Table Of ContentARIS & PHILLIPS CLASSICAL TEXTS J
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The Gallic War Books V–VI
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Books V–VI of Julius Caesar’s The Gallic War narrate Caesar’s campaigns in Britain, A
Gaul, and Germany in 54 and 53 BCE. His political rival Pompey was at the height R
of his popularity in Rome, making it all the more incumbent upon Caesar to deliver
exciting news of victories. Book V should have been the tale of triumphant conquest
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in Britain, but Caesar’s campaign was underwhelming; Caesar the politician and
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general thus needed assistance from Caesar the author. In Books V and VI Caesar e
masterfully compensates for the lacklustre British campaign with a dramatic account G
of his forceful suppression of Ambiorix’s revolt and new incursions into Germany; the a
narrative is further enlivened with speeches and digressions on the Britons, Germans, ll
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and the wonders of the Hercynian Forest. c
This English translation faithfully represents the clarity and precision of Caesar’s W
Latin while also conveying the drama of Caesar’s narrative in a voice that modern a
readers will fi nd lively and accessible. A substantial introduction orients the reader r
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to the historical and literary context of The Gallic War as well as to the complicated
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political and authorial career of Julius Caesar. The commentary covers topics of
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historical, literary, and linguistic interest, providing support to readers of both the k
English and Latin texts. s
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Jennifer Gerrish is Associate Professor of Classics, College of Charleston. She is the I
author of Sallust’s Histories and Triumviral Historiography: Confronting the End of
History (Routledge 2019).
ARIS & PHILLIPS CLASSICAL TEXTS
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EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk Jennifer Gerrish
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Aris and Phillips Classical Texts
JULIUS CAESAR
The Gallic War Books V–VI
Edited with an Introduction,
Translation and Commentary by
Jennifer Gerrish
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
First published 2022 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Copyright © 2022 Jennifer Gerrish
The right of J. Gerrish to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
ISBN 978-1-80085-629-5 hardback
eISBN 978-1-80085-509-0
Typeset by Tara Evans
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Cover image: People and places in The Gallic War Books 5–6 (detail)
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
I Caesar’s Life and Political Career 1
II Caesar as Author 15
III The Gallic War Books V and VI 26
IV Notes on the Text 38
Map: People and places in The Gallic War Books 5–6 40
Bibliography 41
The Gallic War Book V 45
The Gallic War Book VI 111
Commentary Book V 161
Commentary Book VI 202
Index 223
INTRODUCTION
I. Caesar’s Life and Political Career
Caesar’s Early Life
Gaius Julius Caesar (hereafter Caesar) was born in 100 BCE to an old
but recently undistinguished patrician family. The gens Iulia traced their
origins to the goddess Venus and her son, the Trojan War hero Aeneas,
and the family took its name from Aeneas’ son Iulus (also known as
Ascanius). Caesar’s father (also Gaius Julius Caesar) never reached the
consulship, but served as praetor (the rank below consul on the cursus
honorum, the progression of offices) and was later proconsul of Asia,
probably in the late 90s BCE. Caesar’s aunt Julia married Gaius Marius,
a distinguished politician and general. Marius was a novus homo (a ‘new
man’, the first in his family to attain senatorial office) who had risen to
prominence through military victories in Spain and Numidia and was
elected tribune of the plebs once and consul seven times. Marius’ family
was of respectable but not noble standing; his marriage into the gens
Iulia at once bolstered his own aristocratic credentials and burnished
the reputation of the Julians, who had no great recent accomplishments
to speak of.
Caesar was a youth in 88 BCE when war broke out between Marius
and his rival L. Cornelius Sulla. The proximate cause for the war was a
dispute over Sulla’s command against Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus,
a lucrative assignment for the year of his consulship. Marius, twenty years
older than Sulla, was loath to see his last chance at a glorious campaign
fall into his rival’s hands, and conspired with the tribune of the plebs P.
Sulpicius Rufus to reassign the Mithridatic command to himself. Six years
of factional violence peaked with Sulla’s second march on Rome in 82
BCE and the subsequent bloody program of proscriptions (though Marius
died of natural causes in 87). Caesar was fortunate to escape serious
harm when he refused Sulla’s order to divorce his wife (the daughter of
the Marian Cinna) thanks to the intervention of distinguished relatives.
More generally, the conflict between Sulla and the Marians exemplified
the increasingly polarized nature of Roman politics in the first century
BCE. The optimates and populares were loose political factions who
2 Introduction
used particular approaches to gain power rather than organized political
parties in the modern sense. Broadly speaking, the optimates supported
policies that appealed to ancestral tradition and expanded the powers
of the senate; they tended to conserve power in the hands of a few old,
aristocratic families. The populares proposed legislation that appealed
to the general populace, such as generous land reform policies; they
generally sought to strengthen the powers of the plebeian tribunes and
preserve the tribunate as a bulwark against senatorial overreach. The
conflict between these two approaches would be a contributing factor
in the later civil war between Caesar and Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius).
Caesar spent much of the 70s BCE in Asia and enjoyed some success
campaigning against the forces of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus. The
year 69 BCE marked an important moment in the young Caesar’s
burgeoning political career. In addition to serving in his first senatorial
office, the quaestorship, Caesar delivered the eulogy for his aunt Julia,
wife of Marius, and took the opportunity to praise the nobility and divine
descent of the gens Iulia. Caesar also took the bold move of displaying the
imago (death mask) of Marius at Julia’s funeral, thus defying the memory
of Sulla and perhaps giving some indication of his future popularis
inclination.
In 63 BCE, Caesar won the office of pontifex maximus, the highest
priesthood in Rome, through exorbitant bribery; he was also elected
praetor for the following year. During this same year the disaffected
young aristocrat L. Sergius Catilina (Catiline) assembled a band of
conspirators intending to spark an armed popular revolution. When
the consul M. Tullius Cicero uncovered Catiline’s plot, he proposed
that the conspirators be given the death penalty through a decree of
the senate (senatus consultum ultimum) and without trial. Caesar, who
had previously supported Catiline in his candidacy for the consulship,
spoke against this measure, but the speech of M. Porcius Cato in favor
of execution carried the day. Cato also tried to implicate Caesar in the
conspiracy; Cato had little evidence and found no success, but the episode
established him as one of Caesar’s most intractable foes.
After his praetorship in 62 BCE Caesar received Further Spain as his
pro-praetorian assignment. By this point Caesar was deeply in debt (not
atypical for an ambitious politician); it was only through the intervention
of the wealthy former consul M. Licinius Crassus that Caesar escaped
Introduction 3
prosecution by his creditors and took up his post in Spain. He spent most
of his governorship attacking Iberian settlements under specious pretexts
with the aim of refilling his coffers. This effort was so successful that
Caesar was not only able to recoup his losses but also to make significant
donations to the state treasury. For this the senate voted him a triumph – a
lavish victory procession regarded as one of the highest public honors –
but a technicality in Roman election law created a dilemma for Caesar.
He had intended to run for the consulship of 59, and candidates were
required to register in person by a certain deadline. In order to enter the
city, Caesar would have to cross the pomerium (sacred border) and resign
his imperium (military command). However, a commander receiving a
triumph was not permitted to re-enter the city until the day of the triumph.
Caesar requested permission to register for the election in absentia, but
was denied; he would have to choose. Much to the surprise and concern
of his rivals and critics, Caesar declined the tremendous honor of the
triumph and returned to the city to register for the election.
Caesar’s Consulship and The First Triumvirate
To first win the consulship and then to be able to use the office effectively,
Caesar needed support. His political audacity had earned him the suspicion,
if not the outright hostility, of many of Rome’s more conservative senators,
and he anticipated that his candidacy and consulship would be hindered by
optimate opposition. In order to bolster himself, Caesar brought together
Crassus and Pompey, whose long-standing mutual antagonism made
cooperation seem unlikely. However, like Caesar, Crassus and Pompey
stood to gain from a potential coalition; Pompey’s eastern conquests
had yet to be ratified by the senate, and Crassus was wealthy but not
especially powerful. Their arrangement (called the ‘First Triumvirate’ by
modern historians) was informal but influential; their combined wealth
and political sway secured Caesar’s election and enabled all three partners
to advance their individual political goals. Caesar’s consular colleague M.
Calpurnius Bibulus found himself so thoroughly steamrolled that by mid-
spring he refused to attend meetings of the senate. Pompey’s settlements
were ratified and land was granted to his veterans, and Crassus recouped
the enormous sums he had spent on political campaigns (including his
support for Caesar’s election as pontifex maximus and consul). Caesar
used his influence not only to pass legislation that increased his popularity
4 Introduction
among the populus Romanus, but also to secure for himself a potentially
lucrative proconsular assignment. The tribune Vatinius proposed that
Caesar be granted Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for a five-year term
and three legions to command. Soon after the lex Vatinia was approved
by the plebeian assembly, Pompey proposed that the senate also grant
Caesar Transalpine Gaul; although this request was met with resistance
by the optimates (particularly Cato), it eventually passed, and he was
granted an additional legion.
The strong-arm tactics of the triumvirs and Caesar’s general self-
aggrandizement fomented bitter resentment among Caesar’s opponents
and rivals. Cato, whom Caesar had opposed in the debate about the fate
of Catiline’s co-conspirators, was particularly hostile. A staunch optimate
and self-proclaimed defender of traditional values, Cato had long been
alarmed by Caesar’s exceptional career and sought to obstruct him at
every turn, and by the end of Caesar’s consulship Cato’s frustration had
reached a fever pitch. However, Caesar’s enemies would have to wait
and watch from Rome as he embarked on his proconsular assignment,
since Roman law protected sitting magistrates from being brought to
trial; so long as he was proconsul, Caesar was immune from prosecution.
Cato and his allies could gather their ammunition in anticipation of the
end of Caesar’s term, but for the time being, Caesar was untouchable.
The Gallic War
In winter of 58 BCE Caesar set out for Transalpine Gaul, which would
serve as ‘home base’ for his operations as proconsul. In Caesar’s day,
Roman Gaul was made up of several distinct entities. Cisalpine Gaul
(or ‘Nearer Gaul’) covered the Po river plain and stretched from the
Apennine mountains of Italy to the Alps, and was the earliest part of
Gaul to be brought under Roman rule; Rome conquered the major city
of Mediolanum (Milan) in 222 BCE and after the Social War Cisalpine
Gaul was carved out of Italy as a separate province. Transalpine Gaul
(sometimes called simply ‘the Province’) lay beyond the Alps, in the
region of modern Provence, in southern France. Beyond Transalpine Gaul
was ‘Hairy Gaul’ (Gallia Comata), so called by the Romans in derision
of the Gauls’ perceived wild, unkempt appearance.
According to Caesar (BG 1.1), the peoples of Gallia Comata could
be divided into three groups: the Belgae, the Aquitani, and the Gauls
Introduction 5
(or Celts). The BG also chronicles Caesar’s interactions with the Britons
(who were related to the mainland Celts) and the Germans, who dwelled
beyond the Rhine. A brief discussion cannot fully represent the diversity
of the people Caesar encountered in his Gallic campaigns. Although
Caesar identifies some differences in language and custom among various
peoples, Caesar’s account is somewhat lacking in subtlety and there
was probably more diversity among those grouped as ‘the Gauls’ or
‘the Germans’ than Caesar presents; the summary here is constrained
somewhat by this limitation of our main source. Speaking in very general
terms, the Gauls of the Transalpine and Cisalpine provinces lived in
towns (oppida; Caesar uses this word to describe fortified settlements as
well as military forts) and were ruled by some form of oligarchy; they
relied heavily on Roman imports and in turn profited from the export
of various metals, agricultural products, and slaves to the Romans.1 Of
the Gauls’ social structure, Caesar identifies the Druids and ‘knights’
(equites) as holding special status (BG 6.13–15). He describes the
Gauls as deeply religious and possessing a draconian view of justice
(6.16). Relationships between the Gallic peoples varied widely, as the
narrative of The Gallic War demonstrates; while they might unite for a
common cause (for example, in the revolt of Vercingetorix) and shared
certain cultural features, the groups remained politically independent.
Caesar provides brief ethnographies of the Britons (BG 5.12–14) and
the Germans (6.21–28), both in this volume. The Britons and Germans
subsist on milk and meat, he says, and are ignorant of agriculture (5.14,
6.22). Caesar reports that the Britons dyed themselves blue for battle and
practiced polyandry (5.14), while the Germans dressed in scanty reindeer
pelts and had only a rudimentary sense of religion (6.21). Overall, the
Britons and Germans are depicted as more ‘savage’ and ‘uncivilized’
than the inhabitants of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul, and the Germans
are explicitly contrasted with their more ‘civilized’ Celtic neighbors; it
is perhaps no coincidence that these groups presented Caesar some of
his fiercest challenges.
Caesar’s victories in Gaul probably had additional significance to those
with some sense of Roman history. The Gallic invasion and sack of Rome
in the early fourth century BCE still haunted the Roman consciousness
1 A. King, Roman Gaul and Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990),
25–33.
