Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/224

 GALLIA TRANS. divulged, — which implies that other people could read besides the Druids, — and partly to exercise the memory. They taught the immortality of the Bonl and the transmigration into different bodie& They taught their youths also astronomy, and much about the nature of things, and the immortal gods. In the difierent states we read of a concilium or assembly, variously constituted. One thing the GalH provided against carefully : there was to be no talk on political matters except in the concilium. If a man heard anything by rumour or report that concerned the state, be must open it only to the magistrates, who concealed what they thought fit, and told the people just as much as they thought proper. (J?. G, vi. 20.) There was no liberty of speech. Caesar ppeaks of senates among the Gallic tribes (J?. O. ii. 5) ; that is, a governing body to which he gives a name which a Roman would under- stand. He does not explain the constitution of these senates, which might not always be the same. The head of the state seems to have been elective. The chief magistrate of the Aedui, named Vergobretus {B, G. L 16), was elected for a year, and had ** vi- tae et necis in suoe potestatem;" which is sometimes misunderstood to mean, that he could do as he liked. It simply means that he was the chief judge. Some- thing of a popular assembly, of a democratic element, appears in some of the states. Usurpations were common things. A man who was rich enough to get a large body of adherents, would seize on power, and keep it as long as he could. In the early period of Gallic history kings appear more frequently than in Caesar's time; and we read of kings whose fathers had been kings, — which, however, was rather a rare occurrence. A long regular dynasty cS princes was not to the taste of the Galli. Either popular insurrection or a successful rival displaced them. These frequent revolntions filled the country with desperate men, who had nothing to lose, and were always ready for adventure. Exiles, fugitives, and men who had saved their lives by running away, Bwarmed in the country. Those who could not find safety in Gallia found a refuge in Britain. The at- tempt of Thierry {HiiUnre da Gauloii) to explain the early revolutions and constitutions of Gallia, is ingenious, but not satisfactory. A careful perusal of Caesar will give a better notion of the confusion that reigned between the Pyrenees and the Riiine, when the Romans came to settle all disputes and .teach the people how to live. Caesar was assassinated in b. c. 44. Little is said of what he did with Gallia from the time when he left it to the time of his death; but we may be sure that he did not neglect so profitable a conquest Suetonius says {Caet. 25): **AI1 Gallia which is bounded by the Saltus Pyrenaeus, and the Alps, and the Gehenna, by the rivers Rhine and Rhone, except the allied states and those that had done him service, he reduced to the form of a province, and imposed on the people an annual payment to the amount of ' quadringenties stipendii nomine."* It was not called ** tributum " or '* vectigal." Ammianus Mar- oellinus (xv. U), who wrote in the fourth century of our aera, has a passage which has caused much difficulty. He speaks of four divisions after Caesar's conquest, made by him as dictator; but he uses terms that can only be understood by referring to the divisions that existed in his time. He says that Natbonensis contained also Lugdunensis and Vien- nensis; Aquitania was a second division; the Su- perior and Inferior Germania and the Belgae were GALLIA TRANS. 965 under two jurisdictions at the same time.** (See the Note of H. Valesius.) Walckenaer attempts to ex- plain this passage, and to show thkt it agrees with what Strabo (p. 177) says : but it is not worth the labour. Both authors are veij obscure here; and Ammianus is too uncritical to be trusted for such a matter, even if one were quite sure what he meant. The conqueror of the Gauls knew the value of the men whom he had conquered. He had formed a legion of Transalpine Galli, to which he gave the Gallic name Alauda: he fitted them out like Roman soldiers, and drilled them after Roman fashion. (Sueton. CVie«.c.24.) Finally he made them Ro- man citizens, which must have taken place after he was dictator. In the Civil War he had Galli in his army, — Aquitanians, mountaineers from the border of the Provincia, archers from the Rnteni, and Gallic cavalry, which he had found useful also in bis Gallic wars. His last militaiy operation in Gallia was the siege of Maasilia [Massiija], b. c. 49. He after- wards sent, under TL Chiudius Nero^ a supple- mentary colony to Narbo, and a colony to Arelate {Arles)f both of which are mentioned by Suetonius (TV. Caet. 4), who speaks of other colonies, but he does not mention them. Baeterrae {Beeierg) may have been one, and Forum Julii (^Frejui) another. All these were colonies of old soldiera. Caesar had Galli with him in his campaigns in Greece and Africa; and there were also Galli on the side of the Pompeian party. These war- loving men had never a better commander, for Caesar led them to nctiny and paid them well. The civil wars of Rome threw a great number of Gallic adventurers on the coasts of the Mediterranean. Juba, the African, had a picked guard of Gallic and Spanish cavalry (JB. C. iL 40); and M. Antonius maide a present to Cleo- patra of s(Mne hundreds of these men. Caesar even pbced some of his Transalpine friends in the Roman senate, — some of the semibaibarous Galli, as Sueto- nius calls them {Caes.- c. 76, 80), — a measure which well deserv^ the ridicule that attended it. Dion Cassius (xliii. 51) says that, in the year b. c. 44, Caesar united the government of the Provincia and Hispania Citerior under M. Aemilius Lepidua. Hirtius had Belgica, and L. Munatius Plancus had Celtica. In b. c. 43, the year after Caesar's death, Lepidus still held bis provinces. L. Munatius Plan- cus, who was also in Gallia, founded the colony of Augusta Rauracorum {Atigst), in Switzerland, and Lugdunum (^Lyon), at the confiuence of the Rhone and SaSne^ which soon became one of the first cities (^ Transalpme Gallia (Dion Cass. xlvi. 50) ; but the colony of Augusta Rauracorum perhaps was not completely settled till the time of Augustus, as we may infer from the name. The final settlement of Gallia was the work of Octavianus Caesar, afterwards the emperor Augus- tus. His success in administering the Roman em- pire is due to his great abilities and to the name that he bore. His able assistant was M. Vipsanius Agrippa, who led his troops from Aquitania, which he found in a state of insurrection (Appian, B. C, V. 92), to the banks of the Lower Rhine, b. c. 37. He was the second Roman commander who crossed this river into Germany. The Ubii, a nation already well known to the Romans, had cro(»ed the Rhine into Gallia, and Agrippa permitted them to settle there. (Tac. Ann, xii. 27 ; Strab. p. 194.) The Oppidum Ubiorum afterwards became the Roman colony Agrip- pinensis. [Colonia Aoeippinensis.] Probably about this time the Tungri, another Gennanic tribe, 3q 3