Gaius Julius Caesar
Paperback | Pages: 269 pages Rating: 3.99 | 8392 Users | 401 Reviews
Identify Books Conducive To The Conquest of Gaul
| Original Title: | Commentarii de Bello Gallico |
| ISBN: | 0140444335 (ISBN13: 9780140444339) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Vercingetorix, Julius Caesar |
Chronicle During Books The Conquest of Gaul
This is what I was brought to by a childhood of reading Asterix.Unlike Asterix the injuries aren't restricted to black eyes and broken bones, nor is there a big feast at the end. The warfare is savage, and at the end Caesar tumbles into The Civil War that ends the Roman republic.
The fighting is savage on both sides. One of the Gaulish leaders, Vercingetorix, has the ears cut off or an eye gouged out of his own soldiers "even for a minor fault" (p157), Roman civilians are massacred on occasion while Caesar in his own account records the extermination of substantial proportions of entire peoples, sells the populations of captured towns in to slavery and in a moment of mercy has a hand of every man captured in one of his last campaigns chopped off to serve as a visual aid to clarify the folly of resisting Rome to the unenlightened. Though of course he could have been exaggerating to impress the people back home.
Part of the reason for the savagery is logistics. Tens of thousands of men roaming round Gaul needed food and fodder. It seems that an ad hoc supply network was created (p.174 and p.183) to meet Roman needs but in addition the soldiers regularly gathered in crops whenever they could and occasionally cattle. Vercingetorix, who led the big campaign against Caesar that involved most of the peoples of Gaul, is reported as realising this and advised that they should carry out a scorched earth defence, abandoning all towns that couldn't be defended against the Romans as well as starting fighting in winter.
What is striking about the Romans is their sheer bloodymindedness. In the face of overwhelming opposition they fight on. Soldiers ford the Thames and the Loire with water to their shoulders expecting to have to fight on the far bank (view spoiler)[ the Thames in the past was far wider and shallower than it is today (hide spoiler)] . They dig massive siege works - a ten mile ditch and rampart round Alesia and a fourteen mile ditch and rampart round that to defend themselves against any relieving force (view spoiler)[ this was apparently confirmed by excavations carried out in the reign of Napoleon III, although there has been some controversy if it was the right site or just another Gallic town surrounded by massive Roman siege works - this is also referred in Asterix (hide spoiler)]. Build bridges over the Rhine. Construct and repair ships. In short, join the army, it'll make a master builder of you.
Suetonius, admittedly writing The Twelve Caesars a good hundred and fifty years after the events wrote that Caesar lost no opportunity of picking quarrels - however flimsy the pretext - with allies as well as hostile and barbarous tribes, and marching against them; the danger of this policy never occurred to him. Understandably, Caesar's own account makes it all sound a little more reasonable than that, there is a fair attempt made to make it sound like an accidental bit of empire building. You know how it is, one day you are just marching against the Helvetii, the next thing you know ten years have passed and you seem to have inadvertently conquered all of Gaul, invaded Britain and Germany twice and written a set of memoirs putting the best light on your activities and lucky escapes from disaster.
From early on Gallic leaders seems suspicious of the extent of Caesar's ambitions, Ariovistus' (a warlord from beyond the Rhine) defence (pp.52-3) of his own role in northern Gaul seems to mirror Caesar's activities: I'm not the aggressor, I was called in by the locals to defend them, this big army I've got with me is purely for my own protection and not to threaten anyone...Gaul, however, was not big enough for the two of them.
Caesar starts out with little campaigns but is drawn in his own words further away from the Roman Province in southern France into greater offensive measures which provoke bigger resistance down to the massive effort of Vercingetorix and his confederates culminating with the defeat of said champion at the town of Alesia. There, besieged by the Romans he runs out of food, expels the town's population who are then trapped between Vercingetorix's and Caesar's lines with nothing to eat, only to see the relieving army defeated. After this there was another year or so of smaller scale campaigns before all Gaul was conquered. And everybody not dead presumably traumatised and in shock.
We get a picture of Gaul on the eve of conquest. A marked division between rich and poor. Larger states with annually elected officials and leaders in the south. Politics governed by clashes within and between important families for political power. It all sounds rather like the Rome of Caesar's own time but with a Gallic flavour.
There are some ethnographic snippets, a couple of pages on the Druids (possibly the most surviving about them that was written in antiquity), the use of hedges in warfare among the Belgians, that the Germans live off meat and milk (despite which when the Romans cross the Rhine they set about gathering in the crops that the Germans grow), that the ancient Britons paint themselves blue shave their bodies apart from their upper lip (perhaps this is why there was no British equivalent of Cleopatra) and had marriages between many men and one woman. Since Caesar presumably was too busy conquering to spend time skulking about the huts of natives observing their marital customs I have to wonder if his leg was being pulled here by his informants as it was about the elk, which he tells us is a beast with no knees that can only sleep by leaning against trees and is completely helpless should it fall over.
There's some interesting body language - while the Romans are trying to capture Gergovia the townswomen bare their breasts when appealing to the Romans for mercy but appear with loosened hair when encouraging their menfolk to fight more fiercely. Presumably they would have lost heart completely and instantly surrendered if their wives had their hair in buns or pinned up in elaborate hairstyles.
Something which comes to mind is that there are two contrasting narratives going on - one is familiar, the Britons and the Germans are 'other' they have weird clothes and habits, they are not like us, they are frightening enemies therefore Caesar's 'success' in over-coming them is all the greater, however in Gaul the narrative is different - they are like us, (well like the Romans) and not 'other' they have elected consuls, they have military discipline, they have engineering skills, in short Caesar portrays them as Romanised, however the two narratives converge - both groups are subject to Roman rule and can be subdued by Roman military and political talent. Rome recognises no limits to its rule, neither the Rhine nor the Ocean shall hold the Roman back.
Itemize Containing Books The Conquest of Gaul
| Title | : | The Conquest of Gaul |
| Author | : | Gaius Julius Caesar |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 269 pages |
| Published | : | December 9th 1982 by Penguin Classics (first published -50) |
| Categories | : | History. Classics. Nonfiction. Ancient History. War |
Rating Containing Books The Conquest of Gaul
Ratings: 3.99 From 8392 Users | 401 ReviewsEvaluate Containing Books The Conquest of Gaul
The Conquest of Gaul is Julius Caesars firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, fought between 58 and 50 b.c. Part history and part political propaganda, the book follows Caesar and his legions as they fight their merry way through Belgium, France, Switzerland, and even England. Incidentally, this book used to be much more famous back in the day when everybody had to learn Latin: apparently, Caesars no nonsense writing is ideal for learning the language. It is less well known now, and frankly thatsNot sure whether I should classify this as nonfiction. A well-written piece of propaganda I read for my AP Latin class - Caesar sure knows how to entertain with his descriptions of battle and debauchery. And by debauchery, I mean bloodshed and weird ritual sacrifices.Fans of Roman and military history will eat this up.
Not only was Caesar a master self-promoter and consummate politician, but he could wield the pen with a stylistic flourish: The Gallic Wars hums along in double time, marching the reader through the entire lengthy invasion and pacification campaign of non-Narbonensis Gaul. Really, Caesar offers it alla foretaste of the Caesarian Cycle in the story of the migratory horde of the Helvetii and their fiercely contested clash with the Roman will, resulting in a thorough Julian chastisement; then a
Having taken three years of high school Latin, fifty years later, a couple of years ago, I decided to relearn my Latin and begin reading works of classical antiquity in their original languages. Ive not yet made it to learning Greek, but the Latin is progressing. Most students of Latin will recall having read Caesars The Gallic War as their first literary work. I found that what I read then was both abbreviated and heavily edited. Now Ive read the work in its entirety, and it has been great fun.
Offers great insight into the Roman republic through Caesar's conquests. While the prose was straightforward, it was a little dull.
I think this book is worth reading and pondering since it's written by one of the famous Roman generals and statesmen in Latin. Long time ago I first read his decisive quote, "I came, I saw, I conquered!" [Veni, vidi, vici!] somewhere with awe and wondered who said this and why. We can still read about him in innumerable biographies nowadays even though he lived 2,000 years ago. From this book, I think Julius Caesar was a leader of genius due to his wit, character and leadership. Some excerpts:
Addition: The library just purchased the newly published Landmark edition, so I requested it to verify that it is as outstanding as the other volumes in the Landmark series. Definitely yes. In short, do not accept any substitutes. This volume includes Caesars Gallic War and Civil War, as well as all or parts of three relevant works by unknown authors: the Alexandrian War, the African War, and the Spanish War. Also an excellent and substantial introduction that provides: a solid biography, the
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