PUBLISHER’S NOTE
IT is, perhaps, not without interest, in publishing the second volume of the History of Julius Cæsar, written by the Emperor Napoleon III., to call to memory the names of Sovereigns and Princes who have employed themselves upon the same subject.
The King of France, Charles VIII., showed an especial admiration for the Commentaries of Cæsar, and the celebrated monk, Robert Gaguin, presented to him, in 1480, the translation he had made in French of the eight books of the War in Gaul. We are informed of this in the edition of the translation by the learned monk, printed in 1500. This edition, in large 4to, is from the press of Antoine Verard. (See J. Ch. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire et de l’Amateur de Livres, fourth edition, tom. I., p. 518, and the Biographie Universelle, article Charles VIII.)
Charles V., who professed a great admiration for Cæsar, left a copy of the Commentaries filled with marginal notes, written with his own hand. It was at his instigation that the Viceroy of Sicily, Ferdinand Gonzaga, sent a scientific mission into France to study Cæsar’s campaigns on the localities. The forty plans which were made by the members of this commission, and among which that of Alise is found, were published in 1575, in the edition of James Strada.
The Sultan Soliman II., contemporary of Charles V., whom he had taken for his model, sent through all Europe to procure as many copies of Cæsar’s Commentaries as could be found, which he ordered to be collated, and caused a translation to be made into the Turkish language for his own daily reading.
The King of France, Henri IV., translated the two first books of Cæsar’s Commentaries. The manuscript of this translation was deposited in the Bibliothèque du Roi, and M. des Noyers took it thence to deliver it to Louis XIII., who, in his turn, translated the two last books of the Commentaries. These two translations were joined together, and printed at the Louvre in 1630.
Louis XIV. translated the first book of the Commentaries. His translation was printed at Paris in 1651, in folio, with figures. This work has not been reprinted; it is now very rare. The reader may consult on this subject the Méthode d’étudier l’Histoire of the Abbé Lenglet-Dufresnoy, tom. II., p. 481; and J. Ch. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire et de l’Amateur de Livres, fourth edition, tom. I., p. 519.
The great Condé, who had studied with care the campaigns of Cæsar, encouraged the translation of the Commentaries undertaken by Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt; it was the translation most esteemed and the most in vogue during the last century.
Christina, Queen of Sweden, had composed Reflections on the Life and Actions of Cæsar, as we are informed by J. Arckenholz in his work entitled Mémoires concernant Christine, Reine de Suède, Amsterdam, 1751-1760, tom. IV., No. 6, p. 4.
Louis Philippe Joseph d’Orléans, surnamed Egalité, was a great reader of the Commentaries. He caused a map of Cæsar’s campaigns in Gaul to be made.
Lastly, the Emperor Napoleon I., at St. Helena, dictated a Précis des Guerres de César to Comte Marchand, who published it in Paris in 1836, in 8vo.
BOOK III.
THE WARS IN GAUL, AFTER THE “COMMENTARIES.”
CHAPTER I.
POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE GALLIC WAR
Enterprising Character of the Gauls.
I. THERE are peoples whose existence in the past only reveals itself by certain brilliant apparitions, unequivocal proofs of an energy which had been previously unknown. During the interval their history is involved in obscurity, and they resemble those long-silent volcanoes, which we should take to be extinct but for the eruptions which, at periods far apart, occur and expose to view the fire which smoulders in their bosom. Such had been the Gauls.
The accounts of their ancient expeditions bear witness to an organisation already powerful, and to an ardent spirit of enterprise. Not to speak of migrations which date back perhaps nine or ten centuries before our era, we see, at the moment when Rome was beginning to aim at greatness, the Celts spreading themselves beyond their frontiers. In the time of Tarquin the Elder (Years of Rome, 138 to 176), two expeditions started from Celtic Gaul: one proceeded across the Rhine and Southern Germany, to descend upon Illyria and Pannonia (now Western Hungary); the other, scaling the Alps, established itself in Italy, in the country lying between those mountains and the Po.1 The invaders soon transferred themselves to the right bank of that river, and nearly the whole of the territory comprised between the Alps and the Apennines took the name of Cisalpine Gaul. More than two centuries afterwards, the descendants of those Gauls marched upon Rome, and burnt it all but the Capitol.2 Still a century later (475), we see new bands issuing from Gaul, reaching Thrace by the valley of the Danube,3 ravaging Northern Greece, and bringing back to Toulouse the gold plundered from the Temple of Delphi.4 Others, arriving at Byzantium,5 pass into Asia, establish their dominion over the whole region on this side Mount Taurus, since called Gallo-Græcia, or Galatia, and maintain in it a sort of military feudalism until the time of the war of Antiochus.6
These facts, obscure as they may be in history, prove the spirit of adventure and the warlike genius of the Gaulish race, which thus, in fact, inspired a general terror. During nearly two centuries, from 364 to 531, Rome struggled against the Cisalpine Gauls, and more than once the defeat of her armies placed her existence in danger. It was, as it were, foot by foot that the Romans effected the conquest of Northern Italy, strengthening it as they proceeded by the establishment of colonies.
Let us here give a recapitulation of the principal wars against the Gauls, Cisalpine and Transalpine, ich have already been spoken of in the first volume of the present work. In 531 the Romans took the offensive, crossed the Po, and subjugated a great part of the Cisalpine. But hardly had the north of Italy been placed under the supremacy of the Republic, when Hannibal’s invasion (536) caused anew an insurrection of the inhabitants of those countries, who helped to increase the numbers of his army; and even when that great captain was obliged to quit Italy, they continued to defend their independence during thirty-four years. The struggle, renewed in 554, ended only in 588, for we will not take into account the partial insurrections which followed. During this time, Rome had not only to combat the Cisalpines, assisted by the Gauls from beyond the Alps, but also to make war upon the men of their race in Asia (565) and in Illyria. In this last-mentioned province the colony of Aquileia was founded (571), and several wild tribes of Liguria, who held the defiles of the Alps, were subjugated (588).
Wars of the Romans beyond the Alps.
II. In 600, the Romans, called to the assistance of the Greek town of Marseilles, which was attacked by the Oxybii and the Deciates, Ligurian tribes of the Maritime Alps,7 for the first time carried their arms to the other side of the Alps. They followed the course of the Corniche, and crossed the Var; but it took, according to Strabo, a struggle of eighty years before they obtained from the Ligures an extent of twelve stadia (2·22 kils.), a narrow passage on the coast of the sea, to enable them to pass through Gaul into Spain.8 Nevertheless, the legions pushed their encroachments between the Rhone and the Alps. The conquered territory was given to the people of Marseilles, who soon, attacked again by the peoples of the Maritime Alps, implored a second time the support of Rome. In 629, the Consul M. Fulvius Flaccus was sent against the Salluvii; and, three years afterwards,9 the proconsul C. Sextius Calvinus drove them back far from the sea-coast, and founded the town of Aix (Aquæ Sextiæ).10
The Romans, by protecting the people of Marseilles, had extended their dominion on the coast; by contracting other alliances, they penetrated into the interior. The Ædui were at war with the Allobroges and the Arverni. The proconsul Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus united with the former, and defeated the Allobroges, in 633, at Vindalium, on the Sorgue (Sulgas), not far from the Rhone. Subsequently, Q. Fabius Maximus, grandson of Paulus Æmilius, gained, at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone, a decisive victory over the Allobroges, and over Bituitus, king of the Arverni. By this success Q. Fabius gained the surname of Allobrogicus.11 The Arverni pretended to be descendants of the Trojans, and boasted a common origin with the Romans;12 they remained independent, but their dominion, which extended from the banks of the Rhine to the neighbourhood of Narbonne and Marseilles, was limited to their ancient territory. The Ruteni, who had been their allies against Fabius, obtained similarly the condition of not being subjected to the Roman power, and were exempted from all tribute.13
In 636, the Consul Q. Marcius Rex founded the colony of Narbo Marcius, which gave its name to the Roman province called Narbonensis.14
The movement which had long thrust the peoples of the north towards the south had slackened during several centuries, but in the seventh century of the foundation of Rome it seems to have re-commenced with greater intensity than ever. The Cimbri and the Teutones,15 after ravaging Noricum and Illyria, and defeating the army of Papirius Carbo sent to protect Italy (641), had marched across Rhætia, and penetrated by the valley of the Rhine to the country of the Helvetii. They drew with them a part of that people, spread into Gaul, and for several years carried there terror and desolation. The Belgæ alone offered a vigorous resistance. Rome, to protect her province, sent against them, or against the tribes of the Helvetii, their allies, five generals, who were successively vanquished: the Consul M. Junius Silanus, in 645; M. Aurelius Scaurus, in 646; L. Cassius Longinus, in 647;16 lastly, in the year 649, the proconsul Q. Servilius Cæpio17 and Cn. Manlius Maximus. The two last each lost his army.18 The very existence of Rome was threatened.
Marius, by the victories gained at Aix over the Teutones (652), and at the Campi Raudii, not far from the Adige, over the Cimbri (653), destroyed the barbarians and saved Italy.
The ancients often confounded the Gauls with the Cimbri and Teutones; sprung from a common origin, these peoples formed, as it were, the rear-guard of the great army of invasion which, at an unknown epoch, had brought the Celts into Gaul from the shores of the Black Sea. Sallust19 ascribes to the Gauls the defeats of Q. Cæpio and Cn. Manlius, and Cicero20 designates under the same name the barbarians who were destroyed by Marius. The fact is that all the peoples of the north were always ready to unite in the same effort when it was proposed to throw themselves upon the south of Europe.
From 653 to 684, the Romans, occupied with intestine wars, dreamt not of increasing their power beyond the Alps; and, when internal peace was restored, their generals, such as Sylla, Metellus Creticus, Lucullus, and Pompey, preferred the easy and lucrative conquests of the East. The vanquished peoples were abandoned by the Senate to the exactions of governors, which explains the readiness with which the deputies of the Allobroges entered, in 691, into Catiline’s conspiracy; fear led them to denounce the plot, but they experienced no gratitude for their revelations.21
The Allobroges rose, seized the town of Vienne,22 which was devoted to the Romans, and surprised, in 693, Manlius Lentinus, lieutenant of C. Pomptinus, governor of the Narbonnese. Nevertheless, some time after, the latter finally defeated and subdued them. “Until the time of Cæsar,” says Cicero, “our generals were satisfied with repelling the Gauls, thinking more of putting a stop to their aggressions than of carrying the war among them. Marius himself did not penetrate to their towns and homes, but confined himself to opposing a barrier to these torrents of peoples which were inundating Italy. C. Pomptinus, who suppressed the war raised by the Allobroges, rested after his victory. Cæsar alone resolved to subject Gaul to our dominion.”23
Continual Pre-occupation of the Romans in regard to the Gauls.
III. It results from this summary of facts that the constant thought of the Romans was, during several centuries, to resist the Celtic peoples established on either side of the Alps. Ancient authors proclaim aloud the fear which held Rome constantly on the watch. “The Romans,” says Sallust, “had then, as in our days, the opinion that all other peoples must yield to their courage; but that with the Gauls it was no longer for glory, but for safety, that they had to fight.”24 On his part, Cicero expresses himself thus: “From the beginning of our Republic, all our wise men have looked upon Gaul as the most redoubtable enemy of Rome. But the strength and multitude of those peoples had prevented us until now from combating them all.”25
In 694, it will be remembered, rumours of an invasion of the Helvetii prevailed at Rome. All political pre-occupation ceased at once, and resort was had to the exceptional measures adopted under such circumstances.26 In fact, as a principle, whenever a war against the Gauls was imminent, a dictator was immediately nominated, and a levy en masse ordered. From that time no one was exempted from military service; and, as a provision against an attack of those barbarians, a special treasure had been deposited in the Capitol, which it was forbidden to touch except in that eventuality.27 Accordingly, when, in 705, Cæsar seized upon it, he replied to the protests of the tribunes that, since Gaul was subjugated, this treasure had become useless.28
War against the peoples beyond the Alps was thus, for Rome, the consequence of a long antagonism, which must necessarily end in a desperate struggle, and the ruin of one of the two adversaries. This explains, at the same time, both Cæsar’s ardour and the enthusiasm excited by his successes. Wars undertaken in accord with the traditional sentiment of a country have alone the privilege of moving deeply the fibre of the people, and the importance of a victory is measured by the greatness of the disaster which would have followed a defeat. Since the fall of Carthage, the conquests in Spain, in Africa, in Syria, in Asia, and in Greece, enlarged the Republic, but did not consolidate it, and a check in those different parts of the world would have diminished the power of Rome without compromising it. With the peoples of the North, on the contrary, her existence was at stake, and upon her reverses equally as upon her successes depended the triumph of barbarism or civilisation. If Cæsar had been vanquished by the Helvetii or the Germans, who can say what would have become of Rome, assailed by the numberless hordes of the North rushing eagerly upon Italy?
And thus no war excited the public feeling so intensely as that of Gaul. Though Pompey had carried the Roman eagles to the shores of the Caspian Sea, and, by the tributes he had imposed on the vanquished, doubled the revenues of the State, his triumphs had only obtained ten days of thanksgivings. The Senate decreed fifteen,29 and even twenty,30 for Cæsar’s victories, and, in honour of them, the people offered sacrifices during sixty days.31
When, therefore, Suetonius ascribes the inspiration of the campaigns of this great man to the mere desire of enriching himself with plunder, he is false to history and to good sense, and assigns the most vulgar motive to a noble design. When other historians ascribe to Cæsar the sole intention of seeking in Gaul a means of rising to the supreme power by civil war, they show, as we have remarked elsewhere, a distorted view; they judge events by their final result, instead of calmly estimating the causes which have produced them.
The sequel of this history will prove that all the responsibility of the civil war belongs not to Cæsar, but to Pompey. And although the former had his eyes incessantly fixed on his enemies at Rome, none the less for that he pursued his conquests, without making them subordinate to his personal interests. If he had sought only his own elevation in his military successes, he would have followed an entirely opposite course. We should not have seen him sustain during eight years a desperate struggle, and incur the risks of enterprises such as those of Great Britain and Germany. After his first campaigns, he need only have returned to Rome to profit by the advantages he had acquired; for, as Cicero says,32 “he had already done enough for his glory, if he had not done enough for the Republic;” and the same orator adds: “Why would Cæsar himself remain in his province, if it were not to deliver to the Roman people complete a work which was already nearly finished? Is he retained by the agreeableness of the country, by the beauty of the towns, by the politeness and amenity of the individuals and peoples, by the lust of victory, by the desire of extending the limits of our empire? Is there anything more uncultivated than those countries, ruder than those towns, more ferocious than those peoples, and more admirable than the multiplicity of Cæsar’s victories? Can he find limits farther off than the ocean? Would his return to his country offend either the people who sent him or the Senate which has loaded him with honours? Would his absence increase the desire we have to see him? Would it not rather contribute, through lapse of time, to make people forget him, and to cause the laurels to fade which he had gathered in the midst of the greatest perils? If, then, there any who love not Cæsar, it is not their policy to obtain his recall from his province, because that would be to recall him to glory, to triumph, to the congratulations and supreme honours of the Senate, to the favour of the equestrian order, to the affection of the people.”33
Thus, after the end of 698, he might have led his army back into Italy, claimed triumph, and obtained power, without having to seize upon it, as Sylla, Marius, Cinna, and even Crassus and Pompey, had done.
If Cæsar had accepted the government of Gaul with the sole aim of having an army devoted to his designs, it must be admitted that so experienced a general would have taken, to commence a civil war, the simplest of the measures suggested by prudence: instead of separating himself from his army, he would have kept it with him, or, at least, brought it near to Italy, and distributed it in such a manner that he could re-assemble it quickly; he would have preserved, from the immense booty taken in Gaul, sums sufficient to supply the expenses of the war. Cæsar, on the contrary, as we shall see in the sequel, sends first to Pompey, without hesitation, two legions which are required from him under the pretext of the expedition against the Parthians. He undertakes to disband his troops if Pompey will do the same, and he arrives at Ravenna at the head of a single legion, leaving the others beyond the Alps, distributed from the Sambre as far as the Saône.34 He keeps within the limit of his government without making any preparation which indicates hostile intentions,35 wishing, as Hirtius says, to settle the quarrel by justice rather than by arms.36 In fact, he has collected so little money in the military chest, that his soldiers club together to procure him the sums necessary for his enterprise, and that all voluntarily renounce their pay.37 Cæsar offers Pompey an unconditional reconciliation, and it is only when he sees his advances rejected, and his adversaries meditating his ruin, that he boldly faces the forces of the Senate, and passes the Rubicon. It was not, then, the supreme power which Cæsar went into Gaul to seek, but the pure and elevated glory which arises from a national war, made in the traditional interest of the country.
Plan followed in the Relation of the War in Gaul.
IV. In reproducing in the following chapters the relation of the war in Gaul, we have borne in mind the words of Cicero. “Cæsar,” he says, “has written memoirs worthy of great praise. Deprived of all oratorical art, his style, like a handsome body stripped of clothing, presents itself naked, upright, and graceful. In his desire to furnish materials to future historians, he has, perhaps, done a thing agreeable to the little minds who will be tempted to load these natural graces with frivolous ornaments; but he has for ever deprived men of sense of the desire of writing, for nothing is more agreeable in history than a correct and luminous brevity.”38 Hirtius, on his part, expresses himself in the following terms: “These memoirs enjoy an approval so general, that Cæsar has much more taken from others than given to them the power of writing the history of the events which they recount. We have still more reasons than all others for admiring it, for others know only how correct and accurate this book is; we know the facility and rapidity with which it was composed.”39
If we would act upon the advice of these writers, we must digress as little as possible from the “Commentaries,” but without restricting ourselves to a literal translation. We have, then, adopted the narrative of Cæsar, though sometimes changing the order of the matter: we have abridged passages where there was a prodigality of details, and developed those which required elucidation. In order to indicate in a more precise manner the localities which witnessed so many battles, we have employed the modern names, especially in cases where ancient geography did not furnish corresponding names.
The investigation of the battle-fields and siege operations has led to the discovery of visible and certain traces of the Roman entrenchments. The reader, by comparing the plans of the excavations with the text, will be convinced of the rigorous accuracy of Cæsar in describing the countries he passed over, and the works he caused to be executed.
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