Having arrived at the years which are very well documented in the ancient sources, in order to keep my wordage within limits my publishers find acceptable, I have had to pick and choose rather than retell every aspect. The addition of Caesar’s Commentaries, both on Gaul and on the civil war against Pompey the Great, enriches the ancient sources enormously.
I don’t think there is much doubt that Caesar’s Commentaries on the war in Gallia Comata are his senatorial dispatches, and so have made them; the modern debate occurs more about whether Caesar published these dispatches in one lump at the beginning of 51 B.C., or whether he published them over the years one at a time. I have chosen to have him publish the first seven books as one volume around the beginning of 51 B.C.
For my comments on the codex as used by Caesar, see the Glossary entry under codex.
The amount of detail in Caesar’s Gallic War Commentaries is daunting, so also the number of names which come and go, never to be mentioned again. Therefore I have adopted a policy which curtails the mention of names never heard again. Quintus Cicero in winter camp along the Mosa had military tribunes under his command, for example, but I have elected not to mention them. The same can be said for Sabinus and Cotta. Caesar always cared more for his centurions than his military tribunes, and I have followed his example in places where a plethora of aristocratic new names would serve only to confuse the reader.
In some other ways I have “tampered” with the Gallic War Commentaries, one quite major. This major one concerns Quintus Cicero at the end of 53 B.C., when he undergoes an ordeal quite remarkably similar to his ordeal in winter camp at the beginning of that year. Again he is besieged in a camp, this time the oppidum of Atuatuca, from whence Sabinus and Cotta had fled. In the interests of brevity I have changed this incident to an encounter with the Sugambri on the march; I have also changed the number of his legion from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth, as it is difficult later to know exactly which legion Caesar led in such a hurry from Placentia to Agedincum. Caesar’s penetration of the Cebenna in winter has also been modified in the interests of brevity.
Other, more minor departures stem out of Caesar’s own inaccuracies. His estimates of mileage, for example, are shaky. So too, sometimes, his descriptions of what is going on. The duel between the centurions Pullo and Vorenus has been simplified.
One of the great mysteries about the Gallic War concerns the small number of his Atrebates whom King Commius was able to bring to the relief of Alesia. I couldn’t find a battle wherein they had perished en masse; until Labienus’s little plot, Commius and his Atrebates were on Caesar’s side. The only thing I could think was that they had marched en masse to the assistance of the Parisii, the Aulerci and the Bellovaci when Titus Labienus slaughtered those tribes along the Sequana (Seine) while Caesar was engaged in the campaigns around Gergovia and Noviodunum Nevirnum. Perhaps we should read “Atrebates” for “Bellovaci,” as the Bellovaci did remain alive in sufficient numbers to be a great nuisance later on.
Again in the interests of simplicity, I have not done much with specific septs of the great Gallic confederations: Treveri (Mediomatrices and other septs), Aedui (Ambarri, Segusiavi), and Armorici (many septs from Esubii to Veneti to Venelli).
Some years after Caesar’s death, a man from Gallia Comata turned up in Rome, claiming to be Caesar’s son. According to the ancient sources, he resembled Caesar physically. Out of this I have concocted the story of Rhiannon and her son. The concoction serves a twofold purpose: the first, to reinforce my contention that Caesar was not incapable of siring children, rather that he was hardly in anyone’s bed for long enough to do so; and the second, that it permits a more intimate look at the lives and customs of the Celtic Gauls. Though a late source, Ammianus is most informative.
There have been many papers written by modern scholars as to why Titus Labienus did not side with Caesar after he crossed the Rubicon, why Labienus sided instead with Pompey the Great. Much is made of the fact that Labienus was in Pompey’s clientele because he was a Picentine from Camerinum and served as Pompey’s tame tribune of the plebs in 63 B.C. However, the fact remains that Labienus worked far more for Caesar than he did for Pompey, even during his tribunate of the plebs. Also, Labienus stood to gain more from allying himself with Caesar than with Pompey. The assumption is always that it was Labienus who said no to Caesar; but why, I wondered, could it not have been Caesar who said no to Labienus? There is a logical answer supporting this in the Eighth Book of the Gallic War Commentaries. The Eighth Book was not written by Caesar, but by his fanatically loyal adherent Aulus Hirtius. At one stage Hirtius waxes indignant over the fact that Caesar had refused to record Labienus’s plot against King Commius in his Seventh Book; it is up to him, says Hirtius, to record what was, as readers of this novel will have seen, a shabby and dishonorable affair. Not, I would have thought, anything Caesar would have approved of. Caesar’s action at Uxellodunum, a horrific business, was nonetheless done right up front and publicly. As Caesar seems to have conducted himself. Whereas Labienus was sneaky and underhanded. To me, the evidence seems to say that Caesar tolerated Labienus in Gaul because of his brilliance in the field, but that he would not have wanted Labienus in his camp after crossing the Rubicon; to Caesar, a political alliance with Labienus might have been a bit like marrying a cobra.
Evidence favors Plutarch rather than Suetonius in the matter of what Caesar actually said when he crossed the Rubicon. Pollio, who was there, says that Caesar quoted some of a couplet from the New Comedy poet and playwright Menander, and quoted it in Greek, not in Latin. “Let the dice fly high!” Not “The die is cast.” To me, very believable. “The die is cast” is gloomy and fatalistic. “Let the dice fly high!” is a shrug, an admission that anything can happen. Caesar was not fatalistic. He was a risk taker.
The Commentaries on the Civil War required far less adjustment than the Gallic War ones. On only one occasion have I altered the sequence of events, by having Afranius and Petreius return to Pompey earlier than it seems they did. My reason: to keep them in the minds of my non-scholar readers more comfortably.
Now to the maps. Most are self-explanatory. Only Avaricum and Alesia need some words of explanation.
What we know about these immortal situations is mostly based upon nineteenth-century maps and models done around the time Napoleon III was immersed in his Life of Caesar, and had Colonel Stoffel digging up France to look at Caesar’s camp and battle sites.
I have departed from these maps and models in certain ways.
In the case of Alesia, where the excavations proved that Caesar didn’t lie about what he accomplished, I differ from Stoffel in two ways (which do not contradict Caesar’s reportage, I add). First, Caesar’s cavalry camps. These, shown as free-floating and waterless, had to have been connected to Caesar’s fortifications. They also had to have incorporated a part of a natural stream at a place the Gauls would find difficult to divert. Riverbeds shift with the millennia, so we have no real idea whereabouts precisely the streams ran at Alesia two thousand years ago. Aerial surveys have revealed that the Roman fortifications at Alesia were as straight and/or regular as was general Roman military custom. I have therefore partially “squared” the cavalry camps, which Stoffel draws most irregularly. Second, I believe that the camp of Rebilus and Antistius formed the closure of Caesar’s ring, and have drawn it thus. In Stoffel’s maps it “floats,” and suggests that Caesar’s ring was never closed at all. I can’t see Caesar making that kind of mistake. To use the vulnerable camp as his closure, given that he couldn’t take the circumvallation up and over the mountain, is good sense. He had two legions there to man the lines along his great weakness.
As for Avaricum, I depart from the models in four ways. First, that I can see no reason not to make the wall connecting Caesar’s two flank walls as high as his flank walls. To have it the same height creates a proper fighting platform fed by troops from everywhere at once. Second, I fail to see why defense towers would have been erected on Avaricum’s walls right where the gangplanks of Caesar’s towers would have thumped down. In a famously iron-rich tribe like the Bituriges, surely iron shields were more likely opposite Caesar’s towers; the Avarican towers would have been more useful elsewhere. Third, I have halved the number of mantlets these models have put outside the flanking walls and going nowhere of much help in getting troops on top of the assault platform. I believe these particular mantlets sheltered the Roman sappers. Fourth, I have not drawn in any shelter sheds or a palisade on top of the assault platform; not because they weren’t there, but rather to show what the platform itself looked like.
The drawings.
Not so many in this book. The likeness of Caesar is authentic. So too is the likeness of Titus Labienus, which was drawn from a polished marble bust in the museum at Cremona. Very difficult to capture in reflected light. Ahenobarbus is reputed to be authentic. Quintus Cicero’s likeness is drawn from a bust said to be of his famous brother, but examination of this bust says it is not Marcus Cicero. The skull shape is completely wrong, and the subject much balder than Cicero is ever depicted. There is, however, a pronounced resemblance to Cicero. Could this not, I asked, be a bust of little brother Quintus?
Vercingetorix is taken from a coin profile.
The drawings of Metellus Scipio and Curio are not authenticated likenesses, but taken from portrait busts of the first century B.C.
This drawing of Pompey the Great is taken from the famous bust in Copenhagen.
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I do all the research myself, but there are a number of people to thank for their unflagging help. My classical editor, Professor Alanna Nobbs of Macquarie University in Sydney, and her colleagues; my loyal little band of secretaries, housekeepers, and men-of-all-work; Joe Nobbs; Frank Esposito; Fred Mason; and my husband, Ric Robinson.
The next book will be called The October Horse.