Helmet and spear

by Alfred John Church

THE CONQUESTS OF CÆSAR

The second great European conquest made by Rome outside the borders of Italy was Gaul. The beginning of this conquest, which was spread over about a century, the last ten years, however, being by far the most productive of result, belongs to the year 152 B.C. The people of Massilia (Marseilles) begged the help of the Romans against two tribes of Gaul who were attacking dependencies of theirs. Much the same thing happened again some twenty years later. The end of this and of other affairs which it is not necessary to describe in detail was the establishment in 121 B.C. of what was called the Provincia (a name still preserved in the modern Provence). Two colonies were founded in this region, one at Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix), the other at Narbo Marcius (Narbonne). The Provincia occupied the valley of the Rhone, and reached westward as far as the Garonne.

I pass on at once to the story of how the whole of the country from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and from the Atlantic to the Rhine was incorporated in the Empire of Rome.

In 59 B.C. Julius Cæsar was appointed to the government of Gaul (on both sides of the Alps) and Illyria. In the April of the next year he proceeded to take up his command. The first important operation which he undertook shows plainly enough how great a change had taken place in the relation between Rome and his barbarian neighbours of the north. The Helvetii, of whom we have heard in connection with the story of the Cimbri and Teutones, were in a restless condition. Their land (which we may roughly describe as the non-mountainous part of Switzerland and adjacent districts of France) was too narrow for them, and they resolved to look for another more fertile and more spacious. A hundred or even fifty years before they would certainly have moved southward, as kindred tribes had done under the First and the Second Brennus. But Italy no longer tempted them. It was as attractive as ever, but the way was too perilous. Accordingly, the migration of the Helvetii was northward. Cæsar saw his opportunity. The Helvetii would have to pass through a corner of the Provincia, and they sent envoys asking his leave. Cæsar did not directly refuse their request, the truth being that he had not troops enough to stop them, if they were minded to force a passage. He put them off. He would give an answer shortly. When they came again his soldiers were ready and therefore his answer also. They must not go. The Helvetii then chose another way, but Cæsar is determined that they shall not go at all. They went, indeed, burning everything that they could not carry with them, but Cæsar pursued and overtook them. The battle that followed was long and fierce. It lasted from one o'clock in the afternoon to evening, and for all these hours no Roman saw the back of a foe. A barricade had been made of the waggons, and this was obstinately defended. At last the camp was taken, but as many as 130,000 men made their escape. They had three days' start, for Cæsar had to stay where he was so long, providing for the treatment of his wounded, and for the burial of his dead. But though the fugitives marched without resting day or night they could not get out of their enemy's reach. Couriers were sent on, warning the tribes through whose territories they were to pass not to supply the Helvetii with food. To do so would be to incur the same penalty. This prompt and stern action had its immediate effect. The fugitives halted and sent back envoys begging for peace. Cæsar granted their request, but they were to give hostages, and to surrender their arms and all runaways and deserters. The men of one canton attempted to escape eastward, hoping that their flight might not be observed till it was too late to overtake them. But Cæsar observed everything; the unhappy men—there were six thousand of them—were brought back and slaughtered. The rest were admitted to quarter. They were compelled, however, to go back to their deserted country. Their neighbours, the Allobroges, were instructed to feed them till they could grow food for themselves, and they had to build again the houses which they had destroyed. Cæsar tells the story with a passionless accuracy. He shows neither anger nor pity. But the bare numbers which he gives are eloquent enough. There were 368,000 emigrants; 110,000 returned. More than two-thirds—men, women, and children—had perished. Anyhow, they could no longer complain that the land was too narrow for them. But the spirit of unrest had reached to other tribes beside the Helvetii. The Germans from the eastern side of the Rhine had made their way into Gaul, under the command of their King Ariovistus. They had been invited to come by one tribe of Gauls to help them against another, but had soon made themselves odious both to friends and to foes. The particular tribe which had called them in had given up to them one-third of its land, and was now called upon to surrender another. Cæsar was called upon to help. The invitation was just what he wanted. To be the champion of Gaul was the first step towards being its master. Accordingly he informed the German king that he must let the friends of the Roman people alone. Ariovistus's answer was a defiance, and Cæsar's rejoinder was a rapid march eastwards. There was no time to be lost. Other tribes from beyond the Rhine were said to be on the move. Were these to join the first-comers, it would be a very formidable combination. Seven days' marching brought the Romans within twenty-four miles' distance of the enemy. There were negotiations which came to nothing, various strategic movements, with a cavalry skirmish now and then. Finally Cæsar made an attack on the German host, and drove it before him to the Rhine. It suffered heavily in the flight. Ariovistus escaped, but he took very few of his Germans back with him.

In the following year (57 B.C.) Cæsar was engaged with the Belgæ in North-eastern Gaul. (Gaul must always be conceived of as the whole country to the westward of the Rhine.) He fought and won a great battle on the Aisne, falling on the enemy while they were endeavouring to cross the river, and inflicting a heavy loss on them. "They tried," says Cæsar, "in the most daring way to pass on the dead bodies of their own comrades." As he never puts anything in for the sake of effect, we may rely on the absolute truth of this gruesome picture. This victory was not easily won; a harder piece of work was the conflict with the Nervii that shortly followed. The Nervii occupied the country now known as Belgium, and had a high reputation for valour and for simplicity, not to say savagery, of life. They would not allow the importation of wine or any other foreign luxuries, and they were firmly resolved not to have any dealings with Cæsar. Their kinsmen and neighbours who had consented to treat with the Romans, had behaved, they considered, with much baseness and cowardice. The great battle was fought on the Sambre, and seems to have been, at one time, the most critical thing that Cæsar was ever engaged in.

Cæsar had been marching with his legions—he had eight in his force—each followed by its own baggage, and so far, therefore, separated from each other. The Nervii had been informed of this arrangement by some well-wishers in Cæsar's train, and had been advised to deliver their attack on the foremost legion as soon as the baggage came in sight. But the Roman general, who probably knew this, as great commanders have a way of knowing everything, altered his order on the way. First came the cavalry, then six legions together, all in light marching order, then the baggage, and bringing up the rear two newly levied legions. When the baggage came in sight the Nervii saw, as they thought, their opportunity. As a matter of fact, they had been waiting too long. They had to deal with six legions, not, as they expected, with one. Even then their onslaught came perilously near to a success. Emerging unexpectedly from the woods in which they had been lying hid, they drove before the Roman cavalry, and were engaged in hand-to-hand fight with the legions almost before these knew what had happened. It was almost a surprise. "Cæsar," so he writes of himself, "had everything to do at once—to hoist the red flag that was the signal for battle, give the trumpet call, summon back to their places in the ranks the men who were collecting materials for the rampart, draw up the line, and address the troops." The enemy had been unexpectedly quick in their attack. On the other hand, the army was in thoroughly good order; every man knew what he had to do. But the time was very short. The men could not even don their helmets or get their shields out of their covers before the enemy was upon them. The tribesmen in alliance with the Nervii could not hold their own against the Romans, but the Nervii themselves for a time carried everything before them, breaking through the two legions that confronted them, and actually taking possession of the Roman camp. The camp followers fled in dismay, and were followed by some of the light-armed troops. Even a contingent of cavalry sent by the Treveri rode off the field, and carried with them the report that the day was lost. As the Treveri had a high reputation for courage, their flight was of the very worst omen.

At this critical moment Cæsar personally intervened, and restored the fortunes of the day. He seized a shield, addressed himself to the centurions, whose names, again after the fashion of the great general, he knew, and turned the tide of battle. Cæsar did not show himself so frequently in the front as was the habit of Alexander, but he could do it on occasion with the happiest effect. At the same time the officer in command of the tenth legion (Cæsar's corps d'élite, as we may call it), who had made a successful attack on the enemy's position, brought back that force to the help of his chief. The Nervii still resisted with the greatest courage. But the day was lost, and few of the tribe, so far, at least, as it had taken part in the battle, were left alive. An episode of the campaign is worth relating, though it had little or no effect on the general result. The force left by the Cimbri and Teutones to guard their spoil had after various wanderings found their way into this region. They asked and obtained terms from Cæsar, tried to outwit, and were, by way of punishment, sold as slaves.

The third campaign was carried on in Western Gaul, among the Veneti, represented by the Bretons of to-day. Cæsar had made a requisition on them for corn, of which, as they were a seafaring people, they had probably little to spare. They refused the demand, which, indeed, he had no right but that of superior force to make, and even detained his envoys, whom they probably considered, and not without good reason, to be spies. Cæsar found that he wanted ships if he were to deal successfully with the Veneti. Accordingly he had a fleet built on the Loire, and manned with a levy raised in the neighbourhood. It was the First Punic War over again. The tribes of the western coast were beaten on their own element. As they had been guilty of what Cæsar chose to consider a great offence, an insult to ambassadors, he determined to punish them with unusual severity. Their chiefs were put to death; the rest of the population sold into slavery. A general surrender of the western tribes took place. Meanwhile one of the great man's lieutenants subdued the region between the Pyrenees and the Garonne (to the west, therefore, of the Provincia), and Cæsar himself spent what remained of the year in reducing some tribes in the north-east.

In the following year (B.C. 55) Northern Gaul was disturbed by another great movement of population. Two German tribes, themselves dispossessed by the overpowering strength of the Suebi, a great confederation of kindred tribes from Eastern Germany, crossed the Rhine, and quartered themselves on the Menapii, a people which inhabited the left bank of the lower Rhine. Cæsar was well aware that the ill-affected Gauls would soon make common cause with the new-comers, and determined to be beforehand with his enemies of either race. He marched with great promptitude against them, not allowing himself to be put off by the negotiations which they desired or pretended to open with him. Before long a treacherous attack, made by the German horsemen on Cæsar's cavalry—chiefly composed, it would seem, of native levies—gave him an excellent justification for acting. He attacked the enemy, and drove them in headlong flight to the river. Many were slain in the fight and the pursuit, more were drowned in the river; the result was the almost entire destruction of the invading host. Nor did this satisfy him. He determined to make a demonstration of his strength in Germany itself. To do this he had to transport his army across the Rhine. To carry them over in boats did not, as he puts it, suit the dignity of the Roman people. Possibly he thought it unsafe. Accordingly he built a bridge, a marvel of engineering skill, when we consider the breadth, depth, and force of the river to be spanned, and the short supply of tools and materials at hand. The work was complete in ten days; eighteen days more were spent in Germany. And Cæsar then came back, having certainly impressed the tribes beyond the Rhine with a great idea of his resources. Late in this year Cæsar made his first expedition to Britain. Of this and of the more serious invasion of the following year I shall have to speak elsewhere.

The year 54 B.C. was a very critical time. Cæsar evidently had overrated the result of his successes, a pardonable error, so rapid and apparently so complete had they been. A feeling of false security had suggested the somewhat romantic expedition to Britain, an expedition which he certainly would not have made if he had been aware of the real state of affairs in Gaul. He supposed that the country had been finally subdued—"pacified" or "quieted" was the Roman euphemism—but he was rudely undeceived. Fortunately for him he was in Gaul when the formidable rising, which he had soon to crush, took place. If he had been still in Britain, or if, as had been his intention, he had started for the south, the consequences might have been more serious than they were.