History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Pompey had, nevertheless, rendered great services by putting down the riots and protecting the exercise of justice. He had delivered Rome from the bands of Clodius and Milo, had given a more regular organisation to the tribunals,[758 - Dio Cassius, XL. 53.] and caused their judgments to be respected by armed force. Still, if we except these acts, commanded by circumstances, he had used his power with hesitation, as a man who is struggling between his conscience and his interests. Having become, perhaps unknowingly, the instrument of the aristocratic party, the ties which had attached him to Cæsar had often checked him in the way in which they sought to push him. As the defender of order, he had promulgated laws to restore it; but, as the man of a party, he had been incessantly led to violate them, to satisfy the urgencies of his faction. He caused a senatus-consultus to be adopted, authorising prosecutions against those who had exercised public employments since his first consulship. The retrospective effect of this law, which embraced a period of twenty years; and consequently the consulship of Cæsar, excited the indignation of the partisans of the latter; they exclaimed that Pompey would do much better to occupy himself with the present than to call the hateful investigation of the factions to the past conduct of the first magistrates of the Republic; but Pompey replied that, since the law permitted the control of his own acts, he saw no reason why those of Cæsar should be freed from it; and that, moreover, the relaxation of morals during so many years rendered the measure necessary.[759 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 24.]

Complaint was made of the power left to orators of pronouncing the eulogy of the accused, whose defence they offered, because the prestige attached to the word of men of consideration procured too easily the acquittal of the guilty. A senatus-consultus prohibited the custom. Yet in contempt of these orders, which he had brought forward, Pompey was not ashamed to pronounce the eulogy of T. Munatius Plancus, accused, with Q. Pompeius Rufus, of the fire which burnt the Curia Hostilia.[760 - Dio Cassius, XL. 52.] Cato, who was one of the members of the tribunal, exclaimed, stopping his ears: “I do not believe this eulogiser, who speaks against his own laws.” The accused were condemned nevertheless.

With the aim of repressing electoral corruption and bringing to justice those guilty of it, it was enacted that every one condemned for bribery who should succeed in convicting another of the same crime should obtain thereby the remission of his punishment. Memmius, condemned for an act of this description, wishing to take advantage of the benefit of the legal impunity, denounced Scipio. Then Pompey appeared clothed in mourning before the tribunal, at the side of his father-in-law. At the view of this image of sorrow and of the moral pressure which resulted from it, Memmius desisted, deploring the misfortune of the Republic. As to the judges, they pushed flattery to the point of conducting Scipio back to his dwelling.[761 - Plutarch, Pompey, 59.]

To put a stop in the elections to the intrigues arising from the shameless covetousness of the candidates, it was decreed that the consuls and prætors should not be allowed to take the government of a province until five years after their consulship or prætorship.[762 - Dio Cassius, XL. 56; comp. 30.] This discouraged the ambitious, who threw themselves into extravagant expenses in order to arrive through one of these magistracies at the government of the provinces. And nevertheless Pompey, although consul, not only preserved the proconsulship of Spain, but he caused his government to be prolonged for five years, kept a part of his army in Italy, and received a thousand talents for the maintenance of his troops. In the interest of his partisans, he did not hesitate to violate his own laws, which has made Tacitus say of him, Suarum legum auctor idem ac subversor.[763 - Tacitus, Annales, III. 28.]

The preceding law did not deprive Cæsar of the possibility of arriving at the consulship, but the Senate put in force again the law which prohibited any one who was absent from offering himself as a candidate, forgetting that it had just elected Pompey sole consul, although absent from the town of Rome. The friends of the proconsul of Gaul protested with energy. “Cæsar,” they said, “had merited well of his country; a second consulship would only be the just recompense of his immense labours; or, at all events, if they felt reluctance in conferring this great dignity upon him, they ought at least not to give him a successor, or deprive him of the benefit he had acquired.” Pompey, who had no desire of breaking with Cæsar, had recourse to Cicero[764 - “Shall I pronounce against Cæsar? But what then becomes of that faith sworn, when, for this same privilege which he demands, I myself, at his prayer at Ravenna, went to solicit Cœlius, the tribune of the people? What do I say, at this prayer! at the prayer of Pompey himself, then invested with his third consulship, of eternal memory.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 1.] to add to the law already engraved on a tablet of brass, which was then the form of promulgation, that the prohibition did not apply to those who had obtained the authorisation to offer themselves as candidates in spite of their absence. All the tribunes, who had at first protested, accepted this qualification, at the motion of Cœlius.[765 - “It is he, Pompey, who has absolutely willed that the ten tribunes should propose the decree which permitted Cæsar to ask for the consulship without coming to Rome.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VIII. 3. – Dio Cassius, XL. 56. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 28.)]

Nevertheless, Cæsar’s friends went to him in great numbers to demonstrate that Pompey’s laws had been all brought forward against his interest, and that it was essential that he should be on his guard against him. Cæsar, proud in the justice of his claims, and strong in the services he had rendered, distrusted neither his son-in-law nor destiny, encouraged them, and praised greatly the conduct of Pompey.[766 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 25.]

Pompey takes as his Associate Cæcillus Metellus Pius Scipio.

V. About the first of August, Pompey chose his father-in-law Scipio as his associate in the consulship, for the last five months. This partition of power, purely nominal, and which was subsequently imitated by the emperors, appeared to satisfy men who thought only of forms. The senators boasted of having restored order without injuring the institutions of the Republic.[767 - Plutarch, Pompey, 55. – Valerius Maximus, IX. 5. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 23, 24.]

Scipio sought to signalise his short administration by abolishing the law of Clodius, which permitted the censors to expel from the Senate only men who had already undergone a condemnation. He restored things to the old footing, by rendering the power of the censors almost unlimited. This change was not received with favour, as Scipio had expected. The old consulars, among whom the censors were usually chosen, found the responsibility of such functions dangerous in a time of trouble and anarchy. Instead of being sought as an honour, the censorship was avoided as a perilous post.[768 - Dio Cassius, XL. 57.]

It was every day more evident, in the eyes of all men of judgment, that the institutions of the Republic were becoming more and more powerless to guarantee order within, and perhaps even peace without. The Senate could no longer meet, the comitia be held, or the judges render judgment, without the protection of a military force; it was necessary, therefore, to place themselves at the discretion of a general, and to abdicate all authority into his hands. Thus, while the popular instinct, which is rarely deceived, saw the safety of the Republic in the power of a single individual, the aristocratic party, on the contrary, saw danger only in this general tendency towards one man. For this reason Cato inscribed himself among the candidates for the consulship for the year 703, denouncing Pompey and Cæsar as equally dangerous, and declaring that he only aspired to the first magistracy to counteract their ambitious designs. This competition, opposed to the spirit of the time and to the powerful instincts which were in play, had no chance of success: the candidature of Cato was defeated without difficulty.

Insurrection of Gaul, and Campaign of 702.

VI. Not only had the murder of Clodius deeply agitated Italy, but the reverberation made itself felt beyond the Alps, and the troubles in Rome had revived in Gaul the desire to shake off the yoke of the Romans. The intestine dissensions, by spreading a belief in the debilitation of the state, awakened incessantly the hopes of its exterior enemies, and, which is sad to confess, these exterior enemies always find accomplices among traitors who are ready to betray their country.[769 - “ … He (Vercingetorix) reckoned on persuading all Gaul to take arms while they were preparing at Rome a revolt against Cæsar. If the chief of the Gauls had deferred his enterprise until Cæsar had the civil war to contend with, he would have struck all Italy with no less terror than was caused in former days by the Cimbri and the Teutones.” (Plutarch, Cæsar, 28.)]

The campaign of 702 is, without dispute, the most interesting in the double point of view – political and military. To the historian, it presents the affecting scene of tribes, hitherto divided, uniting in one national thought, and arming for the purpose of re-conquering their independence. To the philosopher it presents, as a result consoling for the progress of humanity, the triumph of civilisation against the best combined and most heroic efforts of barbarism. Lastly, in the eyes of the soldier, it is a magnificent example of what may be done by energy and experience in war by a small number contending against masses who are wanting in organisation and discipline.

The events which had occurred in Rome led the Gauls to think that Cæsar would be detained in Italy, upon which a formidable insurrection is organised among them. All the different peoples act in concert, and form a coalition. The provinces in the military occupation of the legions, or held in fear by their proximity, alone remain foreign to the general agitation. The country of Orleans first gives the signal; the Roman citizens are slaughtered at Gien; Berry and Auvergne join the league; and soon, from the Seine to the Gironde, from the Cévennes to the ocean, the whole country is in arms. As a chief never fails to reveal himself when a great national movement breaks out, Vercingetorix appears, places himself at the head of a war of independence, and, for the first time, proclaims this truth, the stamp of grandeur and patriotism: “If Gaul has the sense to be united, and become one nation, it may defy the universe.” All respond to his call.

The peoples, but lately divided by rivalries, customs, and tradition, forget their reciprocal grievances, and unite under him. Foreign oppression creates nationalities much more than community of ideas and interests. Had Vercingetorix formerly, like so many others, bent his brow under the Roman domination? Dio Cassius is the only historian who says so. Be this as it may, he shows himself, as early as the year 702, the firm and intrepid adversary of the invaders. His plan is as bold as it is well combined: to create in the heart of Gaul a great centre of insurrection, protected by the mountains of the Cévennes and of Auvergne; from this natural fortress to throw his lieutenants upon the Narbonnese, whence Cæsar would be no longer able to draw either succours or provisions; to prevent even the Roman general from returning to his army; to attack separately the legions while deprived of their chief, urge into insurrection the centre of Gaul, and destroy the oppidum of the Boii, that small people, the remains of the defeat of the Helvetii, placed by Cæsar at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire as an advance sentinel.

Informed of these events, Cæsar quits Italy in haste, followed by a small number of troops raised in the Cisalpine. On his descent from the Alps, he finds himself almost alone in presence of wavering allies, and of the greatest part of Gaul in revolt, while his legions are dispersed at a distance on the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne. So many perils excite his ardour instead of abating it, and his resolution is soon taken.

He is going to draw his enemies, by successful and multiplied diversions, to the points where he intends to strike decisive blows; and by sending his infantry into the Vivarais, his cavalry to Vienne, and proceeding in person to Narbonne, he divides the attention of his adversaries, in order to conceal his designs.

His presence in the Roman province is equivalent to an army. He encourages the men who have remained faithful, intimidates the others; doubles, with the local resources, all the garrisons of the towns of the Province as far as Toulouse; and, after having thus raised in the south a barrier against all invasion, he returns, and arrives at the foot of the Cévennes, in the Vivarais, where he finds the troops which had been sent forward. He then crosses the mountains covered with snow, penetrates into Auvergne, and obliges Vercingetorix to abandon Berry, in order to hasten to defend his own country, which is threatened. Satisfied with this result, he starts unexpectedly, and, almost alone, hastens to Vienne. He takes the escort of cavalry which had preceded him, reaches the country of Langres, and proceeds thence to Sens, where he brings together his ten legions.

Thus, in little time, he has placed the Roman Province in security from any attack, forced Vercingetorix to fly to the defence of Auvergne, and rejoined and concentrated his army.

Although the rigour of the season adds to the difficulty of the marches and supplies of provisions (it was in the month of March), he decides upon immediately taking the field. Vercingetorix has just laid siege to Gorgobina, the oppidium of the Boii. These 20,000 Germans, so recently vanquished, preserve the sincere gratitude of a primitive people towards him who has given them lands, instead of selling them for slaves: they remain faithful to the Romans, and face the anger of Vercingetorix and the attacks of revolted Gaul. Cæsar, unwilling that a people who set the example of fidelity should become the victims of their devotedness, marches to their succour. He might go directly to Gorgobina, and cross the Loire at Nevers; but in that case, Vercingetorix, informed of his approach, would have had time to come and dispute the passage. To attempt this by force was a dangerous operation. He leaves at Sens two legions and his baggage, starts at the head of the eight others, and hastens, by the shortest way, to cross the Loire at Gien. He proceeds up the left bank of the river; while Vercingetorix, instead of waiting for him, raises the siege of Gorgobina. He proceeds to meet Cæsar, who beats him at Sancerre in a cavalry encounter, and then marches upon Bourges, without further care for an enemy incapable of arresting him in the open field. The capture of that important town must make him master of the whole country. The Gaulish general confines himself to following by short marches, and burning all the country around, in order to starve the Roman army.

The siege of Bourges is one of the most regular and interesting of the war in Gaul. Cæsar opens the trenches, that is, he makes covered galleries which permit him to approach the place, to fill the fosse, and to construct a terrace, a veritable breaching battery, surmounted on each side by a tower. When, with the assistance of his military engines, he has thinned the ranks of the defenders, he assembles his legions under protection of the parallels composed of covered galleries, and by means of the terrace, which equals the elevation of the wall, he gives the assault and carries the place.

After the capture of Bourges, he proceeds to Nevers, where he establishes his magazines; then to Decize, to appease the disputes which had arisen, among the Burgundians, from the competition of two claimants to the supreme power. He next divides his army; sends Labienus, with two legions, against the Parisii and their allies; orders him to take the two legions left at Sens; and in person, with the six others, directs his march towards Auvergne, the principal focus of the insurrection. By means of a stratagem, he crosses the Allier at Varennes without striking a blow, and obliges Vercingetorix to retire into Gergovia with all his forces.

Placed on almost inaccessible heights, these vast Gaulish oppida, which enclosed the greater part of the population of a province, could only be reduced by famine. Cæsar was well aware of this, and resolved on confining himself to the blockade of Gergovia; but one day he judges the occasion favourable, and he risks an assault. Repulsed with loss, he thinks only of retreat, when already the insurrection surrounds him on all sides. The Burgundians themselves, who owe everything to Cæsar, have followed the general impulse: by their defection, the communications of the Roman army are intercepted and its rear threatened. Nevers is burnt, and the bridges on the Loire are destroyed; the Gauls, in their presumptuous hope, already see Cæsar humiliated, and obliged to pass with his soldiers under new Furcæ Caudinæ; but old veteran troops, commanded by a great captain, do not recoil after a first reverse; and these six legions, shut up in their camp, isolated in the middle of a country in insurrection, separated from all succour by rivers and mountains, yet immovable and unshaken in face of a victorious enemy who dares not pursue his victory, resemble those rocks beaten by the waves of the ocean, which defy the tempests, and the approach to which is so perilous that no one dare brave them.

In this extremity Cæsar has not lost hope. Far from him the thought of re-crossing the Cévennes, and returning into the Narbonnese. This retreat would bear too great a resemblance to a flight. Moreover, he has fears for the four legions entrusted to Labienus, of whom he has received no news since they went to combat the Parisii; he is anxious to rejoin them at all risks. He therefore marches in the direction of Sens, crosses the Loire by a ford, near Bourbon-Lancy, and, on his arrival near Joigny, he rallies Labienus, who, after having defeated the army of Camulogenus under the walls of Paris, had returned to Sens and hastened to meet him.

What joy Cæsar must have experienced, when he found his lieutenant, then faithful still, on the banks of the Yonne! for this junction doubled his forces, and restored the chances of the struggle in his favour. While he was re-modelling his army, calling to him a re-enforcement of German cavalry, and preparing to approach nearer to the Roman province, Vercingetorix had not lost a moment in stirring up the whole of Gaul against the Romans. The inhabitants of Savoy, as well as those of the Vivarais, are drawn into revolt; all is agitation from the coasts of the ocean to the Rhone. He communicates to all hearts the sacred fire which inflames him, and from Mont Beuvray, as its centre, its action radiates to the extremities of Gaul.

But it is granted neither to the most eminent of men to create in one day an army, nor to popular insurrection, however general, to form suddenly a nation. The foreigner has not yet quitted the territory of their country before the chiefs become jealous of each other, and rivalries break out between the different states. The Burgundians obey unwillingly the people of Auvergne; the people of the territory of Beauvais refuse their contingent, alleging that they will only make war at their own time and in their own manner. The inhabitants of Savoy, instead of responding to the appeal made to their old independence, oppose a vigorous resistance to the attacks of the Gauls, and the Vivarais shows no less devotedness to the Roman cause.

As to the Gaulish army, its strength consisted chiefly in cavalry; the footmen, in spite of the efforts of Vercingetorix, composed only an undisciplined mass; for military organisation is always a reflection of the state of society, and where there is no people there is no infantry. In Gaul, as Cæsar tells us, two classes alone were dominant, the priests and the nobles.[770 - “In all Gaul there are only two classes of men who count and are considered (the Druids and the knights), for the people have hardly any other rank than that of slaves.” (De Bello Gallico, VI. 13.)] It is not surprising if, then as in the Middle Ages, the nobility on horseback formed the true sinew of the armies. Accordingly, the Gauls never incurred the risk of resisting the Romans in the open field, or rather everything was confined to a combat of cavalry, and, when their cavalry was defeated, the army retired without the infantry being engaged at all. This is what happened before Sancerre: the defeat of his cavalry had forced Vercingetorix to make his retreat; he had allowed Cæsar to continue his route undisturbed towards Bourges, and take that town, without ever daring to attack him either during his march or during the siege.

It will be the same at the battle of the Vingeanne. Cæsar directed his march from Joigny towards Franche-Comté, across the country of Langres. His aim was to reach Besançon, an important fortress, from whence he could at the same time resume the offensive and protect the Roman Province; but when he arrived at the eastern extremity of the territory of Langres, in the valley of the Vingeanne, at about sixty-five kilomètres from Alesia, his army, in march, is brought to a halt by that of Vercingetorix, whose numerous cavalry have sworn to pass three times through the Roman lines; this cavalry is repulsed by that of the Germans in Cæsar’s pay, and Vercingetorix hastens to take refuge in Alesia, without the least resistance offered by his infantry.

It is the belief of the Gauls that their country can only be defended in the fortresses, and the example of Gergovia animates them with a generous hope; but Cæsar will attempt no more imprudent assaults. 80,000 infantry shut themselves up in the walls of Alesia, and the cavalry is sent into the whole of Gaul to call to arms, and to conduct to the succour of the invested town the contingents of all the states. About forty or fifty days after the blockade of the place, 250,000 men, of whom 8,000 are cavalry, appear on the low hills which bound the plain of Laumes on the west. The besieged leap with joy. How will the Romans be able to sustain the double attack from within and from without? Cæsar has obviated all perils by the art of fortification, which he has carried to perfection. A line of countervallation against the fortress, and a line of circumvallation against the army of succour, are rendered almost impregnable by means of works adapted to the ground, and in which science has accumulated all the obstacles in use in the warfare of sieges. These two concentric lines are closely approached to each other, in order to facilitate the defence. The troops are not scattered over the great extent of the retrenchments, but distributed into twenty-three redoubts and eight camps, from which they can move, according to circumstances, on the points threatened. The redoubts are advanced posts. The camps of infantry, placed on the heights, form so many reserves. The cavalry camps are stationed on the banks of the streams.

In the plain especially, where the attacks may be most dangerous, to the fosses, ramparts, and ordinary towers are added abatis, wolf-pits, things like caltrops, means still employed in modern fortification. Thanks to so many works, but thanks also to the imperfection of the projectiles of that time, we see a besieging army, equal in number to the army besieged, three times less in force than the army of succour, resist three simultaneous attacks, and finish by vanquishing so many enemies assembled against it. It is a thing to be remarked that Cæsar, in the decisive day of the struggle, shut up in his lines, has become, in a manner, the besieged, and, like all besieged who are victorious, it is by a sally that he triumphs. The Gauls have nearly forced his retrenchments on one point; but Labienus, by Cæsar’s order, debouches from the lines, attacks the enemy with the sword, and puts him to flight: the cavalry completes the victory.

This siege, so memorable in a military point of view, is still more so in the historic point of view. Beside the hill, so barren at the present day, of Mont Auxois, were decided the destinies of the world. In these fertile plains, on these hills, now silent, nearly 400,000 men encountered each other; one side led by the spirit of conquest, the other by the spirit of independence; but none of them were conscious of the work which destiny was employing them to accomplish. The cause of all civilisation was at stake.

The defeat of Cæsar would have stopped for a long period the advance of Roman domination, of that domination which, across rivers of blood, it is true, conducted the peoples to a better future. The Gauls, intoxicated with their success, would have called to their aid all those nomadic peoples who followed the course of the sun to create themselves a country, and all together would have thrown themselves upon Italy; that focus of intelligence, destined to enlighten the peoples, would then have been destroyed, before it had been able to develop its expansive force. Rome, on her side, would have lost the only chief capable of arresting her decline, of re-constituting the Republic, and of bequeathing to her at his death three centuries of existence.

Thus, while we honour duly the memory of Vercingetorix, we are not allowed to deplore his defeat. Let us admire the ardent and sincere love of this Gaulish chieftain for the independence of his country; but let us not forget that it is to the triumph of the Roman armies that we owe our civilisation; institutions, manners, language, all come to us from the conquest. Thus are we much more the children of the conquerors than of the conquered; for, during long years, the former have been our masters for everything which raises the soul and embellishes life; and, when at last the invasion of the barbarians came to overthrow the old Roman edifice, it could not destroy its foundations. Those wild hordes only ravaged the territory, without having the power to annihilate the principles of law, justice, and liberty, which, deeply rooted, survived by their own vitality, like those crops which, bent down for a moment beneath the tread of the soldiers, soon rise again spontaneously, and recover a new life. On the ground thus prepared by Roman civilisation, the Christian idea was able easily to plant itself, and to regenerate the world.

The victory gained at Alesia was, then, one of those decisive events which decide the destinies of peoples.

It is towards the end of the third consulship of Pompey that the lictors must have arrived in Rome, carrying, according to the custom, with their fasces crowned with laurels, the letters announcing the surrender of Alesia. The degenerate aristocracy, who placed their rancours above the interests of their country, would, no doubt, have preferred receiving the news of the loss of the Roman armies, to seeing Cæsar become greater than ever by new successes; but public opinion compelled the Senate to celebrate the victory gained at Mont Auxois: it ordered sacrifices during twenty days; still more, the people, to testify their joy, trebled the number.[771 - Dio Cassius, XL. 50.]

CHAPTER VIII.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703

New Troubles in Gaul, and the Campaign on the Aisne.

I. THE capture of Alesia and the defeat of the army of succour, composed of all the contingents of Gaul, must have encouraged the hope that the war was ended; but the popular waves, like those of the ocean, once agitated, require time to calm them. In 703, disturbances broke out on several points at the same time. Cæsar, who was wintering at Bibracte, was obliged to proceed with two legions into Berry, and, some time afterwards, into the country of Orleans, to restore order there; next he marched against the people of Beauvais, whose resistance threatened to be the more formidable, as they had taken but a slight part at the siege of Alesia. After having assembled four legions, he established his camp on Mont Saint-Pierre, in the forest of Compiègne, opposite the Gauls, who were posted on Mont Saint-Marc. At the end of a few weeks, unable to draw them to quit their post, and not considering his forces sufficient to surround on all sides the mountain which they occupied, he sent for three other legions, and then threatened to invest their camp, as had happened at Alesia. The Gauls left their position, and retired upon Mont Ganelon, from whence they sent troops to lay in ambush in the forest, in order to fall upon the Romans when they went to forage. The result was a combat in the plain of Choisy-au-Bac, in which the Gauls were defeated, and which led to the submission of the whole country. After this expedition, Cæsar turned his attention to the country situated between the Rhine and the Meuse, the populations of which, in spite of the hard lesson of 701, were again raising the standard of revolt under Ambiorix. The whole country was committed to fire and sword; but the invaders could not lay hold of the person of that implacable enemy of the Roman name.

The remains of the old Gaulish bands had united on the left bank of the Loire, the constant refuge of the last defenders of their country, and were still displaying an energy sufficient to give uneasiness to the conquerors. They joined Dumnacus, the chief of the Angevins, who was besieging, in Poitiers, Duratius, a Gaulish chief faithful to the Romans. Cæsar’s lieutenants, Caninius Rebilus and C. Fabius, obliged Dumnacus to raise the siege, and defeated his army.

During this time, Drappes of Sens and Lucterius of Cahors, who had escaped from the last battle, attempted to invade the Roman province; but, pursued by Rebilus, they threw themselves into the fortress of Uxellodunum (le Puy d’Issolu), where the last focus of the insurrection was destined to be extinguished. After a battle outside the fortress, in which the Romans were victorious, Drappes fell into their power; Rebilus and Fabius continued the siege. But the courage of the besieged rendered useless the efforts of the besiegers. At this conjuncture Cæsar arrived there. Seeing that the place, being obstinately defended and abundantly provisioned, could not be reduced either by force or by famine, he conceived the idea of depriving the besieged of water. For this purpose, a subterranean gallery was carried to the veins of the spring which, alone, supplied their wants. It became instantly dry. The Gauls, taking this circumstance for a prodigy, believed they saw in it a manifestation of the will of the gods, and surrendered. Cæsar inflicted on the heroic defenders of Uxellodunum an atrocious punishment: he caused their hands to be cut off; an unpardonable act of cruelty, even although it might have appeared necessary.

These events accomplished, he visited Aquitaine for the first time, with two legions, and saw his authority accepted everywhere. He subsequently proceeded to Narbonne, and from thence to Arras, where he established his head-quarters for the winter. Labienus, on his side, had obtained the complete submission of the country of Trèves.

Cæsar’s Policy in Gaul and at Rome.

II. After eight years of sanguinary struggles, Gaul was subdued, and thenceforward, far from meeting enemies in it, Cæsar was destined to find only auxiliaries.

His policy had contributed as much as his arms to this result. Instead of seeking to reduce Gaul into a Roman province, the great captain had applied himself to founding the supremacy of the Republic on powerful alliances, making the conquered countries subject to the states of which he was sure, and leaving to each people its chiefs and its institutions, and to Gaul entire its general assemblies.

It may have been remarked with what consideration Cæsar, in all his wars, deals with the countries which offer him their co-operation, and with what generous ability he treats them. Thus, in his first campaign, he raises the Burgundians from the state of inferiority in which they were held by the people of Franche-Comté, and re-establishes them in possession of their hostages and of their rights of patronage over the states which were their clients;[772 - De Bello Gallico, VI. 12.] yielding to their prayer, in the second campaign, he pardons the people of Beauvais;[773 - De Bello Gallico, VI. 15.] in the sixth, the inhabitants of Sens.[774 - De Bello Gallico, VI. 4.] In 702, the auxiliary troops furnished by the Burgundians revolt; yet he takes no vengeance upon them; the same year these people massacre the Roman merchants: they expect terrible reprisals, and send to implore pardon; Cæsar replies to their deputies that he is far from wishing to throw on the whole country the fault of a few; lastly, when, under the influence of the national feeling, their contingents have taken part in the general insurrection, and are defeated before Alise, instead of reducing them to captivity, Cæsar gives them their liberty. He behaves in the same manner towards the people of Rheims, whose influence he augments by granting their petitions in favour, at one time of the people of Soissons,[775 - De Bello Gallico, VI. 12.] at another of the inhabitants of Orléanais.[776 - De Bello Gallico, VI. 4.] He restores similarly to the inhabitants of Auvergne their contingent vanquished at Alise; to the people of Artois, he remits all tribute, restores their laws, and places the territory of the Boulonnaise in subjection to them.[777 - De Bello Gallico, VII. 76.] In each of his campaigns he follows an equally generous policy towards his allies.

The chiefs whom Cæsar places over the governments of the different states are not chosen arbitrarily; he takes them from the ancient families who have reigned over the country; often even he does no more than confirm the result of a free election. He maintains Ambiorix at the head of the people of Liége, restores to him his son and nephew, prisoners of the people of Namur, and frees him from the tribute which he paid to that people.[778 - De Bello Gallico, V. 27.] He gives to the people of Orleans for their chief Tasgetius, and to the inhabitants of Sens, Cavarinus, both issued from families which had possessed the sovereignty.[779 - De Bello Gallico, V. 25, 54.] He appoints, as King of Artois, Commius,[780 - De Bello Gallico, IV. 21.] who, nevertheless, as well as Ambiorix, subsequently revolted against him. In presence of the principal personages of the country of the Treviri, he decides between rival ambitions, and pronounces for Cingetorix,[781 - De Bello Gallico, V. 4.] whom he calls to the power. Again, he recognises Convictolitavis as chief of the Burgundians.[782 - De Bello Gallico, VII. 33.] We can pardon Cæsar some acts of cruel vengeance, when we consider how far his age was still a stranger to the sentiments of humanity, and how far a victorious general must have been provoked to see those whose oath of fidelity he had received, and whom he had loaded with honours, incessantly revolting against his authority.

Almost every year he convokes the assembly of Gaul,[783 - “In the beginning of spring he convoked, according to custom, the assembly of Gaul.” (De Bello Gallico, VI. 3.)] either at Lutetia, or at Rheims, or at Bibracte, and he only imposes on the people the rights of the conqueror after having called them to discuss in his presence their several interests; he presides over them more as a protector than as a conqueror. Finally, when the last remains of the insurrection have been annihilated at Uxellodunum (Puy d’Issolu), he proceeds to pass the winter in Belgium; there he strives to render obedience more easy to the vanquished, brings into the exercise of power more of leniency and justice, and introduces among these races, still savages, the benefits of civilisation. Such was the efficacy of these measures that, when, finally abandoning Gaul, he was obliged to withdraw his legions from it, the country, formerly so agitated, remained calm and tranquil; the transformation was complete, and, instead of enemies, he left on the other side of the Alps a people always ready to furnish him with numerous soldiers for his new wars.[784 - Cicero appears to fear for his wife and daughter in thinking that Cæsar’s army was filled with barbarians. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 13, A.U.C. 705.) He wrote to Atticus that, according to Matius, the Gauls offered Cæsar 10,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, which they would entertain at their own expense for ten years. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IX, xii. 2.)]

When we see a man of eminence devote himself, during nine years, with so much perseverance and skill, to the greatness of his country, we ask how so many animosities and rancours could rise against him in Rome. But this angry feeling is explained by the regret and vexation, very excusable indeed, which the privileged castes feel when a system which has, during several centuries, been the cause of their power and of the glory of the country, has just given way under the irresistible action of new ideas; this hatred fell upon Cæsar as the most dangerous promoter of these ideas. It is true that people accused his ambition; in reality, it was his convictions openly pronounced which had long provoked hostility.

Cæsar began his political career with a trial which is always honourable, persecution supported for a good cause. The popular party then rested for support on the memory of Marius; Cæsar did not hesitate in reviving it with glory. Hence the prestige which surrounded him, in his youth, and which ceased not to grow with him. The constancy of his principles gained him all the honours and all the dignities which were conferred upon him; named successively military tribune, quæstor, grand pontiff, guardian of the Appian Way, ædile, urban prætor, proprætor in Spain, and lastly consul, he might consider these different testimonies of public favour as so many victories gained under the same flag against the same enemies. This was the motive of the violent passions of the aristocracy: it made a single man responsible for the decay of an order of things which was falling into the abyss of corruption and anarchy.