Modern biographies of Julius Caesar abound. He is usually portrayed as a great general, a brilliant politician, and an outstanding author. Or he is seen as a self-serving propagandist whose words cannot be trusted. The last view is popular because Caesar’s own annual commentaries on the war, de bello Gallico, are almost the only written source about it, but enough fragments from alternative versions survive to show that it is selective and self-interested.
But Caesar’s audiences understood this. During the Republic, every Roman general had to submit an annual report to the Senate. Caesar’s are unique only insofar as they are the only ones to have survived intact and are also works of literary distinction. Caesar stood in a long Roman tradition of unprovoked and often unnecessary overseas wars that could bring a successful general glory and great personal wealth. Few Romans believed that the war in Gaul, fought between 58 and 51 BC, was anything other than a shameless power grab.
The peoples of Gaul, Germany, and Britain certainly knew this. Colonial wars often have a greater impact on the conquered peoples than the conqueror. An ambitious Roman general could always pick another war. But for the Gauls, who according to Caesar’s own accounts had seen whole tribes slaughtered and others sold into slavery, their freedom was at stake.
