Julian Augustus
It is not easy to understand the Gauls. Their ways are strange to us, despite their many years as Roman subjects. I think they are the handsomest of the world’s people. Both men and women are tall and fair-skinned, often with blue eyes and blond hair. They are forever washing their clothes and bodies. One can go from one end of the province to the other without seeing a man or woman in soiled or ragged clothes. Laundry hangs drying beside every hovel, no matter how poor.
But despite their beauty, they are remarkably quarrelsome. Both men and women speak with curiously loud voices, braying their vowels and sounding hard their consonants. Whenever I gave justice, I used to be deafened by the rival lawyers and claimants, all bellowing like wounded bulls.
They boast that in a fight one Gaul is worth ten Italians. I’m afraid this is true.
They love battle. They have both the strength and heart for it. And their women love fighting, too. It is not at all unusual for a Gaul in the heat of battle to call to his wife to aid him. When she does, his strength increases tenfold. With my own eyes I have seen Gallic women attack the enemy, teeth gnashing, necks corded with veins, large white arms revolving like the cross-piece of a windmill, while their feet kick like shots discharged by catapult. They are formidable.
The Gallic men take pride in military service, unlike the Italians, who think nothing of cutting off their own thumbs to thwart the state’s recruiting officers. Gauls, however, delight in blood-letting, and they would be the greatest of all soldiers but for two reasons: they do not take well to military discipline, and they are drunks. At the most inconvenient moments a commander of Gallic troops is apt to find his soldiers mad with drink, under the excuse that such and such a day is holy and must be marked with a little wine or one of those powerful drinks they brew from grain and vegetables.
I shall not describe my campaigns in Gaul, for I have already published an account of them which flatterers declare is the equal of Julius Caesar’s Commentaries. I will say that I put more care into writing about the Gallic wars than I did in fighting them! But I shall record some of the things which I could not reveal at the time.
One reply on “Julian, 69”
The Gauls maintain their essence of mystery because they shrouded the secrets of their origins and history by means of an oral tradition and never kept written records of it.
Indeed, the Gauls are extremely quarrelsome, and not for any reasons which are either noble or admirable, once one discovers the truth behind their origins and their purpose. When you realize who and what they are, their abilities and love for war are completely understood.
War, in fact is the chief means of their survival because they are naturally uncivilized and not sophisticated.
When they are not fighting with foreigners, they are always busy fighting among their own.
The Gauls, including certain tribes like the Caledonians were known as being a rogue force and constant danger / liability for the Roman Empire, just as they are the same in today’s Western Civilization.
The Gauls, rightfully are accorded as with the reputation as being the best / most capable fighters of all Europeans, sometimes they were hired as mercenaries, but as the article states, they lacked discipline and they had very poorly organized armies and a predisposition to constantly being drunk. Gauls are involved in bloodletting because they practice cannibalism.
The primary reason the Gauls take pride in military service however, is also not one of honor or any honorary reasons, but it roots back to the fact that it is their chief means of survival and dominance, because they need to subjugate others in order to extract provisions. In modern times, the Gauls fight all the Western world wars in order to maintain their quiet dominance, but they also are losing that fight.
Regarding the Italians, we must remember that the Italians of today, unfortunately are mostly a husk of their former Roman Ancestors. 90% of Italians are pacifists and conformists and are willing to do anything and sacrifice the well-being of their own people and nation for the sake of comfort and being agreeable.
There is an audiobook over 7 hours long on YouTube “Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars” which is very boring especially early on, but with valuable information for anyone who really wants to understand the truth about the Gauls and why they were (and consequently still are) a threat to an advanced, centralized state.