Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (36 page)

pr oconsul 58–50 BC

56 BC: after crossing the Rhine

Caesar campaigns against

the Germans

E B U R O N E S

AT R E B AT E S

57 BC: Belgic tribes

defeated after heavy

B R I T A N I C U S ( E N G L I S H C H A N N E L )

fighting near the Sambre

Samarobriva

C E N U S

O

V

C A L E T I

(Amiens)

E

T R E V E R I

NE

S

L

e

L

L E X O V I I

q

Durocortorum

I

uana

(Reims)

(

)

S

e

e

A U L E R C I

in

in

e

h

)

(R

s

u

V E N E T I

n

e

S E N O N E S

h

Cenabum

R

52 BC: rebellion by Gallic

(Orléans)

Alesia

confederacy under Vercingetorix

56 BC: Veneti

is crushed at Alesia

defeated by

Li

Caesar’s fleet in

ger (Loire)

Avaricum

approximate site of

sea battle

(Bourges)

defeat of Arovistus

58 BC: Caesar supports

Bibracte

allied Aedui and defeats

M A R E

(Mont Beuvray)

Lemonum

Helvetii migrating west

C A N T A B R I C U M

(Poitiers)

( B A Y O F B I S C A Y )

Matisco

(Macon)

Gergovia

Lake

Uxellodunum

Geneva

Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul

58 – 50 BC

G a l l i a

) e

Site of battle

n ô

C i s a l p i n a

h

Major Gallic settlement

51–50 BC: Caesar

(Rs

G a l l i a

Major Roman city

G

suppresses rebellion

u

ar

n

u

and forces surrender

a

n

of stronghold at

d

n

T r a n s a l p i n a

Genova

a

o

(

Uxellodunum

h

(Genoa)

Ga

R

ronne)

Aquae Sextiae

Tolosa

(Aix-en-Provence)

(Toulouse)

Antipolis

(Antibes)

Narbo

Massillia

(Narbonne)

(Marseille)

0

100 miles

0

100 km

M A R E I N T E R N U M

( M E D I T E R R A N E A N S E A )

Gaul and its tribes

being placed in the hands of elected magistrates. Rome’s oldest ally, the Aedui, had a supreme magistrate called the Vergobret who held office for a single year. No man could be elected twice to this post, nor could any member of his family hold the office during his lifetime, thus preventing any individual or group from monopolising power. The similarity of this ideal to the Roman Republican system is striking, and in many ways the tribes of Gaul resembled the city-states of the Mediterranean world, though perhaps at an earlier stage of development.19

There is an on-going academic debate over the extent to which we can see the Gauls and other peoples who spoke ‘Celtic’ languages as part of one 198

gaul

people with broadly uniform customs and culture, but this need not concern us here. Caesar notes both similarities and differences between the various tribes, but did maintain a very clear distinction between the peoples of Gaul and the German tribes. The River Rhine was presented as the dividing line between them, although he concedes that the picture was a little less clear than this and that some Germanic groups were well established in lands on the west bank. Archaeology does not support such a clear division, suggesting strong similarities in settlement patterns and material culture – pottery, metalwork, etc. – between Gaul and central Germany. There was more of a difference between the southern/central regions and the northern areas of Germany, where there were few substantial fortified settlements. Yet it would be a mistake on this basis to reject the testimony of Caesar and other ancient authors, for archaeology is often a clumsy tool for revealing ethnic or political boundaries. There were distinct Germanic and Celtic languages, and doubtless huge numbers of dialects and regional variations within each broad group. Some tribes that spoke a Germanic language may well have lived in similarly sized and laid out settlements to peoples living in Gaul, as well as using objects of a shape and style that were much alike. This does not mean that either group would have perceived the other as fundamentally like themselves and not as foreigners. They were more likely to see peoples who spoke the same or a similar language, who revered the same deities in much the same way, and who had lived around them for a long time as kindred. This would not in itself have prevented hostility and warfare between the two groups, nor ruled out peaceful relations with a more ‘foreign’ people. Neither the Gauls nor the Germans were nations in any meaningful sense, and personal identity and loyalty had far more to do with tribe and clan, and within these, family, neighbour or chieftain.20

Contact between Gallic tribes and the Mediterranean world had a long history and was often marked by warfare. A band of Gauls had sacked Rome in 390 BC, while other tribes had overrun and settled in the Po Valley. Later, the Romans began to colonise the same region, resulting in a series of wars that ended in the early second century BC with the subjugation and absorption of the Gallic tribes. Around 125 BC the Romans began the conquest of Transalpine Gaul to create a secure land route to their provinces in Spain. One of the proconsuls involved in these campaigns was Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, the great-great-great-grandfather of Emperor Nero. Described by a contemporary as having ‘a face of iron and a heart of lead’, he is said to have impressed the tribes by riding on an elephant, but his most enduring legacy was the Via Domitia, a great strategic road running to 199

pr oconsul 58–50 BC

Spain. The region was the scene of much fighting during the migration of the Cimbri and Teutones, but there was no more concerted Roman expansion before Caesar’s arrival. There was considerable consolidation, with the establishment of fortified outposts and a colony at Narbo (modern Narbonne) in 118 BC. The latter soon became an important trade centre as goods produced by the great
latifundia
estates of Italy flooded over the Alps. Wine was the main product, and the trade can be traced by the discovery of sherds from the amphorae used to transport it. The sheer quantity involved is staggering, and one scholar has estimated that during the first century BC

some 40 million wine amphorae were traded in Gaul. If anything this figure is probably too low. Each vessel was usually around 3–3 feet 6 inches high and contained 35–45 pints. The main trade routes followed the Rhône-Saône valleys, or went west to the Atlantic coast via the Aude and Garonne. In return for wine and other luxury goods, traders sought raw materials, including tin from south-western Britain, and most of all, slaves. One source claims that a Gaulish chieftain would exchange a slave for a single amphora of wine. This may have been a misunderstanding of the social obligation on a host to demonstrate his wealth and power by giving a guest something of far greater value than his gift, but nevertheless illustrates the importance of wine to the Gaulish nobility. Some of this trade may have been undertaken by local middlemen, but Roman merchants were evidently a familiar sight in much of Gaul. This was a time of great commercial opportunity for Romans, and enterprising businessmen penetrated deep into lands that had never yet seen a Roman army. At one site in Noricum there was a Roman trading community with its own small forum established outside a native town by the start of the first century BC.21

Trade with the Roman world encouraged a trend towards centralisation in many of the tribes of Gaul. The late second and first centuries BC saw the growth in large walled towns, which Caesar calls by the somewhat vague term
oppida
. Many tribes were minting coinage of a standard size and weight based on Hellenistic models, which suggests that long-distance trade was common. Some sites show traces of large-scale manufacturing activity, and were laid out to an organised plan. Entremont, a hill town stormed by the Romans around 124 BC during the conquest of Transalpine Gaul, was built in stone in a very Greek style. The cultural influence was not overwhelming though, for a Hellenistic-style shrine also had niches built into the walls to take the severed heads of enemies. Those communities lying on the main trade routes benefited most from this and their towns were corresponding large. The Arverni lay on the western route, while the 200

gaul

Rhône-Saône valleys were contested between the Aedui and Sequani. The principal town of the Aedui at Bibracte (modern Mont Beuvray) enclosed an area of 135 hectares within its walls, and excavations there have revealed vast quantities of wine amphorae. Towns like this tended to be the focus of tribal government, but never quite acquired the central role of Greek and Roman cities. Leaders whose power was based on rural areas were still able to dominate their tribe.22

In the end it was the aristocracy which dominated all the tribes of Gaul to a greater or lesser extent. Caesar dismissed the ordinary people as little more than slaves, so closely were they tied to powerful chieftains. The nobility he divided into the knights (
equites)
and the priests, known as druids. Neither group was drawn from a set caste, and families could contain both druids and knights. The druids did not fight and their power rested on their long years of training, which made them experts in matters of religion, law and tribal custom. Caesar says that they deliberately wrote none of their beliefs down, since they felt that reliance on the written word weakened the power of memory and also might diminish their own authority. As a result, very little is known with certainty of druidic beliefs

– something that has given plenty of scope over the centuries for the vacuum to be filled with romantic invention. At the time Greek philosophers liked to see the druids as primitive Stoics, and Caesar does say that they believed in the immortality of the soul, something that he claimed encouraged warriors to disdain death in battle. Once a year the druids of much of Gaul met at a shrine in the territory of the Carnutes, but their ability to act as a force to unify the tribes was extremely limited. They also presided over sacrifices and could punish a man by barring him from such rituals. The type of offering varied, but Caesar and our other ancient sources are adamant that the Gauls practised human sacrifice on certain occasions. He speaks of large wicker figures that were filled with people – usually criminals or enemies, but if there were none of these then others had to take their place – and set on fire. Some scholars dismiss such stories as Greek and Roman propaganda, but we should not forget that the Romans themselves had offered human victims to the gods at the time when the Cimbri threatened Italy, and the Senate only outlawed the practice in 97 BC. Roman society remained quite content to watch people being killed for entertainment in the arena, but balked at killing them for the sake of religion. The archaeological record does not provide incontrovertible evidence for widespread human sacrifice by the Gallic tribes, although such practices are clearly attested amongst the Germanic and British 201

pr oconsul 58–50 BC

peoples. However, it is certain that many Gaulish rituals certainly made use of human body parts, and it is in most cases impossible to tell whether or not these were acquired through ritual killings. In addition head-hunting was certainly common amongst Gaulish warriors and probably amongst many north European peoples. The shrine at Entremont, and a similar one at nearby Rocquepertuse, provide graphic illustration of this.23 Strabo tells us that:

when they [the Gauls] depart from the battle they hang the heads of their enemies from the necks of their horses, and, when they have brought them home, nail the spectacle to the entrances of their houses. Poseidonius says that he himself saw this spectacle in many places, and that, although at first he loathed it, afterwards, through his familiarity with it, he could bear it calmly. The heads of enemies of high repute, however, they used to embalm in cedar-oil and exhibit to strangers, and they would not deign to give them back even for a ransom of an equal weight in gold.24

Poseidonius was a Greek philosopher who travelled in southern Gaul in the early years of the first century BC, gathering material for his ethnographic study. He later settled in Rome and it is quite possible that Caesar met him. A Gallic coin from the middle of the century actually depicts a warrior holding a severed head in one hand. Archaeologists have also discovered a gruesome trophy at Ribemont-sur-Ancre, where the corpses of many armed warriors and some horses had been fixed to a wooden structure, so that they stood upright. The heads of all these men were missing, and it is now unclear whether they were defeated enemies or some form of sacrificial offering. Caesar mentions that mounds of spoils taken from an enemy were often dedicated to the gods and could be seen in many places, for the Gauls respected the rituals and would not dare to steal anything from them. He also states that before his arrival the tribes would go to war ‘well-nigh every year, in the sense that they would either make wanton attacks themselves or repelling such’. Strabo described the whole Gallic race as ‘war-mad’, and it is clear that the knights were a warrior aristocracy. A man’s status was judged by the number of warriors he maintained at his own expense and who were personally bound to him by solemn oaths. The strength and fame of their retinues acted as deterrents against anyone inside or outside the tribe from attacking them, or the communities loyal to and protected by them.25