History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Complete Submission of Gaul.

VIII. Whilst these events were taking place on the banks of the Dordogne, Labienus, in a cavalry engagement, had gained a decisive advantage over a part of the Treviri and Germans, had taken prisoner their chief, and thus subjected that people, who were always ready to support any insurrection against the Romans. The Æduan Surus fell also into his hands: he was a chief distinguished for his courage and his birth, and the only one of that nation who had not yet laid down his arms.

From that moment Cæsar considered Gaul to be completely pacified; he resolved, however, to go himself to Aquitaine, which he had not yet visited, and which Publius Crassus had partly conquered. Arriving there at the head of two legions, he obtained the complete submission of that country without difficulty: all the tribes sent him hostages. He proceeded next to Narbonne with a detachment of cavalry, and charged his lieutenants to put the army into winter quarters. Four legions, under the orders of Mark Antony, Caius Trebonius, Publius Vatinius, and Q. Tullius, were quartered in Belgium; two among the Ædui, and two among the Turones, on the frontier of the Carnutes, to hold in check all the countries bordering on the ocean. These two last legions took up their winter quarters on the territory of the Lemovices, not far from the Arverni, so that no part of Gaul should be without troops. Cæsar remained but a short time in the province, presiding hastily over the assemblies, determining cases of public contestation, and rewarding those who had served him well. He had had occasion, more than any one, to know their sentiments individually, because, during the general revolt of Gaul, the fidelity and succour of the province had aided him in triumphing over it. When these affairs were settled, he returned to his legions in Belgium, and took up his winter quarters at Nemetocenna (Arras).

There he was informed of the last attempts of Commius, who, continuing a partisan war at the head of a small number of cavalry, intercepted the Roman convoys. Mark Antony had charged C. Volusenus Quadratus, prefect of the cavalry, to pursue him; he had accepted the task eagerly, in the hope of succeeding this time better than the first; but Commius, taking advantage of the rash ardour with which his enemy had rushed upon him, had wounded him seriously, and escaped; he was discouraged, however, and had promised Mark Antony to retire to any spot which should be appointed him, on condition that he should never be compelled to appear before a Roman.555 This condition having been accepted, he had given hostages.556

Gaul was henceforth subjugated; death or slavery had carried off its principal citizens. Of all the chiefs who had fought for its independence, only two survived, Commius and Ambiorix. Banished far from their country, they died unknown.

BOOK IV.

RECAPITULATION OF THE WAR IN GAUL, AND RELATION OF EVENTS AT ROME FROM 696 TO 705

CHAPTER I.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 696

Difficulties of Cæsar’s Task.

I. IN the preceding book we have given, from the “Commentaries,” the relation of the war in Gaul, and endeavoured to elucidate doubtful questions, and to discover the localities which were the scenes of so many combats. It will now be not uninteresting to recapitulate the principal events of the eight campaigns of the Roman proconsul, separated from all their technical details. We will at the same time examine what was passing, during this period, on the banks of the Tiber, and the events which led to the Civil War.

Writers who dislike glory take pleasure in undervaluing it. They seem to wish thus to invalidate the judgment of past ages: we seek in preference to confirm it, by explaining why the renown of certain men has filled the world. To bring to light the heroic examples of the past, to show that glory is the legitimate reward of great actions, is to pay homage to the public opinion of all times. Man struggling with difficulties which seem insurmountable, and conquering them by his genius, offers a spectacle always worthy of our admiration; and this admiration will be the more justified, according to the greater disproportion between the end and the means.

Cæsar is going to quit Rome, to go far from the debates of the Forum, the agitation of the comitia, and the intrigues of a corrupt town, in order to take the command of his troops. Let us, then, for a moment lay aside the statesman, and consider only the warrior, the great captain. The Roman proconsul is not one of those barbarian chieftains who, at the head of innumerable hordes, throw themselves upon a foreign country to ravage it with fire and sword. His mission is not to destroy, but to extend to a distance the influence of the Republic, by protecting the peoples of Gaul, either against their own dissensions, or against the encroachments of their dangerous neighbours. The dangers from which Italy had been saved by the victories of Marius are not forgotten. Men’s memory still recalls the savage bravery, and, still more, the multitude of those barbarians who, before the battle of Aix, had employed six entire days in defiling in front of the camp of Marius;557 they still fear a renewal of these inundations of peoples, and Cæsar’s first duty is to avert similar perils. Already the Helvetii and their allies, to the number of 368,000, are on the road towards the Rhine; 120,000 Germans have established themselves in Gaul; 24,000 Harudes, their countrymen, have just followed the same example; others are marching after them, and more than 100,000 Suevi are preparing to cross the Rhine.

The Narbonnese forms the proconsul’s basis of operation, but it is partly composed of populations recently subjugated, whose fidelity is as yet doubtful. Rome has in Gaul allied peoples, but they have lost their preponderance. The different states, divided among themselves by intestine rivalries, offer an easy prey to the enemy; but let the Roman army come to occupy their territory in a permanent manner, and thus wound their feelings of independence, and all the warlike youth will unite, eager to begin a struggle full of perils for the invaders. Cæsar is obliged, therefore, to act with extreme prudence, to favour the ambition of some, repress the encroachments of others, and spare the susceptibility of all, taking care not to wound their religion, their laws, or their manners; he is obliged at the same time to draw a part of his forces from the country he occupies, and obtain thence men, subsidies, and provisions. The greatest difficulty experienced by the commander of an army operating in a country the good-will of which he seeks to conciliate, is to enable his troops to live without exhausting it, and to assure the welfare of his soldiers without exciting the discontent of the inhabitants. “To seek to call,” says the Emperor Napoleon I. in his Mémoires, “a nation to liberty and independence; to desire that a public spirit should form in the midst of it, and that it should furnish troops; and at the same time to take from it its principal resources, are two contradictory ideas, and to conciliate them is the province of talent.”558

Thus, to fight between two and three hundred thousand Helvetii and Germans, to hold in dominion eight millions of Gauls, and to maintain the Roman province – such is the task which Cæsar has undertaken, and, to carry it out, he has as yet only at hand a single legion. What means will he have to overcome all these obstacles? His genius and the ascendency of civilisation over barbarism.

Campaign against the Helvetii.

II. Cæsar starts from Rome towards the middle of March, 696, and arrives in eight days at Geneva. Immediately the Helvetii, who had appointed their rendezvous on the banks of the Rhine towards the 24th of March, the day of the equinox, ask his permission to cross Savoy, with the intention of going to establish themselves in Saintonge. He adjourns his answer to the 8th of April, and employs the fifteen days thus gained in fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, from Geneva to the Pas-de-l’Ecluse, in raising troops in the Roman province, and in renewing the old bonds of friendship with the Burgundians,559 who will soon furnish him with men, horses, and provisions.

By rendering the passage of the Rhone impossible, and by binding to his cause the peoples who occupied the whole course of the Saône, from Pontailler to near Trévoux, he had cut off from the Helvetii the road to the south, and thrown difficulties in their way towards the west. Still, these persisted none the less in their design; they made an arrangement with the people of Franche-Comté, to whom the passage of the Pas-de-l’Ecluse belonged, to debouch by that defile into the plains of Ambérieux and on the plateau of the Dombes. They could thus arrive at the Saône, pass it peaceably or by force, proceed into the valley of the Loire by crossing the mountains of Charolais, and penetrate thence into Saintonge.

As soon as Cæsar was aware of this project, he immediately decided on his course of action: he foresaw that a long time would elapse before the Helvetii effected a passage across the unquiet countries of so many hosts; he reckons that an agglomeration of 368,000 individuals, men, women, and children, carrying three months’ provisions in wagons, would be slow to move; he repairs to the Cisalpine, raises two legions there, sends to Aquileia for the three who were in winter quarters there, and, crossing the Alps again, arrives, two months afterwards, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône, on the heights of Sathonay. He learns that the Helvetii have been employed during twenty days in crossing the Saône between Trévoux and Villefranche, but that a part of them still remain on the left bank; seizes the opportunity, attacks the latter, defeats them, and thus diminishes the number of his adversaries by one-fourth; then, crossing the Saône, he follows during fifteen days the mass of the Helvetian emigration, which was advancing towards the sources of the Bourbince. As he finds himself in want of provisions, he turns off from his road, and marches towards Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), the citadel and principal town of the Burgundians. This march to the right leads the Helvetii to believe that he is afraid of encountering them; they then march back, and attack him unexpectedly; a great battle is fought, and, with his four old legions only, Cæsar gains the victory. The immigration, already considerably diminished by the battle of the Saône, no longer counts more than 130,000 individuals, who make their retreat towards the country of Langres. The Roman general does not pursue them; he remains three days burying the dead and attending to the wounded. But his influence is already so great, that, to deprive the wreck of the vanquished army of provisions, he has only to give orders to the peoples whose territory they cross. Deprived of all resources, the fugitives discontinue their march, and make their submission. He hastens to overtake them towards Tonnerre. When he arrives in the midst of them, he adopts a generous policy, and gains, by his generous behaviour, those whom he had subjugated by his arms.

There was in the Helvetic conglomeration a people renowned for their valor, the Boii; Cæsar permits the Burgundians to receive them into the number of their fellow-citizens, and give them lands at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire. As to the other barbarians, with the exception of 6,000 who had attempted to withdraw from the capitulation by flight, he obliges them to return to their country, dismisses them without ransom, instead of selling them as slaves, and thus drawing from them a considerable profit, according to the general usage of that period.560 By preventing the Germans from establishing themselves in the countries abandoned by the immigration, he made a calculation of interest secondary to a high political sentiment, and foresaw that Helvetia, by its geographical position, was destined to be a bulwark against invasion from the north, and that, then as now, it was important for the power seated on the Rhone and the Alps to have on its eastern frontiers a friendly and independent people.561

Campaign against Ariovistus.

III. The victory gained near Bibracte has, at one blow, restored the prestige of the Roman arms. Cæsar has become the arbitrator of the destinies of a part of Gaul: all the peoples comprised between the Marne, the Rhone, and the mountains of Auvergne, obey him.562 The Helvetii have returned into their country; the Burgundians have re-conquered their ancient preponderance. The assembly of Celtic Gaul, held with his permission at Bibracte, invokes his protection against Ariovistus, and, to the far north, the people of Trèves hasten to denounce to him a threatened invasion of Germans. It had always been a part of the policy of the Republic to extend its influence by going to the succour of oppressed peoples. Cæsar could not fail to regulate his conduct upon this principle. Not only did it concern him to deliver the Gauls from a foreign yoke, but he sought to deprive the Germans of the possibility of settling on the banks of the Saône, and thus threatening the Roman province, and perhaps Italy itself.

Before having recourse to arms, Cæsar, who, during his consulship, had caused Ariovistus to be declared the ally and friend of the Roman republic, undertook to try upon him the means of persuasion. He sent to demand an interview, and received only a haughty reply. Soon, informed that, three days before, the German king has crossed his frontiers at the head of a numerous army, and that, on another side, the hundred cantons of the Suevi are threatening to cross the Rhine towards Mayence, he starts from Tonnerre in haste to go forward to meet him. When he arrives near Arc-en-Barrois, he learns that Ariovistus is marching with all his troops upon Besançon. He then turns to the right, anticipates him, and takes possession of that important place. No doubt, at the news of the march of the Roman army, Ariovistus slackened his own, and halted in the neighbourhood of Colmar.

After remaining a few days at Besançon, Cæsar takes the way to the Rhine, avoids the mountainous spurs of the Jura, proceeds by Pennesières, Arcey, and Belfort, and debouches towards Cernay in the fertile plains of Alsace. The two armies are only twenty-four miles apart. Cæsar and Ariovistus have an interview; its only result is to increase their mutual resentment. The latter conceives the project of cutting the line of operation of the Romans, and, passing near the site of the modern Mulhouse, he proceeds, by a circuitous movement, to establish himself on the stream of the little Doller, to the south of the Roman army, which, encamped on the Thur, supports its rear on the last spurs of the Vosges, near Cernay. In this position, Ariovistus intercepts Cæsar’s communications with Franche-Comté and Burgundy. The latter, to restore them, distributes his troops into two camps, and causes a second camp to be made, less considerable than the first, on his right, near the little Doller. During several days, he seeks in vain to draw Ariovistus to a battle; then, learning that the matrons have advised the Germans not to tempt fortune before the new moon, he unites his legions, places all the auxiliaries on his right, marches resolutely to assault the camp of the Germans, forces them to accept battle, and defeats them after an obstinate resistance. In their flight, they take the same road by which they had advanced, and, pursued for a distance of fifty miles, they re-pass the Rhine towards Rhinau. As to the Suevi, who had assembled near Mayence, when they are informed of the disaster of their allies, they hasten to regain their country.

Thus, in his first campaign, Cæsar, by two great battles, had delivered Gaul from the invasion of the Helvetii and the Germans; all the Gauls looked upon him as a liberator. But services rendered are very soon forgotten when people owe their liberty and independence to a foreign army.

Cæsar places his troops in winter quarters in Franche-Comté, leaves the command to Labienus, and starts for Cisalpine Gaul, where he is obliged, as proconsul, to preside over the provincial assemblies. Nearer Rome during the winter, he could follow more easily the political events of the metropolis.

Sequel of the Consulship of L. Calpurnius Piso and Aulus Galbinus.

IV. While the armies were augmenting the power of the Republic without, at Rome the intestine struggles continued with new fury. It could hardly be otherwise among the elements of discord and anarchy which were at work, and which, since the departure of Cæsar, were no longer held under control by a lofty intelligence and a firm will. Moral force, so necessary to every government, no longer existed anywhere, or rather, it did not exist where the institutions willed it to be, in the Senate; and, according to the remark of a celebrated German historian, this assembly which ruled the world, was incapable of ruling the town.563 For a long time the prestige of one man in visible power was master over that of the Senate; Pompey, by his military renown, and by his alliance with Cæsar and Crassus, continued dominant, although he had not then any legal power. Cæsar had reckoned upon him to continue his work, and curb the bad passions which were in agitation in the highest regions as well as in the lowest depths of society: but Pompey had neither the mind nor energy necessary to master at the same time the arrogance of the nobles and the turbulence of certain partisans of the demagogy; he was soon exposed to the censure of both parties.564 Moreover entirely under the influence of the charms of his young wife, he appeared indifferent to what was passing around him.565

The relation of the events at Rome during the eight years of Cæsar’s abode in Gaul will only offer us an uninterrupted series of vengeances, murders, and acts of violence of every description. How, indeed, could order be maintained in so vast a city without a permanent military force; when each man of importance took with him, for his escort, his clients or slaves in arms, and thus, within it, everybody had an army except the Republic? From this moment, as we shall see, the quarrels which are about to spring up among the parties will result always in riots; the slaves and gladiators will be enrolled as the ordinary actors.

Intrigues of Clodius.

V. Clodius, whose imprudent support of those who were subsequently called the triumvirs had increased his influence, continued, after Cæsar’s departure, to court a vain popularity, and to excite the passions which had been imperfectly allayed. Not satisfied with having, at the beginning of his tribuneship, re-established those religious, commercial, and political associations, which, composed chiefly of the dregs of the people, were a permanent danger to society; with having made distributions of wheat, restrained the censors in their right of exclusion, forbidden the auspices to be taken or the sky observed on the day fixed for the meeting of the comitia,566 and with having provoked the exile of Cicero, he turned his restless activity against Pompey,567 whom he soon deeply offended, by causing to be taken away and set at liberty a son of Tigranes, King of Armenia, made prisoner in the war against Mithridates, and retained as a pledge for the tranquillity of Asia.568 At the same time he began judicial proceedings against some of Pompey’s friends, and replied to the expostulations which were addressed to him, “That he was glad to learn how far the great man’s credit went.”569 The latter then conceived the idea of recalling Cicero, to oppose him to Clodius, just as, a few months before, he had raised Clodius against Cicero. We see the game of political see-saw is not new.

Pompey consults Cæsar on the Return of Cicero.

VI. Under these circumstances, the opinion of Cæsar was of great weight. Pompey wrote to consult him,570 and P. Sextius, one of those nominated as the new tribunes, repaired to Gaul to ascertain his mind.571 It appears certain that it was favourable,572 for, so early as the Calends of June, 696, hardly two months after the decree against Cicero, a tribune of the people, L. Ninnius, demanded his recall in the Senate. This proposal was on the point of being carried, when another tribune of the people, Ælius Ligus, interceded.573 The Senate, in its irritation, declared that it would take into consideration no political or administrative affair until it had voted on Cicero’s return.574 We thus judge how much the assembly took to heart the success of this measure, and how much, in supporting it, Pompey flattered the sentiments of the majority.

Pompey believes himself threatened by a Slave of Clodius.

VII. A singular occurrence determined his reconciliation with the Senate: on the 3rd of the Ides of Sextilis (the 5th of August), a slave of Clodius let a dagger fall in Pompey’s way, as he was entering the curia; arrested by the lictors, and questioned by the consul A. Gabinius, the slave declared that his master had ordered him to assassinate the great citizen.575 This attempt, whether serious or not, produced a sufficient impression on Pompey to prevent him, for a long time, from going to the Forum, or showing himself in public.576

The demands in favour of Cicero were renewed; and on the 4th of the Calends of November (the 20th of October) eight tribunes of the people, most of them men devoted to Pompey, proposed formally in the Senate the recall of the exile. One of these was T. Annius Milo, a violent, bold man, without scruples, and resembling Clodius in all things, but his open adversary. Clodius and his brother, the prætor Appius, again succeeded in defeating this motion.577 At last, with the extreme of audacity, the turbulent tribune, when near the close of his functions, dared to attack Cæsar himself, and tried to obtain the revocation of the Julian laws; but this attempt was powerless in face of the splendour of the victories gained over the Helvetii and the Germans.

CHAPTER II.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 697

War against the Belgæ.

I. CÆSAR’S victories had awakened among the Gauls feelings of admiration, but also of distrust; they could not see without fear that it had required only six legions to scatter two invasions, each counting 100,000 combatants. There are successes which, by their very brilliancy, alarm even those who profit by them. Nearly all Gaul looks on with jealousy at events which prove the superiority of permanent armies over populations without military organization. A small number of experienced and disciplined soldiers, under the guidance of a great captain, make all the peoples tremble from the Rhine to the ocean, and even the islanders of Great Britain feel themselves unsafe against the attacks of the Roman power; the Belgæ especially, proud of having formerly alone repulsed the invasion of the Cimbri and the Teutones, feel their warlike instincts revive. Provocations which have come from the other side of the Straits increase their distrust; these picture to them the abode of the Roman army in Franche-Comté as a threat against the independence of the whole of Gaul. The greatest part of the peoples comprised between the Rhine, the Scheldt, the Ocean, and the Seine, agitate, combine, and assemble an army of 300,000 men.

Informed in Italy of these preparations, Cæsar raises two new legions, rejoins his army in Franche-Comté, and decides immediately on invading the country of the Belgæ. The first who present themselves on his road are the people of Champagne. Surprised by his sudden arrival, they submit, and even offer him subsidies and auxiliaries. Cæsar is able to add to his eight legions and his light troops the contingents from Rheims, and join them with those of Burgundy and Trèves. In spite of this augmentation of his forces, the enemy he has to combat is four times more numerous. To defeat them, he sends the Burgundians to make a diversion and ravage the territory of Beauvais, then he crosses the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, and selects, behind the Miette, a marshy stream, a defensive position which he renders inexpugnable.

The Belgæ, whose army occupies, on the right bank of the Miette, an extent of twelve kilomètres, are powerless to force the position of the Romans, and fail in all their attempts to cross the Aisne at Pontavert. Soon, discouraged by the want of provisions, disputes among themselves, and the news that the Burgundians have just invaded the territory of Beauvais, they separate, because each, believing his own country threatened, thinks only of going to its defence. The Belgian league is thus dissolved almost without combat. Cæsar then hastens to chastise each people one after the other; he seizes in their turn Soissons and Breteuil, the principal citadels of the Soissonais and Beauvaisis, and arrives at Amiens.