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%    Holmes' commentary on Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
%    Prefatory material.
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%    Contributor: Konrad Schroder  <perseant@u.washington.edu>
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%    Original publication data:
%         Holmes, T. Rice.  _C._Iuli_Caesaris_Comantarii_Rerum_in_
%                   _Gallia_Gestarum_VII_A._Hirti_Commentarius_VIII._
%                             Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914.
%
%    Version: 0.02 (Beta), 22 July 1993
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%    This file is in the Public Domain.
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\greekfollows
\centerline{PREFACE}
\bigskip
T{\sc HIS} edition is intended not only for teachers and pupils, but also
for general readers who may wish to become acquainted with Caesar's
masterpiece and for scholars who have not time or inclination to read my
larger books. The critical notes are printed along with the others at the
foot of the text, where they will be more easily understood than if they
were relegated to a critical appendix; and the references which they
contain will enable any one who may wish to specialize to pursue his
researches further. I have taken account of all the relevant works that
have appeared in England and America and on the Continent since the
completion of the second edition of my {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul;} and
in a few cases I have modified or supplemented statements which I made
there.

There is no more interesting Latin book for boys than Caesar's account of
the Gallic war, provided that they will give their minds to it and that
they have the help of a good teacher, who realizes the obligation of
keeping far ahead of his class. Young pupils, it is true, can read so
little at one time that interest in the story, as such, can hardly,
unaided, be sustained. Even Macaulay's {\it Essays} might be dull if they
were read by a foreigner, with a dictionary, at the rate of a single
paragraph a day. But the difficulty is only apparent. Before the study of
this book, or of any of the separate editions which I have prepared of each
{\it Commentary,} is begun, I would recommend teachers to make their pupils
read Part~I of my {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul} and the Sixth and Seventh
Chapters of my {\it Ancient Britain,} or, if this should be impracticable,
to read them aloud themselves. I feel less diffidence in making this
suggestion because it has been made already by well-known critics as well
as by the Curricula Committee of the Classical Association, and because the
books which I have named have been in part translated into German for the
use of schools. If, before a boy begins to grapple with Caesar's Latin, he
has got a general notion of the whole story, he will work with far more
heart.

The principle to which I have adhered in writing my notes has been to avoid
giving any information which the learner can easily acquire for himself
through the medium of grammar, dictionary, or such other books as he may
fairly be supposed to have. My aim has been not to save him the labour---if
I had done so he would only have been bored---but to let him feel the
pleasure of thinking; and I have therefore tried, as far as was possible
with due regard to space, to appeal to his reason,---not only to state
results, but to enable him to follow the steps by which they were attained.
Merely inform a pupil that Alesia was situated on Mont Auxois, and you will
profit him little, for cut-and-dried information is indigestible; but make
him understand that it was there and that to suppose that it was anywhere
else involves absurdities, and you will set his intellect to work. I desire
indeed to appeal not only to the learner's reason but also to his
scepticism and his latent critical acumen. I should be glad to hear that he
had tried to pick holes in my arguments; for I do not wish him to accept
them until he is convinced that they are sound. For the benefit of any one
who may be disposed to test them, I have given at the end of various notes
references to my larger books; and I hope that some readers may feel moved
to gain such a mastery of the subject as is unattainable with a succinct
commentary. The High Master of St.~Paul's School, to whom I am grateful,
has lead nearly all my manuscript; and, after considering his suggestions,
I wrote some additional notes, struck out one or two, and modified a few
others; but he is not responsible for anything which this book contains.

I have thought it right to confine myself in the notes to explaining
Caesar's text. Various historical comments and other remarks which may be
helpful, but which would have been out of place in an edition of the
Commentaries, are to be found in Part I of my {\it Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul} (second edition) and of {\it Ancient Britain.}

Some readers may perhaps find opportunities of exploring the scenes of
Caesar's more important operations; for when one finds oneself, say, at
Martigny or upon the plateau of Alesia, the chapters in which Caesar
describes what happened there become more vivid than even the best maps and
plans can make them. I have given on pages 447--8 directions as to the best
way of reaching the various places which I have in mind.

It is now usual in English schools to read the classics in snippets,
partly, I suppose, in order that boys may become acquainted with many
authors before they leave school. But by following this plan they cannot
become intimate with any. One may read Macaulay's essay on Clive with
profit even if one ignores all the others; but to read the ninth chapter
only of his {\it History of England} would not be wise. Moreover, there is
no reason, apart from the consideration of what subjects are most
remunerative, why Caesar should only be used as an elementary text-book. It
cannot be read with the maximum of profit by a young boy, and it ought to
be read rapidly through, at least once, by the highest form in the school.
In saying this I have the support of the late High Master of St. Paul's,
who told me that when he was High Master of Manchester Grammar School he
read the whole work with his best pupils. Apart from the mere
interpretation of the Latin, which requires far more scholarship than is
commonly supposed, the book demands, for its full comprehension, at least
such an elementary knowledge of Roman history as may be acquired from the
late Professor Pelham's masterly {\it Outlines.} Furthermore, it demands
intelligence sufficiently developed to understand the exposition of
ethnological, social, religious, and political questions; and this demand
can hardly be satisfied by the Fourth Form.

In conclusion let me translate an extract from a letter relating to Caesar,
which Mommsen wrote in 1894 to Dr.~Heinrich Meusel:--- `The noble work
deserves all the labour that can be spent upon it. The enormous difference
between these Commentaries and everything else that is called Roman History
cannot he adequately realized.'
\bigskip
{\obeylines
11 D{\sc OURO} P{\sc LACE},
\quad K{\sc ENSINGTON}, W.
\quad\quad {\it November} 13, 1913.}
\vfill\eject

\centerline{LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS}
\bigskip

{\it A.~B.} = Rice Holmes's {\it Ancient Britain and the Invasions of
Julius Caesar,} 1907.

{\it A.~C.~S.} = A. Holder's {\it Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz.}

{\it A.~J.} = {\it Archaeological Journal.}

{\it B.~ph.~W.} = {\it Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift.}

{\it C.~G.} = Rice Holmes's {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul} 2nd ed., 1911.

{\it C.~I.~L.} = {\it Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.}

{\it C.~J.} = {\it Classical Journal} (Chicago).

{\it Cl.~Ph.} = {\it Classical Philology} (Chicago).

{\it C.~Q.} = {\it Classical Quarterly.}

{\it C.~R.} = {\it Classical Review.}

{\it C.~S.} = A. Klotz's {\it C\"asarstudien.}

{\it D.~R.~R.} = G. Long's {\it Decline of the Roman Republic.}

{\it D.~S.} = Daremberg and Saglio's {\it Dictionniaire des antiquit\'es
grecques et romaines.}

{\it G.~C.} = Stoffel's {\it Histoire de Jules C\'esar,---Guerre civile.}

{\it G.~K.} = A. von G\"oler's {\it Caesars Gallischer Krieg,} 2nd ed.,
1880.

{\it H.~G.} = C. Jullian's {\it Histoire de la Gaule.}

{\it H.~R.} = Th. Mommsen's {\it History of Rome.}

{\it J.~B.} = {\it Jahresberichte des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin.}

{\it L.~C.} = H. Meusel's {\it Lexicon Caesarianum.}

{\it N.~J.} = {\it Neue Jahrb\"ucher f\"ur Philologie,} \&c.

{\it N.~Ph.~R.} = {\it Neue philologische Runschau.}

{\it Ph. } = {\it Philologus.}

{\it Ph.~Suppl.} = {\it Philologus, Supplementband.}

{\it P.~S.~A.} = {\it Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London.}

{\it R.~E.~A.} = {\it Revue des  \'etudes anciennes.}

{\it Rh.~M.} = {\it Rheinisches Museum.}

{\it S.~P.~A.} = {\it Sitzungsberichte der k\"oniglich preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften.}

{\it Th.~l.~L} = {\it Thesaurus linguae Latinae.}

{\it Tr.} = Rice Holmes's {\it Caesar's Commentaries .~.~. translated into
English.}

{\it W. kl. Ph.} = {\it Wochenschrift f\"ur klassiche Philologie.}

{\it Z.G.} = {\it Zeitschrift f\"ur das Gymnasailwesen.}

{\it Z.~\"o.~Gy.} = {\it Zeitschrift f\"ur die \"osterreichischen
Gymnasien.}
\vfill\eject

\centerline{HOW AND WHEN CAESAR WROTE}
\centerline{THE \it COMMENTARIES}
\bigskip
T{\sc HE} {\it Commentaries on the Gallic War} were published not later
that 46 {\sc B.C.}, for Cicero notices them with admiration in his {\it
Brutus} (75, \S 262), which appeared in that year.  Most probably indeed
they were both written and published several years earlier; for it is more
than unlikely that Caesar would have had time for literary composition
during the intense labour of the civil war, and moreover, as Mommsen says
({\it Hist. of Rome,} v, 1894, p.~499), the book was doubtless intended [at
least in part] to justify before the Roman public what Caesar had done in
Gaul.  I will explain this in discussing the trustworthiness of the
narrative.

There are two main theories about the way in which Caesar composed his
book.  Some critics believe that he wrote each commentary year by year,
after the campaign which it described: others that he wrote the whole
seven---for it must be remembered that the eighth was written by his
friend, Aulus Hirtius---in the winter of 52--51 {\sc B.C.} or in the year
50.  The latter view is supported by Hirtius, who says (Praef., \S 6), {\it
ceteri enim quam bene atque emendate, nos etiam quam facile atque celeriter
eos perfecerit scimus} (`others know the flawless excellence of his work; I
know more---how easily and rapidly it was done').  If this remark is no
absolutely inconsistent with the position that each commentary was written
in the winter that followed the campaign which it described, the natural
meaning is that the whole was the result of one continuous effort.  The
statement of Hirtius, who was one of Caesar's most intimate friends, and
probably also his literary secretary, is the only original testimony that
we have, and must be accepted unless it can be shown to be inconsistent
with facts.  Some critics think that it is.  In ii, 28, \S 1 we read that
`the Nervian people .~.~. was brought to the verge of extinction', whereas
in v, 39--42 we are told that they vigorously attacked Quintus Cicero and
in vii, 75, \S 3 Caesar says that they were called upon to contribute 6,000
men to the army which attempted to relieve Vercingetorix. Again, in vi, 2,
\S 3 Caesar affirms that `all the Cisrhenane Germans, who included the
Segni and Condrusi, were in arms against him: in vi, 31, \S\S 1--2 he
implies that these two tribes proved their innocence. But many of the
Nervians who fought against Cicero had doubtless been too young to fight
three years before; the statement that the tribe was wellnigh exterminated
may have been only a rhetorical flourish, based upon misleading reports,
which Caesar or his secretary had not had time or inclination to sift; and
the inconsistency between vi, 2 and vi, 31 only proves that he did not
thoroughly revise his work. Even real inconsistencies, which are very few,
can be accounted for by hasty use of discordant materials, lapse of memory,
or mere carelessness.

It may be regarded, then, as certain that Caesar wrote the Commentaries
after the campaign of 52 {\sc B.C.}; and the only question is whether he
wrote them in the winter following that campaign or later. I am not sure
that he would have had time to write them in the winter; for from the very
beginning of 51 he was hard at work, campaigning against the Bituriges and
other tribes. Mommsen, indeed, argues (Hist. of Rome, v, 1895, p.~499,
n.~1) that the book must have been not only written but published before
the end of 51, because in vii, 6, \S 1 Caesar `approves the exceptional
laws [passed under the influence of Pompey] of 702' (52 {\sc B.C.}), and he
could not have done this after his rupture with Pompey, when he reversed
certain judgements which were based upon those laws. But why should not the
publication have taken place in 50 {\sc B.C.},---the year before that in
which the civil war began? It seems to me most probable that it did, for
this was the only year between Caesar's first consulship and the last year
of his life in which he was not fighting; and, as far as we know, he was
then comparatively at leisure (Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, pp.~202--10). See
p.~436.
\vfill\eject

\centerline{THE TEXT OF THE COMMENTARIES}
\bigskip
E{\sc VERY} one who can read the Commentaries with interest will want to
know how far the manuscripts in which they have been handed down to us
correspond with what Caesar wrote; for if he will think, he will see that
none of them correspond with it exactly, and that although scholars have
been trying ever since 1469, when the first printed edition was published,
to remove the errors, many must still and always will remain. The oldest of
the extant manuscripts was written fully 900 years after the book was first
put into circulation. Now, however careful a scribe may be, he can hardly
avoid making some mistakes in copying out a written book; the scribe who
copies his copy will make more; and so on. Even contemporary copies of
Caesar's original manuscript doubtless contained mistakes.
Cicero\footnote{$^1$}
     {Q., fr.,  iii, 5--6, \S 6.}
complains that books sold by the booksellers of Rome had been carelessly
copied; and, notwithstanding all the care of proofreaders, few modern books
are entirely free from printers' errors. Besides, a manuscript might pass
into the hands of a reader who would make notes on the margin; and if
another copy were to be made from the one which contained these notes, the
copyist might be misled into incorporating them in the text. Thus two kinds
of mistakes would gradually find their way in. An example of the latter
kind---{\it nocte intermissa}---will be found in i. 27, \S 4. An example of
the other shows how even a very careful copyist might go astray. In viii,
32, \S 2 the famous stronghold, Uxellodunum, is mentioned for the first
time. {\it Uxellodunum} was only written by the copyist in two of the good
manuscripts: the rest have {\it auxilio dunum,} which, as every one will
see, is nonsense. Can you imagine how this curious blunder was made? In
this way. In some manuscript a reader wrote either in the margin or above
{\it uxellodunum} (not {\it Uxellodunum,} for even proper names were
written with small initial letters) the words {\it a.~uxillodunum,} and by
{\it a.,} which was an abbreviation, he meant {\it aliter,} `otherwise'. He
wished to show that besides {\it uxellodunum} there was another spelling
{\it uxillodunum.} This manuscript passed into the hands of a copyist who
misunderstood the abbreviation {\it a.} and wrote {\it auxillo dunum,} and
as {\it l} might easily be mistaken for {\it i}, somebody else wrote {\it
auxilio dunum}.

A great many manuscripts of Caesar exist; but only nine or ten of them are
now considered good. They are divided into two groups, known as $\alpha$
and $\beta$, and generally believed to be derived from a common original,
or archetype, which is called {\it X.} Each manuscript is called by a
letter, which is here prefixed to the full name:---

{\it A} = codex Bongarsianus (or Amstelodamensis 81) of the ninth or tenth
century.

{\it B} = Parisinus I (Paris, Biblioth\`eque nationale, 5763, ninth or
tenth century).

{\it M} = Vaticanus (Vatican, 3864, tenth century).

{\it Q} = Moysiacensis (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5056, twelfth century) 

{\it S} = Ashburnhamianus (Bibl. Laurent. R. 33, tenth century).

{\it a} = Parisinus II or Thuaneus (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5764, eleventh
century).

{\it f} = Vindobonensis I (Bibl. Vindob. [Vienna], 95, twelfth century).

{\it h} = Ursinianus (Vatican, 3324, eleventh century).

{\it l} = Riccardianus (Bibl. Riccard. [Florence], 541, eleventh or twelfth
century).

H. Meusel traces the pedigree of these MSS. as follows:

\centerline{[figure: page xii]}

To $\phi$ may be added the best manuscript in the British Museum (Add. {\sc
MSS.} 10,084), which is known as Lovaniensis and referred to as {\it L.} I
have published a collation of this manuscript in the Classical Quarterly of
July, 1911, and Meusel has estimated its value in {\it Jahresberichte des
philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912, pp. 15--18. 

Professor A. Klotz ({\it Rhenisches Museum,} 1910, pp. 224--34) thinks that
the foregoing pedigree, which has been generally accepted, is incorrect. He
believes, with Professor B. K\"ubler, that the archetype of all the extant
{\sc MSS}. was a copy belonging to $\beta$, and that $\alpha$ is descended
from a copy belonging to the same group, in which readings from a
manuscript of the sixth century, published by two editors---Julius Celsus
Constantinus and Flavius Licerius Firminus Lupicinus---were inserted.
Accordingly Klotz has constructed this pedigree, which, in the Opinion of
Meusel ({\it Jahresberichte des Philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912,
pp. 18--21), may possibly be right:---

\centerline{[figure: page xiii]}

The two groups, $\alpha$ and $\beta$, differ from each other about 1,500
times; and an editor cannot do without either. But when they differ and
neither is obviously wrong, how is he to decide between them? Simply, in
most cases, by considering the context or by carefully noting Caesar's use
of language in passages in which the two groups agree. This laborious task
has been performed by various critics, notably by three German scholars,
Rudolf Schneider, Meusel, and Alfred Klotz. Let me give one or two
examples. In v, 35, \S 5 $\alpha$ has (cum a prima luce ad horam octavam)
{\it pugnaretur;} $\beta$ has {\it pugnassent.} The former is preferable
because Caesar in describing the duration of a battle almost always uses
the passive. In vii, 64, \S 2 $\alpha$ {\it h} have (peditatu quem ante)
habuerat (se fore contentum dicit); while the rest of the $\beta$ {\sc
MSS}. have {\it habuerit,} which is certainly right, because the relative
clause is part of what Vercingetorix said, and therefore the subjunctive is
necessary. But in some cases the claims of $\alpha$ and $\beta$ appear to
be equally balanced; and here, for reasons which I have given in the {\it
Classical Review} of 1901 (p.~175), I follow with Meusel the reading of
$\alpha$. There is also a considerable number of passages in which, though
all the manuscripts agree, the text is obviously wrong, and has been
corrected with more or less success. Some of these emendations are
certainly right. For instance, in i, 40, \S 9 the {\sc MS}. reading is (cui
rationi contra homines barbaros .~.~. locus fuisset) {\it ac} (ne ipsum
quidem sperare nostros exercitus capi posse); and the obvious correction,
{\it hac,} appeared just four centuries ago in the Aldine edition. Again,
in vii, 3, \S 2 the {\sc MSS}. have (Nam) ubique (maior atque inlustrior
incidit res, clamore .~.~. significant): the emendation {\it ubi quae} is
self-evident. Other emendations are highly probable; and fortunately those
doubtful or corrupt passages which are important for history are very few.

In this book it would be useless to give a list of the various readings of
the manuscripts, or to explain in all cases the reasons that have led me to
adopt one reading\footnote{$^2$}
     {Teachers and other readers who may be interested in textual
     questions will find a full {\it apparatus criticus} in H.
     Meusel's edition of 1894, which is supplemented by an article
     contributed by the present editor to the Classical Quarterly of
     July, 1911. A list of articles which may be consulted with profit
     will be found in {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,} p.~202; and
     others will be referred to in my foot-notes. Every one who wishes
     to make a special study of the Commentaries from the linguistic
     point of view should read Meusel's paper in {\it Jahresberichte
     des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1894, pp, 214--398, and
     Professor Postgate's in the {\it Classical Review,} 1903, pp.
     441--6.}
in preference to another. I have briefly discussed in foot-notes all the
more important passages in which the text is uncertain; but in regard to
comparatively unimportant variations, where I have either been convinced by
Meusel's arguments or those of other scholars, or have independently come
to the same conclusion, I have not here stated the reasons: they are to be
found in articles to which I refer below.\footnote{$^3$}
     {See the preceding note. In the {\it Classical Review} 1901,
     p.~176, I have given reasons for preferring in many places the
     reading of $\beta$. Nipperdey rated this group very low, partly
     perhaps because he was ignorant of {\it h} and {\it l} and in his
     time $\alpha$ had not been accurately collated; but even he was
     often obliged to have recourse to $\beta$. It must not, however,
     be imagined that those scholars who have vindicated the
     independent worth of $\beta$ undervalue $\alpha$.}
Readers of the critical notes will see that when I enclose a word or a
passage in the text in square brackets, I do not necessarily mean more than
that I regard it as open to suspicion, though some bracketed words are
certainly spurious. The obvious emendations, of which I have already given
two examples, and which, as a rule, I have adopted silently, will be found
in Meusel's critical edition. The principle to which I have adhered is
never to incorporate an emendation in the text, even when I am inclined to
believe that it represents what Caesar wrote, unless the {\sc MS}. reading
or readings seem indefensible. When, for instance, one finds that in vii,
10, \S 1 {\it expugnatis} is used in a sense which the verb has nowhere
else in Caesar, and never in Cicero or in Sallust, one feels the necessity
of caution.
\medskip

N{\sc OTE}.---When I quote readings adopted by Meusel which are not in his
text of 1894, they are to be found in the reissue of his school edition
(1908) unless I state that he has adopted them since.
\vfill\eject

\centerline{THE CREDIBILITY OF CAESAR'S}
\centerline{NARRATIVE}
\bigskip
F{\sc OR} the history of the first seven years of Caesar's conquest of Gaul
our principal authority is Caesar himself.  It is, indeed, impossible to
grasp the full meaning of his narrative without the help of the modern
scholars who have contributed so much to the task of solving the problems
which the Commentaries present.  It is true, moreover, that Cicero's
writings illustrate certain phases of the war, and that later writers, such
as Suetonius, Plutarch, and Dion Cassius, make certain statements, true or
false, which are not to be found in Caesar.  But Caesar is the authority;
and thoughtful readers will want to know how far his narrative is
trustworthy According to Suetonius,\footnote{$^1$}
     {{\it Diuus Iulius,} 56.}
Pollio, who served under Caesar in the civil war, thought that the
Commentaries were written carelessly and with little regard for truth; that
Caesar had accepted without due inquiry the reports of his officers; and
that, either intentionally or from failure of memory, he was inaccurate in
describing what he had done himself.  Now it is almost certain that Pollio
was referring to Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War, with which we are
not here concerned;\footnote{$^2$}
     {According to Suetonius, Pollio thought that Caesar would have
     rewritten and corrected his narrative if he had had an
     opportunity ({\it existimatque rescriptorum et correcturum
     fuisse}).  A.~Klotz ({\it Rh.~M.,} 1911, p.~81) remarks that
     Pollio could hardly have said this in regard to the {\it
     Commentaries on the Gallic War,} which were published by Caesar
     himself.}
but suppose that he had the same opinion of the Gallic War.  If so, as he
did not serve in Gaul, he could only have repeated what he had heard from
others; and their opinions would have been of no value except about what
they had seen themselves.  As I have learned from conversation with men who
had taken part in Sir Charles Napier's conquest of Sind and in the Indian
Mutiny, and from letters which they wrote to me, how mistakes in military
histories arise, I believe that I can form a tolerably just idea of the
meaning of Pollio's criticism.  Caesar inevitably made mistakes; and Pollio
may have conversed with eyewitnesses who pointed out these mistakes, who
were perhaps aggrieved by them, and who, exaggerating their importance, as
men who have no sense of historical proportion will always do, shrugged
their shoulders and exclaimed, `Such is history.' Caesar's accuracy has
been confirmed, on various points, by modern investigations.  Every one who
has seen the places which he described will admit that he was gifted with
the faculty of observation.  Most of the operations which are pictured in
his narrative were performed under his own eye: he had opportunities for
observing what happened in a battle or a siege which a modern general,
whose operations extend over a vast area, cannot have; and he very rarely
indulges in that sort of detailed description which gives rise to most of
the mistakes that are made in modern military histories.  This is a point
which I could not make perfectly clear to a `general reader' unless he
would listen attentively while I explained to him the labour which I have
myself undergone in writing an account of a modern battle and the process
by which I have been enabled to correct mistakes which had crept into my
original draft.  But all who have tried to write military history from
original sources will understand what I mean.  As a rule Caesar gives us
only the outline of a battle,---he tells us just so much as may enable us
to understand the moves, and no more.  He sent dispatches to the Senate,
and it may be assumed that he kept copies of them: his generals sent
reports to him; and he finished his book within a year after the close of
the war.  His account, therefore, was a contemporary account by the
eyewitness who had the best eyes, the most favourable point of view, and
the most trustworthy information.

As for the speeches which he puts into the mouths of Vercingetorix and
others, nearly all are very short and written, like many reports in
newspapers of speeches, in {\it Oratio Obliqua,} which shows that he only
professed to give the gist of what was said.  Almost the only one which is
at all open to suspicion is the comparatively long speech in the
seventy-seventh chapter of the {\it Seventh Commentary,} which he
attributes to Critognatus.  Departing from his custom, he wrote this speech
in the form of {\it Oratio Recta;} and as there was certainly no shorthand
writer present when Critognatus was speaking, the words were of course
Caesar's own.  But we may reasonably suppose that he was informed of the
drift of Critognatus's arguments by some one who had listened to
them---perhaps by Vercingetorix himself---for he made at least 60,000
prisoners after the fall of Alesia.\footnote{$^3$}
     {Cf.  vii, 71, \S 3 with 89, \S 5 and 90, \S 3, and see the note
     on the first of these passages.}

Serious charges have, however, been brought against the general tone of
Caesar's narrative.  They may be grouped in two classes, according to the
motives which his accusers have imputed to him.  These motives are, first,
a desire to justify unconstitutional, illegal, or unrighteous acts, and
secondly, a desire to magnify his own exploits, to obtain for himself the
credit of certain exploits of his officers, and to conceal everything that
might damage his reputation as a general.  I shall examine in foot-notes
those of his statements which I believe to be either inaccurate or
misleading; but in this little book it would of course be out of place to
notice all the charges---or even all that are worth noticing---which have
been brought against him; and I have done so already in two other
works.\footnote{$^4$}
     {{\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,} 1899, pp.  173--244, and the
     second edition of the same, 1911, pp.  211--56; {\it Ancient
     Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar,} 1907, pp.  666--72.}
Good judges have accepted the conclusion which I reached,---that under
close scrutiny nearly all the charges break down.  As an acute critic has
remarked, Caesar took pains to justify his first two campaigns---those
which he conducted against the Helvetii and Ariovistus---because in
crossing the frontier of the Roman Province he had acted without the
sanction of the Senate; but he knew that if he could convince his readers
that he had done right in 58 {\sc B.C.} all would be well, for the other
campaigns followed as a matter of course.  And his self-justification was
sound.  Naturally he made out the best case that he could, but he did not
falsify facts: he only emphasized, as he had a right to do, the fact that
he had acted for his country's good.  So far as I am aware, no great
writer, no great historian, no great statesman or general has ever thrown
serious discredit upon the Commentaries.  Of course they are not absolutely
true: no history is.  Caesar was sometimes either uncritical or careless in
using the reports of his generals: he may have thought it discreet to
withhold some valuable information: he doubtless sometimes exaggerated,
probably because he was misinformed, the numbers of his enemies and the
losses which he or his officers had inflicted upon them; he may have
concocted an excuse for the one defeat---the defeat at Gergovia---which he
himself suffered; and I am willing to believe that his memoirs leave upon
the mind an impression of his prowess, if not of his character, more
favourable than would have been produced by the narrative of an impartial
historian.  But on the whole he could afford to tell the truth.  He did
full justice to his lieutenants; he wrote most generously of his
enemies;\footnote{$^5$}
     {See ii, 27, \S 5 and vii, 30, \S 3.}
and I see no reason for believing that he was ashamed of anything that he
had done.  `On ne peut contester', says the Duc d'Aumale, `que ses r\'ecits
respirent la sinc\'erit\'e';\footnote{$^6$}
     {{\it Rev.  des Deux Mondes,} 2$^e$ p\'er., xv, 1858, p.~119.}
and Montaigne, in a note written on the margin of his copy of the
Commentaries, called the author `le plus net, le plus disert, et le plus
sinc\`ere historien qui fut jamais.'\footnote{$^7$}
     {{\it Ib.,} p.~118.}
Perhaps we shall hit the exact truth if we add the comment of the Duc
d'Aumale,---`le plus sinc\`ere de ceux qui ont \'ecrit leur propre
histoire.'\footnote{$^8$}
     {\it Ib.}
\vfill\eject

\centerline{THE ETHNOLOGY OF GAUL}
\bigskip

E{\sc VERYBODY} knows the three sentences with which Caesar's narrative of
the Gallic war begins: `Gaul, taken as a whole, is divided into three
parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani,
and the third by a people who call themselves Celts and whom we call Gauls.
These peoples differ from one another in language, institutions, and laws.
The Gauls are separated from the Aquitani by the Garonne, from the Belgae
by the Marne and the Seine.' This information was enough for Caesar's
Italian readers: he did not trouble himself or them about the races which
had inhabited Gaul long before Gauls and Belgae arrived, and whose
descendants lived there still; and if we had to depend upon him alone, we
should know no more about the ethnology of Gaul than the man in the street
knows about the ethnology of Britain, where the descendants of Huguenots,
Flemings, Jews, Normans, Danes, Saxons, Celts, and aborigines are living
now under the common name of Englishmen. A century ago the most learned men
knew very little more than what Caesar told them. But within the last
generation or two a great deal more has been ascertained,---mostly from
evidence which was not to be found in books. Here I need only give a short
explanation of the way in which the information has been acquired and a
short statement of the results.

The information has been derived from four different sources,---the
evidence of Caesar and other ancient writers and the three sciences, which
are steadily growing, called physical anthropology, archaeology, and
philology. The anthropologists have worked in two different ways: they have
carefully measured skeletons or skulls found in caverns, in ancient graves,
and elsewhere, and belonging to men who were living in Gaul not only after
the Celtic invasion (see p. xlvii) but many hundreds or thousands of years
before Caesar set foot in the country, and have classified them in various
groups, not forgetting to note the surroundings in which they ~ ere found;
they have also taken very numerous observation.s of the height, hair, eyes
and complexion, and skull-form of living Frenchmen, Belgians, and others,
in the hope that the results would help them to give a true account of the
population of ancient Gaul. The archaeologists have collected, arranged,
and described the tools, weapons, and ornaments which were found with or
apart from the skeletons, and have thereby been able to fix the period of
Gallic history or the prehistoric period to which this or that skeleton or
group of skeletons belonged. Thus some skeletons have been found interred
with stone knives, others with bronze daggers, others with iron swords,
bronze brooches, chariot-wheels, and horse-trappings of various kinds. The
philologists have endeavoured to learn from names of tribes and places and
from the scanty remains of the Iberian and Ligurian languages whether the
Iberians and Ligurians, whom Caesar ignored, inhabited other parts of Gaul
besides those which ancient writers assigned to them, and have also used
the remains of the old Celtic languages in order to find out whether the
Celtae all spoke the same language or formed two groups which spoke two
dialects, how they were related to the Belgae, and how both were related to
the Germans.

Before I proceed let me ask the reader to bear in mind two things. First,
Caesar uses the words `Celts' (Celtae) and `Gauls' (Galli) in a restricted
sense. As we shall see presently, the Belgae were Gauls and Celts as well
as the Celtae: there had been Celts in Germany before he came to Gaul;
there were Celts in Britain and in Spain; the Gauls who beat the Romans in
the battle of the Allia\footnote{$^1$}
     {{See p. xxxix.}}
were Celts. Secondly, Belgae, Celtae, and Aquitani were all, more or less,
mixed. No pure race exists.

Let us begin at the beginning. The oldest human fossils that have been
found in Gaul belong to the Palaeolithic Age. Not only Gaul, but also
Belgium and Central Europe as far east as Croatia were then inhabited by
hunters belonging to what is generally called the Neanderthal race, after a
skull which was found about fifty years ago in the valley of the Neander in
Rhenish Prussia As far as we can tell from the bones that have been
discovered, they were short, sturdy men, with very low receding foreheads,
huge projecting brow ridges, and certain ape-like features,---for instance,
extremely defective chins These people, although they manufactured flint
tools with considerable skill, were certainly much inferior in mental power
to others of a different type who were their contemporaries; and towards
the end of the Palaeolithic Age there dwelt in South-Western Gaul a people
who, as we may infer not only from their beautifully formed heads, but from
the wonderful works of art which I have mentioned in the Introduction, were
as intelligent as modern Europeans Skulls of this type were discovered at
Laugerie-Basse and Chancelade in the valley of the Loz\`ere; and nearly
related to the race which they represent were people remarkable for great
stature, some of whose skeletons have been unearthed from caves near
Mentone, and who are generally called after a specimen that was found
beneath the rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon in P\'erigord.

Thus even in the Old Stone Age the inhabitants of Gaul belonged to several
different types Some ethnologists believe that the Neanderthal race became
extinct; but descendants of the other groups were living in Caesar's time;
and their descendants are living now.

So much for the Palaeolithic Age. Of the Neolithic Age, which followed it,
we of course know much more The skeletons that have been found belong for
the most part to two groups Both were short or of middle height, and both,
as we may infer from the complexion of their modern descendants, were dark;
but the shorter, who are called after Grenelle, near Paris, where six
typical specimens were discovered, were sturdily built and had short round
heads; while the others, the most famous representatives of whom belonged
to the caverns of l'Homme Mort and Baumes-Chaudes in the department of the
Loz\`ere, were generally slender and had well-formed oval heads. Probably
the latter were descended from the palaeolithic race which is represented
by the skeletons of Chancelade and Laugerie-Basse; but the round-headed
people, as would appear from the places in which their remains were most
numerous, migrated into Gaul by two routes,---through Belgium and Savoy.
People who resembled the long-heads of the Loz\`ere dwelt in the Neolithic
Age in our own island and in various parts of Central and Southern Europe:
the round-heads were rare in Britain, but numerous on the Continent, as
they are still.

It must not, however, be supposed that all the neolithic inhabitants of
Gaul belonged to one or the other of these two main types. Here and there
long-headed individuals were tall; and in some places skeletons of divers
kinds have been found jumbled together. But although the two principal
groups gradually intermingled, they were certainly at first distinct; for
of 140 interments 55 contained only long skulls, and 20 only short ones;
while every one of the skulls---64 in all---that were taken from the
caverns of l'Homme Mort and Baumes-Chaudes were long.

Invaders different from the people who have just been described may have
settled in Gaul in the Bronze Age; but we cannot be sure, for in that
period the dead were more often cremated than interred. At a later time,
when iron weapons were beginning to be used instead of bronze, a tall race,
which, as far as we can judge from skeletons, resembled the Celts, occupied
the eastern departments of the Jura and the Doubs; and they were most
probably new-comers.

In Switzerland---the original home of the Helvetii---the long-headed and
the round-headed group were both represented.

I must now say a few words about the Ligurians and the Iberians, who
inhabited Gaul before the Celts arrived. Before 500 {\sc B.C.} the Ligurians
possessed South-Eastern Gaul, east of the Rh\^one and at least as far north
as Bellegarde in the department of the Ain; and at that time or not long
afterwards they were mingled, west of the Rh\^one, with Iberians. So much w
e learn from historians and geographers: but there is some reason to
believe that Ligurians occupied the whole eastern region of Gaul as far
north as the Marne; for certain suffixes, or endings of place-names, namely
-asca, -asco, -osca, -osco, -usca and -usco, which are found very
frequently in Piedmont, where Ligurians were the primitive inhabitants,
also occur in twenty-five of the eastern departments\footnote{$^2$}
     {Alpes-Mar\-i\-times, Var, Bouches-du-Rh\^one, Gard, Herault,
     Basses-Alpes, Vaucluse, Hautes-Alpes, Dr\^ome, Ard\`eche, Savoie,
     Is\`ere, Ain, Rh\^one, Jura, Sa\^one-et-Loire, C\^ote-d'Or,
     Doubs, Haute-Sa\^one, Yonne, Aube, Marne, Haute-Loire, Aveyron,
     and Ari\`ege.}
of France, and these departments form one unbroken tract. Indeed it is not
improbable that Ligurians, even in Caesar's time, inhabited Aquitania; for
there were five tribes in Liguria proper\footnote{$^3$}
     {The Deciates, Desuviates, Ednates, Nantuates, and Quariates.}
and sixteen or seventeen in Aquitania\footnote{$^4$}
     {The Cocosates, Elusates, Glatcs, Sibusates, Sotiates, Tarusates,
     and ten or eleven others mentioned by Pliny ({\it N.H.,} iv, 19,
     \S 108).}
whose names ended in -ates; and such names are to be found nowhere else in
Gaul.\footnote{$^5$}
     {The Belgic Atrebates are perhaps only an apparent exception. It
     must, however, be admitted that no Aquitanian names in -asca,
     \&c., have been cited.}
The Iberians probably migrated into Southern Gaul from Spain; for Iberians
occupied the whole eastern region of the Spanish peninsula, though the name
`Iberian' was perhaps applied originally only to a people who dwelt between
the river Ebro and the Pyrenees. It is generally believed, though some
scholars are of a different opinion, that Basque, which is still spoken in
the south-western corner of France and the adjacent part of Spain, is
closely related to the language, of which there were doubtless several
dialects, that was spoken by the Iberians. Several place-names are quoted
to prove this, especially Iliberris, which occurs, in various forms, both
in Spain and in Southern Gaul. There was an Illiberris in Roussillon, an
Elimberri in Auch, and an Illiberri in Granada. The word iri in Basque
means `town' and berri means `new'; so that Iliberris, like the Celtic
Noviodunum,\footnote{$^6$}
     {{\it B. G.,} ii, 12, \S 1; vii, 12, \S 2; 55, \S 1}
would have meant `New Town'. This word, however, has given rise to a great
deal of discussion, about which I can say nothing here, but of which I have
given a short account in {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul} (pages 290--8)
There is another fact which makes the Iberian question complicated and
difficult. Certain inscriptions, called Iberian, have been found in Spain.
Some of them are written in Roman letters; other in letters adapted from
the Phoenician alphabet, from right to left; others again in the same
letters from left to right. Nobody has yet been able to translate them; but
a French scholar who has devoted his life to the study of Basque denies
that any trace of Basque is to be found in them. Moreover, the great
majority of the place-names in the Spanish peninsula and in Southern Gaul
which we find in the ancient roadbooks\footnote{$^7$}
     {See p.~403.}
and in the writings of the ancient geographers cannot be explained from
Basque. Perhaps the problem may be solved by supposing that Basques
inhabited Spain before the Iberians invaded it; that they were the founders
of Iliberris, of Elimberri, and of Illiberri; and that before the time of
Caesar they had been driven by the Iberians, who probably spoke the
languages of the inscriptions, into the region where Basque is still
spoken.

The Greek geographer, Strabo, says that the Aquitanians resembled the
Iberians (by whom he means the mass of the inhabitants of the entire
Spanish peninsula, not merely of the part which belonged to Iberians
properly so called) rather than the Gauls, and spoke a language akin to
that of the former. What is certain is that, except Aquitania, the region
inhabited by Iberians and Ligurians was subdued, long before the time of
Caesar, by Celts.

It is now time to speak of the Galli, or, as they called themselves,
Celtae, and of the Belgae. I have said enough to show that each of these
two groups was a mixture of various races,---that the Celtic and Belgic
invaders had given their names to a population which comprised descendants
of palaeolithic and neolithic races, and of later invaders. Several
questions have to be answered.  When did the invaders who gave their name
to the mixed population called Celtae first enter Gaul? Did they introduce
the language which we call Celtic, or was it spoken in Gaul before they
arrived? Did they all speak the same language? Were they kinsmen of the
Belgae, and did the Celtae and the Belgae speak the same language? Were any
of the Belgic tribes German? Were the Celtae and the Belgae, when they
invaded Gaul, nearly related to the Germans? Before I attempt to answer
these questions I will ask the reader to bear in mind that Caesar uses the
word Galli in two senses: sometimes he means the people between the Seine
or the Marne and the Garonne, sometimes he means both them and the Belgae.

According to the historical evidence, the first Celtic invasion of Gaul
cannot be dated earlier than the seventh century before Christ; but, as we
have already seen, the tall men whose skeletons have been found in Eastern
France in graves of a somewhat older period may have belonged to the first
group of Celtic invaders. If we may trust Caesar, the Gauls in general,
including the Belgae, were conspicuously tall: `the Gauls,' he says, `as a
rule, despise our short stature, contrasting it with their own great
height';\footnote{$^8$}
     {B. G., ii, 30, \S 4.}
and all the ancient writers who describe the Gauls say much the same, most
of them adding that the Gauls were fair. Now any observant person who has
travelled much in France must have noticed that tall blonde people are
rare, and that, with comparatively few exceptions, they are only to be seen
in the north eastern departments, where many of the inhabitants are
descended from German invaders. How are we to account for the contrast
between modern Frenchmen and the Gauls whom Caesar and other ancient
writers described? To begin with, we may be sure that even in Caesar's day
tall fair men formed only a minority of the population; for, as we have
seen, the people who were in possession when the Celts arrived were for the
most part short and dark, and we may be sure that even the Celtic invaders
were not all of the same type when untrained observers enter a strange
country they notice the individuals whose physical features are unfamiliar
and ignore the rest. Thus a modern English traveller hastily remarks that
Scotsmen have red hair and red beards; while a trained obselver, having
entered in his note-book all the observations that he has been able to
make, reports that in certain districts most Scotsmen are dark, while in
that part of Scotland in which fairness is most conspicuous, not more than
eleven per cent of the people have red hair. Still, the proportion of
blonde people in Gaul was certainly much greater than in modern France; and
we have to account for the difference. First, it must be remembered that a
great many Gauls perished in Caesar's wars or were sold into slavery; and
of those who were thus lost to the country a number disproportionately
large probably belonged to the dominant race, by whose great stature he was
so impressed. Secondly, except in comparatively cold climates, the tall
fair type is less successful in the struggle for existence than the dark.
Thirdly, there is reason to believe that the fair type is less able than
the dark to resist the unhealthy conditions of the slums in crowded cities.
Fourthly, in families of which one parent is fair and the other dark, the
proportion of dark children is generally greater than the proportion of
fair. Lastly, a mixed population tends to revert to the type which was at
the beginning that of the majority. There is little doubt, then, that since
the time of Caesar, although France has been invaded by Franks, Visigoths,
Alani, Saxons, Burgundians, and Normans, among all of whom fairness and
tall stature were conspicuous, the dark type has been gaining ground upon
the fair. No observant person who knows the outlines of English history
will be surprised at this. The Saxons, Angles, and Jutes who conquered
Britain were at least as fair as the Celts; they settled among a people of
whom the dominant element in Caesar's time had been, as it was in Gaul,
Celtic; and they killed a good many of them. Afterwards they were
themselves conquered by Danes and Normans, among whom fairness was also
common. But the dark element, which had existed in prehistoric Britain as
in prehistoric Gaul, reasserted itself. Except in certain parts of
Scotland, where the descendants of Scandinavians are numerous, and in
certain rural districts where the population has remained comparatively
pure, fair people are more or less rare; and darkness is gradually
increasing.

It is generally taken for granted that the Celts hrought the language which
is called Celtic into Gaul, and that it gradually became universal except
in Aquitania. One or two well-known writers, however, believe t