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Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of 494,000 km2 (191,000 sq mi). According to Julius Caesar, who took control of the region on behalf of the Roman Republic, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania.
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Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. This material culture was found not only in all of Gaul but also as far east as modern-day southern Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Warbands led by the Gaul Brennos sacked the city of Rome in 387 BC, becoming the only time Rome was conquered by a foreign enemy in 800 years. However, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered by the Romans in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the largest part of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486.
While the Gauls shifted from a primarily Celtic culture during Late Antiquity, becoming amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture, Gallia remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages, until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period. Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek (Γαλλία) and modern Latin (besides the alternatives Francia and Francogallia).
Name
The Greek and Latin names Galatia (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenium in the 4th century BC) and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal(a)-to-. The Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic etymology connected the name of the Galatians (Γαλάται, Galátai) to the supposedly "milk-white" skin (γάλα, gála "milk") of the Gauls. Modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu,[citation needed]Cornish: galloes, "capacity, power", thus meaning "powerful people".
Despite its superficial similarity, the normal English translation of Gallia since the Middle Ages, Gaul, has a different origin than the Latin term. It stems from the French Gaule, itself deriving from the Old Frankish *Walholant (via a Latinized form *Walula), literally the "Land of the Foreigners/Romans". *Walho- is a reflex of the Proto-Germanic *walhaz, "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin-speaking people indiscriminately. It is cognate with the names Wales, Cornwall, Wallonia, and Wallachia. The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French (cf. guerre "war", garder "ward", Guillaume "William"), and the historic diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant (cf. cheval ~ chevaux). French Gaule or Gaulle cannot be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a (cf. gamba > jambe), and the diphthong au would be unexplained; the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille in French, which is found in several western place names, such as, La Jaille-Yvon and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille. Proto-Germanic *walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae.
Also unrelated, in spite of superficial similarity, is the name Gael. The Irish word gall did originally mean "a Gaul", i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th-century book Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib.
As adjectives, English has the two variants: Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language group once spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish.
History
Pre-Roman Gaul
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There is little written information concerning the peoples that inhabited the regions of Gaul, save what can be gleaned from coins. Therefore, the early history of the Gauls is predominantly a matter of archaeology, and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics) and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.
Before the rapid spread of the La Tène culture in the 5th to 4th centuries BC, the territory of eastern and southern France already participated in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (c. 12th to 8th centuries BC) out of which the early iron-working Hallstatt culture (7th to 6th centuries BC) would develop. By 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France (except for the Alps and the extreme north-west).
Out of this Hallstatt background, the La Tène culture arose during the 7th and 6th century BC, presumably representing an early form of Continental Celtic culture and likely under Mediterranean influence from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan civilizations. This culture spread out in a number of early centers along the Seine, the Middle Rhine and the upper Elbe. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spread rapidly across the entire territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) not only in France but also what is now Switzerland, northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary.
A major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age, during the 500-year period from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most closely related to ancient individuals from Gaul. The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain".
The major source of early information on the Celts of Gaul was Poseidonios of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by Timagenes, Julius Caesar, the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the Greek geographer Strabo.
In the 4th and early 3rd century BC, Gallic clan confederations expanded far beyond the territory of what would become Roman Gaul (which defines usage of the term "Gaul" today), into Pannonia, Illyria, northern Italy, Transylvania and even Asia Minor. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between the Rhine and the Seine), the Celtae in the center and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe the Belgae north of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved.
In addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia (present-day Marseille) along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern French Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture.
Initial contact with Rome
In the 2nd century BC Mediterranean Gaul had an extensive urban fabric and was prosperous. Archeologists know of cities in northern Gaul including the Biturigian capital of Avaricum (Bourges), Cenabum (Orléans), Autricum (Chartres) and the excavated site of Bibracte near Autun in Saône-et-Loire, along with a number of hill forts (or oppida) used in times of war. The prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who found themselves under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC. Whereas on the first occasion they came and went, on the second they stayed. In 122 BC Domitius Ahenobarbus managed to defeat the Allobroges (allies of the Salluvii), while in the ensuing year Quintus Fabius Maximus "destroyed" an army of the Arverni led by their king Bituitus, who had come to the aid of the Allobroges. Rome allowed Massilia to keep its lands, but added to its own territories the lands of the conquered tribes. As a direct result of these conquests, Rome now controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône river, and in the east up the Rhône valley to Lake Geneva. By 121 BC Romans had conquered the Mediterranean region called Provincia (later named Gallia Narbonensis). This conquest upset the ascendancy of the Gaulish Arverni peoples.
Conquest by Rome
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The Roman proconsul and general Julius Caesar led his army into Gaul in 58 BC, ostensibly to assist Rome's Gaullish allies against the migrating Helvetii. With the help of various Gallic clans (e.g., the Aedui) he managed to conquer nearly all of Gaul. While their military was just as strong as the Romans', the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. Julius Caesar was checked by Vercingetorix at a siege of Gergovia, a fortified town in the center of Gaul. Caesar's alliances with many Gallic clans broke. Even the Aedui, their most faithful supporters, threw in their lot with the Arverni but the ever-loyal Remi (best known for its cavalry) and Lingones sent troops to support Caesar. The Germani of the Ubii also sent cavalry, which Caesar equipped with Remi horses. Caesar captured Vercingetorix in the Battle of Alesia, which ended the majority of Gallic resistance to Rome.
As many as a million people (probably 1 in 5 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 clans were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars. The entire population of the city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) were slaughtered. Before Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (Switzerland), the Helvetians had numbered 263,000, but afterwards only 100,000 remained, most of whom Caesar took as slaves.
Roman Gaul
After Gaul was absorbed as Gallia, a set of Roman provinces, its inhabitants gradually adopted aspects of Roman culture and assimilated, resulting in the distinct Gallo-Roman culture. Citizenship was granted to all in 212 by the Constitutio Antoniniana. From the third to 5th centuries, Gaul was exposed to raids by the Franks. The Gallic Empire, consisting of the provinces of Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania, including the peaceful Baetica in the south, broke away from Rome from 260 to 273. In addition to the large number of natives, Gallia also became home to some Roman citizens from elsewhere and also in-migrating Germanic and Scythian tribes such as the Alans.
The religious practices of inhabitants became a combination of Roman and Celtic practice, with Celtic deities such as Cobannus and Epona subjected to interpretatio romana. The imperial cult and Eastern mystery religions also gained a following. Eventually, after it became the official religion of the Empire and paganism became suppressed, Christianity won out in the twilight days of the Western Roman Empire (while the Christianized Eastern Roman Empire lasted another thousand years, until the invasion of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453); a small but notable Jewish presence also became established.
The Gaulish language is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture. The last record of spoken Gaulish deemed to be plausibly credible concerned the destruction by Christians of a pagan shrine in Auvergne "called Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue". Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French.
The Vulgar Latin in the region of Gallia took on a distinctly local character, some of which is attested in graffiti, which evolved into the Gallo-Romance dialects which include French and its closest relatives. The influence of substrate languages may be seen in graffiti showing sound changes that matched changes that had earlier occurred in the indigenous languages, especially Gaulish. The Vulgar Latin in the north of Gaul evolved into the langues d'oïl and Franco-Provencal, while the dialects in the south evolved into the modern Occitan and Catalan tongues. Other languages held to be "Gallo-Romance" include the Gallo-Italic languages and the Rhaeto-Romance languages.
Frankish Gaul
Following Frankish victories at Soissons (AD 486), Vouillé (AD 507) and Autun (AD 532), Gaul (except for Brittany and Septimania) came under the rule of the Merovingians, the first kings of France. Gallo-Roman culture, the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire, persisted particularly in the areas of Gallia Narbonensis that developed into Occitania, Gallia Cisalpina and to a lesser degree, Aquitania. The formerly Romanized north of Gaul, once it had been occupied by the Franks, developed into Merovingian culture instead. Roman life, centered on the public events and cultural responsibilities of urban life in the res publica and the sometimes luxurious life of the self-sufficient rural villa system, took longer to collapse in the Gallo-Roman regions, where the Visigoths largely inherited the status quo in the early 5th century. Gallo-Roman language persisted in the northeast into the Silva Carbonaria that formed an effective cultural barrier, with the Franks to the north and east, and in the northwest to the lower valley of the Loire, where Gallo-Roman culture interfaced with Frankish culture in a city like Tours and in the person of that Gallo-Roman bishop confronted with Merovingian royals, Gregory of Tours.
- Massalia (Marseille) silver coin with Greek legend, 5th–1st century BC.
- Gold coins of the Gaul Parisii, 1st century BC, (Cabinet des Médailles, Paris).
- Roman silver Denarius with the head of captive Gaul 48 BC, following the campaigns of Julius Caesar.
Gauls
Social structure, indigenous nation and clans
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The Druids were not the only political force in Gaul, however, and the early political system was complex, if ultimately fatal to the society as a whole. The fundamental unit of Gallic politics was the clan, which itself consisted of one or more of what Caesar called pagi. Each clan had a council of elders, and initially a king. Later, the executive was an annually-elected magistrate. Among the Aedui, a clan of Gaul, the executive held the title of Vergobret, a position much like a king, but his powers were held in check by rules laid down by the council.
The regional ethnic groups, or pagi as the Romans called them (singular: pagus; the French word pays, "region" [a more accurate translation is 'country'], comes from this term), were organized into larger multi-clan groups, which the Romans called civitates. These administrative groupings would be taken over by the Romans in their system of local control, and these civitates would also be the basis of France's eventual division into ecclesiastical bishoprics and dioceses, which would remain in place—with slight changes—until the French Revolution.
Although the clans were moderately stable political entities, Gaul as a whole tended to be politically divided, there being virtually no unity among the various clans. Only during particularly trying times, such as the invasion of Caesar, could the Gauls unite under a single leader like Vercingetorix. Even then, however, the faction lines were clear.
The Romans divided Gaul broadly into Provincia (the conquered area around the Mediterranean), and the northern Gallia Comata ("free Gaul" or "long-haired Gaul"). Caesar divided the people of Gallia Comata into three broad groups: the Aquitani; Galli (who in their own language were called Celtae); and Belgae. In the modern sense, Gaulish peoples are defined linguistically, as speakers of dialects of the Gaulish language. While the Aquitani were probably Vascons, the Belgae would thus probably be a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements.
Julius Caesar, in his book, The Gallic Wars, wrote
All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhone; it is bounded by the river Garonne, the ocean, and the territories of the Belgae; it borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the river Rhine, and stretches toward the north. The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine; and look toward the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star.
Religion
The Gauls practiced a form of animism, ascribing human characteristics to lakes, streams, mountains, and other natural features and granting them a quasi-divine status. Also, worship of animals was not uncommon; the animal most sacred to the Gauls was the boar which can be found on many Gallic military standards, much like the Roman eagle.
Their system of gods and goddesses was loose, there being certain deities which virtually every Gallic person worshipped, as well as clan and household gods.
Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Gallic religion is the practice of the Druids. The druids presided over human or animal sacrifices that were made in wooded groves or crude temples. They also appear to have held the responsibility for preserving the annual agricultural calendar and instigating seasonal festivals which corresponded to key points of the lunar-solar calendar. The religious practices of druids were syncretic and borrowed from earlier pagan traditions, with probably indo-European roots. Julius Caesar mentions in his Gallic Wars that those Celts who wanted to make a close study of druidism went to Britain to do so. In a little over a century later, Gnaeus Julius Agricola mentions Roman armies attacking a large druid sanctuary in Anglesey in Wales. There is no certainty concerning the origin of the druids, but it is clear that they vehemently guarded the secrets of their order and held sway over the people of Gaul. Indeed, they claimed the right to determine questions of war and peace, and thereby held an "international" status. In addition, the Druids monitored the religion of ordinary Gauls and were in charge of educating the aristocracy. They also practiced a form of excommunication from the assembly of worshippers, which in ancient Gaul meant a separation from secular society as well. Thus the Druids were an important part of Gallic society. The nearly complete and mysterious disappearance of the Celtic language from most of the territorial lands of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Brittany, can be attributed to the fact that Celtic druids refused to allow the Celtic oral literature or traditional wisdom to be committed to the written letter.
See also
- Ambiorix
- Asterix – a French comic about Gaul and Rome, mainly set in 50 BC
- Bog body
- Braccae – trousers, typical Gallic dress
- Cisalpine Gaul
- Galatia
- Lugdunum
- Roman Republic
- Roman villas in northwestern Gaul
References
- English: /ˈɡæliə/
- Arrowsmith, Aaron (1832). A Grammar of Ancient Geography: Compiled for the Use of King's College School. Hansard London 1832. p. 50. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
gallia
- Bisdent, Bisdent (28 April 2011). "Gaul". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
- Birkhan 1997, p. 48.
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- Howlsedhes Services. "Gerlyver Sempel". Archived from the original on 27 January 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- Pierre-Yves Lambert, La langue gauloise, éditions Errance, 1994, p. 194.
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- Nouveau dictionnaire étymologique et historique (Larousse 1990), p. 336.
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- Gael is derived from Old Irish Goidel (borrowed, in turn, in the 7th century AD from Primitive Welsh Guoidel—spelled Gwyddel in Middle Welsh and Modern Welsh—likely derived from a Brittonic root *Wēdelos meaning literally "forest person, wild man")
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- Drinkwater 2014, p. 6. "[...] the most important outcome of this series of campaigns was the direct annexation by Rome of a huge area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône, and up the Rhône valley to Lake Geneva."
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Because of chronic internal rivalries, Gallic resistance was easily broken, though Vercingetorix's Great Rebellion of 52 bc had notable successes.
- "Julius Caesar: The first triumvirate and the conquest of Gaul". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
Indeed, the Gallic cavalry was probably superior to the Roman, horseman for horseman. Rome's military superiority lay in its mastery of strategy, tactics, discipline, and military engineering. In Gaul, Rome also had the advantage of being able to deal separately with dozens of relatively small, independent, and uncooperative states. Caesar conquered these piecemeal, and the concerted attempt made by a number of them in 52 BC to shake off the Roman yoke came too late.
- Plutarch, Caesar 22.
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- A recent survey is G. Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge University Press) 1998.
- Bachrach, Bernard S. (1972). Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. U of Minnesota Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780816657001.
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Le déclin du Gaulois et sa disparition ne s'expliquent pas seulement par des pratiques culturelles spécifiques: Lorsque les Romains conduits par César envahirent la Gaule, au 1er siecle avant J.-C., celle-ci romanisa de manière progressive et profonde. Pendant près de 500 ans, la fameuse période gallo-romaine, le gaulois et le latin parlé coexistèrent; au VIe siècle encore; le temoignage de Grégoire de Tours atteste la survivance de la langue gauloise.
- Hist. Franc., book I, 32 Veniens vero Arvernos, delubrum illud, quod Gallica lingua Vasso Galatæ vocant, incendit, diruit, atque subvertit. And coming to Clermont [to the Arverni] he set on fire, overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatæ in the Gallic tongue.
- Henri Guiter, "Sur le substrat gaulois dans la Romania", in Munus amicitae. Studia linguistica in honorem Witoldi Manczak septuagenarii, eds., Anna Bochnakowa & Stanislan Widlak, Krakow, 1995.
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- MacCulloch, John Arnott (1911). "Chapter III. The Gods of Gaul and the Continental Celts". The Religion of the Ancient Celts. Edinburgh: Clark. p. 22. ISBN 978-1508518518. Retrieved 8 January 2017 – via Internet Sacred Text Archive.
- Warner, Marina; Burn, Lucilla (2003). World of Myths, Vol. 1. London: British Museum. p. 382. ISBN 978-0714127835. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
- Kendrick, Thomas D. (1966). The Druids: A Study in Keltic Prehistory. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 78.
Sources
- Birkhan, H. (1997). Die Kelten. Vienna.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Drinkwater, John Frederick (2014) [1983]. "Conquest and Pacification". Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 BC–AD 260. Routledge Revivals. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1317750741.
- Koch, John Thomas (2006). Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-440-7.
- Ñaco del Hoyo, Toni; Principal, Jordi; Dobson, Mike, eds. (2022). Rome and the north-western Mediterranean : integration and connectivity c. 150–70 BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781789257175.
External links
![image](https://www.english.nina.az/wikipedia/image/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZW5nbGlzaC5uaW5hLmF6L3dpa2lwZWRpYS9pbWFnZS9hSFIwY0hNNkx5OTFjR3h2WVdRdWQybHJhVzFsWkdsaExtOXlaeTkzYVd0cGNHVmthV0V2Wlc0dmRHaDFiV0l2TkM4MFlTOURiMjF0YjI1ekxXeHZaMjh1YzNabkx6TXdjSGd0UTI5dGJXOXVjeTFzYjJkdkxuTjJaeTV3Ym1jPS5wbmc=.png)
Gaul Latin Gallia was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Romans encompassing present day France Belgium Luxembourg and parts of Switzerland the Netherlands Germany and Northern Italy It covered an area of 494 000 km2 191 000 sq mi According to Julius Caesar who took control of the region on behalf of the Roman Republic Gaul was divided into three parts Gallia Celtica Belgica and Aquitania Gaul c 58 BC on the eve of the Gallic Wars The Romans divided Gaul into five parts Gallia Celtica largely corresponding to the later province Gallia Lugdunensis Gallia Belgica Gallia Cisalpina Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia Aquitania Archaeologically the Gauls were bearers of the La Tene culture during the 5th to 1st centuries BC This material culture was found not only in all of Gaul but also as far east as modern day southern Poland Slovakia and Hungary Warbands led by the Gaul Brennos sacked the city of Rome in 387 BC becoming the only time Rome was conquered by a foreign enemy in 800 years However Gallia Cisalpina was conquered by the Romans in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC Julius Caesar finally subdued the largest part of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries until the last Roman rump state the Domain of Soissons fell to the Franks in AD 486 While the Gauls shifted from a primarily Celtic culture during Late Antiquity becoming amalgamated into a Gallo Roman culture Gallia remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek Gallia and modern Latin besides the alternatives Francia and Francogallia NameThe Greek and Latin names Galatia first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenium in the 4th century BC and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal a to The Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar Hellenistic etymology connected the name of the Galatians Galatai Galatai to the supposedly milk white skin gala gala milk of the Gauls Modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu citation needed Cornish galloes capacity power thus meaning powerful people Despite its superficial similarity the normal English translation of Gallia since the Middle Ages Gaul has a different origin than the Latin term It stems from the French Gaule itself deriving from the Old Frankish Walholant via a Latinized form Walula literally the Land of the Foreigners Romans Walho is a reflex of the Proto Germanic walhaz foreigner Romanized person an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin speaking people indiscriminately It is cognate with the names Wales Cornwall Wallonia and Wallachia The Germanic w is regularly rendered as gu g in French cf guerre war garder ward Guillaume William and the historic diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant cf cheval chevaux French Gaule or Gaulle cannot be derived from Latin Gallia since g would become j before a cf gamba gt jambe and the diphthong au would be unexplained the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille in French which is found in several western place names such as La Jaille Yvon and Saint Mars la Jaille Proto Germanic walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae Also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael The Irish word gall did originally mean a Gaul i e an inhabitant of Gaul but its meaning was later widened to foreigner to describe the Vikings and later still the Normans The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast for instance in the 12th century book Cogad Gaedel re Gallaib As adjectives English has the two variants Gaulish and Gallic The two adjectives are used synonymously as pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls although the Celtic language group once spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish HistoryPre Roman Gaul Map of Roman Gaul Droysens Allgemeiner historischer Handatlas 1886 There is little written information concerning the peoples that inhabited the regions of Gaul save what can be gleaned from coins Therefore the early history of the Gauls is predominantly a matter of archaeology and the relationships between their material culture genetic relationships the study of which has been aided in recent years through the field of archaeogenetics and linguistic divisions rarely coincide Before the rapid spread of the La Tene culture in the 5th to 4th centuries BC the territory of eastern and southern France already participated in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture c 12th to 8th centuries BC out of which the early iron working Hallstatt culture 7th to 6th centuries BC would develop By 500 BC there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France except for the Alps and the extreme north west Out of this Hallstatt background the La Tene culture arose during the 7th and 6th century BC presumably representing an early form of Continental Celtic culture and likely under Mediterranean influence from the Greek Phoenician and Etruscan civilizations This culture spread out in a number of early centers along the Seine the Middle Rhine and the upper Elbe By the late 5th century BC La Tene influence spread rapidly across the entire territory of Gaul The La Tene culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC not only in France but also what is now Switzerland northern Italy Austria southern Germany Bohemia Moravia Slovakia and Hungary A major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age during the 500 year period from 1300 to 800 BC The newcomers were genetically most closely related to ancient individuals from Gaul The authors describe this as a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain The major source of early information on the Celts of Gaul was Poseidonios of Apamea whose writings were quoted by Timagenes Julius Caesar the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus and the Greek geographer Strabo In the 4th and early 3rd century BC Gallic clan confederations expanded far beyond the territory of what would become Roman Gaul which defines usage of the term Gaul today into Pannonia Illyria northern Italy Transylvania and even Asia Minor By the 2nd century BC the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina In his Gallic Wars Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul the Belgae in the north roughly between the Rhine and the Seine the Celtae in the center and in Armorica and the Aquitani in the southwest the southeast being already colonized by the Romans While some scholars believe the Belgae north of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved In addition to the Gauls there were other peoples living in Gaul such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia present day Marseille along the Mediterranean coast Also along the southeastern French Mediterranean coast the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto Ligurian culture Initial contact with Rome In the 2nd century BC Mediterranean Gaul had an extensive urban fabric and was prosperous Archeologists know of cities in northern Gaul including the Biturigian capital of Avaricum Bourges Cenabum Orleans Autricum Chartres and the excavated site of Bibracte near Autun in Saone et Loire along with a number of hill forts or oppida used in times of war The prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia who found themselves under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC Whereas on the first occasion they came and went on the second they stayed In 122 BC Domitius Ahenobarbus managed to defeat the Allobroges allies of the Salluvii while in the ensuing year Quintus Fabius Maximus destroyed an army of the Arverni led by their king Bituitus who had come to the aid of the Allobroges Rome allowed Massilia to keep its lands but added to its own territories the lands of the conquered tribes As a direct result of these conquests Rome now controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhone river and in the east up the Rhone valley to Lake Geneva By 121 BC Romans had conquered the Mediterranean region called Provincia later named Gallia Narbonensis This conquest upset the ascendancy of the Gaulish Arverni peoples Conquest by Rome Gauls in Rome The Roman proconsul and general Julius Caesar led his army into Gaul in 58 BC ostensibly to assist Rome s Gaullish allies against the migrating Helvetii With the help of various Gallic clans e g the Aedui he managed to conquer nearly all of Gaul While their military was just as strong as the Romans the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar and Vercingetorix s attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late Julius Caesar was checked by Vercingetorix at a siege of Gergovia a fortified town in the center of Gaul Caesar s alliances with many Gallic clans broke Even the Aedui their most faithful supporters threw in their lot with the Arverni but the ever loyal Remi best known for its cavalry and Lingones sent troops to support Caesar The Germani of the Ubii also sent cavalry which Caesar equipped with Remi horses Caesar captured Vercingetorix in the Battle of Alesia which ended the majority of Gallic resistance to Rome As many as a million people probably 1 in 5 of the Gauls died another million were enslaved 300 clans were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars The entire population of the city of Avaricum Bourges 40 000 in all were slaughtered Before Julius Caesar s campaign against the Helvetii Switzerland the Helvetians had numbered 263 000 but afterwards only 100 000 remained most of whom Caesar took as slaves Roman Gaul Soldiers of Gaul as imagined by a late 19th century illustrator for the Larousse dictionary 1898 After Gaul was absorbed as Gallia a set of Roman provinces its inhabitants gradually adopted aspects of Roman culture and assimilated resulting in the distinct Gallo Roman culture Citizenship was granted to all in 212 by the Constitutio Antoniniana From the third to 5th centuries Gaul was exposed to raids by the Franks The Gallic Empire consisting of the provinces of Gaul Britannia and Hispania including the peaceful Baetica in the south broke away from Rome from 260 to 273 In addition to the large number of natives Gallia also became home to some Roman citizens from elsewhere and also in migrating Germanic and Scythian tribes such as the Alans The religious practices of inhabitants became a combination of Roman and Celtic practice with Celtic deities such as Cobannus and Epona subjected to interpretatio romana The imperial cult and Eastern mystery religions also gained a following Eventually after it became the official religion of the Empire and paganism became suppressed Christianity won out in the twilight days of the Western Roman Empire while the Christianized Eastern Roman Empire lasted another thousand years until the invasion of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 a small but notable Jewish presence also became established The Gaulish language is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture The last record of spoken Gaulish deemed to be plausibly credible concerned the destruction by Christians of a pagan shrine in Auvergne called Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue Coexisting with Latin Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French The Vulgar Latin in the region of Gallia took on a distinctly local character some of which is attested in graffiti which evolved into the Gallo Romance dialects which include French and its closest relatives The influence of substrate languages may be seen in graffiti showing sound changes that matched changes that had earlier occurred in the indigenous languages especially Gaulish The Vulgar Latin in the north of Gaul evolved into the langues d oil and Franco Provencal while the dialects in the south evolved into the modern Occitan and Catalan tongues Other languages held to be Gallo Romance include the Gallo Italic languages and the Rhaeto Romance languages Frankish Gaul Following Frankish victories at Soissons AD 486 Vouille AD 507 and Autun AD 532 Gaul except for Brittany and Septimania came under the rule of the Merovingians the first kings of France Gallo Roman culture the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire persisted particularly in the areas of Gallia Narbonensis that developed into Occitania Gallia Cisalpina and to a lesser degree Aquitania The formerly Romanized north of Gaul once it had been occupied by the Franks developed into Merovingian culture instead Roman life centered on the public events and cultural responsibilities of urban life in the res publica and the sometimes luxurious life of the self sufficient rural villa system took longer to collapse in the Gallo Roman regions where the Visigoths largely inherited the status quo in the early 5th century Gallo Roman language persisted in the northeast into the Silva Carbonaria that formed an effective cultural barrier with the Franks to the north and east and in the northwest to the lower valley of the Loire where Gallo Roman culture interfaced with Frankish culture in a city like Tours and in the person of that Gallo Roman bishop confronted with Merovingian royals Gregory of Tours Massalia Marseille silver coin with Greek legend 5th 1st century BC Gold coins of the Gaul Parisii 1st century BC Cabinet des Medailles Paris Roman silver Denarius with the head of captive Gaul 48 BC following the campaigns of Julius Caesar GaulsSocial structure indigenous nation and clans This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed August 2011 Learn how and when to remove this message A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC showing the relative positions of the Celtic ethnicities Celtae Belgae and Aquitani Expansion of the Celtic culture in the 3rd century BC The Druids were not the only political force in Gaul however and the early political system was complex if ultimately fatal to the society as a whole The fundamental unit of Gallic politics was the clan which itself consisted of one or more of what Caesar called pagi Each clan had a council of elders and initially a king Later the executive was an annually elected magistrate Among the Aedui a clan of Gaul the executive held the title of Vergobret a position much like a king but his powers were held in check by rules laid down by the council The regional ethnic groups or pagi as the Romans called them singular pagus the French word pays region a more accurate translation is country comes from this term were organized into larger multi clan groups which the Romans called civitates These administrative groupings would be taken over by the Romans in their system of local control and these civitates would also be the basis of France s eventual division into ecclesiastical bishoprics and dioceses which would remain in place with slight changes until the French Revolution Although the clans were moderately stable political entities Gaul as a whole tended to be politically divided there being virtually no unity among the various clans Only during particularly trying times such as the invasion of Caesar could the Gauls unite under a single leader like Vercingetorix Even then however the faction lines were clear The Romans divided Gaul broadly into Provincia the conquered area around the Mediterranean and the northern Gallia Comata free Gaul or long haired Gaul Caesar divided the people of Gallia Comata into three broad groups the Aquitani Galli who in their own language were called Celtae and Belgae In the modern sense Gaulish peoples are defined linguistically as speakers of dialects of the Gaulish language While the Aquitani were probably Vascons the Belgae would thus probably be a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements Julius Caesar in his book The Gallic Wars wrote All Gaul is divided into three parts one of which the Belgae inhabit the Aquitani another those who in their own language are called Celts in our Gauls the third All these differ from each other in language customs and laws The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae Of all these the Belgae are the bravest because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of our Province and merchants least frequently resort to them and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind and they are the nearest to the Germans who dwell beyond the Rhine with whom they are continually waging war for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles when they either repel them from their own territories or themselves wage war on their frontiers One part of these which it has been said that the Gauls occupy takes its beginning at the river Rhone it is bounded by the river Garonne the ocean and the territories of the Belgae it borders too on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii upon the river Rhine and stretches toward the north The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul extend to the lower part of the river Rhine and look toward the north and the rising sun Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain it looks between the setting of the sun and the north star Religion The Gauls practiced a form of animism ascribing human characteristics to lakes streams mountains and other natural features and granting them a quasi divine status Also worship of animals was not uncommon the animal most sacred to the Gauls was the boar which can be found on many Gallic military standards much like the Roman eagle Their system of gods and goddesses was loose there being certain deities which virtually every Gallic person worshipped as well as clan and household gods Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Gallic religion is the practice of the Druids The druids presided over human or animal sacrifices that were made in wooded groves or crude temples They also appear to have held the responsibility for preserving the annual agricultural calendar and instigating seasonal festivals which corresponded to key points of the lunar solar calendar The religious practices of druids were syncretic and borrowed from earlier pagan traditions with probably indo European roots Julius Caesar mentions in his Gallic Wars that those Celts who wanted to make a close study of druidism went to Britain to do so In a little over a century later Gnaeus Julius Agricola mentions Roman armies attacking a large druid sanctuary in Anglesey in Wales There is no certainty concerning the origin of the druids but it is clear that they vehemently guarded the secrets of their order and held sway over the people of Gaul Indeed they claimed the right to determine questions of war and peace and thereby held an international status In addition the Druids monitored the religion of ordinary Gauls and were in charge of educating the aristocracy They also practiced a form of excommunication from the assembly of worshippers which in ancient Gaul meant a separation from secular society as well Thus the Druids were an important part of Gallic society The nearly complete and mysterious disappearance of the Celtic language from most of the territorial lands of ancient Gaul with the exception of Brittany can be attributed to the fact that Celtic druids refused to allow the Celtic oral literature or traditional wisdom to be committed to the written letter See alsoAmbiorix Asterix a French comic about Gaul and Rome mainly set in 50 BC Bog body Braccae trousers typical Gallic dress Cisalpine Gaul Galatia Lugdunum Roman Republic Roman villas in northwestern GaulReferencesEnglish ˈ ɡ ae l i e Arrowsmith Aaron 1832 A Grammar of Ancient Geography Compiled for the Use of King s College School Hansard London 1832 p 50 Retrieved 21 September 2014 gallia Bisdent Bisdent 28 April 2011 Gaul World History Encyclopedia Retrieved 15 May 2019 Birkhan 1997 p 48 The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville p 198 Cambridge University Press 2006 Stephen A Barney W J Lewis J A Beach and Oliver Berghof Howlsedhes Services Gerlyver Sempel Archived from the original on 27 January 2017 Retrieved 31 December 2016 Pierre Yves Lambert La langue gauloise editions Errance 1994 p 194 Ekblom R Die Herkunft des Namens La Gaule in Studia Neophilologica Uppsala XV 1942 43 nos 1 2 pp 291 301 Sjogren Albert Le nom de Gaule in Studia Neophilologica Vol 11 1938 39 pp 210 214 Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology OUP 1966 p 391 Nouveau dictionnaire etymologique et historique Larousse 1990 p 336 Koch 2006 p 532 Koch 2006 pp 775 776 Gael is derived from Old Irish Goidel borrowed in turn in the 7th century AD from Primitive Welsh Guoidel spelled Gwyddel in Middle Welsh and Modern Welsh likely derived from a Brittonic root Wedelos meaning literally forest person wild man Linehan Peter Janet L Nelson 2003 The Medieval World Vol 10 Routledge p 393 ISBN 978 0 415 30234 0 Patterson N Isakov M Booth T 2021 Large scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age Nature 601 7894 588 594 Bibcode 2022Natur 601 588P doi 10 1038 s41586 021 04287 4 PMC 8889665 PMID 34937049 S2CID 245509501 Berresford Ellis Peter 1998 The Celts A History Caroll amp Graf pp 49 50 ISBN 0 7867 1211 2 Dietler Michael 2010 Archaeologies of Colonialism Consumption Entanglement and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France Berkeley Univ of California Press ISBN 9780520287570 Drinkwater 2014 p 5 Drinkwater 2014 p 6 Drinkwater 2014 p 6 the most important outcome of this series of campaigns was the direct annexation by Rome of a huge area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhone and up the Rhone valley to Lake Geneva France The Roman conquest Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved April 6 2015 Because of chronic internal rivalries Gallic resistance was easily broken though Vercingetorix s Great Rebellion of 52 bc had notable successes Julius Caesar The first triumvirate and the conquest of Gaul Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved February 15 2015 Indeed the Gallic cavalry was probably superior to the Roman horseman for horseman Rome s military superiority lay in its mastery of strategy tactics discipline and military engineering In Gaul Rome also had the advantage of being able to deal separately with dozens of relatively small independent and uncooperative states Caesar conquered these piecemeal and the concerted attempt made by a number of them in 52 BC to shake off the Roman yoke came too late Plutarch Caesar 22 Tibbetts Jann 2016 50 Great Military Leaders of All Time Vij Books India Pvt Ltd ISBN 9789385505669 Seindal Rene 28 August 2003 Julius Caesar Romans The Conquest of Gaul part 4 of 11 Photo Archive Retrieved 29 June 2019 Serghidou Anastasia 2007 Fear of slaves fear of enslavement in the ancient Mediterranean Besancon Presses Univ Franche Comte p 50 ISBN 978 2848671697 Retrieved 8 January 2017 A recent survey is G Woolf Becoming Roman The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul Cambridge University Press 1998 Bachrach Bernard S 1972 Merovingian Military Organization 481 751 U of Minnesota Press p 10 ISBN 9780816657001 Pollini J 2002 Gallo Roman Bronzes and the Process of Romanization The Cobannus Hoard Monumenta Graeca et Romana Vol 9 Leiden Brill Oaks L S 1986 The goddess Epona concepts of sovereignty in a changing landscape Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire Laurence Helix 2011 Histoire de la langue francaise Ellipses Edition Marketing S A p 7 ISBN 978 2 7298 6470 5 Le declin du Gaulois et sa disparition ne s expliquent pas seulement par des pratiques culturelles specifiques Lorsque les Romains conduits par Cesar envahirent la Gaule au 1er siecle avant J C celle ci romanisa de maniere progressive et profonde Pendant pres de 500 ans la fameuse periode gallo romaine le gaulois et le latin parle coexisterent au VIe siecle encore le temoignage de Gregoire de Tours atteste la survivance de la langue gauloise Hist Franc book I 32 Veniens vero Arvernos delubrum illud quod Gallica lingua Vasso Galatae vocant incendit diruit atque subvertit And coming to Clermont to the Arverni he set on fire overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue Henri Guiter Sur le substrat gaulois dans la Romania in Munus amicitae Studia linguistica in honorem Witoldi Manczak septuagenarii eds Anna Bochnakowa amp Stanislan Widlak Krakow 1995 Eugeen Roegiest Vers les sources des langues romanes Un itineraire linguistique a travers la Romania Leuven Belgium Acco 2006 83 Savignac Jean Paul 2004 Dictionnaire Francais Gaulois Paris La Difference p 26 Matasovic Ranko 2007 Insular Celtic as a Language Area The Celtic Languages in Contact Papers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies Potsdam University Press p 106 ISBN 978 3 940793 07 2 Adams J N 2007 Chapter V Regionalisms in provincial texts Gaul The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC AD 600 Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 279 289 doi 10 1017 CBO9780511482977 ISBN 9780511482977 Caesar Julius 1869 The Gallic Wars Translated by McDevitte W A Bohn W S New York Harper p 9 ISBN 978 1604597622 Retrieved 8 January 2017 MacCulloch John Arnott 1911 Chapter III The Gods of Gaul and the Continental Celts The Religion of the Ancient Celts Edinburgh Clark p 22 ISBN 978 1508518518 Retrieved 8 January 2017 via Internet Sacred Text Archive Warner Marina Burn Lucilla 2003 World of Myths Vol 1 London British Museum p 382 ISBN 978 0714127835 Retrieved 8 January 2017 Kendrick Thomas D 1966 The Druids A Study in Keltic Prehistory New York Barnes amp Noble p 78 SourcesBirkhan H 1997 Die Kelten Vienna a href wiki Template Cite book title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Drinkwater John Frederick 2014 1983 Conquest and Pacification Roman Gaul The Three Provinces 58 BC AD 260 Routledge Revivals Abingdon Routledge ISBN 978 1317750741 Koch John Thomas 2006 Celtic culture a historical encyclopedia ABC CLIO ISBN 1 85109 440 7 Naco del Hoyo Toni Principal Jordi Dobson Mike eds 2022 Rome and the north western Mediterranean integration and connectivity c 150 70 BC Oxford Oxbow Books ISBN 9781789257175 External linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Roman Gaul