A Brief History of the Private Lives of the Roman Emperors by Anthony Blond Page B

involved and in the resulting scandal he divorced her, as she was not ‘above suspicion’.)
Clodius had been murdered by Milo’s gang. Caesar was therefore fighting on two fronts, the political in Rome and the military in Gaul. For the moment, the latter became his priority.
    Vercingetorix came from Arvernia (the Auvergne) and his father was only prevented from being elected king of the Gallic tribes by assassination. Energetic, eloquent and
ruthless, he had been chosen commander-in-chief of eight tribes and gave Caesar a lot of trouble with his scorched-earth policy, realizing, after three defeats, that he could not expect to beat the
Roman army in the field. The Roman soldier was not a gourmet but he had to have his porridge, and if the grain had been burned . . .?
    Caesar describes the forces and the campaign of Vercingetorix as carefully as his own – one is reminded of the German General Staffs research into the character of the American commander
General Patton, in the Second World War – and mentions without remark or bitterness that he ‘turned round’ his friend Commius, whom he had made a king, but who arrived at the
siege of Alesia with a quarter of a million men and cavalry three miles long. In the battle – which was, like Waterloo, ‘a dam’ close-run thing’ – Caesar, wearing his
scarlet cloak, saved the day with a cavalry charge. Vercingetorix’s speech to the Gallic Assembly on the following day indicates the extent of the victory. ‘I did not undertake the war
for private ends, but in the cause of national liberty, and since I must now accept my fate I place myself at your disposal. Make amends to the Romans by killing me or surrender me alive as you
think best.’
    Of course Caesar wanted this glittering young man alive and well for his Triumph, and indeed kept Vercingetorix in cold storage for six years against this event; when the time came he may or may
not have tried to prevent his execution, for, as even Buchan admits, Romans were not strong on gallantry or compassion. From this battle every soldier earned one prisoner-of-war, which he could
sell as a slave.
    There were few survivors of the Eburones’ rebellion, which Caesar was determined should be the last in Gaul for some time. It was. Roman legions and auxiliaries cut a
swathe of terror from Bordeaux to Provence, from Switzerland to Belgium, destroying every building, killing every cow belonging to rebellious tribes. In this campaign he was helped by
‘young’ Brutus and Mark Antony so the policy of inflicting Pax Romana on the Gauls was not just Caesar’s idea. The terror worked. The tribe who started this final rebellion
delivered their leader to Caesar, who, ‘normally averse to harsh punishment’, had him flogged to death, the punishment reserved for a rebellious
subject
as opposed to an
enemy.
    Though in Rome one of the ‘
populares
’, Caesar approved the excuse of the apologetic and finally submissive tribes, that their rebellion had been due to the influence of
demagogues from the proletariat. Whatever their politics at home, Romans always supported the establishment abroad, granting citizenship only to the rich – as to the father of Paul of Tarsus
in Cilicia, who had the wool monopoly. When he judged Gaul truly conquered, Caesar distributed presents to loyal collaborators and encouraged the conquered in the pursuit of the Roman way of life.
This worked, for within three generations the bearded and belligerent Asterix became the urbane, clean-shaven Q. Tullius Crassus, as it were, giving dinner parties for the local garrison officers
in his newly built villa, complete with mosaics, murals, central heating and curtains, such as are currently being excavated on an island in a graceful curve of the Vienne, in Limoges, just half an
hour up the road from where I am writing. Indeed Gaul quickly grew to be the Romans’ favourite province. The Emperor Claudius was born in Lugdunum (Lyons), Hadrian was