% tex2asc-version: 1.0 % % Holmes' commentary on Caesar's De Bello Gallico. % Prefatory material. % % Contributor: Konrad Schroder % % 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 % % This file is in the Public Domain. % \input ks_macros.tex \raggedbottom \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