kind when he had to do with barbarians. He had no pleasure in a
massacre; but, on the other hand, it caused him no compunction or even
pain. These eight years of war must have cost Gaul some two millions
of lives. It was an awful price to pay, but it completed a great work,
which had been on hand for three centuries and a half. In 390 B.C.
Brennus captured Rome; in 50 B.C. the Gauls had become the Latin people
which they are to-day.
VII
FURTHEST BRITAIN.
I cannot omit all mention of our own island, though it can hardly be
said that there was any incident in its history of really critical
importance in the long struggle between Rome and the barbarian tribes.
The visits of Cæsar to Britain, though highly interesting in more ways
than one, may be briefly passed over. He came for the first time not
long before the end of the campaigning season in 55 B.C. His chief
reason, as he states it himself, was that he found that the Britons
were in the habit of helping their neighbours of Gaul. (The inhabitants
of south-eastern England were of the same race as the Belgæ.) We do not
find, as a matter of fact, any mention of British auxiliaries in the
Gallic armies, or that in later years Gaul was tempted into rebellion
by the knowledge that Britain was free. Cæsar was of the Alexander
type, strongly moved by the ambition of a conqueror. The first visit
lasted altogether about three weeks, and the army practically remained
where it landed.
The second visit took place in the following year (54 B.C.) and was
a far more important affair. Caesar's intention was, we may be sure,
to conquer the island. Probably he was not acquainted with its real
dimensions, and circumstances occurred that made him change his
plans. Originally, however, he had in his mind something more than a
_reconnaisance en force_. He brought with him six legions and 2,000
cavalry, more than a half of his whole available force, coming at the
end of July, and leaving about the middle of September. He advanced
some sixty or seventy miles into the country, crossing the Thames,
possibly near Weybridge, possibly a little below Eton. The Britons
could not, of course, stand against him in the field, but they proved
themselves to be formidable enemies. Cæsar does not expressly say that
he had underrated the difficulties of the task; but he acted as if he
had. He was engaged in Gaul for five more years, and during the last
two of these five was practically master of the country, but he seems
to have entirely abandoned the idea of subjugating Britain.
For 89 years the island was left practically to itself. Augustus, in
the scroll of his achievements which he inscribed on a slab in a temple
at Ancyra (the capital of the Roman province of Galatia) mentions the
tribute paid by certain British kings; the inscription is imperfect at
this place, and we know no particulars. It is certain, however, that
no serious attempt was made on Britain between the years 54 B.C. and
43 A.D. There are various allusions to the people in the literature of
the time, but they are always spoken of as savage enemies of whom very
little was known.
In 43 A.D., however, Rome, at the invitation of a native prince, who
conceived himself to have suffered wrong, seriously undertook the
conquest of the Island. Aulus Plautius was appointed to the command,
took four legions with him, and in the course of the year the Emperor
himself (Claudius) brought over an additional force. A great battle
was fought near Camalodunum (Colchester), in which the Britons were,
as usual, defeated. Vespasian, afterwards Emperor, was actively
engaged in the west of the Island. We know very little of the details
of the campaigns which followed. One heroic figure, however, stands
prominently out. This is Caractacus (Caradoc). For seven years this
prince (elder son of Cunobelin, the _Cymbeline_ of Shakespeare) held
out against the Roman forces. We cannot identify the scene of the
final battle,[40] but a sufficiently clear description of it has been
preserved. The Britons occupied a hill which had an unfordable river
in front, and was itself fortified, wherever the ground permitted or
required it, with ramparts of stones. So formidable did the position,
crowded as it was with warriors, seem to the Roman general, that he
was inclined to manœuvre, probably to attempt a flanking movement.
But the soldiers demanded to be led to a frontal attack, and their
general yielded. The river was crossed, how we are not told. The space
between the river and the British ramparts was not traversed without
loss. Many were wounded and some killed by a storm of missiles from the
British lines. But when the _testudo_ was formed under the rampart,
rudely constructed of uncemented stones, the battle was practically
over. The rampart was soon pulled down, and the Britons retired to
the heights. Here they were outmatched. The artillery played upon
them from a distance, and they had nothing wherewith to reply to it.
In close combat the armour and weapons of the legions gave them an
immense advantage. Finally the Britons were driven headlong from their
position. Caractacus' wife and daughter were captured, and his brothers
surrendered themselves. The king himself was handed over to his enemies
by the treachery of a neighbouring potentate, Queen Cartismandua.
The story of his dignified behaviour before Claudius, and of the
generous spirit with which it was taken, need not be repeated here.
Roman manners had been somewhat softened since the days when the brave
Vercingetorix had been put to death. It was not that Caractacus had
ceased to be formidable; he was never allowed to return to Britain.
Nor need I tell in detail the story of the revolt of Boadicea, Queen of
the Iceni, a tribe of Eastern Britain. It was provoked by the insolence
of Roman officials and the greed of Roman financiers,[41] and for a
time it shook the Roman power in Britain to its base. Londinium,
already the largest and wealthiest town in Britain, though not ranking
as a colony, was sacked; so was Verulamium (St. Alban's) and other
places. As many as seventy thousand persons are said to have perished.
The majority must have been Britons, "friendly natives," as we should
now call them; but there were many Italians among them. "Citizens and
allies" is the historian's term. As only seventeen years had passed
since the conquest of Britain had commenced, it is remarkable how far
the Romanising of the country had proceeded. Traders and settlers must
have swarmed into it, as they do in the United States when an Indian
reserve is thrown open. Besides these frightful massacres, there were
military disasters. One legion was cut to pieces. The commander of
another was so cowed that he did not venture out of his camp. But
Paullinus, the commander-in-chief, behaved with consummate discretion.
He refused to risk a battle with insufficient forces, though his
delay meant the destruction of London. But when he struck he struck
with terrific force. The British army was practically annihilated. In
Southern Britain, at least, the dominion of Rome was never seriously
threatened for many years after the great victory won by Paullinus.
When, in A.D. 78, Agricola took over the command of Britain, it was
in North Wales that he carried on his first campaign. The campaigns
that followed I need not describe in detail. The last of them was
finished by a great victory over the Caledonians near the Grampians,
probably at Aberfoyle, in Perthshire. The Roman sway, however, did
not really extend so far. Its high-water mark was, probably, reached
about A.D. 200, when the Emperor Septimius Severus marched to the
extreme north of the Island, and on his return added a second wall to
the great rampart constructed by Antoninus Pius between the estuaries
of the Forth and the Clyde. But this advanced post was not long held.
The most permanent, as it was the most elaborate barrier against the
northern tribes, was the Great Wall built by Hadrian, about A.D. 120,
between the Solway Firth and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Britain south of this
was completely Latinised. But the existence of the walls and the fact
that the Island had the reputation of being to the Empire what India
is to us, a nursery of captains, prove that the North was practically
independent. Here then--and this is what makes Britain really important
in Roman history--was the furthest limit of Roman advance. And it was
here that the first overt confession of weakness had to be made. In
A.D. 408 one of the many soldiers of fortune who attempted to seize the
Imperial throne crossed over into Gaul with the British legions. The
legions never came back, and Britain, though nominally included in the
Provinces of the Empire, was actually abandoned.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 40: It was probably somewhere in Shropshire or Herefordshire.]
[Footnote 41: According to Dion, the philosopher Seneca had something
to do with the disturbance by suddenly calling in money which he had
lent at usurious interest. We may hope that it is a slander, but Romans
of good repute were not above such conduct. The patriotic Brutus lent
money to a town in Cyprus at 40 per cent., and was much annoyed with
Cicero for refusing the help of the military in collecting the debt.]
VIII
BEYOND THE RHINE
In the German tribes Rome found at last the antagonist who was to
vanquish her. The victories of Marius and of Cæsar had been complete,
but they did not crush the race. Their numbers and the solidity of
their character, moulded as it was by a tenacity and a power of
resistance which neither the Spaniard nor the Gaul had shown, made
them practically unconquerable. The early Empire was not without
ambitions in this direction. Drusus, the step-son of Augustus, carried
on several campaigns in Lower Germany, and executed besides some
important engineering works, in the way of canals and embankments,
which were intended to make the country more accessible. But he came,
once at least, very near to a terrible disaster. In B.C. 11 he had
got as far as the Weser, thanks, in part at least, to the absence
of his most formidable enemies, the Sicambri, who were busy fighting
with the Chatti. At the Weser he felt that it would be prudent to
halt and to retrace his steps. It was well that he did, for the
Sicambri had settled their quarrel with their neighbours, and were
now in the opposite ranks. At a place called Arbalo, which we have
no means of locating, he was almost surrounded. The allied tribes
threw away, by their rashness, a victory which was almost in their
hands. They divided, so to speak, the Roman wolfskin before they
had captured the wolf. Each tribe chose its own share of the spoil,
rushed in a headlong charge to secure it, and were driven back with
heavy loss. Drusus built two forts which might be convenient centres
for future operations, and returned to Rome, where he had so much of
the honours of a triumph as the jealousy of the Emperor permitted a
subject to enjoy. In the following year (B.C. 10) he returned to the
same country, and in B.C. 9 he did the very same thing again. It was
in this campaign that he reached his furthest point, making his way
as far as the Elbe itself. Here indeed--so it seemed to the men of
the time--was the fate-appointed limit of the Roman arms. As he was
making ready to cross the Elbe, a female figure, of more than human
proportions, appeared to him. "Whither goest thou, insatiable Drusus?"
cried the strange apparition. "Destiny forbids thee to go further.
Here is the end of thy exploits and thy life." He erected trophies
on the river bank to mark the spot which he had reached, and turned
back. But he never reached the Rhine. He was thrown from his horse,
and received injuries from which he died. His younger brother Tiberius
arrived just in time to see him alive. The last duties to the dead
performed--Tiberius is said to have walked before the bier all the way
from the Rhine bank to Rome--he returned to prosecute the campaign. For
some years the Roman arms met no serious check, and by A.D. 9 so much
had been done in subjugating the country that Augustus conceived the
idea of making it into a Roman province. For this purpose he sent an
officer of high rank, who had for some years administered the province
of Syria--Quintilius Varus. The new-comer was totally mistaken about
the real condition of the country, which was on the brink of revolt.
The native chiefs, at whose head was the famous Arminius (the Latin
form of _Hermann_), pretended friendship and submission, assisting at
the courts which he held after the fashion of an Indian _durbah_, and
promptly executing his orders. The report of an insurrection in South
Germany reached him while thus employed, and he marched southward to
quell it. Arminius and his fellow-countrymen left him, under a promise
to return, but really with the intention of preparing an attack. His
road lay through the valleys of what is now called the Teutoburgerwald,
between Osnabruck and Paderborn, in Westphalia. He marched without any
suspicion of danger, his army in a straggling line, encumbered with
baggage and a multitude of non-combatants. Half-way through the pass
they were attacked. There were three legions and a considerable force
of cavalry, and for a time they successfully resisted the enemy. The
camp which they pitched at the end of the first day's battle was of
such a size, when it was discovered some years afterwards, as to show
that the three legions were then substantially intact. The next day,
after destroying his baggage, for he recognised that his position was
one of extreme peril and that his only hope was to give to his army all
the mobility possible, he made for the fortress of Aliso on the Lippe.
All the day he was attacked, and had to struggle for every yard of
road. By evening his forces had been greatly diminished, for the second
camp was seen to be much smaller than the first. The third day's march
brought them out of the woods, but only to encounter a fresh multitude
of the enemy. Their strength was now exhausted, and they could no
longer keep their ranks. Varus killed himself; his army, a very few
excepted who contrived to reach Aliso, was destroyed. The effect in
Germany was to throw back the frontier of Rome to the Rhine; in Rome
the news produced something like a panic. The disaster embittered the
remaining years of Augustus. Again and again he was known to start from
his sleep and cry in tones of agony, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my
legions!"