Chapter VI (3)

"The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000
Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his
standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men. With such a
disproportion between the nucleus of the Carthaginian army and its
auxiliaries, Hannibal was in reality but a Gaulish chief; and if,
in the moments of danger, he had no cause to repent his new
situation, more than once, nevertheless, he cursed with bitterness
its inconveniences. Nothing could equal the courage and devotion of
the Gaulish soldier in the dangers of the battle-field; but under
the tent he had neither the habit nor the taste of military
subordination. The lofty conceptions of Hannibal surpassed his
comprehension; he could not understand war, unless such as he
himself carried it on--as a bold and rapid plundering excursion, of
which the present moment reaped the whole advantage. He would have
wished to march instantly on Rome, or at least to pass the winter
in some of the allied or subject provinces--in Etruria or in
Umbria--there to live at discretion in pillage and license. Did
Hannibal represent that it was necessary to spare the provinces in
order to gain them over to the common cause, the Cisalpines broke
forth into murmurs; the combinations of prudence and genius
appeared in their eyes but a vile pretext to deprive them of the
advantages which they had legitimately won."--(I. 292-293.)

We cannot follow the steps of the great conqueror in his memorable campaigns--in his fatal march over the fens of Etruria, or through the glorious field of Thrasymene. But the share which the Gauls had in the mighty victory of Cannae, and the change of the seat of war, with the results which followed from it, are of such importance, and the remarks made upon them by M. Thierry are so just, that we shall give the whole of his account of this event at full length:--

"From the field of Thrasymene Hannibal passed into southern Italy,
and gave battle a third time to the Romans, near the village of
Cannae, on the banks of the Aufidus, now called the Offanto. He had
then under his banners 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry; and of
these 50,000 combatants, at least 30,000 were Gauls. In his order
of battle, he placed their cavalry on the right wing, and in the
centre their infantry, whom he united to the Spanish infantry, and
whom he commanded in person: the Gaulish foot, as was their custom
on all occasions when they were determined to conquer or die, threw
off their tunic and sagum, and fought naked from their waist
upwards, armed with their long and pointless sabres. They commenced
the action; and their cavalry and that of the Numidians terminated
it. We know how dreadful the carnage was in that celebrated
battle--the most glorious of the victories of Hannibal--the most
disastrous of the defeat of Rome. When the Carthaginian general,
moved with pity, called to his soldiers 'to halt, and to spare the
vanquished,' without doubt the Gauls, bloodthirsty in the
destruction of their mortal enemies, carried to that butchery more
than the ordinary irritation of wars, the satisfaction of a
vengeance ardently wished for, and long deferred. There 70,000
Romans perished; the loss on the side of the conquerors was 5500,
of which 4000 were Gauls. Out of 60,000 Gauls, whom Hannibal had
enumerated around him after the combat of the Trebia, 25,000 only
remained; battle, sickness, above all, the fatal passage over the
marshes of Etruria, had cut off all the rest; for up to this period
they had supported almost exclusively the weight of the war. The
victory of Cannae brought to the Carthaginians other auxiliaries; a
crowd of men from Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and Apulia, filled
his camp; but it was not that warlike race which he formerly
recruited on the banks of the Po. Cannae was the term of his
success; and assuredly the fault ought not to be imputed to his
genius, more admirable even in adverse than in good fortune--his
army only had changed. For two thousand years history has accused
him with bitterness for his inaction after the battle of Aufidus,
and for his delay at Capua; perhaps it might reproach him more
justly for having removed from the north of Italy, and for having
allowed his communications with the soldiers who had conquered
under him at Thrasymene and Cannae, to be cut off. Rome perceived
the fault of Hannibal, and hastened to profit by it. Two armies in
_echelon_, the one to the north, and the other to the south,
intercepted the communication between the Cisalpines and Magna
Graecia. That of the north, by its incursions and by its threatening
attitude, occupied the Gauls at their own hearths, whilst the
second made head against the Carthaginians."--(I. 297-300.)

It has been said by the most renowned conqueror of modern times, that, give him but the Gallic infantry and the Mameluke cavalry, and he would subdue the world. And it cannot fail to strike the attentive reader with astonishment, to learn that the severest blow ever given to the power of Rome was inflicted by the Gaulish foot and the Numidian horse. It is curious, as exemplifying the unchanging characters of race, to observe that the greatest general of antiquity triumphed at the head of an army, composed of those very nations whom Napoleon, after the lapse of two thousand years, declared best fitted to pursue the blood-stained paths of military greatness.

The efforts of the Gauls did not cease with the battle of Cannae; they defeated an army under Posthumius, which invaded their territory. When Hasdrubal led his ill-fated expedition to strew their bodies on the Italian plains, he was accompanied by large bands of those brave adventurers; and when Carthage, making a last effort to succour her general, disembarked 14,000 men under the command of Mago, Hannibal's brother, at Genoa, numerous bodies of Gauls flocked to his standards. And this general, though unable to effect his junction with Hannibal, yet maintained his ground for ten years, till at last, defeated in the territory of the Insubrians, he retired to Genoa. There he received orders to return to the defence of Africa:--

"His brother also, recalled by the Carthaginian senate, was obliged
to embark at the other extremity of Italy. The Gaulish and Ligurian
soldiers, who had faithfully served Hannibal during seventeen
years, abandoned him not in his days of misfortune; re-united to
their compatriots who had followed Mago, they formed still a third
part of the Carthaginian army at Zama, in the celebrated day which
terminated that long war to the advantage of the Romans, and
displayed to the world the genius of Hannibal humbled before the
fortune of Scipio. The ferocity with which the Gauls fought has
been recorded by the historian: 'They showed themselves,' says
Titus Livy, 'inflamed with that inborn hate against the Roman
people, peculiar to their race.'"--(I. 310-311.)

The war in Cisalpine Gaul did not cease with the departure of Hannibal. Under the orders of Carthaginian officer, the Gauls again took the field--Placentia fell beneath their arms; but they received a severe defeat from L. Furius, in the year 200 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Amilcar perished. From this period till the year 191 B.C., the Gaulish nations were involved in a constant succession of wars, in which, though occasionally victorious, they were upon the whole unsuccessful. Exposed to the incessant incursions of the Romans, their strength gradually wasted away; each year left them in a state more exhausted and unfit to renew the war than the preceding. Nation after nation laid down their arms in despair, till at last the Boian confederacy stood alone in its resistance of a foreign yoke; but their ravaged lands and reduced numbers were unequal to the struggle, and when, in the year 190 B.C., the Roman armies advanced into the heart of their exhausted territory, the few remaining inhabitants determined to abandon the land of their birth, and to seek, amidst ruder nations, and beneath a more ungenial sky, for that liberty in defence of which their fathers had so often bled. Accordingly, the wreck of a hundred and twelve Boian tribes, rising _en masse_, united, and wending their weary steps over the snow-clad summits of the Alps, and through the pathless forests of Germany, they found at last, on the banks of the distant Danube, a resting-place far removed from the hated name of Rome.

All resistance from Cisalpine Gaul now ceased. Occasionally, indeed, a few tribes from the Transalpine would cross the Alps and descend into Italy, but they could not withstand the shock of the legions. The conquered territory was declared a Roman province, which it ever afterwards remained.

We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his account of the progress and fall of that strange Gaulish kingdom of Galatia. From the year 241 to the year 190 B.C., it maintained its independence unshaken, amidst the degenerate sons of Greece and the effeminate Asiatics. But the Roman power, beneath which the Gaulish race was ever doomed to bend, overtook them even amidst the mountains of Asia Minor. The Galatians had furnished some troops to Antiochus the Great, and then, for the first time, they came in contact with the eagle of the Capitol. The first encounter is thus alluded to by our author:--

"The Romans had annihilated, at Magnesia, the Asiatic and Greek
forces: yet the conquest of the country appeared to them still
incomplete. They had encountered, beneath the banners of Antiochus,
some bands of a force less easily conquered than the Syrians or the
Phrygians: by the armour, by the lofty stature, by the yellow or
reddish locks, by the war-cry, by the rattling clash of arms, by
the dauntless valour above all, the legions had easily recognised
that old enemy of Rome whom they had been brought up to fear.
Before deciding any thing as to the lot of the vanquished, the
Roman generals then determined to carry the war into Galatia."--(I.
360-361.)

Accordingly, in the spring of 189 B.C., Cn. Manlius, with 22,000 legionaries and an auxiliary army furnished by the King of Pergamus, invaded Galatia: at his approach the Tolistoboies and Tectosages intrenched themselves upon Mount Olympus, and the Trocmes upon Mount Megalon, and there awaited the attack. The consul first advanced to Mount Olympus. He led his troops to attack the Gaulish position in three columns; the principal column, under his own orders, was to advance on the Gauls in front, the other two were to try and turn their position on either flank. The column which he led first engaged.

"His _velites_ advanced in front of the standards, with the Cretan
archers of Attalus, the slingers, and the corps of Trulles and of
the Thracians. The infantry of the legions followed with slow
steps, as the steepness of the declivity rendered necessary,
sheltered beneath their bucklers, so as to avoid stones and arrows.
At a considerable distance the combat began with discharges of
arrows, and at first with equal success. The Gauls had the
advantage in position, the Romans in the number and variety of
their arms. The action continued, the equality no longer remained.
The narrow and flat bucklers of the Gauls protected them
insufficiently: soon having expended their darts and javelins, they
found themselves altogether disarmed: for at that distance their
sabres were useless. As they had made no selection of flints and
stones beforehand, they seized the first which chance threw in
their way, which were for the most part too large to be easily
wielded, or for inexperienced arms to throw with effect. The
Romans, meanwhile, poured down upon them a murderous hail of
arrows, javelins, and leaden balls, which wounded them, without
their having any possibility of avoiding the approach. * * * * A
great number had bit the dust, others adopted the course of rushing
right on the enemy, and they, at least, did not perish unavenged.
It was the corps of the Roman _velites_ who did them most harm.
These _velites_ carried on their left arm a buckler three feet in
size, in their right hand javelins, which they threw from afar, at
their girdle a Spanish sword; when it was necessary to engage in
close contact, they transferred their javelins to the left hand,
and drew their sword. Few Gauls now remained on foot: seeing then
the legions advance to the charge, they fled precipitately to their
camp, which the alarm of the multitude of women, children and old
men who were shut up within it, already filled with tumult and
confusion."--(I. 373-376.)

The other two columns had, from the difficult nature of the ground, been unable to make any progress. Manlius now led on his legionaries to assault the intrenchment, which they carried at the sword's point. A few days after this victory, Manlius advanced with his triumphant army to attack the Trocmes, who were intrenched on Mount Megalon. This battle resembled much, both in its progress and in its termination, the one which preceded it. The Trocmes were driven with slaughter from the field, and their camp taken. Dispirited by this double defeat, the Galatians, who had rallied their scattered forces behind the Halys, sued for peace. The Romans, desiring rather to conciliate than to irritate this warlike people, merely exacted that they should surrender the land which they had taken from the allies of Rome, and that they should give up their wandering and predatory habits, so injurious to all their neighbours. Under the influence of the forced peace in which the subjection of Asia to the Romans kept the Galatians, their manners rapidly changed. Asiatic luxury took the place of northern barbarity; the worship of the national gods was abandoned, and the idols of the stranger were substituted in their room; the coarse garments of ancient days, gave place to vestments of purple and gold: yet a little while, and the loss of national manners was followed by the loss of political privileges; the magistracies, formerly elective, now became hereditary; the families who usurped this privilege formed, in course of time, a bright and all-powerful aristocracy. Ambition limited the number of these magistracies; from twelve they were reduced to four; at last they were centred in a single hand: so that when Galatia was united as a province to the Roman empire, it was governed by a hereditary king. Yet, amidst this usurpation of the sovereign power, the national council of the Three Hundred still continued to exist, and assist in the government of the state.

During twenty years peace subsisted between the Galatians and their Asiatic neighbours. At the end of that period, however, a war broke out, and pillaging bands once more began to traverse the plains of Asia Minor; when Rome interposed, and by her mediation peace was restored. Mithridates, uniting beneath his sway all the powers of the East, drove back for a while the Roman eagles, and seemed about to restore their ancient glory to the Asiatics. The Galatians joined with him; but their fidelity became suspected, and he seized upon sixty of their nobles as hostages. Enraged at this treatment, they formed a plot to assassinate him; it was frustrated, and the conspirators were almost all treacherously put to death at a banquet. His troops then advancing, took possession of Galatia, which was governed by one of his officers with insolence and oppression for twelve years. At last a revolt broke out; his armies were driven from the country; Galatia was once more free. The defeat of Mithridates by the Roman arms ensured their independence for a short time; but the rest of Asia was now subject to the Romans. Surrounded, enveloped on all sides by their power, Galatia yielded at last, and was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the time of Augustus.

Here M. Thierry ends the first part of his History of the Gauls; and thus far we have followed him step by step, because we considered this both the least known and the most interesting portion of Gaulish history. The two periods which follow are more familiar to historical readers: because, during them, Rome was the great enemy of the Gauls; and if she has often palliated her defeats, she has at least never failed to chronicle her victories. Henceforth, therefore, we shall no longer attempt to follow the thread of his narrative. The victories of Marius, the campaigns of Caesar, stand in no need of our attention being directed to them, as to the wars of the Brenn in Greece, or the conquests of the horde in Asia Minor. Here we take leave of the Gaul as the conquering nomad; we have seen him wandering through the land of the stranger with fire and sword; but the hour of vengeance has now come, and we shall see him bleed in vain on his native soil for that liberty of which he had so often deprived others.

M. Thierry opens his history of the second period with an exceedingly interesting account of the state of Gaul during the second and third centuries before our era. Gaul was then inhabited by three distinct families or races. By the Iberian family--divided into the Aquitains and the Ligures. By the Gaulish family--divided into the Gauls, the Kimry, and the Belgians. And by the Ionian-Greek family, or the inhabitants of the powerful and flourishing maritime and commercial state of Massalia. The Iberian and Ionian-Greeks, families occupying comparatively but a small portion of Gaul, need not detain us. With the Gauls we have more to do. Our author gives the following account of the way in which their territory was divided amongst the three different bands of this family:--

"A line which, setting out from the mouth of the Tann, follows the
course of that river, then that of the Rhone, the Iser, the Alps,
the Rhine, the Vosges, the AEdnian hills, the Loire, the Vienne, and
comes at last to rejoin the Garonne, by turning the plateau of
Arvernia: that line would nearly circumscribe the possessions of
the Gallic race. The territory situated to the east of that limit
belonged to the race of the Kimry; it was in time divided into two
portions by the line of the Seine and the Marne, the one northern
and the other southern. To the south, between the Seine and the
Garonne, lived the Kimry of the first invasion, intermingled with
Gallic blood, or the Gallo-Kimry. To the north, between the Seine
and the Rhine, the Kimry of the second invasion, or Belgians. The
Gauls numbered twenty-two nations; the Gallo-Kimry, seventeen; and
the Belgians, twenty-three. These sixty-two nations were subdivided
into many hundred tribes."--(I. 28.)

He then enters into a long and most interesting description of the domestic manners, and political and religious institutions, of the Gauls.

After having traced the Gaul for so long in the field, we love to follow him into his cabin--to observe his appearance, his pursuits, his habits--to mark the manly figure, the fair complexion, the flowing yellow locks, the glittering helmet surmounted with the antlers of the stag, the buckler covered with all the colours of the rainbow, the polished cuirass flashing back the rays of the morning sun, the heavy sabre hanging from the gold-bespangled belt, the precious necklace, the rich armlets, the bright and variegated hues of the martial sagum or mantle, of the noble Gaulish warrior. We follow him as he turns away from his clay-built mansion, and, regardless of the silent tears and entreating looks of his submissive, perhaps ill-used wife, hurries into the noise and excitement of the battle-field. Observe the wild frenzy that there seems to seize him, as he rushes with dauntless courage on the bristling phalanx of his enemies; as, amidst the clouds of dust which float overhead, and the horrid cries which resound on all sides, he tears and widens with savage ferocity the fearful gash he has just received; as, a moment after, overcoming in personal conflict yon stalwart chief, he decapitates, with one blow of his heavy sabre, the yet palpitating corpse, and waves the gory head with demoniac triumph in the air; and as he returns home, yet reeking with blood and intoxicated with victory, and suspends above his threshold the ghastly trophy. Look again--the scene is changed--the glittering arms are flung aside. With his mantle floating in the breeze, his light spear quivering in his hand, he plunges into the pathless forest; with fearless step he pursues his way through the leafy shade, and traverses the treacherous surface of the morass. Beneath yon giant oak he has encountered the fiercest inhabitant of those solitudes--the wild bull; but it has fallen beneath his javelin, which yet protrudes from it bushy neck, and, as it lies struggling on the greensward, making the wood ring again with its bellowings, his dagger is raised to give it the final stroke.--Observe him once more in the council of his nation. The warriors stand in an attentive circle leaning on their arms; he has risen to address them; his action is animated, his words are vehement; the polished accents, the finished periods of the Greek, flow not from his lips, but there is eagerness in his eye, there is earnestness in his speech, his language is figurative in the extreme, a thousand picturesque and striking images illustrate his meaning; his metaphors, drawn from the battle and the chase, thrill to the bosom of all his listeners; and the clash and clang of their arms, amidst which he sits down, proclaims alike their assent to his proposition and their admiration of his eloquence. It is amidst scenes like these that we love to follow the Gaul, to picture to ourselves an old race and an old civilization, which combined in so strange a way the greatness and the savageness, the heroism in danger and weakness under temptation, of primeval and half-civilized man.

To comprehend clearly the internal and external history of the Gauls, we must understand the political condition of their country. This is unfolded in a clear and masterly manner by our author, in the following passage:--

"In Gaul, two privileged orders ruled the rest of the people--the
elective order of the priests, who recruited themselves
indiscriminately from all ranks, and the hereditary order of the
nobles or knights. This latter was composed of the ancient royal
families of the tribes, and of those men who had been recently
ennobled, either by war or by the influence of riches. The
multitudes were divided into two classes--the people of the
country, and the people of the town. The first formed the tribes or
the clans of the noble families. The client belonged to his patron,
whose domains he cultivated, whose standard he followed in war,
under whom he was a member of a little patriarchal aristocracy; his
duty was to defend him to the death from, and against all: to
abandon his patron in circumstances of danger, passed for the
consummation of disgrace, and even for a crime. The people of the
towns, from their situation, removed from the influence of the old
hierarchy of the tribes, enjoyed greater liberty, and fortunately
found themselves in a situation to maintain and to defend it.
Beneath the mass of the people came the slaves, who do not appear
to have been very numerous. The two privileged orders caused the
yoke of their despotism to weigh, turn by turn, upon Gaul. Turn by
turn they exercised absolute authority, and lost it by a series of
political revolutions. The history of the government of the Gauls
offers, then, three very distinct periods: that of the reign of the
priests, or of the theocracy--that of the reign of the chiefs of
the tribes, or of the military aristocracy--lastly, that of the
popular constitutions, founded on the principle of election, and on
the will of the majority. The epoch which we are about to treat of,
accomplished that last and great revolution; and popular
constitutions, although still ill assured, at last ruled over all
Gaul at the commencement of the first age."--(II. 71-73.)

M. Thierry recognises in the Gauls the traces of two distinct religions. He says--

"When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative to
the religious belief of the Gauls, we are led to recognise two
systems of ideas, two bodies of symbols and superstitions
altogether distinct--in a word, two religions: the one altogether
sensible, derived from the adoration of natural phenomena, and by
its forms, as well as by its literal development, reminding us of
the polytheism of the Greeks; the other founded upon a material
pantheism, metaphysical, mysterious, sacerdotal, and presenting the
most astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. That
last has received the name of druidism, from the druids who were
its founders and priests. We shall give to the first the name of
the Gaulish polytheism."--(II. 73-74.)

Thierry thinks that this polytheism originally prevailed amongst the Gauls, but that the Kimry introduced druidism, which soon became the dominant religion over the whole of Gaul, though the original polytheism ingrafted upon it more or less, in different places, some of its tenets and ceremonies. The great seat of the religion of the druids was Armorika, and, above all, Britain; there existed the most powerful of their sacerdotal colleges--there were celebrated the most secret of their mysteries.

It is wondrous thing, that religion of the ancient druids! A solemn mystery enshrouds it--all the efforts of modern science cannot lift the veil. When we look on yon circle of stones which, grey with the lapse of ages, stands in lonely majesty upon the dreary moor, near which no sound is ever heard, save the distant and sullen roar of the ocean, as it breaks in sheets of foam on the rock-bound coast--the fitful cry of curlew, as it wings over them its solitary way--or the occasional low moaning of the wind, as, stealing through amidst the rocks, it seems to pour forth a mournful dirge for the shades of departed greatness:--when we look on a scene like this, we have before our gaze all that is known of these men of the olden time. Their blood-stained rites, their solemn mysteries, are forgotten; but their simple temples still stand imperishable as the God to whom they were erected. From the study of the ancient authors little or no information can be gleaned; a few descriptions of their bloody sacrifices, an account of some of their more public ceremonials, is all that they have handed down to us. But the real nature of their religion is unknown: more of its spirit is taught to us by those silent stones than by all other accounts put together. The choice of the situations for those sacred monuments amidst the melancholy waste, or buried deep in the recesses of some vast forest, where the wide-spreading branches of their sacred tree (the oak) casts its deep shadows over the consecrated spot, with no canopy save the heavens, shows the dark and gloomy spirit of their faith. They worshipped the God of the thunder-storm, not the God of peace; and it was amidst the thunder-storm that their horrid rites appeared most horrid. When, illuminated by the lurid glare of the lightning, the gigantic osier figure filled with human beings sank into the flames--when the shouts of the multitude who stood in a dense circle around the spot, the frenzied chants of the druids, and the despairing shrieks of the dying victims, were drowned in the sullen roar of the thunder--then must the fearful nature of their creed have stood forth in all its horrors. Yet with all this, there was a sort of grandeur in the seclusion and simplicity of their worship. All was not blood; and though they bowed down to the Unknown God in an erring and mistaken spirit, yet must their conception of him been fine. The God of nature and the wilderness--the God of the tempest and the storm--was a nobler idea than the immortalized humanities of Greek and Roman mythology, though both had wandered equally far from the true God of Mercy and of Peace.

When Massalia was hard pressed by two Gaulish nations, she summoned, in an evil hour, Rome to her aid. By the Roman arms her assailants were repelled, but these allies maintained their footing in the country. They soon subdued Liguria, and founded the town of Aquae Sextiae; the Gaulish nation of the AEdues united with the strangers; a defensive league entered into by the Allobroges and the Arvernes to drive them from their shores, was defeated. The territory acquired by these victories was organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps. In the year 118 B.C., the first Roman colony in Gaul was founded at Narbonne; hither, in course of time, came the great maritime commerce which had raised Massalia to her greatness; hither, too, flowed much of the internal traffic of Gaul. The ships of Massalia lay rotting in her harbours, her extensive quays lost their busy multitudes. In the fall of her naval power, in the loss of her commercial policy, she received a just reward for having wafted to her shores, and assisted with her forces, the stranger who was destined to rule over the Gaulish people. The organization of the province was completed; and from Narbonne, Roman emissaries issuing forth, laboured, by augmenting the quarrels and dissensions of the native tribes, to afford an opportunity for her to extend the limits of the empire.

Driven from the shores of the Baltic by an inroad of the ocean, the two tribes of the Kimry and the Teutones uniting, precipitated themselves, to the number of 300,000 fighting men, upon the more southern countries. In the course of their wanderings they came upon the Roman province of Norica, which they laid waste with fire and sword, and where they defeated the consul, Papirius Carbon, with great loss. Without taking advantage of this opportunity to enter Italy, which now lay open to their attack, they entered the country of the Helvetii, where they were joined by the tribes of that people, the Ambrones, the Tigurines, and the Teutones; descending now upon Gaul like a devastating torrent, they wasted it as far as the Belgian frontier; here, however, the resistance of the inhabitants prevented them from advancing further. Turning now upon the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, they defeated three Roman armies under Silanus, Cassius, and Scaurus; and here they were joined by that portion of the Tectosages who had formerly returned from the disastrous invasion of Greece. The Roman generals, Cepio and Manlius, who had advanced against them, were utterly routed, and great part of the province laid waste. From hence the Kimry penetrated into Spain, where they remained for two years, pillaging and wasting the country, till, having received a check from the Celtiberians, they repassed the Pyrenees, and united with their confederated in the plains of Gaul. The united bands now prepared to march upon Italy; this they did in two divisions: one, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, directed its steps through Helvetia and Norica and by the Tridentine Alps; while the other, consisting of the Ambrones and the Teutones, moved on the route which leads to Italy by the Maritime Alps: both divisions had appointed a common rendezvous on the banks of the Po.

Rome was not unprepared for this invasion; to meet it, Marius had been recalled from his command in Africa, and invested with the consular power. When the division of the Ambrones and the Teutones reached the Maritime Alps, they found that general encamped in a position which lay directly in their line of march. Assaulted for three successive days, the Romans maintained themselves in their intrenchments: at last the Gauls, giving up the attempt to force them, passed on and soon reached Aquae Sextiae, whither they were followed by Marius. Marius encamped on a hill opposite the quarter of the Ambrones; between them flowed a river. The sutlers of the Roman army having descended to obtain water, encountered, in the bed of the torrent, some Gauls. A skirmish began; the Ambrones flocked in great numbers to support their comrades; soon they assembled their whole force and advanced upon the Romans. In crossing the stream they were vigorously opposed by the auxiliaries. Marius, seeing the favourable opportunity, led down his legions to the attack. Unable to withstand the shock, the Ambrones were driven back with great loss; the river ran red with their blood; the plain was covered with fugitives; and their routed forces halted not till they reached the neighbouring quarter of the Teutones. In their camp the Romans experienced more resistance from the women, who, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, flung themselves on the hostile ranks, or perished by their own hands. Marius drew off his troops before night, and retreated to his former position on the hill. The next night he sent round 3000 men to occupy a wood in the rear of the position of the Teutones. The following morning he drew out his legions in battle array upon the slope of the hill, and sent forward his cavalry to skirmish with the enemy, and induce them to engage with him. They fell into the snare: pursuing his cavalry, they advanced to the river's edge, and there, in an evil hour, crossed it and attacked the Roman army. The contest which ensued was long and desperate; the Gauls had the advantage in numbers, the Romans in discipline and position. But while victory still hung in the balance, the 3000 Romans, issuing forth from their ambuscade, fell upon the rear of the Teutones: this produced irremediable confusion in the ranks of the Gauls. The Romans redoubled the energy of their attack, and the victory was no longer doubtful. Many perished in the field, more in the pursuit; the remainder were cut off in detail by the peasants, who assailed them on all sides.

Meanwhile the other divisions of the Gauls, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, after traversing Helvetia and Norica, arrived at the Tridentine passes of the Alps at the end of winter. To keep possession of these passes the Tigurines halted upon the summits of the ridge, while the Kimry, continuing their march, descended into the valley of the Adige. On their approach the consul Catulus, who was charged with the defence of this part of Italy, retreated behind the Adige; and when the Gauls advanced to attack him, his legions were seized with such a panic, that, abandoning their camp, they fled, and halted not till they had placed the Po between themselves and the enemy. The Kimry now spread themselves over the whole territory beyond the Po, and occupied the land without opposition: here they determined to await the arrival of the other column. This delay saved Italy; for it afforded time for Marius and his army to cross the Alps, and effect a junction with Catulus and his troops. In the July of 101 B.C., Marius and Catulus advanced to meet the Kimry on the banks of the Po. On the 30th of July the hostile armies met to decide the fate of Italy in the Campus Ranolius. The battle which ensued was long and bloody; but overcome by the heat of the day and the immense clouds of dust, and exposed by their imperfect defensive armour to all the strokes of the enemy, the Kimry were in the end totally defeated. When the Romans, in the course of the pursuit, came to their camp, the same scene occurred as that which took place at Aquae Sextiae; as the women, after defending themselves for some time, at last put an end to their existence with their own hands. On receiving news of this defeat, the Tigurines abandoned the passes of the Alps, and retreated to their native country, Helvetia. Thus ended the last invasion of Italy by the Gauls. Rome acknowledged the danger she had run by the gratitude she displayed to Marius, who received the title of the third Romulus, and his triumph was celebrated with all the enthusiasm of a grateful country.

We pass in silence over the various occurrences in Gaul till we come to the year 58 B.C. This was the year when Caesar commenced his career of victory. His first achievement was the defeat of the Helvetii, who, rising _en masse_, wished to abandon their sterile country, and gain by the sword a more fertile land. He next advanced against Ariovistus and his Germans, who were ravaging with fire and sword the eastern portions of Gaul: these he likewise totally routed--thus delivering the inhabitants from a withering scourge. But their joy at this event was soon changed into sadness, when they saw that the Romans had no intention of retreating from their territory. Establishing himself amongst the Sequanes, Caesar levied contributions and collected provisions from all the neighbouring nations. Their discontent soon burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable genius of Caesar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents of innocent blood too often stained his arms. Suffice it to say, that after three campaigns, the north and west had submitted to his forces, and he had made his first descent on the British shores. In his fourth campaign he undertook his second expedition against Britain, and subdued some more of the continental tribes. But a general movement now took place over nearly the whole of Gaul against the Romans, who at first suffered some severe checks; but the military skill of Caesar, in the course of a fifth campaign, again triumphed. Though so often vanquished, these brave people were not yet subdued. A new league was entered into by their cities; the war broke out afresh; and an able general, Vercingeto-rix, now directed their movements. It was during the course of his sixth campaign, which now followed, that Caesar ran the greatest danger and achieved the greatest triumphs. The surprise of Genatum, the capture of Avaricum, seemed at first to promise a speedy victory to his arms; but a repulse which he suffered before the walls of Geronia was the signal for the whole of Gaul to unite with the insurgents. A victory which he gained over Vercingeto-rix soon afterwards, checked for the moment, but did not dispirit, the Gauls; and the whole weight of the war was soon collected around the ramparts of Alexia. Both parties felt that the contest which would now ensue must decide the fate of the campaign, and both made the most strenuous exertions to prepare for it. The gigantic lines of Caesar were soon surrounded by the whole force of the enemy, and a combined attack was made upon them both from within and without. Great and imminent was the peril; but the steadiness of the legions, and the gallantry of their chief, surmounted it, and the banners of Rome finally waved triumphant over the hard-fought field. The fruits of this victory were immense. Alexia capitulated; the Gaulish nations who had been most active in the war submitted; and Vercingeto-rix was given up to the conquerors. Yet was a great part of the country still unsubdued; and when in the ensuing year, B.C. 51, Caesar took the field in his seventh and last campaign in this country, he found a powerful and numerous confederacy in arms. Taught by the experience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on him the necessity of innumerable sieges; whilst the country, on his line of march, was laid waste, and his troops were harassed by the incessant attacks of their skirmishers. But Caesar overcame all difficulties: if they met him in battle, they were vanquished; if they retreated to their fortifications, they were driven from them by escalade; if they took refuge in their marshes, he pursued and overtook them even there. Dispirited by these constant defeats, the Gauls, for the last time, laid down their arms. The conquered territory was organized as a new province of the Roman empire, and Caesar laboured to attach it to his person by the lenity and moderation of his government. In this he succeeded; nor had he ever reason to repent of having done so; for, during the civil wars which raised him to the imperial power, he received no inconsiderable assistance from the courage and devotion of its inhabitants. Here, as a free people, ends the history of the Gauls. We shall not follow M. Thierry in his account of the last period of their annals, which embraces the subjugation of the Britons; the organization of Gaul into a subject province; the gradual loss of their nationality by its inhabitants; the spread of Roman manners and Roman civilization amongst them; their transition from an independent people to an integral part of the Roman empire. Here we take leave of them: their arms have just dropped from their hands; liberty has just fled from their shores; the fetters of conquest sit strangely on their free-born limbs; they have not yet learned the vices of a subject race: after having followed them in their career of conquest, and through the hard-fought struggle in their native land, we love not to dwell on the crushing of their haughty spirit.

Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well; but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the wars of Caesar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of genius; and accordingly, in his work, we are more struck with the interest of his narrative than with the profoundness of his reflections: it contains not the philosophy of Guizot, nor the originality of Michelet, yet it is a valuable addition to modern literature. Would that we saw a few more such in our own country!

FOOTNOTES:

{A} _Histoire des Gaulois_, par M. AMADEE THIERRY. 3 tomes. Paris: 1835.

THE WITCHFINDER.