52 B.C. to the Romans for punishment, in order to avert as far as possible destruction from the nation, by bringing it upon his own head. Mounted on his steed and in full armor the king of the Arvernians appeared before the Roman proconsul, and rode round his tribunal; then he surrendered his horse and arms, and sat down in silence on the steps at Caesar's feet. Five years afterwards he was led in Caesar's triumph, and beheaded at the foot of the Capitol. As after a day of gloom the sun breaks through the clouds at its setting, so destiny bestows on nations that are going down a last great man. Thus Hannibal stands at the close of the Phoenician history, and Vercingetorix at the close of the Celtic. They were not able to save the nations to which they belonged from a foreign yoke, but they spared them the last remaining disgrace, an inglorious fall. The whole ancient world presents no more genuine knight than Vercingetorix, whether as regards his essential character or his outward appearance. But man ought not to be a mere knight, and least of all the statesman. It was the knight, not the hero, who disdained to escape from Alesia, when he alone was of more consequence to the nation than a hundred thousand ordinary brave men. It was the knight, not the hero, who gave himself up as a sacrifice, when the only thing gained by the sacrifice was that the nation publicly dishonored itself, and with equal cowardice and absurdity employed its last breath in proclaiming that its great historical death-struggle was a crime against its oppressor. How very different was the conduct of Hannibal in similar positions! It is impossible to part from the noble king of the Arverni without a feeling of historical and human sympathy; but it is characteristic of the Celtic nation, that its greatest man was after all merely a knight. After the fall of Alesia no united effort was made to continue the insurrection; the league fell to pieces, and every clan made what terms it could with the conqueror. Caesar was anxious for many reasons to bring the war to a close, and the easy temperament of the Gauls met him halfway. Where there was a strong Roman party, as among the Haedui and Arverni, the cantons obtained a complete restoration of their former relations with Rome, and their captives were released without ransom, while those of the other clans became the slaves of the legionaries. But not a few cantons refused to make submission, until the Roman troops ap 51-46 B.C. peared within their borders. Such expeditions were undertaken in the winter and in the following summer against the Bituriges and Carnutes, the Bellovaci and other Belgic cantons. The Bellovacian king Correus offered a brave resistance, but was at last slain in a skirmish. On the Loire strong bands assembled which required a considerable Roman force to defeat them. The last remnant of opposition was at Uxellodunum on the Lot, where Drappes and Lucterius, the brave adjutant of Vercingetorix, shut themselves up. The town was taken only after Caesar had appeared in person, and the spring from which the garrison derived water had been diverted. The whole garrison were dismissed to their homes after their hands had been cut off. Thus Gaul was finally subdued after eight years' war. Hardly a year later the Roman troops had to be withdrawn, owing to the outbreak of civil war; yet the Celts did not rise against the foreign yoke, and Gaul was the only part of the Roman empire where there was no fighting against Caesar. Later disturbances, like the rising of the Bellovaci in 46 B.C., were easily dealt with by the local governors. This state of peace was, it is true, purchased to a large extent by allowing the more distant districts to withdraw themselves de facto from the Roman allegiance; but however unfinished the building of Caesar may have been, its foundations remained firm and unshaken. For the present the newly acquired provinces were united with the province of Narbo, but when Caesar gave up this governorship, in 46 B.C., two new governorships, of Gaul proper and Belgica, were formed. The individual cantons of course lost their independence, and paid to Rome a fixed tribute which they levied themselves. The total was two million dollars, but masses of gold from the treasures of temples and of rich men also flowed to Rome to such an extent that, as compared with silver, gold fell twenty-five per cent. Existing arrangements were everywhere allowed to remain as far as possible; the hereditary kingships, the feudal oligarchies, even the system of clientship by which one canton was dependent on another still existed. Caesar's sole object was to arrange matters in the interest of Rome, and to bring into power the men favorably disposed to Roman rule. Cantons where the Roman party was strong and trustworthy, such as the Remi, the Lingones, and the Haedui, received the right of alliance which gave them much 51-46 B.C. greater communal freedom, and were invested with the hegemony over other cantons. The national worship and its priests were preserved as much as possible. At the same time Caesar did what he could to stimulate the Romanization of Gaul. A number of Celts of rank were admitted to Roman citizenship-perhaps into the Roman senate; Latin was made the official language in several cantons; and while smaller money might be coined by the local authorities for local circulation, this might only be done in conformity with the Roman standard, and the coinage of gold and of denarii was reserved for the Roman magistrates alone. Hereafter the organization of the cantons approached more nearly to the Italian urban constitution, and both the common councils and the chief towns became of far greater importance than hitherto. If Caesar did little in the way of founding colonies-only two settlements can be traced to him, that of Noviodunum and that of the Boii-it was because circumstances did not allow him to exchange the sword for the plow. No one probably saw more clearly than himself the military and political advantages of establishing a series of Transalpine colonies as bases of support for the new center of civilization. Gaul as a nation had ceased to exist; it was absorbed in a politically superior nationality. The course of the war was significant enough of the character of the nation: at the outset only single districts, and those German or half German, offered energetic resistance; and when foreign rule was established, the attempts to shake it off were either without plan or were the work of certain prominent nobles, and with the death or capture of an Indutiomarus or a Vercingetorix the struggle was at an end. But the ruin of the Celtic nation was not the most important result of Caesar's wars. Nothing but the insight and energy of Caesar prevented Gaul from being overrun by the Germans, in whom the Roman statesman saw the rivals and antagonists of the Graeco-Roman world. By his conquests and organization he gained time for the West to acquire that culture which the East had already assumed: but for him the great migration of peoples which took place five hundred years later would have taken place under Ariovistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would hardly have stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano-Greek than to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of mod 51-46 B.C. ern history; that western Europe is Romanic and Germanic Europe classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden-all this is the work of Caesar; and while the creation of his great predecessor in the East has been almost wholly reduced to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar has outlasted those thousands of years which have changed religion and polity for the human race and even shifted the center of civilization itself, and it stands erect for what we may term perpetuity. Chapter XXX THE JOINT RULE OF POMPEIUS AND CAESAR O 57-52 B.C. F the three joint rulers, Pompeius, Caesar and Crassus, the first-named was the foremost in the eyes of the Roman world. Nor is this surprising, for Pompeius was undoubtedly the first general of his time, while Caesar, so far as he was known, was only a dexterous party leader. In the eyes of the multitude he was to Pompeius what Flavius and Afranius had beena useful instrument for political purposes. And if the position of Pompeius under the Gabinian law was compared with that of Caesar under the Vatinian, the comparison was to the advantage of the former; for Pompeius had almost the whole resources of the state under his control, and ruled nearly the whole empire, while Caesar had only certain fixed sums and four legions, and ruled two provinces. Caesar, again, was to resign his command after five years, while Pompeius had fixed his own time for retirement. But Pompeius attempted a task beyond his powers when he undertook to rule the capital-a problem always infinitely difficult, because there was no armed force at the disposal of the government, whatever it might be. The result was complete anarchy: after Caesar's departure the coalition still ruled doubtless the destinies of the world, but not the streets of the capital. The senate. felt its impotence, and attempted no show of authority; Pompeius shut himself up and sulked in silence; the sound portion of the citizens, who had at heart freedom and order, kept rigorously aloof from politics. But for the rabble of all sorts, high and low, it was a time of carnival; demagogism became a trade, which accordingly did not lack its professional insignia-the threadbare mantle, the shaggy beard, the long streaming hair, the deep bass voice. Greeks and Jews, freedmen and slaves, were the most regular attendants at the popular assemblies, and often only a minority of those voting consisted of burgesses legally constituted. The real rulers of Rome were the armed bands, raised by adventurers out |