The Conquest of Gaul

Summary

The Conquest of Gaul is a common English title for Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, seven books narrating his campaigns of 58 to 52 BCE, completed by an eighth book written after his death by his officer Aulus Hirtius. Each book covers one campaigning year, and Caesar speaks of himself throughout in the third person, a device that makes political self-advertisement read like a dispatch. The famous opening sentence divides Gaul into three parts, inhabited by Belgae, Aquitani and Celts, and the first book sets the pattern: the Helvetii attempt to migrate across Roman-allied territory, Caesar blocks and destroys them, and he then drives the German king Ariovistus back across the Rhine. Book II subdues the Belgic tribes, including the Nervii, who nearly overwhelm him on the Sambre until he takes a shield and fights in the front line. Book III records the naval war against the Veneti of Brittany and campaigns in Aquitania. In Book IV Caesar massacres the migrating Usipetes and Tencteri, bridges the Rhine in ten days, and makes his first landing in Britain, where the eagle-bearer of the tenth legion shames hesitant troops into leaping into the surf. Book V brings the second British expedition, the description of the island's peoples, and a winter disaster in which Ambiorix of the Eburones destroys the legion and a half under Sabinus and Cotta, while Quintus Cicero, ill and sleepless, holds his besieged camp until relief arrives. Book VI pauses for the celebrated ethnography of Gauls and Germans: Druids who teach the transmigration of souls and memorise their lore rather than write it, human sacrifice in wicker figures, and the German forests with their fabulous elk. Book VII is the climax. Vercingetorix of the Arverni unites most of Gaul in a scorched-earth revolt; the Romans take Avaricum and kill nearly all its inhabitants, are repulsed at Gergovia, and then trap Vercingetorix in Alesia within a ring of siege works facing both inward and outward. Inside the starving town Critognatus proposes living on the bodies of those too old to fight; the Mandubii, expelled with their wives and children, beg at the Roman lines for food and are refused. A vast relieving army fails, and Vercingetorix surrenders. Hirtius's eighth book narrates the mopping-up of 51 and 50 BCE, including the cutting off of the hands of the defenders of Uxellodunum. The Commentaries were written to influence opinion in Rome while Caesar's enemies sought to recall and prosecute him. Their plain, lucid Latin made them the first prose text of generations of schoolchildren; their numbers of the slain, perhaps a million by ancient estimates, make them also a record of what Romans regarded as glory.

Top Lessons

• The third person as a weapon of persuasion

  Caesar never says 'I'. By narrating himself as 'Caesar', he makes self-interested reports look like neutral record, and the restraint of the style becomes evidence of the author's reliability. The Commentaries teach readers to notice how plainness can be the most effective rhetoric.

• Ethnography in the service of conquest

  The Book VI digressions on Druids and Germans are among the earliest accounts of these peoples, but they also justify Roman intervention by presenting Gauls as divided and superstitious and Germans as wild. Knowledge of the other and domination of the other proceed together.

• Siege as a contest of endurance and hunger

  Alesia shows war reduced to the question of who starves first. The Gauls debate cannibalism and expel non-combatants; the Romans refuse to feed them. Caesar narrates both decisions without comment, leaving the moral weight to the reader.

• Clemency and terror as alternating policies

  Caesar pardons some enemies and sells, kills or mutilates others, explaining each choice in terms of example and deterrence. The book shows how a reputation for mercy and a willingness to be cruel can be parts of a single calculated strategy.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The Commentaries say little about doctors, but much about bodies under military pressure. Siege warfare makes hunger the decisive weapon, culminating in the Alesia debate over cannibalism and the expulsion of non-combatants, a classic case for discussions of famine and of medical ethics in siege. Wounds are reported tactically, with officers wounded in the mouth by a sling or carried from the field. The Book VI ethnography links severe illness to vows of human sacrifice, an important if hostile source for Gallic healing religion. Hirtius's account of the hands cut off at Uxellodunum records deliberate mutilation as policy. Readers sometimes connect the Commentaries with the tradition, found in Suetonius and Plutarch rather than here, that Caesar suffered from epilepsy; the Commentaries are silent on it.

• Book I.39–41

  Panic spreads through Caesar's army before facing Ariovistus, with soldiers making wills and weeping in their tents; Caesar restores morale by a speech.

• Book V.35–40

  Cotta wounded in the face by a sling during the ambush; in Cicero's besieged camp even the sick and wounded get no rest, and the ill commander works through the nights.

• Book VI.13–16

  Druid teaching on memory and the soul's survival; those suffering severe diseases vow human sacrifices to win back the gods' favour.

• Book VII.17

  The Roman army before Avaricum goes days without corn, living on cattle driven in from distant villages.

• Book VII.77–78

  Critognatus's speech proposing cannibalism, and the Mandubii, including old and sick people unfit for war, expelled from Alesia and refused food at the Roman lines.

• Book VIII.44

  Defenders of Uxellodunum have their hands cut off; the captive Drappes starves himself to death.