(9) GALLIC WARS

 

“The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans…”

Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul – the Gallic Wars – are among the most iconic wars fought by the Romans, although that may be more from Asterix comics and their famous introduction than from Caesar’s own firsthand account these days.

Asterix was my introduction to Roman history in general and the Gallic Wars in particular. For the latter, it even had the famous scene (according to the Roman historian Plutarch) of the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix throwing down his arms at the feet of Caesar after the decisive Gallic defeat at Alesia, usually with the slapstick gag of injuring Caesar’s foot (and the running gag that no one knew where Alesis was). Indeed, it replayed that scene almost as often as the classic introduction of one small village holding out against the Romans.

 

 

Caesar’s famous victory at the siege of Alesia – where he built not just one but two walls – was in 52 BC and the rest of the Gallic Wars was just Roman mopping up, as Vercingetorix’s attempt to unite the Gauls in resistance against the Romans came too late to stave off Roman dominance throughout all of Gaul (and the Romans securing the natural border of the Rhine) for the next half a millennium.

 

 

Well, not entirely! Of course, the premise of Asterix’s village holding out against the Romans by force of druidic magic potion was sadly fictional, although it did reflect some historical reality of lingering Gallic resistance to the Romans continuing “until as late as 70 AD”.

Caesar’s Gallic Wars were surprisingly intricate, involving as they did campaigns against different tribes over a number of years, not least Caesar’s campaigns across the Rhine and the English Channel against the Germans and Britons respectively as the first Roman expeditions across those bodies of water. They also involved Roman military skill and daring against the odds and reversals of fortune on occasions.

Caesar may have launched his Gallic Wars for his own aggrandizement, but they have to be acknowledged as an impressive military feat on his part and that of his legions against a numerically superior foe and the source of his (literal) triumphs in Rome itself, which were ultimately to transform the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.

For all that, the so-called transalpine Gauls paled in comparison to their cisalpine counterparts – the Gauls of the Gallic Wars usually distinguished from Caesar’s campaigns of that name by being called Roman-Gallic Wars, in which the Gauls menaced Rome within Italy itself, most famously with the Gallic chieftain Brennus sacking Rome in 390 BC and embittering the Romans against the Gauls thereafter.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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