Caesar's Planned Dacian Campaign

[spittle]

In response to the idea that Caesar massacred the celts and left Gaul a 'desert' I would like to quote Goldworthy.

 

"...It was also important that Roman expansion outside Italy was not was not a question of eradicating the indigenious population and replacing them with Roman colonists, or even of imposing a Roman elite who would exploit a subject population. For all the massacres and mass enslavements that accompanied Roman imperialism, the province of Gaul that Caesar created would be lived in by the tribes who were there when he had arrived. In most day-to-day affairs they would be ruled by leaders drawn from the existing aristocracy. A permanent conquest relied on persuading the tribes and their leaders that it was more in their interest to accept Roman rule than to oppose it."

 

"....His initial interventions in Gaul all came in response to appeals from allied tribes..."