Thus to the nobleman of the fifth century, even if he was a churchman and might, therefore, be expected to take the wider Christian view, culture meant something essentially Roman. By the side of this Roman culture Germanic influence must seem small, and yet, when we remember the attitude of men like Paulinus of Pella to the Goths, and allow a margin for Sidonius’s prejudice, it cannot seem unimportant in the civilization of Gaul.
5. Romanization of Gaul
Having glanced at the negative side of Gallic Romanization, it is important to look a little closer at the positive side, in order to form an idea of the extent of Gallo-Roman education.
How mighty the Roman impress was is seen in the many Roman roads, the amphitheatres, the inscriptions where Gauls very often appear as priests of Rome and Augustus, in the famous altar at Lyons, mentioned by Juvenal,[160] on which the sixty peoples of Gallia Comata inscribed their names after the pacification of the country by Drusus in 12 B.C., and which formed the common sanctuary for the province, and was the scene of regular rhetorical contests in Latin and in Greek.[161] And the speech of Claudius to the Senate[162] shows how eager the emperors were to speed on the rapidly advancing Romanization of Gaul.
Traditionally, Aquitaine was the first to be Romanized. Ammianus remarks that the shores of the Aquitanians were easily accessible to merchants, and that their characters were soon degraded to effeminacy, so that they easily passed under Roman domination.[163] But Lyons was the real centre of systematic Romanization. Thence Latin spread widely among the Gauls, who have left us no record of their Gallic Latin.[164] By the fifth century the victory of Latin was complete. It was the language of civilization, of government, of society. Slaves brought from all parts of the world made a common language between master and servant a necessity. Soldiers settled in Gaul spread its influence. Finally, it was the official language of the Church and (a fact which was most important for its propagation) of the School.[165]
It is a tribute to the thoroughness of Caesar’s work that when Classicus rebelled in A.D. 70[166] his associates were two Julii, one of whom tried to pass himself off as a descendant of the Dictator, while the other assumed the insignia of the Roman Emperor. So mighty was the Roman name that even its enemies in attacking it desired a part of its glory. ‘Between Classicus and the first Buonaparte’, says Freeman,[167] ‘no man again dreamed of an Empire of the Gauls.’ And Strabo had some justification when he spoke of the Gauls as δεδουλωμένοι καὶ ζῶντες κατὰ τὰ προστάγματα τῶν ἑλόντων αὐτοὺς Ῥωμαίων.[168]
Not that the feeling against Rome entirely disappeared. The Gauls objected to the luxury of the Roman emperors,[169] and we have such incidents as the Treveri shutting their gates to Decentius, brother of Magnentius.[170] Lampridius speaks of ‘Gallicanae mentes ... durae ac pertorridae, et saepe imperatoribus graves’.[171] Zosimus tells us that after the fall of the usurper Constantine[172] in A.D. 411 the whole of the Armorican land cast out its Roman rulers. But in the main the Roman machine worked efficiently enough by keeping the border tribes busy with feuds among themselves, and the mass of the people with oppressive exactions. There are many references to the loyalty of Gaul, from the exulting cry of Cicero in the Philippics[173] to the enthusiasm of Rutilius Namatianus. Pliny[174] calls Narbonensis ‘Italia verius quam provincia’. Claudian represents the whole of Gaul as fighting for Stilicho,[175] Gaul which supplies the Empire with soldiers.[176] Before him the panegyrists of the emperors—the majority of whom were Gauls—had been loud in their testimonies of Gaul’s loyalty. The orator of Autun[177] boasts (A.D. 311) that his city, rejoicing then in the imperial title of ‘Flavia Aeduorum’, had been the only one to join the Romans of its own free will—though Caesar records the subjugation of the Aedui in much the same way as that of the other tribes. Of purer fidelity than Massilia or Saguntum, the Aedui are ‘ingenua et simplici caritate fratres populi Romani’. The hollowness of the speaker’s rhetoric deceives no one; but it shows that there was at least a large part of Gaul which considered such speeches ‘the correct thing’, and that confidence in Rome’s destiny was widely felt: the fate-appointed eternal city, whose menacing enemies had all been rooted out.[178] Much more genuine is Rutilius. He feels that Gaul is his native country,[179] but the enthusiasm he shows for Rome is more than the mere official utterance of a Praefect of the City. There is real inspiration in his lines, in spite of Gibbon’s opinion that he was only an ‘ingenious traveller’.[180]
Te canimus semperque, sinent dum fata, canemus:
sospes nemo potest immemor esse tui,
obruerint citius scelerata oblivia solem,