Over the winter of 57 and 56 BCE, Caesar had to make a decision to make.
He was almost half way through his 5-year term as the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine
Gaul, and Illyricum.
If he had any post-governorship ambitions, he had to start making plans now.
He could go back to the Senate and assume his place as a leader in the Reform faction,
but that wasn't nearly as exciting as being at the head of an army.
Plus, throughout Caesar's life we get hints that he didn't love the Senate.
Remember, during his year as consul he did everything in his power to cut the Senate
out of the legislative process.
He could run for consul again, but legally there had to be a 10 year gap between consulships,
and the Senate wasn't likely to grand an exemption in his case.
That put his next eligibility at 49 BCE at the earliest.
Caesar sent for his fellow Triumvirs, his not-so-secret political allies, Pompey and
Crassus.
The three men met in a town called Luca, in Cisalpine Gaul.
This meeting, which is known to history as the Luca Conference, has become the stuff
of legend.
Later writers would claim that hundreds of senators accompanied Pompey and Crassus on
this pilgrimage, but this is probably a later invention.
When the three men met, Caesar had a proposal waiting for them.
First, he wanted Pompey and Crassus to both run for consul.
It was winter now, elections were usually held in the late summer, and if they were
successful, they would assume office the following January.
Second, once they were in office, Caesar wanted them to put forward legislation extending
his term as governor.
He was midway through a five-year term now, and he wanted another five years added on
to that.
At the end of 10 years as governor, he would be eligible for another term as consul.
Third, he wanted Pompey and Crassus to secure for themselves, with the support of Caesar's
allies back in Rome, powerful governorships of their own.
They agreed that Pompey would get both of the Spanish provinces, and Crassus would get
the prestigious province of Syria.
With all three Triumvirs in charge of powerful provinces, they would each be able to focus
on their own affairs and stay out of each other's hair.
See, there were rumours circulating at the time that Crassus was secretly offering financial
support to Clodius back in Rome.
On paper, Clodius was an ally of Caesar's, but in reality, the man was out of control.
Remember, Clodius had indirectly come into conflict with Pompey over the issue of Cicero's
banishment.
If this rumour was true and Crassus was financing this conflict, it means that the Triumvirate
was beginning to crumble.
The three men agreed to this plan, and Pompey and Crassus returned home.
The Triumvirate wasn't just held together by political necessity, but also by a bunch
of small personal connections.
For instance, Crassus's son, Publius Crassus, was serving under Caesar in Gaul.
Publius was probably in his late 20s and too young for a command, but after the Conference
of Luca, Caesar began to ignore convention and unofficially put him in charge of a legion
anyway.
This was probably done as a favour to old man Crassus.
For the coming year, Caesar sent the young Crassus and his one legion deep into Northwestern
Gaul, to secure some tacit support from the tribes in the region with a nonviolent show
of force.
He also sent another legion, under the command of a legate named Galba, to the Alps.
By this way, this Galba's son's son's son would be a future Roman Emperor.
Galba's job was to set up permanent outposts, which would protect travelers from the Gauls
living in the mountains.
As it was now, traveling through the Alps was extremely dangerous, especially for traders.
If Caesar was planning on being in Gaul for another 7+ years, he wanted to make it as
easy as possible for goods to get goods in and out of Italy.
While constructing one of these mountain outposts, Galba's legion was attacked by the native
Gauls, and for a time they were completely surrounded.
But Galba kept his cool and broke out in a surprise attack, which won him the day.
With one legion busy establishing a safe route through the Alps, and another legion making
peace with the tribes in Northwestern Gaul, Caesar in his commentaries says that Gaul
was “reduced to a state of tranquility.”
This mark's a bit of a turning point in Rome's relationship with Gaul.
Caesar was no longer simply reacting to events.
He was behaving as if Rome was there to stay.
Permanently.
But Gaul's tranquility couldn't last forever.
In Northwestern Gaul, the young Crassus had established diplomatic relations with many
of the tribes in the region, and accepted hostages from them as a sign of good faith.
The hostages weren't kept in cages or anything, they just lived with the Romans, and were
used as collateral if anything weird happened.
This was normal practice in the ancient world, especially when a powerful state bumped up
against a weak one.
Some of these hostages were from a tribe called the Veneti.
The young Crassus later sent diplomats to the Veneti to negotiate the purchase of some
grain.
When they arrived, the Veneti arrested the diplomats, and took them as hostages of their
own.
Who knows why they did this.
They may have seen it as a fair exchange for the hostages taken by Rome.
They may have been annoyed with the Romans for showing up and acting around like they
owned the place.
It could have been a simple misunderstanding.
Either way, I think it's pretty clear that this was a minor diplomatic incident.
But when Caesar got word of this, he chose to interpret the act as a formal declaration
of war, and a full-blown Gallic uprising.
He immediately ordered a fleet of ships built on a river that lead to the Atlantic Ocean,
and mobilized his entire army.
He then sent a message to the young Crassus, telling him to move south and continue establishing
contact with the tribes there.
With that done, he ordered three fresh legions to the Northwestern Gaul, to stop neighbouring
tribes from aligning themselves with the Veneti.
Then he instructed Labienus to go with one legion to the newly pacified Belgae territory,
just in case they took this opportunity to try something.
This left Caesar with three legions for himself.
He told his river-fleet to start moving towards the Atlantic Ocean whenever they were ready,
and marched off.
He would deal with the Veneti personally.
The Veneti specialized in sea trade, so when they heard that there were a bunch of angry
Romans coming their way, their first instinct was to load everyone onto their giant sailing
ships and get out of there.
They watched from just offshore as Caesar came across their abandoned villages, and
systematically burned them to the ground.
What the Veneti didn't expect was for a Roman fleet to appear seemingly out of nowhere.
Roman ships were tiny things with oars, designed for going back and forth across the Mediterranean,
while the Veneti ships were these monsters with giant sails designed for long distance
travel in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Romans ships attacked, but they quickly discovered that the huge Veneti ships were
too sturdy to ram, and too tall to board normally.
But they were able to figure out that they could pull up alongside them, and pull down
the Veneti rigging with big hooks on poles, preventing them from sailing away.
After that, it was only a matter of time before the Romans figured out how to climb onto the
Veneti ships.
Caesar's army watched from the shore as the Romans destroyed the Veneti fleet.
The surviving Veneti surrendered to Caesar unconditionally.
He had their entire ruling council put to death, and everybody else, he sold into slavery.
This was an unthinkably harsh punishment for something so small.
This caused an uprising by some of the neighbouring tribes but these were put down by the three
legions stationed nearby.
Try to notice the subtle change that has taken place here.
Caesar isn't positioning his legions as if he's a general marching through enemy territory.
He's moved in.
He's enforcing the peace.
With only a short time left in the campaigning season, Caesar marched towards Belgae territory.
There had been a small uprising there as well, which Labienus had successfully put down.
The thing that still bothered Caesar was that there were two tribes around modern Calais
that he said never formally made peace with him after he subdued the Belgae.
In Caesar's mind, they were still in war.
This is a pretty weak excuse to march all the way across Gaul.
Even if it was true, these people did literally nothing to provoke him.
When Caesar arrived, these villages were abandoned as well.
They must have heard what happened to the Veneti.
The Romans set up their camp in a forested area, and all of a sudden, without warning,
they were attacked.
The Roman infantry didn't even have time to assemble, they just got into random groups
and formed a line of defence as fast as they could.
They took heavy losses, but they held, and it's a small miracle that they weren't completely
overrun.
The Gauls fell back and the Romans gave chase into the woods.
Caesar notes that in the woods his men suffered even heavier losses.
This implies that the Romans may have been lead into further ambushes, but Caesar glosses
over this.
In the days that followed, Caesar turned this temporary camp into a permanent one, by clear-cutting
the trees surrounding the camp for visibility, and having additional walls built for defence.
With Caesar finally satisfied that his boot was firmly on Gaul's neck, he turned his army
around and marched south for the winter.
He had big plans, but they wouldn't bear fruit until next year.