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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 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

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 yielding to their prayer, in the second campaign, he pardons the people of Beauvais;⁷⁷³ in the sixth, the inhabitants of Sens.⁷⁷⁴ 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 at another of the inhabitants of Orléanais.⁷⁷⁶ 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 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 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 He appoints, as King of Artois, Commius,⁷⁸⁰ 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 whom he calls to the power. Again, he recognises Convictolitavis as chief of the Burgundians.⁷⁸² 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 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

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.

When, during his ædileship, Cæsar causes the trophies of Marius, glorious symbols of the war against the Cimbri and Teutones, to be replaced in the Capitol, the opposite party already cries out that he intends to overthrow the Republic; when he returns from Spain, after having led his victorious legions as far as Portugal, his passage across the Transpadane colonies inspires the Senate with so many fears, that two legions, destined for Asia, are retained in Italy; when he believes that he has a claim to a triumph and the consulate at the same time – a double favour accorded to many others – he is obliged to renounce the triumph. As consul he encounters, during the whole period of his magistracy, the most active and the most spiteful opposition. Hardly have his functions expired, when an accusation is sought to be brought against him, which he only escapes by the privilege attached to the imperium. In his interview, not far from the Rhine, with Ariovistus, he learns that the nobles of Rome have promised their friendship to the German king, if, by his death, he delivers them from their enemy. His victories, which transport the people with enthusiasm, excite jealousy and detraction among the Roman aristocracy. They seek to undervalue his expeditions beyond the sea, as well as beyond the Rhine. In 701 the news reached Rome of the defeat of the German tribes who again threatened Gaul with invasion. Cato, under the pretence that Cæsar had not observed the truce, proposed that they should deliver up to the barbarians the glorious chief of the legions of the Republic.

During the last campaign against the people of the Beauvaisin, his adversaries rejoice in the false rumours which were spread abroad concerning his military operations; they relate in whispers, without concealing their satisfaction, that he is surrounded by the Gauls, that he has lost his cavalry, and that the 7th legion has been nearly annihilated.⁷⁸⁵ In the Senate, Clodius, Rutilius Lupus, Cicero, Ahenobarbus, and the two Marcelli, move in their turns, either to revoke the acts of his consulship, or to supersede him as governor of Gaul, or, lastly, to reduce his command. Political parties never disarm, not even before the national glory.

Sulpicius Rufus and M. Claudius Marcellus, Consuls.

III. The two factions which divided the Republic had each, in 703, their adherent in the consulship. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a lawyer of reputation, passed for a man attached to Cæsar; M. Claudius Marcellus was his declared enemy. The latter, a distinguished orator, who imitated Cicero, announced, on his entrance into office, the design of giving a successor to Cæsar before the legal period of his command had expired; but this design, counteracted by his colleague, and by the earnest opposition of the tribunes, was from time to time adjourned. “Why,” it was said, “depose a magistrate who has not committed a fault?”⁷⁸⁶ The attention of the Senate was, moreover, called in another direction by grave events.

It will be remembered that C. Cassius Longinus, the quæstor of Crassus, had rallied the wreck of the Roman army; he had even succeeded in repulsing vigorously an invasion of the Parthians into the province of Syria. He was reproached, meanwhile, with great rapacity in his administration; it was pretended that, for the purpose of justifying his acts of rapine, he had drawn in bands of Arabs, and afterwards driven them out, boasting that he had beaten the Parthians.⁷⁸⁷ Syria was an important province, which could not be left in the hands of a simple quæstor; M. Calpurnius Bibulus, Cæsar’s old colleague in the consulship, was sent thither to exercise the command.⁷⁸⁸ At the same time Cicero, in obedience to the new law on the consular provinces, started, to his great regret, for Cilicia. As he passed through Tarentum, he paid a visit to Pompey, who, after his consulship, had absented himself from Rome, in order to avoid acting decisively. Cicero, with his ordinary want of discernment, went away enchanted with his interview; declared in his letters that Pompey was an excellent citizen, whose foresight, courage, and wisdom were equal to all events, and that he believed him sincerely allied to the cause of the Senate.⁷⁸⁹

If we reflect on the danger which then threatened the provinces of the East, we have reason to be surprised at these two appointments. Neither Bibulus nor Cicero had given any proof of military talents; the latter even very frankly avowed it.⁷⁹⁰ The Parthians were threatening, and, while Pompey had sent into Spain four old legions, remaining himself in Italy with two others, the Eastern frontiers were only guarded by weak armies,⁷⁹¹ and commanded by two generals who had never seen war.

Spirit which animates Cæsar’s Adversaries.

IV. Marcellus, after he had failed in his project of taking Cæsar away from his army, proposed a measure which displays the true character of the passions which agitated the Republic. Pompey’s father had founded in the Cisalpine the colony of Novum Comum, and had given it the right of Latium, which conferred on the magistrates of the town, after a year’s office, the privileges of Roman citizens.⁷⁹² Cæsar had sent thither 5,000 colonists, of whom 500 were Greeks,⁷⁹³ and during his first consulship he had conferred upon them the right of Roman citizens. Now Marcellus strove to cause this right to be withdrawn from them; but not having succeeded in this attempt, and unwilling at any price to acknowledge Cæsar’s law,⁷⁹⁴ he condemned to the rod, it is not known for what offence, an inhabitant of Novum Comum. The latter protested, invoking the privileges conferred on his city, but in vain; Marcellus had him flogged, telling him: “Go, show thy shoulders to Cæsar; it is thus I treat the citizens he makes.”⁷⁹⁵ This contempt for the new rights proved clearly the haughty disdain of the aristocratic party, blaming one of the things which had contributed most to the greatness of the Republic, the successive extension of the Roman city to the provinces, and to the vanquished themselves. Confounding, in his blind reprobation, both the principle of a liberal policy and him who had applied it, he saw not that the persecution exercised towards the Transpadan citizen contributed further to increase Cæsar’s greatness, and to legitimise his popularity.

Yet these are the doctrines and acts of those men who are represented as the worthy supports of the Republic! And Marcellus was not the only man who, by denying to the Transpadans the rights they had acquired, showed the perversity of egotistic sentiments; the other principal personages of the aristocratic faction hardly recommended themselves by more moderation and disinterestedness. “Appius Claudius Pulcher,” says Cicero, “had treated with fire and sword the province entrusted to his care; and had bled and drained it in every way;”⁷⁹⁶ Faustus, Sylla, Lentulus, Scipio, Libo, and so many others, sought to elevate themselves by civil war, and to recover their fortune by pillage;⁷⁹⁷ Brutus, whose conduct was that of a usurer, employed the troops of his country to oppress the allied peoples. Having lent money to the inhabitants of Salamina, he reckoned on extorting the repayment of the capital and the interest at the usurious rate of four per cent. a month, or forty-eight per cent. a year. To recover his debt, a certain Scaptius, to whom he had made over his claim, had obtained from Appius a troop of cavalry, with which, according to Cicero, “he held the Senate of Salamina besieged so long that five senators died of hunger.” Cicero, when he became governor of Cilicia, sought to repair this injustice. Brutus, irritated, wrote him letters full of arrogance, of which Cicero complained to Atticus with vivacity: “If Brutus pretends that I ought to pay Scaptius at the rate of four per cent. a month, in spite of my regulations and edicts which fixed the interest at one per cent., and when the least reasonable usurers are satisfied with that rate; if he takes it ill that I have refused him a place of prefect for a tradesman; … if he reproaches me with having withdrawn the cavalry, I regret much to have displeased him, but I regret much more to find him so different from what I had believed!”⁷⁹⁸ There was a law of Gabinius, intended to prevent such abuses; it prohibited the towns from borrowing money at Rome to pay their taxes. But Brutus had obtained a senatus-consultus to free him from this constraint,⁷⁹⁹ and he employed even the means of coercion to obtain even two or three times the value of that he had given. Such was the probity of a man who has been vaunted for his virtue. It is thus that the aristocratic party understood liberty; the hatred to Cæsar arose especially from the circumstance that he took to heart the cause of the oppressed, and that, during his first consulship, as Appian says, he had done nothing in favour of the nobles.⁸⁰⁰

The prestige of his victories had bridled the opposition; when the end of his command drew near, all the hostilities were awakened; they waited the time when, returning to every-day life, he would be no longer protected by the prerogatives attached to the imperium. “Marcus Cato,” says Suetonius, “swore that he would denounce Cæsar to the magistrates as soon as he had disbanded his army; and it was a matter of common talk that, if Cæsar returned as a private individual, he would be obliged, like Milo, to defend himself before judges, surrounded with armed men. Asinius Pollio makes this account very probable; he relates that, at the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar, casting his eyes on his adversaries vanquished or fugitives, exclaimed: ‘They have willed it! After having accomplished so many great things, I, Caius Cæsar, was condemned, if I had not demanded succour of my army.’”⁸⁰¹ Hence Cœlius, writing to Cæsar, put the question in its true light when he said, “Cæsar is persuaded that his only hope lies in keeping his army;”⁸⁰² and, on another side, as Dio Cassius informs us, Pompey did not dare to submit the difference to the people, knowing well that, if the people were taken for judge, Cæsar would gain the day.⁸⁰³

The Question of Right between the Senate and Cæsar.

V. It is here the place to examine at what period the power of Cæsar expired, and what was the pretext of the conflict which rose between him and the Senate.