Julius Caesar (14 page)

There followed a disorderly flight toward the Rhine, a race between pursuers and pursued that was made doubly tragic for the Germans by the fact that their camp lay in the path of the advancing legions. Their wives and children were put to the sword. The two wives of Ariovistus himself perished in this slaughter, one of his daughters was killed and another was taken prisoner. The German chief himself managed to cross the Rhine but he had probably been badly wounded: all we know is that he died soon afterward. The great reputation of the Suebi was destroyed. Only the scattering of a few German tribes, of little importance in themselves, was left in Gaul. For many years to come it was as if a great silence hung over the grand, divisive river of the Rhine. The peace of the sword had descended.

By the end of 58 the first year’s campaigning was over, the threat of the Helvetii eliminated, and the most powerful German tribe so heavily defeated that all the others in that dark land heard of it and withdrew into their forests. If he had acted in accordance with the wishes of the senate Caesar would now have led his troops back into the Roman province. Instead of this he ordered the legions under the command of Labienus to take up winter quarters in and around Vesontio (Besançon), the heartland of the Sequani tribe. The Sequani, who by soliciting German assistance against their neighbors had been so largely responsible for the recent trouble, now found firm shackles laid upon themselves. One thing was clear to all, from tribune to centurion to legionary—they would not have been quartered so far north of Narbonese Gaul if Caesar had no intention for further expansion in the year to come. He himself was off and away before the onset of winter to Cisalpine Gaul: there in the north of Italy to make his circuit administering justice, to raise new legions, to secure close contact with his friends in Rome, and to appraise the situation in the city.

This had changed greatly since his departure in March, and the change cannot have been agreeable to Caesar. Clodius, without a firm hand to rein him in, had exceeded any latitude that Caesar might have allowed. He had turned against Pompey to such an extent that the latter had inclined toward the
Optimates.
Then, on the disclosure of a plot by Clodius to have him murdered, Pompey had withdrawn into his house with the avowed determination not to leave it until the end of the tribunician year, when Clodius would no longer be protected by his position. Crassus was preoccupied by business and, apart from his aptitude for making money, seems to have been without political ability or real character. Pompey had long shown himself incompetent politically, and Caesar had recognized—as probably he had done all along—that without his presence the triumvirate ceased to function. In this desperate situation, when the city was at the mercy of thugs employed by rival political parties, it was not surprising that a move was afoot to recall Cicero. After all, it was now remembered how well he had dealt with the Catiline conspiracy, and Clodius was another Catiline, equally unstable and violent. One of the senators who supported Cicero’s recall traveled north to see Caesar to try to secure his approval of such a move. Caesar might possibly have agreed if he himself had been in the city, able to keep an eye on Cicero and Clodius alike, but as things stood he gave a temporizing reply. Cicero did not receive permission to return to the city until the summer of the following year.

The situation in Gaul demanded Caesar’s return and for the moment Rome must wait. The quartering of the legions among the Sequani, deep in the heart of Gaul and far removed from the Roman province, had naturally provoked considerable concern among the native peoples. They were not stupid and could read the writing on the wall: the Romans are here to stay. Labienus had not helped matters by actively concerning himself with local politics, favoring the pro-Romans and persecuting those whose nationalism was openly declared. Caesar also heard that the northern tribes of Belgic Gaul, alarmed by what had happened the previous year in the south, were mustering for a collective action against the invaders of the homeland. As evidence of his intentions (though quite unknown to the senate in Rome) Caesar raised a further two legions in Cisalpine Gaul, thus bringing his army strength up to twice that which had been authorized. Hardly had the legions been formed than he sent them across the Alps, under the command of his nephew Q. Pedius, he himself following about a month later at a time when “it began to be possible to get fodder.” The campaigning year of 57 was about to begin.

In these and all subsequent campaigns the Roman attitude was very different from that of other imperialistic and colonizing nations in later centuries. There was not even the pretense of bringing a superior culture or religion to the conquered. It is true that over the years the civilization of the Mediterranean did spread northward throughout Gaul, finally even reaching Britain, but this was an accidental byproduct of the presence of the legions in the conquered countries. First in the wake of the soldiers came the slave-dealers, always ready to conduct business as soon as a battle or a campaign was concluded. Healthy strong slaves such as Gaul was to provide were always welcome in a civilization based on slave-labor. Even so, the dealers did not like a glut on the market and, to maintain the price, would tend to regulate their quotas for release, keeping back much of their “raw material” in slave-camps for training in talents suitable for the home, while simple brutish strength could be quickly disposed of to farm or mine. All roads did indeed lead to Rome, but precious little came back in return. The city was not, as Carthage had been, a great manufacturing center and furthermore it lived largely on grain imports from Sicily, Egypt and North Africa. Rome, at any rate during this period of its history, ran much as did the later Ottoman Empire on a principle of “ever-extending conquest.” The loot of conquered lands and captured cities went back to swell the city’s wealth and power—as well as rewarding the conquering generals, officers and legionaries—while the permanent possessions of a country, iron and silver for example, would be worked on the spot by the conquered inhabitants for the benefit of the ruling power.

After the soldiers and the slave-dealers came the merchants and the tax-gatherers, the former (as in later colonial Africa, for example) to trade the insubstantial for the substantial, and the latter to drain into Italy the wealth that had previously gone to tribal chieftains. No missionaries followed the eagles, for in one thing Rome was, however unwittingly, more farsighted than later conquerors—completely tolerant or indeed indifferent to foreign religions. (Most of the Sky Gods, Mother Goddesses, Gods of War and so on were usually easy to equate with those already existing in the Greco-Roman pantheon.) The Romans did later persecute the Druids, the center of whose Celtic cult was in Britain, but this was less because of their practice of human sacrifice than because they were at the heart of nationalism, and therefore resistance to Roman power. As for Caesar, he had no civilizing mission, nor real sense of racial superiority. From the conquered he sought money and fame, and above all fame as a world general sufficient to eclipse Pompey. The slaves, the loot from temples and chieftains’ houses, the profit from metals and mines, all helped to enrich him. But the bodies, living and dead, of the conquered were the raw material which he used to further a political career. Pompey had erred in thinking that the fame he had gained by his conquests in the East and his reorganization of ancient states for the benefit of the republic would make his position unassailable. Where he had erred, and where Caesar did not err, was in failing to understand that the real levers of power lay always in Rome.

15

Conquest of the Belgians

ONE thing that cannot have pleased Caesar during his months in Cisalpine Gaul was that his visitors from the capital, as well as his correspondents in the city, revealed that his first Gallic successes had made comparatively little stir. The Helvetii, after being thoroughly defeated, had gone back to their original territory, but in consequence of this and of being a migrating tribe without much in the way of possessions, had yielded few if any slaves and practically nothing worth plundering. Similarly, Ariovistus and his Germans had been soundly beaten and forced to retreat beyond the Rhine but, because they were engaged not on their own territory but in that of the Gauls, there had been no towns, temples or chieftains’ houses to sack, and few slaves to take since those who were not killed on the battlefield had escaped back to their own land. Caesar’s victories, then, meant little to the Romans, who were almost totally absorbed by the state of affairs in the city. The latest street fighting between Clodius and his gangsters and those who opposed them was of more moment to the citizen concerned about the safety of his house and family than some distant campaign against people no one had heard of, in unknown regions of the earth. Pompey had had one advantage, in that the kings and nations of the East as well as their cities had been well-known to Roman and Greek for centuries: their names meant something. Caesar now required a campaign that would disturb and bedazzle his countrymen. The massing of the Belgae to the north seemed as if it would provide him with the kind of campaign that, if successful, could not be overlooked.

Having rejoined the army, supervised stores and provisions—a practical point which Caesar never ignored—he listened carefully to all the information that was coming in and prepared to march. In the summer of 57 he struck camp and, at the head of some 50,000 men, moved north as far as the river Aisne to confront the enemy. But, despite their vast concentration over the winter and their declared intention of preventing their free lands from falling to the Romans, the assorted tribes, who were loosely classified as “Belgae,” had run into the usual situation so often to be found among the less-civilized. Maladministration meant that their supply services were totally inadequate. Used to intertribal wars, when each contestant operated out of his own territory, they were totally unable to foresee the necessity of organizing supply dumps and transport between their bases and the fighting men at the front. The Remi, the inhabitants of the area of Rheims, were the first to come forward with protestations of affection and submission to the Roman legions. This was good news for Caesar, for now at the very beginning of the campaign he had a powerful tribe—rather like the Aedui in the south—upon whom he could rely for help, information, and grain if necessary. Hostages, the children of the chiefs of the country, were handed over as a bond for good behavior.

The tribes which had fallen apart through lack of provisions and organizations were now picked off piecemeal: the Bellovaci (around Beauvais), the Suessiones (Soissons) and the Ambiani (Amiens) all surrendered to Rome and handed over hostages. There were, of course, a few engagements. These were individual actions, often fierce in themselves, but with no unifying hand to direct the tribes against the controlled precision of the legions. It was not until Caesar reached the region dominated by the Nervii (Hainault and Flanders) that he encountered the kind of resistance which he had anticipated from the beginning. The most powerful tribe among all the Belgae, the Nervii were renowned for their fighting qualities and they had been careful to keep themselves well away from the demoralization and disintegration of their neighbors to the south. There was no sense of nationhood in those days—tribal loyalty was all. The spectacle of other tribes collapsing probably rejoiced the hearts of the Nervii and their neighbors the Atrebati (around Arras) and the Viromandui (Vermandois) much as in later centuries one Scottish clan could rejoice over the discomfiture of a neighbor, even though it was at the hands of every Scotsman’s enemy, the English.

When they heard of the advance of the legions into their territory, the Nervii at once prepared for all-out war. They sent their old, and their women and children back into safety and themselves, having proclaimed that they would never send ambassadors to Caesar (like their cowardly neighbors) nor accept any offers from him, prepared to make the Roman invasion of their land as difficult as possible. Together with their allies they took up position in thick woodlands on the right bank of the river Sambre and awaited the moment when the enemy should begin their crossing. Caesar reached the river after a three-day march—and blundered. He had clearly not foreseen that so large an army (possibly as many as 80,000 men) would be concealed in the woods opposite, nor anticipated anything like the vigor of the attack that they launched while his own troops were still in the process of “digging in” and fortifying what was to be their base camp.

Having waited until Caesar’s scouting cavalry had crossed the river, the Nervii suddenly burst from their concealment, thousand upon thousand of them, overwhelmed the horsemen and stormed across. “With almost unbelievable rapidity” they raced up the far bank and soon were upon the unprepared legionaries, many of whom had not even had time “to take off their shield-covers or put on their helmets—let alone details like fixing their crests.” There was no time either for the legionaries to find their own centurions or their own officers; they just joined up with the first group that they saw, never mind what standard they were fighting under. In the chaos that prevailed there was no chance for a commander’s eye view of the action, and each separate group was fighting its own battle for, as Caesar comments, “thick hedges obstructed the view.” In some places the Romans were successful, managing to throw back on the right wing the allies of the Nervii, the Atrebates, and even drive them in flight across the river. But on the right wing, where the attack had fallen Fiercest, there were signs of collapse—the two legions at this point having become isolated owing to the advance of the Roman center and left wing. It was here that Caesar showed that instinctive grasp of the fulcrum of power—”Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth,” as Archimedes had said—and, seizing a shield from a soldier in the rear, made his way to the front. Here his personal knowledge of his troops served him in good stead. He was able to call to individual centurions by name, ordering them to push ahead and open out the ranks so that each man’s sword arm could have full play. But it was the presence of the general himself that produced so great an effect. Individual generals, however brave, did not show themselves in the front rank—and on foot. This was the birth of the “Caesar Legend” that would last him all his days. On many another occasion throughout the years, when things looked bad, when another general would have been seen on horseback some distance away, directing the action by messenger, Caesar would be found at the weakest point. He was no Napoleon, masterminding from a distant knoll but “in there with the troops.” This was his great secret, and part of his magic.