crushed only after a desperate struggle on the banks of the Sambre, in which Caesar was forced to expose his person in the mêlée. Finally, the Aduatuci (near Namur) were compelled to submit, and were punished for their subsequent treachery by being sold wholesale into slavery. In the meantime Caesar’s lieutenant, P. Crassus, received the submission of the tribes of the north-east, so that by the close of the campaign almost the whole of Gaul—except the Aquitani in the south-west—acknowledged Roman suzerainty.
In 56 B.C., however, the Veneti of Brittany threw off the yoke and detained two of Crassus’s officers as hostages. Caesar, who had been hastily summoned from Illyricum, crossed the Loire and invaded Brittany, but found that he could make no headway without destroying the powerful fleet of high, flat-bottomed boats like floating castles possessed by the Veneti. A fleet was hastily constructed in the estuary of the Loire, and placed under the command of Decimus Brutus. The decisive engagement was fought (probably) in the Gulf of Morbihan and the Romans gained the victory by cutting down the enemy’s rigging with sickles attached to poles. As a punishment for their treachery, Caesar put to death the senate of the Veneti and sold their people into slavery. Meanwhile Sabinus was victorious on the northern coasts, and Crassus subdued the Aquitani. At the close of the season Caesar raided the territories of the Morini and Menapii in the extreme north-west.
In 55 B.C. certain German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteri, crossed the lower Rhine, and invaded the modern Flanders. Caesar at once marched to meet them, and, on the pretext that they had violated a truce, seized their leaders who had come to parley with him, and Expeditions to Britain.then surprised and practically destroyed their host. His enemies in Rome accused him of treachery, and Cato even proposed that he should be handed over to the Germans. Caesar meanwhile constructed his famous bridge over the Rhine in ten days, and made a demonstration of force on the right bank. In the remaining weeks of the summer he made his first expedition to Britain, and this was followed by a second crossing in 54 B.C. On the first occasion Caesar took with him only two legions, and effected little beyond a landing on the coast of Kent. The second expedition consisted of five legions and 2000 cavalry, and set out from the Portus Itius (Boulogne or Wissant; see T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar, 1907, later views in Classical Review, May 1909, and H. S. Jones, in Eng. Hist. Rev. xxiv., 1909, p. 115). Caesar now penetrated into Middlesex and crossed the Thames, but the British prince Cassivellaunus with his war-chariots harassed the Roman columns, and Caesar was compelled to return to Gaul after imposing a tribute which was never paid.
The next two years witnessed the final struggle of the Gauls for freedom. Just before the second crossing to Britain, Dumnorix, an Aeduan chief, had been detected in treasonable intrigues, and killed in an attempt to escape from Caesar’s camp. At the close of the campaign Caesar distributed his legions over a somewhat wide extent of territory. Two of their camps were treacherously attacked. At Aduatuca (near Aix-la-Chapelle) a newly-raised legion was cut to pieces by the Eburones under Ambiorix, while Quintus Cicero was besieged in the neighbourhood of Namur and only just relieved in time by Caesar, who was obliged to winter in Gaul in order to check the spread of the rebellion. Indutiomarus, indeed, chief of the Treveri (about Trèves), revolted and attacked Labienus, but was defeated and killed. The campaign of 53 B.C. was marked by a second crossing of the Rhine and by the destruction of the Eburones, whose leader Ambiorix, however, escaped. In the autumn Caesar held a conference at Durocortorum (Reims), and Acco, a chief of the Senones, was convicted of treason and flogged to death.
Early in 52 B.C. some Roman traders were massacred at Cenabum (Orléans), and, on hearing the news, the Arverni revolted under Vercingetorix and were quickly joined by other tribes, especially the Bituriges, whose capital was Avaricum (Bourges). Caesar hastened back from Italy, slipped past Vercingetorix and reached Agedincum (Sens), the headquarters of his legions. Vercingetorix saw that Caesar could not be met in open battle, and determined to concentrate his forces in a few strong positions. Caesar first besieged and took Avaricum, whose occupants were massacred, and then invested Gergovia (near the Puy-de-Dôme), the capital of the Arverni, but suffered a severe repulse and was forced to raise the siege. Hearing that the Roman province was threatened, he marched westward, defeated Vercingetorix near Dijon and shut him up in Alesia (Mont-Auxois), which he surrounded with lines of circumvallation. An attempt at relief by Vercassivellaunus was defeated after a desperate struggle and Vercingetorix surrendered. The struggle was over except for some isolated operations in 51 B.C., ending with the siege and capture of Uxellodunum (Puy d’Issolu), whose defenders had their hands cut off. Caesar now reduced Gaul to the form of a province, fixing the tribute at 40,000,000 sesterces (£350,000), and dealing liberally with the conquered tribes, whose cantons were not broken up.
In the meantime his own position was becoming critical. In 56 B.C., at the conference of Luca (Lucca), Caesar, Pompey and Crassus had renewed their agreement, and Caesar’s command in Gaul, which would have expired on the 1st of March 54 B.C., was renewed, probably Break-up of the Coalition.for five years, i.e. to the 1st of March 49 B.C., and it was enacted that the question of his successor should not be discussed until the 1st of March 50 B.C., by which time the provincial commands for 49 B.C. would have been assigned, so that Caesar would retain imperium, and thus immunity from persecution, until the end of 49 B.C. He was to be elected consul for 48 B.C., and, as the law prescribed a personal canvass, he was by special enactment dispensed from its provisions. But in 54 B.C. Julia, the daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey, died, and in 53 B.C. Crassus was killed at Carrhae. Pompey now drifted apart from Caesar and became the champion of the senate. In 52 B.C. he passed a fresh law de jure magistratuum which cut away the ground beneath Caesar’s feet by making it possible to provide a successor to the Gallic provinces before the close of 49 B.C., which meant that Caesar would become for some months a private person, and thus liable to be called to account for his unconstitutional acts. Caesar had no resource left but uncompromising obstruction, which he sustained by enormous bribes. His representative in 50 B.C., the tribune C. Scribonius Curio, served him well, and induced the lukewarm majority of the senate to refrain from extreme measures, insisting that Pompey, as well as Caesar, should resign the imperium. But all attempts at negotiation failed, and in January 49 B.C., martial law having been proclaimed on the proposal of the consuls, the tribunes Antony and Cassius fled to Caesar, who crossed the Rubicon (the frontier of Italy) with a single legion, exclaiming “Alea jacta est.”
Pompey’s available force consisted in two legions stationed in Campania, and eight, commanded by his lieutenants, Afranius and Petreius, in Spain; both sides levied troops in Italy. Caesar was soon joined by two legions from Gaul and marched rapidly down the Adriatic The Civil War.coast, overtaking Pompey at Brundisium (Brindisi), but failing to prevent him from embarking with his troops for the East, where the prestige of his name was greatest. Hereupon Caesar (it is said) exclaimed “I am going to Spain to fight an army without a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without an army.” He carried out the first part of this programme with marvellous rapidity. He reached Ilerda (Lerida) on the 23rd of June and, after extricating his army from a perilous situation, outmanœuvred Pompey’s lieutenants and received their submission on the 2nd of August. Returning to Rome, he held the dictatorship for eleven days, was elected consul for 48 B.C., and set sail for Epirus at Brundisium on the 4th of January. He attempted to invest Pompey’s lines at Dyrrhachium (Durazzo), though his opponent’s force was double that of his own, and was defeated with considerable loss. He now marched eastwards, in order if possible to intercept the reinforcements which Pompey’s father-in-law, Scipio, was bringing up; but Pompey
