Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

I am reading Carolyn Hammond's translation of Caesar's Gallic Commentaries.

There is a parallel with Churchill, as usual. Both were the greatest statesmen of their age and both wrote definative accounts of conflicts they were involved in. Caesar's style is almost the opposite of Churchill's. It is almost a lack of style. He lays out events in spare prose that seem to have not a single wasted word. He concentrates on the outlines of events, the big moves on the chessboard made by him and his "peers" (since he doesn't consider any of his barbarian opponents his equal). On occasion he tightens focus to a detail in a battle where some extraordinary act of bravery was performed by a common soldier. The spareness of the prose, the fact that he has, in the commentaries, kept commentary to a rather bare minimum, makes the final evaluations of these actions, "...and so died nobly," all the more affecting.

Honor, as opposed to material gain, is the unquestioned motivator of the actors involved.

This is most easily seen at the level of individual soldier. "This action took place on high ground and in sight of our army, and a loud shout went up on both sides. Thus each man tried his best to be noticed, and to have his courage marked and witnessed, by exposing himself to the missiles and fire of the enemy." 8.42

It has more in common with a high school football game than what, since the trenches of WWI at least, have thought of as warfare. It is both more and less civilized than war in our age. For the soldier there is a more direct connection between courage and skill on the one hand and survival on the other. However, for civilians it is less civilized. The consequences for non-combatants are often slavery or slaughter.

But honor drives all the parties from top to bottom. Caesar never reports amounts or values of property taken or taxes and tributes garnered, but the length of the Thanksgiving that is ordered for him in Rome. He fights for adulation and honor.

The Gauls are also motivated by honor. The reasons for their rebellions are not material, in many cases they are better off under the Romans, particularly tribes that went over to the Romans and were thus freed from having to pay tribute to other tribes or face the constant danger of raids. The causes for the revolt are constantly reiterated as being desire for their former independence and to regain their former military glory. They keep coming back and revolting, in essence re-fighting their battle of independence, for the same reason that high school football teams come back to play the next season, for their reputation.



There are many acts that we would consider dishonorable but that they had no problem with. Caesar reports how, after an especially treacherous attack by the city of Avaricum, the Romans, on breaking through the city's walls, put all to death, even women and children, instead of taking them as slaves. Caesar is actually rather proud of this since it means that they are passing up money in favor of justice, at least justice of a sort. The deaths of women and children does not give him pause.

7.28: "Not one of our men gave a thought to booty. They were so severely provoked by the massacre at Cenabum and the effort they had put into the siege that they spared neither the elderly, nor the women, nor even the little children. In the end, of a total number of about 40,000, barely 800 reached Vercingetorix safely; these had run from the town as soon as they heard the shout."

Hammond states that the triple anaphora of 'non's, neither the old, nor the women nor the children, to highlight rather than to hide the soldiers' actions, pointing out their "disinterested" desire for revenge over profit.

On the other hand, when they use perfidy to try and assassinate a particularly troublesome Gallic leader the soldier charged with striking the blow hesitates because, Caesar speculates, because of the "unusual" nature of the order.


Vercingetorix spends a lot of his time having to talk his men into not deserting him. He is democratically elected, several times in fact. But this represents a weakness as much as a strength. After every reverse he is forced to re-argue his strategy. Caesar faces both of these problems but at different levels. He has politics to deal with but they are back in Rome. At the level of a commander in field he is never challenged and this seems a clearly more efficient arrangement. His speeches to his troops are about his strategy as well but the purpose is never to preserve his command but only to encourage his solders and increase their confidence. Thus the difference isn't between the decision making mechanism (democratic voting is common to both) but in institutional stability. Among the Romans, once command is conferred that is the end of the matter. Vercingetorix's command is only as firm as his last victory or last explanation for defeat.

Of course, once elected to command Vercingetorix can met out punishments. 7.5: "In his command he combined extreme conscientiousness with extreme severity." He would inflict the death penalty by means of torture. At other times he would gouge eyes out and return the offender home as a warning to others.

The Gauls have so much trouble cooperating among themselves that they have to give hostages to each other to solidify their pact against the Romans. It is a mark of Vercingetorix's leadership that he can command enough respect to keep a conspiracy together without exchanging hostages, thus enabling them to keep their revolt secret from the Romans. They solemnize their pact by putting their standards together, an act which Caesar reports is "a rite of the greatest sanctity." 7.3

It makes sense. This is the most important commitment a group can make, saying your safety is the same as our safety, your fate is our fate.


Caesar's decision making constantly choses to ignore the past and look toward the future. Punishment of the guilty in itself is of no interest to him. His only concern is the effect an action will have on the future. This effect lies in the reputation it builds and the evidence it constitutes to onlookers that being a friend of the Romans is good and being their enemy is bad. It is also a judgment driven by costs of enforcement. An example is the attempted revolt of the Senones (6.3) which is preempted by a forced march and Caesar's early arrival.

"They were obliged to abandon their purpose and sent envoys to Caesar to beg for mercy, approaching him through the Aedui (for a long time their state had been under teh Aedui's protection). At the Aedui's request Caesar freely pardoned them and accepted their excuses, for he judged that summer was a time for active campaigning, not for holding inquiries." 6.4

Thus Caesar strengthens the authority and standing of his friends the Aedui and conserves the valuable resource of summer weather for the higher valued activity of attacking people that actively oppose the Romans. This strategically sensible and rational course, ignoring the past and sunk costs and focusing on the expected value of actions in the future, is precisely what is not possible with the judicial approach to such conflicts.

Another departure from the military/diplomatic history is the ethnology of Gaul and Germany.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a Roman, the first thing he thinks worth reporting about the Gauls is the prevalence of faction, something which his Commentaries highlight as a weakness. 6.12: "In Gaul there are factions, not only in every state and every village and district but practically in each individual household as well."

In addition to faction there is oppressive hierarchy: "The ordinary people are considered almost as slaves: they dare do nothing on their own account and are not called to counsels. When the majority are oppressed by debt or heavy tribute, or harmed by powerful men, they sear themselves away into slavery to the aristocracy, who then have the same rights over them as masters do over their slaves." 6.13

He remarks on the strange religion of the Gauls, the Druids. The interesting thing here is that they do not want their teachings "spread abroad." Therefore, they do not commit their teaching to writing.

Caesar says that they were constantly at war with each other before his arrival.

They practice human sacrifice before battles and at festivals. There are state sacrifices as well, where the victim is placed in the wicker arms of the god's image and burned alive. "They believe that the gods are more pleased by such punishment when it is inflicted upon those who are caught engaged in theft or robbery or other crimes; but if there is a lack of people of this kind, they will even stoop to punishing the guiltless." 6.16

There is an interesting thought on free speech which is the exact opposite of our understanding. It is not permitted to discuss state affairs except openly at the assembly. It is rather like our rule that a trial may not be discussed outside of court. "The states that are thought to run thier public affairs most judiciously have a legal ordinance that if anyone hears rumors or tidings affecting the state from neighboring peoples, he is to report it to the magistrate and not to discuss it with anyone else."

The Germans are really barbaric. They know nothing of the gods and have no interest in any other than a few such as can be connected directly with a benefit, such as their sun god or Vulcan.

They do not have sexual intercourse before the age of 20. The sexes bath openly together. They hold land in common and are reassigned a plot each year. this prevents anyone from making improvements. The reasons they cite are that it keeps people interested in war and directs all their energy from economic gains to making war. Also, everyone can be sure that their possessions are equal to one another. 6.22

He reports that the Germans have no way of measuring distance in their language. This is almost impossible to believe. It seems one of the most basic functions of language and would be invaluable in war. Perhaps all distance is reported in terms of how long it takes to get there, a 'metric' that combines terrain and distance?

Caesar describes, second hand, the appearance of an animal called the unicorn. He also describes what must be Moose as animals whose legs have no joints. They never sit and if they are ever knocked to the ground they are done for.




Caesar