Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico

Beginning next month, it looks like I will start working on my PhD thesis at Humboldt University here in Berlin in my spare time. My topic is Greek comedy, so this will probably be my last entry on anything else.

Caesar assumes his readers agree Rome have a right to dominate Gaul and little consideration is given to the Gauls’ experience of the war. So passages where Caesar confronted the disturbing side of imperialism drew my attention.

“Collateral damage” and civilian casualties have always been serious concerns for occupying forces. The problem is even worse here, because Caesar’s enemies often bring their families to war (all translations here taken from McDevitte and Bohn):

…omnemque aciem suam raedis et carris circumdederunt, ne qua spes in fuga relinqueretur. Eo mulieres imposuerunt, quae ad proelium proficiscentes milites passis manibus flentes implorabant ne se in servitutem Romanis traderent.

[They] surrounded their whole army with their chariots and wagons, that no hope might be left in flight. On these they placed their women, who, with disheveled hair and in tears, entreated the soldiers, as they went forward to battle, not to deliver them into slavery to the Romans.

Book 1, Chapter 51

Then, when Caesar wins, of course some of the women are killed in the slaughter that follows:

Duae fuerunt Ariovisti uxores…utraque in ea fuga periit; duae filiae: harum altera occisa, altera capta est.

Ariovistus had two wives…both perished in that flight. Of their two daughters, one was slain, the other captured.

Book 1, Chapter 53

Caesar uses a construction that avoids specifying who killed them, making their deaths impersonal and somehow inevitable. But Caesar prides himself on the discipline of his soldiers and his own clemency with his enemies. Why didn’t he simply give his soldiers orders not to kill non-combatants?

In the case above, it appears the civilian deaths were accidental, the inevitable casualties of a chaotic melee. But later Caesar’s culpability is clear, and he just as clearly tries to avoid responsibility, even offering an excuse:

Sic et Cenabi caede et labore operis incitati non aetate confectis, non mulieribus, non infantibus pepercerunt.

Thus, being excited by the massacre at Genabum and the fatigue of the siege, they spared neither those worn out with years, women, or children.

Book 7, chapter 28

He admits children were killed but even here uses a circumlocution to refer to the elderly. Caesar offers a motivation for the soldiers’ slaughtering of innocents: they were exhausted from the siege and he also mentions just before they had no interest in plunder. This entails two assumptions: that soldiers are responsible for their own actions, which is sort of like a man blaming his penis for a rape; and soldiers will by default kill women, children and the elderly if they are in a bad mood and undistracted by plunder. If these assumptions are unconvincing, then it can be concluded that Caesar actually ordered the soldiers to kill civilians to punish the enemy and serve as a warning to the rest. Given this war took place in a time when such tactics were hardly unacceptable, it’s interesting to note Ceasar still goes out of his way to conceal them.

A final passage describing the death of Dumnorix shows Caesar’s conflicted sympathy for the Guals’ cause, who after all were only fighting for their freedom as the Romans would if the tables were turned:

…quod longius eius amentiam progredi videbat…, dabat operam ut in officio Dumnorigem contineret….At omnium impeditis animis Dumnorix cum equitibus Aeduorum a castris insciente Caesare domum discedere coepit. Qua re nuntiata Caesar intermissa profectione atque omnibus rebus postpositis magnam partem equitatus ad eum insequendum mittit retrahique imperat; si vim faciat neque pareat, interfici iubet, nihil hunc se absente pro sano facturum arbitratus, qui praesentis imperium neglexisset. Ille enim revocatus resistere ac se manu defendere suorumque fidem implorare coepit, saepe clamitans liberum se liberaeque esse civitatis. Illi, ut erat imperatum, circumsistunt hominem atque interficiunt: at equites Aedui ad Caesarem omnes revertuntur.

Because [Ceasar] perceived [Dumnorix's] insane designs to be proceeding further and further…he exerted himself to keep Dumnorix in his allegiance…. But, while the minds of all were occupied, Dumnorix began to take his departure from the camp homeward with the cavalry of the Aedui, Caesar being ignorant of it. Caesar, on this matter being reported to him, ceasing from his expedition and deferring all other affairs, sends a great part of the cavalry to pursue him, and commands that he be brought back; he orders that if he use violence and do not submit, that he be slain; considering that Dumnorix would do nothing as a rational man while he himself was absent, since he had disregarded his command even when present. He, however, when recalled, began to resist and defend himself with his hand, and implore the support of his people, often exclaiming that “he was free and the subject of a free state.” They surround and kill the man as they had been commanded; but the Aeduan horsemen all return to Caesar.

Book 5, Chapter 7

Caesar uses two words for “insane” in reference to Dumnorix, although it’s hard to determine what’s insane about the Gaul’s actions, except that the Romans present an overwhelming force and he will most likely lose. Even more intriguing is that Ceasar reports Dumnorix’s words, which are anything but insane. Instead, Dumnorix sounds like he is valiantly fighting for a noble but lost cause: Gallic freedom. To me, this shows that Caesar was in some way a conflicted imperialist: coming from a culture that unequivocally celebrated domination and therefore Roman freedom, he couldn’t help but sympathize with those who fought for their freedom, as Romans themselves would have in the same situation. The Gaul’s words must have moved him, even as he felt compelled by his chauvinistic nationalism to call them irrational.