Julius Caesar is possibly the most legendary Roman of all. As dictator, Caesar lead the establishment of the Roman Empire with his nephew Augustus as an emperor, more scandalously, Caesar had a love affair with Cleopatra of Egypt, and even invented the leap year, before being assassinated by colleagues and friends who had in the past supported him. However prior to his dictatorship Caesar had conquered a huge area of Europe during a very short time. The provinces of Gaul invaded by Caesar (Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Belgica and Aquitania) are now known as Luxembourg, Belgium, France and Germany to the west of the Rhine, an area of over 300,000 square miles. The political map of much of modern Europe can be traced back to Julius Caesar's 9 years of campaigning. In his battles in Gaul, Caesar also became the first Roman to cross the Rhine at the head of an army, and to cross the Channel to Britain, an island that contemporaries considered a mysterious, terrible and perhaps mythical place.
There is only one detailed account surviving of this amazing war, and this account was written by Caesar himself. As well as being a great, extraordinarily fortunate general and an inspirational leader of men, Caesar was an wise politician fully aware of the importance of self-presentation. In today's terms, Caesar was his own, extremely able spin-doctor. Caesar's De Bellu Gallicu (Gallic War) is the most detailed eye-witness account of war that survives from the Greek or Roman world. Caesar wrote up his commentaries annually and had them published in Rome every year. Everyone in the capital was hungry for news of events in Gaul and there was great excitement at the progress of the war. Caesar made sure they got a one-sided version of events that stressed the magnitude of the Roman victories and his part in them, and underplayed the size and significance of the reverses. The historical reconstruction of the conquest of Gaul must be accomplished using this one extremely biased source, a few brief descriptions in other works of literature written by Romans, and limited archaeological evidence. There is nothing that presents the aims, motives or feelings of the Gauls, except Caesar's interpretation of them, since they had no tradition of recording their history.
The conquest of Gaul occur in the middle of political and cultural change not only in Gaul but also in Rome. By the middle of 1st century BC, parts of Gaul were starting to become urbanized and 'Romanised' when they adopted some of the customs of the inhabitants of the neighboring Roman province of Transalpine Gaul in southern France. Roman traders were very active in Gaul, especially in the southern and central areas, and they also helped to spread their own culture, exchanging “luxury” goods such as wine in return for iron, grain, slaves and hides. Some of the Gallic tribes were developing more centralized forms of organisation, and towns were beginning to grow. Ironically, this helped to make the Roman conquest, when it came, more straightforward: while some of the more “Romanised” tribes such as the Aedui allied themselves to the invaders, some of those who resisted were easier to conquer because they were centralised and had clear centers of occupation and wealth. The tribes with few key occupation centers often had more mobile wealth and resources, and could more easily avoid conquest simply by evading the Romans. Rome itself was sliding towards civil war as a political system designed for a small city-state could no longer manage controlling a huge empire. Leading politicians fought with each other for power and gathered support from their peers, the common people, and the armies that they had commanded when governing Rome's provinces. Military success and loyal soldiers were prerequisites for becoming a leading figure in the power games, and huge areas of the Mediterranean were swiftly conquered by ambitious Romans. Most recently, Pompey, lately returned from the East after a glorious tour of conquest had set new standards for others to imitate. In 59 BC, when Julius Caesar engineered for himself the governorship of Dalmatia and Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy), there was no doubt that Caesar would conduct campaigns to enhance his military reputation and political future. When the governorship of Transalpine Gaul (southern France) was added to Caesar’s command and the Helvetii in Switzerland began a huge migration, Caesar decided to campaign in Gaul.
In the next few years the Romans made rapid conquests throughout Gaul. The task was made easier by the incapability of the Gallic tribes to unite and form a combined resistance to the invaders. In fact, some tribes supported the Romans, and the Romans themselves played one tribe off against another, exploiting the territorial ambitions of different Gallic tribes and even political divisions in the tribes. Few Gallic armies were able to resist the disciplined and well-equipped Roman legions, and Caesar was able to draw on an increasingly large and experienced army, in addition to allies from Gaul and occasionally Germany to supply him with cavalry in particular. In three years of leading his army into Gaul, Caesar was able to state that the whole province was conquered and lead his army into Germany and across the Channel to Britain, expeditions that provoked shocked admiration back in Rome.
Gaul may have been conquered, but the Gauls were not. The last years of Caesar’s command were spent dealing with sporadic revolts across the province, which were followed, in 52 BC, by a major uprising. Finally the Gauls had found a leader who could unite them: Vercingetorix. The year 52 BC was make or break for both sides: the Gauls pursued a guerrilla campaign of hit-and-run tactics and a scorched-earth policy, while the Romans utilized more sophisticated engineering skills; it also saw two huge-scale sieges of hill forts at Avaricum (Bourges) and Alesia (Alise-Ste-Reine, near Dijon). It was at Alesia that the whole war in Gaul came to a climax, and when the army raised to relieve the besieged Gauls war repulsed, the revolt was effectively over. The relieving army dissolved and Vercingetorix surrendered. Though it was not until the reign of the first emperor, Augustus, that Gaul was properly pacified (and even after that there are indications of the occasional rumble into the middle of 1st century AD, the Gauls were never able to unite effectively again. Gaul became several Roman provinces, evolving after five centuries into the Frankish kingdoms and eventually becoming France. Julius Caesar went on to fight and win a civil war, and make himself dictator of Rome, only to he assassinated in 44 BC
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| Potrait of Julius Caesar (c. 102-44 BC) the Roman politician and general who conquered Gaul in the middle of 1st century BC. |
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