History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2. Napoleon III

History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2 - Napoleon III

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their life. All that the defunct had cherished during his life, was thrown into the flames after his death; and even, before the Roman conquest, they joined with it his favourite slaves and clients.105

      In the time of Cæsar, the greater part of the peoples of Gaul were armed with long iron swords, two-edged (σπἁθη), sheathed in scabbards similarly of iron, suspended to the side by chains. These swords were generally made to strike with the edge rather than to stab.106 The Gauls had also spears, the iron of which, very long and very broad, presented sometimes an undulated form (materis, σαὑνιον).107 They also made use of light javelins without amentum,108 of the bow, and of the sling. Their helmets were of metal, more or less precious, ornamented with the horns of animals, and with a crest representing some figures of birds or savage beasts, the whole surmounted by a high and bushy tuft of feathers.109 They carried a great buckler, a breastplate of iron or bronze, or a coat of mail – the latter a Gaulish invention.110 The Leuci and the Remi were celebrated for throwing the javelin.111 The Lingones had party-coloured breastplates.112 The Gaulish cavalry was superior to the infantry;113 it was composed of the nobles, followed by their clients;114 yet the Aquitanians, celebrated for their agility, enjoyed a certain reputation as good infantry.115 In general, the Gauls were very ready at imitating the tactics of their enemies.116 The habit of working mines gave them a remarkable dexterity in all underground operations, applicable to the attack and defence of fortified posts.117 Their armies dragged after them a multitude of wagons and baggage, even in the less important expeditions.118

      Although they had reached, especially in the south of Gaul, a tolerably advanced degree of civilisation, they preserved very barbarous customs: they killed their prisoners. “When their army is ranged in battle,” says Diodorus, “some of them are often seen advancing from the ranks to challenge the bravest of their enemies to single combat. If their challenge is accepted, they chaunt a war-song, in which they boast of the great deeds of their forefathers, exalting their own valour and insulting their adversary. After the victory, they cut off their enemy’s head, hang it to their horse’s neck, and carry it off with songs of triumph. They keep these hideous trophies in their house, and the highest nobles preserve them with great care, bathed with oil of cedar, in coffers, which they show with pride to their guests.”119

      When a great danger threatened the country, the chiefs convoked an armed council, to which the men were bound to repair, at the place and day indicated, to deliberate. The law required that the man who arrived last should be massacred without pity before the eyes of the assembly. As a means of intercommunication, men were placed at certain intervals through the country, and these, repeating the cry from one to another, transmitted rapidly news of importance to great distances. They often, also, stopped travellers on the roads, and compelled them to answer their questions.120

      The Gauls were very superstitious.121 Persuaded that in the eyes of the gods the life of a man can only be redeemed by that of his fellow, they made a vow, in diseases and dangers, to immolate human beings by the ministry of the Druids. These sacrifices had even a public character.122 They sometimes constructed human figures of osier of colossal magnitude, which they filled with living men; to these they set fire, and the victims perished in the flames. These victims were generally taken from among the criminals, as being more agreeable to the gods; but if there were no criminals to be had, the innocent themselves were sacrificed.

      Cæsar, who, according to the custom of his countrymen, gave to the divinities of foreign peoples the names of those of Rome, tells us that the Gauls honoured Mercury above all others. They raised statues to him, regarded him as the inventor of the arts, the guide of travellers, and the protector of commerce.123 They also offered worship to divinities which the “Commentaries” assimilate to Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, without informing us of their Celtic names. From Lucan,124 we learn the names of three Gaulish divinities, Teutates (in whom, no doubt, we must recognise the Mercury of the “Commentaries”), Hesus or Esus, and Taranis. Cæsar makes the remark that the Gauls had pretty much the same ideas with regard to their gods as other nations. Apollo cured the sick, Minerva taught the elements of the arts, Jupiter was the master of heaven, Mars the arbiter of war. Often, before fighting, they made a vow to consecrate to this god the spoils of the enemy, and, after the victory, they put to death all their prisoners. The rest of the booty was piled up in the consecrated places, and nobody would be so impious as to take anything away from it. The Gauls rendered also, as we learn from inscriptions and passages in different authors, worship to rivers, fountains, trees, and forests: they adored the Rhine as a god, and made a goddess of the Ardenne.125

      Institutions

      IV. There were in Gaul, says Cæsar, only two classes who enjoyed public consideration and honours,126 the Druids and the knights. As to the people, deprived of all rights, oppressed with debts, crushed with taxes, exposed to the violences of the great, their condition was little better than that of slaves. The Druids, ministers of religion, presided over the sacrifices, and preserved the deposit of religious doctrines. The youth, greedy of instruction, pressed around them. The dispensers of rewards and punishments, they were the judges of almost all disputes, public or private. To private individuals, or even to magistrates, who rebelled against their decisions, they interdicted the sacrifices, a sort of excommunication which sequestrated from society those who were struck by it, placed them in the rank of criminals, removed them from all honours, and deprived them even of the protection of the law. The Druids had a single head, and the power of this head was absolute. At his death, the next in dignity succeeded him; if there were several with equal titles, these priests had recourse to election, and sometimes even to a decision by force of arms. They assembled every year in the country of the Carnutes, in a consecrated place, there to judge disputes. Their doctrine, it was said, came from the isle of Britain, where, in the time of Cæsar, they still went to draw it as at its source.127

      The Druids were exempt from military service and from taxes.128 These privileges drew many disciples, whose novitiate, which lasted sometimes twenty years, consisted in learning by heart a great number of verses containing their religious precepts. It was forbidden to transcribe them. This custom had the double object of preventing the divulgation of their doctrine and of exercising the memory. Their principal dogma was the immortality of the soul and its transmigration into other bodies. A belief which banished the fear of death appeared to them fitted to excite courage. They explained also the movement of the planets, the greatness of the universe, the laws of nature, and the omnipotence of the immortal gods. “We may conceive,” says the eminent author of the Histoire des Gaulois, “what despotism must have been exercised over a superstitious nation by this caste of men, depositaries of all knowledge, authors and interpreters of all law, divine or human, remunerators, judges, and executioners.”129

      The knights, when required by the necessities of war, and that happened almost yearly, were all bound to take up arms. Each, according to his birth and fortune, was accompanied by a greater or less number of attendants or clients. Those who were called ambacti130 performed

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<p>105</p>

The Gauls, like most of the barbarian peoples, looked upon the other life as resembling the present. And with this sentiment, at the funeral, they threw into the funereal pile, letters addressed to the dead, which they imagined he read. (Diodorus Siculus, V. 28.)

<p>106</p>

Titus Livius tells us (XXXVIII. 17) that the Gauls had long swords (prælongi gladii) and great bucklers (vasta scuta). In another passage (XXII. 46) he remarks that the swords of the Gauls were long and without point (prælongi ac sine mucronibus). – Their bucklers were long, narrow, and flat (scuta longa, cœterum ad amplitudinem corporum parum lata et ea ipsa plana). (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 21.) – “Et Biturix longisque leves Suessones in armis.” (Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 422.) – Didorus Siculus (V. 30) says that the Gauls had iron coats of mail. He adds: “Instead of glaive (ξἱφος), they have long swords (σπἁθη), which they carry suspended to their right side by chains of iron or bronze. Some bind their tunics with gilt or silvered girdles. They have spears (λὁγχη or λογχἱς) having an iron blade a cubit long, and sometimes more. The breadth is almost two palms, for the blade of these saunions (the Gaulish dart) is not less than that of our glaive, and it is a little longer. Of these blades, some are forged straight, others present undulated curves, so that they not only cut in striking, but in addition they tear the wound when they are drawn out.”

<p>107</p>

Strabo, IV., p. 163, edit. Didot. – Pseudo-Cicero (Ad Herennium, IV. 32) writes materis.

<p>108</p>

The amentum was a small strap of leather which served to throw the javelin and doubled its distance of carriage, as recent trials have proved. In the De Bello Gallico, V. 48, there is mention of a Gaul throwing the javelin with the amentum; but this Gaul was in the Roman service, which explains his having more perfect arms. Strabo says that the Gauls used javelins like the Roman velites, but that they threw them with the hand, and not by means of a strap. (Strabo, edit. Didot, II. 65.)

<p>109</p>

Diodorus Siculus, V. 30.

<p>110</p>

Diodorus Siculus, V. 30. – Varro, De Lingua Latina, V. 116. – The Museum of Zurich possesses a Gaulish breastplate formed of long plates of iron. The Louvre and the Museum of Saint-Germain possess Gaulish breastplates in bronze.

<p>111</p>

“Optimus excusso Lucus Remusque lacerto.” (Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 424.)

<p>112</p>

“Pugnaces pictis cohibebant Lingonas armis.” (Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 398.)

<p>113</p>

Strabo, IV., p. 163, edit. Didot.

<p>114</p>

Pausanias (Phocid., XIX. 10, 11), speaking of the ancient Gauls, who had penetrated to Delphi, says that “each horseman had with him two esquires, who were also mounted on horses; when the cavalry was engaged in combat, these esquires were poised behind the main body of the army, either to replace the horsemen who were killed, or to give their horse to their companion if he lost his own, or to take his place in case he were wounded, while the other esquire carried him out of the battle.”

<p>115</p>

De Bello Civili, I. 39.

<p>116</p>

De Bello Gallico, III. 20 and VII. 22.

<p>117</p>

De Bello Gallico, III. 21 and VII. 22.

<p>118</p>

De Bello Gallico, VIII. 14.

<p>119</p>

Diodorus Siculus, V. 29. – See the bas-reliefs from Entremonts in the Museum of Aix, representing Gaulish horsemen, whose horses have human heads suspended to the poitrel.

<p>120</p>

Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, IV. 5; VII. 3.

<p>121</p>

Titus Livius (V. 46) represents the Gauls as very religious.

<p>122</p>

The existence of human sacrifices among the Gauls is attested by a great number of authors. (Cicero, Orat. pro Fonteio, xiv. 31. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I. 38. – Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 444; III. 399, et seq.– Solinus, 21. – Plutarch, De Superstitione, p. 171. – Strabo, IV., p. 164, edit. Didot.)

<p>123</p>

De Bello Gallico, VI. 17.

<p>124</p>

Pharsalia, I., lines 445, 446.

<p>125</p>

“So, in spite of their love of money, the Gauls never touched the piles of gold deposited in the temples and sacred woods, so great was their horror of sacrilege.” (Diodorus Siculus, V. 27.)

<p>126</p>

De Bello Gallico, VI. 13, et seq.

<p>127</p>

“The Gauls have poets who celebrate in rhythmic words, on a sort of lyre, the high deeds of heroes, or who turn to derision disgraceful actions.” (Diodorus Siculus, V. 31.) And he adds: “They have philosophers and theologians, who are held in great honour, and are named Druids (according to certain texts, Saronides). They have diviners, whose predictions are held in great respect. These consult the future by the aid of auguries and the entrails of the victims; and, in solemn circumstances, they have recourse to strange and incredible rites. They immolate a man by striking him with a sword above the diaphragm, and they draw presages from the manner in which he falls, in which he struggles, or in which the blood flows. They authority of the Druids and bards is not less powerful in peace than in war. Friends and enemies consult them, and submit to their decision; it has often been sufficient to arrest two armies on the point of engaging.” – Strabo (VI., p. 164, edit. Didot) relates nearly the same facts. He makes a distinction also between the bards, the priests, and the Druids.

<p>128</p>

Ammianus Marcellinus (XV. 9) speaks as follows of the ancient Druids: “The men of that country (Gaul), having become gradually polished, caused the useful studies to flourish which the bards, the euhages (prophets), and the Druids had begun to cultivate. The bards sang, in heroic verse, to the sound of their lyres, the lofty deeds of men; the euhages tried, by meditation, to explain the order and marvels of nature. In the midst of these were distinguished the Druids, who united in a society, occupied themselves with profound and sublime questions, raised themselves above human affairs, and sustained the immortality of the soul.” These details, which Ammianus Marcellinus borrows from the Greek historian Timagenes, a contemporary of Cæsar, and from other authors, show that the sacerdotal caste comprised three classes – 1, the bards; 2, the prophets; 3, the Druids, properly so called.

<p>129</p>

Amédée Thierry, II. 1.

<p>130</p>

See Paulus Diaconus, p. 4, edit. Müller.