Julius Caesar - The Gallic Wars

It was now all-important for Caesar to secure his spot in power by obtaining a military command.

The senate, as a result of its constitutional prerogative, had assigned as the provincial of the consuls of 59 B.C. the supervision of roads and forests in Italy. Caesar helped secure the passing of a legislative enactment which conferred upon him the government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria for five years, and exacted from the terrorized senate the addition of Transalpine Gaul, where he well knew, a storm was brewing which threatened to sweep away Roman civilization beyond the Alps.

Due to the mutual jealousies of the Gallic tribes, the German invaders were enabled to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Rhine, and then to obtain a predominant position in Central Gaul. In 60 B.C. the German king Ariovistus had defeated the Aedui, who were allies of Rome, and had wrested from the Sequani a large portion of their territory.

Caesar must have seen that the Germans were preparing to dispute with Rome the mastery of Gaul; but it was necessary to gain time, and in 59 B.C. Ariovistus was inscribed on the roll of the friends of the Roman people.

In 58 B.C. the Helvetii, a Celtic people which inhabited what is now Switzerland, decided to migrate towards the shores of the Atlantic and thus demanded a passage through Roman territory. Caesar stated that they numbered 368,000, and it was necessary at all hazards to save the Roman province from this invasion. However, Caesar had but one legion beyond the Alps. With this one legion he marched to Geneva, destroyed the bridge over the Rhone, fortified the left bank of the river, and forced the Helvetii to follow the right bank. Then, hastening back to Italy, he withdrew his three remaining legions from Aquileia, raised two more, and, crossing the Alps by forced marches, arrived in the neighborhood of modern Lyons to find that three-fourths of the Helvetii had already crossed the Saône, marching westward. He destroyed their rearguard, the Tigurini, as it was about to cross, transported his army across the river in twenty-four hours, pursued the Helvetii in a northerly direction, and utterly defeated them at Bibracte (Mont Beuvray).

Of the survivors, a few were settled amongst the Aedui; the rest were sent back to Switzerland lest it should fall into German hands.

The Gallic chiefs now appealed to Caesar to deliver them from the actual or threatened tyranny of Ariovistus. At once, Caesar demanded a conference, which Ariovistus refused. On hearing that fresh swarms were crossing the Rhine, Caesar marched with all haste to Vesontio (Besançon) and thence by way of Belfort into the plain of Alsace, where he gained a decisive victory over the Germans, of whom only a few (including Ariovistus) reached the right bank of the Rhine in safety.

This succession of victories roused natural alarm in the minds of the Belgae...a confederacy of tribes in the northwest of Gaul, whose civilization was less advanced than that of the Celtae of the center. Then, in the spring of 57 B.C., Caesar determined to anticipate the offensive movement which they were understood to be preparing and marched northwards into the territory of the Remī (about Reims), who alone amongst their neighbours were friendly to Rome.

He successfully checked the advance of the enemy at the passage of the Aisne (between Laon and Reims) and their ill-organized force melted away as he advanced. But the Nervii, and their neighbours further to the north-west, remained to be dealt with, and were crushed after a desperate struggle on the banks of the Sambre, in which Caesar was forced to expose his person in the mêlée.

Finally, the Aduatuci (near Namur) were compelled to submit, and were punished for their subsequent treachery by being sold wholesale into slavery. In the meantime Caesar's lieutenant, P. Crassus, received the submission of the tribes of the north-east, so that by the close of the campaign almost the whole of Gaul...except the Aquitani in the southwest...acknowledged Roman suzerainty.

In 56 B.C., however, the Veneti of Brittany threw off the yoke and detained two of Crassus's officers as hostages. Caesar, who was hastily summoned from Illyricum, crossed the Loire and invaded Brittany, but found that he could make no headway without destroying the powerful fleet of high, flat-bottomed boats like floating castles possessed by the Veneti. A fleet was hastily constructed in the estuary of the Loire, and placed under the command of Decimus Brutus. The decisive engagement was most likely fought in the Gulf of Morbihan where the Romans gained the victory by cutting down the enemy's rigging with sickles attached to poles.

As a punishment for the treachery of the Veneti, Caesar put their senate to death and sold the people into slavery.

Meanwhile Sabinus was victorious on the northern coasts, and Crassus subdued the Aquitani. At the close of the season Caesar raided the territories of the Morini and Menapii in the extreme northwest.

Julius Caesar - Expeditions to Britain

Julius Caesar

Rome the Eternal City

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