History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2. Napoleon III
its tributaries. From Bonn to the point where the Rhine divides into two arms, the basin opens still more; it is flat, and has no longer a definite boundary. The southern arm bore already, in the time of Cæsar, the name of Waal (Vahalis), and united with the Meuse41 below Nimeguen. To the west of the basin of the Rhine, the Scheldt forms a secondary basin.
The basin of the Rhone, in which is comprised that of the Saône, is sharply bounded on the north by the southern extremity of the Vosges and the Monts Faucilles; on the west, by the plateau of Langres, the Côte-d’Or, and the Cévennes; on the east, by the Jura, the Jorat, and the Alps. The Rhone crosses the Valais and the Lake of Geneva, follows an irregular course as far as Lyons, and runs thence from north to south to the Mediterranean. Among the most important of its secondary basins, we may reckon those of the Aude, the Hérault, and the Var.
The three great basins of the western slope are comprised between the line of watershed of Gaul and the ocean. They are separated from each other by two chains branching from this line, and running from the south-east to the north-west. The basin of the Seine, which includes that of the Somme, is separated from the basin of the Loire by a line of heights which branches from the Côte-d’Or under the name of the mountains of the Morvan, and is continued by the very low hills of Le Perche to the extremity of Normandy. A series of heights, extending from north to south, from the hills of Le Perche to Nantes, enclose the basin of the Loire to the west, and leave outside the secondary basins of Brittany.
The basin of the Loire is separated from that of the Garonne by a long chain starting from Mont Lozère, comprising the mountains of Auvergne, those of the Limousin, the hills of Poitou, and the plateau of Gatine, and ending in flat country towards the coasts of La Vendée.
The basin of the Garonne, situated to the south of that of the Loire, extends to the Pyrenees. It comprises the secondary basins of the Adour and the Charente.
The vast country we have thus described is protected on the north, west, and south by two seas, and by the Pyrenees. On the east, where it is exposed to invasions, Nature, not satisfied with the defences she had given it in the Rhine and the Alps, has further retrenched it behind three groups of interior mountains – first, the Vosges; second, the Jura; third, the mountains of Forez, the mountains of Auvergne, and the Cévennes.
The Vosges run parallel to the Rhine, and are like a rampart in the rear of that river.
The Jura, separated from the Vosges by the Gap (trouée) of Belfort, rises like a barrier in the interval left between the Rhine and the Rhone, preventing, as far as Lyons, the waters of this latter river from uniting with those of the Saône.
The Cévennes and the mountains of Auvergne and Forez form, in the southern centre of Gaul, a sort of citadel, of which the Rhone might be considered as the advanced fosse. The ridges of this group of mountains start from a common centre, take opposite directions, and form the valleys whence flow, to the north, the Allier and the Loire; to the west, the Dordogne, the Lot, the Aveyron, and the Tarn; to the south, the Ardèche, the Gard, and the Hérault.
The valleys, watered by navigable rivers, presented – thanks to the fruitfulness of their soil and to their easy access – natural ways of communication, favourable both to commerce and to war. To the north, the valley of the Meuse; to the east, the valley of the Rhine, conducting to that of the Saône, and thence to that of the Rhone, were the grand routes which armies followed to invade the south. Strabo, therefore, remarks justly that Sequania (Franche-Comté) has always been the road of the Germanic invasions from Gaul into Italy.42 From east to west the principal chain of the watershed might easily be crossed in its less elevated parts, such as the plateau of Langres and the mountains of Charolais, which have since furnished a passage to the Central Canal. Lastly, to penetrate from Italy into Gaul, the great lines of invasion were the valley of the Rhone and the valley of the Garonne, by which the mountainous mass of the Cévennes, Auvergne, and Forez is turned.
Gaul presented the same contrast of climates which we observe between the north and south of France. While the Roman province enjoyed a mild temperature and an extreme fertility,43 the central and northern part was covered with vast forests, which rendered the climate colder than it is at present;44 yet the centre produced in abundance wheat, rye, millet, and barley.45 The greatest of all these forests was that of the Ardennes. It extended, beginning from the Rhine, over a space of two hundred miles, on one side to the frontier of the Remi, crossing the country of the Treviri; and, on another side, to the Scheldt, across the country of the Nervii.46 The “Commentaries” speak also of forests existing among the Carnutes,47 in the neighbourhood of the Saône,48 among the Menapii49 and the Morini,50 and among the Eburones.51 In the north the breeding of cattle was the principal occupation,52 and the pastures of Belgic Gaul produced a race of excellent horses.53 In the centre and in the south the richness of the soil was augmented by productive mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead.54
The country was, without any doubt, intersected by carriage roads, since the Gauls possessed a great number of all sorts of wagons,55 since there still remain traces of Celtic roads, and since Cæsar makes known the existence of bridges on the Aisne,56 the Rhone,57 the Loire,58 the Allier,59 and the Seine.60
It is difficult to ascertain exactly the number of the population; yet we may presume, from the contingents furnished by the different states, that it amounted to more than seven millions of souls.61
Political Divisions.
II. Gaul, according to Cæsar, was divided into three great regions, distinct by language, manners, and laws: to the north, Belgic Gaul, between the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine; in the centre, Celtic Gaul, between the Garonne and the Seine, extending from the ocean to the Alps, and comprising Helvetia; to the south, Aquitaine, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees.62 (See Plate 2.) We must, nevertheless, comprise in Gaul the Roman province, or the Narbonnese, which began at Geneva, on the left bank of the Rhone, and extended in the south as far as Toulouse. It answered, as nearly as possible, to the limits of the countries known in modern times as Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, Lower Languedoc, and Roussillon. The populations who inhabited it were of different origins: there were found there Aquitanians, Belgæ, Ligures, Celts, who had all long undergone the influence of Greek civilisation, and especially establishments founded by the Phocæans on the coasts of the Mediterranean.63
These three great regions were subdivided into many states, called civitates– an expression which, in the “Commentaries,” is synonymous with nations64– that is, each of these states had its organisation and its own government. Among the peoples mentioned by Cæsar, we may reckon twenty-seven in Belgic Gaul, forty-three in Celtic, and twelve in Aquitaine: in all, eighty-two in Gaul proper, and seven in the Narbonnese. Other authors, admitting, no doubt, smaller subdivisions, carry this number to three or four hundred;65 but it appears that under Tiberius there were only sixty-four states in Gaul.66 Perhaps, in this number, they reckoned only the sovereign, and not the dependent, states.
1.
Strabo, IV. 3, p. 160
The Narbonnese reminded the Romans of the climate and productions of Italy. (Strabo, IV. 1, p. 147.)
Pomponius Mela, who compiled in the first century, from old authors an abridgement of Geography, says that Gaul was rich in wheat and pastures, and covered with immense forests: “Terra est frumenti præcipue ac pabuli forax, et amœna lucis immanibus.” (
Strabo, IV., p. 147. – Diodorus Siculus, V. 26.
Cæsar, after having said (V. 3) that the forests of the Ardennes extended from the Rhine to the frontier of the Remi,
“Citra flumen Ararim … reliqui sese fugæ mandarunt atque in proximas silvas abdiderunt.” (
“Menapii propinqui Eburonum finibus, perpetuis paludibus silvisque muniti.” (
“(Morini et Menapii) … silvas ac paludes habebant, eo se suaque contulerunt.” (
“(Sugambri) primos Eburonum fines adeunt … non silvæ morantur.” (
Strabo, p. 163, edit. Didot.
Strabo, pp. 121, 155, 170, edit. Didot.
“Carpenta Gallorum.” (Florus, I. 13) – “Plurima Gallica (verba) valuerunt, ut reda ac petorritum.” (Quintilian,
The reckoning of these contingents is the most positive element for estimating the state of the population. We find in the “Commentaries” three valuable statements: 1st, the numerical state of the Helvetian immigration in 696 (
If, then, we would form an idea of the total number of men able to carry arms in Gaul, we must augment the contingents really furnished, sometimes by two-fifths, sometimes in a higher proportion, according to the distances which separated them from the seat of war. By this calculation, the levies of 697 represent 513,600 men capable of carrying arms, and those of 702, at least 573,600; we add together these two numbers, because, as stated above, each army comprises different populations, which gives 1,087,200 men, to whom we must add 92,000 Helvetii; moreover, it is indispensable to take into account the contributive capability of the populations which are not mentioned in the “Commentaries” among the belligerents at the two epochs indicated above, such as the Pictones, the Carnutes, the Andes, the Remi, the Treviri, the Lingones, the Leuci, the Unelli, the Redones, the Ambivareti, and the peoples of Armorica and Aquitaine. By an approximate estimate of their population according to the extent of their territory, we shall obtain the number of 625,000 men. Adding together these four numbers, to obtain the total number of men capable of bearing arms, we shall get 513,600 + 573,600 + 92,000 + 625,000 = 1,804,200 men. Quadrupling this number to get, according to the proportion applied to the Helvetii, the total of the population, we shall have 7,216,800 inhabitants for Gaul, the Roman province not included. In fact, Diodorus Siculus, who wrote in the first century of our era, says (lib. V., c. 25) that the population of the different nations of Gaul varies from 200,000 to 50,000 men, which would make a mean of 125,000 men. If we take the word ἁνδρες in the sense of inhabitants, and if we admit with Tacitus that there were in Gaul sixty-four different nations, we should have the number of 8,000,000 inhabitants, very near the preceding.
Pliny expresses himself thus: “The country comprised under the name of
Peoples composing the Roman Province:
Four hundred, according to Appian (
“Nevertheless, it was said at Rome that it was not only the Treviri and the Ædui who revolted, but the sixty-four states of Gaul.” (Tacitus,