The rest was divided into three sections, inhabited by races which, if allied, were distinctly different in language, laws, and institutions. The Aquitani, who were connected with the Spaniards, or perhaps the Basques, held the country between the Pyrenees and the Garonne. The Belgae, whom Caesar believed to have been originally Germans, extended from the mouth of the Seine to the mouth of the Rhine, and inland to the Marne and the Moselle. The people whom the Romans meant especially when they spoke of Gauls occupied all the remainder. At one time the Celts had probably been master of the whole of France, but had gradually yielded to encroachment.

 

To this it should be added that there were some 200 different tribes of Celtic Gaul.

The news that had reached Rome and which will have alerted Caesar was that a Celtic people, the Helvetii, who had settled in Switzerland had decided, under duress from their German neighbors, to leave their homeland and travel west with a view to settling beyond the Rhone. This was a mass migration, men, women and children, well over 300,000 of them, and the direction in which they were moving seemed to indicate that they would pass through the Roman province. It was clear that this massive locust-like movement must be halted, or the province’s security would be put in jeopardy. The Allobroges, who inhabited what is now Savoy, were probably on their chosen route, but since they had recently been in revolt against Rome it was unlikely that they would do anything to oppose the Helvetii.

Caesar took eight days to reach Geneva, the legionaries making about 35 miles a day. That was where their strength lay, all over the world, against enemies who had no conception of their endurance and discipline. The fourth legion was sent up to join him, along with the allies or provincial auxiliaries. Even so, a legion at maximum strength had no more than 6,000 men and the Helvetii are credited with having had 92,000 men of military age. Caesar, for so long absent from the military world, totally absorbed in the almost equally dangerous one of Roman politics, and whose previous experiences in Spain, and earlier in Asia Minor, had been relatively small, showed from the very start that he remained a master here too. He immediately had the bridge over the Rhone at Geneva demolished.

Seeing that they could not expect an unopposed passage, the Helvetian chiefs came to him in a delegation. They said that they had no wish to make war against the Romans, and only asked for a peaceful passage through the province so that they could reach the lands where they wanted to settle—far in the west. Caesar prevaricated and told them he would give them a reply on 13 April (he had arrived at Geneva on the 2nd). This gave him eight days—eight days in which he intended to block the other routes by which the Helvetii could move on to the west. When they returned, still hopeful that everything could be arranged without recourse to arms, they found an implacable Caesar who told them that he could not allow them any passage through the province and that he would oppose any attempt to force one. It is clear throughout, reading between the lines, that the Helvetii were only on the move in search of new lands and, burdened with their families, and carts and baggage, had no wish for battle. They made one or two attempts to cross the Rh6ne, but in vain, and so they decided to take another and more difficult passage whereby they would not come in conflict with the Romans. This northern route passed through territory to the north of the Narbonese province and so would be of no concern to the province or its governor.

The threat, then, seemed over and another man might have congratulated himself on having achieved a considerable victory without recourse to arms, a brilliant piece of defensive generalship. Only a proconsul intent on conquest and military glory, as Caesar was, would have done anything more than check on the withdrawal of the Helvetii before returning with a feeling of considerable triumph to home base. But Caesar was after another kind of triumph altogether.

 

 

 

12

 

The Tools of the Trade

 

CAESAR had other plans for the “peaceful” withdrawal of the Helvetii. But, before considering this first of his Gallic campaigns, it is important to take a look at the men, the units and the arms with which Rome had built up her empire and with which Caesar was about to expand it. Naturally, in view of his Roman audience, Caesar does not bother to elaborate upon the equipment of his troops, but specialists in many countries have since made studies of Roman arms and armor, much helped by the activities of archaeologists. Enough is now known to throw some light upon almost all the basic activities of the legions.

The army of Rome had started out originally as a purely citizen army called out from their homes and farms whenever the republic was threatened and, as soon as the emergency was over, discharged. As for the legionary’s arms and armor, they were whatever he himself could provide. All men between seventeen and forty-six were considered available as soldiers of the state and were given a minimal payment to cover their time spent in the national service. It can readily be seen that such as system could work when these were no more than citizen-soldiers and peasant-farmers defending their small republic, but it began to break down the moment that Rome acquired an empire and overseas entanglements. The man who changed the old military system was Caesar’s uncle, the great Marius, who realized during a lengthy war in North Africa—where there was naturally a great shortage of recruits—that the whole system must be radically altered to meet the new circumstances.

Previously, a property-qualification as well as Roman citizenship had been required of a legionary, but Marius now discarded the former and threw the army open to every Roman citizen. This meant that the urban poor, who were steadily increasing in numbers, flocked to the legions.