into a nation a new and more burdensome system of taxes, there are
always set in circulation tales of this kind about the rapacity of
the persons charged with collecting them: but true or false, the tale
shows that the Gauls were much irritated by the new tribute; indeed
this irritation increased so much that in the winter from the year 15
till the year 14 B.C., Augustus, having to remain in Gaul on account
of certain serious complications, arisen in Germany, was obliged to
give his attention to it during his stay. The prominent men of
Gaul presented vigorous complaints to him against Licinius and his
administration. Then there occurred an episode that, recounted three
centuries later with a certain naïveté by Dion Cassius, has been
overlooked by the historians, but which seems to me to be of prime
interest in the history of the Latin world. Dion writes:
Augustus, not able to avoid blaming Licinius for the many
denunciations and revelations of the Gallic chiefs, sought in
other things to excuse him; he pretended not to know certain
facts, made believe not to accept others, being ashamed to
have placed such a procurator in Gaul. Licinius, however,
extricated himself from the danger by a decidedly original
expedient. When he realised that Augustus was displeased and
that he was running great risk of being punished, he conducted
that Prince to his house, and showing him his numerous
treasuries full of gold and silver, enormous piles of objects
made of precious metals, said:--"My lord, only for your good
and that of the Romans have I amassed all these riches. I
feared that the natives, fortified by such wealth, might
revolt, if I left them to them: therefore I have placed them
in safe-keeping for you and I give them to you." So, by his
pretext that he had thus broken the power of the barbarians
for the sake of Augustus, Licinius saved himself from danger.
This incident has without doubt the smack of legend. Ought we
therefore to conclude that it is wholly invented? No, because in
history the distortions of the truth are much more numerous than
are inventions. This page of Dion is important. It preserves for
us, presented in a dramatic scene between Augustus and Licinius, the
record of a very serious dispute carried on between the notable men of
Gaul and Licinius, in the presence of Augustus. The Gauls complain of
paying too many imposts: Licinius replies that Gaul is very rich;
that it grows rich quickly and therefore it ought to pay as much as is
demanded of it, and more. Not only did the freedman show rooms full of
gold and silver to his lord; he showed him the great economic progress
of Gaul, its marvellous future, the immense wealth concealed in
its soil and in the genius of its inhabitants. In other words, this
chapter of Dion makes us conclude that Rome--that is, the small
oligarchy that was directing its politics--realised that the Gaul
conquered by Cæsar, the Gaul that had always been considered as
a country cold and sterile, was instead a magnificent province,
naturally rich, from which they might get enormous treasure. This
discovery was made in the winter of 15-14 B.C.; that is, forty-three
years after Cæsar had added the province to the Empire; forty-three
years after they had possessed without knowing what they possessed,
like some _grand seigneur_ who unwittingly holds among the common
things of his patrimony some priceless object, the value of which only
an accident on a sudden reveals.
This chapter of Dion allows us also to affirm that he who first
realised the value of Gaul and opened the eyes of Augustus, was no
great personage of the Roman aristocracy whose names are written in
such lofty characters on the pages of history, whose images are yet
found in marble and bronze among the museums of Europe; no one of
those who ruled the Empire and therefore according to reason and
justice had the responsibility of governing it well: it was, instead,
an obscure freedman, whose ability the masters of the Empire scorned
to exploit except as to-day a peasant uses the forces of his ox,
hardly deigning to look at him and yet deeming all his labour but the
owner's natural right.
So stands the story. The Gallic freedman observed, and understood, and
was forgotten; posterity, instead, has had to wonder over the profound
wisdom of the Roman aristocrat, who understood nothing. Moreover, if
in 14 B.C. Licinius had to make an effort to persuade the surprised
and diffident Augustus that Gaul was a province of great future, it is
clear that Gaul must already have begun to grow rich by itself without
the Roman government's having done anything to promote its progress.
From what hidden sources sprang forth this new wealth of Gaul? All the
documents that we possess authorise us to respond that Gaul--to begin
from the time of Augustus--was able to grow rich quickly, because the
events following the Roman conquest turned and disposed the general
conditions of the Empire in its favour. Gaul then, as France now, was
endowed with several requisites essential to its becoming a nation of
great economic development: a land very fertile; a population dense
for the times, intelligent, wide-awake, active; a climate that, even
though it seemed to Greeks and Romans cold and foggy, was better
suited to intense activity than the warm and sunny climate of the
South; and finally,--a supreme advantage in ancient civilisation,--it
was everywhere intersected, as by a network of canals, by navigable
rivers. In ancient times transport by land was very expensive;
water was the natural and economic vehicle of commerce: therefore
civilisation was able to enter with commerce into the interior of
continents only by way of the rivers, which, as one might say, were to
a certain extent the railroads of the ancient world.
To these advantageous conditions, which, being physical, existed
before the Roman conquest, the conquest added some others: it broke
down the political barrier that previously cut off these convenient
means of penetration, the rivers; it suppressed the wars between
the Gallic tribes, the privileges, the tyrannies, the tolls, the
monopolies; it saved the enormous resources that were previously
wasted in these constant drains; it put again the hoe, the spade, the
tools of the artisan, into hands that had before been wielding the
sword; and finally, it consolidated (and this was perhaps the most
important effect) the jurisdiction of property. When Cæsar invaded
Gaul, the great landowners still cultivated cereals and textile plants
but little; they put the greater part of their fortune into cattle,
exactly because in that regime of continual war and revolution lands
easily kept changing proprietors. Furthermore, the more frequent
contact with Rome acquainted the Gauls with Roman agriculture and its
abler methods, with Latin life and its studied order.
By the combination of all these causes, population and production
increased rapidly. The gain in population was so considerable that
the ancients themselves noticed it. Strabo (Bk. 4, ch. i, §2) observes
that the Gallic women are fecund mothers and excellent nurses. With
the population, wealth increased on all sides, in agriculture as in
industry and in trade.
The new and more stable jurisdiction of the landed proprietary
generated another most important effect; it promoted rapidly the
cultivation of cereals and textile plants, of wheat and flax. "All
Gaul produces much wheat," says Strabo, and we read his notice without
surprise, because we know that France is, even to-day, the region of
Europe most fertile in cereals. There is no reason to suppose that it
must have been barren of them twenty centuries ago. Other documentary
evidence, particularly inscriptions, confirms Strabo, informing us
that, especially in the second century, Rome bought the customary
grain to feed the metropolis not only in Egypt, but also in Gaul.
In short, Gaul seems to have been the sole region of Europe fertile
enough to be able to export grain, to have been for Rome a kind of
Canada or Middle West of the time, set not beyond oceans but beyond
the Alps.
The cultivation of flax, to the ancient world what cotton is to-day,
progressed rapidly in Gaul along with that of wheat, so that Gaul was
early able to rival Egypt also in this respect. That Gaul and Egypt
should have so much in common at the same time, was something so
interesting and seemed so strange that Pliny himself wrote:
Flax is sowed only in sandy places and after a single
ploughing. Perhaps Egypt may be pardoned for sowing it,
because with it she buys the merchandise of India and Arabia.
But, look you!--even Gaul is famous for this plant. What
matters it, if huge mountains shut away the sea; if on the
ocean side it has for confines what is called emptiness?
Notwithstanding that, Gaul cultivates flax like Egypt: the
Cadurci, the Caleti, the Ruteni, the Biturigi, the Morini, who
are considered tribes of the ends of the earth ... but what am
I saying? All Gaul makes sails,--till the enemies beyond the
Rhine imitate them, and the linen is more beautiful to the
eyes than are their women.
These descriptions show Gaul to be one of the new countries, like the
Argentine Republic or the United States, in which the land has still
almost its natural pristine fecundity and brings forth a marvellous
abundance of plants that clothe and nourish man. We know that in Gaul
under the Empire there were immense fortunes in land in face of which
the fortunes of wealthy Italian proprietors shrink like the fortunes
of Europe when compared with the great ranch fortunes of the Argentine
Republic or the United States. Twenty years ago they began to excavate
in France the ruins of the great Gallo-Roman villas: these are
constructed on the plan of the Italian villa, decorated in the same
way, but are much larger, more sumptuous, more sightly; one feels
in them the pride of a new people which has adopted the Latin
civilisation, but has infused into that, derived from the wealth of
their land, a spirit of grandeur and of luxury that poorer and older
Latins did not know, exactly as to-day the Americans infuse a spirit
of greater magnitude and boldness into so many things that they take
from timid, old Europe. Perhaps there was also in this Gallic luxury,
as in the American, a bit of ostentation, intended to humiliate the
masters remaining poorer and more modest.
But Gaul was a nation not only rich in fertilest agriculture; side by
side with that, progressed its industry. This, according to my
notion, is one of the vital points in ancient history. Under the Roman
domination, Gaul was not restricted to the better cultivation of its
productive soil; but alone among the peoples of the Occident, became,
as we might now say, an industrial nation, that manufactured not only
by and for itself, but like Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, sold also to
other peoples of the Empire and outside of its own boundaries; in
a word, exported. The more frequent contact with the Orient better
acquainted the Gauls with the beautiful objects made by the artisans
of Laodicea, of Tyre, of Sidon; and the clever genius of the Celt,
always apt in industry, drew from them incentive to create a Gallic
industry, partly imitative, partly original, and to seek a large
_clientèle_ for these industries in Italy, in Spain, beyond the Rhine,
among the Germans, in the Danube provinces. This is proved by a
number of important passages in Pliny, confirmed by inscriptions and
archæological discoveries.
Pliny has already told us that the Gauls manufactured many linen
sails; we know also that they made not only rough sails, but also fine
linen for clothing, which had a wide market. There have been found in
the Orient numerous fragments of an inscription containing the famous
edict of Diocletian on maximum sale prices allowed, an inscription
of value to us for its nomenclature of ancient fabrics. In this
nomenclature is mentioned the _birrus_ of Laodicea, an imitation of
the _birrus_ of the Nervii, which was a very fine linen cloth, worn
by ladies of fashion. Laodicea was one of the most ancient centres of
Oriental textile fabrics; the Nervii were one of the most remote of
the Gallic peoples, living--the coincidence is noteworthy--about where
Flanders is now. If at Laodicea they made at the end of the third
century an imitation of Nervian linen, that means that the Nervii had
succeeded in manufacturing and finding market for cloth so desirable
as to rouse the Laodiceans, competing for trade, to imitate it. What
proof more persuasive that during the early centuries of the Empire
the Gauls greatly improved their industries and widened their markets?
They had mastered weaving, but they did not stop there; they invented
new methods of dyeing, using vegetable dyes instead of the customary
animal colours of the Orient. Pliny says:
The Gaul imitates with herbs all colours, including Tyrian
purple; they do not seek the mollusk on the sea bottom; they
run no risk of being devoured by sea monsters; they do not
exploit the anchorless deep to multiply the attractions of
the courtesan, or to increase the powers of the seducer of
another's wife. They gather the herbs like cereals, standing
on the dry ground; although the colour that they derive does
not bear washing. Luxury could thus be gratified with greater
show at the cost of fewer dangers.
It is clear, then, according to Pliny, at one time, it was believed
that the competition of Gallic dyers might have ruined the Oriental,
and would have done so, had the tenacity of their vegetable colouring
equalled its beauty. In another passage Pliny tells us that these
Gallic stuffs were used especially by the slaves and the populace.
The wool industry made no less progress in Gaul than weaving and
dyeing. From numerous passages in Juvenal and Martial it appears
that the woollen clothing worn by the populace of Rome in the second
century was woven in Gaul, particularly in the districts to-day
known as Arras, Langres, Saintonge. Pliny attributes to the Gauls the
invention of a wool, that, soaked in acid, became incombustible, and
was used to make mattresses.
Glass-making was another art carried from the East across the
Mediterranean into Gaul. Still another industry, metallurgy, after
weaving, contributed greatly to enrich Gaul. Undoubtedly even before
the Roman conquest, Gaul worked gold mines; it seems, however, that
silver mines remained untouched until about the time of Augustus. At
any rate, the discovery of some deposits of gold and silver then gave
a spur to several flourishing industries; jewelry-making, and--an
original Gallic industry of much importance--silver-plating and
tinning. Here is another extract from Pliny, from which you will
see that in those times they already made in France "Christofle"
silver-plate:
They cover [writes Pliny] the copper with tin in such a way
that it is difficult to distinguish it from silver. It is a
Gallic invention. Later they began to do the same thing with
silver, silver-plating especially the ornaments of horses and
carriages. The merit of the invention belongs to the Biturigi,
and the industry was developed in the city of Alesia. After
the same fashion there has been spread everywhere a foolish
profusion of objects not only silver-, but gold-plated. All
that is called _cultus_, elegance!
We might almost say that Gallic industry did to the old industries of
the ancient world what German wares have done compared with older and
more aristocratic products of France, of England, popularising objects
of luxury for the many and the merely well-to-do.
Finally, if any one hesitated to trust fully these very important
passages in Pliny, he would be quite convinced by reading the great
work of Dechelette. This author, studying with Carthusian patience and
the ablest critical acumen the Gallic ceramics to be found scattered
among the museums, has demonstrated most commendably that in the first
century of the Empire many manufactories of ceramics were opened and
flourished in Gaul, especially in the valley of the Allier, and that
they sold their vases in Spain, in the Danube regions, to the Germans,
and in Italy.
Dechelette has proved that many ceramics found among the ruins of
Pompeii, now admired in the museums of Pompeii and Naples, were made
in Gaul,--discoveries most noteworthy, which, in connection with the
extracts from Pliny, disclose in essence that real Roman Gaul whose
sumptuous relics but half tell the tale of its wealth.
This tremendous development of Gaul was without doubt an effect of the
Roman conquest; but an effect that neither Cæsar, nor any other man
of his times had foreseen or willed, but which Augustus was first to
recognise in the winter of 15-14 B.C., and to which, astute man that
he was, he gave heed as he ought; that is, not as due his own merit,
but as an unexpected piece of good fortune. I have already said that
one of the greatest cares of Augustus, as soon as the civil wars were
finished, was to reorganise the finances of the Empire; that to find
new entries for the treasury, he had turned his attention in 27 B.C.
to the province conquered by his father, regarding it merely from
the common point of view, as poor and of little worth like the
other European territories. Then, at a stroke, he realised that that
territory so lightly valued, was producing grain like Egypt, linen
like Egypt; that the arts of civilisation for which Egypt was so rich
and famous were beginning to prosper there! Augustus was not the man
to let slip so tremendous a piece of good luck. Until then he had
hesitated, like one who seeks his way; in that winter from 15-14 B.C.,
he found finally the grand climax of his career, to make Gaul the
Egypt of the West, the province of the greatest revenues in Europe.
From that time on to the end of his life, he did not move from Europe;
he lived between Italy and Gaul. Like him, Tiberius, Drusus, all the
men of his family, devoted all their efforts to Gaul, to consolidating
Roman dominion there, to advancing its progress, to increasing the
revenues, to making it actually the Occidental Egypt. From Velleius we
learn that under Tiberius Gaul rendered to the Empire as much as did
Egypt, and that Gaul and Egypt were considered alike the two richest
imperial provinces.
As a political interest had at first impelled Cæsar to annex Gaul, an
immediate financial interest urged Augustus to continue the work,
to take care of the new province. Then the historic law that I have
already enunciated to you, the law by which the efforts of men result
far differently from that which they had intended, was verified anew
by Augustus also, and in a new form. He had created his Gallic policy
to augment the revenues of the Empire; the consequences of this fiscal
policy, necessity-inspired, were greater than he and his friends ever
dreamed. The winter of 15-14 B.C. is a notable date in the story of
Latin civilisation, for then the destiny of the Empire was irrevocably
settled; the Roman Empire will be made up of two parts, the Oriental
and the Occidental, each part sufficiently strong to withstand
being overcome by the other; it will be neither an Asiatic, nor a
Celtic-Latin, but a mixed Empire: between both parts, Italy will rule
for two centuries more, and Rome, an immense city, at once Oriental
and Latin, will keep the metropolitan crown won from the enfeebled
East, and dominate the immature barbarian West.
Speaking of Cleopatra, I have shown you how great was the Oriental
peril that threatened in the last century of the Republic to wipe out
Rome. What miraculous force saved it? Gaul. Suppose that the army of
Cæsar had been exterminated at Alesia; suppose that Rome, discouraged,
had abandoned its Gallic enterprise as it had done with Persia, after
the disaster of Crassus and the failure of Antony; or suppose that
Gaul had been a poor province, sterile and unpopulous, like many a
Danube district; Rome could not have held out long as the seat of
imperial government, just as to-day the capital of the Russian Empire
could not maintain itself at Vladivostok or Harbin. It would have been
necessary to move the metropolis to a richer and more populous region.
That Gaul grew rich and was Romanised, changed the state of things.
When Rome possessed beyond the Alps in Europe a province as large and
as full of resources as Egypt; when there was the same interest in
defending it as in defending Egypt, Italy was well placed to govern
both. The Egypt of the Occident counterbalanced the Egypt of the
Orient, and Rome, half way between, was the natural and necessary
metropolis of the wide-spread Empire. Gaul alone, revived, so
to speak, the Empire in the West and prevented the European
provinces--even Italy itself--from becoming dead limbs safely
amputable from the Oriental body. Gaul upheld Italy and Rome in Europe
for three centuries longer; Gaul stopped it on the way to the Asiatic
conquests run through by Alexander. Had it not been for Gaul, Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt would have formed the real Empire of Rome,
and Italy would have been lost in it: without Gaul, the Orientalised
Empire would have tried to conquer Persia and probably succeeded in
doing so, abandoning the poor and unproductive lands of the untamed
Occident. In short, Gaul created in the Roman Empire that duality
between East and West which gives shape to all the history of our
civilisation; it kept the artificial form of the Empire, circular
about an island sea; it inspired the Empire with that double
self-contradictory spirit, Latin and Oriental, at once its strength
and its weakness.
Next time I will show you the continuation of this struggle of two
minds, in a characteristic episode, the story of the Emperor Nero.
Now, before closing, let me set before you briefly some general
considerations drawn from the history of Roman Gaul which are
applicable to universal history.
From what I have told you, it follows that the fortunes of peoples and
states depend in part on what might be called the historic situation
of every age, the situation that is created by the general state of
the world in every successive epoch and which no people or state can
mould at its own pleasure. Without doubt, a nation will never conquer
a noteworthy greatness if the men that compose it fail of a certain
culture, a certain energy, a social _morale_ sufficiently vigorous;
but though these qualities are necessary, they are not equally
productive in all periods, but serve more or less, in different
periods, according as general circumstances are disposed about a
people. Gaul was fertile, and its people possessed before the conquest
the qualities that they displayed later: and yet, as long as Gaul
remained apart from the Empire, without continuous and numerous
communications with the vast Mediterranean world; as long as it
was split into so many petty rival states, occupied in serious wars
against the Germanic tribes, its fertility remained hidden in the
earth, and the ability of its inhabitants dissipated itself in
devastating wars, instead of spending itself in fruitful effort. All
that changed, and without any one's foresight or intent, when the
Roman policy, urged by the internal forces that stirred the Republic,
had destroyed that old order of things.