Suetonius’s life of Augustus has 101 chapters compared with his life of Julius Caesar with 89.
(1) Traditional connection of the Octavian family with the town of Velitrae. Tradition that a forebear was in the middle of sacrificing to Mars when a neighbouring tribe attacked so that he grabbed the innards out of the fire half burned [no idea what this really means], giving rise to a tradition of sacrificing that way in the town.
(2) The family was of the equestrian class i.e. neither rich and venerable patricians nor plebeians. Generations back the family split into two branches, one of which sought high office, Octavius’s branch less so. His father was the first family member to become a senator. Mark Antony taunted him that his great-grandfather was a freedman and rope-make, while his grandfather was a money-changer.
(3) His father Gaius Octavius was a man of wealth and repute who served well as governor of Macedonia, defeating Rome’s enemies in battle, meting out justice to Rome’s allies. Marcus Cicero, in a letter to his brother, Quintus, who was serving as proconsular governor of Asia, advises him to imitate his neighbour Octavius.
(4) On the way back from Macedonia he died suddenly leaving a wife, Atia, and three children, one by his first wife, 2 by Atia. Atia was the daughter of Marcus Atius Balbus and Julia, sister of Gaius Caesar. Balbus came from a family with many senators in its history and was closely connected on his mother’s side with Pompey the Great.
(5) Augustus was born just before sunrise on the ninth day before the Kalends of October [i.e. 23 September] in the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius [63 BC], at the Ox‑Heads, a small property in the Palatine quarter, where there is now a shrine, built shortly after his death.
(6) A small room like a pantry is shown to this day as the emperor’s nursery in his grandfather’s country-house near Velitrae, which is now said to be haunted.
(7) His names In his infancy he was given the surname Thurinus in memory of the home of his ancestors. Mark Antony uses the name as an insult when the two fell out in the 30s BC. In 44 BC he took the name of Gaius Caesar by the will of his great-uncle, Julius. In 27 BC he was awarded the surname Augustus, on the motion of Munatius Plancus, Augustus being a made-up name because sacred places and those in which anything is consecrated by augural rites are called ‘august’ from the increase (auctus) in dignity or authority.
Suetonius uses the name Augustus throughout.
(8) He lost his father when he was 4. At 12 he delivered a funeral eulogy to his grandmother Julia. When his uncle went to Spain to engage the sons of Pompey, although he had hardly recovered from a severe illness, he followed over roads beset by the enemy with only a very few companions and so endeared himself to Caesar, who soon formed a high opinion of his character.
Suetonius gives a fantastically abbreviated account of Augustus’s career in order to get onto the character stuff: so, after Caesar defeated the last of the Pompeyans in Spain, thinking peace had arrived for good, Augustus devoted himself to study in Greece. When he learned that his great-uncle had been assassinated, and he had been named his heir, he pondered whether to appeal to the nearest legions, eventually deciding against it. He returned to Rome and entered upon his inheritance, in spite of the doubts of his mother and the strong opposition of his stepfather, the ex-consul Marcius Philippus. Then he levied armies and henceforth ruled the State, at first with Marcus Antonius and Marcus Lepidus, then with Antony alone for nearly 12 years, and finally by himself for 44. That’s it, that’s the complete summary of Augustus’s political career.
(9) “Having given as it were a summary of his life, I shall now take up its various phases one by one, not in chronological order, but by classes, to make the account clearer and more intelligible.” In his introduction to the Penguin edition, Michael Grant points out that Suetonius’s fondness for assigning things to categories reminds us that he wrote the lives of great grammarians (now lost). Very bookish, very librariany, this love of taxonomies.
He wages five civil wars which Suetonius oddly names after their decisive battles: Mutina (43 BC), Philippi (42), Perusia (40), Sicily and Actium (31).
(10) Augustus initially wanted to avenge his uncle [for some reason Suetonius insists on calling Caesar Octavius’s ‘uncle’ not his ‘great uncle’] by gaining a position of power such as tribune of the plebs and then leading forces against Brutus and Cassius. But he was blocked in all attempts by Mark Antony and so went over to the aristocrats’ party. He plotted to assassinate Antony but when the conspiracy was uncovered, raised veterans to protect himself. He was put in command of the army which he had raised, with the rank of propraetor, and bidden to join with Hirtius and Pansa, who had become consuls, in lending aid to Decimus Brutus.
(11) Both Hirtius and Pansa lost their lives in this war and there were persistent rumours that Augustus had them arranged their deaths in order to create vacancies in the consulship.
(12) But when Antony, after his flight north, found a protector in Marcus Lepidus, and realising that the rest of the leaders and armies were coming to terms with them, he abandoned the cause of the nobles without hesitation and entered negotiations.
(13) He now formed a league with Antony and Lepidus and they finished the war against Brutus and Cassius with the two battles of Philippi. He was not merciful. He sent Brutus’s head to be thrown at the foot of Caesar’s statue.
When the duties of administration were divided after the victory at Philippi, Antony undertook to restore order in the East, and Augustus to lead the veterans back to Italy and assign them lands in the municipalities. But he could please neither the veterans nor the landowners, since the latter complained that they were driven from their homes, and the former that they were not being treated as their services deserved.
(14) Dangerous incidents during the siege of Lucius Antonius in Perusia.
(15) After the capture of Perusia he took vengeance on many, meeting all attempts to beg for pardon or to make excuses with the one reply, “You must die.”
(16) Details of the war in Sicily against Pompey’s son, Sextus Pompeius.
(17) When the final breach with Antony came, despite numerous attempts to patch it up, in 32 BC Augustus had Antony’s will read out to the people in which he named his children by Cleopatra as his heirs. Suetonius briskly deals with the battle of Actium, the difficulties he had sending his fleet and troops back to Italy, then his journey with some forces to besiege Antony in Alexandria.
Although Antony tried to make terms at the eleventh hour, Augustus forced him to commit suicide, and viewed his corpse. He greatly desired to save Cleopatra alive for his triumph, and even had Psylli brought to her, to suck the poison from her wound, since it was thought that she had died from the bite of an asp.
The young Antony, the elder of Fulvia’s two sons, he dragged from the image of the Deified Julius, to which he had fled after many vain entreaties, and slew him. Caesarion, too, whom Cleopatra fathered on Caesar, he overtook in his flight, brought back, and put to death. But he spared the rest of the offspring of Antony and Cleopatra, and afterwards maintained and reared them according to their several positions, as carefully as if they were his own kin.
(18) He visited the shrine of Alexander and placed a golden crown in the tomb. He annexed Egypt as a Roman province and had troops clear out the canals from the Nile in order to make it a more efficient bread basket. He founded the city of Nicopolis close to the site of his victory at Actium.
(19) Half a dozen assassination attempts are foiled.
(20) He carried on but two foreign wars in person: in Dalmatia, when he was but a youth, and with the Cantabrians after the overthrow of Antony.
(21) He subdued Cantabria, Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and all Illyricum, as well as Raetia and the Vindelici and Salassi, which are Alpine tribes. He put a stop to the inroads of the Dacians, slaying great numbers of them, together with three of their leaders, and forced the Germans back to the farther side of the river Albis. But he never made war on any nation without just and due cause and was far from desiring to increase his dominion or his military glory at any cost. He only took hostages where necessary and if the hostage-giving nation rebelled, did not execute them but sold them into slavery.
His moderation in this and other things prompted India and the Scythians to send friendly envoys. Friendship with the eternally troublesome Parthian Empire allowed Augustus to reclaim the standards lost by Crassus at the battle of Carrhae in 53, and by Antony’s lieutenants in 40 and 36 BC.
(22) He had the doors of the temple of Janus Quirinuse closed three times, having won peace on land and sea. He twice entered the city in an ovation, after the war of Philippi, again after that in Sicily, and celebrated three regular triumphs, for his victories in Dalmatia, at Actium, and at Alexandria, on three successive days.
(23) He suffered but two severe and ignominious defeats, those of Lollius and Varus, both of which were in Germany. [At the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9 3 entire legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were destroyed by Arminius, leader of the Cherusci.] It was said Augustus was so affected that for several months he cut neither his beard nor his hair, and sometimes he would dash his head against a door, crying: “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” And he observed the day of the disaster each year as one of sorrow and mourning.
(24) He was a strict disciplinarian. He dismissed the entire tenth legion in disgrace because they were insubordinate. If any cohorts gave way in battle, he decimated them, [had every tenth man, chosen by lot, executed].
(25) After the civil wars he never called any of the troops ‘comrades’ either in the assembly or in an edict but always ‘soldiers’, thinking the former term too flattering for the requirements of discipline, the peaceful state of the times, and his own dignity.
He thought the worst quality in a general or officer was haste and risk. Hence his favourite sayings: “More haste, less speed”; “Better a safe commander than a bold”; and “That is done quickly enough which is done well enough.”
(26) He held the consulship an unprecedented 13 times. The first time he bullied the Senate into granting it him when he was only 20. He held his second consulship 9 years later, and a third after a year’s interval. The rest up to the eleventh were in successive years, then a long interval of 17 years till his twelfth and 2 years till his thirteenth.
(27) He was for ten years a member of the triumvirate for restoring the State to order, and though he opposed his colleagues for some time and tried to prevent a proscription, yet when it was begun, he carried it through with greater severity than either of them.
While he was triumvir, Augustus incurred general detestation by many of his acts and Suetonius lists the times Augustus had nobles he suspected of treachery arrested, tortured or executed on the spot.
He received the tribunician power for life, and once or twice chose a colleague in the office for periods of five years each. He was also given the supervision of morals and of the laws for all time, and by the virtue of this position, although without the title of censor, he nevertheless took the census thrice.
(28) He twice seriously considered restoring the Republic but both times was given pause at the thought of what would happen to himself, and by what new dissensions would immediately break out. [The same kind of argument which kept Oliver Cromwell in power.]
He undertook such sustained building work that in later life he liked to say he had found Rome built of brick and left it made of marble.
(29) A list of the notable buildings he had erected, and he encouraged other rich citizens to build new buildings or restore old ones.
(30) He reorganised the city into wards, organised fire watches, widened the channel of the Tiber to prevent floods and had all the approach roads to Rome widened and improved.
(31) After assuming the post of pontifex maximus on the death of Lepidus he collected whatever prophetic writings of Greek or Latin origin were in circulation and burned them. He restored Julius’s reform of the calendar and had the month Sextilis renamed after him, August, because it was the month when he held his first consulship and won his most famous victories.
He increased the number and importance of the priests. He increased the privileges of the Vestal virgins. He revived ancient rites which had fallen into disuse, such as the augury of Safety, the office of Flamen Dialis, the ceremonies of the Lupercalia, the Secular Games and the festival of the Compitalia. He provided that the Lares of the Crossroads should be crowned twice a year, with spring and summer flowers.
(32) To put a stop to brigandage, he stationed guards of soldiers wherever it seemed advisable, inspected the workhouses, and disbanded all guilds, except such as were of long standing and formed for legitimate purposes. He reformed the system of juries.
(33) In his administration of justice he was both highly conscientious and very lenient. [As so many have commented, it was as if the bloodshed of the civil wars and the proscriptions led to a psychological backlash, in which he tried to erase his former brutality.]
(34) He revised existing laws and enacted some new ones, for example, on extravagance, on adultery and chastity, on bribery, and on the encouragement of marriage among the various classes of citizens.
(35) Membership of the Senate had swollen to over 1,000 due to bribery and other reasons. He reduced it to 600, partly by having them vote worthy candidates, partly by his own intervention. He had sittings regularised to twice a month.
(36) Description of other administrative innovations designed to save money and avoid corruption.
(37) To enable more men to take part in the administration of the State, he devised new offices: the charge of public buildings, of the roads, of the aqueducts, of the channel of the Tiber, of the distribution of grain to the people, as well as the prefecture of the city, a board of three for choosing senators, and another for reviewing the companies of the knights whenever it should be necessary.
(38) He was generous in honouring military achievement for he had regular triumphs voted to over 30 generals. To enable senators’ sons to gain an earlier acquaintance with public business, he allowed them to assume the broad purple stripe immediately after the gown of manhood and to attend meetings of the senate. And when they began their military career, he gave them not merely a tribunate in a legion, but the command of a division of cavalry as well.
(39) His review of the knightly class, scolding and reprimanding many for bad behaviour.
(40) He revised conditions of the knightly class. He reviewed the way the free grain dole was distributed. He tried to abolish the widespread bribery at elections.
He was very hesitant to grant full Roman citizenship on foreigners. He made careful provision as to the number, condition, and status of slaves who were manumitted.
He wished to promote traditional forms of dress and directed the aediles not to allow anyone to appear in the Forum or its neighbourhood who wasn’t wearing a toga and a cloak.
(41) He increased the property qualification for senators, requiring 1,200,000 sesterces instead of 800,000. He loaned money at zero interest to people who needed it. He paid for the grain distribution in times of scarcity.
(42) But he was strict about acts of generosity and got cross when the people demanded more than he had promised.
(43) He surpassed all his predecessors in the frequency, variety, and magnificence of his public shows. If anything rare and worth seeing was ever brought to the city, it was his habit to make a special exhibit of it in any convenient place on days when no shows were appointed. For example, a rhinoceros in the Saepta, a tiger on the stage and a snake of fifty cubits in front of the Comitium.
(44) Reforms to rules surrounding the theatre, shows, gladiatorial combats, athletics competitions and so on.
(45) Games He didn’t attend all the games but when he did, he made a point of giving them his full attention, unlike Julius who was publicly criticised for answering correspondence and working during the show. He improved conditions for athletes. It appears that actors were legendarily lawless and he had some severely punished. For example, Pylades was expelled from the city and from Italy as well, because by pointing at him with his finger he turned all eyes upon a spectator who was hissing him.
(46) Population He increased the population of Italy by creating 28 new colonies. He paid for new buildings throughout. To keep up the supply of men of rank and induce the commons to increase and multiply, he admitted to the equestrian military career those who were recommended by any town. As he did his rounds of towns and districts he paid all who had had legitimate children 1,000 sesterces for each child.
(47) Provinces He assigned to himself rule of the stronger provinces; the others he assigned to proconsular governors selected by lot. Cities which had treaties with Rome but were on the road to ruin through their lawlessness, he deprived of their independence. He relieved others that were overwhelmed with debt, rebuilt some which had been destroyed by earthquakes, and gave Latin rights or full citizenship to all who could point to services rendered the Roman people.
(48) Foreign kingdoms He restored the kingdoms of which he gained possession by the right of conquest to those from whom he had taken them or joined them with other foreign nations. He encouraged dynastic intermarriages. He appointed guardians to the children of kings and had some brought up with his own.
(49) Reforms to the administration and pay of the army.
(50) Personal seal In dispatches and private letters he used as his seal first a sphinx, later an image of Alexander the Great, and finally his own image carved by Dioscurides.
(51) Clemency The evidences of his clemency and moderation are numerous and strong. He was content to let people speak ill of him, at dinner parties and such, confident they wouldn’t actually do anything.
[It is faintly miraculous the way the history of the Republic from about 100 BC to Augustus’s realm was continually riven by dissension and people supporting rival great men…and then all such talk just disappears.]
(52) When the people did their best to force the dictatorship upon him, he knelt down, threw off his toga from his shoulders and with bare breast begged them not to insist.
(53) Lord He angrily refused the title of dominus or Lord. As consul he commonly went through the streets on foot, and when he was not consul, generally in a closed litter. His morning receptions were open to all, including the common people, and he met the requests of those who approached him with great affability, jocosely reproving one man because he presented a petition to him with as much hesitation “as he would a penny to an elephant.”
He was a highly effective socialiser: On the day of a meeting of the senate he greeted all the members in the House, calling each man by name without a prompter and when he left the House he took leave of them in the same manner. He exchanged social calls with many and attended all their birthdays.
(54) Some senators cheeked him or made slighting remarks but no one suffered for their freedom of speech or insolence.
(55) He was relaxed about anonymous lampoons and satires.
(56) When he voted for officials he did so in his tribe as an ordinary citizen. He made sure all his friends and contacts were subject to the law. He even appeared in court and allowed himself to be cross questioned.
(57) As a result of this phenomenally wise rule he was immensely popular and regularly voted titles and given feasts and festivals by all classes of citizen.
(58) He was offered the title Father of His Country by popular acclaim and the Senate and graciously accepted it.
(59) A statue was erected to his doctor, Antonius Musa. Some of the Italian cities made the day on which he first visited them the beginning of their year. Many of the provinces, in addition to temples and altars, established quinquennial games in his honour.
(60) His friends and allies among the kings each in his own realm founded a city called Caesarea.
(61) Now Suetonius turns to consider his personal and domestic life.
(62) Three wives 1. When he became reconciled with Antony after their first quarrel, and their troops begged that the rivals be further united by some tie of kinship, he married Antony’s stepdaughter Claudia, daughter of Fulvia by Publius Clodius, although she was barely of marriageable age; but because of a falling out with his mother-in‑law Fulvia, he divorced her before they had begun to live together.
2. Shortly afterwards he married Scribonia, who had been married before to two ex-consuls, and was a mother by one of them. He divorced her also, “unable to put up with her shrewish disposition,” in his own words on the same day that she gave birth to his daughter, Julia.
3. And on that same day married Livia Drusilla, taking her from her husband Tiberius Nero, although she was with child at the time; and he loved and esteemed her to the end without a rival (although with numerous other sexual partners, see below).
(63) Children i.e. one daughter By Scribonia he had a daughter Julia, by Livia no children at all. He gave Julia in marriage first to Marcellus, son of his sister Octavia and hardly more than a boy, and then after his death to Marcus Agrippa, prevailing upon his sister to yield her son-in‑law to him. At this point the family tree of Augustus and Livia’s families, various children, grandchildren and adopted children becomes increasingly complicated.
(64) His grandchildren and very close supervision of them.
(65) Bad family Despite all his precautions Fortune intervened to screw up his family. He found the two Julias, his daughter and granddaughter, guilty of every form of vice and banished them. He lost grandsons Gaius and Lucius within the span of 18 months, the former dying in Lycia, the latter at Massilia. He then publicly adopted his third grandson Agrippa but soon disowned him because of his low tastes and violent temper.
Julia He exiled his daughter to the island of Pandataria where he denied her the use of wine and every form of luxury. No man, bond or free, was allowed to come near her without his permission, and then not without being informed of his stature, complexion, and even of any marks or scars upon his body. He frequently lamented having been inflicted with such daughters and wives.
(66) Friends He had few friends but was extremely loyal to those. Suetonius names two who he was forced to hand over to the authorities when it was discovered they were conspiring. He was very sensitive to friends’ death bed comments, or comments written in wills (which Romans often used to vent their true feelings, especially about rulers, once they were dead).
(67) Freedmen and slaves He had close friends among his freedmen but was severe with anyone who broke bounds:
- he forced Polus, a favourite freedman of his, to take his own life, because he was convicted of adultery with Roman matrons
- he broke the legs of his secretary Thallus for taking five hundred denarii to betray the contents of a letter
- when the tutor and attendants of his son Gaius took advantage of their master’s illness and death to commit acts of arrogance and greed in his province, he had them thrown into a river with heavy weights about their necks
(68) Gay In young manhood many accusations that he was gay.
(69) Adultery His widespread adultery. He took the wife of an ex-consul from her husband’s dining-room before his very eyes into a bed-chamber, and brought her back to the table with her hair in disorder and her ears glowing. Mark Antony claimed his friends acted as his panders, and stripped and inspected matrons and well-grown girls, as if Toranius the slave-dealer were putting them up for sale.
(70) Vices The anecdote of the scandalous dinner of the twelve gods when Augustus and his circle dressed as, then behaved as, the gods and goddesses.
He was criticized as over fond of costly furniture and Corinthian bronzes. It was said some of the people proscribed in 43 BC were murdered so he could seize their bronzes. Sounds like the kind of gossip that always surrounds this kind of thing, compare and contrast with Sulla’s proscriptions.
(71) He was not greedy and freely distributed treasure he seized abroad. He was promiscuous, though: they say that even in his later years he was fond of deflowering maidens who were brought together for him from all quarters, even by his own wife.
He was open about his addiction to gaming and gambling, particularly dice.
(72) Temperate lifestyle Given his complete power and immense wealth he lived relatively simply, staying in one house in Rome, summer or winter, staying at other people’s houses, disliking grand palaces. He had the mansion built by his disgraced daughter Julia razed to the ground.
At his villa at Capreae he amassed a collection of the monstrous bones of huge sea monsters and wild beasts called the “bones of the giants”. These were fossils.
(73) Clothes He lived and dressed simply. He wore raised shoes to make him seem taller than he was.
(74) Dinner parties He gave dinner parties constantly, which weren’t that lavish or formal, at which he was a considerate host.
(75) Celebrations He celebrated festivals and holiday, sometimes with jokes and pranks, organising lotteries with wildly varying prizes.
(76) Eating He preferred plain food. He particularly liked coarse bread, small fishes, hand-made moist cheese, and green figs of the second crop. He would eat even before dinner, wherever and whenever he felt hungry.
(77) Alcohol He drank little, sometimes three swigs of a glass of wine and that was it. He would take a bit of bread soaked in cold water, a slice of cucumber, a sprig of young lettuce, or an apple with a tart flavour, either fresh or dried.
(78) Sleep He took a nap after lunch. After dinner he went back to his study to work. He slept 7 hours or less. He often woke up and called for a storyteller to speak till he fell asleep again. He hated getting up early. Due to his trouble sleeping he often nodded off during ceremonies or in his litter.
(79) Appearance He was unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life but wasn’t fussed about appearance, having his hair cut any whichway, not bothering whether his beard was shaved or trimmed. He had clear bright eyes in which he liked to think a sparkle of divinity shone and he liked it if people he stared at dropped their gaze as if before the glare of the sun.
His eyebrows met. His ears were of moderate size, and his nose projected a little at the top and then bent slightly inward. His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature though you didn’t notice it because his body was perfectly proportioned.
(80) Health He was rather sickly: he was covered in spots, itched constantly and was not very strong in his left hip, thigh, and leg, and even limped slightly at times.
(81) Ailments He suffered from bladder stones, enlargement of the diaphragm, catarrh. He didn’t like the winter cold.
(82) Clothes In winter he wore an undershirt, a woollen chest-protector and wraps for his thighs and shins, four tunics and a heavy toga. He couldn’t endure the sun even in winter, and never walked in the open air without wearing a broad-brimmed hat, even at home. He travelled in a litter, usually at night.
(83) Exercise Riding, pass-ball, balloon-ball, running and leaping dressed in a blanket. He sought out street urchins to play dice with but abhorred dwarfs, cripples, and people of that sort, as freaks of nature and of ill omen.
(84) Speaking From early youth Augustus devoted himself eagerly and with utmost diligence to oratory and liberal studies. To avoid the danger of forgetting what he was to say, or wasting time in committing it to memory, he adopted the practice of reading everything from a manuscript. Even his conversations with individuals and the more important of those with his own wife Livia, he always wrote out and read from a note-book, for fear of saying too much or too little if he spoke offhand.
(85) Writings He wrote numerous works of various kinds in prose, most of which have perished [except for the blankly factual Res Gestae].
(86) Writing style He sought to write as clearly as possible, without the affectations of style common at the time.
(87) Suetonius itemises specific linguistic habits of Augustus.
(88) Orthography i.e. spelling. Augustus wasn’t strict or consistent, preferring to spell as words sounded, phonetically.
(89) Literature He was interested in Greek oratory and studied it but never became fluent in Greek. He gave every encouragement to the men of talent of his own age, listening with courtesy and patience to their readings, not only of poetry and history, but of speeches and dialogues as well.
[Suetonius doesn’t mention it, but the three most important Roman poets flourished under Augustus’s patronage, Virgil, Ovid and Horace.]
(90) Superstition When it thundered and lightninged he took refuge in an underground bunker because he was once being carried in a litter when lightning struck and killed the servant walking in front bearing a lantern, something he never forgot.
(91) Dreams Examples of dreams which saved Augustus’s life or in which he spoke to Jupiter.
(92) Auspices Certain auspices and omens he regarded as infallible. If his shoes were put on in the wrong way in the morning he considered it a bad sign. If there was a drizzle of rain when he was starting on a long journey by land or sea, he thought it a good omen.
(93) He treated with great respect such foreign rites as were ancient and well established, but held the rest in contempt.
(94) Omens Suetonius brings together all the omens surrounding his birth which hinted that he was to be a great man. No difference between him and Plutarch, similarly in thrall to superstitions, omens, auguries and signs:
- The day he was born the conspiracy of Catiline was before the House, and his father Octavius arrived late because of his wife’s confinement. Then Publius Nigidius, as everyone knows, learning the reason for his tardiness and being informed also of the hour of the birth, declared that the ruler of the world had been born.
- As soon as he began to talk, it chanced that the frogs were making a great noise at his grandfather’s country place; he bade them be silent, and they say that since then no frog has ever croaked there.
- As the Deified Julius was cutting down a wood at Munda and preparing a place for his camp, coming across a palm tree, he caused it to be spared as an omen of victory. From this a shoot at once sprang forth and in a few days grew so great that it not only equalled the parent tree, but even overshadowed it. Moreover, many doves built their nests there, although that kind of bird especially avoids hard and rough foliage. Indeed, it was that omen in particular, they say, that led Caesar to wish that none other than his sister’s grandson should be his successor.
(95) As he was entering the city on his return from Apollonia after Caesar’s death, though the heaven was clear and cloudless, a circle like a rainbow suddenly formed around the sun’s disc, and straightway the tomb of Caesar’s daughter Julia was struck by lightning.
(96) Auguries of victory As he was on his way to Philippi, a Thessalian gave him notice of his coming victory on the authority of the deified Caesar, whose shade had met him on a lonely road. As he was walking on the shore the day before the sea-fight off Sicily, a fish sprang from the sea and fell at his feet. And so on…
(97) Omens of death Towards the end of his life the first letter of his name was melted from the inscription on one of his statues by a flash of lightning. This was interpreted to mean that he would live only a hundred days from that time, the number indicated by the letter C, and that he would be numbered with the gods, since aesar (that is, the part of the name Caesar which was left) is the word for god in the Etruscan tongue.
(98) His final journey to the island of Capri. On the sea journey he contracted diarrhea. Anecdotes of his last few days, accompanying Tiberius, attending games, joking at a dinner party. He at last took to bed in Nola.
(99) Last day On his last day he was attended by servants and friends. He passed away as he was kissing Livia, uttering these last words: “Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell,” thus blessed with an easy death such as he had always longed for.
(100) Funeral His body was escorted back to Rome. Details of his funeral, his cremation, burial in the Mausoleum. An ex-praetor who took oath that he had seen the form of the Emperor, after he had been reduced to ashes, on its way to heaven.
(101) His will, very detailed and specific, giving sums to Rome, to the praetorian guard, city cohorts and legionaries and other named individuals and groups. Its most important provision was appointing Tiberius his heir.
Summary
It can easily be seen that Suetonius skimps on Augustus’s military or political record – barely records most of it – in order to move onto what really interests him, which is the carefully categorised itemisation of Augustus’s qualities and attitudes.
And many readers just remember the most colourful anecdotes, like the rhinoceros and the elephant, breaking his secretary’s legs, having Roman matrons stripped naked for his inspection, or addressing his wife from written notes to avoid making mistakes. Suetonius encourages the quirks and oddities.
Related links
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- Rudens (The Rope) by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Trinummus (A Three-Dollar Day) by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Amphitryo by Plautus (c.195 BC)
- Aulularia (The Pot of Gold) by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Captivi (The Prisoners) by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Menaechmi (The Brothers Menaechmus) by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Miles Gloriosus by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Pseudolus by Plautus (c.200 BC)
- Terence
- Andria (The Girl from Andros) by Terence (166 BC)
- Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) by Terence (165 BC)
- Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor) by Terence (163 BC)
- Phormio by Terence (161 BC)
- Eunuchus by Terence (161 BC)
- Adelphoe (The Brothers) by Terence (160 BC)
- Plutarch
- Plutarch’s Lives of Marius and Sulla
- Plutarch’s life of Sertorius
- Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus
- Plutarch’s Life of Crassus
- Plutarch’s Life of Pompey
- Plutarch’s Life of Cicero
- Plutarch’s Life of Cato the Younger
- Plutarch’s Life of Antony
- Plutarch’s Life of Brutus
- The letters of Cicero (62 to 43 BC)
- Introduction to Cicero’s defence speeches
- Pro Murena by Cicero (63 BC)
- Pro Archia by Cicero (62 BC)
- Pro Caelio by Cicero (56 BC)
- Pro Milone by Cicero (52 BC)
- De republica by Cicero (54 BC)
- De legibus by Cicero (52 BC)
- On the nature of the gods by Cicero 1 (45 BC)
- On the nature of the gods by Cicero 2 (45 BC)
- On the nature of the gods by Cicero 3 (45 BC)
- On old age by Cicero (44 BC)
- On friendship by Cicero (44 BC)
- Plutarch’s Life of Julius Caesar
- The life of Julius Caesar by Suetonius
- The Gallic War by Julius Caesar – 1
- The Gallic War by Julius Caesar – 2
- The Gallic War by Julius Caesar – 3
- The Civil War by Julius Caesar – 1
- The Civil War by Julius Caesar – 2
- The Alexandrian War by Aulus Hirtius
- The African War
- Concerning the Origin and Situation of the Germans (the Germania) by Tacitus (98 AD)
- On the life and character of Julius Agricola by Tacitus (98 AD)
- Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe (1587)
- Ovid’s Amores translated by Christopher Marlowe
- Salâmmbo by Gustave Flaubert (1862)
- From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 138 BC to AD 68 by H. H. Scullard ( 1970)
- The Roman Republic by Michael Crawford (second edition, 1992)
- Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland (2003) – 1
- Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland (2003) – 2
- The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham (2009)
- Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles (2010)
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 1
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 2
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 3. The Republic
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 4. Republican timeline
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 5. The emperors
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 6. Social history
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 7. The empire
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 8. Assimilation
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015) – 9. Democracy versus liberty
- The legacies of Rome
Books & Boots 
The Gallic War by Julius Caesar – 2
Propaganda
The fundamental thing to grasp about Caesar’s Gallic Wars is that they were not at all what we think of as ‘history’. The Latin word he uses was commentarii which, apparently, means something like ‘report’. Each of the 7 ‘books’ whuch make up the Gallic Wars covers one of the years when he campaigned in Gaul and each one is like an end-of-term, or in this case, end-of-campaign-season report, back to his masters, the Senate and the people of Rome.
Thus they are written for a particular audience and are designed to achieve a certain effect. This is to justify Caesar’s behaviour. Legally, he had been tasked with simply administering 3 existing provinces: Illyricum (the east coast of the Adriatic) Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Transalpine Gaul (the area based round France’s Mediterranean coast, also known as ‘the Province’).
But he wanted glory and and so had his sights set on conquering further north into Gaul. But he couldn’t do this legally or on his own initiative. He had to wait till he had pretexts. This is why the seven commentarii are at such pains to emphasise that it was always the bad guys, the naughty Gaulish or Germanic tribes (the Helvetii, the Suebi, the Belgae) who moved first and to make it clear that Caesar was simply responding to aggression in order to maintain the peace and preserve the security of the Province.
But this interventionism was controversial and provided Caesar’s enemies back in Rome with plenty of ammunition to prosecute him for exceeding his authority. The Gallic Wars are a detailed attempt to head off those accusations and present his case, his justifications, to the widest possible audience.
They are the self-justifying propaganda of a conquering general seeking to influence his compatriots, and need to be read with this very much in mind.
Description of Gaul
First some basic facts: at 58 BC when Caesar was appointed governor, on the Italian side of the Alps, stretching from the mountains to the river Rubicon was the province the Romans called Cisalpine or Hither Gaul. On the other side of the Alps they controlled what they called Transalpine or Further Gaul, often simply referred to as The or Our Province. This covered the entire Mediterranean coast of France and extended inland a bit, up the river Rhone, and east up as far as Lake Geneva.
Beyond this lay what you could call ‘Free Gaul’ which Caesar famously describes as being divided into three parts, inhabited by 1) the Aquitani in the southwest 2) the Gauls of the biggest central part, who in their own language were called Celtae, and 3) the Belgae, in the north, extending from Paris to the Channel in the north and the Rhine in the east. (In the map below the Province is named Narbonensis, another alternative name for the Roman-controlled south of France).
Map with the approximate location of pre-Roman Belgic Gaul shortly before the Roman conquest, according to an interpretation of Caesar (source: Wikipedia)
Caesar deploys the familiar trope that Rome’s influence was n some way effeminising. He notes that the Belgae were:
the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilisation and refinement of the Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war.
Caesar gives the names of lots of tribes and generalises about which are Gauls or Celts or German in origin, but pretty much all his terms and labels are contested by modern scholars because a) other ancient historians give different accounts of origins and languages and b) the modern evidence of linguistic studies and archaeology often contradict all of them. I.e. it is a complex and contested field of knowledge which is easy to get lost and perplexed in.
The Roman army
All the editions of the Gallic Wars contain an appendix on the Roman army. Since the reforms of Caius Marius around 100 BC, the army was divided into legions. Each legion contained 6,000 men, divided into 10 cohorts of 600 men, each divided into 3 maniples of 200 men, each made up of 2 centuries of 100 men, commanded by a centurion. Each legion had from 300 to 600 cavalry attached, but these were often foreign recruits and no general relied on them for their main battle plan. Caesar never does.
Tears
There’s a surprising amount of sentimental weeping. Men weeping. Rough, tough warriors and leaders weeping. Women weeping and wailing for their menfolk.
1. 20 With many tears Diviciacus embraced Caesar, and began to beseech him not to pass too severe a judgment upon his brother.
1.20 While he was making this petition at greater length, and with tears, Caesar took him by the hand and consoled him…
1.31 The petition was granted, and they all threw themselves in tears at Caesar’s feet…
Book 1 The expulsion of the intruders (58 BC)
[Note: the following chapter titles are not in the original. They appear to have been added by the translator of the Penguin edition, S.A. Handford. The numbers in round brackets refer to the chapters or sections which each book is divided into and which are numbered in the original.]
Chapter 1: Description of Gaul, its geography and inhabitants
As above.
Chapters 2 to 29: Campaign against the Helvetii
This was Caesar’s first campaign against a Gaulish tribe and, in a sense, the template for his entire subsequent involvement in Gaul.
Caesar claims the leader of the Helvetii, a tribe which lived on the Swiss plateau north of Lake Geneva, were being incited by one of their leaders, Orgetorix, to invade and conquer the rest of Gaul. Orgetorix conspired with leading men in two other tribes to overthrow their rulers, declare themselves kings, and carve up Gaul between them. Orgetorix was summoned to a trial by the seniors of his own people but avoided punishment by turning up with some 10,000 retainers and slaves. He got off, but at some later time perished, possibly by his own hand.
But he had inspired the other leaders with his plan and they burned their houses and crops and set off on a mass migration into Gaul.
Caesar repels the Helvetii going through the Province, forcing them to retreat back into their own territory, take the northern route up through the mountains and into the country of the Aedui. The Romans engaged them at the Battle of the Arar which led to negotiations with Liscus, Dumnorix and Diviciacus.
Second battle, near Bibrax. Retreat and surrender of the Helvetii.
30 to 54: Campaign against Ariovistus and the Suebi
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and allied Germanic peoples. Ariovistus had led his people across the Rhine, fought and defeated the Aedui, seized a third of the Aeduan territory, settling 120,000 Germans there.
Caesar attends a general assembly of the Gauls where Diviciacus, head of the Aeduan government and spokesmen of the Gauls, complains to about Ariovistus’ conquests and the hundreds of Gaulish hostages he has taken. Unless Caesar does something the Aedui will be forced to migrate. Then, true to form, they all start crying.
When Diviciacus had delivered this speech all who were present began with loud weeping to seek assistance from Caesar.
So Caesar sees it as a) his duty to protect a Roman ally, the Aedui, but b) is well aware that confronting Ariovistus will also bring him glory and consolidate his hold over the army.
Caesar makes overtures to Ariovistus which are rebuffed. He marches to and takes the town of Vesontio but here some of the army is overcome by panic. The Gauls tell them the Germans are tall super-soldiers:
men of a mighty frame and an incredible valour and skill at arms; for they themselves [the Gauls] at meetings with the Germans had often been unable even to endure their look and the keenness of their eyes. So great was the panic, and so suddenly did it seize upon all the army that it affected in serious fashion the intelligence and the courage of all ranks… (1.39)
Caesar quells this potential mutiny with a long address concluding that he will march on the enemy with just the loyal Tenth Legion if necessary, with the result that his troops are roused and restored.
Caesar invites Ariovistus to a conference. He makes clear demands: that Ariovistus bring no more of his people across the Rhine, that he and his allies restore the hostages they had taken from the Aedui, and they undertake not to make war against them.
At the meeting with Ariovistus Caesar puts his proposals and Ariovistus haughtily rejects them. Ariovistus is given a powerful speech saying he never attacked the Aedui, Roman friendship is a sham and he’d make a lot of friends back in Rome if he were to kill Caesar on the spot. By this stage some of the Suebians are throwing stones and trying to provoke Caesar’s entourage so the latter withdrew. Next day Caesar sent Gaius Valerius Procillus for further parlay but, as they later discovered, he was immediately arrested and put in chains.
Ariovistus’ army moves off and Caesar tails him till both make camp barely 600 yards from each other. Ariovistus has a much larger force and Caesar realises he is surrounded. The Germans are reluctant to do more than skirmish and Caesar learns this is because their holy women are saying they shouldn’t engage in full battle before the next full moon. He gets some legions to build an advance camp then, next day, leads his legions against Ariovistus’s camp. This turned into the Battle of the Vosges, 58 BC.
The Germans advance towards them with such speed that the Romans don’t have time to use their pilums (spears) but are forced to plunge into hand to hand fighting. The Roman centre is being pushed back when Publius Licinius Crassus grasped what was happening and brings the infantry reserve into action in support of the Roman left. This developed into a general attack on the flank which broke the Germans who turned and ran for the river Rhine 15 miles away.
Many, including Ariovistus himself, managed to cross the river in boats or by swimming. The rest were cut down by Roman cavalry, including both of Ariovistus’s wives and one of his daughters. The ambassador Caesar had sent a few days earlier, Gaius Valerius Procillus, was rescued unharmed to Caesar’s great personal delight but described how his captors had cast lots three times, in his presence, to decided whether he should be burned to death now or later.
So the Suebi had retreated back over the Rhine and were broken as a military threat for the time being. Caesar claims that most of Ariovistus’ one-hundred and twenty thousand men were killed. Caesar winters his army in the land of the Sequani and returns to Hither Gaul to hold assizes. End of first campaigning season.
Book 2 Conquest of the Belgic tribes (57 BC)
Chapters 1 to 33: The Belgae
Caesar hears rumours that the Belgae are hatching a plot against the Roman people. He takes the two legions of Cisalpine Gaul and heads north. Delegates of the Remi, the Belgic people closest to Gaul, come to Caesar, declare their loyalty, but explain the rest of the Belgae’s plans. The Belgae were an originally Germanic people who crossed the Rhine and settled. When the Cimbri and Teutoni were migrating south the Belgae fought them off and gained a reputation for fierceness.
The Remi delegates give a summary of the different Belgic tribes, their numbers and leaders. Soon after this the Belgic horde besieges a Remi town called Bibrax. Caesar sends Numidian and Cretan archers and Balearic slingers to help relieve the siege and the Belgae abandon it.
The two camps line up opposite each other. The Belgae go to try and cross the river Aisne and storm a Roman outpost, but get bogged down and the Romans massacre them. The majority of the Belgae decide to retreat and return to their separate tribal homelands but their withdrawal turns into a rout and the Romans massacre the rearguard.
Caesar besieges Noviodunum, main town of the Suessiones. Overawed by the Romans’ siege engines, they surrender and hand over hostages, including sons of their king, Galba.
Caesar then marches on Bratuspantium, the main town of the Bellovaci, whose inhabitants quickly come out to surrender. The Aedui intercede on the Bellovaci’s behalf, saying they had been duped into rebellion and asking Caesar to show his customary clemency. Caesar does so, accepting 600 hostages and all their weapons. Then he marches on to the territory of the Ambiani who also immediately surrender.
The Nervii, however, under their leader Bogduonatus, resolved to fight and recruited allies including the Atrebates and Viromandui. Caesar marches into their territory and learns their plans. He starts making a camp on a plain by the river Sambre (modern scholars identify this with the river Selle). With great speed the Nervii attacked the Romans making camp and almost overwhelmed them, leaving them no time to properly arm. The battle was on a knife edge.
Caesar grabbed a shield, made his way to the front line and quickly organised his forces while the commander of the Tenth Legion attacked the Nervian camp. Then the two legions who ‘d been guarding the Roman baggage train arrived and helped to turn the tide of the battle. The Nervii are almost completely wiped out, reduced from a fighting force of 60,000 to 500 (28).
The Nervii’s allies, the Aduatuci, had been en route to join them. If they’d arrived in time they probably would have secured a Roman defeat. But hearing of the Nervii defeat they turned round and marched back to their own territory, concentrating their population in one town which they fortified. Caesar besieges it. When they see the siege towers being moved towards the town the Aduatuci decide the Romans must be aided by divine powers to build and move such juggernauts and so beg for clemency and agree to hand over all their weapons.
However, they had treacherously kept a third of their weapons and that night sallied forth and attacked the Roman camp. The Romans rallied and killed about 4,000 Aduatuci after which they retreated back into the town. Next morning the Romans broke down the town gates and took the town, selling the entire population of 53,000 into slavery.
34: Suppression of the ocean states
Caesar had sent Publius Crassus against the tribes which lived alongside the great Ocean i.e. the Atlantic, being the Veneti, Venelli, Osismi, Curiosolitae, Esubii, Aulerci and Redones, and Crassus now reported that they had all been brought into subjection to the power of Rome.
35: Fifteen days’ thanksgiving in Rome for Caesar’s achievements
The end of the campaign season. Caesar’s victories being peace to all Gaul and are known to tribes beyond the Rhine who sue for peace, sending hostages and promising to obey. As he does at the end of each campaign season, Caesar puts his troops into winter quarters and returns to see to his other provinces, namely Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum.
Book 3 The first rebellion (57 BC)
1 to 6: Servius Galba
This is at the tail end of 57, after the campaign season had ended. Caesar deputes Servius Galba to secure a pass over the Alps. Galba signs peace treaties with neighbouring tribes and with just two cohorts set about building a camp at a high settlement named Octodorus. The Seduni and Veragri treacherously attack. They take the Romans by surprise and there is fierce fighting until a brave centurion Caesar picks out by name suggests a sally and the Romans run out the sides of their fort and attack the enemy flanks, routing them. Maybe a third of the enemy were killed, 10,000. Worried about supplies, Galba decided to strike camp and marched his forces down into the safe territory of the Allobroges.
7 to 16: Campaign against the Veneti 56 BC
Suddenly revolt breaks out among the Veneti. They lived in Brittany, had a good fleet and imposed taxes on anyone using their waters. Roman legates had been dispatched to liaise with the Veneti and surrounding tribes and these were all now taken hostage.
Caesar divides his forces, sending them to different parts of Gaul to ensure peace with conquered tribes, then takes the main force west against the rebels. Advantages for the Veneti: their towns are right on the coast, often separated from the land at high tide; they are excellent seafarers and can navigate better than the Romans. Caesar gives a description of Veneti ships, their advantages over Roman ships.
Nonetheless the Roman fleet defeats the Veneti fleet of about 200 ships by the use of grappling hooks on poles to break the enemy rigging and leave their ships defenceless.
This engagement finished the campaign against the Veneti and the whole sea‑coast…they surrendered themselves and all they had to Caesar. He decided that their punishment must be the more severe in order that the privilege of deputies might be more carefully preserved by the natives for the future. He therefore put the whole of their senate to the sword, and sold the rest of the men as slaves. (3.16)
17 to 19: Operations of Titurius Sabinus against the Venelli
The Venelli rebelled against Rome, led by Viridovix who had lured the Aulerci, Eburovices and the Lexovii to put their ‘senates’ to death and join him. The Venelli surround the camp of Quintus Titurius Sabinus and try to tempt him out for a fight but he stalls. Then he briefs a Gaul to pretend to be a deserter and go to the camp of the Venelli and tell them Caesar is in trouble in the West and so Sabinus will try to sneak out of the camp that night to go help him.
Based on this false intelligence the Venelli march en masse up to Sabinus’s camp but he surprises them by sortying from the sides and setting his cavalry on them before they’re ready. Tired after their forced march and confused by the Roman tactics, the Venelli are massacred.
20 to 27: Operations of Publius Crassus in Aquitania
Publius Crassus leads a legion into Aquitania to take on the Sontiates. He engages in open battle then besieges their town which, when it looks like it will fall, the Aquitani surrender. A brotherhood of elite fighters led by Adiatunnus attempt a sortie but are fought back and surrender.
Crassus then tackles the Vocates and the Tarusates. He takes a town within days of besieging it and this so alarms the natives they send for help over the Pyrenees and veterans of Quintus Sertorius’s campaigns come to help. (See my summary of Plutarch’s Life of Sertorius.)
Alarmed at the rise in enemy numbers and that they would soon control the roads and corn supply, Crassus came out of the town next day to fight. The enemy refuse to engage so Crassus marches up to their camp and starts investing it, building ramps up the walls, throwing weapons. Then the cavalry report that the rear gate is inadequately secured and the Romans storm it. The enemy fought free into open country where the Roman cavalry followed and slaughtered them.
As a result of this victory over the strongest force the Aquitani could muster, Crassus received the surrender of the Tarbelli, Bigerriones, Ptianii, Vocates, Tarusates, Elusates, Gates, Ausci, Garumni, Sibuzates and Cocosates.
28 to 29: Operations of Caesar against the Morini and Menapii
The Morini and Menapii were the only unconquered peoples left in all Gaul. Caesar decided to mop them up before winter. But they adopted tactics unusual for the Gauls and retreated into their marshlands. Caesar ordered the construction of a camp nearby but, not for the first time, the natives rushed out and attacked while the Romans were building it.
The Romans fought them off and during the next days Caesar ordered them to fell all the trees and create a mighty rampart. The enemy retreated into the forest but it began to rain continuously and Caesar’s own army needed shelter, so he ordered them to burn the enemy’s fields and villages and buildings and then led them to winter quarters.
Book 4 Invasions of Germany and Britain (55 BC)
1 to 4: Description of the Suebi, Ubii, Usipetes and Tencteri
This was the year of the consulship of Pompey and Crassus as arranged at the conference of the Triumvirate at Luca.
The Usipetes and Tencteri cross the Rhine into Gaul with many men. They explain they have been pushed out of their own land by the Suebi, the most powerful of the German tribes. The Suebi wear the barest of clothes, bathe in cold rivers, have no agriculture but live by hunting, have tremendous freedom, scorn riding horses with saddles, ban merchants who bring wine and other womanish products.
5 to 15: Operations of Caesar against the Usipetes and Tencteri
Caesar hastens to the area and discovers the Usipetes and Tencteri have pushed aside the local Gauls, destabilising the area. Negotiations with their leaders, who bullishly say they don’t want to attack but will defend themselves if necessary. A few days later they send another deputation talking peace but, as they withdraw, 600 or so of the German cavalry attack the Romans. This surprise attack sees a number of Roman casualties and demoralisation before the main force of the infantry appears and the Germans withdraw.
This treacherous attack gives Caesar the moral advantage and when another deputation comes a few days later he promptly detains them (13) and marches double fast the 8 miles to the German camp which he immediately storms. The warriors are taken by surprise, mixed up with the women and children and all begin to flee back towards the Rhine. Here they are caught in the junction of the Rhine and Moselle and large numbers are killed. The remainder put themselves under Caesar’s protection. In other words, a crushing victory.
[The detaining of the envoys was clearly against the rules of war and Caesar’s enemies fiercely criticised it. A note in the Penguin edition tells us that Cato the Younger called for Caesar to be stripped of his command and handed over to the Germans for punishment. There was no chance of this extreme view being carried out but it is symptomatic of the extremely embattled political situation back in Rome which Caesar’s reports were designed to influence.]
16 to 19: Caesar crosses the Rhine
Caesar is careful to give reasons for crossing the Rhine since he, arguably, shouldn’t have been in Gaul at all and certainly not crossing the Rhine into new country. These are:
Detailed description of the engineering involved in building a bridge over the Rhine (17). It takes 10 days from starting to collect the wood to the army crossing over into the territory of the Sugambri. The Sugambri have fled into the forest. Caesar burns all their villages, farms and crops.
He marches into the territory of the Ubii to reconfirm their friendship. The Ubii tell him the Suebi have gathered all their fighting men into a central position in their territory and are awaiting battle. But Caesar’s aim was not to conquer more territory but simply to warn the Germans what was possible to act as a deterrent from them crossing into Gaul. So after 18 days he crossed back over the bridge and had it destroyed behind him.
20 to 36: First expedition to Britain
In invading Britain Caesar was, again, exceeding his authority and so his text emphasises his justifications:
Caesar marches into the territory of the Morini, closest to Britain. He sends a ship under Volusenus to do a reconnaissance and, having heard the rumours, the first British tribes send envoys to him offering submission. The Morini themselves send envoys and hostages and submit.
Caesar assembles 80 transports and warships for the infantry and a further 18 for the cavalry. The remainder of the army was to mount operations against the Manippi and resistant factions of the Morini.
The landing was hard. The first place they came to they could see the enemy lining the cliffs and able to throw spears down onto a narrow beach. So they put out again and drifted seven miles or so further down the Channel before beaching again (23).
The Roman army faced real difficulties, for they had to leap off the ships while still in quite deep water, weighed down with heavy arms, get a footing and fight uphill through water. The enemy by contrast was on horses used to the terrain and water, fighting downhill into the struggling Romans.
Caesar ordered the lighter warships to be firmly beached on the right flank of the battle and soldiers use slings, bows and artillery on the enemy flank. This succeeded. While the battle hung in the balance the man holding the eagle of the Tenth Legion declared he was going to do his duty by his general and leapt into the water, thus rallying the others. The battle was scattered and confused but eventually his troops got a foothold and were able to reassert discipline. However, the cavalry ships had not yet set out from Gaul and without his cavalry Caesar wasn’t able to convert repelling the enemy into a victory.
But, the Romans having established a beachhead, the Britons send envoys suing for peace. They admit that when the man Cesar chose as envoy, Commius of the Atrebates, first arrived they had arrested him and put him in chains. Now they humbly apologise for their mistake and promise to send hostages.
Four days later the 18 transports carrying the cavalry set out but are caught in a storm so some turn back, some get lost, some keep out to sea to avoid being shipwrecked. Later that night a storm hits the transports which are anchored. ‘Several ships went to pieces; and the others, by loss of cordage, anchors, and the rest of their tackle, were rendered useless for sailing.’ 12 ships were lost.
Seeing this and calculating that the Romans won’t be able to get reinforcements, the Britons decide to renege on their deal with Caesar and revert to war. Meanwhile Caesar ordered the remaining ships to be repaired with spare parts from the 12 which were wrecked and equipment brought over from Gaul to do this.
Elements of the Seventh Legion were out collecting corn when they were attacked. Caesar took the rest of his troops from their camp and came to their rescue. Caesar makes a point of describing the skilful way the Britons use their chariots.
He fights off the attackers and decides not to escalate the engagement into a full battle but withdraws to the Roman camp. But the Britons had sent messages in all directions and gathered a huge number of armed men. So a second battle takes place which is briefly described – the Romans win, drive the enemy from the field, burn their villages and crops, then withdraw again to their camp.
Next day deputies from the tribes come to sue for peace and Caesar demands they hand over hostages. He orders these to be brought to him on the continent because that evening Caesar sets sail back to Gaul.
37 to 38: Defeat of the rebellious Morini — subjection of the Menapii
One troop of about 300 had landed back in Gaul and were marching to camp when they were attacked by a large contingent of the Morini, who had been at peace with the Romans when Caesar had left Gaul. The Romans formed a square and soon as he heard about it Caesar sent cavalry to relieve them. The combined force beat off the Morini and pursued them, killing many.
Next day Caesar sends his most trusted lieutenant, Titus Labienus, against the Morini. Previously the Morini had retreated to their marshes but it’s been a hot summer and the marshes have all dried up. So they surrendered.
As for Quintus Titurius and Lucius Cotta, the lieutenant-generals who had led legions into the territory of the Menapii, they did not return to Caesar until they had laid waste all the fields of the natives, cut down the corn-crops, and burnt the buildings, because the Menapii had all hidden in their densest forests.
Great deal of wasting and burning, isn’t there? Which has led some modern historians to accuse Caesar of genocide. Some historians have totalled up the number of Gauls killed at over a million, in a land with a population of only a million or so. Arguments about numbers killed or enslaved quickly become highly technical (and Caesar may well have been exaggerating throughout his accounts to big up his achievements) – but you can see their point.
Even the most detached reading of the text begins to weigh you down with the sheer numbers of people killed, the towns razed to the ground, the populations sold into slavery, the villages and all the agricultural land destroyed. As Tacitus has his (probably fictional) Scottish chieftain declare of the Romans, in his account of Gnaeus Julius Agricola’s campaigns in Britain a hundred years later, in the late 70s AD:
‘They make a desert and call it peace.’
When the Senate received Caesar’s dispatches for the year they declare twenty days’ thanksgiving in Rome for his achievements.
Slavery
The usual fate of the inhabitants of a captured town was to be sold into slavery. A great part of Roman war profits came from the sale of people, as well as of property.
(note to page 227 in the Oxford University Press edition)
The practice of slavery among the native Gauls, and what it meant to be sold into slavery by the Romans, and how far towns and peoples would go to avoid such a fate, strike me as being of huge importance in understanding the native societies Caesar was attacking, the fears of those peoples and their motivation in repeatedly rising up against Roman rule.
And yet the issue of slavery is mentioned nowhere in the introductions of either Hammond nor Gardiner. They both go on at length about the well-known political political situation in Rome, which is covered in numerous other books, and yet completely ignore this huge elephant in the room.
Video
A useful video summary of Caesar’s campaigns.
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Posted by Simon on June 6, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/06/06/the-gallic-war-julius-caesar-2/