tonyodysseus

Thanks for your help. Those maps on the links are very nice. I had been a little disappointed in my research with an Osprey book on the subject ("Rome at War: Caesar and His Legacy"), although it has many good points. Recently I have found that French wikipedia is richer on the Gallic Wars than English wikipedia, which shouldn't be a surprise considering the location of all this. I can more or less read French so that's OK. Their article "Belges" is a lot more detailed than the "Belgae" article in English wikipedia. What I have found most interesting in this process of focusing on this passage is this sentence in my translation: "[Caesar] settled three legions among the Belgae and put his quaestor Marcus Crassus and his legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in charge of them." I read Latin and so I went to the standard Latin text and this reads "Tris in Belgis collocavit . . ." which means "he placed three [legions] among the Belgae . . .". The word "Belgis" has dagger notations at either end, which means that the editor has a serious problem with this but is not willing to make an emendation or change that makes more sense because he is not certain enough. At the foot of the page the suggestion of another scholar is offered that over the millenia a mistake must have crept into the manuscript and the original text must have said "Bellovacis". Bellovaci makes sense since they are relatively nearby. If "Belgis" is right why would Caesar not have specified which tribes of the Belgae was depositing these three legions with when he has repeatedly specified earlier in the passage?

What I have noticed in reading Caesar's Gallic Wars is that the involved geography is often not completely precise. I guess to some extent one part of the forest looks pretty much like another and creating a detailed geographic detail of where he had been was not an authorial priority for Caesar. De Bello Gallico was the pioneer work in historical accounts of Northern Europe and one should be grateful that it even exists. Nevertheless, I would like some more precision in Caesar's account of the locations of the winter camps for his forces in the winter of 54/53BCE in B.G.5.24. I have not found a map that I really like. I realize that there just may be no way to really reconstruct detail in the narrative which has not survived but I would very interested in seeing some plausible reconstructions. I would appreciate the input of anyone of the forum who would like to participate. Here is the passage in the Carolyn Hammond translation (Caesar, "The Gallic War", Oxford World Classics, 1996, 100-101): Because of a drought the corn had grown only sparsely in Gaul that year, so Caesar was compelled to allocate the army's winter quarters according to a plan different to that of the previous years, and to spread the legions across a greater number of states. One legion he allocated to his legate Gaius Fabius, to lead it to the Morini, another to Quintus Cicero, to go to the Nervii, and a third to Lucius Roscius, to Esubian territory. He ordered the fourth under Titus Labienus to winter among the Remi, on the borders of the Treveri. He settled three legions among the Belgae and put his quaestor Marcus Crassus and his legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in charge of them. One legion, which he had enlisted north of the Po only recently, he sent with five cohorts to the land of the Eburones, which lies mainly between the Meuse and the Rhine. . . He ordered his legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta to take command of this force. On the standard maps of Gaul at that time, the word "Belgae" is written in big letters over the area where all these legions are being quartered, except for the area where Caesar situated Roscius, among the Esubii in Brittany. On these same maps the names of tribes such as the Nervii, the Remi and the Morini are written smaller in and around the word "Belgae" written in large letters. Does that mean that the Nervii, Remi and Morini are sub-tribes or divisions of the larger tribe of the Belgae OR that Nervii, Remi and Morini are completely separate peoples who are just in close physical proximity to the much larger and more important Belgae tribe? Caesar says that he settled three legions among the Belgae under Crassus, Plancus and Trebonius. Does he say "Belgae" because this is a different tribe from those in the vicinity he mentioned earlier in the paragraph (Nervii, Remi and Morini) or because with these last three legions for some reason he did not want to specify which member tribes of the Belgae he wanted to lodge these three legions with (and that Caesar would have considered as Belgae every tribe hosting legions in the paragraph--except for the Esubii in Brittany)? Also, by saying Belgae does Caesar avoid specifying exactly where exactly in this wide area the soldiers were located? Also, did Caesar intend the three legions he lodged with the Belgae to be in one camp or in three different camps? I looked in Polybius' description of Roman camps in book 6 and he seems to indicate that more than one legion could be housed in a single camp. If I can't find a clear map of this I may try to make one myself. Does anyone know of some good resources on this? I find that the maps of the Gallic Wars on wikipedia do not have much detail. Again from Caesar's accounts it may not be possible to supply much detail but some research or some reasonable conjecture might introduce some stimulating detail that would lend the experience of reading the Gallic Wars more immediacy and engagement. Sometimes it feels like I'm just lost in a mass of place and tribe names that have no reality to me. Thank you.

Sometimes something sticks in your craw and you have trouble articulating exactly what it is and that is kind of what's going on for me here. I appreciate your intelligent response. I would say that I am wondering why Caesar specified how closely the cohorts were positioned together. Is the "new kind of fighting" the soldiers are terrified on account of the close placement of their own cohorts or what the Britons are doing? You seem to believe it is the latter, which is logical. I am looking at the Latin now. Hammond's translation is very good, but a translator has to work to make the end-product English-like and inevitably certain aspects of the original are lost. Latin is periodic and all these different sentences in the English are actually all part of one compound periodic sentence in the original. Caesar uses the word "cum" (usually translated "when") to start the clause where he specifies that the two first cohorts are placed very close to each other. Soon after this clause the Britons "broke through". I can see now that "cum" should be translated as "although or even though" which it can mean sometimes. So, the gist is that "in spite of the fact that the two cohorts were placed so closely next to each other that there was almost no gap between them, our men were so psyched out by the Britons bold zeal that the Britons audaciously broke through our lines." I guess you simply knew that from reading the passage but I can be thick.

Hi, I have been reading Caesar's "Gallic Wars". There is a passage in Book 5 chapter 15 which I am finding somewhat confusing and I would really appreciate some help. Carolyn Hammond's Oxford World Classics translation of the section (page 96-97) reads thus: "After a short time, when our men were off guard and busy fortifying the camp, the Britons suddenly rushed out of the wood and attacked the guards stationed in front of the camp. A fierce fight ensued. Caesar sent two cohorts to their assistance--the primary cohorts of their respective legions--and THEY POSITIONED THEMSELVES WITH ONLY A SMALL GAP TO SEPARATE THEM. Because our men were frightened by the unfamiliar tactics, the enemy boldly broke through their midst and retreated without casualties." I am having some difficulty visualizing the passage I put into upper case. The Latin is "hae perexiguo intermisso loci spatio inter se constitissent". I know literally what it means (what Hammond said) but what's going on here? And why should this frighten the soldiers, who were probably a pretty experienced and battle-hardened lot?