The Subjugation of the West
The Romanizing of the West
When the course of history turns from the miserable monotony
of the political selfishness, which fought its battles
in the senate-house and in the streets of the capital, to matters
of greater importance than the question whether the first monarch
of Rome should be called Gnaeus, Gaius, or Marcus, we may well
be allowed--on the threshold of an event, the effects of which still
at the present day influence the destinies of the world--to look round us
for a moment, and to indicate the point of view under which the conquest
of what is now France by the Romans, and their first contact
with the inhabitants of Germany and of Great Britain, are to be
apprehended in their bearing on the general history of the world.
By virtue of the law, that a people which has grown into a state
absorbs its neighbours who are in political nonage, and a civilized
people absorbs its neighbours who are in intellectual nonage--
by virtue of this law, which is as universally valid and as much
a law of nature as the law of gravity--the Italian nation (the only
one in antiquity which was able to combine a superior political
development and a superior civilization, though it presented
the latter only in an imperfect and external manner) was entitled
to reduce to subjection the Greek states of the east which were ripe
for destruction, and to dispossess the peoples of lower grades
of culture in the west--Libyans, Iberians, Celts, Germans--by means
of its settlers; just as England with equal right has in Asia reduced
to subjection a civilization of rival standing but politically
impotent, and in America and Australia has marked and ennobled,
and still continues to mark and ennoble, extensive barbarian
countries with the impress of its nationality. The Roman aristocracy
had accomplished the preliminary condition required for this task--
the union of Italy; the task itself it never solved, but always
regarded the extra-Italian conquests either as simply a necessary
evil, or as a fiscal possession virtually beyond the pale
of the state. It is the imperishable glory of the Roman democracy
or monarchy--for the two coincide--to have correctly apprehended
and vigorously realized this its highest destination. What
the irresistible force of circumstances had paved the way for,
through the senate establishing against its will the foundations
of the future Roman dominion in the west as in the east; what thereafter
the Roman emigration to the provinces--which came as a public
calamity, no doubt, but also in the western regions at any rate
as a pioneer of a higher culture--pursued as matter of instinct;
the creator of the Roman democracy, Gaius Gracchus, grasped
and began to carry out with statesmanlike clearness and decision.
The two fundamental ideas of the new policy--to reunite
the territories under the power of Rome, so far as they were Hellenic,
and to colonize them, so far as they were not Hellenic--had already
in the Gracchan age been practically recognized by the annexation
of the kingdom of Attalus and by the Transalpine conquests of Flaccus:
but the prevailing reaction once more arrested their application.
The Roman state remained a chaotic mass of countries without thorough
occupation and without proper limits. Spain and the Graeco-Asiatic
possessions were separated from the mother country by wide
territories, of which barely the borders along the coast
were subject to the Romans; on the north coast of Africa the domains
of Carthage and Cyrene alone were occupied like oases; large tracts
even of the subject territory, especially in Spain, were but nominally
subject to the Romans. Absolutely nothing was done on the part
of the government towards concentrating and rounding off
their dominion, and the decay of the fleet seemed at length
to dissolve the last bond of connection between the distant
possessions. The democracy no doubt attempted, so soon as it
again raised its head, to shape its external policy in the spirit
of Gracchus--Marius in particular cherished such ideas--but as it
did not for any length of time attain the helm, its projects
were left unfulfilled. It was not till the democracy practically took
in hand the government on the overthrow of the Sullan constitution
in 684, that a revolution in this respect occurred. First of all
their sovereignty on the Mediterranean was restored--the most
vital question for a state like that of Rome. Towards the east,
moreover, the boundary of the Euphrates was secured by the annexation
of the provinces of Pontus and Syria. But there still remained beyond
the Alps the task of at once rounding off the Roman territory towards
the north and west, and of gaining a fresh virgin soil there
for Hellenic civilization and for the yet unbroken vigour
of the Italic race.
Historical Significance of the Conquests of Caesar
This task Gaius Caesar undertook. It is more than an error,
it is an outrage upon the sacred spirit dominant in history,
to regard Gaul solely as the parade ground on which Caesar
exercised himself and his legions for the impending civil war.
Though the subjugation of the west was for Caesar so far a means
to an end that he laid the foundations of his later height of power
in the Transalpine wars, it is the especial privilege of a statesman
of genius that his means themselves are ends in their turn. Caesar
needed no doubt for his party aims a military power, but he did not
conquer Gaul as a partisan. There was a direct political necessity
for Rome to meet the perpetually threatened invasion of the Germans
thus early beyond the Alps, and to construct a rampart there
which should secure the peace of the Roman world. But even this
important object was not the highest and ultimate reason for which Gaul
was conquered by Caesar. When the old home had become too
narrow for the Roman burgesses and they were in danger of decay,
the senate's policy of Italian conquest saved them from ruin.
Now the Italian home had become in its turn too narrow; once more
the state languished under the same social evils repeating themselves
in similar fashion only on a greater scale. It was a brilliant
idea, a grand hope, which led Caesar over the Alps--the idea
and the confident expectation that he should gain there for his
fellow-burgesses a new boundless home, and regenerate the state
a second time by placing it on a broader basis.
Caesar in Spain
The campaign which Caesar undertook in 693 in Further Spain, may
be in some sense included among the enterprises which aimed at
the subjugation of the west. Long as Spain had obeyed the Romans,
its western shore had remained substantially independent of them
even after the expedition of Decimus Brutus against the Callaeci(1),
and they had not even set foot on the northern coast; while
the predatory raids, to which the subject provinces found
themselves continually exposed from those quarters, did no small
injury to the civilization and Romanizing of Spain. Against these
the expedition of Caesar along the west coast was directed.
He crossed the chain of the Herminian mountains (Sierra de Estrella)
bounding the Tagus on the north; after having conquered their
inhabitants and transplanted them in part to the plain, he reduced
the country on both sides of the Douro and arrived at the northwest
point of the peninsula, where with the aid of a flotilla brought
up from Gades he occupied Brigantium (Corunna). By this means
the peoples adjoining the Atlantic Ocean, Lusitanians and Callaecians,
were forced to acknowledge the Roman supremacy, while the conqueror
was at the same time careful to render the position of the subjects
generally more tolerable by reducing the tribute to be paid to Rome
and regulating the financial affairs of the communities.
But, although in this military and administrative debut of the great
general and statesman the same talents and the same leading ideas are
discernible which he afterwards evinced on a greater stage, his agency
in the Iberian peninsula was much too transient to have any deep effect;
the more especially as, owing to its physical and national peculiarities,
nothing but action steadily continued for a considerable time could
exert any durable influence there.
Gaul
A more important part in the Romanic development of the west
was reserved by destiny for the country which stretches between
the Pyrenees and the Rhine, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean,
and which since the Augustan age has been especially designated
by the name of the land of the Celts--Gallia--although strictly
speaking the land of the Celts was partly narrower, partly much
more extensive, and the country so called never formed a national
unity, and did not form a political unity before Augustus.
For this very reason it is not easy to present a clear picture
of the very heterogeneous state of things which Caesar encountered
on his arrival there in 696.
The Roman Province
Wars and Revolts There
In the region on the Mediterranean, which, embracing approximately
Languedoc on the west of the Rhone, on the east Dauphine and Provence,
had been for sixty years a Roman province, the Roman arms had seldom
been at rest since the Cimbrian invasion which had swept over it.
In 664 Gaius Caelius had fought with the Salyes about Aquae Sextiae,
and in 674 Gaius Flaccus,(2) on his march to Spain, with other
Celtic nations. When in the Sertorian war the governor Lucius Manlius,
compelled to hasten to the aid of his colleagues beyond the Pyrenees,
returned defeated from Ilerda (Lerida) and on his way home
was vanquished a second time by the western neighbours
of the Roman province, the Aquitani (about 676;(3)), this seems
to have provoked a general rising of the provincials between
the Pyrenees and the Rhone, perhaps even of those between the Rhone
and Alps. Pompeius had to make his way with the sword through
the insurgent Gaul to Spain,(4) and by way of penalty for their
rebellion gave the territories of the Volcae-Arecomici
and the Helvii (dep. Gard and Ardeche) over to the Massiliots;
the governor Manius Fonteius (678-680) carried out these arrangements
and restored tranquillity in the province by subduing the Vocontii
(dep. Drome), protecting Massilia from the insurgents,
and liberating the Roman capital Narbo which they invested.
Despair, however, and the financial embarrassment which the participation
in the sufferings of the Spanish war(5) and generally the official
and non-official exactions of the Romans brought upon the Gallic
provinces, did not allow them to be tranquil; and in particular
the canton of the Allobroges, the most remote from Narbo,
was in a perpetual ferment, which was attested by the "pacification"
that Gaius Piso undertook there in 688 as well as by the behaviour
of the Allobrogian embassy in Rome on occasion of the anarchist plot
in 691,(6) and which soon afterwards (693) broke into open revolt
Catugnatus the leader of the Allobroges in this war of despair,
who had at first fought not unsuccessfully, was conquered at Solonium
after a glorious resistance by the governor Gaius Pomptinus.
Bounds
Relations to Rome
Notwithstanding all these conflicts the bounds of the Roman
territory were not materially advanced; Lugudunum Convenarum,
where Pompeius had settled the remnant of the Sertorian army,(7)
Tolosa, Vienna and Genava were still the most remote Roman townships
towards the west and north. But at the same time the importance
of these Gallic possessions for the mother country was continually
on the increase. The glorious climate, akin to that of Italy,
the favourable nature of the soil, the large and rich region lying
behind so advantageous for commerce with its mercantile routes
reaching as far as Britain, the easy intercourse by land and sea
with the mother country, rapidly gave to southern Gaul an economic
importance for Italy, which much older possessions, such as those
in Spain, had not acquired in the course of centuries; and as
the Romans who had suffered political shipwreck at this period sought
an asylum especially in Massilia, and there found once more Italian
culture and Italian luxury, voluntary emigrants from Italy also
were attracted more and more to the Rhone and the Garonne.
"The province of Gaul," it was said in a sketch drawn ten years
before Caesar's arrival, "is full of merchants; it swarms with Roman
burgesses. No native of Gaul transacts a piece of business without
the intervention of a Roman; every penny, that passes from one hand
to another in Gaul, goes through the account books of the Roman
burgesses." From the same description it appears that in addition
to the colonists of Narbo there were Romans cultivating land
and rearing cattle, resident in great numbers in Gaul; as to which,
however, it must not be overlooked that most of the provincial land
possessed by Romans, just like the greater part of the English
possessions in the earliest times in America, was in the hands
of the high nobility living in Italy, and those farmers and graziers
consisted for the most part of their stewards--slaves or freedmen.
Incipient Romanizing
It is easy to understand how under such circumstances civilization
and Romanizing rapidly spread among the natives. These Celts
were not fond of agriculture; but their new masters compelled them
to exchange the sword for the plough, and it is very credible
that the embittered resistance of the Allobroges was provoked in part
by some such injunctions. In earlier times Hellenism had also
to a certain degree dominated those regions; the elements
of a higher culture, the stimulus to the cultivation of the vine
and the olive,(8) to the use of writing(9) and to the coining of money,
came to them from Massilia. The Hellenic culture was in this case
far from being set aside by the Romans; Massilia gained through
them more influence than it lost; and even in the Roman period
Greek physicians and rhetoricians were publicly employed
in the Gallic cantons. But, as may readily be conceived, Hellenism
in southern Gaul acquired through the agency of the Romans the same
character as in Italy; the distinctively Hellenic civilization
gave place to the Latino-Greek mixed culture, which soon made
proselytes here in great numbers. The "Gauls in the breeches,"
as the inhabitants of southern Gaul were called by way of contrast
to the "Gauls in the toga" of northern Italy, were not indeed
like the latter already completely Romanized, but they were even now
very perceptibly distinguished from the "longhaired Gauls"
of the northern regions still unsubdued. The semiculture becoming
naturalized among them furnished, doubtless, materials enough
for ridicule of their barbarous Latin, and people did not fail
to suggest to any one suspected of Celtic descent his "relationship
with the breeches"; but this bad Latin was yet sufficient
to enable even the remote Allobroges to transact business
with the Roman authorities, and even to give testimony in the Roman
courts without an interpreter.
While the Celtic and Ligurian population of these regions
was thus in the course of losing its nationality, and was languishing
and pining withal under a political and economic oppression,
the intolerable nature of which is sufficiently attested by their
hopeless insurrections, the decline of the native population here
went hand in hand with the naturalizing of the same higher culture
which we find at this period in Italy. Aquae Sextiae and still
more Narbo were considerable townships, which might probably be
named by the side of Beneventum and Capua; and Massilia, the best
organized, most free, most capable of self-defence, and most
powerful of all the Greek cities dependent on Rome, under its
rigorous aristocratic government to which the Roman conservatives
probably pointed as the model of a good urban constitution,
in possession of an important territory which had been considerably
enlarged by the Romans and of an extensive trade, stood by the side
of those Latin towns as Rhegium and Neapolis stood in Italy
by the side of Beneventum and Capua.
Free Gaul
Matters wore a different aspect, when one crossed the Roman frontier.
The great Celtic nation, which in the southern districts already
began to be crushed by the Italian immigration, still moved
to the north of the Cevennes in its time-hallowed freedom.
It is not the first time that we meet it: the Italians had already
fought with the offsets and advanced posts of this vast stock
on the Tiber and on the Po, in the mountains of Castile and Carinthia,
and even in the heart of Asia Minor; but it was here that the main stock
was first assailed at its very core by their attacks. The Celtic race
had on its settlement in central Europe diffused itself chiefly
over the rich river-valleys and the pleasant hill-country
of the present France, including the western districts of Germany
and Switzerland, and from thence had occupied at least the southern
part of England, perhaps even at this time all Great Britain
and Ireland;(10) it formed here more than anywhere else a broad,
geographically compact, mass of peoples. In spite of
the differences in language and manners which naturally
were to be found within this wide territory, a close mutual intercourse,
an innate sense of fellowship, seems to have knit together
the tribes from the Rhone and Garonne to the Rhine and the Thames;
whereas, although these doubtless were in a certain measure locally
connected with the Celts in Spain and in the modern Austria,
the mighty mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps
on the one hand, and the encroachments of the Romans and the Germans
which also operated here on the other, interrupted the intercourse
and the intrinsic connection of the cognate peoples far otherwise
than the narrow arm of the sea interrupted the relations
of the continental and the British Celts. Unhappily we are not
permitted to trace stage by stage the history of the internal development
of this remarkable people in these its chief seats; we must be content
with presenting at least some outline of its historical culture
and political condition, as it here meets us in the time of Caesar.
Population
Agriculture and the Rearing of Cattle
Gaul was, according to the reports of the ancients, comparatively
well peopled. Certain statements lead us to infer that in the Belgic
districts there were some 200 persons to the square mile--
a proportion such as nearly holds at present for Wales
and for Livonia--in the Helvetic canton about 245;(11) it is probable
that in the districts which were more cultivated than the Belgic
and less mountainous than the Helvetian, as among the Bituriges,
Arverni, Haedui, the number rose still higher. Agriculture
was no doubt practised in Gaul--for even the contemporaries of Caesar
were surprised in the region of the Rhine by the custom of manuring
with marl,(12) and the primitive Celtic custom of preparing beer
(-cervesia-) from barley is likewise an evidence of the early
and wide diffusion of the culture of grain--but it was not held
in estimation. Even in the more civilized south it was reckoned not
becoming for the free Celts to handle the plough. In far higher
estimation among the Celts stood pastoral husbandry, for which
the Roman landholders of this epoch very gladly availed themselves
both of the Celtic breed of cattle, and of the brave Celtic slaves
skilled in riding and familiar with the rearing of animals.(13)
Particularly in the northern Celtic districts pastoral husbandry
was thoroughly predominant. Brittany was in Caesar's time
a country poor in corn. In the north-east dense forests, attaching
themselves to the heart of the Ardennes, stretched almost without
interruption from the German Ocean to the Rhine; and on the plains
of Flanders and Lorraine, now so fertile, the Menapian and Treverian
herdsman then fed his half-wild swine in the impenetrable oak-forest.
Just as in the valley of the Po the Romans made the production
of wool and the culture of corn supersede the Celtic feeding
of pigs on acorns, so the rearing of sheep and the agriculture
in the plains of the Scheldt and the Maas are traceable
to their influence. In Britain even the threshing of corn
was not yet usual; and in its more northern districts agriculture
was not practised, and the rearing of cattle was the only known mode
of turning the soil to account. The culture of the olive and vine,
which yielded rich produce to the Massiliots, was not yet prosecuted
beyond the Cevennes in the time of Caesar.
Urban Life
The Gauls were from the first disposed to settle in groups;
there were open villages everywhere, and the Helvetic canton
alone numbered in 696 four hundred of these, besides a multitude
of single homesteads. But there were not wanting also walled towns,
whose walls of alternate layers surprised the Romans both by their
suitableness and by the elegant interweaving of timber and stones
in their construction; while, it is true, even in the towns
of the Allobroges the buildings were erected solely of wood.
Of such towns the Helvetii had twelve and the Suessiones an equal number;
whereas at all events in the more northern districts, such as among
the Nervii, while there were doubtless also towns, the population
during war sought protection in the morasses and forests rather
than behind their walls, and beyond the Thames the primitive
defence of the wooden barricade altogether took the place
of towns and was in war the only place of refuge for men and herds.
Intercourse
In close association with the comparatively considerable
development of urban life stands the activity of intercourse
by land and by water. Everywhere there were roads and bridges.
The river-navigation, which streams like the Rhone, Garonne, Loire,
and Seine, of themselves invited, was considerable and lucrative.
But far more remarkable was the maritime navigation of the Celts.
Not only were the Celts, to all appearance, the nation that first
regularly navigated the Atlantic ocean, but we find that the art
of building and of managing vessels had attained among them
a remarkable development. The navigation of the peoples
of the Mediterranean had, as may readily be conceived from the nature
of the waters traversed by them, for a comparatively long period
adhered to the oar; the war-vessels of the Phoenicians, Hellenes,
and Romans were at all times oared galleys, in which the sail
was applied only as an occasional aid to the oar; the trading vessels
alone were in the epoch of developed ancient civilization "sailers"
properly so called.(14) On the other hand the Gauls doubtless
employed in the Channel in Caesar's time, as for long afterwards,
a species of portable leathern skiffs, which seem to have been
in the main common oared boats, but on the west coast of Gaul
the Santones, the Pictones, and above all the Veneti sailed in large
though clumsily built ships, which were not impelled by oars
but were provided with leathern sails and iron anchor-chains;
and they employed these not only for their traffic with Britain,
but also in naval combat. Here therefore we not only meet
for the first time with navigation in the open ocean, but we find
that here the sailing vessel first fully took the place
of the oared boat--an improvement, it is true, which the declining
activity of the old world did not know how to turn to account,
and the immeasurable results of which our own epoch of renewed culture
is employed in gradually reaping.
Commerce
Manufactures
With this regular maritime intercourse between the British
and Gallic coasts, the very close political connection between
the inhabitants on both sides of the Channel is as easily explained
as the flourishing of transmarine commerce and of fisheries.
It was the Celts of Brittany in particular, that brought the tin
of the mines of Cornwall from England and carried it by the river
and land routes of Gaul to Narbo and Massilia. The statement,
that in Caesar's time certain tribes at the mouth of the Rhine subsisted
on fish and birds' eggs, may probably refer to the circumstance
that marine fishing and the collection of the eggs of sea-birds
were prosecuted there on an extensive scale. When we put together
and endeavour to fill up the isolated and scanty statements which have
reached us regarding the Celtic commerce and intercourse, we come
to see why the tolls of the river and maritime ports play a great
part in the budgets of certain cantons, such as those of the Haedui
and the Veneti, and why the chief god of the nation was regarded
by them as the protector of the roads and of commerce, and at
the same time as the inventor of manufactures. Accordingly the Celtic
industry cannot have been wholly undeveloped; indeed the singular
dexterity of the Celts, and their peculiar skill in imitating
any model and executing any instructions, are noticed by Caesar.
In most branches, however, their handicraft does not appear
to have risen above the ordinary level; the manufacture of linen
and woollen stuffs, that subsequently flourished in central
and northern Gaul, was demonstrably called into existence only
by the Romans. The elaboration of metals forms an exception,
and so far as we know the only one. The copper implements
not unfrequently of excellent workmanship and even now malleable,
which are brought to light in the tombs of Gaul, and the carefully
adjusted Arvernian gold coins, are still at the present day
striking witnesses of the skill of the Celtic workers in copper
and gold; and with this the reports of the ancients well accord,
that the Romans learned the art of tinning from the Bituriges
and that of silvering from the Alesini--inventions, the first of which
was naturally suggested by the traffic' in tin, and both of which
were probably made in the period of Celtic freedom.
Mining
Hand in hand with dexterity in the elaboration of the metals went
the art of procuring them, which had attained, more especially in
the iron mines on the Loire, such a degree of professional skill
that the miners played an important part in the sieges. The opinion
prevalent among the Romans of this period, that Gaul was one
of the richest gold countries in the world, is no doubt refuted
by the well-known nature of the soil and by the character
of the articles found in the Celtic tombs, in which gold appears
but sparingly and with far less frequency than in the similar
repositories of the true native regions of gold; this conception
no doubt had its origin merely from the descriptions which Greek
travellers and Roman soldiers, doubtless not without strong
exaggeration, gave to their countrymen of the magnificence
of the Arvernian kings,(15) and of the treasures of the Tolosan
temples.(16) But their stories were not pure fictions. It may
well be believed that in and near the rivers which flow
from the Alps and the Pyrenees gold-washing and searches for gold,
which are unprofitable at the present value of labour, were worked
with profit and on a considerable scale in ruder times and with a system
of slavery; besides, the commercial relations of Gaul may,
as is not unfrequently the case with half-civilized peoples,
have favoured the accumulation of a dead stock of the precious metals.
Art and Science
The low state of the arts of design is remarkable,
and is the more striking by the side of this mechanical skill
in handling the metals. The fondness for parti-coloured and brilliant
ornaments shows the want of a proper taste, which is sadly confirmed
by the Gallic coins with their representations sometimes exceedingly
simple, sometimes odd, but always childish in design, and almost
without exception rude beyond parallel in their execution.
It is perhaps unexampled that a coinage practised for centuries
with a certain technical skill should have essentially limited itself
to always imitating two or three Greek dies, and always
with increasing deformity. On the other hand the art of poetry
was highly valued by the Celts, and intimately blended
with the religious and even with the political institutions
of the nation; we find religious poetry, as well as that of the court
and of the mendicant, flourishing.(17) Natural science and philosophy
also found, although subject to the forms and fetters of the theology
of the country, a certain amount of attention among the Celts;
and Hellenic humanism met with a ready reception wherever
and in whatever shape it approached them. The knowledge of writing
was general at least among the priests. For the most part in free Gaul
the Greek writing was made use of in Caesar's time, as was done
among others by the Helvetii; but in its most southern districts
even then, in consequence of intercourse with the Romanized Celts,
the Latin attained predominance--we meet with it, for instance,
on the Arvernian coins of this period.
Political Organization
Cantonal Constitution
The political development of the Celtic nation also presents
very remarkable phenomena. The constitution of the state was based
in this case, as everywhere, on the clan-canton, with its prince,
its council of the elders, and its community of freemen capable
of bearing arms; but the peculiarity in this case was that it never
got beyond this cantonal constitution. Among the Greeks and Romans
the canton was very early superseded by the ring-wall as the basis
of political unity; where two cantons found themselves together
within the same walls, they amalgamated into one commonwealth;
where a body of burgesses assigned to a portion of their fellow-
burgesses a new ring-wall, there regularly arose in this way a new
state connected with the mother community only by ties of piety
and, at most, of clientship. Among the Celts on the other hand
the "burgess-body" continued at all times to be the clan; prince
and council presided over the canton and not over any town,
and the general diet of the canton formed the authority of last resort
in the state. The town had, as in the east, merely mercantile
and strategic, not political importance; for which reason the Gallic
townships, even when walled and very considerable such as Vienna
and Genava, were in the view of the Greeks and Romans nothing
but villages. In the time of Caesar the original clan-constitution
still subsisted substantially unaltered among the insular Celts
and in the northern cantons of the mainland; the general assembly held
the supreme authority; the prince was in essential questions bound
by its decrees; the common council was numerous--it numbered
in certain clans six hundred members--but does not appear
to have had more importance than the senate under the Roman kings.
In the more stirring southern portion of the land, again,
one or two generations before Caesar--the children of the last kings
were still living in his time--there had occurred, at least
among the larger clans, the Arverni, Haedui, Sequani, Helvetii,
a revolution which set aside the royal dominion and gave the power
into the hands of the nobility.
Development of Knighthood
Breaking Up of the Old Cantonal Constitution
It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban
commonwealths among the Celts just noticed, that the opposite pole
of political development, knighthood, so thoroughly preponderates
in the Celtic clan-constitution. The Celtic aristocracy was to all
appearance a high nobility, for the most part perhaps the members
of the royal or formerly royal families; as indeed it is remarkable
that the heads of the opposite parties in the same clan
very frequently belong to the same house. These great families
combined in their hands financial, warlike, and political ascendency.
They monopolized the leases of the profitable rights of the state.
They compelled the free commons, who were oppressed by the burden
of taxation, to borrow from them, and to surrender their freedom
first de facto as debtors, then de jure as bondmen. They developed
the system of retainers, that is, the privilege of the nobility
to surround themselves with a number of hired mounted servants--
the -ambacti- as they were called (18)--and thereby to form a state
within the state; and, resting on the support of these troops
of their own, they defied the legal authorities and the common levy
and practically broke up the commonwealth. If in a clan,
which numbered about 80,000 men capable of arms, a single noble
could appear at the diet with 10,000 retainers, not reckoning
the bondmen and the debtors, it is clear that such an one
was more an independent dynast than a burgess of his clan. Moreover,
the leading families of the different clans were closely connected
and through intermarriages and special treaties formed virtually
a compact league, in presence of which the single clan was powerless.
Therefore the communities were no longer able to maintain
the public peace, and the law of the strong arm reigned throughout.
The dependent found protection only from his master, whom duty
and interest compelled to redress the injury inflicted on his client;
the state had no longer the power to protect those who were free,
and consequently these gave themselves over in numbers to some
powerful man as clients.
Abolition of the Monarchy
The common assembly lost its political importance; and even
the power of the prince, which should have checked the encroachments
of the nobility, succumbed to it among the Celts as well as in Latium.
In place of the king came the "judgment-worker" or -Vergobretus-,(19)
who was like the Roman consul nominated only for a year.
So far as the canton still held together at all, it was led
by the common council, in which naturally the heads of the aristocracy
usurped the government. Of course under such circumstances
there was agitation in the several clans much in the same way
as there had been agitation in Latium for centuries after the expulsion
of the kings: while the nobility of the different communities combined
to form a separate alliance hostile to the power of the community,
the multitude ceased not to desire the restoration of the monarchy;
and not unfrequently a prominent nobleman attempted, as Spurius
Cassius had done in Rome, with the support of the mass of those
belonging to the canton to break down the power of his peers,
and to reinstate the crown in its rights for his own special benefit.
Efforts towards National Unity
While the individual cantons were thus irremediably declining,
the sense of unity was at the same time powerfully stirring
in the nation and seeking in various ways to take shape and hold.
That combination of the whole Celtic nobility in contradistinction
to the individual canton-unions, while disturbing the existing order
of things, awakened and fostered the conception of the collective
unity of the nation. The attacks directed against the nation
from without, and the continued diminution of its territory in war
with its neighbours, operated in the same direction. Like the Hellenes
in their wars with the Persians, and the Italians in their wars
with the Celts, the Transalpine Gauls seem to have become conscious
of the existence and the power of their national unity in the wars
against Rome. Amidst the dissensions of rival clans and all their
feudal quarrelling there might still be heard the voices of those
who were ready to purchase the independence of the nation
at the cost of the independence of the several cantons, and even
at that of the seignorial rights of the knights. The thorough
popularity of the opposition to a foreign yoke was shown by the wars
of Caesar, with reference to whom the Celtic patriot party occupied
a position entirely similar to that of the German patriots
towards Napoleon; its extent and organization are attested,
among other things, by the telegraphic rapidity with which news
was communicated from one point to another.
Religious Union of the Nation
Druids
The universality and the strength of the Celtic national feeling
would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, amidst
the greatest political disruption, the Celtic nation had for long
been centralized in respect of religion and even of theology.
The Celtic priesthood or, to use the native name, the corporation
of the Druids, certainly embraced the British islands and all Gaul,
and perhaps also other Celtic countries, in a common religious-
national bond. It possessed a special head elected by the priests
themselves; special schools, in which its very comprehensive
tradition was transmitted; special privileges, particularly
exemption from taxation and military service, which every clan
respected; annual councils, which were held near Chartres
at the "centre of the Celtic earth"; and above all, a believing people,
who in painful piety and blind obedience to their priests seem
to have been nowise inferior to the Irish of modern times. It may
readily be conceived that such a priesthood attempted to usurp,
as it partially did usurp, the secular government; where the annual
monarchy subsisted, it conducted the elections in the event
of an interregnum; it successfully laid claim to the right of excluding
individuals and whole communities from religious, and consequently
also from civil, society; it was careful to draw to itself the most
important civil causes, especially processes as to boundaries
and inheritance; on the ground, apparently, of its right to exclude
from the community, and perhaps also of the national custom
that criminals should be by preference taken for the usual
human sacrifices, it developed an extensive priestly criminal
jurisdiction, which was co-ordinate with that of the kings
and vergobrets; it even claimed the right of deciding on war and peace.
The Gauls were not far removed from an ecclesiastical state
with its pope and councils, its immunities, interdicts,
and spiritual courts; only this ecclesiastical state did not,
like that of recent times, stand aloof from the nations,
but was on the contrary pre-eminently national.
Want of Political Centralization
The Canton-Leagues
But while the sense of mutual relationship was thus vividly
awakened among the Celtic tribes, the nation was still precluded
from attaining a basis of political centralization such as Italy
found in the Roman burgesses, and the Hellenes and Germans
in the Macedonian and Frank kings. The Celtic priesthood and likewise
the nobility--although both in a certain sense represented and combined
the nation--were yet, on the one hand, incapable of uniting it
in consequence of their particular class-interests, and, on the other
hand, sufficiently powerful to allow no king and no canton to accomplish
the work of union. Attempts at this work were not wanting;
they followed, as the cantonal constitution suggested,
the system of hegemony. A powerful canton induced a weaker
to become subordinate, on such a footing that the leading canton
acted for the other as well as for itself in its external relations
and stipulated for it in state-treaties, while the dependent canton
bound itself to render military service and sometimes also to pay
a tribute. In this way a series of separate leagues arose;
but there was no leading canton for all Gaul--no tie, however
loose, combining the nation as a whole.
The Belgic League
The Maritime Cantons
The Leagues of Central Gaul
It has been already mentioned(20) that the Romans
at the commencement of their Transalpine conquests found in the north
a Britanno-Belgic league under the leadership of the Suessiones,
and in central and southern Gaul the confederation of the Arverni,
with which latter the Haedui, although having a weaker body
of clients, carried on a rivalry. In Caesar's time we find the Belgae
in north-eastern Gaul between the Seine and the Rhine still forming
such an association, which, however, apparently no longer extends
to Britain; by their side there appears, in the modern Normandy
and Brittany, the league of the Aremorican or the maritime cantons:
in central or proper Gaul two parties as formerly contended
for the hegemony, the one headed by the Haedui, the other by the Sequani
after the Arvernians weakened by the wars with Rome had retired.
These different confederacies subsisted independently side by side;
the leading states of central Gaul appear never to have extended
their clientship to the north-east nor, seriously, perhaps even
to the north-west of Gaul.
Character of Those Leagues
The impulse of the nation towards freedom found doubtless a certain
gratification in these cantonal unions; but they were in every
respect unsatisfactory. The union was of the loosest kind, constantly
fluctuating between alliance and hegemony; the representation
of the whole body in peace by the federal diets, in war
by the general,(21) was in the highest degree feeble. The Belgian
confederacy alone seems to have been bound together somewhat
more firmly; the national enthusiasm, from which the successful
repulse of the Cimbri proceeded,(22) may have proved beneficial
to it. The rivalries for the hegemony made a breach in every
league, which time did not close but widened, because the victory
of one competitor still left his opponent in possession
of political existence, and it always remained open to him,
even though he had submitted to clientship, subsequently to renew
the struggle. The rivalry among the more powerful cantons not only
set these at variance, but spread into every dependent clan,
into every village, often indeed into every house, for each individual
chose his side according to his personal relations. As Hellas
exhausted its strength not so much in the struggle of Athens against
Sparta as in the internal strife of the Athenian and Lacedaemonian
factions in every dependent community, and even in Athens itself,
so the rivalry of the Arverni and Haedui with its repetitions
on a smaller and smaller scale destroyed the Celtic people.
The Celtic Military System
Cavalry
The military capability of the nation felt the reflex influence
of these political and social relations. The cavalry was throughout
the predominant arm; alongside of which among the Belgae, and still
more in the British islands, the old national war-chariots appear
in remarkable perfection. These equally numerous and efficient
bands of combatants on horseback and in chariots were formed
from the nobility and its vassals; for the nobles had a genuine knightly
delight in dogs and horses, and were at much expense to procure
noble horses of foreign breed. It is characteristic of the spirit
and the mode of fighting of these nobles that, when the levy
was called out, whoever could keep his seat on horseback,
even the gray-haired old man, took the field, and that, when on the point
of beginning a combat with an enemy of whom they made little account,
they swore man by man that they would keep aloof from house
and homestead, unless their band should charge at least twice through
the enemy's line. Among the hired warriors the free-lance spirit
prevailed with all its demoralized and stolid indifference towards
their own life and that of others. This is apparent from the stories--
however anecdotic their colouring--of the Celtic custom of tilting
by way of sport and now and then fighting for life or death
at a banquet, and of the usage (which prevailed among the Celts,
and outdid even the Roman gladiatorial games) of selling themselves
to be killed for a set sum of money or a number of casks of wine,
and voluntarily accepting the fatal blow stretched on their shield
before the eyes of the whole multitude.
Infantry
By the side of these mounted warriors the infantry fell
into the background. In the main it essentially resembled the bands
of Celts, with whom the Romans had fought in Italy and Spain.
The large shield was, as then, the principal weapon of defence;
among the offensive arms, on the other hand, the long thrusting
lance now played the chief part in room of the sword. Where several
cantons waged war in league, they naturally encamped and fought clan
against clan; there is no trace of their giving to the levy of each
canton military organization and forming smaller and more regular
tactical subdivisions. A long train of waggons still dragged
the baggage of the Celtic army; instead of an entrenched camp, such as
the Romans pitched every night, the poor substitute of a barricade
of waggons still sufficed. In the case of certain cantons,
such as the Nervii, the efficiency of their infantry is noticed
as exceptional; it is remarkable that these had no cavalry,
and perhaps were not even a Celtic but an immigrant German tribe.
But in general the Celtic infantry of this period appears
as an unwarlike and unwieldy levy en masse; most of all
in the more southern provinces, where along with barbarism valour
had also disappeared. The Celt, says Caesar, ventures not to face
the German in battle. The Roman general passed a censure
still more severe than this judgment on the Celtic infantry,
seeing that, after having become acquainted with them
in his first campaign, he never again employed them
in connection with Roman infantry.
Stage of Development of the Celtic Civilization
If we survey the whole condition of the Celts as Caesar found it
in the Transalpine regions, there is an unmistakeable advance
in civilization, as compared with the stage of culture at which
the Celts came before us a century and a half previously in the valley
of the Po. Then the militia, excellent of its kind, thoroughly
preponderated in their armies;(23) now the cavalry occupies
the first place. Then the Celts dwelt in open villages; now well-
constructed walls surrounded their townships. The objects too
found in the tombs of Lombardy are, especially as respects articles
of copper and glass, far inferior to those of northern Gaul.
Perhaps the most trustworthy measure of the increase of culture
is the sense of a common relationship in the nation; so little
of it comes to light in the Celtic battles fought on the soil of what
is now Lombardy, while it strikingly appears in the struggles
against Caesar. To all appearance the Celtic nation, when Caesar
encountered it, had already reached the maximum of the culture
allotted to it, and was even now on the decline. The civilization
of the Transalpine Celts in Caesar's time presents, even for us
who are but very imperfectly informed regarding it, several aspects
that are estimable, and yet more that are interesting; in some
respects it is more akin to the modern than to the Hellenic-Roman
culture, with its sailing vessels, its knighthood, its ecclesiastical
constitution, above all with its attempts, however imperfect,
to build the state not on the city, but on the tribe and in a higher
degree on the nation. But just because we here meet the Celtic nation
at the culminating point of its development, its lesser degree
of moral endowment or, which is the same thing, its lesser
capacity of culture, comes more distinctly into view.
It was unable to produce from its own resources either a national
art or a national state; it attained at the utmost a national theology
and a peculiar type of nobility. The original simple valour
was no more; the military courage based on higher morality and judicious
organization, which comes in the train of increased civilization,
had only made its appearance in a very stunted form among
the knights. Barbarism in the strict sense was doubtless outlived;
the times had gone by, when in Gaul the fat haunch was assigned
to the bravest of the guests, but each of his fellow-guests who thought
himself offended thereby was at liberty to challenge the receiver
on that score to combat, and when the most faithful retainers
of a deceased chief were burnt along with him. But human sacrifices
still continued, and the maxim of law, that torture was inadmissible
in the case of the free man but allowable in that of the free
woman as well as of slaves, throws a far from pleasing light
on the position which the female sex held among the Celts
even in their period of culture. The Celts had lost the advantages
which specially belong to the primitive epoch of nations, but had not
acquired those which civilization brings with it when it intimately
and thoroughly pervades a people.
External Relations
Celts and Iberians
Such was the internal condition of the Celtic nation. It remains
that we set forth their external relations with their neighbours,
and describe the part which they sustained at this moment in the mighty
rival race and rival struggle of the nations, in which it is
everywhere still more difficult to maintain than to acquire.
Along the Pyrenees the relations of the peoples had for long been
peaceably settled, and the times had long gone by when the Celts
there pressed hard on, and to some extent supplanted, the Iberian,
that is, the Basque, original population. The valleys of the Pyrenees
as well as the mountains of Bearn and Gascony, and also the coast-
steppes to the south of the Garonne, were at the time of Caesar
in the undisputed possession of the Aquitani, a great number
of small tribes of Iberian descent, coming little into contact
with each other and still less with the outer world; in this quarter
only the mouth of the Garonne with the important port of Burdigala
(Bordeaux) was in the hands of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges-Vivisci.
Celts and Romans
Advance of Roman Trade and Commerce into Free Gaul
Of far greater importance was the contact of the Celtic nation
with the Roman people, and with the Germans. We need not here repeat--
what has been related already--how the Romans in their slow advance
had gradually pressed back the Celts, had at last occupied the belt
of coast between the Alps and the Pyrenees, and had thereby totally
cut them off from Italy, Spain and the Mediterranean Sea--a catastrophe,
for which the way had already been prepared centuries before
by the laying out of the Hellenic stronghold at the mouth
of the Rhone. But we must here recall the fact that it was not merely
the superiority of the Roman arms which pressed hard on the Celts,
but quite as much that of Roman culture, which likewise reaped
the ultimate benefit of the respectable beginnings of Hellenic
civilization in Gaul. Here too, as so often happens, trade
and commerce paved the way for conquest. The Celt after northern
fashion was fond of fiery drinks; the fact that like the Scythian
he drank the generous wine unmingled and to intoxication,
excited the surprise and the disgust of the temperate southern;
but the trader has no objection to deal with such customers.
Soon the trade with Gaul became a mine of gold for the Italian merchant;
it was nothing unusual there for a jar of wine to be exchanged
for a slave. Other articles of luxury, such as Italian horses,
found advantageous sale in Gaul. There were instances even already
of Roman burgesses acquiring landed property beyond the Roman
frontier, and turning it to profit after the Italian fashion;
there is mention, for example, of Roman estates in the canton
of the Segusiavi (near Lyons) as early as about 673. Beyond doubt it
was a consequence of this that, as already mentioned(24) in free Gaul
itself, e. g. among the Arverni, the Roman language was not unknown
even before the conquest; although this knowledge was presumably
still restricted to few, and even the men of rank in the allied
canton of the Haedui had to be conversed with through interpreters.
Just as the traffickers in fire-water and the squatters led the way
in the occupation of North America, so these Roman wine-traders
and landlords paved the way for, and beckoned onward, the future
conqueror of Gaul. How vividly this was felt even on the opposite
side, is shown by the prohibition which one of the most energetic
tribes of Gaul, the canton of the Nervii, like some German peoples,
issued against trafficking with the Romans.
Celts and Germans
Still more violent even than the pressure of the Romans
from the Mediterranean was that of the Germans downward from the Baltic
and the North Sea--a fresh stock from the great cradle of peoples
in the east, which made room for itself by the side of its elder
brethren with youthful vigour, although also with youthful
rudeness. Though the tribes of this stock dwelling nearest
to the Rhine--the Usipetes, Tencteri, Sugambri, Ubii--had begun to be
in some degree civilized, and had at least ceased voluntarily
to change their abodes, all accounts yet agree that farther inland
agriculture was of little importance, and the several tribes
had hardly yet attained fixed abodes. It is significant
in this respect that their western neighbours at this time hardly knew
how to name any one of the peoples of the interior of Germany
by its cantonal name; these were only known to them under the general
appellations of the Suebi, that is, the roving people or nomads,
and the Marcomani, that is, the land-guard(25)--names which were
hardly cantonal names in Caesar's time, although they appeared
as such to the Romans and subsequently became in various cases
names of cantons.
The Right Bank of the Rhine Lost to the Celts
The most violent onset of this great nation fell upon the Celts.
The struggles, in which the Germans probably engaged with the Celts
for the possession of the regions to the east of the Rhine, are
wholly withdrawn from our view. We are only able to perceive,
that about the end of the seventh century of Rome all the land
as far as the Rhine was already lost to the Celts; that the Boii,
who were probably once settled in Bavaria and Bohemia,(26) were homeless
wanderers; and that even the Black Forest formerly possessed
by the Helvetii,(27) if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes
dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border-
land, and was presumably even then, what it was afterwards called,
the Helvetian desert The barbarous strategy of the Germans--which
secured them from hostile attacks by laying waste the neighbourhood
for miles--seems to have been applied here on the greatest scale.
German Tribes on the Left Bank of the Rhine
But the Germans had not remained stationary at the Rhine.
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