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IN MONTHLY VOLUMES. 
 
 ANCIENT CLASSICS 
 
 FOR 
 
 ENGLISH READERS. 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 Price $i.oo, bound in cloth. 
 
 The aim of the present series will be to explain, sufficiently f of 
 general readers y who these great writers were, and what they 
 wrote ; to give, wherever possible, some connected outline oj 
 the story which they tell, or the facts which they record, checked 
 by the results of modern investigations ; to present some oJ 
 their most striking passages in approved English translations, 
 and to illustrate them generally from 7nodern writers; to 
 serve, in short, as a popular retrospect of the chief literature 
 of Greece and Rome. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES, 
 Times. 
 
 We can confidently recommend * Ancient Classics for English 
 Readers * to all who have forgotten their Greek and desire to refresh 
 their knowledge of Homer. As for those to whom the series is 
 chiefly addressed, who have never learnt Greek at all, this little 
 book gives them an opportunity v/hich they had not before, an op- 
 portunity not only of remedying a want they must have often felt, but 
 of remedying it by no patient and irksome toil, but by a few houn 
 of pleasant reading. 
 
Edinbnrgli Courant. 
 So excellently well is the work of condensation and explanation, 
 with occasional exemplifications of the nature of the Homeric master- 
 pieces by English translations, done, that one reads the little volumes 
 with all the interest which is excited by well-told tales. The task of 
 gaining information, which could only be performed by the merely 
 English reader through laborious consultation of classical dictionaries, 
 is so lightened and facilitated, that his first impulse on reading these 
 admirable works, will probably be to seek fuller knowledge of the 
 originals, so far as that at least can be obtained from translations. 
 To the man whose Greek has grown rusty from long disuse, such 
 pleasant guides will be as acceptable and quite as useful as to him 
 who has never known the delights of the most melodious and musical 
 of languages which the world has known. 
 
 St Andrews Gazette. 
 It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we hail the appearance of 
 what promises to be an admirable series of the ancient classics for 
 English readers. ... If the other volumes of this series now in 
 preparation maintain the excellence of the first, we predict good and 
 lasting results from the experiment. We have much pleasure in re- 
 commending this volume to all our readers, and particularly to the 
 youth of our schools, as affording far better mental nourishment than 
 the abominable stuff that is at present written for and read by our 
 boys in the shape'of sea -stories, sensational tales, and other unwhole- 
 some yellow -covered trash. This volume will be found as interest- 
 ing as any account of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round 
 Table, from whose adventures, by the way, Mr Collins often draws 
 happily and advantageously for illustration. With a complete guide 
 to the whole range of classical literature, as this series promises to be, 
 we are sure that a strong desire will be engendered for further ac- 
 quaintance with the great writers of antiquity, through the many ex- 
 cellent translations that we already possess. . . . We predict 
 also, that many who only retain a few tags of wool gathered from the 
 classic fold, or who may not have gone far in youth on the rough 
 scholastic road in the lumbering machines of old coach days, will be 
 induced to resume their journey in more approved means of locomo- 
 tion ; and that those who now stand on the "retired list" of scholars 
 will rejoice to renew personal acquaintance with their old friends. 
 Anyhow, by the issue of these modest volumes, we are very confident 
 in there resulting an increased appreciation of the form and spirit of 
 the ancient literatures. 
 
Ancient Classics for English Readers 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS. M.A. 
 
 C^ S AB 
 
The Volumes published of this Series contain 
 
 HOMER : THE ILIAD, by the Editor. 
 
 HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, by the Same. 
 
 HERODOTUS, by George C. Swayne, M.A. 
 
 C-^SAR, BY Anthony Trollope. 
 
 VIRGIL, BY THE Editor. 
 
 HORACE, BY Theodore Martin, 
 
 w^SCHYLUS, BY Reginald S. Copleston, M.A. 
 
 XENOPHON, BY Sir Alexander Grant, Bart., 
 LL.D. 
 
 CICERO, BY the Editor. 
 
 The following Authors, by various Contributors, are 
 in preparation : — 
 
 PLINY'S LETTERS. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 ARISTOPHANES. 
 
 JUVENAL. 
 
 HESIOD. 
 
 PLAUTUS. 
 
 TERENCE. 
 
 Others will follow. 
 
 \ Volume will be published Quarterly, price $i.oq 
 
THE COMMENTARIES 
 
 OF 
 
 c j; S A R 
 
 BY 
 
 ANTHONY TROLLOPE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1872. 
 

 .h' 
 
 ^'i 
 
 '(?- 
 
COKTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAQV 
 
 I. INTHODTJCTIO-JT, 1 
 
 II. FIRST BOOK OF THE WAR IN GATJL. — C-fflSAR DKIVES 
 FIRST THE SWISS AND THEN THE GERMANS OTTl 
 
 OF GAUL.— B.C. 58, 28 
 
 III. SECOND BOOK OF THE WAR IN GATJL.—C^SAR SUB- 
 DUES THE BELGIAN TRIBES.— B.C. 57, . . 45 
 IV. THIRD BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.--C^SAR SUB- 
 DUES THE WESTERN TRIBES OF GAUL. — B.C. 56, 54 
 V. FOURTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR 
 CROSSES THE RHINE, SLAUGHTERS THE GER- 
 MANS, AND GOES INTO BRITAIN. — B.C. 55, . 63 
 VL FIFTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C-^SAR's 
 SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. — THE Gi^ULS 
 RISE AGAINST HIM. — B.C. 54, . . . .74 
 VII. SIXTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR PUR- 
 SUES AMBIORIX. — THE MANNERS OF THE GAULS 
 AND OF THE GERMANS ARE CONTRASTED. — 
 
 B.C. 53, 88 
 
yi CONTENTS. 
 
 VIII. SEVENTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAIJL.--THE REVOLT 
 
 OP VERCINGETORIX. — B.C. 52, . . . . 100 
 
 IX. FIRST BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — C^SAR CROSSES 
 THE RUBICON. — FOLLOWS POMPEY TO BRUNDU- 
 SIUM.— AND CONQUERS AFRANIUS IN SPAIN. — 
 
 B.C. 49, 116 
 
 X. SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — THE TAKING OF 
 MARSEILLES.— VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 
 — THE FATE OF CURIO BEFORE UTIOA. — B.C. 49, 131 
 XL THIRD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — CiESAR FOLLOWS 
 POMPEY INTO ILLYRIA. — THE LINES OF PETRA 
 AND THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.— B.C. 48, . 146 
 XII. CONCLUSION, ••••••• 174 
 
C^SAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It may perhaps be fairly said that the Commentaries 
 of Caesar are the beginning of modern history. He 
 wrote, indeed, nearly two thousand years ago 5 but he 
 wrote, not of times then long past, but of things which 
 wore done under his own eyes, and of his own deeds. 
 And he wrote of countries with which we are familiar, 
 — of our Britain, for instance, which he twice invaded, 
 of peoples not so far remote but that we can identify 
 them with our neighbours and ourselves ; and he so 
 wrote as to make us feel that we are reading actual 
 history, and not romance. The simplicity of the nar- 
 ratives which he has left is their chief characteristic, 
 if not their greatest charm. We feel sure that the cir- 
 cumstances which he tells us did occur, and that they 
 occurred very nearly as he tells them. He deals with 
 those great movements in Europe from which have 
 A. c. vol. iv. A 
 
2 C^SAR. 
 
 sprung, and to which we can trace, the present politi- 
 cal condition of the nations. Interested as the scholar, 
 or the reader of general literature, may be in the great 
 deeds of the heroes of Greece, and in the burning words 
 of Greek orators, it is almost impossible for him to 
 connect by any intimate and thoroughly-trusted link 
 the fortunes of Athens, or Sparta, or Macedonia, with 
 our own times and our own position. It is almost 
 equally difficult to do so in regard to the events of 
 Eome and the Koman power before the time of Csesar. 
 "We cannot realise and bring home to ourselves the 
 Punic Wars or the Social War, the Scipios and the 
 Gracchi, or even the contest for power between Marius 
 and Sulla, as we do the Gallic Wars and the invasion 
 of Britain, by which the civilisation of Eome was first 
 carried westwards, or the great civil wars, — the " Eel- 
 lum Civile," — by which was commenced a line of em- 
 perors continued almost down to our own days, and to 
 which in some degree may be traced the origin and 
 formation of almost every existing European nation. 
 It is no doubt true that if we did but know the facts 
 correctly, we could refer back every political and social 
 condition of the present day to the remotest period of 
 man's existence ; but the interest fails us when the 
 facts become doubtful, and when the mind begins to fear 
 that history is mixed with romance. Herodotus is so 
 mythic that what delight we have in his writings comes 
 in a very slight degree from any desire on our part to 
 form a continuous chain from the days of which he 
 wrote down to our own. Between the marvels of He- 
 rodotus and the facts of Caesar there is a great interval, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 from which have come down to us the works of various 
 noble historians ; but with Caesar it seems that that 
 certainty commences which we would wish to regard as 
 the distinguishing characteristic of modern history. 
 
 It must be remembered from the heginning that 
 Caesar wrote only of what he did or of what he caused 
 to be done himself. At least he only so wrote in the 
 two works of his which remain to us. We are told 
 that he produced much besides his Comm-cntaries, — 
 among other works, a poem,-^— but the two Commen- 
 taries are all of his that we have. The former, in seven 
 books, relates the facts of his seven first campaigns in 
 Gaul for seven consecutive years ; those campaigns in 
 which he reduced the nations living between the Ehine, 
 the Rhone, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the 
 sea which we now call the British Channel.'^' The 
 latter Commentary relates the circumstances of the 
 civil war in which he contended for power against Pom- 
 pey, his former colleague, with Crassus, in the first 
 triumvirate, and established that empire to which 
 Augustus succeeded after a second short-lived trium- 
 virate between himself and Lepidus and Antony. 
 
 It is the object of this little volume to describe 
 Caesar^s Commentaries for the aid of those who do 
 not read Latin, and not to write Roman history; 
 but it may be well to say something, in a few intro- 
 ductory lines, of the life and character of our author. 
 We are all more or less familiar with the name of 
 Julius Caesar. In our early days we learned that he 
 
 * There is an eighth book, referring to an eighth and ninth 
 campaign, but it is not the work of Caesar. 
 
4 C^SAR. 
 
 was the first of those twelve Roman emperors with 
 whose names it was thought right to burden our 
 young memories ; and we were taught to understand 
 that when he began to reign there ceased to exist that 
 form of republican government in which two consuls 
 elected annually did in truth preside over the fortunes 
 of the empire. There had first been seven kings, — 
 whose names have also been made familiar to us, — then 
 the consuls, and after them the twelve Caesars, of 
 whom the great Julius was the first. So much we 
 all know of him ; and we know, too, that he was killed 
 in the Capitol by conspirators just as he was going to 
 become emperor, although this latter scrap of know- 
 ledge seems to be paradoxically at variance with the 
 former. In addition to this we know that he was a 
 great commander and conqueror and writer, who did 
 things and wrote of them in the " veni, vidi, vici " 
 style — saying of himself, " I came, I saw, I con- 
 quered." We know that a great Roman army was 
 intrusted to him, and that he used this army for the 
 purpose of establishing his own power in Rome by 
 taking a portion of it over the Rubicon, which little 
 river separated the province which he had been ap- 
 pointed to govern from the actual Roman territory 
 within which, as a military servant of the magistrates 
 of the republic, he had no business to appear as a 
 general at the head of his army. So much we know ; 
 and in the following very short memoir of the great 
 commander and historian, no eff'ort shall be made, — as 
 has been so frequently and so painfully done for us in 
 late years, — to upset the teachings of our youth, and to 
 
INTRODUCTION, 6 
 
 prove that the old lessons were wrong. They were 
 all fairly accurate, and shall now only be supplemented 
 by a few further circumstances which were doubtless 
 once learned by all school-boys and school-girls, but 
 which some may perhaps have forgotten since those 
 happy days. 
 
 Dean Merivale, in one of the early chapters of his 
 admirable history of the Eomans under the Empire, 
 declares that Caius Julius Caesar is the greatest name 
 in history. He makes the claim without reserve, and 
 attaches to it no restriction, or suggestion that such is 
 simply his own opinion. Claims of this nature, made 
 by writers on behalf of their pet-heroes, v/e are, all of 
 us, generally inclined to dispute; but this claim, great 
 as it is, can hardly be disputed. Dr Merivale does not 
 say that Caesar was the greatest man that ever lived. 
 In measuring such supremacy, men take for themselves 
 various standards. To satisfy the judgment of one, it 
 is necessary that a poet should be selected ; for another, 
 a teacher of religion ; for a third, some intellectual hero 
 who has assisted in discovering the secrets of nature 
 by the operations of his own brain; for a fourth, a 
 ruler, — and so on. But the names of some of these 
 cannot be said to be great in history. Homer, Luther, 
 Galileo, and Charles V., are great names, — as are also 
 Shakespeare, Knox, Queen Elizabeth, and Newton. 
 Among these, the two rulers would probably be the 
 least in general admiration. But no one can assert that 
 the names of the poets, divines, and philosophers, are 
 greater than theirs in history. The Dean means that 
 of all men who have lived, and whose deeds are known 
 
6 CjEsar. 
 
 to us, Julius Caesar did most to move the world; and 
 we think that the Dean is right. Those whom we 
 might, perhaps, compare with Caesar, are Alexander, 
 Charlemagne, Cromwell, iN'apoleon, and Washington. 
 In regard to the first two, we feel, when claims are 
 made for them, that they are grounded on the perform- 
 ance of deeds only partially known to us. In the days 
 of Alexander, history was still dark, — and it had be- 
 come dark again in those of Charlemagne. What Crom- 
 well did was confined to our own islands, and, though 
 he was great for us, he does not loom as large before 
 the eyes of mankind in general as does one who moved 
 all Europe, present and future. If there be any fair 
 antagonist to Caesar in this claim, it is ^Napoleon. As 
 a soldier he was equally great, and the area of his 
 operations was as extended. But there is an old say- 
 ing which tells us that no one can be sure of his 
 fortune till the end shall have come ; and Caesar's 
 death on the steps of the Capitol was more in accord- 
 ance with our ideas of greatness than that of I^apo- 
 leon at St Helena. We cannot, moreover, but feel 
 that there were fewer drawbacks from greatness in the 
 personal demeanour of the Eoman ^'Imperator" and 
 Dictator than in that of the French Emperor. Eor 
 Julius Caesar was never really emperor, in that sense in 
 which we use the word, and in accordance with which 
 his successor Augustus really became an emperor. As 
 to Washington, we may perhaps allow that in moral 
 attributes he was the greatest of all. To aid his 
 country he dared all, — even a rebel's disgraceful death, 
 had he not succeeded where success was most improba 
 
INTRODUCTION, ^ 
 
 ble ; and in all that he attempted he succeeded. His 
 
 is the name that culminates among those of the men 
 who made the United States a nation, and does so by 
 the eager consent of all its people. And his work 
 came altogether from patriotism, — with no alloy of 
 personal ambition. But it cannot be said that the 
 things he did were great as those which were done 
 by Caesar, or that he himself was as potent in the 
 doing of them. He ventured everything with as grand 
 a purpose as ever warmed the heart of man, and he 
 was successful ; but the things which he did were in 
 themselves small in comparison with those effected by 
 his less noble rival for fame. Mommsen, the German 
 historian, describes Cassar as a man too great for the 
 scope of his intelligence and power of delineation. 
 " The historian," he says, speaking of Caesar, " when 
 once in a thousand years he encounters the perfect, 
 can only be silent regarding it." Napoleon also, in his 
 life of Caesar, paints his hero as perfect ; but ISTapoleon 
 when doing so is, in fact, claiming godlike perfection 
 for that second Caesar, his uncle. And the perfection 
 which he claims is not that of which Mommsen 
 speaks. The German intends to convey to us his 
 conviction that Caesar was perfect in human capacity 
 and intelligence. [N'apoleon claims for him moral per- 
 fection. " We may be convinced," says the Emperor, 
 " by the above facts, that during his first consulate, 
 one only motive animated Caesar, — namely, the public 
 interest." We cannot, however, quite take the facts 
 as the Emperor of the French gives them to us, nor 
 can we share his conviction ; but the common consent 
 
8 CJESAB. 
 
 of reading men will probably acknowledge that there is 
 in history no name so great as that of Julius Caesar, — 
 of whose written works some account is intended to be 
 given in the following chapters. 
 
 He was born just one hundred years before Christ, 
 and came of an old noble Roman family, of which Ju- 
 lius and not Ccesar was the distinctive name. Whence 
 came the name of Csesar has been a matter of doubt 
 and of legend. Some say that it arose from the thick 
 hair of one of the Julian tribe ; others that a certain 
 scion of the family, like Macduff, " was from his mo- 
 ther's womb untimely ripped,'^ for which derivations 
 Latin words are found to be opportune. Again we are 
 told that one of the family once kept an elephant, — and 
 we are referred to some eastern language in which the 
 word for elephant has a sound like Caesar. Another 
 legend also rose from Caesar's name, which, in the Gal- 
 lic language of those days, — very luckily for Caesar, — 
 sounded as though one should say, " Send him back.'' 
 Caesar's horse once ran away with him, and carried him 
 over to the enemy. An insolent Gaul, who knew him, 
 called out, " Caesar, Caesar ! " and so the other Gauls, 
 obeying the order supposed to be given, allowed the 
 illustrious one to escape. It must be acknowledged, 
 however, that the learned German who tells us this 
 story expresses a contemptuous conviction that it can- 
 not be true. Whatever may have produced the word, 
 its significance, derived from the doings and writings 
 of Caius Julius, has been very great. It has come to 
 mean in various languages the holder of despotic power ; 
 and though it is said that, as a fact, the Russian title 
 
INTRODUCTION, 9 
 
 Czar has no connection with, the Eoman word, so great 
 is the prestige of the name, that in the minds of men 
 the popular appellation of the Eussian Emperor will 
 always be connected with that of the line of the Eoman 
 Emperor. 
 
 Coesar was the nephew by marriage of that Marius 
 who, with alternations of bloody successes and seem- 
 ingly irreparable ruin, had carried on a contest with 
 Sulla for supreme power in the republic. Sulla in 
 these struggles had represented the aristocrats and pat- 
 ricians, — what we perhaps may call the Conservative 
 interest ; while Marius, whose origin was low, who had 
 been a common soldier, and, rising from the ranks, had 
 become the darling of the army and of the people, may 
 perhaps be regarded as one who would have called him- 
 self a Liberal, had any such term been known in those 
 days. His liberality, — as has been the case with other 
 political leaders since his time, — led him to personal 
 power. He was seven times Consul, having secured his 
 seventh election by atrocious barbarities and butcher- 
 ings of his enemies in the city ; and during this last con- 
 sulship he died. The young Caesar, though a patrician 
 by birth, succeeded his uncle in the popular party, and 
 seems from a very early age, — from his very boyhood, — 
 to have looked forward to the power which he might 
 win by playing his cards with discretion. 
 
 And very discreet he was, — self-confident to a won- 
 derful degree, and patient also. It is to be presumed 
 that most of our rea(Jcrs know how the Eoman Eepub- 
 lic fell, and the Eoman Empire became established as 
 the result of the civil wars which began with Marius 
 
10 CjESAR, 
 
 and ended with that '' young Octavius" whom we better 
 recognise as Augustus Caesar. Julius Csesar was the 
 nephew by marriage of Marius, and Augustus was the 
 great-nephew and heir of Julius. By means of con- 
 scriptions and murders, worse in their nature, though 
 less probably in number, than those which disgraced 
 the French Eevolution, the power which Marius 
 achieved almost without foresight, for which the great 
 Caesar strove from his youth upwards with constant 
 foresight, was confirmed in the hands of Augustus, and 
 bequeathed by him to the emperors. In looking back 
 at the annals of the world, we shall generally find that 
 despotic power has first grown out of popular move- 
 ment against authority. It was so with our own 
 Cromwell, has twice been so in the history of modern 
 France, and certainly was so in the formation of the 
 Eoman Empire. In the great work of establishing 
 that empire, it was the mind and hand and courage of 
 Caesar that brought about the result, whether it was for 
 good or evil. And in looking at the lives of the three 
 men — Marius, Csesar, and Augustus, who followed each 
 other, and all worked to the same end, the destruction 
 of that oligarchy which was called a Eepublic inEome — 
 we find that the one was a man, while the others were 
 beasts of prey. The cruelties of Marius as an old man, 
 and of Augustus as a young one, were so astounding as, 
 even at this distance, to horrify the reader, though he 
 remembers that Christianity had not yet softened men's 
 hearts. Marius, the old man, almost swam in the 
 blood of his enemies, as also did his rival Sulla ; but 
 the young Octavius, he whom the gods favoured so 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 long as the almost divioe"^ Augustus, cemented his 
 throne with the blood of his friends. To complete the 
 satisfaction of Lepidus and Antony, his comrades in 
 the second triumyirate, he did not scruple to add to 
 the list of those who were to die, the names of the 
 nearest and dearest to him. Between these monsters 
 of cruelty — between Marius and Sulla, who went before 
 him, and Octavius and Antony who followed him — 
 Csesar has become famous for clemency. And yet the 
 hair of the reader almost stands on end with horror as 
 C^sar recounts in page after page the stories of cities 
 burned to the ground, and whole communities slaugh- 
 tered in cold blood. Of the destruction of the women 
 and children of an entire tribe, Csesar will leave the 
 unimpassioned record in one line. But this at least 
 may be said of Caesar, that he took no delight in 
 slaughter. When it became in his sight expedient that 
 a people should suffer, so that others might learn to 
 yield and to obey, he could give the order apparently 
 without an effort. And we hear of no regrets, or of any 
 remorse which followed the execution of it. But blood- 
 shed in itself was not sweet to him. He was a discreet, 
 far-seeing man, and could do without a scruple what dis- 
 cretion and caution demanded of him. 
 
 And it may be said of Csesar that he was in some 
 sort guided in his life by sense of duty and love of 
 country ; as it may also be said of his great contem- 
 poraries, Pompey and Cicero. With those who went 
 
 * Coelo tonantem credidimiis Jovem 
 Regnare ; prsesens Divus habebitur 
 Augustus. 
 
12 CjESAR, 
 
 before him, Marius and Sulla, as also with those who 
 followed him, Antony and Augustus, it does not seem 
 that any such motives actuated them. Love of power 
 and greed, hatred of their enemies and personal ambi- 
 tion, a feeling that they were urged on by their fates 
 to seek for high place, and a resolve that it was better 
 to kill than be killed, impelled them to their courses. 
 These feelings were strong, too, with Caesar, as they are 
 strong to this day with statesmen and with generals ; 
 but mingled with them in Caesar's breast there was a 
 noble idea, that he would be true to the greatness of 
 Eome, and that he would grasp at power in order that 
 the Eoman Empire might be well governed. Augustus, 
 doubtless, ruled well ; and to Julius Caesar very little 
 scope for ruling was allowed after his battling was 
 done; but to Augustus no higher praise can be 
 assigned than that he had the intelligence to see that 
 the temporary wellbeing of the citizens of Rome was 
 the best guarantee for his own security. 
 
 Early in life Caesar lifted himself to high position, 
 though he did so in the midst of dangers. It was the 
 wonder of those around him that Sulla did not mur- 
 der him when he was young, — crush him while he 
 was yet, as it were, in his shell ; but Sulla spared 
 him, and he rose apace. We are told that he became 
 priest of Jupiter at seventeen, and he was then already 
 a married man. He early trained himself as a public 
 orator, and amidst every danger espoused the popular 
 cause in Eome. He served his country in. the East, — in 
 Bithynia, probably, — escaping, by doing so, the perils of 
 a residence in the city. He became Quaestor and then 
 
INTRODUCTION, 13 
 
 /Edile, assisted "by all the Marian party, as that party 
 would assist the rising man whom they regarded as 
 their future leader. He attacked and was attacked, 
 and was *^ indefatigable in harassing the aristo- 
 cracy,"* who strove, but strove in vain, to crush 
 him. Though young, and addicted to all the 
 pleasures of youth, — a trifler, as Sulla once called 
 him, — he omitted to learn nothing that was neces- 
 sary for him to know as a chief of a great party 
 and a leader of great armies. When he was thirty- 
 seven he was made Pontifex Maximus, the official 
 chief of the priesthood of Eome, the office gi'eatest 
 in honour of any in the city, although opposed by 
 the whole weight of the aristocracy, and although 
 Catulus was a candidate, who, of all that party, was 
 the highest not only in renown but in virtue. He 
 became Praetor the next year, though again he was 
 opposed by all the influence of those who feared him. 
 And, after his twelve months of office, he assumed 
 the government of Spain, — the province allotted to 
 him as Propraetor, in accordance with the usage of the 
 Republic, — in the teeth of a decree of the Senate order- 
 ing him to remain in Rome. Here he gained his first 
 great military success, first made himself known to 
 his soldiery, and came back to Rome entitled to the 
 honour of a triumph. 
 
 But there was still another step on the ladder of the 
 
 State before he could assume the position which no 
 
 doubt he already saw before him. He must be Consul 
 
 before he could be the master of many legions, and in 
 
 * The words are taken from Dean Merivale's history. 
 
14 C^SAR. 
 
 order that he might sue in proper form for the consul- 
 ship, it was necessary that he should abandon his 
 Triumph. He could only triumph as holding the office 
 of General of the Eepublic's forces, and as General or 
 Imperator he could not enter the city. He abandoned 
 the Triumph, sued for his office in the common fashion, 
 and enabled the citizens to say that he preferred their 
 service to his personal honours. At the age of forty-one 
 he became Consul. It was during the struggle for the 
 consulship that the triumvirate was formed, of which 
 subsequent ages have heard so much, and of which 
 Romans at the time heard probably so little. Pompey, 
 who had been the political child of Sulla, and had 
 been the hope of the patricians to whom he belonged, 
 had returned to Rome after various victories which he 
 had achieved as Proconsul in the East, had triumphed, 
 — and had ventared to recline on his honours, dis- 
 banding his army and taking to himself the credit of 
 subsiding into privacy. The times were too rough for 
 such honest duty, and Pompey found himself for a 
 while slighted by his party. Though he had thought 
 himself able to abandon power, he could not bear the 
 loss of it. It may be that he had conceived himself 
 able to rule the city by his influence without the aid 
 of his legions. Caesar tempted him, and they two with 
 Crassus, who was wanted for his wealth, formed the 
 first triumvirate. By such pact among themselves 
 they were to rule all Eome and all Rome's provinces ; 
 but doubtless, by resolves within himself of which no 
 one knew, Caesar intended even then to grasp the do- 
 minion of the whole in his own hands. During the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 years that followed, — the years in which Caesar was en- 
 gaged in his Gallic wars, — Pompey remained at Eome, 
 not indeed as Caesar's friend — for that hollow friend- 
 ship was hrought to an end by the death of Julia, 
 Caesar's daughter, whom Pompey, though five years 
 Caesar's elder, had married — but in undecided rivalship 
 to the active man who in foreign wars was preparing 
 legions by which to win the Empire. Afterwards, 
 when Caesar, as we shall hear, had crossed the Bubicon, 
 their enmity was declared. It was natural that they 
 should be enemies. In middle life, Pompey, as Ave 
 have seen, had married Caesar's daughter, and Caesar's 
 second wife had been a Pompeia.*^ But when they 
 were young, and each was anxious to attach himself to 
 the politics of his own party, Pompey had married the 
 daughter-in-law of Sulla, and Caesar had married the 
 daughter of Cinna, who had almost been joined with 
 
 * She was that wife v/ho was false with Clodius, and whom 
 Csesar divorced, declaring that Caesar's wife must not even be 
 suspected. He would not keep the false wife ; neither would 
 he at that moment take part in the accusation against Clodius, 
 who was of his party, and against whom such accusation backed 
 by Csesar would have been fatal. The intrusion of the dema- 
 gogue into Caesar's house in the pursuit of Caesar's wife dur- 
 ing the mysteries of the Bona Dea became the subject of a trial 
 in Rome. The offence was terrible and was notorious. Clodius, 
 who was hated and feared by the patricians, was a favourite 
 with the popular party. The offender was at last brought to 
 trial, and was acquitted by venal judges. A word spoken by 
 the injured husband would have insured his condemnation, 
 but that word Csesar would not speak. His wife he could 
 divorce, but he would not jeopardise his power with his own 
 party by demanding the punishment of him who had debauched 
 her. 
 
16 CjESAR, 
 
 Marius in leading the popular party. Such having 
 been the connection they had made in their early lives, it 
 was natural that Pompey and Caesar should be enemies, 
 and that the union of those two with any other third 
 in a triumvirate should be but a hollow compromise, 
 planned and carried out only that time might be gained. 
 Caesar was now Consul, and from his consular chair 
 laughed to scorn the Senate and the aristocratic col- 
 league with whom he was joined, — Bibulus, of whom 
 we shall again hear in the Commentary on the civil 
 war. During his year of office he seems to have 
 ruled almost supreme and almost alone. The Senate 
 was forced to do his bidding, and Pompey, at any rate 
 for this year, was his ally. We already know that to 
 praetors and to consuls, after their year of office in the 
 city, were confided the government of the great pro- 
 vinces of the Eepublic, and that these officers while so 
 governing were called propraetors and proconsuls. 
 After his praetorship Caesar had gone for a year to 
 southern Spain, the province which had been assigned 
 to him, whence he came back triumphant, — but not to 
 enjoy his Triumph. At the expiration of his consul- 
 ship the joint provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and lUy- 
 ricum were assigned to him, not for one year, but for 
 five years ; and to these was added Transalpine Gaul, 
 by which grant dominion was given to him over all 
 that country which we now know as I^orthern Italy, 
 over Illyria to the east, and to the west across the 
 Alps, over the Eoman province already e^^tablished in 
 the south of France. This province, bou'^^icd on the 
 north by Lake Leman and the Swiss mdl^tains, ran 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 south, to tlie Mediterranean, and to the west half 
 across the great neck of land which joins Spain to 
 the continent of Europe. This province of Trans- 
 alpine Gaul was already Koman, and to Caesar was 
 intrusted the task of defending this, and of defending 
 Rome itself, from the terrible valour of the Gauls. 
 That he might do this it was necessary that he should 
 collect his legions in that other Gaul which we now 
 know as the north of Italy. 
 
 It does not seem that there was any preconceived 
 idea that Caesar should reduce all Gallia beneath the 
 Roman yoke. Hitherto Rome had feared the Gauls, 
 and had been subject to their inroads. The Gauls in 
 former years had even made their way as invaders into 
 the very city, and had been bought out with a ransom. 
 They had spread themselves over ]N"orthern Italy, and 
 hence, when Northern Italy was conquered by Roman 
 arms, it became a province under the name of Cisalpine 
 Gaul. Then, during the hundred years which preceded 
 Caesar's wars, a province was gradually founded and 
 extended in the south of France, of which Marseilles 
 was the kernel. Massilia had been a colony of Greek 
 merchants, and was supported by the alliance of Rome. 
 Whither such alliance leads is known to all readers 
 of history. The Greek colony became a Roman town, 
 and the Roman province stretched itself around the 
 town. It was Caesar's duty, as governor of Transalpine 
 Gaul, to see th^t the poor province was not hurt by 
 those ravaging Gauls. How he performed that duty 
 he tells us ' his first Commentary. 
 
 During ,Jie fourth year of his office, while Pompey 
 A. c. ♦ol. iv. B 
 
18 C^SAR, 
 
 and Crassus, his colleagues in the then existing trium- 
 virate, were consuls, his term of dominion over the 
 three provinces was prolonged by the addition of five 
 other years. But he did not see the end of the ten 
 years in that scene of action. Julia, his daughter, 
 had died, and his great rival was estranged from him. 
 The Senate had clamoured for his recall, and Pompey, 
 with douhtfiil words, had assented. A portion of his 
 army was demanded from him, was sent by him into Italy 
 in obedience to the Senate, and shortly afterwards was 
 placed under the command of Pompey. Then Caesar 
 found that the Italian side of the Alps was the more 
 convenient for his purposes, that the Hither or Cis- 
 alpine Gaul demanded his services, and that it would 
 be well for him to be near the Pubicon. The second 
 Commentary, in three books, ' De Bello Civili,' giving 
 us his record of the civil war, tells us of his deeds and 
 fortunes for the next two years, — the years B.C. 49 and 
 48. The continuation of his career as a general is 
 related in three other Commentaries, not by his own 
 hand, to which, as being beyond the scope of this 
 volume, only short allusion will be made. Then came 
 one year of power, full of glory, and, upon the whole, 
 well used ; and after that there came the end, of which 
 the tale has been so often told, when he fell, stabbed 
 by friend and foe, at the foot of Pompey's pillar in 
 the Capitol. 
 
 It is only further necessary that a few words should 
 be added as to the character of Caesar's writings, — for 
 it is of his writings rather than of his career that it is 
 intended here to give some idea to those who have not 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 an opportunity of reading them. Csesar's story can 
 hardly be told in this little volume, for it is the his- 
 tory of the world as the world then was. The word 
 which our author has chosen as a name for his work, — 
 and which now has become so well known as connected 
 with Caesar, that he who uses it seems to speak of Caesar, 
 — means, in Caesar's sense, a Memoir. Were it not for 
 Caesar, a " Commentary " would be taken to signify that 
 which the critic had added, rather than the work which 
 the author had first produced. Caesar's ' ' Commentaries " 
 are memoirs written by himself, descriptive of his differ- 
 ent campaigns, in which he treats of himself in the third 
 person, and tells his story as it might have been told 
 by some accompanying scribe or secretary. This being 
 so, we are of course driven to inquire whether some 
 accompanying scribe or secretary may not in truth have 
 done the work. And there is doubtless one great argu- 
 ment which must be powerful with us all towards the 
 adoption of such a surmise. The amount of work which 
 Caesar had on hand, not only in regard to his campaigns, 
 but in the conduct of his political career, was so great 
 as to have overtasked any brain without the addition of 
 literary labour. Surely no man was ever so worked ; 
 for the doctrine of the division of labour did not pre- 
 vail then in great affairs as it does now. Caesar was not 
 only a general ; he was albo an engineer, an astrono- 
 mer, an orator, a poet, a high priest — to whom, as such, 
 though himself, as we are told, a disbeliever in the gods 
 of Olympus, the intricate and complicated system of 
 Eoman worship was a necessary knowledge. And he 
 was a politician, of whom it may be said that, though 
 
20 C^SAR. 
 
 he was intimately acquainted with the ferocity of op- 
 position, he knew nothing of its comparative leisure. 
 We have had busy statesmen writing books, two prime 
 ministers translating Homer, another writing novels, a 
 fourth known as a historian, a dramatist, and a bio- 
 grapher. But they did not lead armies as well as the 
 Houses of Parliament, and they were occasionally blessed 
 by the opportunities of comparative political retirement 
 which opposition affords. Erom the beginning of the 
 Gallic war, Caesar was fighting in person every year but 
 one till he died. It was only by personal fighting that 
 he could obtain success. The reader of the following 
 pages will find that, with the solitary exception of the 
 siege of Marseilles, nothing great was done for him in 
 his absence. And he had to make his army as well as 
 to lead it. Legion by legion, he had to collect it as he 
 needed it, and to collect it by the force of his own char- 
 acter and of his own name. The abnormal plunder 
 with which it was necessary that his soldiers should be 
 allured to abnormal valour and toil had to be given as 
 though from his own hand. For every detail of the sol- 
 diers' work he was responsible ; and at the same time 
 it was incumbent on him so to manipulate his Eoman 
 enemies at Rome, — and, harder still than that, his Ro- 
 man friends, — that confusion and destruction should not 
 fall upon him as a politician. Thus weighted, could 
 he write his own Commentaries ? There is reason to 
 believe that there was collected by him, no doubt with 
 the aid of his secretaries, a large body of notes which 
 were known as the Ephemerides of Caesar, — ^jottings 
 down, as we may say, taken from day to day. Were 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 not the Commentaries which bear Caesar's name com- 
 posed from these notes by some learned and cunning 
 secretary 1 
 
 These notes have been the cause of much scholastic 
 wrath to some of the editors and critics. One learned 
 German, hotly arguing that Caesar wrote no Ephem- 
 erides, does allow that somebody must have written 
 down the measurements of the journeys, of the moun- 
 tains, and of the rivers, the numbers also of the cap- 
 tives and of the slaves. "* ^' I^ot even I," says he, — 
 " not even do I believe that Csesar was able to keep 
 all these things simply in his memory." Then he goes 
 on to .assert that to the keeping of such notes any 
 scribe was equal ; and that it was improbable that 
 Caesar could have found time for the keeping of notes 
 when absolutely in his tent. The indignation and 
 enthusiasm are comic, but the reasoning seems to 
 be good. The notes were probably collected under 
 Caesar's immediate eyes by his secretaries ; but there 
 is ample evidence that the Commentaries themselves 
 are Caesar's own work. They seem to have become 
 known at once to the learned Eomans of the day; and 
 Cicero, who was probably the most learned, and cer- 
 tainly the best critic of the time, speaks of them with- 
 out any doubt as to their authorship. It was at once 
 known that the first seven hooks of the Gallic War 
 were written by Caesar, and that the eighth was not. 
 This seems to be conclusive. Eut in addition to this, 
 there is internal evidence. Caesar writes in the third 
 person, and is very careful to maintain that mode of 
 * Nipperdeius. 
 
22 CjESAR. 
 
 expression. But he is not so careful but that on three 
 or four occasions he forgets himself, and speaks in the 
 first person. ]^o other writer, writing for Caesar, would 
 have done so. And there are certain trifles in the 
 mode of telling the story, which must have been per- 
 sonal to the man. He writes of '' young " Crassus, and 
 ^^ young '* Brutus, as no scribe would have written; 
 and he shows, first his own pride in obtaining a legion 
 from Pompey^s friendship, and then his unmeasured 
 disgust when the Senate demand and obtain from him 
 that legion and another one, and when Pompey uses 
 them against himself, in a fashion which would go far 
 to prove the authenticity of each Commentary, were 
 any proof needed. But the assent of Caesar's contem- 
 poraries suffices for this without other evidence. 
 
 And it seems that they were written as the wars 
 were carried on, and that each was published at once. 
 Had it not been so, we could not understand that 
 Csesar should have begun the second Commentary 
 before he had finished the first. It seems that he 
 was hindered by the urgency of the Civil War from 
 writing what with him would have been the two 
 last books of the Gallic War, and therefore put the 
 completion of that work into the hands of his friend 
 Hirtius, who wrote the memoir of the two years in 
 one book. And Caesar's mode of speaking of men who 
 were at one time his friends and then his enemies, 
 shows that his first Commentary was completed and 
 out of hand before the other was written. Labienus, 
 who in the Gallic War was Caesar's most trusted lieu- 
 tenant, went over to the other side and served under 
 Pompey in the Civil War. He could not have failed 
 
INTRODUCTION, 23 
 
 to allude in some way to the desertion of Labienus, 
 in the first Commentary, had Labienus left him and 
 joined Pompey while the first Commentary was still 
 in his hands. 
 
 His style was at once recognised by the great literary 
 critic of the day as being excellent for its intended 
 purpose. Caesar is manifestly not ambitious of liter- 
 ary distinction, but is very anxious to convey to his 
 readers a narrative of his own doings, which shall be 
 graphic, succinct, intelligible, and sufficiently well ex- 
 pressed to insure the attention of readers. Cicero, the 
 great critic, thus speaks of the Commentaries ; '' Yalde 
 quidam, inquam, probandos ; nudi enim sunt, recti, et 
 venusti, omni ornatu orationis, tanquam veste, de- 
 tracto." The passage is easily understood, but not 
 perhaps very easily translated into English. " I pro- 
 nounce them, indeed, to be very commendable, for 
 they are simple, straightforward, agreeable, with all 
 rhetorical ornament stripped from them, as a garment 
 is stripped.'* This was written by Cicero while Caesar 
 was yet living, as the context shows. And Cicero 
 does not mean to imply that Caesar's writings are bald 
 or uncouth : the word " venusti " is evidence of 
 this. And again, speaking of Caesar's language, 
 Cicero says that Caesar spoke with more finished 
 choice of words than almost any other orator of the 
 day. And if he so spoke, he certainly so wrote, for 
 the great speeches of the Eomans were all written 
 compositions. Montaigne says of Caesar : " I read this 
 author with somewhat more reverence and respect than 
 is usually allowed to human writings, one while con- 
 sidering him in his person, by his actions and miracu- 
 
24 CjESAJR. 
 
 lous greatness, and another in the purity and inimitable 
 polish of his language and style, wherein he not only 
 excels all other historians, as Cicero confesses, but per- 
 ad venture even Cicero himself." Cicero, however, 
 confesses nothing of the kind, and Montaigne is so far 
 wrong. Caesar was a great favourite with Montaigne, 
 who always speaks of his hero with glowing enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 To us who love to make our language clear by the 
 number of words used, and who in writing rarely give 
 ourselves time for condensation, the closely -packed 
 style of Csesar is at first somewhat difficult of compre- 
 hension. It cannot be read otherwise than slowly 
 till the reader's mind is trained by practice to Csesarean 
 expressions, and then not with rapidity. Three or 
 four adjectives, or more probably participles, joined to 
 substantives in a sentence, are continually intended 
 to convey an amount of information for which, with 
 us, three or four other distinct sentences would be 
 used. It is almost impossible to give the meaning of 
 Caesar in English without using thrice as many words 
 as he uses. The same may be said of many Latin 
 writers, — perhaps of all ; so great was the Eoman 
 tendency to condensation, and so great is ours to 
 dilution. But with Caesar, though every word means 
 much, there are often many words in the same sen- 
 tence, and the reader is soon compelled to acknowledge 
 that skipping is out of the question, and that quick 
 reading is undesirable. 
 
 That which will most strike the ordinary English 
 reader in the narrative of Caesar is the cruelty of the 
 Romans, — cruelty of which Caesar himself is guilty to 
 
INTRODUCTION, 25 
 
 a frightful extent, and of which he never expresses 
 horror. And yet among his contemporaries he achieved 
 a character for clemency which he has retained to the 
 present day. In describing the character of Caesar, 
 without reference to that of his contemporaries, it is 
 impossible not to declare him to have been terribly 
 cruel. From bloodthirstiness he slaughtered none; 
 but neither from tenderness did he spare any. All 
 was done from policy ; and when policy seemed to him 
 to demand blood, he could, without a scruple, — as far 
 as we can judge, without a pang, — order the destruction 
 of human beings, having no regard to number, sex, age, 
 innocence, or helplessness. Our only excuse for him 
 is that he was a Eoman, and that Eomans were indif- 
 ferent to blood. Suicide was with them the common 
 mode of avoiding othervnse inevitable misfortune, and 
 it was natural that men who made light of their own 
 lives should also make light of the lives of others. 
 Of all those with whose names the reader will become 
 acquainted in the folloAving pages, hardly one or two 
 died in their beds. Caesar and Pompey, the two 
 great ones, were murdered. Dumnorix, the ^duan, 
 was killed by Caesar's orders. Yercingetorix, the gal- 
 lantest of the Gauls, was kept alive for years that his 
 death might grace Caesar's Triumph. Ariovistus, the 
 German, escaped from Caesar, but we hear soon after 
 of his death, and that the Germans resented it. He 
 doubtless was killed by a Eoman weapon. What 
 became of the hunted Ambiorix we do not know, 
 but his brother king Cativolcus poisoned himself with 
 the juice of yew-tree. Crassus, the partner of Caesar 
 and Pompey in the first triumvirate, was killed b7 
 
26 CjESAR. 
 
 the Parthians. Young Crassus, the son, Caesar's 
 officer in Gaul, had himself killed by his own men 
 that he might not fall into the hands of the Par- 
 thians, and his head was cut oif and sent to his 
 father. Labienus fell at Munda, in the last civil 
 war in Spain. Quintus Cicero, Caesar's lieuten- 
 ant, and his greater brother, the orator, and his son, 
 perished in the proscriptions of the second trium- 
 virate. Titurius and Cotta were slaughtered with all 
 their army by Ambiorix. Afranius was killed by 
 Caesar's soldiers after the last battle in Africa. Petreius 
 was hacked to pieces in amicable contest by King 
 Juba. Yarro indeed lived to be an old man, and to 
 write many books. Domitius, who defended Mar- 
 seilles for Pompey, was killed in the flight after Phar- 
 salia. Trebonius, who attacked Marseilles by land, 
 was killed by a son-in-law of Cicero at Smyrna. Of 
 Decimus Brutus, who attacked Marseilles by sea, one 
 Camillus cut off the head and sent it as a present to 
 Antony. Curio, who attempted to master the pro- ^ 
 vince of Africa on behalf of Caesar, rushed amidst his 
 enemy's swords and was slaughtered. King Juba, 
 who conquered him, failing to kill himself, had him- 
 self killed by a slave. Attius Varus, who had held 
 the province for Pompey, fell afterwards at Munda. 
 Marc Antony, Caesar's great lieutenant in the Pharsa- 
 lian wars, stabbed himself. Cassius Longinus, another 
 lieutenant under Caesar, was drowned. Scipio, Poni- 
 pey's partner in greatness at Pharsalia, destroyed him- 
 self in Africa. Bibulus, his chief admiral, pined to 
 death. Young Ptolemy, to whom Pompey fled, was 
 drowned in the Nile. The fate of his sister Cleopatra 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 is known to all the world. Pliarnaces, Caesar's enemy 
 in Asia, fell in battle. Cato destroyed himself at Utica. 
 Pompey's eldest son, Cnseus, was caught wounded in 
 Spain and slaughtered. Sextus the younger was 
 killed some years afterwards by one of Antony's sol- 
 diers. Brutus and Cassius, the two great conspirators, 
 both committed suicide. But of these two we hear 
 little or nothing in the Commentaries; nor of Augustus 
 Caesar, who did contrive to live in spite of all the 
 bloodshed through which he had waded to the throne. 
 Among the whole number there are not above three, if 
 so many, who died fairly fighting in battle. 
 
 The above is a list of the names of men of mark, — 
 of warriors chiefly, of men who, with their eyes open, 
 knowing what was before them, went out to encounter 
 danger for certain purposes. The bloody catalogue is 
 so complete, so nearly comprises all whose names are 
 mentioned, that it strikes the reader with almost a 
 comic horror. But when we come to the slaughter of 
 whole towns, the devastation of country effected pur- 
 posely that men and women might starve, to the , 
 abandonment of the old, the young, and the tender, 
 that they might perish on the hillsides, to the mutila- 
 tion of crowds of men, to the burning of cities told us 
 in a passing word, to the drowning of many thousands, 
 — mentioned as we should mention the destruction of 
 a brood of rats, — the comedy is all over, and the heart 
 becomes sick. Then it is that we remember that the 
 coming of Christ has changed all things, and that men 
 now, — though terrible things have been done since 
 Christ came to us, — are not as men were in the days 
 of Caesar. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 FIRST BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR DRIVES FIRST THE 
 SWISS AND THEN THE GERMANS OUT OF GAUL. — B.C. 58. 
 
 It has been remarked in the preceding chapter 
 that Caesar does not appear to have received any 
 commission for the subjugation of Gaul when he took 
 military charge of his three provinces. The Gauls 
 were still feared in Rome, and it was his duty to see 
 that they did not make their way over the Alps into 
 the Roman territory. It was also his duty to protect 
 from invasion, and also from rebellion, that portion of 
 Gaul which had already been constituted a Roman 
 province, but in which the sympathies of the people 
 were still rather with their old brethren than with 
 their new masters. The experience, however, which 
 we have of great and encroaching empires tells us how 
 probable it is that the protection of that which the 
 strong already holds should lead to the grasping of 
 more, till at last all has been grasped. It is thus that 
 our own empire in India has grown. It was thus that 
 the Spanish empire grew in America. It is thus that 
 the empire of the United States is now growing. It 
 was thus that Prussia, driven, as we all remember, by 
 
CjEsars probable intentions, 29 
 
 the necessity of self-preservation, took ]N'assau the other 
 day, and Hanover and Holstein and Hesse. It was 
 thus that the wolf claimed all the river, not being able 
 to endure the encroaching lamb. The humane reader 
 of history execrates, as he reads, the cruel, all-absorb- 
 ing, ravenous wolf. But the philosophical reader per- 
 ceives that in this way, and in no other, is civilisation 
 carried into distant lands. The wolf, though he be 
 a ravenous wolf, brings with him energy and know- 
 ledge. 
 
 What may have been Caesar's own aspirations in 
 regard to Gaul, when the government of the provinces 
 was confided to him, we have no means of knowing. 
 We may surmise, — indeed we feel that we know, — that 
 he had a project in hand much greater to him, in his 
 view of its result, than could be the adding of any 
 new province to the Eepublic, let the territory added 
 be as wide as all Gaul. He had seen enough of 
 Roman politics to know that real power in Eome could 
 only belong to a master of legions. Both Marius and 
 Sulla had prevailed in the city by means of the armies 
 which they had levied as the trusted generals of the 
 Eepublic. Pompey had had his army trained to 
 conquest in the East, and it had been expected that 
 he also would use it to the same end. He had been 
 magnanimous, or half-hearted, or imprudent, as critics 
 of his conduct might choose to judge him then and 
 may choose to judge him now, and on reaching Italy 
 from the East had disbanded his legions. As a con- 
 sequence, he was at that moment, when Caesar was 
 looking out into the future and preparing his own 
 
THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 
 
 career, fain to seek some influence in the city by join- 
 ing himself in a secret compact with Caesar, his natural 
 enemy, and with Crassus. Csesar, seeing all this, 
 knowing how Marius and Sulla had succeeded and had 
 failed, seeing what had come of the magnanimity of 
 Pompey — resolved no doubt that, whatever might be 
 the wars in which they should be trained, he would 
 have trained legions at his command. "When, there- 
 fore, he first found a cause for war, he was ready for 
 war. He had not been long proconsul before there 
 came a wicked lamb and drank at his stream. 
 
 In describing to us the way in which he conquered 
 lamb after lamb throughout the whole country which 
 he calls Gallia, he tells us almost nothing of himself. 
 Of his own political ideas, of his own ambition, even 
 of his doings in Italy through those winter months 
 which he generally passed on the Roman side of the 
 Alps, having left his army in winter quarters under 
 his lieutenants, he says but a very few words. His 
 record is simply the record of the campaigns; and 
 although he now and then speaks of the dignity of 
 the Eepublic, he hardly ever so far digresses from the 
 narrative as to give to the reader any idea of the 
 motives by which he is actuated. Once in these seven 
 memoirs of seven years* battling in Gaul, and once 
 only, does he refer to a motive absolutely personal to 
 himself. When he succeeded in slaughtering a fourth 
 of the emigrating Swiss, which was his first military 
 success in Gaul, he tells us that he had then revenged 
 an injury to himself as well as an injury to the Re- 
 public, because the grandfather of his father-in-law 
 
THE MANNER OF CjESARS NARRATIVE, 31 
 
 had in former wars been killed by the very^iribe wliich 
 he had just destroyed ! 
 
 It is to be observed, also, that he does not intention- 
 ally speak in the first person, and that when he does so 
 it is in some passage of no moment, in which the person- 
 ality is accidental and altogether trivial. He does not 
 speak of " I " and " me," but of Caesar, as though he, 
 Caesar, who wrote the Commentary, were not the 
 Caesar of whom he is writing. ]^ot unfrequently he 
 speaks strongly in praise of himself; but as there is 
 no humility in his tone, so also is there no pride, even 
 when he praises himself. He never seems to boast, 
 though he tells us of his own exploits as he does of those 
 of his generals and centurions. Without any diffi- 
 dence he informs us now and again how, at the end 
 of this or that campaign, a '' supplication,'' or public 
 festival and thanksgiving for his victories, was decreed 
 in Eome, on the hearing of the news, — to last for fifteen 
 or twenty days, as the case might be. 
 
 Of his difficulties at home, — the political difficulties 
 with which he had to contend, — he says never a word. 
 And yet at times they must have been very harassing. 
 We hear from other sources that during these wars in 
 Gaul his conduct was violently reprobated in Eome, 
 in that he had, with the utmost cruelty, attacked and 
 crushed states supposed to be in amity wdth Eome, and 
 that it was once even proposed to give him up to the 
 enemy as a punishment for grievous treachery to the 
 enemy. Had it been so resolved by the Eoman Senate, 
 — had such a law been enacted, — the power to carry 
 out the law would have been wanted. It was easier 
 
 1 '^i 
 
32 THE WAR IN GAUL.—^'IRST BOOK, 
 
 to grant a *^ supplication" for twenty days than to stop 
 his career after his legions had come to know him. 
 
 Nor is there very much said by Caesar of his strategic 
 difficulties ; though now and then, especially when 
 his ships are being knocked about on the British 
 coast, and again when the iron of his heel has so 
 bruised the Gauls that they all turn against him in 
 one body under Vercingetorix, the reader is allowed to 
 see that he is pressed hard enough. But it is his rule 
 to tell the thing he means to do, the way he does it, 
 and the completeness of the result, in the fewest pos- 
 sible words. If any student of the literature of battles 
 would read first Caesar's seven books of the Gallic "War, 
 and then Mr Kinglake's first four volumes of the 
 'Invasion of the Crimea,' he would be able to com- 
 pare two most wonderful examples of the dexterous 
 use of words, in the former of which the narrative is 
 told with the utmost possible brevity, and in the latter 
 with almost the utmost possible prolixity. And yet 
 each narrative is equally clear, and each equally dis- 
 tinguished by so excellent an arrangement of words, 
 that the reader is forced to acknowledge that the story 
 is told to him by a great master. 
 
 In praising others, — his lieutenants, his soldiers, and 
 occasionally his enemies, — Caesar is often enthusiastic, 
 though the praise is conferred by a word or two, — is 
 given, perhaps, simply in an epithet added on for that 
 purpose to a sentence planned with a wholly diff'erent 
 purpose. Of blame he is very sparing ; so much so, 
 that it almost seems that he looked upon certain 
 imperfections, in regard even to faith as well as valour 
 
THE MANNER OF CJ^SAR'S NARRATIVE, 33 
 
 OJT prudence, as necessary to humanity, and pardonable 
 because of their necessity. He can tell of the absolute 
 destruction of a legion through the folly and perhaps 
 cowardice "of one of his lieutenants, without heaping a 
 word of reproach on the name of the unfortunate. He 
 can relate how a much-favoured tribe fell off from their 
 faith again and again without expressing anger at their 
 faithlessness, and can explain how they were, — hardly 
 forgiven, but received again as friends, — ^because it 
 suited him so to treat them. But again he can tell us, 
 without apparently a quiver of the pen, how he could 
 devote to destruction a city with all its women and all 
 its children, so that other cities might know what 
 would come to them if they did not yield and obey, 
 and become vassals to the godlike hero in whose 
 hands Providence had placed their lives and their 
 possessions. 
 
 It appears that Caesar never failed to believe in 
 himself. He is far too simple in his language, and too 
 conscious of his own personal dignity, to assert that 
 he has never been worsted. But his very simplicity 
 seems to convey the assurance that such cannot ulti- 
 mately be the result of any campaign in which he is 
 engaged. He seems to imply that victory attends him 
 so certainly that it would be futile in any case to dis- 
 cuss its probability. He feared no one, and was there- 
 fore the cause of awe to others. He could face his 
 own legions when they would not obey his call to 
 arms, and reduce them to obedience by a word. 
 Lucan, understanding his character well, says of him 
 that " he deserved to be feared, for he feared nothing;" 
 
 A. c. vol. iv c 
 
34 THE WAR IJSr GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 
 
 " meruitque timeri Nil metuens." He writes of himself 
 as we might imagine some god would write who knew 
 that his divine purpose must of course prevail, and 
 who would therefore never he in the way of entertain- 
 ing a douht. With Caesar there is always this godlike 
 simplicity, which makes his *^Veni, vidi, vici," the 
 natural expression of his mind as to his own mode of 
 action. The same thing is felt in the very numerous 
 hut very hrief records of the punishments which he in- 
 flicted. Cities are left desolate, as it were with a wave 
 of his hand, but he hardly deigns to say that his oAvn 
 hand has even been waved. He tells us of one Acco 
 who had opposed him, that, *^Graviore sententia pro- 
 nunciata," — as though there had been some jury to 
 pronounce this severe sentence, which was in fact pro- 
 nounced only by himself, Caesar, — he inflicted punish- 
 ment on him *' more majorum." We learn from other 
 sources that this punishment consisted in being strip- 
 ped naked, confined by the neck in a cleft stick, and 
 then bei]ig flogged to death. In the next words, hav- 
 ing told us in half a sentence that he had made the 
 country too hot to hold the fugitive accomplices of the 
 tortured chief, he passes on into Italy with the majes- 
 tic step of one much too great to dwell long on these 
 small but disagreeable details. And we feel that he is 
 too great. 
 
 It has been already said that the great proconsular 
 wolf was not long in hearing that a lamb had come 
 down to drink of his stream. The Ilelvetii, or Swiss, 
 as we call them, — those tribes which lived on the Lake 
 Leman, and among the hills and valleys to the north 
 
THE EMIGRATION OF THE HELVETIL 35 
 
 of the lake, — liad made up tlieir minds that they were 
 inhabiting but a poor sort of country, and that they 
 might considerably better themselves by leaving their 
 mountains and going out into some part of Gaul, in 
 which they might find themselves stronger than the 
 existing tribes, and might take possession of the fat of 
 the land. In doing so, their easiest way out of their 
 own country would lie by the Rhone, where it now 
 runs through Geneva into France. But in taking this 
 route the Swiss would be obliged to pass over a corner 
 of the Eoman province. Here was a case of the lamb 
 troubling the waters with a vengeance. When this 
 was told to Caesar, — that these Swiss intended, " facere 
 iter per Provinciam nostram " — " to do their travelling 
 through our Province," — he hurried over the Alps into 
 Gaul, and came to Geneva as fast as he could travel. 
 
 He begins his first book by a geographical definition 
 of Gaul, which no doubt was hardly accurate, but 
 which gives us a singularly clear idea of that which 
 Caesar desired to convey. In speaking of Gallia he 
 intends to signify the whole country from the outflow 
 of the Rhine into the ocean down to the Pyrenees, 
 and then eastward to the Rhone, to the Swiss moun- 
 tains, and the borders of the Roman Province. This 
 he divides into three parts, telling us that the Belgians 
 inhabited the part north of the Seine and Marne, the 
 people of Aquitania the part south of the Garonne, and 
 the Gauls or Celts the intermediate territory. Having 
 so far described the scene of his action, he rushes off 
 at once to the dreadful sin of the Swiss emigrants in 
 desiring to pass through *' our Province." 
 
36 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FIRST BOOR, 
 
 He has Lut one legion in Further Gaul, — that is, 
 in the Eoman province on the further side of the 
 Alps from Eome ; and therefore, when amhassadors 
 come to him from the Swiss, asking permission to 
 go through the corner of land, and promising that 
 they will do no harm in their passage, he tem- 
 porises with them. He can't give them an answer 
 just then, but must think of it. They must come 
 back to him by a certain day, — when he will have 
 more soldiers ready. Of course he refuses. The 
 Swiss make some sHght attempt, but soon give that 
 matter up in despair. There is another way by which 
 they can get out of their mountains, — through the 
 territory of a people called Sequani ; and for doing this 
 they obtain leave. Eut Caesar knows how injurious 
 the Swiss lambs will be to him and his wolves, should 
 they succeed in getting round to the back of his Pro- 
 vince, — that Eoman Province which left the name of 
 Provence in modern France till France refused to be 
 divided any longer into provinces. And he is, more- 
 over, invited by certain friends of the Eoman Eepublic, 
 called the ^dui, to come and stop these rough Swiss 
 travellers. He is always willing to help the -^dui, 
 although these ^dui are a fickle, inconstant people, — 
 and he is, above all things, willing to get to war. So 
 he comes upon the rear of the Swiss when three 
 portions of the people have passed the river Arar 
 (Saone), and one portion is still behind. This hinder- 
 most tribe, — for the wretches were all of one tribe or 
 mountain canton, — he sets upon and utterly destroys ; 
 and on this occasion congratulates himself on having 
 
THE EMIGRATION OF THE HELVETIL 37 
 
 avenged himself upon the slayers of the grandfather 
 of his father-in-law. 
 
 There can be nothing more remarkable in history 
 than this story of the attempted emigration of the 
 Helvetii, which Caesar tells ns without the expression 
 of any wonder. The whole people made up their 
 minds that, as their borders were narrow, their num- 
 bers increasing, and their courage good, they would go 
 forth, — men, women, and children, — and seek other 
 homes. We read constantly of the emigrations of 
 people, — of the I^orthmen from the north covering the 
 southern plains, of Danes and Jutes entering Britain, 
 of men from Scandinavia coming down across the 
 Ehine, and the like. We know that after this fashion 
 the world has become peopled. Eut we picture to 
 ourselves generally a concourse of warriors going forth 
 and leaving behind them homes and friends, to whom 
 they may or may not return. With these Swiss 
 wanderers there was to be no return. All that they 
 could not take with them they destroyed, burning 
 their houses, and burning even their corn, so that 
 there should be no means of turning their steps back- 
 ward. They do make considerable progress, getting 
 as far into France as Autun, — three-fourths of them 
 at least getting so far ; but near this they are brought 
 to an engagement by Caesar, who outgenerals them 
 on a hill. The prestige of the Eomans had not as yet 
 established itself in these parts, and the Swiss nearly 
 have the best of it. Caesar owns, as he does not own 
 again above once or twice, that the battle between 
 them was very long, and for long very doubtful. But 
 
38 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK, 
 
 at last the poor Helvetii are driven in slaughter. 
 Caesar,' however, is not content that they should 
 simply fly. He forces them back upon their old 
 territory, — upon their burnt houses and devastated 
 fields, — lest certain Germans should come and live 
 there, and make themselves disagreeable. And they 
 go back; — so many, at least, go back as are not slain in 
 the adventure. With great attempt at accuracy, Ciesar 
 tells us that 368,000 human beings went out on the 
 expedition, and that 110,000, or less than a third, 
 found their w^ay back. Of those that perished, many 
 hecatombs had been offered up to the shade of his 
 father-in-law's grandfath er. 
 
 Hereupon the Gauls begin to see how great a man 
 is Caesar. He tells us that no sooner was that war 
 with the Swiss finished than nearly all the tribes of 
 Gallia send to congratulate him. And one special 
 tribe, those ^dui, — of whom we hear a great deal, 
 and whom we never like because they are thoroughly 
 anti-Gallican in all their doings till they think that 
 Csesar is really in trouble, and then they turn upon 
 him, — have to beg of him a great favour. Two tribes, 
 — the ^dui, whose name seems to have left no trace 
 in France, and the Arverni, whom we still know in 
 Auvergne, — have been long contending for the upper 
 hand; whereupon the Arverni and their friends the 
 Sequani have called in the assistance of certain Ger- 
 mans from across the Ehine. It went badly then 
 with the ^dui. And now one of their kings, named 
 Divitiacus, implores the help of Csesar. Would Caesar 
 be kind enough to expel these horrid Germans, and 
 
ARID VIST us AND BIS GERMANS. 39 
 
 get back the hostages, and free them from a burden- 
 some dominion, and put things a little to rights 1 
 And, indeed, not only were the ^dui suffering from 
 these Germans, and their king, Ariovistus ; it is going 
 still worse with the Sequani, who had called them in. 
 In fact, Ariovistus was an intolerable nuisance to that 
 eastern portion of Gaul. Would Caesar be kind 
 enough to drive him out 1 Caesar consents, and then 
 we are made to think of another little fable, — of the 
 prayer which the horse made to the man for assistance 
 in his contest with the stag, and of the manner in 
 which the man got upon the horse, and never got 
 down again. Caesar was not slow to mount, and when 
 once in the saddle, certainly did not mean to leave it. 
 Caesar tells us his reasons for undertaking this com- 
 mission. The ^^dui had often been called ^' brothers '' 
 and " cousins " by the Eoman Senate ; and it was not 
 fitting that men who had been so honoured should be 
 domineered over by Germans. And then, unless these 
 marauding Germans could be stopped, they would fall 
 into the habit of coming across the Rhine, and at 
 last might get into the Province, and by that route 
 into Italy itself. And Ariovistus himself was per- 
 sonally so arrogant a man that the thing must be made 
 to cease. So Caesar sends ambassadors to Ariovistus, 
 and invites the barbarian to a meeting. The barbarian 
 will not come to the meeting. If he wanted to see 
 the Itoman, he would go to the Roman : if the Eoman 
 wants to see him, the Roman may come to him. Such 
 is the reply of Ariovistus. Ambassadors pass between 
 them, and there is a good deal of argument, in which 
 
40 THE WAR IN OAUL,— FIRST BOOK. 
 
 the barbarian has the best of it. Caesar, with his god- 
 like simplicity, scorns not to give the barbarian the 
 benefit of his logic. Ariovistus reminds Caesar that 
 the Romans have been in the habit of governing the 
 tribes conquered by them after their fashion, with out 
 interference from him, Ariovistus ; and that the Ger- 
 mans claim and mean to exercise the same right. He 
 goes on to say that he is willing enough to live in 
 amity with the Romans ; but will Csesar be kind 
 enough to remember that the Germans are a people 
 unconquered in war, trained to the use of arms, 
 and how hardy he might judge when he was told 
 that for fourteen years they had not slept under a roof 1 
 In the mean time other Gauls were complaining, and 
 begging for assistance. The Treviri, people of the 
 country where Treves now stands, are being harassed 
 by the terrible yellow-haired Suevi, who at this time 
 seem to have possessed nearly the whole of Prussia as 
 it now exists on the further side of the Rhine, and 
 who had the same desire to come westward that the 
 Prussians have evinced since. And a people called 
 the Harudes, from the Danube, are also harassing 
 the poor ^dui. Caesar, looking at these things, sees 
 that unless he is quick, the northern and southern 
 Germans may join their forces. He gets together his 
 commissariat, and flies at Ariovistus very quickly. 
 
 Throughout all his campaigns, Caesar, as did !N'apo- 
 leon afterwards, effected everything by celerity. He 
 preaches to us no sermon on the subject, favours us 
 with no disquisition as to the value of despatch in war, 
 but constantly tells us that he moved aU his army 
 
ARIOVISTUS AND HIS GERMANS. 41 
 
 "magnis itineribns" — by very rapid inarches; tliat he 
 went on with his work night and day, and took pre- 
 cautions ''magno opere," — with much labour and all 
 his care,— to be beforehand with the enemy. In this 
 instance Ariovistus tries to reach a certain town of the 
 poor Sequani, then called Yesontio, now known to us 
 as Besangon, — the same name, but very much altered. 
 It consisted of a hill, or natural fortress, almost sur- 
 rounded by a river, or natural fosse. There is nothing, 
 says Caesar, so useful in a war as the possession of a 
 place thus naturally strong. Therefore he hurries on 
 and gets before Ariovistus, and occupies the town. 
 The reader already begins to feel that Caesar is des- 
 tined to divine success. The reader indeed knows 
 that beforehand, and expects nothing worse for Caesar 
 than hairbreadth escapes. But the Eomans them 
 selves had not as yet the same confidence in him. 
 Tidings are brought to him at Yesontio that his men 
 are terribly afraid of the Germans. And so, no doubt, 
 they were. These Eomans, though by the art of w'ar 
 they had been made fine soldiers, — though they had 
 been trained in the Eastern conquests and the Punic 
 wars, and invasions of all nations around them, — were 
 nevertheless, up to this day, greatly afraid even of the 
 Gauls. The coming of the Gauls into Italy had been 
 a source of terror to them ever since the days of 
 Brennus. And the Germans were worse than the 
 Gauls. The boast made by Ariovistus that his men 
 never slept beneath a roof was not vain or useless. 
 They were a horrid, hirsute, yellow-haired people, the 
 flashing aspect of whose eyes could hardly be endured 
 
42 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 
 
 by an Italian. The fear is so great that the soldiers 
 ''sometimes could not refrain even from tears;" — 
 " neque interdum lacrimas tenere poterant." When 
 we remember what these men became after they had 
 been a while with Csesar, their blubbering awe of the 
 Germans strikes us as almost comic. And we are re- 
 minded that the Italians of those days were, as they are 
 now, more prone to show the outward signs of emotion 
 than is thought to be decorous with men in more northern 
 climes. We can hardly realise the idea of soldiers cry- 
 ing from fear. Csesar is told by his centurions that so 
 great is this feeling, that the men will probably refuse 
 to take up their arms when called upon to go out and 
 fight ; whereupon he makes a speech to all his cap- 
 tains and lieutenants, full of boasting, full of scorn, full, 
 no doubt, of falsehood, but using a bit of truth when- 
 ever the truth could aid him. We know that among 
 other great gifts Caesar had the gift of persuasion. 
 From his tongue, also, as from Xestor's, could flow 
 " Avords sweeter than honey," — or sharper than steel. At 
 any rate, if others will not follow him, his tenth legion, 
 he knows, will be true to him. He will go forth with 
 that one legion, — ;if necessary, with that legion of true 
 soldiers, and with no others. Though he had been at 
 his work but a short time, he already had his picked 
 men, his guards, his favourite regiments, his tenth 
 legion : and he knew well how to use their superiority 
 and valour for the creation of those virtues in others. 
 
 Then Ariovistus sends ambassadors, and declares 
 that he now is willing to meet Caesar. Let them meet 
 on a certain plain, each bringing only his cavalry 
 
ARIOVISTUS AND HIS GERMANS. 43 
 
 guard. Ariovistus suggests that foot- soldiers miglit 
 Le dangerous, knowing that Caesar's foot-soldiers would 
 be Eomans, and that his cavalry are Gauls. Caesar 
 agrees, but takes men out of his own tenth legion, 
 mounted on the horses of the less-trusted allies. The 
 accounts of these meetings, and the arguments which 
 we are told are used on this and that side, are v^ry 
 interesting. We are bound to remember that Caesar 
 is telling the story for both sides, but we feel that he 
 tries to tell it fairly. Ariovistus had very little to say 
 to Caesar's demands, but a great deal to say about his 
 own exploits. The meeting, however, was broken up 
 by an attack made by the Germans on Caesar's mounted 
 guard, and Caesar retires, — not, however, before he 
 has explained to Ariovistus his grand idea of the pro- 
 tection due by Rome to her allies. Then Ariovistus 
 proposes another meeting, which Caesar declines to 
 attend, sending, however, certain ambassadors. Ario- 
 vistus at once throws the ambassadors into chains, and 
 then there is nothing for it but a fight. 
 
 The details of all these battles cannot be given 
 within our short limits, and there is nothing special 
 in this battle to tempt us to dwell upon it. Caesar 
 describes to us the way in which the German cavalry 
 and infantry fought together, the footmen advancing 
 from amidst the horsemen, and then returning for 
 protection. His own men fight well, and the Ger- 
 mans, in spite of their flashing eyes, are driven head- 
 long in a rout back to the Ehine. Ariovistus succeeds 
 in getting over the river and saving himself, but he 
 has to leave his two daughters behind, and his two 
 
4:4 THE WAR IN OAUL.— FIRST BOOK, 
 
 wives. The two wives and one of the daughters are 
 killed ; the other daughter is taken prisoner. Caesar had 
 sent as one of his ambassadors to the German a certain 
 dear friend of his, who, as we heard before, was, with 
 his comrade, at once subjected to chains. In the flight 
 this ambassador is recovered. " Which thing, indeed, 
 gave Caesar not less satisfaction than the victory itself, 
 — in that he saw one of the honestest men of the Pro- 
 vince of Gaul, his own familiar friend and guest, 
 rescued from the hands of his enemies and restored to 
 him. JSTor did Fortune diminish this gratification by 
 any calamity inflicted on the man. Thrice, as he him- 
 self told the tale, had it been decided by lot in his 
 own presence whether he should then be burned alive 
 or reserved for another time." So Caesar tells the story, 
 and we like him for his enthusiasm, and are glad to hear 
 that the comrade ambassador also is brought back. 
 
 The yellow-haired Suevi, when they hear of all 
 this, desist from their invasion on the lower Rhine, 
 and hurry back into their own country, not without 
 misfortunes on the road. So great already is Caesar's 
 name, that tribes, acting as it were on his side, dare to 
 attack even the Suevi. Then, in his ''Yeni, vidi, 
 vici" style, he tells us that, having in one summer 
 finished ofi" two wars, he is able to put his army into 
 winter quarters even before the necessary time, so that 
 he himself may go into his other Gaul across the Alps, 
 — " ad conventus agendos," — to hold some kind of 
 session or assizes for the government of his province, 
 and especiall}^ to collect more soldiers. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 SECOND BOOK OF THE WAR IK GAUL. — CJilSAR SUBDTTES 
 THE BELGIAN TRIBES. — B.C. hi. 
 
 The man had got on tlie horse's back, but the horse had 
 various disagreeable enemies in attacking whom the 
 man might be very useful, and the horse was therefore 
 not as yet anxious to unseat his rider. Would CiBsar 
 be so good as to go and conquer the Belgian tribes'? 
 Caesar is not slow in finding reasons for so doing. 
 The Belgians are conspiring together against him. 
 They think that as all Gaul has been reduced, — or 
 'Opacified," as Caesar calls it, — the Eoman conqueror will 
 certainly bring his valour to bear upon them, and that 
 they had better be ready. Caesar suggests that it 
 would no doubt be felt by them as a great grievance 
 that a Roman army should remain all the winter so 
 near to them. In this way, and governed by these 
 considerations, tlie Belgian lambs disturb the stream 
 very sadly, and the wolf has to look to it. He collects 
 two more legions, and, as soon as the earth brings 
 forth the food necessary for his increased number of 
 men and horses, he hurries off against these Belgian 
 tribes of Northern Gallia. Of these, one tribe, the 
 
46 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK, 
 
 Remi, immediately send word to him that they are 
 not wicked lambs like the others ; they have not 
 touched the waters. All the other Belgians, say the 
 Eemi, and with them a parcel of Germans, are in a con- 
 spiracy together. Even their very next-door neighbours, 
 their brothers and cousins, the Suessiones, are wicked ; 
 but they, the Remi, have steadily refused even to sniff 
 at the stream, which they acknowledge to be the 
 exclusive property of the good wolf. Would the wolf 
 be kind enough to come and take possession of them 
 and all their belongings, and allow them to be the 
 humblest of his friends 1 "We come to hate these Remi, 
 as we do the ^dui ; but they are wise in their genera- 
 tion, and escape much of the starvation and massa- 
 cring and utter ruin to which the other tribes are sub- 
 jected. Among almost all these so-called Belgian tribes 
 we find the modern names which are familiar to us. 
 Rheims is in the old country of the Remi, Soissons in 
 that of the Suessiones. Beauvais represents the Bel- 
 lovaci, Amiens the Ambiani, Arras the Atrebates, 
 Treves the Treviri, — as has been pointed out before. 
 Silva Arduenna is, of course, the Forest of Ardennes. 
 
 The campaign is commenced by an attack made by the 
 other Belgians on those unnatural Remi who have gone 
 over to the Romans. There is a town of theirs, Bibrax, 
 now known, or rather not known, as Bievre, and here 
 the Remi are besieged by their brethren. When 
 Bibrax is on the point of falling, — and we can imagine 
 what would then have been the condition of the towns- 
 men, — they send to Caesar, who is only eight miles 
 distant. Unless Caesar will help, they cannot endure 
 
CJSSAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 47 
 
 any longer such onslaugM as is made on tbein. Caesar, 
 having bided his time, of course sends help, and the 
 poor besieging Belgians fall into inextricable confusion. 
 They agree to go home, each to his own country, and 
 from thence to proceed to the defence of any tribe 
 which Caesar might attack. '^ So," says Caesar, as he 
 ends the story of this little affair, '^ without any danger 
 on our part, our men killed as great a number of theirs 
 as the space of the day would admit." When the sun 
 set, and not till then, came an end to the killing, — 
 such having been the order of Caesar. 
 
 That these Belgians had really formed any intention 
 of attacking the Eoman province, or even any Roman 
 ally, there is no other proof than that Caesar tells us 
 that they had all conspired. But whatever might be 
 their sin, or what the lack of sin on their part, he is 
 determined to go on with the war till he has subju- 
 gated them altogether. On the very next day he 
 attacks the Suessiones, and gets as far as ]Sroviodunum, 
 — N'oyons. The people there, when they see how ter- 
 rible are his engines of war, give up all idea of defend- 
 ing themselves, and ask for terms. The Bellovaci do 
 the same. At the instigation of his friends the Eemi, 
 he spares the one city, and, to please the ^dui, the 
 other. But he takes away all their arms, and exacts 
 hostages. From the Bellovaci, because they have a 
 name as a powerful people, he takes 600 hostages. 
 Throughout all these wars it becomes a matter of 
 wonder to us what Caesar did with all these hostages, 
 and how he maintained them. It was, however, no 
 doubt clearly understood that they would be killed if 
 
48 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK, 
 
 the town, or state, or tribe by which they were given 
 should misbehave, or in any way thwart the great 
 conqueror. 
 
 The Ambiani come next, and the ancestors of our 
 intimate friends at Amiens soon give themselves up. 
 The next to them are the [N'ervii, a people far away to 
 the north, where Lille now is and a considerable por- 
 tion of Flanders. Of these Caesar had heard wonder- 
 ful travellers' tales. They were a people who admitted 
 no dealers among them, being in this respect very un- 
 like their descendants, the Belgians of to-day ; they 
 drank no wine, and indulged in no luxuries, lest their 
 martial valour should be diminished. They send no 
 ambassadors to Caesar, and resolve to hold their own 
 if they can. They trust solely to infantry in battle, 
 and know nothing of horses. Against the cavalry of 
 other nations, however, they are wont to protect them- 
 selves by artificial hedges, which they make almost 
 as strong as walls. 
 
 Caesar in attacking the [NTervii had eight legions, and 
 he tells us how he advanced against them " consuetu- 
 dine sua," — after his usual fashion. For some false in- 
 formation had been given to the N"ervii on this subject, 
 which brought them into considerable trouble. He 
 sent on first his cavalry, then six legions, the legions 
 consisting solely of foot-s^^liers ; after these all the 
 baggage, commissariat, and burden of the army, com- 
 prising the materials necessary for sieges ; and lastly, 
 the two other legions, which had been latest enrolled. 
 It may be as well to explain here that the legion in the 
 time of Caesar consisted on paper of six thousand heavy- 
 
CJSSAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 49 
 
 armed foot-soldiers. There were ten cohorts in a legion, 
 and six centuries, or six hundred men, in each cohort. 
 It may possibly be that, as with our regiments, the 
 numbers were frequently not full. Eight full legions 
 would thus have formed an army consisting of 48,000 
 infantry. The exact number of men under his orders 
 Caesar does not mention here or elsewhere. 
 
 According to his own showing, Caesar is hurried into 
 a battle before he knows where he is. Caesar, he says, 
 had everything to do himself, all at the same time, — 
 to unfurl the standard of battle, to give the signal with 
 the trumpet, to get back the soldiers from their work, 
 to call back some who had gone to a distance for stuff 
 to make a rampart, to draw up the army, to address the 
 men, and then to give the word. In that matter of 
 oratory, he only tells them to remember their old 
 valour. The enemy was so close upon them, and so 
 ready for fighting, that they could scarcely put on their 
 helmets and take their shields out of their cases. So 
 great was the confusion that tlie soldiers could not get 
 to their own ranks, but had to fight as they stood, 
 under any flag that was nearest to them. There were 
 so many things against them, and especially those tliick 
 artificial hedges, which prevented them even from see- 
 ing, that it was impossible for them to flight according 
 to any method, and in consequence there were vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune. One is driven to feel that on this 
 occasion Csesar was caught napping. The I^ervii did 
 at times and places seem to be getting the best of it. 
 The ninth and tenth legions pursue one tribe into a river, 
 and then they have to fight them again, and drive them 
 
 A. c. vol. iv. D 
 
50 THE WAR IN GAUL.SECOND BOOK. 
 
 out of the river. The eleventh and eighth, having put to 
 flight another tribe, are attacked on the very river-banks. 
 The twelfth and the seventh have their hands equally 
 full, when Boduognatus, the ISTervian chief, makes his 
 way into the very middle of the Eoman camp. So 
 great is the confusion that the Treviri, who had joined 
 Csesar on this occasion as allies, although reputed the 
 bravest of the cavalry of Gaul, run away home, and 
 declare that the Komans are conquered. Csesar, how- 
 ever, comes to the rescue, and saves his army on this 
 occasion by personal prowess. When he saw how it 
 was going, — "rem esse in angusto," — how the thing 
 had got itself into the very narrowest neck of a diffi- 
 culty, he seizes a shield from a common soldier, — having 
 come there himself with no shield, — and rushes into the 
 fight. When the soldiers saw him, and saw, too, that 
 what they did was done in his sight, they fought anew, 
 and the onslaught of the enemy was checked. 
 
 Perhaps readers will wish that they could know how 
 much of all this is exactly true. It reads as though it 
 were true. We cannot in these days understand how 
 one brave man at such a moment should be so much 
 more effective than another, how he should be known 
 personally to the soldiers of an army so large, how Caesar 
 should have known the names of the centurions, — for he 
 tells us that he addresses them by name ; — and yet it 
 reads like truth; and the reader feels that as Caesar 
 would hardly condescend to boast, so neither would he 
 be constrained by any modern feeling of humility from 
 telling any truth of himself. It is as though Minerva 
 were to tell us of some descent which she made 
 
C^SAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 51 
 
 among the Trojans. The I^ervii fight on, but of course 
 they are driven in flight. The nation is all but de- 
 stroyed, so that the very name can but hardly remain ; 
 — so at least we are told here, though we hear of them 
 again as a tribe by no means destroyed or powerless. 
 AYhen out of six hundred senators there are but three 
 senators left, when from sixty thousand fighting men 
 the army has been reduced to scarcely five himdred, 
 Caesar throws the mantle of his mercy over the sur- 
 vivors. He allows them even to go and live in their 
 own homes, and forbids their neighbours to harass 
 them. There can "Be no doubt that Caesar nearly got 
 the worst of it in this struggle, and we may surmise 
 that he learned a lesson which was of service to him 
 in subsequent campaigns. 
 
 But there are still certain Aduatici to be disposed 
 of before the summer is over, — people who had helped 
 the Nervii, — who have a city of their own, and who 
 live somewhere in the present [N'amur district.'^ At 
 first they fight a little round the walls of their town ; 
 but when they see what terrible instruments Caesar 
 
 * These people were the descendants of those Cimbri who, half 
 a century before, had caused such woe to Eonie ! The Cimbri, we 
 are told, had gone forth from their lands, and had been six times 
 victorious over Roman armies, taking possession of " our Pro- 
 vince," and threatening Italy and Rome. The whole empire of 
 the Republic had been in danger, but was at last saved by the 
 courage, skill, and rapidity of Marius. In going forth from 
 their country they had left a remnant behind with such of their 
 possessions as they could not carry with them ; and these 
 Aduatici were the children and grandchildren of that remnant. 
 Caesar doubtless remembered it all. 
 
52 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK. 
 
 has, by means of which to get at them over their very- 
 walls, — how he can build up a great turret at a distance, 
 which, at that distance, is ludicrous to them, but which 
 he brings near to them, so that it overhangs thera, from 
 which to harass them with arrows and stones, and 
 against which, so high is it, they have no defence — 
 then they send out and beg for mercy. Surely, they 
 say, Csesar and the Romans must have more than 
 human power. They will give up everything, if only 
 Caesar out of his mercy will leave to them their arms. 
 They are always at war with all their neighbours ; and 
 where would they be without arms 1 
 
 Caesar replies. Merits of their own they have none. 
 How could a tribe have merits against whicL Caesar 
 was at war] ]N"evertheless, such being his custom, he 
 will admit them to some terms of grace if they sur- 
 render before his battering - ram has touched their 
 walls. But as for their arms, surely they must be 
 joking with him. Of course their arms must be sur- 
 rendered. What he had done for the IN'ervii he would 
 do for them. He would tell their neighbours not to 
 hurt them. They agree, and throw their arms into the 
 outside ditch of the town, but not quite all their arms. 
 A part, — a third, — are cunningly kept back ; and when 
 Caesar enters the town, they who have kept their arms, 
 and others unarmed, try to escape from the town. They 
 fight, and some thousands are slain. Others are driven 
 back, and these are sold for slaves. Who, we wonder, 
 could have been the purchasers, and at what price on 
 that day was a man to be bought in the city of the 
 Aduatici 1 
 
CjESAR reduces the BELGIAN TRIBES, 53 
 
 Then Caesar learns through his lieutenant, young 
 Crassus, the son of his colleague in the triumvirate, that 
 all the Belgian states, from the Scheldt to the Bay of 
 Biscay, have been reduced beneath the yoke of the 
 Eoman people. The Germans, too, send ambassadors 
 to him, so convinced are they that to fight against him 
 is of no avail, — so wonderful an idea of this last war 
 has pervaded all the tribes of barbarians. But Csesar 
 is in a hurry, and can hear no ambassadors now. He 
 wants to get into Italy, and they must come again to 
 him next summer. 
 
 For all which glorious doings a public thanksgiving 
 of fifteen days is decreed, as soon as the news is heard 
 in Eome. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THIRD BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.— CiESAR SUBDUES 
 THE WESTERN TRIBES OF GAUL B.C. 56, 
 
 In the first few lines of the third book we learn that 
 Caesar had an eye not only for conquest, hut for the 
 advantages of conquest also. When he went into 
 Italy at the end of the last campaign, he sent one 
 Galba, whose descendant became emperor after j^ero, 
 with the twelfth legion, to take up his winter quarters 
 in the upper valley of the Rhone, in order that an 
 easier traffic might be opened to traders passing over 
 the Alps in and out of Northern Italy. It seems that 
 the passage used was that of the Great St Bernard, and 
 Galba placed himself with his legion at that junction 
 of the valley which we all know so well as Martigny. 
 Here, however, he was attacked furiously in his camp 
 by the inhabitants of the valley, w^ho probably objected 
 to being dictated to as to the amount of toll to be 
 charged upon the travelling traders, and was very nearly 
 destroyed. The Eomans, however, at last, when they 
 had neither weapons nor food left for maintaining their 
 camp, resolved to cut their way through their enemies. 
 This they did so effectually that they slaughtered more 
 
C^SAR MAKES LITTLE OF DIFFICULTIES. 55 
 
 than ten thousand men, and the other twenty thou- 
 sand of Swiss warriors all took to flight ! iN'evertheless 
 Galba thought it as well to leave that inhospitable 
 region, in which it was almost impossible to find food 
 for the winter, and took himself down the valley and 
 along the lake to the Eoman Province. He made his 
 winter-quarters among the Allobroges, who belonged to 
 the Province, — a people living just south of the present 
 Lyons. How the Allobroges liked it we are not told, 
 but we know that they were then very faithful, al- 
 though in former days they had given great trouble. 
 Their position made faith to Rome almost a necessity. 
 Whether, in such a position, Caesar's lieutenants paid 
 their way, and bought their corn at market price, we 
 do not know. It was Caesar's rule, no doubt, to make 
 the country on which his army stood support his army. 
 When the number of men whom Caesar took with 
 him into countries hitherto unknown to him or his 
 army is considered, and the apparently reckless au- 
 dacity with which he did so, it must be acknowledged 
 that he himself says very little about his difficulties. 
 He must constantly have had armies for which to 
 provide twice as large as our Crimean army, — probably 
 as large as the united force of the English and French 
 in the Crimea ; and he certainly could not bring with 
 him what he wanted in ships. The road from Bala- 
 clava up to the heights over Sebastopol, we know, was 
 very bad ; but it was short. The road from the foot of 
 the Alps in the Roman province to the countries with 
 which we were dealing in the last cliapter could not, 
 we should say, have been very good two thousand 
 
56 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK, 
 
 years ago, and it certainly was very long ; — nearly a 
 hundred miles for Caesar to every single one of those 
 that were so terrible to us in the Crimea. Caesar, 
 however, carried hut little with him beyond his arms 
 and implements of war, and of those the heaviest he 
 no doubt made as he went. The men had an allow- 
 ance of corn per day, besides so much pay. We are 
 told that the pay before Caesar's time was 100 asses 
 a-month for the legionaries, — the as being less than a 
 penny, — and that this was doubled by Caesar. We 
 can conceive that the money troubled him compara- 
 tively slightly, but that the finding of the daily corn and 
 forage for so large a host of men and horses must have 
 been very difficult. He speaks of the difficulty often, 
 but never with that despair which was felt as to the 
 roasting of our coffee in the Crimea. We hear of his 
 waiting till forage should have grown, and sometimes 
 there are necessary considerations '* de re frumentaria," 
 — about that great general question of provisions ; but 
 of crushing difficulties very little is said, and of bad 
 roads not a word. One great advantage Caesar certainly 
 had over Lord Eaglan ; — he was his own special cor- 
 respondent. Coffee his men certainly did not get; but 
 if their corn were not properly roasted for them, and if, 
 as would be natural, the men grumbled, he had with 
 him no licensed collector of grumbles to make public 
 the sufferings of his men. 
 
 And now, when this affair of Galba's had been 
 finished, — when Caesar, as he telis us, really did think 
 that all Gaul was *' pacatam," tranquillised, or at least 
 subdued, — the Belgians conquered, the Germans driven 
 
CuESAR SUBDUES THE WESTERiV TRIBES, 57 
 
 oflf, those Swiss fellows cut to pieces in the valley of 
 the Rhone ; when he thought that he might make a 
 short visit into that other province of his, lllyricum, 
 so that he might see what that was lilce, — he is told 
 that another war has sprung up in Gaul ! Young 
 Crassus, with that necessity which of course was on him 
 of providing winter food for the seventh legion which 
 he had been ordered to take into Aquitania, has been 
 obliged to send out for corn into the neighbouring 
 countries. Of course a well-instructed young general, 
 such as was Crassus, had taken hostages before he sent 
 his men out among strange and wild barbarians. But 
 in spite of that, the Yeneti, a maritime people of an- 
 cient Brittany, just in that country of the Morbihan 
 whither we now go to visit the works of the Druids at 
 Carnac and Locmariaker, absolutely detained his two 
 ambassadors ; — so called afterwards, though in his first 
 mention of them Caesar names them as praefects and 
 tribunes of the soldiers. Yannes, the capital of the 
 department of the Morbihan, gives us a trace of the 
 name of this tribe. The Yeneti, who were powerful 
 in ships, did not see why they should give their corn 
 to Crassus. Caesar, when he hears that ambassadors, 
 — sacred ambassadors, — have been stopped, is filled 
 with shame and indignation, and hurries ofi" himself to 
 look after the afi'air, having, as we may imagine, been 
 able to see very little of lllyricum. 
 
 This horror of Caesar in regard to his ambassadors, — 
 in speaking of which he alludes to what the Gauls 
 themselves felt when they came to understand what a 
 thing they had done in making ambassadors prisoners, 
 
58 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 — ^' legates," — a name that has always been held sacred 
 and inviolate among all nations, — is very great, and 
 makes him feel that he must really be in earnest. We 
 are reminded of the injunctions, printed in Spanish, 
 which the Spaniards distributed among the Indians of 
 the continent, in the countries now called Venezuela 
 and JN'ew Granada, explaining to the people, who knew 
 nothing of Spanish or of printing, how they were 
 bound to obey the orders of a distant king, who had 
 the authority of a more distant Pope, who again, — so 
 they claimed, — was delegated by a more distant God. 
 The pain of history consists in the injustice of the 
 wolf towards the lamb, joined to the conviction that 
 thus, and no otherwise, could the lamb be brought to 
 better than a sheepish mode of existence ! But Csesar 
 was in earnest.'^ The following is a translation of the 
 tenth section of this book ; " There were these diffi- 
 culties in carrying on the war which we have above 
 shown." — He alludes to the maritime capacities of the 
 people whom he desires to conquer. — " Many things, 
 nevertheless, urged Caesar on to this war; — the wrongs 
 of those Eoman knights who had been detained, rebel- 
 lion set on foot after an agreed surrender," — that any 
 
 * And Caesar was no doubt indignant as well as earnest, 
 though, perhaps, irrational in his indignation. We know how 
 sacred was held to be the person of the Eoman citizen, and 
 remember Cicero's patriotic declaration, *' Facinns est vinciri 
 civem Eomanum, — scelus verberari ; " and again, the words 
 which Horace puts into the mouth of Regulus when he asserts 
 that the Roman soldier must be lost for ever in his shame, and 
 useless, **Qui lora restrictis lacertis Sensit iners timuitque 
 mortem." 
 
CJSSAR SUBDUES THE WESTERN TRIBES. 59 
 
 such surrender had been made we do not hear, though 
 we do hear, incidentally, that Crassus had taken hos- 
 tages ; — '^ a falling off from alliance after hostages had 
 been given ; conspiracy among so many tribes ; and 
 then this first consideration, that if this side of the 
 country were disregarded, the other tribes might learn 
 to think that they might take the same liberty. Then, 
 when he bethought himself that, as the Gauls were 
 prone to rebellion, and were quickly and easily excited 
 to war, and that all men, moreover, are fond of liberty 
 and hate a condition of subjection, he resolved that it 
 would be well, rather than that other states should 
 conspire, '^ — and to avoid the outbreak on behalf of free- 
 dom which might thus ^probably be made, — *' that his 
 army should be divided, and scattered about more 
 widely." Treating all Gaul as a chess-board, he sends 
 round to provide that the Treviri should be kept quiet. 
 Readers will remember how far Treves is distant from 
 the extremities of Brittany. The Belgians are to be 
 looked to, lest they should rise and come and help. 
 The Germans are to be prevented from crossing the 
 Eliine. Labienus, who, during the Gallic wars, was 
 Caesar's general highest in trust, is to see to all this. 
 Crassus is to go back into Aquitania and keep the south 
 quiet. Titurius Sabinus, destined afterwards to a sad 
 end, is sent with three legions, — eighteen thousand men, 
 — among the neighbouring tribes of iTorthern Brittany 
 and [N'ormandy. '* Young" Decimus Brutus, — Caesar 
 speaks of him with that kind affection which the epithet 
 conveys, and we remember, as we read, that this Brutus 
 appears afterwards in history as one of Caesar's slayers, 
 
60 THE WAR IIV OAUL,— THIRD BOOK, 
 
 in conjunction witli his greater namesake, — yonng De- 
 cimus Brutus, tlie future conspirator in Eome, has con- 
 fided to him the fleet whicli is to destroy these much 
 less guilty distant conspirators, and Caesar himself takes 
 the command of his own legions on the spot. All this 
 is told in fewer words than are here used in descrihing 
 the telling, and the reader feels that he has to do with a 
 mighty man, whose eyes are everywhere, and of whom 
 an ordinary enemy would certainly say, Surely this is 
 no man, but a god. 
 
 He tells us how great was the effect of his own 
 presence on the shore, though the battle was carried 
 on under young Brutus at sea. '' What remained of 
 the conflict," he says, after desofibing their manoeuvres, 
 '' depended on valour, in which our men were far away 
 the superior ; and this was more especially true be- 
 cause the affair was carried on so plainly in the sight 
 of Caesar and the whole army that no brave deed could 
 pass unobserved. For all the hills and upper lands, 
 from whence the view down upon the sea was close, 
 were covered by the army." 
 
 Of course he conquers the Yeneti and other sea-going 
 tribes, even on their own element. Whereupon they 
 give themselves and all their belongings up to Caesar. 
 Caesar, desirous that the rights of ambassadors shall 
 hereafter be better respected among barbarians, deter- 
 mines that he must use a little severity. " Gravius 
 vindicandum statuit ; '' — " he resolved that the offence 
 should be expiated with more than ordinary punish- 
 meni ." Consequently, he kills all the senate, and sells 
 all the other men as slaves ! The pithy brevity, the 
 
CjESar subdues the western- tribes. 61 
 
 unapologetic dignity of the sentence, as he pronounced 
 it and tells it to us, is heartrending, but, at this dis- 
 tance of time, delightful also. " Itaque, omni senatu 
 necato, reliquos sub corona vendiditj" — *' therefore, 
 all the senate having been slaughtered, he sold the 
 other citizens with chaplets on their heads ; " — it being 
 the Eoman custom so to mark captives in war intended 
 for sale. We can see him as he waves his hand and 
 passes on. Surely he must be a god ! 
 
 His generals in this campaign are equally successful. 
 One Yiridovix, a Gaul up in the jN"orniandy country, — 
 somewhere about Avranches or St Lo, we may imagine, 
 — is entrapped into a fight, and destroyed with his 
 army, Aquitania surrenders herself to Crassus, after 
 much fighting, and gives up her arms. 
 
 Then Caesar reflects that the Morini and the Menapii 
 had as yet never bowed their heads to him. Boulogne 
 and Calais stand in the now well-known territory of 
 the Morini, but the Menapii lie a long way off, up 
 among the mouths of the Sclieldt and the Ehine, — the 
 Low Countries of modern history, — an uncomfortable 
 people then, who would rush into their woods and 
 marshes after a spell of fighting, and who seemed to 
 have no particular homes or cities that could be at- 
 tacked or destroyed. It was nearly the end of summer 
 just now, and the distance between, let us say, Vannes 
 in Brittany, and Breda, or even Antwerp, seems to us 
 to be considerable, when we remember the condition of 
 the country, and the size of Caesar's army. But he had 
 a few weeks to fill up, and then he might feel that all 
 Gaul had been " pacified." At present there was this 
 
62 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 haughty little northern corner. '' Omni GalliS, pacat^t, 
 Morini Menapiique supererant ; " — " all Gaul having 
 been pacified, the Morini and Menapii remained." He 
 was, moreover, no doubt beginning to reflect that from 
 the Morini could be made the shortest journey into that 
 wild Ultima Thule of an island in which lived the 
 Britanni. Caesar takes advantage of the few weeks, and 
 attacks these uncomfortable people. When they retreat 
 into the woods, he cuts the woods doAvn. He does cut 
 down an immense quantity of wood, but the enemy only 
 recede into thicker and bigger woods. Bad weather 
 comes on, and the soldiers can no longer endure life in 
 their skin tents. Let us fancy these Italians encounter- 
 ing winter in undrained Flanders, with no walls or roofs 
 to protect them, and ordered to cut down interminable 
 woods ! Had a 'Times' been then written and filed, in- 
 stead of a "Commentary'' from the hands of the General- 
 in-chief, we should probably have heard of a good deal 
 of suffering. As it is, we are only told that Csesar had 
 to give up his enterprise for that year. He therefore 
 burned all their villages, laid waste all their fields, and 
 then took his army down into a more comfortable re- 
 gion south of the Seine, and there put them into winter 
 quarters, — not much to the comfort of the people there 
 residing. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FOURTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR CROSSES THE 
 RHINE, SLAUGHTERS THE GERMANS, AND GOES INTO 
 BRITAIN. — B.C. 65. 
 
 In the next year certain Germans, TJsipetes and others, 
 crossed the Ehine into Gaul, not far from the sea, as 
 Caesar tells us. He tells us again, that when he drove 
 the Germans back over the river, it was near the 
 confluence of the Mouse and the Ehine. When we 
 remember how difficult it was for Csesar to obtain 
 information, we must acknowledge that his geography 
 as to the passage of the Ehine out to the sea, and of 
 the junction of the Ehine and the Mouse by the Waal, 
 is wonderfully correct. The spot indicated as that at 
 which the Germans were driven into the river would 
 seem to be near Bommel in Holland, where the Waal 
 and the Mouse join their waters, at the head of tlie 
 island of Eommel, where Eort St Andre stands, or stood.'^ 
 
 * Cffisar speaks of the coi^uence of the Ehine and the 
 **Mosa" as the spot at which he drove the Germans into the 
 river, — and in various passages, speaking of the Mosa, clearly 
 means the Meuse. It appears, however, to be the opinion of 
 English scholars who have studied the topography of Caesar's 
 
64 THE WAR IN GAUL.—FOCJRTH BOOK, 
 
 Those wonderfal Suevi, among whom the men 
 alternately fight and plough, year and year about, 
 caring more, however, for cattle than they do for corn, 
 who are socialists in regard to land, having no private 
 property in their fields, — who, all of them, from their 
 youth upwards, do just what they please, — large, bony 
 men, who wear, even in these cold regions, each simply 
 some s'.anty morsel of skin covering, — who bathe in rivers j 
 all the year through, who deal with traders only to seir|] 
 the spoils of war, who care but little for their horses, I 
 and ride, when they do ride, without saddles, — think- ,' 
 ing nothing of men to whom such delicate appendages \ 
 are necessary, — who drink no wine, and will have no , 
 neighbours near them, — these ferocious Suevi have ] 
 driven other German tribes over the Ehine into Gaul, y 
 Caesar, hearing this, is filled with apprehension. He r 
 knows the weakness of his poor friends the Gauls, — | 
 how prone they are to gossiping, of what a restless tern- | 
 per. It is in the country of the Menapii, the tribe with ) 
 which he did not quite finish his little afiair in the last : 
 chapter, that these Germans are settling ; and there is 
 no knowing what trouble the intruders may give him 
 if he allows them to make themselves at home on that \ 
 
 campaigns with much labour, that the confluence of the Moselle \ 
 
 and Rhine, from which Coblentz derives its name, is the spot \ 
 
 intended. Kapoleon, who has hardly made himself an autho- \ 
 
 rity on the affairs of Caesar generally, but who is thought to be : 
 
 an authority in regard to topography, holds to the opinion that ^ 
 the site in Holland is intended to be described. Readers 
 who are anxious on the subject can choose between the two ; 
 
 but readers who are nftt anxious will probably be more numer- ' 
 ous. 
 
CESAR DRIVES THE GERMANS OUT OF GA VL. 65 
 
 side of the river. So lie hurries off to give help to 
 the poor Menapii. 
 
 Of course there is a sending of ambassadors. The 
 Germans acknowledge that they have been turned out 
 of their own lands by their brethren, the Suevi, who 
 are better men than thev are. But they profess that, 
 in fighting, the Suevi, and the Suevi only, are their 
 masters. ^N'ot even the immortal gods can- stand 
 ao-ainst the Suevi. But thev also are Germans, and 
 are not at all afraid of the Eomans. But in the pro- 
 position which they make they show some little awe. 
 "Will Caesar allow them to remain where they are, or allot 
 to them some other region on that side of the Rhine 1 
 Caesar tells them that they may go and live, if they 
 please, with the Ubii, — another tribe of Germans who 
 occupy the Rhine country, probably where Cologne now 
 stands, or perhaps a little north of it, and who seem already 
 to have been forced over the Rhine, — they, or some of 
 them, — and to have made good their footing somewhere 
 in the region in which Charlemagne built his church, 
 now called Aix-la-Chapelle. There they are, Germans 
 still, and probably are so because these Ubii made 
 good their footing. The Ubii also are in trouble with 
 the Suevi ; and if these intruders will go and join the 
 Ubii, Caesar will make it all straight for them. The 
 intruders hesitate, but do not go, and at last attack 
 Caesar's cavalry, not without some success. During 
 this fight there is double treachery, — first on the part 
 of the Germans, and then on Caesar's part, — which is 
 chiefly memorable for the attack made on Caesar in 
 Rome. It was in consequence of the deceit here 
 
 A. c. vol. iy. s 
 
66 THE WAR IN OAVL.— FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 practised that it was proposed by his enemies in the 
 city that he should be given np by the Eepublic to 
 the foe. Had any such decree been passed, it would 
 not have been easy to give up Caesar. 
 
 The Germans are, of course, beaten, and they are 
 driven into the river on those low and then undrained 
 regions in which the Rhine and the Meuse and the 
 Waal confuse themselves and confuse travellers; — 
 either here, or much higher up the river at Coblentz ; 
 but the reader will already have settled that question 
 for himself at the beginning of the chapter. Caesar 
 speaks of these Germans as though they were all 
 drowned, — men, women, and children. They had 
 brought their entire families with them, and, when 
 the fighting went against them, with their entire 
 families they fled into the river. Caesar was pursuing 
 them after the battle, and they precipitated themselves 
 over the banks. There, overcome by fear, fatigue, and 
 the waters, they perished. There was computed to 
 be a hundred and eighty thousand of them who were 
 destroyed ; but the Roman army was safe to a man.* 
 
 Then Caesar made up his mind to cross the river. 
 It seems that he had no intention of extending the 
 empire of the Republic into what he called Germany, 
 but that he thought it necessary to frighten the Ger- 
 mans. The cavalry of those intruding Usipetes had, 
 luckily for them, been absent, foraging over the river ; 
 and he now sent to the Sigambri, among whom they 
 
 * ** Hostium numeriis capitum CDXXX milliiim fuisset,'* 
 from which words we are led to suppose that there were 180,000 
 fighting men, besides the women and children. 
 
C^SAR DRIVES THE GERMANS OUT OF GAUL. 67 
 
 had taken refuge, desiring that these horsemen should 
 be given up to him. Eut the Sigambri will not obey. 
 The Germans seem to have understood that Caesar had 
 Gaul in his hands, to do as he liked with it ; but they 
 grudged his interference beyond the Ehine. Caesar, 
 however, always managed to have a set of friends 
 among his enemies, to help him in adjusting his 
 enmities. We have heard of the ^dui in central 
 Gaul, and of the Eemi in the north. The Ubii were 
 his German friends, who were probably at this time 
 occupying both banks of the river ; and the Ubii ask 
 him just to come over and frighten their neighbours. 
 Caesar resolves upon gratifying them. And as it is not 
 consistent either with his safety or with his dignity to 
 cross the river in boats, he determines to build a bridge. 
 Is there a schoolboy in England, or one who has 
 been a schoolboy, at any Caesar-reading school, who 
 does not remember those memorable words, ^' Tigna 
 bina sesquipedalia," with which Caesar begins his 
 graphic account of the building of the bridge 1 When 
 the breadth of the river is considered, its rapidity, and 
 the difficulty which there must have been in finding 
 tools and materials for such a construction, in a country 
 so wild and so remote from Eoman civilisation, the 
 creation of this bridge fills us with admiration for 
 Caesar's spirit and capacity. He drove down piles 
 into the bed of the river, two and two, prone against 
 the stream. We could do that now, though hardly as 
 quickly as Caesar did it ; but we should want coffer-dams 
 and steam -pumps, patent rammers, and a clerk of the 
 works. He explains to us that he so built the foun- 
 
68 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FOURTH BOOK, 
 
 dations that the very strength of the stream added to 
 their strength and -consistency. In ten days the whole 
 thing was done, and the army carried over. Caesar 
 does not tell us at Avhat suffering, or with the loss of 
 how many men. It is the simplicity of everything 
 which is so wonderful in these Commentaries. We 
 have read of works constructed hy modern armies, and 
 of works which modern armies could not construct. 
 We remember the road up from Balaclava, and the 
 railway which was sent out from England. We know, 
 too, what are the aids and appliances with which science 
 has furnished us. But yet in no modern warfare do 
 the difficulties seem to have been so light, so little 
 worthy of mention, as they were to Caesar. He made 
 his bridge and took over his army, cavalry and all, in 
 ten days. There must have been difficulty and hard- 
 ship, and the drowning, we should fear, of many men ; 
 but CiBsar says nothing of all this. 
 
 Ambassadors immediately are sent. From the mo- 
 ment in which the bridge was begun, the Sigambri ran 
 away and hid themselves in the woods. Caesar burns 
 all their villages, cuts down all their corn, and travels 
 down into the country of the Ubii. He comforts them; 
 and tidings of his approach then reach those terrible 
 Suevi. They make ready for war on a grand scale ; 
 but Caesar, reflecting that he had not brought his army 
 over the river for the sake of fighting the Suevi, and 
 telling us that he had already done enough for honour 
 and for the good of the cause, took his army back 
 after eighteen days spent in the journey, and destroyed 
 his bridf^e. 
 
CjESAR invades BRIT Am, 69 
 
 Then comes a passage which makes a Briton vacil- 
 late between shame at his own ancient insignificance, 
 and anger at Caesar's misapprehension of his ancient 
 character. There were left of the fighting season after 
 Caesar came back across the Ehine just a few weeks ; 
 and what can he do better with them than go over and 
 conquer Britannia? This first record of an invasion 
 upon us comes in at the fag-end of a chapter, and the 
 invasion was made simply to fill up the summer ! ^o- 
 body, Caesar tells us, seemed to know anything about 
 the island ; and yet it was the fact that in all his wars 
 with the Gauls, the Gauls were helped by men out of 
 Britain. Before he will face the danger with his army 
 he sends over a trusty messenger, to look about and 
 find out something as to the coasts and harbours. The 
 trusty messenger does not dare to disembark, but comes 
 back and tells Caesar what he has seen from his ship. 
 Caesar, in the mean time, has got together a great fleet 
 somewhere in the Boulogne and Calais country; and, 
 — so he says, — messengers have come to him from 
 Britain, whither rumours of his purpose have already 
 flown, saying that they will submit themselves to the 
 Roman Republic. We may believe just as much of 
 that as we please. But he clearly thinks less of the 
 Boulogne and Calais people than he does even of the 
 Britons, which is a comfort to us. When these peo- 
 ple, — then called Morini, — came to him, asking pardon 
 for having dared to oppose him once before, and ofler- 
 ing any number of hostages, and saying that they had 
 been led on by bad advice, Caesar admitted them into 
 <»ome degree of grace ; not wishing, as he tells us, to be 
 
70 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 kept out of Britain by tlie consideration of such very 
 small affairs. "' ^eque has tantularum rerum occupa- 
 tiones sibi Britannise anteponendas judicabat." We 
 hope that the Boulogne and Calais people understand 
 and appreciate the phrase. Having taken plenty of 
 hostages, he determines to trust the Boulogne and 
 Calais people, and prepares his ships for passing the 
 Channel. He starts nearly at the third watch, — about 
 midnight, we may presume. A portion of his army, — 
 the cavalry, — encounter some little delay, such as has 
 often occurred on the same spot since, even to travel- 
 lers without horses. He himself got over to the 
 British coast at about the fourth hour. This, at mid- 
 summer, would have been about a quarter past eight. 
 As it was now late in the summer, it may have been 
 nine o'clock in the morning when Caesar found him- 
 self under the cliffs of Kent, and saw our armed ances- 
 tors standing along all the hills ready to meet him. 
 He stayed at anchor, waiting for his ships, till about 
 two P.M. His cavalry did not get across till four days 
 afterwards. Having given his orders, and found a 
 fitting moment and a fitting spot, Caesar runs his ships 
 up upon the beach. 
 
 Caesar confesses to a good deal of difficulty in getting 
 ashore. When we know how very hard it is to ac- 
 complish the same feat, on the same coast, in these 
 days, with all the appliances of modern science to aid 
 us, and, as we must presume, with no real intention 
 on the part of the Cantii, or men of Kent, to oppose 
 our landing, we can quite sympathise with Caesar. 
 The ships were so big that they could not be brought 
 
CjESAR invades BRITAIN, 71 
 
 into very shallow water. The Eoman soldiers were 
 compelled to jump into the sea, heavily armed, and 
 there to fight with the waves and with the enemy. 
 But the Britons, having the use of all their limbs, 
 knowing the ground, standing either on the shore or 
 just running into the shallows, made the landing un- 
 easy enough. "Kostri," — our men, — says Caesar, with 
 all these things against them, were not all of them so 
 alert at fighting as was usual with them on dry ground ; 
 — at which no one can be surprised. 
 
 Caesar had two kinds of ships — "naves longae," 
 long ships for carrying soldiers ; and " naves oner- 
 ariae," ships for carrying burdens. The long ships 
 do not seem to have been such ships of w^ar as the 
 Eomans generally used in their sea-fights, but were 
 handier, and more easily w^orked, than the trans- 
 ports. These he laid broadside to the shore, and 
 harassed the poor natives Avith stones and arrow^s. 
 Then the eagle-bearer of the tenth legion jumped 
 into the sea, proclaiming that he, at any rate, 
 would do his duty. Unless they wished to see their 
 eagle fall into the hands of the enemy, they must 
 follow him. " Jump down, he said, my fellow-sol- 
 diers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the 
 enemy. I at least will do my duty to the Eepublic 
 and to our General. When he had said this with a 
 loud voice, he threw himself out of the ship and 
 advanced the eagle against the enemy." Seeing and 
 hearing this, the men leaped forth freely, from that 
 ship and from others. As usual, there was some sharp 
 fighting. " Pugnatum est ab utrisque acriter." It is 
 
72 THE WAR IN QAUL.- FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 nearly always the same thing. Csesar throws away 
 none of his glory hy underiating his enemy. But 
 at length tlie Britons fly. '' This tiling only was 
 wanting to Caesar's usual good fortune," — that he Avas 
 deficient in cavalry wherewith to ride on in pursuit, 
 and ''take the island ! '' Considering how very short 
 a time he remains in the islnnd. w(- feel that liis com- 
 plaint against forUuie is hardly well founded. But 
 there is a general surrender, and a claiming of hos- 
 tages, and after a few days a sparkle of new hope iji 
 the breasts of the Britons. A storm arises, and Csesar's 
 ships are so knocked about that he does not know how 
 he will get back to Ganl. He is troubled by a very 
 high tide, not understanding the nature of these tides. 
 As he had only intended this for a little tentative 
 trip, — a mere taste of a future war withBritain, — he had 
 brought no large supply of corn with him. He must 
 get back, by hook or by crook. The Britons, seeing 
 how it is w^ith him, think that they can destroy him, 
 and make an attempt to do so. The seventh legion is 
 in great peril, having been sent out to find corn, but 
 is rescued. Certain of his ships, — those which had been 
 most grievously handled by the storm, — he breaks up, 
 in order that he may mend the others with their mate- 
 rials. When we think how long it takes us to mend 
 ships, having dockyards, and patent slips, and all 
 things ready, this i .ot marvellous to us. But he 
 does mend his ships, and while so doing he has a 
 second fight with the Britons, and again repulses them. 
 There is a burning and destroying of everything far 
 and wide, a gathering of ambassadors to Caesar asking 
 
CuESAR INVADES BRITAIN. 73 
 
 for terms, a demand for hostages, — a double number of 
 hostages now, — whom Caesar desired to have sent over 
 to him to Gaul, because at this time of the year he did 
 not choose to trust them to ships that were unsea- 
 worthy; and he himself, with all his army, gets back 
 into the Boulogne and Calais country. Two trans- 
 ports only are missing, which are carried somewhat 
 lower down the coast. There are but three hundred 
 men in these transports, and these the Morini of tliose 
 parts threaten to kill unless they will give up their 
 arms. But Caesar sends help, and even these three 
 hundred are saved from disgrace. There is, of course, 
 more burning of houses and laying waste of fields be- 
 cause of this little attempt, and then Caesar puts his 
 army into winter quarters. 
 
 "What would have been the difference to the world 
 if the Britons, as they surely might have done, had 
 destroyed Caesar and every Eoman, and not left even a 
 ship to get back to Gaul ? In lieu of this Ccesar could 
 send news to Eome of these various victories, and have 
 a public thanksgiving decreed, — on this occasion for 
 twenty days. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 FIFTH BOOK OF THE WAE IN GAUL. — C^SAr's SECOND INVASION 
 OF BRITAIN. — THE GAULS RISE AGAINST HIM.— B.C. 54. 
 
 On liis return out of Britain, Csesar, as usual, went over 
 the Alps to look after his other provinces, and to 
 attend to his business in Italy ; but he was determined 
 to make another raid upon the island. He could not 
 yet assume that he had " taken it," and therefore he 
 left minute instructions with his generals as to the 
 building of more ships, and the repair of those which 
 had been so nearly destroyed. He sends to Spain, he 
 tells us, for the things necessary to equip his ships. 
 We never hear of any difficulty about money. We 
 know that he did obtain large grants from Rome for 
 the support of his legions ; but no scruple was made 
 in making war maintain war, as far as such mainten- 
 ance could be obtained. Csesar personally was in an 
 extremity of debt when he commenced his campaigns. 
 He had borrowed an enormous sum, eight hundred 
 - and thirty talents, or something over i>200,000, from 
 Crassus, — who was specially the rich Roman of those 
 days, — before he could take charge of his Spanish pro- 
 vince. When his wars were over, he returned to Rome 
 
CjESArs second invasion of bhitain, 75 
 
 with a great treasure ; and indeed during these wars 
 in Gaul he expended large sums in bribing Eomans. 
 We may suppose that he found hoards among tlie 
 barbarians, as Lord Clive did in the East Indies. 
 Clive contented himself with taking some : Csesar 
 probably took all. 
 
 Having given the order about his ships, he settled 
 a little matter in Illyricum, taking care to raise some 
 tribute there also. He allows but a dozen lines for 
 recording this winter work, and then tells us that he 
 hurried back to his army and his ships. His command 
 had been so well obeyed in regard to vessels, that he 
 finds ready, of that special sort which he had ordered 
 with one bank of oars only on each side, as many as 
 six hundred, and twenty-eight of the larger sort. He 
 gives his soldiers very great credit for their exertions, 
 and sends his fleet to the Portus Itius. The exact 
 spot which CaBsar called by this name the geographers 
 have not identified, but it is supposed to be between 
 Boulogne and Calais. It may probably have been 
 at Wissant. Having seen that things were thus 
 ready for a second trip into Britain, he turns round 
 and hurries off with four legions and eight hundred 
 cavalry, — an army of 25,000 men, — into the Treves 
 country. There is a quarrel going on there be- 
 tween tw^o chieftains which it is well that he should 
 settle, — somewhat as the monkey settled the contest 
 about the oyster. This, however, is a mere nothing of 
 an affair, and he is back again among his ships at the 
 Portus Itius in a page and a half 
 
 He resolves upon taking five legions of Jiis own 
 
76 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIFTH BOOK, 
 
 soldiers into Britain, and two thousand mounted Gauls. 
 He liad brought together four thousand of these horse- 
 men, collected from all Gaul, their chiefs and nobles, 
 not only as fighting allies, but as hostages that the 
 tribes should not rise in rebellion while his back was 
 turned. These he divides, taking half with him, and 
 leaving half with three legions of his own men, under 
 Labienus, in the Boulogne country, as a base to his 
 army, to look after the jorovisions, and to see that he 
 be not harassed on his return. There is a little 
 affair, however, with one of the Gaulish chieftains, 
 Dumnorix the ^duan, who ought to have been 
 his fastest friend. Dumnorix runs away with all the 
 ^duan horsemen. Caesar, however, sends after him 
 and has him killed, and then all things are ready. 
 He starts with altogether more than 800 ships at sun- 
 set, and comes over with a gentle south-west wind. He 
 arrives off the coast of Britain at about noon, but can 
 see none of the inhabitants on the cliff. He imagines 
 that they have all fled, frightened by the number of 
 his ships. Csesar establishes his camp, and proceeds 
 that same night about twelve miles into the country, 
 — eleven miles, we may say, as our mile is longer than 
 the Eoman, — and there he finds the Britons. There is 
 some fighting, after which Caesar returns and fortifies 
 his camp. Then there comes a storm and knocks his 
 ships about terribly, — although he had found, as he 
 thought, a nice soft place for them. But the tempest 
 is very violent, and they are torn away from their 
 anchors, and thrust upon the shore, and dashed against 
 each other till there is infinite trouble. He is obliged 
 
CJESAR'S SECOXD IXVASIOX OF BRITAnV. 77 
 
 to send over to Labienus, telling him to build more 
 sliips ; and tliose which are left he drags up over the 
 shore to his camp, in spite of the enormous labour re- 
 quired in doing it. He is ten days at this work, night 
 and day, and we may imagine that his soldiers had not 
 an easy time of it. When this has been done, he 
 advances again into the country after the enemy, and 
 finds that Cassivellaunus is in command of the united 
 forces of the different tribes. Cassivellaunus comes 
 from the other side of the Thames, over in Middlesex or 
 Hertfordshire. The Britons had not hitherto lived very 
 peaceably together, but now they agree that against the 
 Romans they will act in union under Cassivellaunus. 
 
 Caesar's description of the island is very interesting. 
 The. interior is inhabited by natives, — or rather by 
 " aborigines." Csesar states this at least as the tra- 
 dition of the country. But the maritime parts are 
 held by Belgian immigrants, who, for the most part, 
 have brought with them from the Continent the names 
 of their tribes. The pojDulation is great, and the houses, 
 built very like the houses in Gaul, are numerous and 
 very thick together. The Britons have a great deal of 
 cattle. They use money, having either copper coin or 
 iron rings of a great weight. Tin is found in the 
 middle of the island, and, about the coast, iron. 
 But the quantity of iron found is small. Brass they 
 import. They have the same timber as in Gaul, — only 
 they have neither beech nor fir. Hares and chickens 
 and geese they think it wrong to eat; but they keep 
 these animals as pets. The climate, on the whole, is 
 milder than in Gaul. The island is triangular. One 
 
78 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIFTH BOOK, 
 
 corner, that of Kent, has an eastern and a southern 
 aspect. This southern side of the island he makes 
 500 miles, exceeding the truth hy about 150 miles. 
 Then Coesar becomes a little hazy in his geography, — 
 telling us that the other side, meaning the Avestern 
 line of the triangle, where Ireland lies, verges towards 
 Spain. Ireland, he says, is half the size of Britain, and 
 about the same distance from it that Britain is from 
 Gaul. In the middle of the channel dividing Ireland 
 from Britain there is an island called Mona, — the Isle 
 of Man. There are also some other islands which at 
 midwinter have thirty continuous days of night. Here 
 Caesar becomes not only hazy but mythic. But he 
 explains that he has seen nothing of this himself, 
 although he has ascertained, by scientific measurement, 
 that the nights in Britain are shorter than on the Con- 
 tinent. Of course the nights are shorter with us in 
 summer than they are in Italy, and longer in winter. 
 The western coast he makes out to be 700 miles long ; 
 in saying which he is nearly 100 miles over the mark. 
 The third side he describes as looking towards the 
 north. He means the eastern coast. This he calls 
 800 miles long, and exaggerates our territories by more 
 than 200 miles. The marvel, however, is that he should 
 be so near the truth. The men of Kent are the most 
 civilised : indeed they are almost as good as Gauls in 
 this respect ! What changes does not time make in 
 the comparatH^e merits of countries ! The men in the 
 interior live on flesh and milk, and do not care for corn. 
 They wear skin clothing. They make themselves hor- 
 rible with woad, and go about with very long hair. 
 
 I 
 
CESAR'S SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. 79 
 
 They shave close, except the hccad and upper lip. 
 Then comes the worst habit of all ; — ten or a dozen 
 men have their wives in common between them. 
 
 We have a very vivid and by no means unflattering 
 account of the singular agility of our ancestors in their 
 mode of fighting from their chariots. "This," says 
 Caesar, " is the nature of their chariot-fighting. They 
 first drive rapidly about the battle-field, — "per omnes 
 partes," — and throw their darts, and frequently dis- 
 order the ranks by the very terror occasioned by the 
 horses and by the noise of the wheels ; and when they 
 have made their way through the bodies of the cavalry, 
 they jump down and fight on foot. Then the charioteers 
 go a little out of the battle, and so place their chariots 
 that they may have a ready mode of returning should 
 their friends be pressed by the number of their enemies. 
 Thus they unite the rapidity of cavalry and the stabil- 
 ity of infantry ; and so efi'ective do they become by daily 
 use and practice, that they are accustomed to keep their 
 horses, excited as they are, on their legs on steep and 
 precipitous ground, and to manage and turn them very 
 quickly, and to run along the pole and stand upon the 
 yoke," — by which the horses Avere held together at the 
 collars, — "' and again with the greatest rapidity to re- 
 turn to the chariot." "^ All which is very wonderful. 
 Of course there is a great deal of fighting, and the 
 
 * All well-instructed modern Britons have learned from the 
 old authorities that the Briton war-chariots were furnished with 
 scythes attached to the axles,— from Pomponius Mela, the Eoman 
 geographer, and from Mrs Markham, among others. And Eugene 
 Sue, in his novel translated into English under the name of the 
 * Rival Races, ' explains how the Bretons on the other side of 
 
80 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 Britons soon learn by experience to avoid general 
 engagements and maintain guerilla actions. Caesar by 
 degrees makes his way to the Thames, and with great 
 difficulty gets his army over it. He can only do this 
 at one place, and that badly. The site of this ford he 
 does not describe to us. It is supposed to have been 
 near the place which we now know as Sunbury. He 
 does tell us that his men were so deep in the water 
 that their heads only were above the stream. But 
 even thus they were so impetuous in their onslaught, 
 that the Britons would not wait for them on the 
 opposite bank, but ran away. Soon there come 
 unconditional surrender, and hostages, and promises 
 of tribute. Cassivellaunus, who is himself but a 
 usurper, and therefore has many enemies at home, 
 endeavours to make himself secure in a strong place or 
 town, which is supposed to have been on or near the site 
 of our St Albans. Caesar, however, explains that the 
 poor Britons give the name of a town, — " oppidum,'* 
 — to a spot in which they have merely surrounded 
 some thick woods with a ditch and rampart. Caesar, 
 of course, drives them out of their woodland fortress, 
 and then there quickly follows another surrender, more 
 hostages, and the demand for tribute. Caesar leaves 
 his orders behind him, as though to speak were to be 
 obeyed. One Mandubratius, and not Cassivellaunus, 
 
 the water, in the Morbihan, used these scythes ; and how, before 
 a battle with Caesar's legions, the wives of the warriors arranged 
 the straps so that the scythes might be worked from the chariot 
 like ^oars from a boat. But Caesar says nothing of such scythes, 
 and surely he would have done so had he seen them. The reader 
 must choose between Caesar's silence and the authority of Pom- 
 ponius Mela, Mrs Markham, and Eugene Sue. 
 
CJSSAR'S SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. 81 
 
 is to be the future king in Middlesex and Hertford- 
 shire, — that is, over the Trinobantes who live there. 
 He fixes the amount of tribute to be sent annually by 
 the Britons to Eome ; and he especially leaves orders 
 that Cassivellaunus shall do no mischief to the young 
 Mandubratius. Then he crosses back into Gaul at two 
 trips, — his ships taking half the army first and coming 
 back for the other half ; and he piously observes that 
 though he had lost many ships when they were com- 
 paratively empty, hardly one had been destroyed while 
 his soldiers were in thefn. 
 
 So was ended Caesar's second and last invasion of 
 Britain. That he had reduced Britain as he had re- 
 duced Gaul he certainly could not boast ; — though 
 Quintus Cicero had written to his brother to say that 
 Britannia was, — **confecta," — finished. Though he 
 had twice landed his army under the white clifi's, and 
 twice taken it away with comparative security, he had 
 on both occasions been made to feel how terribly strong 
 an ally to the Britons was that channel which divided 
 them from the Continent. The reader is made to feel 
 that on both occasions the existence of his army and of 
 himself is in the greatest peril. Caesar's idea in attack- 
 ing Britain was probably rather that of making the 
 Gauls believe that his power could reach even beyond 
 them, — could extend itself all round them, even into 
 distant islands, — than of absolutely establishing the 
 Eoman dominion beyond that distant sea. The Bri- 
 tons had helped the Gauls in their wars with him, and 
 it was necessary that he should punish any who pre- 
 sumed to give such help. Whether the orders which 
 
 A. c. vol. iv. p 
 
82 
 
 THE WAR m GAUL,— FIFTH BOOK, 
 
 he left behind him were obeyed we do not know ; 
 "but we may imagine that the tribute exacted was not 
 sent to Eome with great punctuality. In fact, Csesar 
 invaded the island twice, but did not reduce it. 
 
 On his return to Gaul, nearly at the close of the 
 summer, he found himself obliged to distribute his 
 army about the country because of a great scarcity of 
 provisions. There had been a drought, and the crops 
 had failed. Hitherto he had kept his army together 
 during the winter; now he was obliged to divide his 
 legions, placing one with one\ribe, and another with 
 another. A legion and a half he stations under two of 
 his generals, L. Titurius Sabinus, and L. Aurunculeius 
 Cotta, among the Eburones, who live on the banks of the 
 Mouse in the Liege and ^Namur country, — a very stout 
 people, who are still much averse to the dominion of 
 Eome. In this way he thought he might best get over 
 that difficulty as to the scarcity of provisions ; but yet 
 he so weU ujiderstood the danger of separating his 
 army, that he is careful to tell us that, with the excep- 
 tion of one legion which he had stationed in a very 
 quiet country, — among the Essui, where Alengon now 
 stands, — they were all within a hundred miles of each 
 other. I^evertheless, in spite of this precaution, there 
 now fell upon Caesar the greatest calamity which he 
 had ever yet suiFered in war. 
 
 During all these campaigns, the desire of the Gauls 
 to free themselves from the power and the tyranny of 
 Eome never ceased; nor did their intention to do so 
 ever fade away. Coesar must have been to them as a 
 venomous blight, or some evil divinity sent to afflict 
 them for causes which they could not understand. 
 
HATRED OF THE GAULS TOWARDS CuESAR. 83 
 
 There were trites who truckled to him, hut he had no 
 real friends among them. If any Gauls could have 
 loved him, the ^dui should have done so ; hut that 
 Dumnorix, the ^duan, who ran away with the horse- 
 men of his trihe when he was wanted to help in the 
 invasion of Eritain, had, hefore he Avas killed, tried to 
 defend himself, asserting vociferously that he was a 
 free man and belonging to a free state. He had failed 
 to understand that, in heing admitted to the alliance 
 of Caesar, he was bound to obey Caesar. Csesar speaks 
 of it all with his godlike simplicity, as though he saw 
 nothing ungodlike in the work he was doing. There 
 was no touch of remorse in him, as he ordered men to 
 be slaughtered and villages to be burned. He was 
 able to look at those things as trifles, — as parts of a great 
 whole. He felt no more than does the gentleman who 
 sends the sheep out of his park to be slaughtered at 
 the appointed time. When he seems to be most cruel, 
 it is for the sake of example, — that some politic result 
 may follow, — that Gauls may know, and Italians know 
 also, that they must bow the knee to Caesar. Eut the 
 heart of the reader is made to bleed as he sees the 
 unavailing struggles of the tribes. One does not spe- 
 cially love the -^dui ; but Dumnorix protesting that 
 he will not return, that he is a free man, of a free 
 state, and then being killed, is a man to be loved. 
 Among the Carnutes, where Chartres now stands, 
 Caesar has set up a pet king, one Tasgetius ; but when 
 Ca3sar is away in Eritain, the Carnutes kill Tasgetius. 
 They will have no pet of Caesar's. And now the stout 
 Eburones, who have two kings of their own over them, 
 Ambiorix and Cativolcus, understanding that Caesar s d if • 
 
84 
 
 THE WAR IN GAUL.—FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 ficultyis their opportunity, attack the Eornan camp, with 
 its legion and a half of men under Titurius and Cotta. 
 Amhiorix, the chieftain, is very crafty. He persuades 
 the Eon^an generals to send ambassadors to him, and 
 to these he tells his story. He himself, Ambiorix, loves 
 Caesar beyond all things. Has not Csesar done him great 
 kindnesses 1 He would not willingly lift a hand 
 against Caesar, but he cannot control his state. The 
 facts, however, are thus ; an enormous body of Ger-. 
 mans has crossed the Ehine, and is hurrying on to 
 destroy that Eoman camp ; and it certainly will be de- 
 stroyed, so great is the number of the Germans. Thus 
 says Ambiorix ; and then suggests whether it would 
 not be well that Titurius and Cotta with their nine or 
 ten thousand men, — a mere handful of men against all 
 these Germans who are already over the Ehine; — would 
 it not be well that the Eomans should go and join 
 some of their brethren, either the legion that is among 
 the ^Nervii to the east, under Quintus Cicero, the 
 brother of the great orator — or that other legion which 
 Labienus has, a little to the south, on the borders of; 
 the Eemi and Treviri ? And in regard to a good turn 
 on his own part, so great is the love and veneration 
 which he, Ambiorix, feels for Caesar, that he is quite 
 ready to see the Eomans safe through the territories of; 
 the Eburones. He begs Titurius and Cotta to think 
 of this, and to allow him to aid them in their escape 
 while escape is possible. The two Eoman generals do 
 think of it. Titurius thinks that it will be well to take 
 the advice of Ambiorix. Cotta, and with him many 
 of the tribunes and centurions of the soldiers, think 
 that they should not stir without Caesar's orders; — 
 
THE SUCCESS OF AMBIORIX. 85 
 
 tLink also that there is nothing baser or more foolish 
 in warfare than to act on advice given by an enerhy. 
 Titurius, however, is clear for going, and Cotta, after 
 much argument and some invective, gives way. Early 
 on the next morning they all leave their camp, taking 
 with them their baggage, and marching forth as though 
 through a friendly country, — apparently with belief in 
 the proffered friendship of Ambiorix. The Eburones 
 had of course prepared an ambush, and the Eoman 
 army is attacked both behind and before, and is thrown 
 into utter confusion. 
 
 The legion, or legion and a half, with its two com- 
 manders, is altogether destroyed. Titurius goes out 
 from his ranks to meet Ambiorix, and pray for peace. 
 He is told to throw away his arms, and submitting to 
 the disgrace, casts them down. Then, while Ambiorix 
 is making a long speech, the Eoman general is sur- 
 rounded and slaughtered. Cotta is killed fighting; 
 as also are more than half the soldiers. The rest get 
 back into the camp at night, and then, despairing of 
 any safety, overwhelmed with disgrace, conscious that 
 there is no place for hope, they destroy themselves. 
 Only a few have escaped during the fighting to toil the 
 tale in the camp of Eabienus. 
 
 As a rule the reader's sympathies are with the Gauls ; 
 but we cannot help feeling a c^^rtam regret that a 
 Eoman legion should have thas been wiled on to de- 
 struction through the weakness of its general. li 
 Titurius could have been made to suffer alone we should 
 bear it better. Allien we are told how the gallant 
 eagle-bearer, Petrosidius, throws his eagle into the ram- 
 part, and then dies fighting befr.re the camp, we wish 
 
86 THE WAR IN GAUL.—FIFTH BOOK, 
 
 that Ambiorix had been less successful. Of this, how- 
 ever, we feel quite certain, that there will come a day, 
 and that soon, in which Caesar will exact punishment. 
 
 Having done so much, Ambiorix and the Eburones 
 do not desist. [N'ow, if ever, after so great a disgrace, 
 and with legions still scattered, may Caesar be worsted. 
 Q. Cicero is with his legion among the l^ervii, and 
 thither Ambiorix goes. The ^ervii are quite ready, 
 and Cicero is attacked in his camp. And here, too, 
 for a long while it goes very badly with the Eomans ; — 
 so badly that Cicero is hardly able to hold his ramparts 
 against the attacks made upon them by the barbarians. 
 Eed-hot balls of clay and hot arrows are thrown into 
 the camp, and there is a fire. The messengers sent to 
 Ca3sar for help are slain on the road, and the Eomans 
 begin to think that there is hardly a chance for them 
 of escape. Unless Caesar be with them they are not safe. 
 All their power, their prestige, their certainty of con- 
 quest, lies in Caesar. Cicero behaves like a prudent 
 and a valiant man ; but unless he had at last succeeded 
 in getting a Gaulish slave to take a letter concealed in 
 a dart to Caesar, the enemy would have destroyed him. 
 
 There is a little episode of two Eoman centurions, 
 Pulfius and Yarenus, who were always quarrelling as to 
 which was the better man of the two. Pulfius with 
 much bravado rushes out among the enemy, and 
 Varenus follows him. Pulfius gets into trouble, and 
 Varenus rescues him. Then Yarenus is in a difficulty, 
 and Pulfius comes to his assistance. According to all 
 chances of war, both should have been killed ; but 
 both get back safe into the camp ; — and nobody knows 
 from that day to this which was the better man. 
 
THE DANGER OF QUINTUS CICERO. 87 
 
 Caesar, of course, hastens to the assistance of his lieu- 
 tenant, having sent word of his coming by a letter 
 fastened to another dart, which, however, hardly 
 reaches Cicero in time to comfort him before he sees 
 the fires by which the coming legions wasted the 
 country along their line of march. Then there is 
 more fighting. Caesar conquers, and Q. Cicero is rescued 
 from his very disagreeable position. Labienus has 
 also been in difficulty, stationed, as we remember, on 
 the borders of the Treviri. The Treviri were quite 
 as eager to attack him as the Eburones and JN'ervii to 
 destroy the legions left in their territories. Eat before 
 the attack is made, the news of Caesar's victory, travel- 
 ling with wonderful speed, is heard of in those parts, 
 and the Treviri think it best to leave Labienus alone. 
 
 But Caesar has perceived that, although he has so 
 
 often boasted that all Gaul was at last at peace, all Gaul 
 
 is prepared to carry on the war against him. It is 
 
 during this winter that he seems to realize a conviction 
 
 that his presence in the country is not popular with the 
 
 [Gauls in general, and that he has still much to do 
 
 I before he can make them understand that they are not 
 
 [free men, belonging to free states. The opposition to 
 
 [him has become so general that he himself determines 
 
 I to remain in Gaul all the winter ; and even after tell- 
 
 r ing us of the destruction of Indutiomarus, the chief of 
 
 [ the Treviri, by Labienus, he can only boast that — *' Caesar 
 
 [had, after that was done, Gaul a little quieter," — a 
 
 little more like a subject country bound hand and loot, 
 
 [ — than it was before. During this year Caesar's pro- 
 
 1 consular power over his provinces was extended for a 
 
 ! second period of five years. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SIXTH BOOK OF THE WAK IN GAUL. — C^SAR PURSUES AMBIORIX. 
 — THE MANNERS OF THE GAULS AND OF THE GERMANS ARE 
 CONTRASTED. — B.C. 53. 
 
 C^SAR begins tne next campaign before the winter 
 is over, having, as we have seen, been forced to con- 
 tinue the last long after the winter had commenced. 
 The Gauls were learning to unite themselves, and 
 things wei8 becoming very serious with him. One 
 Roman army, with probably ten thousand men, had 
 been absolutely destroyed, with its generals Titurius 
 Sabinus and Aurunculeius Gotta. Another under 
 Quintus Gicero would have suffered the same fate, 
 but for Caesar's happy intervention. A third under 
 Labienus had been attacked. All Gaul had been 
 under arms, or thinking of arms, in the autumn ; and 
 though Caesar had been able to report at the end of the 
 champaign that Gaul, — his Gaul, as he intended that it 
 shoald be, — was a little quieter, nevertheless he under- 
 stood well that he still had his work to do before he 
 could enter upon possession. He had already been the 
 master of eight legions in Gaul, containing 48,000 foot- 
 soldiers, levied on the Italian side of the Alps. He 
 
CuESAR RECRUITS HIS ARMY, 89 
 
 had added to this a large body of Gaulish cavalry and 
 light infantry, over and above his eight legions. He 
 had now lost an entire legion and a half, besides 
 the gaps which must have been made in Britain, 
 and by the loss of those who had fallen when attacked 
 under Cicero by the Nervii. But he would show the 
 Gauls that when so treated he could begin again, not 
 only with renewed but with increased force. He would 
 astound them by his display of Eoman power, '* think- 
 ing that, for the future, it would greatly affect the opin- 
 ion of Gaul that the power of Italy should be seen to be 
 so great that, if any reverse in war were suffered, not 
 only could the injury be cured in a short time, but 
 that the loss could be repaired even by increased 
 forces." He not only levies fresh troops, but borrows 
 a legion which Pompey commands outside the walls 
 of Eome. He tells us that Pompey yields his legion 
 to the " Eepublic and to Friendship. " The Triumvi- 
 rate was still existing, and Caesar's great colleague 
 probably felt that he had no alternative. In this way 
 Caesar not only re-established the legion which had 
 been annihilated, but completes the others, and takes 
 the field with two new legions added to his army. He 
 probably now had as many as eighty thousand men 
 under his command. 
 
 He first makes a raid against our old triends the 
 Nervii, who had nearly conquered Cicero before 
 Christmas, and who were already conspiring again 
 with certain German and neighbouring Belgian tribes. 
 The reader will perhaps remember that in the second 
 book this tribe was said to have been so utterly de- 
 
90 TEE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 stroyed that hardly their name remained. That, no 
 doubt, was Caesar's belief after the great slaughter. 
 There had been, however, enough of them left nearly 
 to destroy Q. Cicero and his legion. Then Csesar goes 
 to Paris, — Lutetia Parisiorum, of which we now hear 
 for the first time, — and, with the help of his friends 
 the ^dui and the Remi, makes a peace with the 
 centre tribes of Gaul, the Senones and Carnutes. 
 Then he resolves upon attacking Ambiorix with all 
 his heart and soul. Ambiorix had destroyed his 
 legion and killed his two generals, and against 
 Ambiorix he must put forth all his force. It is 
 said that when Csesar first heard of that misfortune 
 he swore that he would not cut his hair or shave 
 himself till he was avenged. But he feels that he 
 must first dispose of those who would naturally be 
 the allies of this much-to-be-persecuted enemy. The 
 Menapii, with whom we may remember that he had 
 never quite settled matters in his former war, and 
 who live on the southern banks of the Mense not far 
 from the sea, have not even yet sent to him messen- 
 gers to ask for peace. He burns their villages, takes 
 their cattle, makes slaves of the men, and then binds 
 them by hostages to have no friendship with Am- 
 biorix. In the mean time Labienus utterly defeats the 
 great north-eastern tribe, the Treviri, Avhom he cun- 
 ningly allures into fighting just before they are joined 
 by certain Germans who are coming to aid them. 
 *^ Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat.'' These 
 unfortunate Gauls and Germans fall into every trap 
 that is laid for them. The speech which Caesar quotes 
 
C^SAR BUILDS A SECOND BRIDGE. 91 
 
 as having been made by Labieniis to bis troops on 
 this occasion is memorable. " jN'ow," says Labienus, 
 " you have your opportunity. You have got your 
 enemy thoroughly at advantage. That valour which 
 you have so often displayed before the ' Imperator/ 
 Caesar, display now under my command. Think that 
 Caesar is present, and that he beholds you.'' To have 
 written thus of himself C^sar must have thought of 
 himself as of a god. He tells the story as though 
 it were quite natural that Labienus and the soldiers 
 should so regard him. 
 
 After this battle, in wdiich the Treviri are of course 
 slaughtered, Caesar makes a second bridge over the 
 Ehine, somewhat above the spot at Avhich he had 
 crossed before. He does this, he says, for tw^ o reasons, 
 — first, because the Germans had sent assistance to 
 the ]N"ervii; and secondly, lest his git3at enemy Am- 
 biorix should find shelter among the Suevi. Then he 
 suggests that the opportunity is a good one for saying 
 something to his readers of the different manners of 
 Gaul and of Germany. Among the Gauls, in their 
 tribes, their villages, and even in their families, there 
 are ever two factions, so that one should always 
 balance the other, and neither become superior. Caesar 
 so tells us at this particular point of his narrative, 
 because he is anxious to go back and explain how it 
 was that he had taken the part of the ^dui, and had 
 first come into conflict with the Germans, driving 
 Ariovistus back across the Ehine for their sake. In 
 eastern Gaul two tribes had long balanced each other, 
 oach, of course, striving for mastery, — the -^dui and 
 
92 THE WAR IN OAUL.—SIXTH BOOK, 
 
 the Sequani. The Sequani had called in the aid of 
 the Germans, and the ^dui had been very hardly 
 treated. In their sufferings they had appealed to 
 Eome, having had former relations of close amity with 
 the Republic. Divitiacus, their chief magistrate, — the 
 brother of Dumnorix who was afterwards killed by 
 Caesar's order for running away Avith the ^duan 
 cavalry before the second invasion of Britain, — had 
 lived for a while in Eome, and had enjoyed Eoman 
 friendships, that of Cicero among others. There was 
 a good deal of doubt in Eome as to what should be 
 done with these ^Edui ; but at last, as we know, Caesar 
 decided on taking their part ; and we know also how he 
 drove Ariovistus back into Germany, with the loss of 
 his wives and daughters. Thus it came to pass, Caesar 
 tells us, that the ^dui we're accounted first of all the 
 Gauls in regard to friendship with Eome ; while the 
 Eemi, who came to his assistance so readily when the 
 Belgians were in arms against him, w^ere allowed the 
 second place. 
 
 Among the Gauls there are, he says, two classes of 
 men held in honour, — the Druids and the knights ] by 
 which we understand that two professions or modes of 
 life, and two only, were open to the nobility, — the priest- 
 hood and the army. All the common people, Caesar 
 says, are serfs, or little better. They do not hesitate, 
 when oppressed by debt or taxation, or the fear of 
 some powerful enemy, to give themselves into slavery, 
 loving the protection so obtained. The Druids have 
 the chief political authority, and can maintain it by 
 the dreadful power of excommunication. The excom- 
 
MANNERS OF THE GAULS. 93 
 
 municated wretch, is an outlaw, beyond tlie pale of 
 civil rights. Over the Druids is one great Druid, at 
 whose death the place is filled by election among all 
 the Druids, unless there be one so conspicuously first 
 that no ceremony of election is needed. Their most 
 sacred spot for worship is among the Carnutes, in the 
 middle of th.e country. Their discipline and mys- 
 teries came to them from Britain, and when any very 
 knotty point arises they go to Britain to make inquiry. 
 The Druids don't fight, and pay no taxes. The ambi- 
 tion to be a Druid is very great ; but then so is the 
 difiiculty. Twenty years of tuition is not uncommonly 
 needed ; for everything has to be learned by heart. Of 
 their religious secrets nothing may be written. Their 
 great doctrine is the transmigration of souls ; so that 
 men should believe that the soul never dies, and that 
 death, therefore, or that partial death which, we see, 
 need not be feared. They are great also in astronomy, 
 geography, natural history, — and general theology, of 
 course. 
 
 The knights, or nobles, have no resource but to 
 fight. Caesar suggests that before the blessing of his 
 advent they were driven to the disagreeable necessity 
 of fighting yearly with each other. Of all people the 
 Gauls, he says, are the most given to superstition ; in 
 so much so, that in all dangers and difficulties they 
 have recourse to human sacrifices, in which the Druids 
 are their ministers. They burn their victims to 
 appease their deities, and, by preference, will burn 
 thieves and murderers, — the gods loving best such 
 polluted victims, — but, in default of such, will have 
 
94 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 recourse to an immolation of innocents. Then Csesat 
 tells us that among the" gods they chiefly worship 
 Mercury, whom they seem to have regarded as the 
 cleverest of the gods ; but they also worship Apollo, 
 Mars, Jove, and Minerva, ascribing to them the attri- 
 butes which are allowed thein by other nations. How 
 the worship of the Greek and Eoman gods became 
 mingled with the religion of the Druids we are not 
 told, nor does Caesar express surprise that it should 
 have been so. Csesar gives the Eoman names of 
 these gods, but he does not intend us to understand 
 that they were so called by the Gauls, who had their 
 own names for their deities. The trophies of war 
 they devote to Mars, and in many states keep large 
 stores of such consecrated spoils. It is not often 
 that a Gaul will commit the sacrilege of appropri- 
 ating to his own use anything thus made sacred ; 
 but the punishment of such offence, when it is com- 
 mitted, is death by torture. There is the greatest 
 veneration from sons to their fathers. Until the 
 son can bear arms he does not approach his father, 
 or even stand in public in his presence. The hus- 
 band's fortune is made to equal the wife's dowry, and 
 then the property is common between them. This 
 seems well enough, and the law would suit the views 
 of British wives of the present day. But the next 
 Gaulish custom is not so well worthy of example. 
 Husbands have the power of life and death over their 
 wives and children ; and when any man of mark dies, if 
 there be cause for suspicion, his wives are examined 
 under torture, and if any evil practice be confessed, they 
 
MANNERS OF THE GERMANS. 95 
 
 are then tortured to death. We learn from this passage 
 that polygamy was allowed among the Gauls. The 
 Gauls have grand funerals. Tlnngs wdiich have heen 
 dear to the departed are burned at these cere monies. 
 Animals Avere thus burned in Ciesar's time, but in 
 former days slaves also, and dependants who had been 
 specially loved. The best-governed states are very 
 particular in not allowing rumours as to state affairs to 
 be made matter of public discussion. Anything heard 
 is to be told to the magistrate ; but there is to be no 
 discussion on public affairs except in the public coun^ 
 cil. So much we hear of the customs of the Gauls. 
 
 The Germans differ from the Gauls in many things. 
 They know nothing of Druids, nor do they care for 
 sacrifices. They worship only what they see and 
 enjoy, — the sun, and fire, and the moon. They spend 
 their time in hunting and w^ar, and care little for 
 agi'iculture. They live on milk, cheese, and fiesh. 
 They are communists as to the soil, and stay no 
 longer than a year on the same land. These customs 
 they follow lest they should learn to prefer agriculture 
 to war ; lest they should grow fond of broad posses- 
 sions, so that the rich should oppress the poor ; lest 
 they should by too much comfort become afraid of 
 cold and heat ; lest the love of money should grow 
 among them, and one man should seek to be higher 
 than another. From all which it seems that the 
 Germans were not without advanced ideas in political 
 economy. 
 
 It is a great point witn tne Germans to have no 
 near neighbours. For the sake of safety and inde- 
 
96 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 pendeiice, each tribe loves to have a wide margin. In 
 war the chieftains have power of life and death. In 
 time of peace there are no appointed magistrates, hut 
 the chiefs in the cantons declare justice and quell 
 litigation as well as they can. Thieving in a neigh- 
 bouring state, — not in his own, — is honourable to a 
 German. Expeditions for thieving are formed, which 
 men may join or not as they please ; but woe betide 
 him who, having promised, fails. They are good to 
 travelling strangers. There was a time when the 
 Gauls were better men than the Germans, and could 
 come into Germany and take German land. Even 
 now, says Csesar, there are Gaalish tribes living in 
 Germany after German fashion. But the nearness of 
 the Province to Gaul has taught the Gauls luxury, and 
 so it has come to pasG that the Gauls are not as good 
 in battle as the}'' used to be. It is interesting to 
 gather from all these notices the progress of civilisa- 
 tion through the peoples of Europe, and some hint 
 as to what has been thought to be good and bad 
 for humanity by various races before the time of 
 Christ. 
 
 Caesar then tells us of a great Hercynian forest, 
 beginning from the north of Switzerland and stretch- 
 ing away to the Danube. A man in nine days would 
 traverse its breadth; but even in sixty days a man 
 could not get to the end of it lengthwise. We may 
 presume that the Black Forest was a portion of it. It 
 contains many singular beasts, — bisons with one horn; 
 elks, which are like great stags, but which have no 
 joints in their legs, and cannot lie down, — nor, if 
 
C^SAR PURSUES AMBIORIX, 97 
 
 knocked down, can they get up, — which sleep leaning 
 against trees ; but the trees sometimes break, and 
 then the elk falls and has a bad time of it. Then 
 there is the urus, almost as big as an elephant, which 
 spares neither man nor beast. It is a great thing to 
 kill a urus, but no one can tame them, even when 
 young. The Germans are fond of mounting the horns 
 of this animal with silver, and using them for drinking- 
 cups. 
 
 Caesar does very little over among the Germans. 
 wk He comes back, partly destroys his bridge, and starts 
 ^■kgain in search of Ambiorix. His lieutenant Basilus 
 ^Haeariy takes the poor hunted chieftain, but Ambiorix 
 ^■escapes, and Caesar moralises about fortune. Ambi- 
 orix, the reader will remember, was joint-king over 
 the Eburones with one Cativolcus. Cativolcus, who is 
 old, finding how his people arc harassed, curses his 
 brother king who has brought these sorrows on the 
 nation, and poisons himself with the juice of yew- 
 tree. 
 
 All the tribes in the Belgic country, Gauls as well 
 as Germans, were now very much harassed. They all 
 had helped, or might have helped, or, if left to them- 
 selves, might at some future time give help to Ambi- 
 orix and the Eburones. Caesar divides his army, but 
 still goes himself in quest of his victim into the damp, 
 uncomfortable countries near the mouths of the Scheldt 
 and Meuse. Here he is much distracted between his 
 burning desire to extirpate that race of wicked men 
 over whom Ambiorix had been king, and his anxiety 
 lest he should lose more of his own men in the work 
 A. c. vol. iv. Q 
 
98 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 than the wicked race is worth. He invites the neigh- 
 bouring Gauls to help him in the work, so that Gauls 
 should perish in those inhospitable regions rather than 
 his own legionaries. This, however, is fixed in his 
 mind, that a tribe which has been guilty of so terrible 
 an offence, — which has destroyed in war an army of 
 his, just as he would have delighted to destroy a 
 Gaulish army, — must be extirpated, so that its very 
 name may cease to exist ! '' Pro tali facinore, stirps ac 
 nomen civitatis tollatur." 
 
 Caesar, in dividing his army, had stationed Q. 
 Cicero with one legion and the heavy baggage and 
 spoils of the army, in a fortress exactly at that spot 
 from which Titiirius Sabinus had been lured by the 
 craft of Ambiorix. Certain Germans, the Sigambri, 
 having learned that all the property of the Eburones 
 had been given up by Caesar as a prey to any who 
 would take it, had crossed the Ehine that they might 
 thus fill their hands. But it is suggested to them 
 that they may fill their hands much fuller by attack- 
 ing Q. Cicero in his camp ; and they do attack him, 
 when the best part of his army is away looking for 
 provisions. That special spot in the territory of the 
 Eburones is again nearly fatal to a Eoman legion. 
 But the Germans, not knowing how to press the 
 advantage they gain, return with their spoil across the 
 Ehine, and Caesar again comes up like a god. But he 
 has not as yet destroyed Ambiorix, — who indeed is 
 not taken at last, — and expresses his great disgust and 
 amazement that the coming of these Germans, which 
 was planned with the view of injuring Ambiorix, 
 
I. 
 
 Ifc b 
 
 AMBIORIX ESCAPES. 99 
 
 should have done instead so great a service to that 
 monstrously wicked chieftain. 
 
 He does his very best to catch Ambiorix in person, 
 offering great rewards and inducing his men to undergo 
 all manner of hardships in the pursuit. Ambiorix, 
 however, with three or four chosen followers, escapes 
 him. But Caesar is not without revenge. He burns 
 all the villages of the Eburones, and all their houses. 
 He so lays waste the country that even when his army 
 is gone not a soul should be able to live there. After 
 that he probably allowed himself to be shaved. Am- 
 biorix is seen here and is seen there, but with hair- 
 breadth chances eludes his pursuer. Caesar, havjng 
 ,hus failed, returns south, as winter approaches, to 
 Rheims, — Durocortorum ; and just telling us in four 
 words how he had one Acco tortured to death because 
 Acco had headed a conspiracy in the middle of Gaul 
 among the Camutes and Senones, and how he out- 
 lawed and banished others whom he coidd not catch, 
 he puts his legions into winter quarters, and again 
 goes back to Italy to hold assizes and look after his 
 interests amid the great affairs of the Republic. 
 
CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 BEVENTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — THE REVOLT 
 OF VERCINGETORIX. — B.C. 52. 
 
 In opening his account of his seventh campaign Caesar 
 makes almost the only reference to the affairs of Eome 
 which we find in these memoirs. Clodius has been 
 murdered. We know, too, that Crassus had been killed 
 at the head of his army in the east, and that, at the death 
 of Clodius, Pompey had been created Dictator in the 
 city with the name of sole Consul. Caisar, however, 
 only mentions the murder of Clodius, and then goes on 
 to say that the Gauls, knowing how important to him 
 must be the affairs of Rome at this moment, think that 
 he cannot now attend to them, and that, in his absence, 
 they may shake off the Roman yoke. The affairs of 
 Rome must indeed have been important to Caesar, if, 
 as no doubt is true, he had already before his eyes a 
 settled course of action by which to make himself su- 
 preme in the Republic. Clodius, the demagogue, was 
 dead, whom he never could have loved, but whom it 
 had not suited him to treat as an enemy. Crassus, too, 
 was dead, whom, on account of his wealth, Csesar had 
 admitted as a colleague. Pompey, the third triumvir, 
 
THE REVOLT OF VERCINGETORIX. 101 
 
 remained at Eome, and was now sole Consul ; Pom- 
 pey who, only twelve months since, had so fondly 
 given up his legion for the sake of the Eepublic, — and 
 for friendship. Csesar, no doubt, foresaw by this time 
 that the struggle must be at last between himself and 
 Pompey. The very forms of the old republican rule 
 -were being turned adrift, and Caesar must have known, 
 as Pompey also knew, and Clodius had known, and 
 even Crassus, that a new power would become para- 
 mount in the city. But the hands to wrest such power 
 must be very strong. And the day had not yet quite 
 come. Having spent six summers in subduing Gaul, 
 Caesar would not lose the prestige, the power, the sup- 
 port, which such a territory, really subdued, would give 
 him. Things, doubtless, were important at Eome, but 
 it was still his most politic course to return over the 
 Alps and complete his work. Before the winter was 
 over he heard that the. tribes were conspiring, because 
 it was thought that at such an emergency Caesar could 
 
 aot leave Italy. 
 This last book of the Commentary, as written by 
 
 ^Jaesar, tells the story of the gallant Yercingetorix, one 
 of the Arverni, — the modern Auvergne, — whose father, 
 
 ^eltillus, is said to have sought the chieftainship of all 
 
 laul, and to have been killed on that account by his 
 3wn state. Yercingetorix is certainly the hero of these 
 
 rars on the Gaulish side, though we hear nothing of 
 tiim till this seventh campaign. The conspiracy against 
 
 lome is afloat, the Carnutes, whose chief town is Gena- 
 bum, — Orleans, — having commenced it. Yercingetorix 
 pxcites his own countrymen to join, but is expelled from 
 
102 THE WAR IN OAVL,— SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 their town, Gergovia, for the attempt. The Arvemi, or 
 at least their chief men, fear to oppose the Eomans ; 
 but Vercingetorix obtains a crowd of followers out in 
 the country, and perseveres. Men of other tribes come 
 to him, from as far north as Paris, and west from the 
 Ocean. He assumes supreme power, and enacts and 
 carries out most severe laws for his guidance during the 
 war. For any greater offence he burns the offender 
 alive and subjects him to all kinds of torments. For 
 any small fault he cuts off a man's ears, pokes out one 
 of his eyes, and sends him home, that he may be an 
 example visible to all men. By threats of such pun- 
 ishment to those who do not join him, and by inflict- 
 ing such on those who do and are then untrue to him 
 or lukewarm, he gets together a great army. Caesar, 
 who is still in Italy, hears of all this, and having made 
 things comfortable with Pompey, hurries into the pro- 
 vince. He tells us of his great difficulty in joining 
 his army, — of the necessity which is incumbent on him 
 of securing even the Roman Province from invasion, 
 and of the manner in which he breaks through snow- 
 clad mountains, the Cevennes, at a time of the year in 
 which such mountains were supposed to be impassable. 
 He is forced into fighting before the winter is over, be- 
 cause, unless he does so, the few friends he has in Gaul, 
 — the iEdui, for instance, — will have been gained over 
 by the enemy. This made it very difficult, Caesar tells 
 us, for him to know what to do ; but he decides that 
 he must begin his campaign, though it be winter still. 
 Caesar, moving his army about Avitli wonderful quick- 
 ness, takes three towns in the centre of Gaul, of which 
 
THE FATE OF AVARICUM. 103 
 
 Genabum, Orleans, is the first, and thus provides him- 
 self Avith food. Yercingetorix, when he hears of these 
 losses, greatly troubled in his mind that Caesar should 
 thus be enabled to exist on the provisions gathered by 
 the Gauls, determines to burn all the Gaulish towns in 
 those parts. He tells his people that there is nothing 
 else for them in their present emergency, and that they 
 must remember when they see their hearths smoking 
 and their property destroyed, that it would be, or ought 
 to be, much more grievous for them to know that their 
 wives and children would become slaves, as undoubt- 
 edly would be their fate, if Caesar were allowed to pre- 
 vail. The order is given. Twenty cities belonging to 
 one tribe are burned to the ground. The same thing 
 is done in other states. But there is one very beauti- 
 ful city, the glory of the country round, which can, they 
 say, be so easily defended that it will be a comfort , 
 rather than a peril to them. Avaricum, the present 
 Bourges, — must that also be burned ? May not Ava- 
 ricum be' spared "? Yercingetorix is all for burning 
 Avaricum as he has burned the others ; but he allows 
 himself to be persuaded, and the city is spared — for the 
 time. 
 
 Caesar, of course, determines to .:aive Avaricum ; but 
 he encounters great difficulties. . The cattle have been 
 driven away. There is no corn. Those wretched 
 ^dui do almost nothing for him ; and the Boii, who 
 are their neighbours, and who, at the best, are but a 
 poor scanty people, are equally unserviceable. Some 
 days his army is absolutely without food ; but jet no 
 word of complaint is heard " unworthy of the majesty 
 
104 THE WAR IN GAUL.-SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 and former victories of the Koinaii people." Tlie sol- 
 diers even beg him to continue tlie siege when he offers 
 to raise it because of the hardships they are enduring. 
 Let them endure anything, they say, but failure ! 
 " Moreover Caisar, when he would accost his legions 
 one by one at their work, and would tell them that he 
 would raise the siege if they could but ill bear their 
 privations, was implored by all of them not to do that. 
 They said that for many years under his command they 
 had so well done their duty that they had undergone no 
 disgrace, had never quitted their ground leaving aught 
 unfinished," — except the subjugation of Britain they 
 might perhaps have said, — ^' that they w^ould be now 
 disgraced if they should raise a siege which had been 
 commenced ; that they would rather bear all hardships 
 than not avenge the Eoman citizens who had perished 
 at Gcnabum by the perfidy of the Gauls." Csesar puts 
 these words into the mouths of his legionaries, and 
 as we read them we believe that such was the existing 
 spirit of the men. Csesar's soldiers now had learned 
 better than to cry because they v/ere afraid of their 
 enemies. 
 
 Then we hear that Yercingetorix is in trouble with 
 the Gauls. The Gauls, when they see the Eomans so 
 near them, think that they are to be betrayed into 
 Caesar's hands, and they accuse their leader. But 
 Yercingetorix makes them a speech, and brings up cer- 
 tain Roman prisoners to give evidence as to the evil 
 condition of the Roman army. Yercingetorix swears 
 that these prisoners are soldiers from the Roman 
 legions, and so settles that little trouble ; but Caesar, 
 
THE FATE OF AVARICUM. 105 
 
 defending his legionaries, asserts that the men so 
 used were simply slaves. 
 
 . Vercingetorix is in his camp at some little distance 
 from Avaricum, while Caesar is determined to take the 
 city. We have the description of the siege, concise, 
 graphic, and clear. We are told of the nature of the 
 walls ; how the Gauls were good at mining and 
 countermining ; how they flung hot pitch and hoiling 
 grease on the invaders ; how this was kept up, one 
 Gaul after another stepping on to the hody of his 
 dying comrade ; how at last they resolved to quit the 
 town and make their way by night to the camp of 
 Vercingetorix, hut were stopped by the prayers of their 
 own women, who feared Caesar's mercies j — and how at 
 last the city was taken. We cannot but execrate 
 Caesar when he tells us coolly of the result. They 
 were all killed. The old, the women, and the chil- 
 dren, perished altogether, slaughtered by the Eomans. 
 Out of forty thousand inhabitants, Caesar says that 
 about eight hundred got safely to Vercingetorix. Of 
 course we doubt the accuracy of Caesar's figures when 
 he tells us of the numbers of the Gauls ; but we do not 
 doubt that but a few escaped, and that all but a few 
 were slaughtered. When, during the last campaign, 
 the Gauls at Genabum (Orleans) had determined on 
 revolt against Caesar, certain Eoman traders — usurers 
 for the most part, who had there established them- 
 selves — ^were killed. Caesar gives this as the cause, and 
 sufficient cause, for the wholesale slaughter of women 
 and childreji ! One reflects that not otherwise, per- 
 haps, could lie have conquered Gaul, and that Gaul 
 
106 THE WAR IN OAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 had to be conquered ; T)ut we cannot for tlie moment 
 but abhor the man capable of such work. Yercinget- 
 orix bears his loss bravely. He reminds the Gauls 
 that had they taken his advice the city would have 
 been destroyed by themselves and not defended ; he 
 tells them that all the states of Gaul are now ready 
 to join him ; and he prepares to fortify a camp after 
 the Eoman fashion. Hitherto the Gauls have fought 
 either from behind the walls of towns, or out in the 
 open country without other protection than that of 
 the woods and hills. 
 
 Then there is another episode with those unsatisfac- 
 tory ^dui. There is a quarrel among them who shall 
 be their chief magistrate, — a certain old man or a cer- 
 tain young man, — and they send to Caesar to settle the 
 question. Caesar's hands are very full ; but, as he 
 explains, it is essential to him that his allies shall be 
 kept in due subordinate order. He therefore absolutely 
 goes in person to one of their cities, and decides that 
 the young man shall be the chief magistrate. But, 
 as he seldom does anything for nothing, he begs that 
 ten thousand ^duan infantry and all the ^duan cav- 
 alry may be sent to help him against Vercingetorix. 
 The ^dui have no alternative but to comply. Their 
 compliance, however, is not altogether of a friendly 
 nature. The old man wdio has been put out of the 
 magistracy gets hold of the iEduan general of the 
 forces ; and the ^duan army takes the field, — to help, 
 not Caesar, but Vercingetorix ! There is a large amount 
 of lying and treachery among the ^dui, and of course 
 tidings of what is going on are carried to Caesar. Over 
 
THE SIEGE OF GERGOVIA. 107 
 
 and over again these people deceive him, betray him, 
 and endeavour to injure his cause ; hut he always for- 
 gives them, or pretends to forgive them. It is his 
 policy to show to the Gauls how great can he the 
 friendship and clemency of Csesar. If he would have 
 burned the ^Edui and spared Bourges we should have 
 liked him better ; but then, had he done so, he would 
 not have been Caesar. 
 
 While Caesar is thus troubled with his allies, he has 
 trouble enough also with his enemies. Vercingetorix, 
 with his followers, after that terrible reverse at Avari- 
 cum, — Bourges, — goes into his own country which we 
 know as Auvergne, and there encamps his army on a 
 high hiU A\dth a flat top, called Gergovia. All of us 
 who have visited Clermont have probably seen the 
 hill. Yercingetorix makes three camps for his army 
 on the hill, and the Arverni have a town there. The 
 Gaul has so placed himself that there shall be a river 
 not capable of being forded between himself and Caesar. 
 But the Eoman general makes a bridge and sets him- 
 self down with his legions before Gergovia. The limits 
 of this little work do not admit of any detailed descrip- 
 tion of Caesar's battles ; but perhaps there is none more 
 interesting than this siege. The three Gaulish camps 
 are taken. The women of Gergovia, thinking that 
 their town is taken also, leaning over the walls, implore 
 mercy from the Eomans, and beg that, they may not 
 be treated as have the women of Avaricum. Certain 
 leading Eoman soldiers absolutely climb up into the 
 town. The reader also thinks that Caesar is to prevail, 
 as he always does prevail. But he is beaten back, and 
 
108 THE WAR IN OAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 has to give it up. On this occasion the gallant 
 Vercingetorix is the master of the day, and Caesar 
 excuses himself by explaining how it was that his 
 legions were defeated through the rash courage of his 
 own men, and not by bad generalship of his own. 
 And it probably was so. The reader always feels in- 
 clined to believe the Commentary, even when he may 
 most dislike Caesar. Caesar again makes his bridge 
 over the river, the Allier, and retires into the territory 
 of his doubtful friends the ^dui. He tells us himself 
 that in that affair he lost 700 men and 46 officers. 
 
 It seems that at this time Caesar with his whole army 
 must have been in great danger of being destroyed by 
 the Gauls. Why Vercingetorix did not follow up his 
 victory and prevent Caesar from escaping over the Allier 
 is not explained. ]^o doubt the requirements of war- 
 fare were not known to the Gaul as they were to the 
 Eoman. As it was, Caesar had enough to do to save 
 his army. The ^dui, of course, turned against him 
 again. All his stores and treasure and baggage were 
 at ^NToviodunum, — Nevers, — a town belonging to the 
 ^dui. These are seized by his allies, who destroy all 
 that they cannot carry away, and Caesar's army is in 
 danger of being starved. Everything has been eaten 
 up where he is, and the Loire, without bridges or fords, 
 was between him and a country where food was to be 
 found. He does cross the river, the ^dui having sup- 
 posed that it would be impossible. He finds a spot in 
 which his men can wade across with their shoulders 
 just above the waters. Bad as the spot is for fording, 
 in his great difficulty he makes the attemjit and accom- 
 plishes it. 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE JEBTJh 109 
 
 Then there is an account of a battle which Labienus 
 is obliged to fight up near Paris. He has four legions 
 away with him there, and having heard of Caesar's mis- 
 fortune at Gergovia, knows how imperative it is that 
 he should join his chief. He fights his battle and 
 wins it, and Caesar tells the story quite as enthusias- 
 tically as though he himself had been the conqueror. 
 When this difficulty is overcome, Labienus comes 
 south and joins his Imperator. 
 
 The Gauls are still determined to drive Caesar out 
 of their country, and with this object call together a 
 great council at Bibracte, which was the chief town 
 of the iEdui. It was afterwards called Augustodu- 
 num, which has passed into the modern name Autun. 
 At this meeting, the ^dui, who, having been for some 
 years past bolstered up by Eome, think themselves 
 the first of all the Gauls, demand that the chief 
 authority in the revolt against Eome, — now that they 
 have revolted, — shall be intrusted to them. An 
 ^duan chief, they think, should be the commander- 
 in-chief in this war against Rome. Who has done so 
 much for the revolt as the ^dui, who have thrown 
 over their friends the Romans, — now for about the 
 tenth time % But Yercingetorix is unanimously elected, 
 and the ^duan chiefs are disgusted. Then there is an- 
 other battle. Yercingetorix thinks that he is strong 
 enough to attack the enemy as Caesar is going down 
 south towards the Province. Caesar, so says Yercinget- 
 orix, is in fact retreating. And, indeed, it seems that 
 Caesar was retreating. But the Gauls are beaten and 
 fly, losing some three thousand of their men who are 
 slaughtered in the fight. Yercingetorix shuts him- 
 
110 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK, 
 
 self up in a town called Alesia, and Caesar prepares for 
 another siege. 
 
 The taking of Alesia is the last event told in Caesar's 
 Commentary on the Gallic War, and of all the stories 
 told, it is perhaps the most heartrending. Civilisation 
 was never forwarded in a fashion more terrible than that 
 which prevailed at this siege. Yercingetorix with his 
 whole army is forced into the town, and Caesar sur- 
 rounds it with ditches, works, lines, and ramparts, so 
 that no one shall be able to escape from it. Before this 
 is completed, and while there is yet a way open of leav- 
 ing the town, the Gaulish chief sends out horsemen, 
 who are to go to all the tribes of Gaul, and convene the 
 lighting men to that place, so that by their numbers 
 they may raise the siege and expel the Eomans, We 
 find that these horsemen do as they are bidden, and 
 that a great Gaulish conference is held, at which it is 
 decided how many men shall be sent by each tribe. 
 Yercingetorix has been very touching in his demand 
 that all this shall be done quickly. He has food for 
 the town for thirty days. Probably it may be stretched 
 to last a little longer. Then, if the tribes are not true 
 to him, he and the eighty thousand souls he has with 
 him must perish. The horsemen make good their 
 escape from the town, and Yercingetorix, with his eighty 
 thousand hungry souls around him, prepares to wait. 
 It seems to us, when we think what must have been 
 the Gallia of those days, and when we remember how 
 far thirty days would now be for sufficing for such 
 a purpose, that the difficulties to be overcome were 
 insuperable. But Csesar says that the tribes did send 
 their men, each tribe sending the number demanded, 
 
 ii 
 
\ 
 
 THE SIEGE OF ALE SI A. Ill 
 
 except the Bellovaci, — the men of Beauvais, — who 
 declared that they chose to wage war on their own 
 account; but even they, out of kindness, lent two 
 thousand men. Caesar explains that even his own 
 best friends among the Gauls, — among whom was 
 one Commius, who had been very useful to him in 
 Britain, and whom he had made king over his own 
 tribe, the Atrebates, — at this conjuncture of affairs 
 felt themselves bound to join the national move- 
 ment. This Commius had even begged for the two 
 thousand men of Beauvais. So great, says Csesar, 
 was the united desire of Gaul to recover Gallic liberty, 
 that they were deterred from coming by no memory of 
 benefits or of friendship. Eight thousand horsemen 
 and two hundred and forty thousand footmen assembled 
 themselves in the territories of the ^dui. Alesia was 
 north of the ^^]dui, amidst the Lingones. This enor- 
 mous army chose its generals, and marched off to 
 Alesia to relievo Yercingetorix. 
 
 But the thirty days were past, and more than past, 
 and the men and women in Alesia were starving. ^No 
 tidings ever had reached Alesia of the progress which 
 was being made in the gathering of their friends. It 
 had come to be very bad with tliem there. Some were 
 talking of unconditional surrender. Others proposed 
 to cut their way through the Eoman lines. Then one 
 Critognatus had a suggestion to make, and Caesar 
 gives us the words of his speech. It has been com- 
 mon with the Greek and Latin historians to put 
 speeches into the mouths of certain orators, adding 
 the words when the matter has come within either 
 their knowledge or belief. Csesar does not often 
 
112 THE WAR IN QAUL,— SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 thus risk Ms credibility; but on this occasion he does 
 so. We have the speech of Critognatus, word for 
 word. Of those who speak of surrender he thinks so 
 meanly that he will not notice them. As to that cut- 
 ting a way through the Eoman lines, which means 
 death, he is of opinion that to endure misfortune is 
 e^reater than to die. Many a man can die who cannot 
 bravely live and suffer. Let them endure a little 
 longer. Why doubt the truth and constancy of the 
 tribes 1 Then he makes his suggestion. Let those 
 who can fight, and are thus useful, — eat those who are 
 useless and cannot fight ; and thus live till the levies 
 of all Gaul shall have come to their succour ! Those 
 who have authority in Alesia cannot quite bring them- 
 selves to this, but they do that which is horrible in 
 the next degree. They will turn out of the town all 
 the old, all the weak, and all the women. After that, 
 — if that will not suffice, — then they will begin to eat 
 each .other. The town belongs, or did belong, to a 
 people called the Mandubii, — not to Yercingetorix or 
 his tribe ; and the Mandubii, with their children and 
 women, arc compelled to go out. 
 
 But ^.j^.Lher shall they go ? Caesar has told us that 
 there was a margin of ground between his lines and 
 the city wall, — an enclosed space from which there 
 was no egress except into Caesar's camp or into the 
 besieged town. Here stand these weak ones, — aged 
 men, women, and children, — and implore Caesar to 
 receive them into his camp, so that they may pass out 
 into the open country. There they stood as suppli- 
 cants, on that narrow margin of ground between two 
 armies. Their own friends, having no food for them, 
 
TEE SIEGE OF ALESIA, 113 
 
 had expelled them from their own homes. "Would 
 Caesar have mercy 1 Caesar, with a wave of his hand, 
 declines to have mercy. He tells ns what he himself 
 decides to do in eight words. "At Caesar, depositis 
 in vallo custodiis, recipi prohibebat." "But Caesar, 
 having placed guards along the rampart, forbade that 
 they should be received.' ' We hear no more of them, 
 but we know that they perished ! 
 
 The collected forces of Gaul do at last come up 
 to attempt the rescue of Yercingetorix, — and indeed 
 they come in time ; were they able by coming to do 
 anything ? They attack Caesar in his camp, and a great 
 battle is fought beneath the eyes of the men in Alesia. 
 But Caesar is very careful that those who now are 
 hemmed up in the town shall not join themselves to 
 the Gauls who had spread over the country all around 
 him. We hear how during the battle Caesar comes up 
 himself, and is known by the colour of his cloak„ We 
 again feel, as we read his account of the fighting, that 
 the Gauls nearly win, and that they ought to win. 
 But at last they are driven headlong in flight, — all the 
 levies of all the tribes. The Eomans kill very many : 
 were not the labour of killing too much for them, they 
 might kill all. A huge crowd, however, escapes, and 
 the men scatter themselves back into their tribes. 
 
 On the next day Yercingetorix yields himself and 
 the city to Caesar. During the late battle he and his 
 men shut up within the walls have been> ^mply spec- 
 tators of the fighting. Caesar is sitting iii his Imes 
 before his camp ; and there the chieftains, with Yer- 
 cingetorix at their head, are brought up to him. Plu- 
 
 A. c. vol. iv. H 
 
114 THE WAR IN OAVL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 tarch tells us a story of the chieftain riding np before 
 Csesar, to deliver himself, with gilt armour, on a grand 
 horse, caracolling and prancing. We cannot fancy that 
 any horse out of Alesia, could, after the siege, have 
 been fit for such holiday occasion. The horses out of 
 Vercingetorix's stables had probably been eaten many 
 days since. Then Csesar again forgives the ^dui; but 
 Yercingetorix is taken as a prisoner to Eome, is kept a 
 prisoner for six years, is then led in Csesar^s Triumph, 
 and, after these six years, is destroyed, as a victim 
 needed for Csesar's glory, — that so honour may be 
 done to Csesar ! Csesar puts his army into winter quar- 
 ters, and determines to remain himself in Gaul during 
 the winter. When his account of these things reaches 
 Eome, a " supplication" of twenty days is decreed in 
 his honour. 
 
 Tliis is the end of Csesar's Commentary " De Eello 
 Gallico." The war was carried on for two years more ; 
 and a memoir of Csesar's doings during those two years, 
 — B.C. 51 and 50, — was written, after Csesar's manner, 
 by one Aulus Hirtius. There is no pretence on the 
 writer's part that this was the work of Csesar's hands, 
 as in a short preface he makes an author's apology for 
 venturing to continue what Csesar had begun. The 
 most memorable circumstance of Csesar's warfares told 
 in this record of two campaigns is the taking of TJxel- 
 lodunum, a town in the south-west of Erance, the site 
 of which is not now known. Csesar took the town by 
 cutting off the water, and then horribly mutilated the 
 inhabitants who had dared to defend their own hearths. 
 
I 
 
 THE COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 115 
 
 "Caesar/' says this historian, "knowing well that his 
 clemency was acknowledged by all men, and that he need 
 not fear that any punishment inflicted by him would 
 be attributed to the cruelty of his nature, perceiving 
 also that he could never know what might be the end 
 of his policy if such rebellions should continue to break 
 out, thought that other Gauls should be deterred by 
 the fear of punishment." So he cut of the hands of all 
 those who had borne arms at Uxellodununi, and turned 
 the maimed Avretches adrift upon the world ! And 
 his apologist adds, that he gave them life so that the 
 punishment of these wicked ones, — who had fought 
 for their liberty, — might be the more manifest to the 
 world at large ! This was perhaps the crowning act of 
 Caesar's cruelty, — defended, as we see, by the character 
 he had achieved for clemency ! 
 
 Soon after this Gaul was really subdued, and then 
 we hear the first preparatory notes of the coming 
 civil war. An attempt was made at Rome to ruin 
 Coesar in his absence. One of the consuls of the year, — 
 B.C. 51, — endeavoured to deprive him of the remainder 
 of the term of his proconsulship, and to debar him 
 from seeking the suffrages of the people for the consul- 
 ship in his absence. Two of his legions are also de- 
 manded from him, and are surrendered by him. The 
 order, indeed, is for one legion from him and one from 
 Pompeius ; but he has had with him, as the reader will 
 remember, a legion borrowed from Pompeius ; — and 
 thus in fact Caesar is called upon to give up two legions. 
 And he gives them up, — not being as yet quite ready 
 to pass the Eubicon, 
 
CHAPTER TX. 
 
 FIRST BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — C^SAE CROSSES THE RURI- 
 CON.— FOLLOWS POMPEY TO BRUNDUSIUM. — AND CONQUERS 
 AFRANIUS IN SPAIN. — B.C. 49. 
 
 CiESAR now gives us his history of that civil war in 
 which he and Pompej contended for the mastery over 
 Rome and the Eepublic. In his first Commentary he had 
 recorded his campaigns in Ganl, — campaigns in which 
 he reduced tribes which were, if not hostile, at any rate 
 foreign, and by his success in which he carried on and 
 maintained the potency, traditions, and purport of the 
 Roman Republic. It was the ambition of the Roman 
 to be master of the known world. In his ideas no 
 more of the world was really known than had become 
 Roman, and any extension to the limits of this world 
 could only be made by the addition of so-called barbar- 
 ous tribes to the number of Roman subjects. In reduc- 
 ing Ganl, therefore, and in fighting with the Germans, 
 and in going over to Britain, Caesar was doing that which 
 all good Romans Avished to see done, and was rivalling 
 in the West the great deeds which Pompey had accom- 
 plished for the Republic in the East. In l,his second 
 Commentary he is forced to deal with a subject which 
 must have been less gratifying to Roman readers. He 
 
CORRUPTION IN ROME. 117 
 
 relates to us the victories which he won with Eoman 
 legions over other legions equally Eoman, and by which 
 he succeeded in destroying the liberty of the Kepublic. 
 
 It must be acknowledged on Csesar's behalf that 
 in truth liberty had fallen in Rome before Caesar's 
 time. Power had produced wealth, and wealth had 
 produced corruption. The tribes of Eome were 
 bought and sold at the various elections, and a few 
 great oligarchs, either of this faction or of that, divided 
 among themselves the places of trust and honour and 
 power, and did so with hands ever open for the grasp- 
 ing of public wealth. An honest man with clean 
 hands and a conscience, with scruples and a love of 
 country, became unfitted for public employment. Cato 
 in these days was simply ridiculous ; and even 
 Cicero, though he was a trimmer, was too honest for 
 the times. Laws were WTested from their purposes, and 
 the very Tribunes^ of the people had become the worst 
 of tyrants. It was necessary, perhaps, that there 
 should be a master; — so at least Caesar thought. He 
 had, no doubt, seen this necessity during all these 
 years of fighting in Gaul, and had resolved that he 
 would not be less than First in the new order of things. 
 So he crossed the Eubicon. 
 
 The reader of this second Commentary will find it 
 less alluring than the first. There is less in it of ad- 
 venture, less of new strange life, and less of that sound, 
 
 * The Tribunes of the people were officers elected annually to 
 act on behalf of the people as checks on the magistracy of the 
 Republic, and were endowed with vast powers, which they were 
 presumed to use for the protection of liberty. But the office of 
 Tribune had become degraded to party purposes, as had every 
 other office of the state. 
 
118 THE CIVIL WAR, —FIRST BOOK, 
 
 liealtliy, joyous feeling which sprang from a thorough 
 conviction on Caesar's part that in crushing the Gauls 
 he was doing a thoroughly good thing. To us, and 
 our way of thinking, his doings in Gaul were stained 
 with terrible cruelty. To him and to Ins Eomaus they 
 were foul with no such stain. How other lioman con- 
 querors acted to other conquered peoples we may learn 
 from the fact, that Caesar obtained a character for great 
 mercy by his forbearance in Gaul. He always writes 
 as though he were free from any sting of conscience, 
 as he tells us of the punishments which policy called 
 upon him to inflict. But as he writes of these civil 
 wars, there is an absence of this feeling of perfect self- 
 satisfaction, and at the same time he is much less cruel. 
 Hecatombs of Gauls, whether men or women or chil- 
 dren, he could see burned or drowned or starved, mu- 
 tilated or tortured, without a shudder. He could give 
 the command for such operations with less remorse 
 than we feel when we order the destruction of a litter 
 of undesirable puppies. But he could not bring him- 
 self to slay Eoman legionaries, even in fair fighting, 
 with anything like self-satisfaction. In this he was 
 either soft-hearted or had a more thorough feeling of 
 country than generals or soldiers who have fought in 
 civil contests since his time have shown. In the Wars 
 of the Roses and in those of Cromwell we recognise no 
 such feeling. The American generals w^ere not so 
 restrained. But Caesar seems to have valued a Eoman 
 legionary more than a tribe of Gauls. 
 
 JSTevertheless he crossed the Rubicon. We have 
 all heard of this crossing of the Rubicon, but Caesar 
 Bays nothing about it. The Rubicon was a little 
 
CJSSAR CROSSES THE RUBICON. 119 
 
 river, now almost if not altogether unknown, running 
 into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Ariminum, — 
 Eimini, — and dividing the provinces of so-called Cis- 
 alpine Gaul from the territory under the immediate 
 rule of the magistracy of Eome. Caesar was, so to 
 say, at home north of the Rubicon. He was in his 
 own province, and had all things under his command. 
 But he was forbidden by the laws even to enter the 
 territory of Rome proper while in the command of a 
 Roman province ; and therefore, in crossing the Rubi- 
 con, he disobeyed the laws, and put himself in opposition 
 to the constituted authorities of the city. It does not ' 
 appear, however, that very much was thought of this, 
 or that the passage of the river was in truth taken as 
 the special sign of Caesar's purpose, or as a deed that 
 was irrevocable in its consequences. There are vari- 
 ous pretty stories of Caesar's hesitation as he stood on 
 the brink of the river, doubting whether he would 
 plunge the world into civil war. We are told how a 
 spirit appeared to him and led him across the water 
 with martial music, and how Caesar, declaring that the 
 die was cast, went on and crossed the fatal stream. 
 But all this was fable, invented on Caesar's behalf by 
 Romans who came after Caesar. Caesar's purpose was, 
 no doubt, well understood when he brought one of 
 his legions down into that corner of his province, but 
 offers to treat with him on friendly terms were made 
 by Pompey and his party after he had established 
 ; himself on the Roman side of the river. 
 
 When the civil war began, Caesar had still, accord- 
 ing to the assignment made to him, two years and a 
 half left of his allotted period of government in tho 
 
120 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 
 
 three provinces ; but his victories and his power had 
 been watched with anxious eyes from Eome, and the 
 Senate had attempted to decree that he should be 
 recalled. Pompey was no longer Caesar's friend, nor 
 did Ciesar expect his friendship. Pompey, who had 
 lately played his cards but badly, and must have felt 
 that he had played them badly, had been freed from 
 his bondage to Caesar by the death of Crassus, the 
 third triumvir, by the death of Julia, Caesar's daugh- 
 ter, and by the course of things in Eome. It had 
 been an unnatural alliance arranged by Caesar with 
 the view of clipping his rival's wings. The fortunes 
 of Pompey had hitherto been so bright, that he also 
 had seemed to be divine. While still a boy, he had 
 commanded and conquered, women had adored him, 
 the soldiers had worshipped him. Sulla had called 
 him the Great ; and, as we are told, had raised his 
 hat to him in token of honour. He had been allowed 
 the glory of a Triumph while yet a youth, and had tri- 
 umphed a second time before he had reached middTe 
 life. He had triumphed again a third time, and the 
 three Triumphs had been won in the three quarters of 
 the globe. In all things he had been successful, and in 
 all things hai)py. He had driven the swarming pirates 
 from every harbour in the Mediterranean, and had 
 filled Eome with corn. He had returned a conqueror 
 with his legions from the East, and had dared to dis- 
 band them, that he might live again as a private citi- 
 zen. And after that, when it was thought necessary that 
 the city should be saved, in her need, from the factions 
 of her own citizens, he had been made sole consuL 
 It is easier now to understand the character of Pom- 
 
( 
 
 POMPETS CEARACTEP 121 
 
 pey than the position which, by his unvaried suc- 
 cesses, he had made for himself in the minds both of 
 the nobles and of the people. Even up to this time, 
 even after Caesar's wars in Gaul, there was something 
 of divinity hanging about Pompey, in which the 
 Eomans of the city trusted. He had been imperious, 
 but calm in manner and self-possessed, — allowing no 
 one to be his equal^ but not impatient in making 
 good his claims ; grand, handsome, lavish when policy 
 required it, rapacious when much was needed, never 
 self-indulgent, heartless, false, cruel, politic, ambitious, 
 very brave, and a Eoman to the backbone. But he 
 had this failing, this weakness ; — when the time for 
 the last struggle came, he did not quite know what 
 it was that he desired to do; he did not clearly see 
 his future. The things to be done were so great, that 
 he had not ceased to doubt concerning them when the 
 moment came in which doubt was fatal. Caesar saw 
 it all, and never doubted. That little tale of Caesar 
 standing on the bridge over the Rubicon pondering as 
 to his future course, — divided between obedience and 
 rebellion, — is very pretty. But there was no such 
 pondering, and no such division. Caesar knew very 
 well what he meant and what he wanted. 
 
 Caesar is full of his wrongs as he begins his second 
 narrative. He tells us how his ow^n friends are 
 silenced in the Senate and in the city ; how his ene- 
 mies, Scipio, Cato, and Lentulus the consul, prevail ; 
 how no one is allowed to say a word for him. " Pom- 
 pey himself," he says, " urged on by the enemies of 
 Caesar, and because he was unwilling that any one 
 should equal himself in honour, had turned himself 
 
122 THE CIVIL WAR-FIRST BOOK, 
 
 altogether from Caesar's friendship, and had gone hack 
 to the fellowship of their common enemies, — enemies 
 whom he himself had created for Caesar during the 
 time of their alliance. At the same time, conscious of 
 the scandal of those two legions which he had stopped 
 on their destined road to Asia and Syria and taken into 
 his own hand, he was anxious that the question should 
 be referred to arms." Those two legions are very griev- 
 ous to Csesar. One was the legion which, as we re- 
 member, Pompey had given up to friendship, — and the 
 Eepublic. When, in the beginning of these contests 
 between the two rivals, the Senate had decided on 
 weakening each by demanding from each a legion, 
 Pompey had asked Caesar for the restitution of that 
 which he had so kindly lent. Caesar, too proud to 
 refuse payment of the debt, had sent that to his 
 former Iriend, and had also sent another legion, as de- 
 manded, to the Senate. They were required nominally 
 for service in the East, and now were in the hands 
 of him who had been Caesar's friend but had become 
 his enemy. It is no wonder that Caesar talks of the 
 infamy or scandal of the two legions ! He repeats 
 his complaint as to the two legions again and again. 
 
 In the month of January Caesar was at Ravenna, 
 just north of the Rubicon, and in his own province. 
 Messages j)ass between him and the Senate, and he 
 proposes his terms. The Senate also proposes its terms. 
 He must lay clown his arms, or he will be esteemed an 
 enemy by the Republic. All Rome is disturbed. The 
 account is Caesar's account, but we imagine that Rome 
 was disturbed. *' Soldiers are recruited over all Italy; 
 arms are demanded, taxes are levied on the municipal- 
 
THE RUBICON IS PASSED. 123 
 
 ities, and money is taken from the sacred shrines; all 
 laws divine and human are disregarded." Then Caesar 
 explains to his soldiers his wrongs, and the crimes of 
 Pompey. He tells them how they, under his guid- 
 ance, have been victorious, how under him they have 
 '' pacified" all Gaul and Germany, and he calls upon 
 them to defend him who has enabled them to do such 
 great things. He has but one legion with him, but 
 that legion declares that it will obey him, — him and 
 the tribunes of the people, some of whom, acting on 
 Caesar's side, have come over from Eome to Eavenna. 
 We can appreciate the spirit of this allusion to the 
 tribunes, so that there may seem to be still some link 
 between Caesar and the civic authorities. "When the 
 soldiers have expressed their goodwill, he goes to 
 Ariminum, and so the Rubicon is passed. 
 
 There are still more messages. Caesar expresses 
 himself as greatly grieved that he should be subjected 
 to so much suspense, nevertheless he is willing to suffer 
 anything for the Eepublic; — "omnia pati reipublicae 
 causa." Only let Pompey go to his province, let the 
 legions in and about Eome be disbanded, let all the 
 old forms of free government be restored, and panic 
 • be abolished, and then, — when that is done, — all diffi- 
 culties may be settled in a few minutes' talking. The 
 consuls and Pompey send back word that if Caesar 
 will go back into Gaul and dismiss his army, Pompey 
 shall go at once to Spain. But Pompey and the 
 ^ consuls with their troops will not stir till Caesar shall 
 ^L have given security for his departure. Each demands 
 ^B that the other shall first abandon his position. Of 
 ^H course all these messages mean nothing. 
 
 I 
 
124 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 
 
 Caesar, complaining bitterly of injustice, sends a por- 
 tion of his small army still farther into tlie Eoman 
 territory. Marc Antony goes to Arezzo with five 
 cohorts, and Caesar occupies three other cities with a 
 cohort each. The marvel is that he was not attacked 
 and driven back by Pompey. We may probably con- 
 clude that the soldiers, though under the command 
 of Pompey, were not trustworthy as against Caesar. 
 As Caesar regrets his two legions, so no doubt do the 
 two legions regret their commander. At any rate, the 
 consular forces with Pompey and the consuls and a 
 host of senators retreat southwards to Brundusium, — 
 Brindisi, — intending to leave Italy by the port which 
 we shall all use before long when we go eastwards. 
 During this retreat, the first blood in the civil war is 
 spilt at Corfinium, a town which, if it now stood at all, 
 would stand in the Abruzzi. Caesar there is victor 
 in a small engagement, and obtains possession of the 
 town. The Pompeian officers whom he finds there he 
 ^sends away, and allows them even to carry with them 
 money which he believes to have been taken from the 
 public treasury. Throughout his route southward the 
 soldiers of Pompey, — who had heretofore been his 
 soldiers, — return to him. Pompey and the consuls 
 still retreat, and still Caesar follows them, though 
 Pompey had boasted, when first warned to beware of 
 Caesar, that he had only to stamp upon Italian soil and 
 legions would arise from the earth ready to obey him. 
 He knows, however, that away from Eome, in her 
 provinces, in Macedonia and Acbaia, in Asia and Cilicia, 
 in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, in Mauritania and the 
 two S pains, there are Roman legions which as yet 
 
POM FEY RETREATS. 125 
 
 know no Caesar. It may be better for Pompey that 
 he should stamp his foot somewhere out of Italy. At 
 any rate he sends the obedient consuls and his attend- 
 ant senators oyer to Dyrrachium in Ill}Tia with a part 
 of his army, and follows with the remainder as soon as 
 Caesar is at his heels. Caesar makes an effort to inter- 
 cept him and his fleet, but in that he fails. Thus 
 Pompey deserts Rome and Italy, — and neyer again 
 sees the imperial city or the fair land. 
 
 Caesar explains to us why he does not follow his 
 enemy and endeayour at once to put an end to the 
 struggle. Pompey is proyided with shipping and he 
 is not; and he is aware that the force of Pome lies in 
 her proyinces. Moreover, Rome may be starved by 
 Pompey, unless he, Caesar, can take care that the corn- 
 growing countries, which are the granaries of Rome, 
 are left free for the use of the city. He must make 
 sure of the two Gauls, and of Sardinia, and of Sicily, 
 of Africa too, if it may be possible. He must win to 
 his cause the two Spains, of which at least the north- 
 ern province was at present devoted to Pompey. He 
 sends one lieutenant to Sardinia with a legion, another 
 to Sicily with three legions, — and from Sicily over 
 into Africa. These provinces had been allotted to 
 partisans of Pompey; but Caesar is successful with 
 them all. To Cato, the virtuous man, had been as- 
 signed the government of Sicily; but Cato finds no 
 Pompeian army ready for his use, and, complaining 
 bitterly that he has been deceived and betrayed by the 
 head of his faction, runs away, and leaves his province 
 to Caesar's officers. Cassar determines that he himself 
 wiU carry the war into Spain. 
 
126 THE CIVIL WAR.—FIRST BOOK. 
 
 Eut lie found it necessary first to go to Eome, and 
 Caesar, in his account of what he did there, hardly tells 
 us the whole truth. We quite go along with him 
 when he explains to us that, having collected what 
 sort of a Senate he could, — for Pompey had taken away 
 with him such senators as he could induce to follow 
 him, — and having proposed to this meagre Senate that 
 ambassadors should be sent to Pompey, the Senate 
 accepted his suggestion ; but that nobody could be in- 
 duced to go on such an errand. Pompey had already 
 declared that all who remained at Eome were his ene- 
 mies. And it may probably be true that Csesar, as he 
 says, found a certain tribune of the people at Rome 
 who opposed him in all that he was doing, though we 
 should imagine that the opposition was not violent. 
 But his real object in going to Rome was to lay hand 
 on the treasure of the Republic, — the sanctius serari- 
 um, — which was kept in the temple of Saturn for special 
 emergencies of State. That he should have taken this 
 we do not wonder ; — but we do wonder that he should 
 have taken the trouble to say that he did not do so. 
 He professes that he was so hindered by that vexatious 
 tribune, that he could not accomplish the purposes for 
 which he had come. But he certainly did take the 
 money, and we cannot doubt but that he went to Rome 
 especially to get it. 
 
 Csesar, on his way to Spain, goes to Marseilles, 
 which, under the name of Massilia, was at this time, 
 as it is now, the most thriving mercantile port on the 
 Mediterranean. It belonged to the province of Further 
 Gaul, but it was in fact a colony of Greek traders. Its 
 possession was now necessary to Caesar. The magi&- 
 
CjESAR touches at MARSEILLES. 127 
 
 trates of the town, when called upon for their adhesion, 
 gave a most sensible answer. They protest that they 
 are very fond of Caesar, and very fond of Ponipey. They 
 don't understand all these aifairs of Eorae, and regret 
 that two such excellent men should quarrel. Tn the mean 
 time they prefer to hold their own town. Cscsar speaks 
 of this decision as an injury to hire self, and is insti^i^^ated 
 by such wrongs against him to besiege the city, which 
 he does both by land and sea, leaving officers there for 
 the purpose, and going on himself to Spain. 
 
 At this time all Spain was held by three officers, de- 
 voted to the cause of Pompey, though, from what has 
 gone before, it is clear that Caesar fears nothing from 
 the south. Afranius commanded in the north and east, 
 holding the southern spurs of the Pyrenees. Petreius, 
 who was stationed in Lusitania, in the south-west, 
 according to agreement, hurries up to the assistance of 
 Afranius as soon as Caesar approaches. The Pompeian 
 and Caesarian armies are brought into close quarters in 
 the neighbourhood of Ilerda (Lerida), on the little river 
 Sicoris, or Segre, which runs into the Ebro. They are 
 near the mountains here, and the nature of the fight- 
 ing is controlled by the rapidity and size of the rivers, 
 and the inequality of the ground. Caesar describes 
 the campaign with great minuteness, imparting to it 
 a wonderful interest by the clearness of his narrative. 
 Afranius and Petreius hold the town of Ilerda, which 
 is full of provisions. Caesar is very much pressed by 
 want, as the corn and grass have not yet grown, and 
 the country supplies of the former year are almost ex- 
 hausted. So great are his difficulties, that tidings reach 
 Rome that Afranius has conquered him. Hearing 
 
128 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 
 
 this, many who were still clinging to the city, doubtful 
 as to the side they would take, go away to Pompey. 
 But Caesar at last manages to make Ilerda too hot for 
 the Pompeian generals. He takes his army over one 
 river in coracles, suoti as he had seen in Britain ; he 
 turns the course of another ; fords a third, breaking the 
 course of the stream by the bulk of his horses ; and 
 bridges a fourth. Afranius and Petreius find that 
 they must leave Ilerda, and escape over the Ebro 
 among the half-barbarous tribe further south, and make 
 their way, if possible, among the Celtibri, — getting 
 out of Aragon into Castile, as the division was made 
 in after-ages. Csesar gives us as one reason, for this 
 intended march on the part of his enemies, that Pompey 
 was well known by those tribes, but that the name 
 of Caesar was a name as yet obscure to the barbarians. 
 It was not, however, easy for Afranius to pass over the 
 Ebro without Caesar's leave, and Caesar will by no means 
 give him leave. He intercepts the Pompeians, and now 
 turns upon them that terrible engine of want from which 
 he had suffered so much. He continues so to drive them 
 about, still north of the Ebro, that they can get at no 
 water; and at last they are compelled to surrender. 
 
 During the latter days of this contest the Afranians, 
 as they are called — Eoman legionaries, as are the soldiers 
 of Caesar — fraternise with their brethren in Caesar's 
 camp, and there is something of free intercourse be- 
 tween the two Koman armies. The upshot is that the 
 soldiers of Afranius resolve to give themselves up to 
 Caesar, bargaining, however, that their own generals 
 shall be secure. Afranius is willing enough; but his 
 
CJESAR IN THE NORTH OF SPAIN. 129 
 
 brother-general, Petreius, with more of the Eoman at 
 heart, will not hear of it. We shall hear hereafter the 
 strange fate of this Petreius. He stops the conspiracy 
 with energy, and forces from his own men, and even from 
 Afranius, an oath against surrender. He orders that all 
 Caesar's soldiers found in their camp shall be killed, and, 
 as Caesar tells us, brings back the affair to the old form 
 of war. But it is all of no avail. The Afranians are so 
 driven by the want of water, that the two generals are at 
 last compelled to capitulate and lay down their arms. 
 
 Five words which are used by Caesar in the descrip- 
 tion of this affair give us a strong instance of his con- 
 ciseness in the use of words, and of the capability for 
 conciseness which the Latin language affords. *'Pre- 
 mebantur Afraniani pabulatione, aquabantur aegre." 
 " The soldiers of Afranius were much distressed in the 
 matter of forage, and could obtain water only with great 
 difficulty." These twenty words translate those live 
 which Caesar uses, perhaps with fair accuracy; but many 
 more than twenty would probably have been used by 
 any English historian in dealing with the same facts. 
 
 Caesar treats his compatriots with the utmost gene- 
 rosity. So many conquered Gauls he would have sold 
 as slaves, slaughtering their leaders, or he would have 
 cut off their hands, or have driven them down upon 
 the river and have allowed them to perish in the 
 waters. Eut his conquered foes are Eoman soldiers;, 
 and he simply demands that the army of Afranius 
 shall be disbanded, and that the leaders of it shall go, 
 — whither they please. He makes them a speech in 
 which he explains how badly they have treated him. 
 
 A. c. vol. iv. I 
 
130 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK. 
 
 Nevertheless he will hurt no one. He has home it 
 all, and will hear it, patiently. Let the generals only 
 leave the Province, and let the army which they have 
 led he dishanded. He will not keep a soldier who 
 does not wish to stay with him, and will even pay 
 those whom Afranius has heen unahle to pay out of 
 his own funds. Those who have houses and land in 
 Spain may remain there. Those who have none he 
 will first feed and afterwards take hack, if not to Italy, 
 at any rate to the horders of Italy. The property 
 which his own soldiers have taken from them in the 
 chances of war shall he restored, and he out of his own 
 pocket will compensate his own men. He performs 
 his promise, and takes all those who do not choose to 
 remain, to the hanks of the Yar, which divides the Pro- 
 vince from Italy, and there sets them down, full, no 
 douht, of gratitude to their conqueror. IN'ever was 
 there such clemency,— or, we may say, hetter policy ! 
 Caesar's whole campaign in Spain had occupied him 
 only forty days. 
 
 In the mean time Decimus Brutus, to whom we 
 rememher that Caesar had given the command of the 
 ships which he prepared against the Yeneti in the west 
 of Gaul, and who was hereafter to he one of those who 
 slew him in the Capitol, ohtains a naval victory over 
 the much more numerous fleet of the Massilians. 
 They had prepared seventeen hig ships, — "naves 
 longae" they are called hy Caesar, — and of these 
 Erutus either destroys or takes nine. In his next 
 hook Caesar proceeds to tell us how things went on at 
 Marseilles hoth hy sea and land after this afiair. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — THE TAKING OF MAR- 
 
 ISEILLES. — VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. — THE FATE 
 OF CURIO BEFORE UTICA. — B.C. 49. 
 In liis chronicle of the Gallic vrar, Caesar in each hook 
 completed the narrative of a year's campaign. In 
 treating of the civil war he devotes the first and 
 second hooks to the doings of one year. There are 
 three distinct episodes of the year's campaign narrated 
 in the second ; — the taking of ^Marseilles, the suhju- 
 gation of the sonthern province of Spain, — if that can 
 he said to he suhjugated which gave itself up very 
 readily, — and the destruction of a Eoman army in 
 Africa under the hands of a harharian king. Eut of 
 all Caesar's writings it is perhaps the least interesting, 
 as it tells ns hut little of what Caesar did himself, — 
 and in fact contains chieflj' Caesar's records of the 
 doings of his lieutenants hy sea and land. 
 
 He hegins hy telling us of the enormous exertions 
 K made hoth hy the hesiegers and hy the hesieged at ^las- 
 silia, which town Avas now held by Domitius on the 
 part of Pompey, — to supplement whom at sea a cer- 
 tain Nasidius was sent with a large fleet. Young 
 
132 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK, 
 
 Brutus, as will be rememberedj was attacking the har- 
 bour on behalf of Csesar, and had already obtained a 
 victory over the Massilians before JSTasidius came up ; 
 and Trebonius, also on the part of Caesar, was besieg- 
 ing the town from the land. This Decimus Brutus 
 was one of those conspirators who afterwards conspired 
 against Csesar and slew him, — and Trebonius was 
 another of the number. The wise Greeks of the 
 city, — more wise than fortunate, however, — had ex- 
 plained to Caesar Avhen he first expressed his wish to 
 have the town on his side, that really to them there 
 was no difference between Pompey and Caesar, both of 
 whom they loved with all their hearts, — but they had 
 been compelled to become partisans of Pompey, the 
 Pompeian general Domitius being the first to enter 
 their town ; and now they find themselves obliged to 
 fight as Pompeians in defence of their wealth and their 
 homes. Thus driven by necessity, they fight well and do 
 their very best to favour the side which we must hence- 
 forward call that of the Republic as against an autocrat ; 
 • — for, during this siege of Marseilles, Caesar had been 
 appointed Dictator, and a law to that effect had been 
 passed at Rome, wdiere the passing of such a law was no 
 doubt easy enough in the absence of Pompey, of the con- 
 suls, and of all the senators who were Pompey' s friends. 
 The Massilians had now chosen their side, and they 
 do their very best. We are told that the Caesarean 
 troops, from the high ground on which Trebonius had 
 placed his camp, could look down into the town, and 
 could see '' how all the youth who had been left in the 
 city, and all the elders with their children and wives, 
 
THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES. 133 
 
 and the sentinels of the city, either stretched their 
 hands to heaven from the walls, or, entering the 
 temples of the immortal gods, and throwing themselves 
 before their sacred images, prayed that the heavenly 
 powers would give them victory, l^or was there one 
 among them who did not believe that on the result 
 of that day depended all that they had," — namely, 
 liberty, property, and life; for the Massilians, doubt- 
 less, had heard of Avaricum, of Alesia, and of Uxello- 
 dunum. " When the battle was begun," says Caesar, 
 " the Massilians failed not at all in valour ; but, 
 mindful of the lessons they had just received from their 
 townsmen, fought with the belief that the present was 
 their only opportunity of doing aught for their own pre- 
 servation ; and that to those who should fall in battle, 
 loss of life would only come a little sooner than to the 
 others, w^ho would have to undergo the same fate, 
 should the city be taken." Caesar, as he wrote this, 
 doubtless thought of what he had done in Gaul when 
 policy demanded from him an extremity of cruelty ; and, 
 so writing, he enhanced the clemency with which, as he 
 is about to tell us, he afterwards treated the Massilians. 
 When the time came it did not suit him to depopulate 
 a rich town, the trade of whose merchants was benefi- 
 cial both to Eome and to the Province. He is about 
 to tell us of his mercy, and therefore explains to us 
 beforehand how little was mercy expected from him. 
 We feel that every line he writes is weighed, though 
 the time for such weighing must have been very short 
 with one whose hands were so full as were always the 
 hands of Caesar. 
 
134 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 
 
 Nasidius, whom we may call Pompey*s admiral, 
 was of no use at all. The Massilians, tempted by his 
 coming, attack bravely the ship which bears the flag 
 of young Erutus ; but young Brutus is too quick for 
 them, and the unhappy Massilians run two of their 
 biggest vessels against each other in their endeavour 
 to pin that of the Csesarean admiral between them. 
 The Massilian fleet is utterly dispersed. Five are 
 sunk, four are taken : one gets off with Nasidius, who 
 runs away, making no effort to fight : who has been 
 sent there,— so Caesar hints, — by Pompey, not to give 
 assistance, but only to pretend to give assistance. 
 One ship gets back into the harbour with the sad 
 tidings ; and the Massilians — despairing only for a 
 moment at the first blush of the bad news — determine 
 that their walls may still be defended. 
 
 The town was very well supplied with such things 
 as were needed for defence, the people being a provi- 
 dent people, well instructed and civilised, with means 
 at their command. We are told of great poles twelve 
 feet long, with sharp iron heads to them, which the 
 besiegers could throw with such force from the engines 
 on their walls as to drive them through four tiers of 
 the wicker crates or stationary shields which the Csesa- 
 reans built up for their i:)rotection, — believing that no 
 force could drive a weapon througli them. As we 
 read of this we cannot but think of Armstrong and 
 Whitfield guns, and iron plates, and granite batteries, 
 and earthworks. These terrible darts, thrown from 
 " balistse," are very sore upon the CaBsareans ; they 
 therefore contrive an immense tower, so high that it 
 
THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES, 135 
 
 cannot be reached by any weapon, so built that no 
 wood or material subject to fire shall be on the out- 
 side, — which they erect story by story, of very great 
 strength. And as they raise this step by step, each 
 story is secured against fire and against the enemy. 
 The reader, — probably not an engineer himself, — is 
 disposed to think as he struggles through this minute 
 description of the erection which Caesar gives, and 
 endeavours to realise the Avay in which it is done, that 
 Caesar must himself have served specially as an engineer. 
 Eut in truth he was not at this siege himself, and had 
 nothing to do with the planning of the tower, and 
 must in this instance at least have got a written de- 
 scription from his officer, — as he probably did before 
 wheu he built the memorable bridge over the Rhine. 
 And when the tower is finished, they make a long 
 covered way or shed, — musculum or muscle Caesar calls 
 it ', and with this they form for themselves a passage 
 from the big tower to a special point in the walls of 
 the town. This muscle is so strong with its sloping 
 roof that notliing thrown upon it will break or burn it. 
 The Massilians try tubs of fiaming pitch, and great frag- 
 ments of rock ; but these simply slip to the ground, and 
 are pulled away with long poles and forks. And the 
 Caesareans, from the height of their great tower, have 
 so terrible an advantage ! The Massilians cannot de- 
 fend their wall, and a breach is made, or almost made. 
 The Massilians can do no more. The very gods are 
 against them. So they put on the habit of supplicants, 
 and go forth to the conquerors. They will give their 
 city to Caesar. Caesar is expected. Will Trebonius 
 
136 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 
 
 be 90 good as to wait till Caesar comes % If Trebonius 
 should proceed with his work so tliat the soldiers 
 should absolutely get into the town, then ;— Trebonius 
 knows very well what would happen then. A little 
 delay cannot hurt. IsTothing shall be done till Caesar 
 conies. As it happens, Caesar has already especially 
 ordered that the city shall be spared ; and a kind of 
 truce is made, to endure till Caesar shall come and 
 take possession. Trebonius has a difficulty in keeping 
 his soldiers from the plunder ; but he does restrain 
 them, and besiegers and besieged are at rest, and wait 
 for Caesar. 
 
 But these Massilians are a crafty people. The 
 Caesarean soldiers, having agreed to wait, take it 
 easily, and simply aiQuse themselves in these days of 
 waiting. When they are quite off their guard, and a 
 high wind favours the scheme, the Massilians rush out 
 and succeed in burning the tower, and the muscle, and 
 the rampart, and the sheds, and all the implements. 
 Even though the tower was built with brick, it burns 
 freely, — so great is the wind. Then Trebonius goes to 
 work, and..^jes it all again. Because there is no more 
 wood left ,j , ^d about the camp, he makes a rampart 
 of a new\,..iia, — hitherto unheard of, — with bricks. 
 Doubtless the Caesarean soldiers had first to make the 
 bricks, and we can imagine what were their feelings in 
 reference to the Massilians. But however that may 
 be, they work so well and so hard that the Massilians 
 soon see that their late success is of no avail. N^othing 
 is left to them. iN'either perfidy nor valour can avail 
 them, and now again they give themselves up. They 
 
THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES. 137 
 
 are starved and suffering from pestilence, their fortifi- 
 cations are destroyed, they have no hope of aid from 
 without, — and now they give themselves up, — intend- 
 ing no fraud. '* Sese dedere sine fraude constituunt." 
 Domitius, the Pompeian general, manages to escape in 
 a ship. He starts with three ships, but the one in 
 which he himself sails alone escapes the hands of 
 " young " Brutus. Surely now will Marseilles he 
 treated with worse treatment than that which fell on ■ 
 the Gaulish cities. But such is by no means Caesar's 
 will. Caesar takes their public treasure and their 
 ships, and reminding them that he spares them rather 
 for their name and old character than for any merits 
 of theirs shown towards him, leaves two legions among 
 them, and goes to Eoine. At Avaricum, when the 
 Gauls had fought to defend their own liberties, he had 
 destro^^ec everybody ; — at Alesia he had decreed the 
 death of every inhabitant when they had simply asked 
 him leave to pass through his camp; — at Uxellodunum 
 he had cui off the hands and poked out the eyes of 
 Gauls who had dared to fight for their country. But 
 the Gauls Avere barbarians whom it was n pessary that 
 Caesar should pacify. The Massiliar re Greeks, 
 and a civilised people, — and might be useful. 
 
 Before coming on to Marseilles there had been r 
 little more for Csesar to do in Spain, where, as was 
 told in the last chapter, he had just compelled Afranius 
 and Petreius to lay down their arms and disband their 
 legions. Joined with them had been a third Pompeian 
 general, one Varro, — a distinguished man, though not, 
 perhaps, a great general, — of whom Caesar tells us that 
 
138 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK, 
 
 with his Eoman policy he veered between Pompeian 
 and Ci3esarean tactics till, unfortunately for himself, 
 he declared for Pompey and the wrong side, when 
 he heard that Afranius was having his own way in 
 the neighbourhood of Lerida. But Varro is in the 
 south of Spain, in Andalusia, — or Baetica, as it was 
 then called, — and in this southern province of Spain 
 it seems that Caesar's cause was more popular than 
 that of Pompey. Caesar, at any rate, has but little 
 difficulty with Yarro. The Pompeian officer is deserted 
 by his legions, and gives himself up very quickly. 
 Caesar does not care to tell us what he did with Varro, 
 but we know that he treated his brother Eoman with 
 the utmost courtesy. Varro was a very learned man, 
 and a friend of Cicero's, and one who wrote books, and 
 was a credit to Pome as a man of letters if not as a 
 general. We are told that he wrote 490 volumes, and 
 that he lived to be eighty-eight, — a fate very uncom- 
 mon with Eomans who meddled with public affairs in 
 these days. Caesar made everything smooth in the 
 south of Spain, restoring the money and treasures 
 which Varro had taken from the towns, and giving 
 thanks to everybody. Then he went on over the 
 Pyrenees to Marseilles, and made things smooth there. 
 But in the mean time things were not at all smooth 
 in Africa. The name of Africa was at this time given 
 to a small province belonging to the Eepublic, lying to 
 the east of JSTumidia, in which Carthage had stood 
 when Carthage was a city, containing that promontory 
 which juts out towards Sicily, and having TJtica as 
 its Eoman capital. It has been already said that 
 
CAESAR IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 139 
 
 when Caesar determined to gain possession of certain 
 provinces of the Eepublic before he followed Pompey 
 across the Adriatic, he sent a lieutenant with three 
 legions into Sicily, desiring him to go on to Africa as 
 soon as things should have been arranged in the island 
 after the Caesarean fashion. The Sicilian matter is 
 not very troublesome, as Cato, the virtuous man, in 
 whose hands the government of the island had been 
 intrusted on behalf of the Eepublic, leaves it on the 
 arrival of the Caesarean legions, complaining bitterly of 
 Pompey's conduct. Then Caesar's lieutenant goes over 
 to Africa with two legions, as commanded, proposing 
 to his army the expulsion of one Attius Yarns, who 
 had, according to Caesar's story, taken irregular pos- 
 session of the province, keeping it on behalf of Pom- 
 pey, but not allowing the governor appointed by the 
 Eepublic so much as to put his foot on the shore. 
 This lieutenant was a great favourite of Caesar, by 
 name Curio, who had been elected tribune of the 
 people just when the Senate was making its attempt to 
 recall Caesar from his command in Gaul. In that 
 emergency. Curio as tribune had been of service to 
 Caesar, and Caesar loved the young man. He was one 
 of those who, though noble by birth, had flung them- 
 selves among the people, as Catiline had done and 
 Clodius, — unsteady, turbulent, unscrupulous, vicious, 
 needy, fond of pleasure, rapacious, but well educated, 
 brave, and clever. Caesar himself had been such a 
 man in his youth, and could easily forgive such faults 
 in the character of one who, in addition to such virtues 
 as have been named, possessed that farther and greater 
 
140 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 
 
 virtue of loving Caesar. Caesar expected great things 
 from Curio, and trusted him thoroughly. Curio, with 
 many ships and his two legions, lands in Africa, and 
 prepares to win the province for his great friend. He 
 does obtain some little advantage, so that he is called 
 " Imperator " by his soldiers, — a name not given to a 
 general till he has been victorious in the field ; but it 
 seems clear, from Caesar's telling of the story, that 
 Curious own officers and own soldiers distrusted him, 
 and were doubtful whether they would follow him, or 
 'would take possession of the ships and return to Sicily ; 
 — or would go over to Attius Varus, who had been their 
 commander in Italy before they had deserted from 
 Pompey to Caesar. A council of war is held, and there 
 is much doubt. It is not only or chiefly of Attius 
 Varus, their Eoman enemy, that they are afraid ; but 
 there is Juba in their neighbourhood, the king of 
 Numidia, who will certainly fight for Varus and 
 against Curio. He is Pompey's declared friend, and 
 equally declared as Caesar's foe. He has, too, special 
 grounds of quarrel against Curio himself; and if he 
 comes in person with his army, — bringing such an 
 army as he can bring if he pleases, — it will certainly 
 go badly with Curio, should Curio be distant from his 
 camp. Then Curio, not content with his council of 
 war, and anxious that his soldiers should support him 
 in his desire to fight, makes a speech to the legion- 
 aries. We must remember, of course, that Caesar gives 
 us the words of this speech, and that Caesar must 
 himself have put the words together. 
 
 It is begun in the third person. He, — that is Curio, 
 
THE STORY OF CURIO. 141 
 
 - bells the men how useful they were to Caesar at 
 Corfinium, the town at which they went over from 
 Pompey to Caesar. But in the second sentence he 
 breaks into the first person and puts the very words 
 into Curio's mouth. " For you and your services," he 
 says, " were copied by all the towns ; nor is it without 
 cause that Caesar thinks kindly of you, and the Pom- 
 peians unkindly. For Pompey, having lost no battle, 
 but driven by the result of your deed, fled from Italy. 
 Me, whom Caesar holds most dear, and Sicily and 
 Africa without which he cannot hold Eome and Italy, 
 Caesar has intrusted to your honour. There are some 
 who advise you to desert me, — for what can be more 
 desirable to such men than that they at the same 
 time should circumvent me, and fasten upon you a 
 foul crime ] . . . . But you, — have you not heard 
 of the things done by Caesar in Spain, — two armies 
 beaten, two generals conquered, two provinces gained, 
 and all this done in forty days from that on which 
 Caesar first saw his enemy ? Can those who, uninjured, 
 were unable to stand against him, resist him now that 
 they are .conquered *? And ydfo, who followed Caesar 
 when victory on his side was uncertain, now that 
 fortune has declared herself, will you go over to the 
 conquered side when you are about to realise the re- 
 ward of your zeal *?.... But perhaps, though 
 you love Caesar, you distrust me. I will not say much 
 of my own deserts towards you, — which are indeed 
 less as yet than I had wished or you had expected." 
 Then, having thus declared that he will not speak of 
 himself, he does venture to say a few words on the sub- 
 
 / 
 
142 THE CIVIL WAR^—l^ECOND BOOK, 
 
 ject. ''But why should I pass over my own work, 
 and the result that has been as yet achieved, and my 
 own fortune in war 1 Is it displeasing to you that I 
 brought over the whole army, safe, without losing a 
 ship ? That, as I came, at my first onslaught, T should 
 have dispersed the fleet of the enemy? That, in 
 two days, I should have been twice victorious with 
 my cavalry ; that I should have cut out two hundred 
 transports from the enemy's harbour ; that I should 
 have so harassed the enemy that neither by land nor 
 sea could they get food to supply their wants 1 Will 
 it please you to repudiate such fortune and such guid- 
 ance, and to connect yourself with the disgrace at Cor- 
 finium, the flight from Italy," — namely, Pompey'sflighl 
 to Dyrrachium, — " the surrender of Spain, and the evils 
 of this African war? I indeed have wished to be 
 called Caesar's soldier, and you have called me your 
 Imperator. If it repents you of having done so, I give 
 you back the compliment. Give me back my own 
 name, lest it seem that in scorn you have called me 
 by that title of honour." 
 
 This is very spirited ; and the merely rhetorical 
 assertion by Caesar that Curio thus spoke to his sol- 
 diers is in itself interesting, as showing us the way 
 in which the legionaries were treated by their com- 
 manders, and in which the greatest general, of that or 
 of any age, thought it natural that a leader should 
 address his troops. It is of value, also, as showing the 
 difficulty of keeping any legion true to either side in 
 a civil war, in which, on either side, the men must 
 fight for a commander they had learned to respect, 
 
THE STORY hJP CURIO 143 
 
 and against a commander they respected, — the com- 
 mander in each case being a Eoman Imperator. 
 Curio, too, as we know, was a man who on snch an 
 occasion could use words. But that he used the words 
 here put into his mouth, or any words Hke them, is 
 very improbable. Caesar was anxious to make the best 
 apology he could for the gallant young friend who 
 had perished in his cause, and has shown his love 
 by making the man he loved memorable to all pos- 
 terity. 
 
 But before the dark hour comes upon him the young 
 man has a gleam of success, which, had he really 
 spoken the words put into his mouth by Caesar, would 
 have seemed to justify them. He attacks the army of 
 his fellow-Eoman, Yarns, and beats it, driving it back 
 into TJtica. He then resolves to besiege the town, 
 and Csesar implies that he would have been successful 
 through the Caesarean sympathies of the townsmen, — 
 had it not been for the approach of the terrible Juba. 
 Then comes a rumour which reaches Curio, — and 
 which reaches Varus too inside the town, — that the 
 IN'umidian king is hurrying to the scene with all his 
 forces. He has finished another affair that he had on 
 hand, and can now look to his Eoman friends, — and 
 to his Eoman enemies. Juba craftily sends forward 
 his proefect, or lieutenant, Sabura, with a small force 
 of cavalry, and Curio is led to imagine that Juba has? 
 not come, and that Sabura has been sent with scanty 
 aid to the relief of Varus. Surely he can give a good 
 account of Sabura and that small body of lN^umidia\ 
 horsemen. We see from the very first that Curio is 
 
14:4 THE CIVIL WAR.- SECOND BOOK, 
 
 doomed. Caesar, in a few touching words, makes his 
 apology. " The young man's youth had much to do 
 with it, and his high spirit ; his former success, too, 
 and his own faith in his own good fortune." There is 
 no word of reproach. Curio makes another speech to 
 his soldiers. " Hasten to your prey," he says, " hasten 
 to your glory ! " They do hasten, — after such a fashion 
 that when the foremost of them reach Sahura's troops, 
 the hindermost of them are scattered far back on the 
 road. They are cut to pieces by Juba. Curio is in- 
 vited by one of his officers to escape back to his tent. 
 Bnt Csesar tells us that Curio in that last moment 
 replied that having lost the army with which Caesar 
 had trusted him, he would never again look Caesar in 
 the face. That he did say some such words as these, 
 and that they were repeated by that officer to Caesar, 
 is probable enough. *' So, fighting, he is slain ; " — 
 and there is an end of the man whom Caesar loved. 
 
 What then happened was very sad for a Eoman army. 
 Many hurry down to the ships at the sea ; but there is 
 60 much terror, so much confusion, and things are so 
 badly done, that but very few get over to Sicily. The 
 remainder endeavour to give themselves up to Yarns ; 
 ^fter doing which, could they have done it, their posi- 
 tion would not liave been very bad. A Roman surren- 
 dering to a Roman would, at the worst, but find that 
 he was compelled to change his party. But Juba comes 
 «ap and claims them as his prey, and Yarns does not 
 4are to oppose the barbarian king. Juba kills the most 
 *^f them, but sends a few, whom he thinks may serve 
 kis purpose and add to his glory, back to his own king- 
 
!| 
 
 KING JUBA. 145 
 
 dom. In doing which Juba behaved no worse than 
 Caesar habitually behaved in Gaul j but Caesar always 
 writes as though not only a Eoman must regard a Ro- 
 man as more than a man, but as though also all others 
 must so regard Eomans. And by making such assertions 
 in their own behalf, Romans were so regarded. We 
 are then told that the barbarian king of I^umidia rode 
 into Utica triumphant, with Roman senators in his 
 train ; and the names of two special Roman senators 
 Caesar sends down to posterity as having been among 
 that base number. As far as we can spare them, they 
 shall be spared. 
 
 Of Juba the king, and of his fate, we shall heai 
 again. 
 
 A. 0. voL iv. 
 
CHAPTEE XL 
 
 THIRD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR.-— C^SAR FOLLOWS POMPEY 
 INTO ILLYRIA. — THE LINES OF PETRA AND THE BATTLE OF 
 PH ARSALIA. — B. C. 48. 
 
 CiESAR begins the last Look of Ms last ComiHer tary by 
 telling us that this was the year in which he. Caesar, 
 was by the law permitted to name a consul, lie names 
 Publius Servilius to act in conjunction with himself. 
 The meaning of this is, that, as Caesar had been created 
 Dictator, Pompey having taken with him into lUyria 
 the consuls of the previous year, Caesar was now the 
 only magistrate under whose authority a consul could 
 be elected. ]N"o doubt he did choose the man, but the 
 election was supposed to have been made in accordance 
 with the forms of the Eepublic. He remained at Eome 
 as Dictator for eleven days, during which he made vari- 
 ous laws, of which the chief object was to lessen the 
 insecurity caused by the disruption of the ordinary 
 course of things; and then he went down to Brindisi on 
 the track of Pompey. He had twelve legions with him, 
 but he was badly off for ships in which to transport 
 them ; and he owns that the health of the men is bad, 
 an autumn in the south of Italy having been very severe 
 
POMPETS ARMY, 147 
 
 on men accustomed to the healthy climate of Gaul and 
 the north of Spain. Pompey, he tells us, had had a 
 whole year to prepare his army, — a whole year, without 
 warfare, and had collected men and ships and money, 
 and all that support which assent gives, from Asia and 
 the Cyclades, from Corcyra, Athens, Bithynia, Cilicia, 
 Phoenicia, Egypt, and the free states of Achaia. He 
 had with him nine Eoman legions, and is expecting two 
 more with his father-in-law Scipio out of Syria. He has 
 three thousand archers from Crete, from Sparta, and 
 from Pontus ; he has twelve hundred slingers, and he 
 has seven thousand cavalry from Galatia, Cappadocia, 
 and Thrace. A valorous prince from Macedonia had 
 brought him two hundred men, all mounted. Five hun- 
 dred of Galatian and German cavalry, who had been left 
 to overawe Ptolemy in Egypt, are brought to Pompey 
 by the filial care of young Cnaeus. He too had armed 
 eight hundred of their own family retainers, and had 
 brought them armed. Antiochus of Commagena sends 
 him two hundred mounted archers, — mercenaries, how- 
 ever, not sent without promise of high payment. Dar- 
 dani, — men from the land of old Troy, Bessi, from the 
 banks of the Hebrus, Thessalians and Macedonians, 
 have all been crowded together under Pompey's stan-"* 
 dard. We feel that Caesar's mouth waters as he re- 
 counts them. But we feel also that he is preparing for 
 the triumphant record in which he is about to tell us 
 that all these swarms did he scatter to the Avinds 
 of heaven with the handful of Eoman legionaries 
 which he at last succeeded in landing on the shores 
 of Illyria. 
 
148 THE CIVIL WAR.-^THIRD BOOK. 
 
 Pompey has also collected from all parts '' frumenti 
 vim maximam'' — ^*a great power of corn indeed," as 
 an Irishman would say, translating the words literally. 
 And he has covered the seas with his ships, so as to 
 hinder Caesar from coming out of Italy. He has eight 
 vice-admirals to command his various fleets , — all of 
 whom Caesar names ; and over them all, as adrairal-in- 
 chief, is Bibulus, who was joint-consul with Caesar be- 
 fore Caesar went to Gaul, and who was so harassed 
 during his consulship by the Caesareans that he shut 
 himself up in his house, and allowed Caesar to rule as 
 sole consul. Now he is about to take his revenge ; 
 but the vengeance of such a one as Bibulus cannot 
 reach Caesar. 
 
 Caesar having led his legions to Erindisi, makes them 
 a speech which almost beats in impudence anything 
 chat he ever said or did. He tells them that as they 
 have now nearly finished all his work for him ; — they 
 have only got to lay low the Eepublic with Pompey 
 the Great, and all the forces of the Republic — to which, 
 however, have to be added King Ptolemy in Egypt, 
 King Pharnaces in Asia, and King Juba in [N'umidia ; — 
 they had better leave behind them at Erindisi all their 
 little property, the spoils of former wars, so that they 
 may pack the tighter in the boats in which he means 
 to send them across to Illyria, — if only they can escape 
 the mercies of ex-Consul Admiral Bibulus. There is 
 110 suggestion that at any future time they will recover 
 their property. For their future hopes they are to trust 
 entirely to Caesar's generosity. With one shout they 
 declare their readiness to obey him. He takes over 
 
C^SAR CROSSES OUT OF ITALY INTO EPIRUS. 149 
 
 seven legions, escaping the dangers of those '' rocks of 
 evil fame," the Acroceraunia of which Horace tells us, 
 — and escaping Bibulus also, who seems to have shnt 
 himself up in his ship as he did before in his house dur- 
 ing the consulship. Csesar seems to have made the pas- 
 sage w^ith the conviction that had he fallen into the 
 hands of Bibulus everything would have been lost. And 
 with ordinary precaution and diligence on the part of 
 Bibulus such would have been the result. Yet he makes 
 the attempt, — trusting to the Fortune of Caesar, — and 
 he succeeds. He lands at a place which he calls Pal- 
 seste on the coast of Epirus, considerably to the south 
 of Dyrrachium, in Hlyria. At Dyrracliium Pompey had 
 landed the year before, and there is now stored that 
 wealth of provision of which Caesar has spoken. But 
 Bibulus at last determines to be active, and he does 
 manage to fall upon the empty vessels which Caesar 
 sends back to fetch the remainder of his army. " Hav- 
 ing come upon thirty of them, he falls upon them with 
 all the wrath occasioned by his own want of circum- 
 spection and grief, and burns them. And in the same 
 fire he kills the sailors and the masters of the vessels, 
 — hoping to deter others," Caesar tells us, " by the se- 
 verity of the punishment." After that we are not sorry 
 to hear that he potters about on the seas very busy, 
 but still incapable, and that he dies, as it seems, of a 
 broken heart. He does indeed catch one ship after- 
 wards, — not laden with soldiers, but coming on a pri- 
 vate venture, with children, servants, and suchlike, de- 
 pendants and followers of Caesar^s camp. All these, 
 including the children, Bibulus slaughters, down to 
 
150 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 the smallest child. We have, however, to remember 
 that the story is told by Caesar, and that Caesar did not 
 love Bibulus. 
 
 Marc Antony has been left at Brindisi in command 
 of the legions which Caesar could not bring across at his 
 first trip for want of sufficient ship-room, and is pressed 
 very much by Caesar to make the passage. There are 
 attempts at treaties made, but as we read the account 
 we feel that Caesar is only obtaining the delay which 
 is necessary to him till he shall have been joined by 
 Antony. We are told how by this time the camps of 
 Caesar and Pompey have been brought so near toge- 
 ther that they are separated only by the river Apsus, — 
 for Caesar had moved northwards towards Pompey's 
 stronghold. And the soldiers talked together across the 
 stream ; " nor, the while, was any weapon thrown, — by 
 compact between those who talked." Then Caesar 
 sends Yatinius, as his ambassador, down to the river to 
 talk of peace ; and Vatinius demands with a loud voice 
 " whether it should not be allowed to citizens to send 
 legates to citizens, to treat of peace ; — a thing that has 
 been allowed even to deserters from the wilds of the P}^- 
 renees and to robbers, — especially with so excellent an 
 object as that of hindering citizens from fighting with 
 citizens." This seems so reasonable, that a day is 
 named, and Labienus,— who has deserted from Caesar 
 and become Pompeian, — comes to treat on one side of 
 the river, and Yatinius on the other. But, — so Caesar 
 tells the story himself, — the Caesarean soldiers throw 
 their weapons at their old general. They probably 
 cannot endure the voice or sight of one whom they re- 
 
CjESar's army in ILLYRIA. 151 
 
 gard as a renegade. LabienTis escapes under the pro- 
 tection of those who are with him, — but he is full of 
 wrath against Caesar. *^ After this," says he, "let us 
 cease to speak of treaties, for there can be no peace for 
 us till Caesar's head has been brought to us." But the 
 colloquies over the little stream no doubt answered 
 Caesar's purpose. 
 
 Caesar is very anxious to get his legions over from 
 Italy, and even scolds Antony for not bringing them. 
 There is a story, — which he does not tell himself, — 
 that he put himself into a small boat, intending to 
 cross over to Brindisi in a storm, to hurry matters, and 
 that he encouraged the awe-struck master of the boat 
 by reminding him that he would carry " Caesar and his 
 fortunes." The story goes on to say that the sailors 
 attempted the trip, but were driven back by the tem- 
 pest. 
 
 At last there springs up a south-west wind, and An- 
 tony ventures with his flotilla, — although the war-ships 
 of Pompey still hold the sea, and guard the Illyrian 
 coast. But Caesar's general is successful, and the second 
 half of the Caesarean army is carried northward by fa- 
 vouring breezes towards the shore in the very sight of 
 Pompey and his soldiers at Dyrrachium. ~ Two ships, 
 however, lag behind and fall into the hands of one 
 Otacilius, an officer belonging to Pompey. The two 
 ships, one full of recruits' and the other of veterans, 
 agree to surrender, Otacilius having sworn that he will 
 not hurt the men. " Here you may see," says Caesar, 
 " how much safety to men there is in presence of mind." 
 The recruits do as they have undertaken, and give them- 
 
152 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. * 
 
 selves up ; — whereupon Otacilius, altogether disregard- 
 ing his oath, like a true Eoman, kills every man of 
 them. But the veterans, disregarding their word also, 
 and knowing no doubt to a fraction the worth of the 
 word of Otacilius, run their ship ashore in the night, 
 and, with much fighting, get safe to Antony. Caesar im- 
 plies that the recruits even would have known better had 
 they not been sea- sick ; but that even bilge-water and 
 bad weather combined had failed to touch the ancient 
 courage of the veteran legionaries. They were still 
 good men — "item conflictati et tempestatis et sentinae 
 vitiis." 
 
 We are then told how Metellus Scipio, coming out of 
 Syria with his legions into Macedonia, almost succeeds 
 in robbing the temple of Diana of Ephesus on his 
 way. He gets together a body of senators, who are to 
 give evidence that he counts the money fairly as he 
 takes it out of the temple. But letters come from 
 Pompey just as he is in the act, and he does not dare to 
 delay his journey even to complete so pleasant a trans- 
 action. He comes to meet Pompey and to share his 
 command at the great battle that must soon be fought. 
 We hear, too, how Caesar sends his lieutenants into 
 Thessaly and ^tolia and Macedonia, to try what 
 friends he has there, to take cities, and to get food. 
 He is now in a land which has seemed specially to be- 
 long to Pompey; but even here they have heard of 
 Caesar, and the Greeks are simply anxious to be friends 
 with the strongest R( "^^ of the day. They have to 
 judge which will win, and to adhere to him. Por the 
 poor Greeks there is much difficulty in forming a judg- 
 
C^SAR IN ILLYRIA. 153 
 
 ment. Presently we shall see tlie way in which Caesai 
 gives a lesson on that subject to the citizens of Gomphi. 
 In the mean time he joins his own forces to those lately 
 brought by Antony out of Italy, and resolves that he 
 will force Pompey to a fight. 
 
 We may divide the remainder of this last book of 
 the second Commentary into two episodes, — the first 
 being the story of what occurred within the lines at 
 Petra, and the second the account of the crowning 
 battle of Pharsalia. In the first Pompey was the 
 victor, — but the victory, great as it was, has won from 
 the world very little notice. In the second, as all the 
 world knows, Caesar was triumphant and henceforward 
 dominant. And yet the affair at Petra should have 
 made a Pharsalia unnecessary, and indeed impossible. 
 Two reasons have conspired to make Pompey's com- 
 plete success at Petra unimportant in the world's esteem. 
 This Commentary was written not by Pompey but by 
 Caesar; and then, unfortunately for Pompey, Pharsalia 
 was allowed to follow Petra. 
 
 It is not very easy to unravel Caesar's story of the 
 doings of the two armies at Petra. ISTor, were this 
 ever so easy, would our limits or the purport of this 
 little volume allow us to attempt to give that narrative 
 in full to our readers. Caesar had managed to join the 
 legions which he had himself brought from Italy with 
 those which had crossed afterwards with Antony, and 
 was now anxious for a battle. His men, though fewer in 
 number than they who follo""'' '^<Pompey, were fit for 
 lighting, and knew all the work of soldiering. Pom- 
 pey' s men were for the most part beginners ; — but 
 
154 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 they were learning, and every week added to tlieir ex- 
 perience was a week in Pompey's favour. Witb. hope of 
 forcing a battle, Csesar managed to get his army between 
 Dyrrachium, in which were kept all Pompey's stores 
 and wealth of war, and the army of his opponent, so 
 that Pompey, as regarded any approach by land, was shut 
 off from Dyrrachium. But the sea was open to him. 
 His fleefc was everywhere on the coast, while Caesar 
 had not a ship that could dare to show its bow upon 
 the waters. 
 
 There was a steep rocky promontory some few miles 
 north of Dyrrachium, from whence there was easy access 
 to the sea, called Petra, or the rock. At this point 
 Pompey could touch the sea, but between Petra and 
 Dyrrachium Caesar held the country. Here, on this 
 rock, taking in for the use of his army a certain some- 
 what wide amount of pasturage at the foot of the rock, 
 Pompey placed his army, and made intrenchments all 
 round from sea to sea, fortifying himself, as all Poman 
 generals knew how to do, with a bank and ditch and 
 twenty- four turrets and earthworks that would make 
 the place absolutely impregnable. The length of his 
 lines was fifteen Eoman miles, — more than thirteen 
 English miles, — so that within his works he might 
 have as much space as possible to give him grass for 
 his horses. So placed, he had all the world at his 
 back to feed him. ISTot only could he get at that 
 wealth of stores which he had amassed at Dyrrachium, 
 and which were safe from Caesar, but the coasts of 
 Greece, and Asia, and Egypt were open to his ships. 
 Two things only were wanting to him, — sufficient grass 
 
THE LINES OF PETRA. 155 
 
 for his horses, and water. But all things were want- 
 ing to Caesar, — except grass and water. The Ill^^ian 
 country at his hack was one so unproductive, heing 
 rough and mountainous, that the inhabitants them- 
 selves were in ordinary times fed upon imported corn. 
 And Pompey, foreseeing something of what might hap- 
 pen, had taken care to empty the storehouses and to 
 leave the towns behind him destitute and impoverished. 
 
 jN"evertheless Caesar, having got the body of his 
 enemy, as it were, imprisoned at Petra, was determined 
 to keep his prisoner fast. So round and in front of 
 Pompey's lines he also made other lines, from sea to 
 sea. He began by erecting turrets and placing small 
 detachments on the little hills outside Pompey's lines, 
 so as to prevent his enemy from getting the grass. 
 Then he joined these towers by lines, and in this way 
 surrounded the other lines, — thinking that so Pom- 
 pey would not be able to send out his horsemen for 
 forage ; and again, that the horses inside at Petra 
 miglit gradually be starved ; and again '' that the repu- 
 tation,^' — " auctoritatem," — " which in the estimation of 
 foreign nations belonged chiefly to Pompey in this war, 
 would be lessened when the story should have been 
 told over the world that Pompey had been besieged by 
 Caesar, and did not dare to fight." 
 
 We are, perhaps, too much disposed to think, — read- 
 ing our history somewhat cursorily, — that Caesar at this 
 time was everybody, and that Pompey was hardly 
 worthy to be his foe. Such passages in the Commen- 
 tary as that above translated, — they are not many, but 
 a few suffice, — show that this idea is erroneous. Up 
 
156 THE CIVIL WAR. -THIRD BOOK. 
 
 to this period in their joint courses Pompey had been 
 the greater man ; Caesar had done very much, but 
 Pompey had done more — and now he had on his side 
 ahnost all that was wealthy and respectable in Eome. 
 He led the Conservative party, and was still confident 
 that he had only to bide his time, and that Caesar 
 must fall before him. Caesar and the Caesareans were 
 to him as the spirits of the Revolution were in France 
 to Louis XYI., to Charles X., and to Louis-Philippe, 
 before they had made their powers credible and for- 
 midable ; as the Reform Bill and Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion were to such men as George TV. and Lord Eldon, 
 w^hile yet they could be opposed and postponed. It 
 was impossible to Pompey that the sweepings of Rome, 
 even with Caesar and Caesar's army to help them, 
 should at last prevail over himself and over the 
 Roman Senate. '' He was said at that time," we are 
 again translating Caesar's words, " to have declared with 
 boasts among his own people, that he would not him- 
 self deny that as a general he should be considered to 
 be worthless if Caesar's legions should now extricate 
 themselves from the position in which they had rashly 
 entangled themselves without very great loss"— 
 ''maximo detrimento " — loss that should amount 
 wellnigh to destruction. And he was all but right in 
 what he said. 
 
 There was a great deal of fightmg for the plots of 
 grass and different bits of vantage-ground, — fighting 
 which must have taken place almost entirely between 
 the two lines. But Caesar suffered under this disad- 
 vantage, that his works, being much the longest. 
 
THE LINES OF PETRA. 157 
 
 required the greatest number of men to erect them 
 and prolong them and keep them in order ; whereas 
 Pompey, who in this respect had the least to do, having 
 the inner line, was provided with, much the greater 
 number of men to do it. Caesar's men, being veter- 
 ans, had always the advantage in the actual fighting ; 
 but in the mean time Pompey's untried soldiers were 
 obtaining that experience which was so much needed 
 by them. ^Nevertheless Pompey suffered very much. 
 They could not get water on the rock, and when he 
 attempted to sink wells, Caesar so perverted the water- 
 courses that the wells gave no water. Caesar tells us 
 that he even dammed up the streams, making little 
 lakes to hold it, so that it should not trickle down in 
 its underground courses to the comfort of his enemies ; 
 but we should have thought that any reservoirs so 
 made must soon have overfloAvn themselves, and have 
 been useless for the intended purpose. In the mean 
 time Caesar's men had no bread but what was made of 
 a certain wild cabbage, — " chara," — which grew there, 
 which they kneaded up with milk, and lived upon it 
 cheerfully, though it was not very palatable. To shew 
 the Pompeians the sort of fare with which real veter- 
 ans could be content to break their fasts, they threw 
 loaves of this composition across the lines ; for they 
 were close together, and could talk to each other, and 
 the Pompeians did not hesitate to twit their enemies 
 with their want of provisions. But the Caesareans had 
 plenty of water, — and plenty of meat; and they assure 
 Caesar that they would rather eat the bark off the trees 
 than allow the Pompeians to escape them. 
 
158 THE CIVIL WAR.- THIRD BOOK. 
 
 But there was always this for Caesar to fear, — that 
 Pompey should land a detachment behind his lines 
 and attack him at the hack. To hinder this Caesar 
 made another intrenchment, with ditch and bank, 
 running at right angles from the shore, and was in- 
 tending to join this to his main work by a transverse 
 line of fortifications running along that short portion 
 of the coast which lay between his first lines and the 
 second, when there came upon him the disaster which 
 nearly destroyed liim. While he was digging his 
 trenches and building his turrets the fighting was so 
 frequent that, as Csesar tells us, on one day there were 
 six battles. Pompey lost two thousand legionaries, 
 while Csesar lost no more than twenty; but every 
 Caesarean engaged in a certain turret was wounded, and 
 four officers lost their eyes. Caesar estimates that 
 thirty thousand arrows were thrown upon the men 
 defending this tower, and tells us of one Scaeva, an 
 officer, who had two hundred and thirty holes made by 
 these arrows in his own shield.''^ "We can only sur- 
 
 * Dean Merivale in his account of this affair reduces the 
 number of holes in Scaeva' s shield to one hundred and twenty, 
 — on the joint authority, no doubt, of Florus and Valerius 
 Maximus ; but Florus lived 20 ) and Val. Max. 300 years after 
 Caesar. Suetonius allows the full number of holes, but implies 
 that 120 were received while the warrior was lighting in one 
 place, and 110 while fighting in another. Lucan sings the story 
 of Scaeva at great length, but does not give the number of 
 wounds in the shield. He seems to say that Scseva was killed on 
 this occasion, but is not quite clear on the point. That Scaeva 
 had one eye knocked out is certain. Lucan does indeed tell 
 us, in the very last lines of his poem, that in Egypt Caesar once 
 again eaw his beloved centurion ; — but at the moment described 
 
t 
 
 THE LINES OF FETIiA. 159 
 
 mise that it must have teen a very big shield, and that 
 there must have heen much trouble in counting the 
 holes. Caesar, however, was so much pleased that ho 
 gave Scaeva a large sum of money, — something over 
 .£500, and, allowing him to skip over six intermediate 
 ranks, made him at once first centurion — or Primipilus 
 of the legion. We remember no other record of such 
 quick promotion — in prose. There is, indeed, the Avell- 
 known case of a common sailor who did a gallant ac- 
 tion and was made first-lieutenant on the spot ; but 
 that is told in verse, and the common sailor was a lady. 
 Two perfidious Gauls to whom Caesar had been very 
 kind, but whom he had been obliged to check on ac- 
 count of certain gross peculations of which they had 
 been guilty, though, as he tells us, he had not time to 
 punish them, went over to Pompey, and told Pompey 
 all the secrets of Caesar's ditches, and forts, and mounds, 
 — finished and unfinished. Before that, Caesar assures 
 us, not a single man of his had gone over to the ene- 
 my, though many of the enemy had come to him. But 
 those perfidious Gauls did a world of mischief. Pompey, 
 hearing how far Caesar was from having his works along 
 the sea-shore finished, got togetlier a huge fieet of boats, 
 and succeeded at night in throwing a large body of his 
 men ashore between Caesar's two lines, thus dividing 
 Caesar's forces, and coming upon tliem in their weakest 
 
 even Csesarwas dismayed, and the commentators doubt whether 
 it was not Scaeva's ghost that Csesar then saw. Valerius Maxi- 
 mus is sure that Scteva was killed when he got the wounds ; — but, 
 if so, how could he have been rewarded and promoted ? The 
 matter has been very much disputed ; but here it has been 
 thought best to adhere to Caesar. 
 
160 THE CIVIL WAR.--THIRD BOOK, 
 
 point. Caesar admits that there was a panic in his 
 lines, and that the slaughter of his men was very great. 
 It seems that the A^ery size of his own works produced 
 the ruin which befel them, for the different parts of 
 them were divided one from another, so that the men 
 in one position could not succour those in another. The 
 affair ended in the total rout of the Ca^sarean army. 
 Caesar actually fled, and had Pompey followed him we 
 must suppose that then there w^ould have been an 
 end of Caesar. He acknowledges that in the two 
 battles fought on that day he lost 960 legionaries, 32 
 officers, and 32 standards. 
 
 And then Caesar tells us a story of Labienus, who had 
 been his most trusted lieutenant in the Gallic wars, but 
 who had now gone over to Pompey, not choosing to 
 fight against the Eepublic. Labienus demanded of 
 Pompey the Caesarean captives, and caused them all to 
 be slaughtered, asking them with scorn whether veter- 
 ans such as they were accustomed to run away. Caesar 
 is very angry with Labienus ; but Labienus might have 
 defended himself by saying that the slaughter of pri- 
 soners of war was a custom he had learned in Gaul. 
 As for those words of scorn, Caesar could hardly have 
 heard them with his own ears, and we can understand 
 that he should take delight in saying a hard thing of 
 Labienus. 
 
 Pompey was at once proclaimed Imperator. And 
 Pompey used the name, though the victory had, 
 alas ! been gained over his fellow-countrymen. *' So 
 great was the effect of all this on the spirits and confi- 
 dence of the Pompeians, that they thought no more of 
 the carrying on of the war, but only of the victory 
 
THE LINES OF PETRA. 161 
 
 they had gained." And then Caesar throws scora 
 upon the Pompeians, making his own apology in the 
 same words. *' They did not care to remember that 
 the small number of our soldiers was the cause of their 
 triumph, or that the unevenness of the ground and nar- 
 rowness of the defiles had aught to do with it ; or 
 the occupation of our lines, and the panic of our men 
 between their double fortifications ; or our army cut 
 into two parts, so that one part could not help the 
 other. Nor did they add to this the fact that our men, 
 pressed as they were, could not engage themselves in 
 a fair conflict, and that they indeed suflered more from 
 their own numbers, and from the narrowness of the 
 ravines, than from the enemy. JS'or were the ordinary 
 chances of war brought to mind, — how small matters, 
 such as some unfounded suspicion, a sudden panic, a 
 remembered superstition, may create great misfortune ; 
 nor how often the fault of a general, or the mistake of 
 an officer, may bring injury upon an army. But they 
 spread abroad the report of the victory of that day 
 throughout all the world, sending forth letters and 
 tales as though they had conquered solely by their own 
 valour, nor was it possible that there should after this 
 be a reverse of their circumstances." Such was the 
 affair of Petra, by which the relative position in the 
 world-history of Caesar and Pompey was very nearly 
 made the reverse of what it is. 
 
 Caesar now acknowledges that he is driven to change 
 the whole plan of his campaign. He addresses a 
 f^jjeech to his men, and explains to them that this 
 defeat, like that at Gergovia, may lead to their future 
 
 A. c. vol. iv. L 
 
162 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 success. The victory at Alesia had sprung from the 
 defeat of Gergovia, because the Gauls had been in- 
 duced to fight ; and from the reverses endured within 
 the lines of Petra might come the same fortune; — for 
 surely now the army of Pompey would not fear a 
 battle. Some few officers he punishes and degrades. 
 His own words respecting his army after their defeat 
 are very touching. "So great a grief had come from 
 this disaster upon the whole arm}'-, and so strong a 
 desire of repairing its disgrace, that no one now desired 
 the place of tribune or centurion in his legion ; and 
 all, by way of self-imposed punishment, subjected 
 themselves to increased toil ; and every man burned 
 with a desire to fight. Some from the higher ranks 
 were so stirred by Caesar's speech, that they thought 
 that they should stand their ground where they were, 
 and fight where they stood." But Csesar was too 
 good a general for that. He moves on towards the 
 south-east, and in retreating gets the better of Pompey, 
 who follows him with jonly half a heart. After a 
 short while Pompey gives up the pursuit. His father- 
 in-law, Scipio, has brought a great army from the 
 east, and is in Thessaly. As we read this we cannot 
 fail to remember how short a time since it was that 
 Caesar himself was Pompey's father-in-law, and that 
 Pompey was Caesar's friend because, with too uxorious 
 a love, he clung to Julia, his young wife. Pompey 
 now goes eastward to unite his army to that of Scipio ; 
 and Caesar, making his way also into Thessaly by a 
 more southern route, joins certain forces under his 
 lieutenant Calvinus, who had been watching Scipio, 
 
PHARSALIA, 163 
 
 and who harely escaped falling into Pompey's handa 
 before lie could reach Caesar. But wherever Fortune 
 or Chance could mterfere, the Gods were always kind 
 to Caesar. 
 
 Then Caesar tells us of his treatment of two towns 
 in Thessaly, Gomphi and Metropolis. Unluckily for 
 the poor Gomphians, Caesar reaches Gomphi first. 
 Now the fame of Pompey's victory at Petra had been 
 spread abroad; and the Gomphians, who, — to give them 
 their due, — would have been just as willing to favour 
 Caesar as Pompey, and who only wanted to be on the 
 winning side that they might hold their little own in 
 safety, believed that things were going badly with 
 Caesar. They therefore shut their gates against Caesar, 
 and sent off messengers to Pompey. They can hold 
 their town against Caesar for a little while, but Pompey 
 must come quickly to their aid. Pompey comes by 
 no means quick enough, and the Gomphians' capacity 
 to hold their own is very short-lived. At about three 
 o'clock in the afternoon Caesar begins to besiege the 
 town, and before sunset he has taken it, and given it 
 to be sacked by his soldiers. The men of Metropolis 
 were also going to shut their gates, but luckily they 
 hear just in time what had happened at Gomphi, — and 
 open them instead. AYhereupon Caesar showers pro- 
 tection upon Metropolis ; and all the other tow^ns of 
 Thessaly, hearing what had been done, learn what 
 Caesar's favour means. 
 
 Pompey, having joined his army to that of Scipio, 
 sliares all his honours with his fatlier-iii-law. Wlicu 
 we hear this we know that Pompey 's position was not 
 
164 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 comfortable, and that he was under constraint. He 
 was a man who would share his honour with no one 
 unless driven to do so. And indeed his command 
 at present was not a pleasant one. It was much for 
 a Eoman commander to have with him the Eoman 
 Senate, — but the senators so placed would be apt to be 
 less obedient than trained soldiers. They even accuse 
 him of keeping them in Thessaly because he likes to 
 lord it over such followers. But they were, neverthe- 
 less, all certain that Caesar was about to be destroyed; 
 and, even in Pompey's camp, they quarrel over the 
 rewards of victory which they think that they will 
 enjoy at Eome when their oligarchy shall have been 
 re-established by Pompey's arms. 
 
 Before the great day arrives Labienus again ap- 
 pears on the scene ; and Caesar puts into his mouth a 
 speech which he of course intends us to compare with 
 the result of the coming battle. "Do not think, 
 Pompey, that this is the army which conquered Gaul 
 and Germany," — where Labienus himself was second 
 in command under Caesar. " I was present at all 
 those battles, and speak of a thing which I know. A 
 very small part of that army remains. Many have 
 perished, — as a matter of course in so many battles. 
 The autumn pestilence killed many in Italy. Many 
 have gone home. Many have been left on the other 
 shore. Have you not heard from our own friends who 
 remained behind sick, that these cohorts of Caesar's 
 were made up at Brindisi ? " — made up but the other 
 day, Labienus implies. " This army, indeed, has been 
 renewed from levies in the two Gauls ; but all that it 
 
PHARSALIA. 165 
 
 had of strength perished in those two battles at Dyr- 
 rachium ; " — in the contests, that is, within the lines of 
 Petra. Upon this Labienus swears that he will not 
 sleep under canvas again until he sleeps as victor over 
 Caesar ; and Pompey swears the same, and everybody 
 swears. Then they all go away full of the coming 
 victory. We daresay there was a great deal of false 
 confidence; but as for the words which Caesar puts 
 into the mouth of Labienus, we know well how much 
 cause Caesar had to dislike Labienus, and we doubt 
 whether they were ever spoken. 
 
 At length the battle-field is chosen, — near the town 
 of Pharsalus, on the banks of the river Enipeus in 
 Thessaly. The battle has acquired world-wide fame as 
 that of Pharsalia, which we have been taught to regard as 
 the name of the plain on which it was fought. Neither 
 of these names occur in the Commentary, nor does 
 that of the river; and the actual spot on which the 
 great contest took place seems to be a matter of doubt 
 even now. The ground is Turkish soil, — near to the 
 mountains which separate modern Greece from Turkey, 
 and is not well adapted for the researches of historical 
 travellers. Caesar had been keeping his men on the 
 march close to Pompey, till Pompey found that he 
 could no longer abstain from fighting. Then came 
 Labienus with his vaunts, and his oath, — and at length 
 the day and the field were chosen. Caesar at any rate 
 was ready. At this time Caesar was fifty- two years 
 old, and Pompey was fivQi years his elder. 
 
 Caesar tells us that Pompey had 110 cohorts, or eleven 
 legions. Had the legions been full, Pompey's army 
 
166 THE CIVIL WAR.^THIRD BOOK. 
 
 would have contained 66,000 legionaries ; but C?esfiT 
 states their number at 45,000, or something over two- 
 thirds of the full number. He does not forget to tell 
 us once again that among these eleven were the two 
 legions which he had given up in obedience to the de- 
 mand of the Senate. Pompey himself, with these two 
 very legions, placed himself on the left away from the 
 river ; and there also were all his auxiliaries, — not 
 counted with the legionaries, — slingers, archers, and 
 cavalry. Scipio commanded in the centre with the 
 legions he had brought out of Syria. So Caesar tells 
 us. We learn from other sources that Lentulus com- 
 manded Pompey' s right wing, lying on the river — and 
 Domitius, whom we remember as trying to hold Mar- 
 seilles against young Brutus and Trebonius, the left. 
 Caesar had 80 cohorts, or eight legions, which should 
 have numbered 48,000 men had his legions been full ; 
 — but, as he tells us, he led but 22,000 legionaries, so 
 that his ranks were deficient by more than a half. 
 As was his custom, he had his tenth legion to the 
 right, away from the river. The ninth, terribly 
 thinned by what had befallen it within the lines at 
 Petra, joined to the eleventh,lay next the river, form- 
 ing part of Caesar's left wing. Antony commanded 
 the left wing, Domitius Calvinus, whom Caesar some- 
 times calls by one name and sometimes by the other, 
 the centre, — and Sulla the right. Caesar placed himself 
 to the right, with his tenth legion, opposite to Pompey. 
 As far as we can learn, there was but little in the 
 nature of the ground to aid either of them; — and so 
 the light began. 
 
 There is not much complication, and perhaps no 
 
PHARSALIA. 167 
 
 great interest, in the account of tlie actual bactie as it 
 is given by Caesar. Caesar makes a speech, to his army, 
 "which was, as we have already learned, and as he tells 
 us now, the accustomed thing to do. JSTo Mser speech 
 was ever made by man, if he spoke the words which 
 he himself reports. He first of all reminds them how 
 they themselves are witnesses that he has done his 
 best to insure peace ; — and then he calls to their memory 
 certain mock treaties as to peace, in which, when seek- 
 ing delay, he had pretended to engage himself and 
 his enemy. He had never wasted, he told them, the 
 blood of his soldiers, nor did he desire to deprive 
 the Eepublic of either army — " alterutro exercitu" — of 
 Pompey's army or of his own. They were both 
 Eoman, and far be it from him to destroy aught 
 belonging to the Republic. We must acknowledge 
 that Caesar was always chary of Eoman life and Eoman 
 blood. He would spare it when it could be spared; 
 but he could spill it like water when the spilling of 
 it was necessary to his end. He was very politic; but 
 as for tenderness, — neither he nor any Eoman knew 
 what it was. 
 
 Then there is a story of one Crastinus, who declares 
 that whether dead or alive he will please Caesar. He 
 throws the first weapon against the enemy and does 
 please Caesar. But he has to please by his death, for 
 he is killed in his effort. 
 
 Pompey orders that his first rank shall not leave its 
 order to advance, but shall receive the shock of Caesar's 
 attack. Caesar points out to us that he is wrong in 
 this, because the very excitement of a first attack gives 
 increased energy and strength to the men. Caesar*s 
 
168 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK. 
 
 legionaries are told to attack, and they rush over the 
 space intervening between the first ranks to do so. 
 But they are so well trained that they pause and 
 catch their breath before they throw their weapons. 
 Then they throw their piles and draw their swords, 
 and the ranks of the two armies are close pitted against 
 each other. 
 
 But Pompey had thought that he could win the 
 battle, almost withjut calling on his legionaries for 
 any exertion, by the simple strategic movement of his 
 numerous cavalry and auxiliaries. He outnumbered 
 Csesar altogether, but in these arms he could overwhelm 
 him with a cloud of horsemen and of archers. But 
 Caesar also had known of these clouds. He fought 
 now as always with a triple rank of legionaries, — but 
 behind his third rank, — or rather somewhat to their 
 right shoulder, — he had drawn up a choice body of men 
 picked from his third line, — a fourth line as it were, 
 — whose business it was to stand against Pompey's 
 clouds when the attempt should be made by these 
 clouds upon their right flank. Caesar's small body of 
 cavalry did give way before the Pompeian clouds, and 
 the horsemen and the archers and the slingers swept 
 round upon Caesar's flank. But they swept round 
 upon destruction. Caesar gave the word to that fourth 
 line of picked men. '^Illi — they," says Caesar, "ran 
 forward with the greatest rapidity, and with their 
 standards in advance attacked the cavalry of Pompey 
 with such violence that none of them could stand their 
 ground ; — so that all not only were forced from the 
 ground, but being at once driven in panic, they sought 
 the shelter of the highest mountains near them. And 
 
 \ 
 
PHARSALIA. 169 
 
 when they were thus removed, all the archers and the 
 slingers, desolate and unarmed, without any one to take 
 care of them, were killed in heaps. '^ Such is Caesar's 
 account of Pompey's great attack of cavalry which 
 was to win the battle without giving trouble to the 
 legions. 
 
 Caesar acknowledges that Pompey's legionaries drew 
 their swords bravely and began their share of the fight- 
 ing well. Then at once he tells us of the failure on 
 the part of the cavalry and of the slaughter of the 
 poor auxiliary slingers, and in the very next sentence 
 gives us to understand that the battle was won. 
 Though Pompey's legions were so much more numer- 
 ous than those of Caesar, we are told that Caesar's third 
 line attacked the Pompeian legionaries when they were 
 "defessi'' — worn out. The few cohorts of picked 
 men who in such marvellous manner had dispersed 
 Pompey's clouds, following on their success, turned the 
 flank of Pompey's legions and carried the day. That 
 it was all as Caesar says there can be little doubt. 
 That he \von the battle there can, we presume, be 
 no doubt. Pompey at once flew to his camp and 
 endeavoured to defend it. Eut such defence was 
 impossible, and Pompey was driven to seek succour 
 in flight. He found a horse and a few companions, 
 and did not stop till he was on the sea-shore. Then 
 he got on board a provision-vessel, and was heard to 
 complain that he had been betrayed by those very men 
 from whose hands he had expected victory. 
 
 We are told with much picturesque effect how 
 Caesar's men, hungry, accustomed to endurance, patient 
 in all their want, found Pompey's camp prepared for 
 
170 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK, 
 
 victory, and decked in luxurious preparation for the 
 senatorial victors. Couclies were strewn, and plate 
 was put out, and tables prepared, and the tents of these 
 happy ones were adorned with fresh ivy. The sena- 
 torial happy ones have but a bad time of it, either 
 perishing in their flight, or escaping into the desert 
 solitudes of the mountains. Caesar follows up his con- 
 quest, and on the day after the battle compels the great 
 body of the fugitives to surrender at discretion. He 
 surrounds them on the top of a hill and shuts them 
 out from water, and they do surrender at discretion. 
 With stretched-out hands, prone upon the earth, these 
 late conquerors, the cream of the Roman power, who 
 had so lately sworn to conquer ere they slept, weeping 
 beg for mercy. Caesar, having said a few words to 
 them of his clemency, gave them their lives. He re- 
 commends them to the care of his own men, and desires 
 that they may neither be slaughtered nor robbed. 
 
 Caesar says he lost only 200 soldiers in that battle 
 — and among them 30 officers, all brave men. That 
 gallant Crastinus was among the 30. Of Pompey's 
 army 15,000 had been killed, and 24,000 had surren- 
 dered ! 180 standards and 9 eagles were taken and 
 brought to Caesar. The numbers seem to us to be 
 almost incredible, whether we look at those given to 
 ns in regard to the conqueror or the conquered. Caesar's 
 account, however, of that day's work has hitherto been 
 taken as authoritative, and it is too late now to ques- 
 tion it. After this fashion was the battle of Pharsalia 
 won, and the so-called Eoman Republic brought to an 
 end. 
 
 But Caesar by no means thought that his work was 
 
THE FLIGHT OF POMPEY, -171 
 
 done ; — nor indeed was it nearly done. It was now 
 clearly his first duty to pursue Pompey, — whom, 
 should he escape, the outside provinces and distant 
 allies of the Eepublic would soon supply with another 
 army. '* Caesar thought that Pompey was to be pur- 
 sued to the neglecting of all other things." In the 
 mean time Pompey, who seems to have been panic- 
 struck by his misfortune, fled with a few friends down 
 the ^gean Sea, picked his young wife up at an island 
 as he went, and made his way to Egypt. The story of 
 his murder by those who had the young King of Egypt 
 in their keeping is well known and need not detain us. 
 Caesar tells it very shortly. Pompey sends to young 
 Ptolemy for succour and assistance, trusting to past 
 friendship between himself and the young king's father. 
 Ptolemy is in the hands of eunuchs, adventurers, and 
 cut-throat soldiers, and has no voice of his own in the 
 matter. But these ruffians think it well to have Pom- 
 pey out of the way, and therefore they murder him. 
 Achillas, a royal satrap, and Septimius, a Roman sol- 
 dier, go out to Pompey's vessel, as messengers from the 
 king, and induce him to come down into their boat. 
 Then, in the very sight of his wife, he is slaughtered, 
 and his head is carried away as proof of the deed. 
 Such was the end of Pompey, for whom no fortune 
 had seemed to be too great, till Caesar came upon the 
 scene. We are told by the Eoman poet, Lucan, who 
 took the battle of Pharsalia as his difficult theme, that 
 Caesar could bear no superior, and Pompey no equal. 
 The poet probably wished to make the latter the more 
 magnanimous by the comparison. To us, as we ex- 
 amine the character of the two generals, Caesar seems 
 
172 THE CIVIL WAR.-THIRD BOOK. 
 
 at least as jealous of power as his son-in-law, and cer« 
 tainly was the more successful of the two in extruding 
 all others from a share in the power which he coveted. 
 Pompey in the triumvirate admitted his junior to 
 more, as he must have felt it, than equal power: 
 Caesar in the triumvirate simply made a stepping-stone 
 of the great man who was his elder. Pompey at^ 
 Thessaly was forced to divide at least the name of his 
 power with Scipio, his last father-in-law : but Caesar 
 never gave a shred of his mantle to be worn by another 
 soldier. 
 
 In speaking, however, of the character of Pompey, 
 and in comparing it with that of his greater rival, it 
 may probably be said of him that in all his contests, 
 both military and political, he was governed by a love 
 of old Eome, and of the Eepublic as the greatest 
 national institution which the world had ever known, 
 and by a feeling which we call patriotism, and of 
 which Caesar was, — perhaps, we may say, too great to be 
 capable. Pompey desired to lead, but to lead the be- 
 loved Eepublic. Caesar, caring nothing for the things of 
 old, with no reverence for the past, utterly destitute of 
 that tenderness for our former footsteps which makes 
 so many of us cling with passionate fondness to con- 
 victed errors, desired to create out of the dust of the 
 Eepublic, — which fate and his genius allowed him to 
 recast as he would, — something which should be better 
 and truer than the Eepublic. 
 
 The last seven chapters of the third book of this 
 Commentary form a commencement of the record of 
 the Alexandrine war, — which, beyond those seven 
 chapters, Caesar liimself did not write. That he 
 
C^SAR FOLLOWS POMPEY TO EGYPT. 173 
 
 should have written any Commentary amidst the 
 necessary toils of war, and the perhaps more pressing 
 emergencies of his political condition, is one of the 
 greatest marvels of human power. He tells us now, 
 that having delayed but a few days in Asia, he followed 
 Pompey first to Cyprus and then to Egypt, taking with 
 him as his entire army three thousand two hundred 
 men. " The rest, worn out with wounds, and battles, 
 and toil, and the greatness of the journey, could not 
 follow him.'* But he directed that legions should be 
 made up for him from the remnants of Pompey's broken 
 army, and, with a godlike trust in the obedience of ab- 
 sent vassals, he went on to Egypt. He tells us that 
 he was kept in Alexandria by Etesian winds. But we 
 know also that Cleopatra came to him at Alexandria, 
 requiring his services in her contest for the crown of 
 Egypt ; and knowing at what price she bought them, 
 we doubt the persistent malignity of the Etesian winds. 
 Had Cleopatra been a swarthy Nubian, as some have 
 portrayed her, Csesar, we think, would have left Alex- 
 andria though the Etesian winds had blown in his very 
 teeth. All winds filled Caesar's sails. Caesar gets pos- 
 session of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy, who, in accord- 
 ance with their father's will, was to have reigned in 
 conjunction with his sister, and the Alexandrians 
 rise against him in great force. He slays Photinus, 
 the servant of King Ptolemy, has his own ambassador 
 slain, and burns the royal fleet of Egypt, — burning 
 with it, unfortunately, the greater part of the royal 
 library. " These things were the beginning of the 
 Alexandrine war." These are the last words of Caesar's 
 last Commentary. 
 
OHAPTEE XIL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Having concluded his ten short chapters descriptive 
 of the ten books of the Commentaries written by Cse- 
 sar himself, the author of this little volume has finished 
 his intended task, — and as he is specially anxious not 
 to be thought to have made an attempt at writing his-, 
 tory, he would not add any concluding words, were it 
 not that three other Commentaries of Caesar's three 
 other wars were added to Caesar's Commentaries by 
 other writers. There is the Commentary on the Alex- 
 andrine war, — written probably by Hirtius, the author 
 of the last book of the Gallic war ; and two Commen- 
 taries on the African war and the Spanish war, — writ- 
 ten, as the critics seem to think, by one Oppius, a 
 friend whom Caesar loved and trusted. The Alexan- 
 drine war was a war of itself, in which Caesar was in- 
 volved by his matchless audacity in following Pompey 
 into Egypt, and perhaps by the sweetness of Cleopa- 
 tra's charms. And this led also to a war in Asia Minor, 
 the account of which is included with that of his Egyp- 
 tian campaign. The African war, and that afterwards 
 
CONCLUSION, 175 
 
 carried on in Spain with the object of crushing out the 
 sparks of Pompeian revolt against his power, are sim- 
 ply the latter portions of the civil war, and their re- 
 cords might have been written as chapters added to the 
 Commentary " De Eello CivilL" 
 
 Alexandria, when Caesar landed there in pursuit of 
 Pompey and had offered to him as a graceful tribute 
 on his first arrival the head of his murdered rival, was 
 a city almost as populous and quite as rich as Eome ; 
 and in the city, and throughout the more fertile parts 
 of Egypt, there was a crowd of Roman soldiers left 
 there to support and to overawe the throne of the 
 Ptolemies. Csesar, with hardly more than half a full 
 legion to support him, enters Alexandria as though 
 obedience were due to him by all in Egypt as Eoman 
 consul. He at once demands an enormous sum of 
 money, which he claims as due to himself personally 
 for services rendered to a former Ptolemy ; he takes 
 possession of the person of Ptolemy the young king, — 
 and is taken possession of by Cleopatra, the young king's 
 sister, who was joint -heir with her brother to the throne. 
 In all his career there was perhaps nothing more auda- 
 cious than his conduct in Egypt. The Alexandrians, 
 or rather perhaps the Roman army in Egypt under the 
 leading of the young king's satraps, rise against Caesar, 
 and he is compelled to fortify himself in the town. He 
 contrives, however, to burn all the Egyptian fleet, and 
 with it unfortunately the royal library, as we were told 
 ])y himself at the end of the last Commentary. Ho at 
 length allows Ptolemy to go, giving him back to the 
 Egyptians, and thinking that the young king's presence 
 
176 CONCLUSION. 
 
 may serve to allay the enmity of the Alexandrians. 
 The young king wept at leaving Caesar, and declared 
 that even his own kingdom was not so dear to him as 
 the companionship of Caesar. But the crafty false-faced 
 boy turns against Caesar as soon as he is free to do so. 
 Caesar never was in greater danger ; and as one reads 
 one feels one's self to be deprived of the right to say that 
 no more insane thing was ever done than Caesar did 
 when he swaggered into Alexandria without an army 
 at his back, — only by the remembrance that Caesar was 
 Caesar. First, because he wanted some ready money, 
 and secondly, because Cleopatra was pretty, Caesar nearly 
 lost the world in Egypt. 
 
 But there comes to his help a barbarian ally, — a 
 certain Mithridates of Pergamus, a putative son of the 
 great Mithridates of Pontus. Mithridates brings an 
 army to Caesar's rescue, and does rescue him. A great 
 battle is fought on the Mle, — a battle which would have 
 been impossible to Caesar had not Mithridates come to 
 his aid, — and the Egyptians are utterly dispersed. Young 
 Ptolemy is drowned; Cleopatra is settled on her throne; 
 and Egypt becomes subject to Caesar. Then Caesar 
 hurries into Asia, finding it necessary to quell the arro- 
 gance of a barbarian who had dared to defeat a Roman 
 general. The unfortunate conqueror is Pharnaces, the 
 undoubted son of Mithridates of Pontus. But Caesar 
 comes, and sees, and conquers. He engages Pharnaces 
 at Zela, and destroys his army ; and then, we are told, 
 inscribed upon his banners those insolent words — 
 *' Veni, vidi, vici." He had already been made Dicta- 
 tor of the Eoman Empire for an entire year, and had 
 
CONCLUSION, 177 
 
 revelled with Cleopatra at Alexandria, and was becom- 
 ing a monarch. 
 
 These were the campaigns of the year 47 B.C., and 
 the record of them is made in the Commentary ^'De 
 Bello Alexandrino." 
 
 In the mean time things have not been going altogether 
 smoothly for Cassar in Italy, although his friends at 
 Rome have made him Dictator. His soldiers have mu- 
 tinied against their officers, and against his authority; 
 and a great company of Pompeians is collected in that 
 province of Africa in which poor Curio was conquered 
 by Juba, — when Juba had Eoman senal^ors walking 
 in his train, and Cassar's army was destroyed. The 
 province called by the name of Africa lay just opposite 
 to Sicily, and was blessed with that Roman civilisation 
 which belonged to the possessions of the Republic 
 which were nearest to Rome, the great centre of 
 all things. It is now the stronghold of the Republi- 
 can faction, — as being the one spot of Roman ground in 
 which Ctesar had failed of success. Pompey, indeed, is 
 no more, but Pompey' s two sons are here, — and Scipio, 
 Pompey's father-in-law, whom Pompey had joined with 
 himself in the command at Pharsalus. Labienus is 
 here, who, since he turned from Caesar, has been more 
 Pompeian than Pompey himself; and Afranius, to 
 whom Caesar was so kind in Spain ; and Petreius and 
 King Juba, — of whom a joint story has yet to be told ; 
 and Varus, who held the province against Curio; — and 
 last of all there is that tower of strength, the great Cato, 
 the most virtuous and impracticable of men, who, 
 in spite of his virtue, is always in the wrong, and of 
 
 A. 0. voL iv. M 
 
178 CONCLUSIOir. 
 
 whom the world at large only remembers that he was 
 fond of wine, and that he destroyed himself at XJtica. 
 
 They are all at Utica, — and to them for the present 
 XJtica is Eome. They establish a Senate; and Scipio, 
 who is unworthy of the great name he bears, and is in- 
 competent as a general, is made commander-in-chief, 
 because Cato decides that law and routine so require. 
 Scipio had been consul, — ^had been joint commander 
 with Pompey, — and his rank is the highest. The same 
 argument had been used when he was joined in that 
 command, — that it was fitting that such power should 
 be given to him because he was of consular rank. The 
 command of the Eepuhlican fleet had been intrusted 
 to Bibulus on the same ground. We never hear of 
 Caesar so bestowing promotion. He indeed is now and 
 again led away by another fault, trusting men simply 
 because he loves them, — by what we may call favourit- 
 ism, — as he did when he allowed Curio to lose his army 
 in Africa, and thus occasioned all this subsequent 
 trouble. As we read of Seipio's rank we remember that 
 we have heard of similar cause for ill-judged promo- 
 tion in later times. The Pompeians, however, collect 
 an enormous army. They have ten Homan legions, 
 and are supported, moreover, by the whole force of 
 King Juba. This army, we are told, is as numerous as 
 that which Pompey commanded at Pharsalus. There 
 is quarrelling among them for authority ; quarrelling as 
 to strategy; jealousy as to the barbarian, with acknow- 
 ledged inability to act without him; — and the reader 
 feels that it is all in vain. Caesar comes, having quelled 
 the mutiny of his own old veterans in Italy by a few 
 
CONCLUSION, 179 
 
 words. He has gone among them fearing nothing; 
 they demand their discharge — he grants it. They 
 require the rewards which they think to be their due, 
 and he tells them that they shall have their money, — 
 when he has won it with other legions. Then he ad- 
 dresses them not as soldiers, but as "citizens " — " Qui- 
 rites;" and that they cannot stand; it implies that 
 they are no longer the invincible soldiers of Caesar. 
 They rally round him ; the legions are re-formed, and 
 he lands in Africa with a small army indeed, — at first 
 with little more than three thousand men, — and is again 
 nearly destroyed in the very first battle. But after a few 
 months campaigning the old story has to be told again. 
 A great battle is fought at Thapsus, a year and five 
 months after that of Pharsalia, and the Eepublic is 
 routed again and for ever. The commentator tells us 
 that on this occasion the ferocity of Caesar's veterans 
 was so great, that by no entreaties, by no commands, 
 could they be induced to cease from the spilling of blood. 
 But of the destruction of the leaders separate stories 
 are told us. Of Cato is the first story, and that best 
 known to history. He finds himself obliged to sur- 
 render the town of Utica to Caesar; and then, " he him- 
 self having carefully settled his own affairs, and having 
 commended his children to Lucius Caesar, who was 
 then acting with him as his quaestor, with his usual 
 gait and countenance, so as to cause no suspicion, he 
 took his sword with him into his bedroom when it was 
 his time to retu^e to rest, — and so killed himself." 
 Scipio also killed himself. Afranius was killed by 
 Caesar's soldiers. Labienus, and the two sons of Pom- 
 
180 CONCLUSION. 
 
 pey, and Varus, escaped into Spain. Then comes the 
 story of King Juba and Petreius. Juba had collected 
 his wives and children, and all his wealth of gold and 
 jewels and rich apparel, into a town of his called Zama; 
 and there he had built a vast funeral-pile, on which, 
 in the event of his being conquered by Csesar, he in- 
 tended to perish, — meaning that his wives and children 
 and dependants and rich treasures should all be burned 
 with him. So, when he was defeated, he returned to 
 Zama; but his wives and children and dependants, 
 being less magnificently minded than their king, and 
 knowing his royal purpose, and being unwilling to 
 become ornaments to his euthanasia, would not let 
 him enter the place. Then he went to his old Eo- 
 man friend Petreius, and they two sat down together 
 to supper. Petreius was he who would not allow 
 Afranius to surrender to Caesar at Lerida. When they 
 have supped, Juba proposes that they shall fight each 
 other, so that one at least may die gloriously. They 
 do fight, and Petreius is quickly killed. " Juba being 
 the stronger, easily destroyed the weaker Petreius with 
 his sword.'* Then the barbarian tried to kill himself; 
 but, failing, got a slave to finish the work. The battle 
 of Thapsus was fought, B.C. 47. J^umidia is made a 
 province by Csesar, and so Africa is won. We may 
 say that the Eoman Republic died with Cato at Utica. 
 The Spanish war, which afforded matter for the last 
 Commentary, is a mere stamping out of the embers. 
 Caesar, after the afi'air in Africa, goes to Rome ; and the 
 historian begins his chronicle by telling us that he is 
 detained there " muneribus dandis,"— by the distribu- 
 
. CONCLUSION, 181 
 
 tion of rewards, — keeping his promise, no doubt, to thrxse 
 veterans whom he won back to their military obedience 
 by calling them " Quirites," or Eoman citizens.^ The 
 sons of Pompey, Cnaeus and Sextus, have collected to- 
 gether a great number of men to support their worn-out 
 cause, and Ave are told that in the battle of Munda 
 more than 30,000 men perished. But that was the 
 end of it. Labienus and Varus are killed ; and the 
 historian tells us that a funeral was made for them. 
 One Scapula, of whom it is said that he was the pro- 
 moter of all this Spanish rebellion, eats his supper, has 
 himself anointed, and is killed on his funeral -pile. 
 Cnaeus, the elder son of Pompey, escapes wounded, 
 but at last is caught in a cave, and is killed. Sextus, 
 the younger, escapes, and becomes a leading rebel for 
 some years longer, till at last he also is killed by one 
 of Antony's officers. 
 
 This Commentary is ended, or rather is brought to 
 an untimely close, in the middle of a speech which 
 Caesar makes to the inhabitants of Hipsala, — Seville, — 
 in which he tells them in strong language how well he 
 behaves to them, and how very badly they have be- 
 
 * Not in the Commentary, but elsewhere, we learn that lie 
 now triumphed four times, for four different victories, taking 
 care to claim none for any victory won over Eoman soldiers. 
 On four different days he was carried through the city with his 
 legions and his spoils and his captives. His first triumph was 
 for the Gallic wars ; and on that day Vercingetorix, the gallant 
 Gaul Avhom we remember, and who had now been six years in 
 prison, was strangled to do Caesar honour. I think we hate 
 Ca3sar the more for his cruelty to those who were not Romans, 
 because policy induced him to spare his countrymen. 
 
182 CONCLUSION, 
 
 JO 
 
 haved to him. But we reach, an ahrupt termination 
 in the middle of a sentence. 
 
 After the battle of Munda Caesar returned to Eome, 
 and enjoyed one year of magnificent splendour and 
 regal power in Rome. He is made Consul for ten years, 
 and Dictator for life. He is still high priest, and at 
 last is called King. He makes many laws, and perhaps 
 adds the crowning jewel to his imperishable diadem of 
 glory by reforming the calendar, and establishing a 
 proper rotation of months and days, so as to comprise 
 a properly-divided year. Bat as there is no Commen- 
 tary of this year of Caesar's life, our readers will not 
 expect that we should treat of it here. How he was 
 struck to death by I>rutus, Cassius, and the other con- 
 spirators, and fell at the foot of Pompey's statue, gather- 
 ing his garments around him gracefully, with a policy 
 that was glorious and persistent to the last, is known 
 to all men and women. 
 
 ** Then burst his mighty heart ; 
 And in his mantle muffling up his face, 
 Even at the base of Pompey's statua, 
 Which all the while ran blood, Great Caesar fell.** 
 
 That he had done his work, and that he died in 
 time to save his name and fame from the evil deeds 
 of which unlimited power in the State would too 
 probably have caused the tyrant to be guilty, was 
 perhaps not the least fortunate circumstance in a career 
 which for good fortune has been unequalled in history. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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