"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries
had been wanted in those days, you should have had our vote to a
certainty. But Caius Julius, even under such a limitation of the
comparison, did a thing as much transcending this as it was greater to
project Rome across the Alps and the Pyrenees,--expanding the grand
Republic into crowning provinces of 1. France (_Gallia_), 2. Belgium, 3.
Holland (_Batavia_), 4. England (_Britannia_), 5. Savoy (_Allobroges_),
6. Switzerland (_Helvetia_), 7. Spain (_Hispania_),--than to decorate a
street or to found an amphitheatre. Dr. Beattie once observed that, if
that question as to the greatest man in action upon the rolls of History
were left to be collected from the suffrages already expressed in books
and scattered throughout the literature of all nations, the scale would
be found to have turned prodigiously in Caesar's favour as against any
single competitor; and there is no doubt whatsoever that even amongst
his own countrymen, and his own contemporaries, the same verdict would
have been returned, had it been collected upon the famous principle of
Themistocles, that he should be reputed the first whom the greatest
number of rival voices had pronounced to be the second.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Works_: Latin folio, Rome, 1469; Venice, 1471; Florence, 1514; London,
1585. De Bello Gallico, Esslingen (?), 1473. Translations by John
Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester (John Rastell), of Julius Caesar's
Commentaries-"newly translated into Englyshe ... as much as concerneth
thys realme of England"--1530 folio; by Arthur Goldinge, The Eyght
Bookes of C. Julius Caesar, London, 1563, 1565, 1578, 1590; by Chapman,
London, 1604 folio; by Clem. Edmonds, London, 1609; the same, with
Hirtius, 1655, 1670, 1695 folio with commendatory verses by Camden,
Daniel, and Ben Johnson (_sic_). Works: Translated by W. Duncan, 1753,
1755; by M. Bladen, 8th ed., 1770; MacDevitt, Bohn's Library, 1848. De
Bello Gallico, translated by R. Mongan, Dublin, 1850; by J.B. Owgan and
C.W. Bateman, 1882. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, translated
by T. Rice Holmes, London, 1908 (see also Holmes' Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul, 1911). Caesar's Gallic War, translated by Rev. F.P. Long, Oxford,
1911; Books IV. and V. translated by C.H. Prichard, Cambridge, 1912. For
Latin text of De Bello Gallico see Bell's Illustrated Classical Series;
Dent's Temple Series of Classical Texts, 1902; Macmillan and Co., 1905;
and Blackie's Latin Texts, 1905-7.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
THE WAR IN GAUL
THE CIVIL WAR
THE COMMENTARIES OF
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR
THE WAR IN GAUL
BOOK I
I.--All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae
inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are
called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other
in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls
from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the
Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are
farthest from the civilisation and refinement of [our] Province, and
merchants least frequently resort to them and import those things which
tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans,
who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war;
for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in
valour, as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, when
they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage
war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that
the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhone: it is bounded
by the river Garonne, the ocean, and the territories of the Belgae: it
borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the
river Rhine, and stretches towards the north. The Belgae rise from the
extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine;
and look towards the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from
the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the
ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun and
the north star.
II.--Among the Helvetii, Orgetorix was by far the most distinguished and
wealthy. He, when Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso were consuls, incited
by lust of sovereignty, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, and
persuaded the people to go forth from their territories with all their
possessions, [saying] that it would be very easy, since they excelled
all in valour, to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. To this he
the more easily persuaded them, because the Helvetii are confined on
every side by the nature of their situation; on one side by the Rhine, a
very broad and deep river, which separates the Helvetian territory from
the Germans; on a second side by the Jura, a very high mountain which is
[situated] between the Sequani and the Helvetii; on a third by the Lake
of Geneva, and by the river Rhone, which separates our Province from the
Helvetii. From these circumstances it resulted that they could range
less widely, and could less easily make war upon their neighbours; for
which reason men fond of war [as they were] were affected with great
regret. They thought, that considering the extent of their population,
and their renown for warfare and bravery, they had but narrow limits,
although they extended in length 240, and in breadth 180 [Roman] miles.
III.--Induced by these considerations, and influenced by the authority
of Orgetorix, they determined to provide such things as were necessary
for their expedition--to buy up as great a number as possible of beasts
of burden and waggons--to make their sowings as large as possible, so
that on their march plenty of corn might be in store--and to establish
peace and friendship with the neighbouring states. They reckoned that a
term of two years would be sufficient for them to execute their designs;
they fix by decree their departure for the third year. Orgetorix is
chosen to complete these arrangements. He took upon himself the office
of ambassador to the states: on this journey he persuades Casticus, the
son of Catamantaledes (one of the Sequani, whose father had possessed
the sovereignty among the people for many years, and had been styled
"_friend_" by the senate of the Roman people), to seize upon the
sovereignty in his own state, which his father had held before him, and
he likewise persuades Dumnorix, an Aeduan, the brother of Divitiacus,
who at that time possessed the chief authority in the state, and was
exceedingly beloved by the people, to attempt the same, and gives him
his daughter in marriage. He proves to them that to accomplish their
attempts was a thing very easy to be done, because he himself would
obtain the government of his own state; that there was no doubt that the
Helvetii were the most powerful of the whole of Gaul; he assures them
that he will, with his own forces and his own army, acquire the
sovereignty for them. Incited by this speech, they give a pledge and
oath to one another, and hope that, when they have seized the
sovereignty, they will, by means of the three most powerful and valiant
nations, be enabled to obtain possession of the whole of Gaul.
IV.--When this scheme was disclosed to the Helvetii by informers, they,
according to their custom, compelled Orgetorix to plead his cause in
chains; it was the law that the penalty of being burned by fire should
await him if condemned. On the day appointed for the pleading of his
cause, Orgetorix drew together from all quarters to the court all his
vassals to the number of ten thousand persons; and led together to the
same place, and all his dependants and debtor-bondsmen, of whom he had a
great number; by means of these he rescued himself from [the necessity
of] pleading his cause. While the state, incensed at this act, was
endeavouring to assert its right by arms, and the magistrates were
mustering a large body of men from the country, Orgetorix died; and
there is not wanting a suspicion, as the Helvetii think, of his having
committed suicide.
V.--After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless attempt to do that which
they had resolved on, namely, to go forth from their territories. When
they thought that they were at length prepared for this undertaking,
they set fire to all their towns, in number about twelve--to their
villages about four hundred--and to the private dwellings that remained;
they burn up all the corn, except what they intend to carry with them;
that after destroying the hope of a return home, they might be the more
ready for undergoing all dangers. They order every one to carry forth
from home for himself provisions for three months, ready ground. They
persuade the Rauraci, and the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, their
neighbours, to adopt the same plan, and after burning down their towns
and villages, to set out with them: and they admit to their party and
unite to themselves as confederates the Boii, who had dwelt on the other
side of the Rhine, and had crossed over into the Norican territory, and
assaulted Noreia.
VI.--There were in all two routes by which they could go forth from
their country--one through the Sequani, narrow and difficult, between
Mount Jura and the river Rhone (by which scarcely one waggon at a time
could be led; there was, moreover, a very high mountain overhanging, so
that a very few might easily intercept them); the other, through our
Province, much easier and freer from obstacles, because the Rhone flows
between the boundaries of the Helvetii and those of the Allobroges, who
had lately been subdued, and is in some places crossed by a ford. The
furthest town of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the territories of
the Helvetii, is Geneva. From this town a bridge extends to the
Helvetii. They thought that they should either persuade the Allobroges,
because they did not seem as yet well-affected towards the Roman people,
or compel them by force to allow them to pass through their territories.
Having provided everything for the expedition, they appoint a day on
which they should all meet on the bank of the Rhone. This day was the
fifth before the kalends of April [_i.e._ the 28th of March], in the
consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius [B.C. 58].
VII.--When it was reported to Caesar that they were attempting to make
their route through our Province, he hastens to set out from the city,
and, by as great marches as he can, proceeds to Further Gaul, and
arrives at Geneva. He orders the whole Province [to furnish] as great a
number of soldiers as possible, as there was in all only one legion in
Further Gaul: he orders the bridge at Geneva to be broken down. When the
Helvetii are apprised of his arrival, they send to him, as ambassadors,
the most illustrious men of their state (in which embassy Numeius and
Verudoctius held the chief place), to say "that it was their intention
to march through the Province without doing any harm, because they had"
[according to their own representations] "no other route:--that they
requested they might be allowed to do so with his consent." Caesar,
inasmuch as he kept in remembrance that Lucius Cassius, the consul, had
been slain, and his army routed and made to pass under the yoke by the
Helvetii, did not think that [their request] ought to be granted; nor
was he of opinion that men of hostile disposition, if an opportunity of
marching through the Province were given them, would abstain from
outrage and mischief. Yet, in order that a period might intervene, until
the soldiers whom he had ordered [to be furnished] should assemble, he
replied to the ambassadors, that he would take time to deliberate; if
they wanted anything, they might return on the day before the ides of
April [on April 12th].