distribution of legions in winter quarters 54/53BCE

[tonyodysseus]

What I have noticed in reading Caesar's Gallic Wars is that the involved geography is often not completely precise. I guess to some extent one part of the forest looks pretty much like another and creating a detailed geographic detail of where he had been was not an authorial priority for Caesar. De Bello Gallico was the pioneer work in historical accounts of Northern Europe and one should be grateful that it even exists. Nevertheless, I would like some more precision in Caesar's account of the locations of the winter camps for his forces in the winter of 54/53BCE in B.G.5.24. I have not found a map that I really like. I realize that there just may be no way to really reconstruct detail in the narrative which has not survived but I would very interested in seeing some plausible reconstructions. I would appreciate the input of anyone of the forum who would like to participate. Here is the passage in the Carolyn Hammond translation (Caesar, "The Gallic War", Oxford World Classics, 1996, 100-101):

 

Because of a drought the corn had grown only sparsely in Gaul that year, so Caesar was compelled to allocate the army's winter quarters according to a plan different to that of the previous years, and to spread the legions across a greater number of states. One legion he allocated to his legate Gaius Fabius, to lead it to the Morini, another to Quintus Cicero, to go to the Nervii, and a third to Lucius Roscius, to Esubian territory. He ordered the fourth under Titus Labienus to winter among the Remi, on the borders of the Treveri. He settled three legions among the Belgae and put his quaestor Marcus Crassus and his legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in charge of them. One legion, which he had enlisted north of the Po only recently, he sent with five cohorts to the land of the Eburones, which lies mainly between the Meuse and the Rhine. . . He ordered his legates Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta to take command of this force.

 

On the standard maps of Gaul at that time, the word "Belgae" is written in big letters over the area where all these legions are being quartered, except for the area where Caesar situated Roscius, among the Esubii in Brittany. On these same maps the names of tribes such as the Nervii, the Remi and the Morini are written smaller in and around the word "Belgae" written in large letters. Does that mean that the Nervii, Remi and Morini are sub-tribes or divisions of the larger tribe of the Belgae OR that Nervii, Remi and Morini are completely separate peoples who are just in close physical proximity to the much larger and more important Belgae tribe? Caesar says that he settled three legions among the Belgae under Crassus, Plancus and Trebonius. Does he say "Belgae" because this is a different tribe from those in the vicinity he mentioned earlier in the paragraph (Nervii, Remi and Morini) or because with these last three legions for some reason he did not want to specify which member tribes of the Belgae he wanted to lodge these three legions with (and that Caesar would have considered as Belgae every tribe hosting legions in the paragraph--except for the Esubii in Brittany)? Also, by saying Belgae does Caesar avoid specifying exactly where exactly in this wide area the soldiers were located? Also, did Caesar intend the three legions he lodged with the Belgae to be in one camp or in three different camps? I looked in Polybius' description of Roman camps in book 6 and he seems to indicate that more than one legion could be housed in a single camp.

 

If I can't find a clear map of this I may try to make one myself. Does anyone know of some good resources on this? I find that the maps of the Gallic Wars on wikipedia do not have much detail. Again from Caesar's accounts it may not be possible to supply much detail but some research or some reasonable conjecture might introduce some stimulating detail that would lend the experience of reading the Gallic Wars more immediacy and engagement. Sometimes it feels like I'm just lost in a mass of place and tribe names that have no reality to me. Thank you.

Edited June 12, 2010 by tonyodysseus

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

You should rather understant the various tribes of Gallia Belgica as a people (the Belgae) divided in tribes called Nervii, Eburones, etc... as the Eduani were gauls.

 

Due to the practice of Caesar during the war I'd presume that the various legions were mainly in 1 unit camps at some distance from each other (as evidenced during Ambiorix' revolt)

 

But to be more precise than that I must confess that I know of no book able to help you, and I've not heard of a Caesarean camp ever found other than Alesia's extensive works.

 

To help you with the places of the various tribes you may use maps such as :

 

http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3qqabyzrn9hq0...artegaule-1.jpg

 

or

 

http://lebanquetdesleuques.unblog.fr/files.../03/gaulois.gif

[tonyodysseus]

Thanks for your help. Those maps on the links are very nice. I had been a little disappointed in my research with an Osprey book on the subject ("Rome at War: Caesar and His Legacy"), although it has many good points. Recently I have found that French wikipedia is richer on the Gallic Wars than English wikipedia, which shouldn't be a surprise considering the location of all this. I can more or less read French so that's OK. Their article "Belges" is a lot more detailed than the "Belgae" article in English wikipedia. What I have found most interesting in this process of focusing on this passage is this sentence in my translation: "[Caesar] settled three legions among the Belgae and put his quaestor Marcus Crassus and his legates Lucius Munatius Plancus and Gaius Trebonius in charge of them." I read Latin and so I went to the standard Latin text and this reads "Tris in Belgis collocavit . . ." which means "he placed three [legions] among the Belgae . . .". The word "Belgis" has dagger notations at either end, which means that the editor has a serious problem with this but is not willing to make an emendation or change that makes more sense because he is not certain enough. At the foot of the page the suggestion of another scholar is offered that over the millenia a mistake must have crept into the manuscript and the original text must have said "Bellovacis". Bellovaci makes sense since they are relatively nearby. If "Belgis" is right why would Caesar not have specified which tribes of the Belgae was depositing these three legions with when he has repeatedly specified earlier in the passage?