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 history of Rome; tr. with the sanction of the ... v.5. Mommsen, Theodor, 1817-1903
able development of urban life stands the activity of inter course 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. 1 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,
1 We are led to this conclusion by the designation of the trading or "round" as contrasted with the "long" or war vessel, and the similar contrast of the "oared ships" (Arfmnroc vijts) and the "merchantmen" (o. Wots, Dionys. iii. 44) ; and moreover by the sma'lnuss of the crew in the trading vessels, which in the very largest amounted to not more than soo men (Rhein. Mus. N. F. xi. 625), while it, the ordinary galley of three decks there were employed 170 rowers (ii. 174). Con1p. Movers,
Pkoen. ii. 3, 167 xq.
Commerce.
16 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
but also in naval combat. Here therefore we not only . aeet 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.
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
Muufao
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 manu- factures.
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
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST
17
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 work manship 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.
Hand in hand with dexterity in the elaboration of the Mining, 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 (iii. 416), and of the treasures of the Tolosan temples (iii.
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
436).
VOL. V
135
Art and science.
i8 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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.
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 representa tions 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
Political organiza tion.
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
for instance, on the Arvernian coins of this period.
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
(iii. 416).
it,
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 19
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 Cantonal the canton was very early superseded by the ring-wall ^n*tito. as the basis of political unity ; where two cantons found themselves together within the same walls, they amal
gamated 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.
Develop
20
THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban
ment of commonwealths among the Celts knight-
hood.
just noticed, that the development, knighthood, so
opposite pole of political
thoroughly preponderates in the Celtic
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 fre quently 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 the privilege of the nobility to surround themselves with number of hired mounted servants —the ambacti as they were called1 —and thereby
but also German, the root of our " Amt," as indeed the retainer-system itself common to the Celts and the Germans. — would be of great historical importance to ascertain whether the word and so also the thing —came to the Celts from the Germans, or to the Germans from the Celts. If, as usually supposed, the word originally German and primarily signified the servant standing in battle " against the back " (anrf= against, bak = back) of his master, this not wholly irreconcileable with the singu larly early occurrence of this word among the Celts. According to all analogy the right to keep ambacti, that is, SouXo1 iwrBwrol, cannot have belonged to the Celtic nobility from the outset, but must only have de veloped itself gradually in antagonism to the older monarchy and to the equality of the free commons. If thus the system of ambacti among the Celts was not an ancient and national, but a comparatively recent institu tion, —looking to the relation which had subsisted for centuries between the Celts and Germans, and which to be explained farther on — not merely possible but even probable that the Celts, in Italy as in Gaul, employed Germans chiefly as those hired servants a- arms. The " Swiss guard" would therefore in that case be some thousands of years older than people suppose. Should the term by which the Romans, perhaps after the example of the Celts, designate the Germans as a nation —the
clan-constitution.
This remarkable word must have been In use as early as the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po for Ennius already acquainted with and can only have reached the Italians at so early period from that quarter. not merely Celtic, however,
is
is
It
it is
is
is
a
is
it, it
is,
is
It
;
it
1
a
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST
to form a state within the state ; and, resting on the sup
port 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 bond- tonal con-
men and the debtors, it is clear that such an one was more an independent dynast than a burgess of his clan. More over, 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.
stuution.
21
Breaking uPof ,he
The common assembly lost its political importance; Abolition and even the power of the prince, which should have mom^. cny 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,* 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
name Germani —be really of Celtic origin, this obviously accords very well with that hypothesis. — No doubt these assumptions must necessarily give way, should the word ambactus be explained in a satisfactory way from a Celtic root ; as in fact Zeuss (Gramm. p. 796), though doubtfully, traces it to ambi = around and aig=agere, viz. one moving round or moved round, and so attendants, servants. The circumstance that the word occurs also as a Celtic proper name (Zeuss, p? 77), and is perhaps preserved in the Cambrian a maeth = peasant, labourer (Zeuss, p. 156), cannot decide the point either way.
1 From the Celtic words gutrg— worker and breth— judgment.
Efforts
national unity,
31 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 multi tude 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
While the individual cantons were thus irremediably declining, the sense of unity was at the same time power- fully 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
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
quarrelling
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 23
with which news was communicated from one point to another.
The universality and the strength of the Celtic national Religions feeling would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, J^on of 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 Druids, 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 compre hensive tradition was transmitted ; special privileges, par ticularly 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
telegraphic rapidity
Want of
central- ization.
24 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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.
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 centraliza tion 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.
It has been already mentioned (iii. 416) 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
The canton- leagues.
The Belgic Kue"
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 35 cantons : in central or proper Gaul two parties as formerly The
niaritfa*
JIJJJE? GauL
Character ^J-j^
contended far 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 confed- The eracies 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.
The impulse of the nation towards freedom found doubt- less 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,1 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 (iii. 430 /. ), 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 pos session 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
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 Lace daemonian factions in every dependent community, and even in Athens itself, so the rivalry of the Arverni and Haedui
1 The position which such ,1 federal general occupied with reference to his troops, is shown by the accusation of high treason raised against Vercingetorix (Caesar, B. G. vii. 20).
according
The Celtic military system. Cavalry.
a6 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book V
with its repetitions on a smaller and smaller scale destroyed the Celtic people.
The military capability of the nation felt the reflex in fluence 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
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
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.
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 prin cipal weapon of defence ; among the offensive arms, on the
Infantry.
(which
knightly
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST aj
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
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.
general
If we survey the whole condition of the Celts as Caesar
found it in the Transalpine regions, there is an unmistake- develoP~ able advance in civilization, as compared with the stage of the Celtic culture at which the Celts came before us a century and a c "li2atioa half previously in the valley of the Po. Then the militia,
excellent of its kind, thoroughly preponderated in their
armies 423); now the cavalry occupies the first place.
Then the Celts dwelt 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 the sense of common relationship in the nation
Stage of
is (i.
a in
;
;
28 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book t
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 had already reached the maximum of the culture allotted to and was even now on the decline. The civilization of the Trans alpine Celts in Caesar's time presents, even for us who are but very imperfectly informed regarding several aspects that are estimable, and yet more that are interesting some respects more akin to the modern than to the Hellenic-Roman culture, with its sailing vessels, its knight hood, its ecclesiastical constitution, above all with its attempts, however imperfect, to build the state not on the city, but on the tribe and in 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 the same thing, its lesser capacity of culture, comes more distinctly into view.
was unable to produce from its own resources either national art or national state attained at the utmost national theology and peculiar type of nobility. The original simple valour was no more the military courage
based on higher morality and judicious organization, which comes the train of increased civilization, had only made its appearance in 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 deceased chief were burnt along with him. But human sacrifices still continued, and the maxim of law, that torture was inad missible in the case of the free man but allowable in that of the free woman as well as of slaves, throws far from
a
a
it,
it,
;
; in
a in
it a is
;
a
a
; it
a It
is
a
it,
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 29
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.
Such was the internal condition of the Celtic nation. External It remains that we set forth their external relations with rel"uon*' 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 Celts and
benaM-
relations of the peoples had for long been peaceably settled, and the times had long gone by when the Celts there
hard on, and to some extent supplanted, the Iberian, that the Basque, original population. The valleys of the Pyrenees as well as the mountains of Beam and Gascony, and also the coast-steppes to the south of the Garonne, were at the time of Caesar the undisputed possession of the Aquitani, 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 Bur-
pressed
digala (Bordeaux) Bituriges-Vivisci.
was in the hands of Celtic tribe, the
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
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— catastrophe, for which the way had already been prepared centuries before by the laying out of the Hellenic
stronghold
Celts and oman*"
gradually
at the mouth of the Rhone. But we must
a
;
a in
a
is,
Advance of
trade and commerce
Onrt.
30 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book V
here recall the fact that it was not merely the superiority of tne 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
of Roman estates in the canton of the Segusiavi 81. (near Lyons) as early as about 673. Beyond doubt it was a consequence of this that, as already mentioned (p. 18)
in free Gaul itself, e. g. among the Arverni, the Roman
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 pro hibition which one of the most energetic tribes of Gaul, the canton of the Nervii, like some German peoples, issued against trafficking with the Romans.
Still more violent even than the pressure of the Romans
example,
language
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 31
from the Mediterranean was that of the Germans downward Celts and
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
people or nomads, and the Marcomani, that
guard1 — names which were hardly cantonal
Caesar's time, although they appeared as such to the Romans and subsequently became in various cases names of cantons.
e^man,.
The most violent onset of this great nation fell upon The right
the Celts. The struggles, in which the Germans probably the Rmne
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
lost to thu
Caesar's Suebi thus were probably the Chatti but that designation certainly belonged in Caesar's time, and even much later, also to every other German stock which could be described as a regularly wandering one. Accordingly as not to be doubted, the "king of the Suebi" in Mela (iii. and Pliny {J/. N. ii. 67, 170) was Ariovistus, by no means therefore follows that Ariovistus was Chattan.
cannot be demonstrated asa distinct peoplebefore Marbod
that the word up to that point indicates nothing but what
signifies — the land, or frontier, guard. When Caesar
etymologically 51) mentions Marcomani among the peoples fighting in the army of Ariovistus, he may
in this instance have misunderstood a merely appellative designat1on, just as he has decidedly done in the case of the Suebi.
the roving the land-
names
The Marcomani very possible
; (i. it it is
is, is,
a
1)
if,
it
is
;
1
in
German tribes on the left bank of the Rhine.
THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
was already lost to the Celts ; that the Boii, who were prob ably once settled in Bavaria and Bohemia (iii. 423), were homeless wanderers ; and that even the Black Forest for merly possessed by the Helvetii (iii. 423), if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border-land, and was presum ably 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.
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 neigh bourhood, as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci, who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde (iii. 445) 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 author ities 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
chap, vh THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 33
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 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, invasion, they and their most important interests were yet concerned
in the issue of those movements. As may readily be con
ceived, 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
vol. v
136
The
pojfcJlwi^ reference
0,0,^
34 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 hege mony 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 Besancpn) 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
71. 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.
The war was prolonged for some years with varying success ; on the whole the results were unfavourable to the
chap, vh THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 35
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.
Ariovistus
TMddlg Rhine,
This peace was concluded apparently about 693. 1 61. Honour and advantage enjoined the Romans to come ^^°a
ing was the insurrection of the Allobroges in 693 (p. 8)— 61. 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,
1 The arrival of Ariovistus in Gaul has been placed, according to Caesar, i. 36, In 683, and the battle of Admagetobriga (for such was the 71. name of the place now usually, in accordance with a false inscription, called Magetobriga), according to Caesar i. 35 and Cicero Ad. Alt. i. 19,
in 693. 61.
forward in opposition to it ; the noble Haeduan Divitiacus,
Romans, 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 seriouswarn-
Founda tion of a German empire in Gaul.
friendly with the Romans. 1
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
36 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
but nothing was done for the Haedui; on the contrary, 69. Ariovistus was even enrolled in 695 in the list of kings
68. 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 settle ments 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 van quished enemies, to cede to him for his people a third of their territory — presumably upper Alsace afterwards in habited 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
1 That we may not deem this course of things incredible, or even impute to it deeper motives than ignorance and laziness in statesmen, we shall do well to realize the frivolous tone in which a distinguished senator like Cicero expresses himself in his correspondence respecting these important Transalpine affairs.
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 37
friendly to the Germans no less than over those who ad hered to the Romans.
The appearance of the energetic German prince in so The dangerous proximity, which could not but in itself excite Germans the most serious apprehension in the Romans, appeared Lower
Rhine-
M.
The Ge""an»
Upper Rhine'
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 terri- tory 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 settle
ment 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 Spread
jr. Tura, along with, if possible, the hegemony in the interior invasion
acquiring larger and more fertile abodes to the west of the
of Gaul —a plan which some of their districts had already l^tl^OI of
formed and attempted to execute during the Cimbrian invasion (iii. 435). The Rauraci whose territory (Basle and southern Alsace) was similarly threatened, the remains, moreover, of the Boii who had already at an earlier period
Gaul,
Caesar proceed
GauL
61.
38 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 after wards against the Romans.
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
64. 66. him first for five years (to the end of 700), then in 699 49. 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 Caesars 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 horse men from Spain, and by Numidian, Cretan, aid Balearic
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 39
archers and slingers. The staff of Caesar—the tUte 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 jnplied 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.
at this time the Helvetic invasion, which was Repulse closely interwoven with the German and had been in pre- fr. fjln paration 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 March1 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, stretch
ing from the Rhine to the Rhone, almost completely closed
in the Helvetic country towards the west, and its narrow
denies 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
1 According to the uncorrected calendar. According to the current rectification, which however here by no means rests on sufficiently trust worthy data, this day corresponds to the 16th of April of the Julian calendar.
Just
4o THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
the south-western and highest part of the Jura and the Savoy mountains, near the modern Fort de l'Eclnse. 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 HelvetiL 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
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 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
right
nearly
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 41
military point of view by a chain of forts placed in connec tion with each other by ramparts and ditches. The a, tempts 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.
On the other hand, the party in Gaul hostile to the The
Romans, which hoped to obtain a powerful reinforcement Hdveta
in the Helvetii, more especially the Haeduan Dumnorix towards
brother of Divitiacus, and at the head of the national party G",,1.
in his canton as the latter was at 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 interests
were at 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 (iii. 444) 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.
These troops he united with the corps stationed at The
war.
Genava, and crossed the Rhone with his whole force. His Helvetian
'
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
42 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 But this moment came not unwieldy as was the march of the Helvetic caravan, the leaders knew
how to guard against surprise, and appeared to be copiously provided with supplies as well as most accurately informed 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 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 defeat which they
a
by
by
it.
a
:
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 43
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 disagree ably 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 . "nclining 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
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.
Caesar desired nothing better. The two armies posted Battle at
' rac
past
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 com pelled to beat a retreat in an easterly direction-^the
The Helvetil lent back to their original abodes.
THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 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 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 lot of the vanquished was comparatively mild one. The Haedui were directed to concede settlements in their territory to the homeless Boii and this settlement of the conquered foe the midst of the most powerful Celtic cantons rendered almost the services of Roman colony. The survivors of the Helvetii and Rauraci, some thing more than third of the men that had marched forth, were naturally sent back to their former territory. was incorporated with the Roman province, but the inhabitants were admitted to alliance with Rome under favourable conditions, 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
in
a
it,
a It
it
in
;
a
;
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 45
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. " 1
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 tlo1a' 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
1 Julia Eq1ustris, where the last surname is to be taken as in other colonies of Caesar the surnames of stxtanorum, decimanorum, etc. It was Celtic or German horsemen of Caesar, who, of course with the bestowal of the Roman or, at any rate, Latin franchise, received land -allotments there.
Caesar and °
Negotia-
Arioristus attacked,
46 THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
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 men tioned 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 inde pendence 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
that he should appear personally before him according to the usual practice with client-princes.
It was the more necessary not to delay ; Caesar imme diately 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 four teen 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
suggested
chap, vm THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST 47
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,1 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
1 Goler (Caesars gall. Krieg, p. 45, etc. ) thinks that he has found the field of battle at Cernay not far from Muhlhausen, which, on the whole, agrees with Napoleon's (Prtcis, p. 35) placing of the battle-field in the district of Belfort This hypothesis, although not certain, suits the circumstances of the case ; for the fact that Caesar required seven days' march for the short space from Besancon to that point, is explained by his own remark 41) that he had taken a circuit of lifty miles to avoid the mountain paths and the whole description of the pursuit continued as far as the Rhine, and evidently not lasting for several days but ending on the very day of the battle, decides — the authority of tradition being equally balanced—in favour of the view that the battle was fought five, not fifty, miles from the Rhine. The proposal of RUstow (Einleitung tu Caesars Comm. p. 117) to transfer the field of battle to the upper Saar rests on a misunderstanding. The com expected from the Sequani, I. euci, Lingonea was not to come to the Roman army in the course of their march against Ariovistus, but to be delivered at Besancon before their departure, and taken by the troops along with them as clearly apparent from the fact that Caesar, while pointing his troops to those supplies, comforts them at the same time with the hope of corn to be brought in on the route. From Besancon Caesar commanded the region of Langres and Eplnal, and, as may be well conceived, preferred to levy his requisitions there rather than in the exhausted districts from which he came.
;
is
(i. ;
■ad
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
German
48
THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
68. escaping to the other bank (696).
Thus brilliantly the Roman rule announced its advent
letuemenu t0 ^e mighty stream, which the Italian soldiers here saw on the left , .
bank of the 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, Medio- matrici—were neither capable of self-defence nor trust worthy; 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
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
countrymen
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST
49
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. 1
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 consequences of this one campaign were immense ; TheRMae 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 them selves 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
1 This seems the simplest hypothesis regarding the origin of these Germanic settlements. That Ariovistus settled those peoples on the middle Rhine is probable, because they fight in his army {Caes. i. 51) and do not appear earlier ; that Caesar left them in possession of their settlements is probable, because he in presence of Ariovistus declared himself ready to tolerate the Germans already settled in Gaul (Cues. i. 35, 43), and because we find them afterwards in these abodes. Caesar doe* not mention the directions given after the battle concerning these Germanic settlements, because he keeps silence on principle regarding all the organic arrangements made by him in Gaul.
vou v
»37
Subjuga- tion of Gaui.
SO THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
felt that now another spirit and another arm began to guide the destinies of Rome.
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
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
Beigic expedition.
Belgae
67. the spring of 697 against the Beigic 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 (iii. 444), 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
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
powerful
chap, Vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEaT 51
Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost at the same time.
Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave Conflicts 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 unas
sailable 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 retreat ing army allowed the Roman general to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion of the contingents
Submission ofthe western cantons,
that had remained to the last But the consequences of , . the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar ad-
vanced into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another gave themselves up as lost almost without resist ance ; 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.
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 determina tion 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
The
with the NervU.
52
THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST book v
chap, vii THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WEST $3
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 com munications. Instead of a battle there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left wing over threw 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 and even the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions, each separately rolled together into 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.
