Remember back to Caesar's year as Consul, when there had been a coordinated effort to
sabotage his career by assigning him to govern the "woodland and country lanes of Italy."
After achieving dominance over the Senate, he had replaced this dead end job with the
governorship of two good provinces, Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul.
Governing two provinces at once was unusual, but not unprecedented.
Then, when the governor of neighbouring Transalpine Gaul unexpectedly died, he had that province
assigned to himself as well.
By the way, for the sake of simplicity I keep on using the word governor, but the Romans
used the words proconsul and propraetor, which doesn't exactly mean the same thing.
Basically, if the Senate took a former consul and put them in charge of a province or at
the head of an army, they were now a proconsul, which legally granted them some of the old
command authority that they used to possess when they were in office.
Command authority.
The Romans had their own word for this, too.
Imperium.
A person with imperium was authorized to channel the power and authority of the state in order
to enact their will.
So governors, generals, judges, and high ranking politicians literally embodied the Roman state.
Diplomats also had imperium.
There are famous stories about the over the top arrogance of Roman diplomats, talking
down their noses at foreign kings.
But look at it from their point of view.
If Roman diplomats thought that they were the embodiment of the Roman state, it would
be inappropriate for them to to bow to a foreign king.
It's easy to see why the Romans were awful diplomats.
Another thing to keep in mind going forward: a person with imperium was immune from legal
prosecution.
You could always charge them later as a private citizen, but not while they had imperium.
So on January 1st of 58 BCE, Caesar became the proconsul in charge of Illyricum, Cisalpine
Gaul, and Transalpine Gaul for a five-year term.
These 3 provinces had a total of 4 legions assigned to them, which at full strength would
have been around 20,000 men.
Caesar immediately began privately raising two more legions at his own personal expense,
bringing his total to 6 legions and 30,000 men.
Last year when Caesar had secured new provinces, he had also given himself the power to appoint
his own legates, which was usually the Senate's job.
Just a reminder, a legate was the person in charge of each legion, so in this case he
had 6 jobs to fill.
He gave one of these positions to a man named Labienus.
Caesar and Labienus were the same age, and had become good friends during the Catiline
Conspiracy, when Caesar had served as Praetor and Labienus had been a Tribune of the Plebs.
During Caesar's year as Consul, Labienus had served with him as Praetor.
This made Labienus eligible for a province of his own, but instead chose to come with
Caesar and serve as his right hand man.
Later, when Caesar would get distracted by the day to day governence of the provinces,
Labienus would be left in charge of the army.
When circumstance required Caesar's presence elsewhere, Labienus would govern the provinces
in his place.
When Caesar's final term as governor ended, he would have Labienus appointed his successor.
Near the beginning of the year, Caesar received word that a large tribe, the Helvetii, had
uprooted and were migrating west.
On their current trajectory they were going to cut through Transalpine Gaul.
Caesar ordered his legions to mobilize, and to travel to the edge of Roman territory,
near modern Geneva.
There, he had them break down a bridge over a river that the Helvetii would need to cross.
When the Helvetii realized that there were six legions standing in their path, they formally
requested passage through Roman territory.
Caesar sent a response, saying something along the lines of "wait there, I'll think about
it."
A week passed in silence.
Finally, Caesar sent a messenger denying their request, at which time they discovered that
the Romans had secretly constructed a 28 kilometer line of defenses in front of the river.
What was Caesar doing here?
If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, you can.
He would argue that the Romans were allied with many of the Gallic tribes in the area,
and they didn't want 300,000 militaristic Helvetii moving into their territory and upsetting
the delicate balance of power.
But in my opinion, Caesar wasn't acting in good faith here.
He had started mustering extra legions before the Helvetii had even entered the picture.
If you ask me, this had more to do with Caesar settling his debts than it did with maintaining
the status quo.
The Helvetii were understandably upset by Caesar's refusal.
Some of them were like "to hell with this," and decided to independently cross the river
anyways.
Caesar had anticipated this.
He didn't have enough men to defend the entire 28 kilometer line at once, but whenever a
group of Helvetii tried to push, Caesar and his men converged on that location.
The Helvetii made several attempts over several days, but Caesar repulsed them every time.
The Helvetii were beaten, and decided to go around Roman territory by marching north.
Before too long, some of Rome's Gallic allies started to get word of a massive Helvetii
migration coming their way, and sent panicked messages to Caesar asking for assistance.
With this thin justification, Caesar set off in pursuit of the Helvetii, and caught up
with them at the Arar river, which we now called the Saone.
The Helvetii were having difficulty with the river, and a simple crossing had dragged on
for weeks.
Caesar launched a surprise nighttime attack, but due to the low visibility and general
confusion, he was not very successful, and most of the Helvetii on his side of the river
were able to retreat safely into the woods.
The next morning, Caesar had his men started construction on a bridge across the river.
They were finished within hours, and the next day, Caesar and his 6 legions had crossed
the river, and were on to tracking the rest of the Helvetii.
When Caesar caught up with them, the Helvetii sent a diplomat to meet with him.
They didn't really accomplish anything, they just ended up airing grievances at each other.
It now seemed clear that there was going to be a battle.
Caesar assembled his legions, and sent his 4,000 cavalry forward to screen his infantry
as they advanced.
The cavalry walked right into an ambush.
The ambush was small in scale, the Romans still took heavy losses, and were routed.
This was Caesar's first proper military encounter in Gaul, and it ended in defeat.
But it could have been a lot worse.
At least the cavalry took the brunt of the attack, and were able to disengage when they
were beaten.
If the infantry had walked into this, it could have gone a lot differently.
After this Caesar must have felt humbled, because he moved much more cautiously.
The Helvetii continued their migration north, and Caesar shadowed them the entire way.
Whenever they stopped moving the Helvetii would deploy for battle, but Caesar never
took the bait.
This went on for several days.
One day the Helvetii ended their march in front of a steep hill.
Caesar pulled Labienus aside, and together they hatched a plan.
In the middle of the night, Labienus was to march off with two of Caesar's most experienced
legions.
The plan was for Labienus to march all the way around the Helvetii position in the dark,
and take the hill behind them before the sun came up.
At dawn, Caesar would march out and deploy for battle.
Labienus was to hold his position until the moment he saw Caesar's forces came into contact
with the Helvetii.
When that happened, he was to charge downhill, and hit them in the rear.
A key ingredient to this plan was trusting that the Helvetii wouldn't be stupid enough
to attack uphill, even though they would outnumber Labienus detachment 7 or 8 to 1.
If they did attack uphill, that would screw up the plan a little bit, but all Labienus
would need to do was hold off the Helvetii until Caesar could come to the rescue.
That's why he had the two most experienced legions with him.
So in the middle of the night Labienus marched off with his legions, and at dawn, Caesar
and his remaining 4 legions marched out of their fortified encampment to meet the Helvetii,
making as much commotion as possible.
He sent his cavalry to scout ahead.
Before long, his scouts came back with reports that there were Helvetii all over the hillside,
and Labienus was nowhere to be found.
This was bad.
Caesar abruptly threw his legions into a defensive line.
Then, he sent out all of his scouts with very simple orders: FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO LABIENUS'S
LEGIONS.
They stayed deployed like this all day, prepared for an overwhelming Helvetii attack, but it
never came.
Finally, the scouts came back.
Labienus has been waiting on the hill the entire time.
The first report was wrong.
The Helvetii had been completely unaware that anything was going on.
Caesar must have been pretty angry, because when he was writing his account of this incident
12 years later, he throws the scouts responsible under the bus.
He names names.
By this point it was near dusk, so Caesar sent a messenger to to Labienus, telling him
to abandon the plan and come back to camp.
The next day, Caesar finally had to acknowledge that his army was down to 2 more days of food.
Some of his Gallic allies had been promising a food shipment for a while now, but these
were Gauls of questionable loyalty, and so far none had arrived.
But there was an allied Gallic outpost nearby, and if the Romans left first thing in the
morning they could make it there by sundown.
That was the new plan.
Caesar would go and get the food himself, and after that he would continue to shadow
the Helvetii.
The Romans marched away, but unbeknownst to Caesar, it was his turn to be shadowed by
the Helvetii.
Caesar had just began his forced march to resupply, when all of a sudden he had Helvetii
attacking the rear of his column.
He did not anticipate this.
The infantry at the rear of his column turned to fight, and Caesar ordered all of his cavalry
to go and help them.
There was a small hill nearby, so he re-positioned the rest of his infantry there, and had them
deploy for battle.
This may have taken several hours, especially since Caesar had 10,000 raw recruits under
his command.
He put his four experienced legions at the front, and his two inexperienced legions in
reserve.
When the infantry was finally in position, a signal was given and the Romans who had
been holding the Helvetii off fell back to the Roman line.
The Helvetii advanced slowly up the hill, and the Romans held their ground.
When they got into range the four legions at the front threw their javelins, and sent
their first two lines charging down the hill.
The fighting was evenly matched for some time, but the Romans held the high ground, and the
Helvetii gradually started to be pushed back down the hill.
Suddenly, a third army entered the battlefield.
Two local Gallic tribes had allied themselves with the Helvetii.
They had been sluggish in their pursuit of the Romans, but all 15,000 of them arrived
with the battle already in progress.
In this period it was very common for armies to commit most of their men in the first wave,
in the hopes that their overwhelming numbers would cause a route.
The Romans were weirdos, and their system kept a large percentage of their army in reserve,
but it was designed for moments like this.
The Roman third line was a cross section of the most experienced soldiers under Caesar's
command, and they had been held in reserve.
There was at most 6,500 of them, but probably less, and when they moved up, they stopped
the 15,000 Helvetii reinforcements in their tracks.
Neither side had a clear advantage, and the battle dragged on all day.
Caesar held his raw recruits back.
It wasn't clear that they were capable of holding their own against the Helvetii, and
Caesar didn't want to risk it.
The Romans kept on making incremental progress here and there, but it was exhausting work,
and both sides were taking heavy losses.
The sun went down and they were still fighting.
Eventually, after the Helvetii had been reduced by an astonishing 2/3rds, they pulled back,
dejected and thoroughly beaten.
The Romans were totally exhausted.
They had lost 5,000 men, a quarter of their most experienced soldiers.
Caesar's army was truly shaken, and they took a full 3 days to recover and tend to their
wounded.
They had captured a some Helvetii supply wagons, so their food problem was now taken care of.
Once the Romans were well enough to be on the march again, they were immediately met
with a Helvetii delegation offering terms of surrender.
Caesar accepted.
He had the Helvetii hand over all of their weapons, allowed them to leave Gaul with their
lives, on the condition that in the future, they provide fighting men to the Roman Republic
upon request.
They agreed.
The beginning of the so-called Gallic Wars, a series of campaigns that began here in 58
BCE and ended in 51 BCE, after the Battle of Alesia.
Campaigns that began to ostensibly stabilize neighbouring Gaul by restricting the movement
of people, ended with its subjugation.