Designed as much for academic students of history, although it is unannotated, as it is for the general reading public, Roman military expert Gilliver’s updated account of Caesar’s often-brutal conquest of Gaul is remarkably accessible. Lavishly illustrated, with numerous vivid photographic panels and well-placed explanatory ‘boxes’ (of key characters, sites, and weaponry, etc.) alongside the exemplary clear text, Gilliver captures in little more than 92 pages of prose what many historians often need hundreds to convey. As is conventional with Osprey’s ‘Essential Histories’ series, there is also a chronology of key events, suggestions for further reading, and an index appended to the book’s rear.
Despite its comparative brevity, Gilliver manages not only to untangle much of the complexities of Gallic (and Belgae/Germanic) tribal formations, rivalries, and alliances, but also to puncture through the hard shell of Caesar’s propagandistic intentions with his Commentaries, our key resource on this war of conquest. Citing Plutarch on p. 102, Gilliver reminds us how Rome must have been dazzled by the frequently relayed news of the breakneck speed and enormity of Caesar’s victories:
‘…Caesar captured more than 800 towns, subdued 300 tribes, slew a million Gauls in the fighting and captured more. Whilst these figures are no doubt heavily over-exaggerated, they nonetheless give us an idea of the huge scale of the campaigns and Gallic losses’.
Caesar’s utter ruthlessness would also have attracted much admiration in the capital, just as it stirred opprobrium amidst his jealous rivals (who threatened him with prosecution for war crimes – p.103):
‘Caesar noted, “Because they had brought all their possessions with them when they had abandoned their homes and crossed the Rhine, there were also many women and children, and they then began to flee in all directions. Caesar ordered the cavalry to hunt them down”. No mercy was shown, even to those who could offer no resistance’.
Infamously, Caesar also described – after the revolt at Uxellodunum in 51 – that he retaliated by having the hands sliced off some 2,000 rebellious tribesmen to serve as a lesson that he would brook no threats to his authority. Chillingly, he wrote of his own self-perceived reputation within this context:
‘Caesar, being convinced that his lenity was known to all men, and being under no fears of being thought to act severely from a natural cruelty…’ (Comm. Bk.8, chpt.44).
Heavily in debt, Caesar’s vaunted clementia was sparse for these ancestral enemies of Rome, but when it was exercised it was often designed to extract a profit, if not vast profits. On p.109, Gilliver points out that after he crushed the tribe of the Aduatuci, some 53,000 men, women, and children were driven to the slave blocks. Such personal material gains not only floated Caesar out of a lingering bankruptcy, but the great gambler also extended such munificence towards his troops – allowing them to seize and sell many of these captured Gauls – that he cemented their fierce loyalty and popularity.
And the legions’ fealty to him was never tested better than at the battle preceding the revolt at Uxellodunum, where the Avernian prince Vercingetorix led a remarkably united Gallic force against the Roman conquerors at Alesia. Quite possibly one of the greatest battles of antiquity – second in my mind only to Thermopylae – some 70,000 legionnaires laid siege to Vercingetorix’s numerically superior force within the hilltop fortress of Alesia, only to then be attacked from behind their lines by a massive relief army of Gauls which numbered over 250,000 warriors and 8,000 cavalry (if Caesar is to be believed). So intricate and well prepared were Caesar’s siege lines, with one 11-mile circuit surrounding Alesia, while the second, 14-mile stretch faced outwards to prevent any penetration of his army, that the legions were able to fight simultaneously on two fronts and defeat vastly superior forces. Under enormous pressure at one point in this desperate battle, Caesar even took to the lines to fight with his men, his scarlet cloak rendering him particularly conspicuous. His men were no less brave: Caesar pointing out that two centurions so competed with each other for the glory of his recognition (to win the promotion of Primus Pilus) that they earned special mention within his Commentaries. Incidentally, Vorenus and Pullo would also go on in popular culture to be the ‘stars’ of the acclaimed HBO series Rome.
While Gilliver’s account of this extraordinary battle is quite brief, it is nonetheless precise and gripping. Where Gilliver’s work on Caesar’s Gallic campaigns is even more revealing is where her expertise in ancient warfare is drawn upon to distinguish between Gallic ‘heroic martialism’ and the intensely disciplined nature of Roman combatants, particularly so under a charismatic and oft-reckless leader such as Caesar. This was a true clash of cultures. No matter how frequently Caesar rolled the dice of Fortuna – and he did experience some shocking blows, with legions being lost under a subordinate, a telling defeat at Gergovia and an entire township of Roman colonists being slaughtered on his watch – so iron-clad was legionary disciple, so ably led by the centurion class and so sophisticated was their military technology, tactics, and logistics that, from the benefit of hindsight, his ultimate conquest of Gaul seems inevitable (see p. 122 of Gilliver for more on this). While warfare maintained its centrality to his foes as much as to his own people, Caesar faced a people who had never experienced the ‘total war’ he inflicted upon them – Gallic warfare being of much smaller and limited scale, often just glorified raiding, whereby the aristocrats who led these tribes could instantiate their status through highly visible combat prowess, even taking to the art of monomachy to reinforce their heroism (see, Gilliver pp. 98–100).
When Napoleon III had erected a huge statue of Vercingetorix at the fateful site of Alesia many centuries later, it captured something of these vast cultural differences Gilliver writes of: although still grasping a sword, the weapon stands at rest, while a rather pensive, if not mournful-looking, freedom fighter glances down at the place where Gaul died and Provence (nee the Roman province) and then France would be born.
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