Name: The Conquest of Gaul
ISBN: 9780140444339

The Conquest of Gaul

The earliest eye-witness account of Britain and its inhabitants appears in these famous memoirs. Betweeen 58 and 50 BC Julius Caesar not only conquered almost the whole of modern France, Belgium and Switzerland, with parts of Holland and Germany, but also invaded Britain twice. It was partly as a piece of personal propaganda that he recorded his campaigns against the various Gallic tribes in Latin; nevertheless these simple, direct and lucid texts are a unique direct source on Gaul in that period and also the only narrative actually written by a great general of antiquity about his own campaigns.

What Hacker News says

davidsojevicMay 2020

I found The Histories by Herodotus [0] to be an amazing read. While it's not 100% accurate as we know today, the time and effort spent compiling this when it was written is definitely impressive. This one is a reasonably lengthy read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Additionally, though it is somewhat biased in favour of the author, The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar [1] was a great look into the campaigns throughout Gaul. And a relatively short read when compared to The Histories.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1362.The_Histories

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/592167.The_Conquest_of_G...

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gnufsDec 2011

Since there's no limit on the publication date, "The Conquest of Gaul" by Caesar was a great read for me to do during my daily commute.

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weatherlightJun 2023

Julius Caesar demonstrated some characteristics that could be associated with narcissism. He had a strong desire for power, a high level of ambition, and a considerable concern with his public image. We should also take into consideration that these traits were common among Roman political figures and military leaders of the time.

Additionally, many of our understandings about Caesar's personality and actions come from historical accounts, some of which were written by his contemporaries who had their own political agendas, and others were written long after his death. Therefore, these accounts may not provide a completely accurate or unbiased view of his personality.

I'd like to note that the moral and ethical standards for the upper echelons of Roman society was very different than today's western standards. Different traits were championed. For example, "De Bello Gallico" (On the Gallic War,) is not a neutral historical account; it was written by Caesar for a Roman audience and aimed to defend and promote his actions. His conquest of Gaul would amount to genocide in a modern context but the Roman Public (the common people), at the time didn't seem to mind too much and thought his actions heroic.

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PigalowdaOct 2022

> Researchers found that many of the soldiers were born far away, in places like the eastern Baltic, Central Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains.

I like that because I'm used to thinking that most mercenaries were Balearic slingers, Numidian horseman, and Cretan archers. Probably because that's what Caesar wrote about in Conquest of Gaul. I guess you can't forget about Iberian and Libyan infantry that Carthage used quite a bit as well as Spartan mercenaries and the infamous Italian mamertines.

Caesar:

Ch. 7 Thither, immediately after midnight, Caesar, using as guides the same persons who had come to him as messengers from Iccius, sends some Numidian and Cretan archers, and some Balearian slingers as a relief to the towns‐people, by whose arrival both a desire to resist together with the hope of [making good their] defense, was infused into the Remi, and, for the same reason, the hope of gaining the town, abandoned the enemy.

Ch 10 Caesar, being apprized of this by Titurius, leads all his cavalry and light‐armed Numidians, slingers and archers, over the bridge, and hastens toward them. There was a severe struggle in that place. Our men, attacking in the river the disordered enemy, slew a great part of them

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cletusJun 2022

This is an idea that fascinates me and it goes beyond literature. it certainly includes history.

One of my favorite examples is cuneiform tablets. Less than 10% of the 500k to 1m tablets recovered have ever been translated. These are particularly interesting because they're some of the earliest examples of surviving written records we have.

The Hittite capital Hattusa (IIRC) was lost for millenia. When it was found it was a veritable treasure trove including personal correspondence between the Hittie king and the Egyptian pharoah Ramses II.

Nineveh was sacked at one point. A massive fire destroyed the library but baked the clay tablets preserving them.

In the early days of Rome, Rome (the city) was sacked by Gauls. This destroyed a lot of the early works of Rome. This affected Rome's expansion (eg Caesar's conquest of Gaul has been argued to be affected by the cultural significance of this sacking). I's one reason why the origins of Rome are somewhat steeped in myth and legend rather than fact such as the apocryphal tale of Romulus and Reemus.

Another example are the histories of Alexander the Great. Alexander died under mysterious circumstances at the height of his power (in his early 30s). Several primary sources were written by his inner circle. None have survived. We know this because a Roman named Arrion some 2 centuries later wrote about the campaigns of Alexander citing 3 such sources (all lost) comparing what they agreed on and what they didn't.

A lot was lost in the Arab sacking of the Libary of Alexandria.

I somewhat agree with some other commenters in that literary significance is more... relative. Put another way: part of their cultural significance comes from them being known, studied, performed and repaeted over centuries.

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cletusFeb 2022

Look into Roman and Greek history. Slavery, the treatment of slaves, the attitudes towards minors (slaves and otherwise) for sexual purposes and so on. It's actually pretty abhorrent.

Another example: the origin of the word "decimate". "Decimation" was a Roman military punishment to military units in provinces that rebel against Rome. I don't believe it was widespread but it was common enough to spawn the modern word. "Deci-" here is Latin meaning "10". The punishment was this: soldiers (typically) were put in groups of 10. Each group was responsible for picking which of those 10 would die and be responsible for killing that person. The general way Rome quashed rebellion in general was brutal.

The amazing thing we actually have first hand accounts on Rome's military conquests in the forms of the writings of Julius Caesar (eg with the conquest of Gaul, which was essentially genocide). Now first hand accounts aren't necessarily accurate (eg Herodotus tended to embellish) but there are other accounts that lend a lot of credence to Caesar's accounts.

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