to have no rest till they submitted. The Bellovaci were now out also. The Remi alone of all the Gauls had continued faithful in the rising of Vercingetorix. The Bellovaci, led by Commius of Arras, were preparing to burn the territory of the Remi as a punishment. Commius was not as guilty, perhaps, as he seemed. Labienus had suspected him of intending mischief when he was on the Seine in the past summer, and had tried to entrap and kill him. Anyway Caesar's first object was to show the Gauls that no friends of Rome would be allowed to suffer. He invaded Normandy; he swept the country. He drove the Bellovaci and the Carnutes to collect in another great army to defend themselves; he set upon them with his usual skill; and destroyed them. Commius escaped over the Rhine to Germany. Gutruatus was taken. Caesar would have pardoned him; but the legions were growing savage at these repeated and useless commotions, and insisted on his execution. The poor wretch was flogged till he was insensible, and his head was cut off by the lictor's axe.
All Gaul was now submissive, its spirit broken, and, as the event proved, broken finally, except in the southwest. Eight years out of the ten of Caesar's government had expired. In one corner of the country only the dream still survived that, if the patriots could hold out till Caesar was gone, Celtic liberty might yet have a chance of recovering itself. A single tribe on the Dordogne, relying on the strength of a fortress in a situation resembling that of Gergovia, persisted in resistance to the Roman authority. The spirit of national independence is like a fire: so long as a spark remains a conflagration can again be kindled, and Caesar felt that he must trample out the last ember that was alive. Uxellodunum-- so the place was named--stood on an inaccessible rock, and was amply provisioned. It could be taken only as Edinburgh Castle was once taken, by cutting off its water; and the ingenious tunnel may still be seen by which the Roman engineers tapped the spring supplied the garrison. They, too, had then to yield, and the war in Gaul was over.
[Sidenote B.C. 50.] The following winter Caesar spent at Arras. He wished to hand over his conquests to his successor not only subdued, but reconciled, to subjection. He invited the chiefs of all the tribes to come to him. He spoke to them of the future which lay open to them as members of a splendid Imperial State. He gave them magnificent presents. He laid no impositions either on the leaders or their people, and they went to their homes personally devoted to their conqueror, contented with their condition, and resolved to maintain the peace which was now established--a unique experience in political history. The Norman Conquest of England alone in the least resembles it. In the spring of 50 Caesar went to Italy. Strange things had happened meanwhile in Rome. So long as there was a hope that Caesar would be destroyed by the insurrection, the ill-minded Senate had waited to let the Gauls do the work for him. The chance was gone. He had risen above his perils more brilliant than ever, and nothing now was left to them but to defy and trample on him. Servius Galba, who was favorable to Caesar, had stood for the consulship for 49, and had received a majority of votes. The election was set aside. Two patricians, Lentulus and Caius Marcellus, were declared chosen, and their avowed purpose was to strip the conqueror of Gaul of his honors and rewards.[8] The people of his own Cisalpine Province desired to show that they at least had no sympathy with such envenomed animosities. In the colonies in Lombardy and Venetia Caesar was received with the most passionate demonstrations of affection. The towns were dressed out with flags and flowers. The inhabitants crowded into the streets with their wives and children to look at him as he passed. The altars smoked with offerings; the temples were thronged with worshippers praying the immortal gods to bless the greatest of the Romans. He had yet one more year to govern. After a brief stay he rejoined his army. He spent the summer in organizing the administration of the different districts and assigning his officers their various commands. That he did not at this time contemplate any violent interference with the Constitution may be proved by the distribution of his legions, which remained stationed far away in Belgium and on the Loire.
[1] Above Orleans, on the Loire.
[2] Four miles from Clermont, on the Allier, in the Puy-de-Dme.
[3] "Extrema fames."--_De Bell. Gall_., vii. 17.
[4] "Summ se iniquitatis condemnari debere nisi eorum vitam su salute habeat cariorem."
[5] _De Bell. Gall_., vii. 33.
[6] "Tantis subito difficultatibus objectis ab animi virtute consilium petebat."
[7] Gudrund? The word has a German sound.
[8] "Insolenter adversarii sui gloriabantur L. Lentulum et C. Marcellum consules creatos, qui omnem honorem et dignitatem Caesaris exspoliarent. Ereptum Servio Galbae consulatum cum is multo plus grati, suffragiisque valuisset, quod sibi conjunctus et familiaritate et necessitudine legationis esset."--_Auli Hirtii De Bell. Gall_. viii. 50.
CHAPTER XX.
[Sidenote: B.C. 51.] Crassus had been destroyed by the Parthians. The nomination of his successor lay with the Senate, and the Senate gave a notable evidence of their incapacity for selecting competent governors for the provinces by appointing in his place Caesar's old colleague, Bibulus. In their whole number there was no such fool as Bibulus. When he arrived in Syria he shut himself into a fortified town, leaving the Parthians to plunder and burn at their pleasure. Cicero mocked at him. The Senate thanked him for his distinguished services. The few serious men in Rome thought that Caesar or Pompey should be sent out;[1] or, if they could not be spared, at least one of the consuls of the year--Sulpicius Rufus or Marcus Marcellus. But the consuls were busy with home politics and did not wish to go, nor did they wish that others should go and gather laurels instead of them. Therefore nothing was done at all,[2] and Syria was left to fate and Bibulus. The consuls and the aristocracy had, in fact, more serious matters to attend to. Caesar's time was running out, and when it was over he had been promised the consulship. That consulship the faction of the conservatives had sworn that he should never hold. Cato was threatening him with impeachment, blustering that he should be tried under a guard, as Milo had been.[3] Marcellus was saying openly that he would call him home in disgrace before his term was over. Como, one of the most thriving towns in the north of Italy, had been enfranchised by Caesar. An eminent citizen from Como happening to be at Rome, Marcellus publicly flogged him, and bade him go back and tell his fellow-townsmen the value of Caesar's gift to them, Cicero saw the folly of such actions;[4] but the aristocracy were mad--mad with pride and conscious guilt and fear. The ten years of Caesar's government would expire at the end of 49. The engagement had been entered into that he was to see his term out with his army and to return to Rome for 48--as consul. They remembered his first consulship and what he had done with it, and the laws which he had passed--laws which they could not repeal; yet how had they observed them? If he had been too strong for them all when he was but one of themselves, scarcely known beyond the Forum and senate-house, what would he do now, when he was recognized as the greatest soldier which Rome had produced, the army, the people, Italy, the provinces all adoring his name? Consul again he could not, must not be. Yet how could it be prevented? It was useless now to bribe the Comitia, to work with clubs and wire-pullers. The enfranchised citizens would come to vote for Caesar from every country town. The legionaries to a man would vote for him; and even in the venal city he was the idol of the hour. No fault could be found with his administration. His wars had paid their own expenses. He had doubled the pay of his troops, but his military chest was still full, and his own wealth seemed boundless. He was adorning the Forum with new and costly buildings. Senators, knights, young men of rank who had been extravagant, had been relieved by his generosity and were his pensioners. Gaul might have been impatient at its loss of liberty, but no word of complaint was heard against Caesar for oppressive government. The more genius he had shown the more formidable he was. Let him be consul, and he would be the master of them all.
Caesar had been credited with far-reaching designs. It has been assumed that in early life he had designed the overthrow of the Constitution; that he pursued his purpose steadily through every stage in his career, and that he sought the command of Gaul only to obtain an army devoted to him which would execute his will. It has not seemed incredible that a man of middle age undertook the conquest of a country of which nothing is known save that it was inhabited by warlike races, who more than once had threatened to overrun Italy and destroy Rome; that he went through ten years of desperate fighting exposed to a thousand dangers from the sword, from exposure and hardship; that for ten years