Caesar's Expansion In The Gallic Wars

In the Roman conquest of Gaul and Britannia, the Romans faced many Gallic and Briton tribes, most of which rebelling against their aggressive expansion in the north under the guise of claiming the tribes were barbaric savages.

In Julius Caesars “The Gallic wars” he says tells of how “All Gaul is divided into three parts.”(Caesar, p.1) These three parts were inhabited by the native tribes of the Belgae in what we would now call Belgium, the Nervii and the Helvetii in what is now known as France. At this time Julius Caesar had convinced his Roman friends in politics that they should take a war into Gaul, against these ‘savage and barbaric’ tribes. Eventually they decided it was worth the available lands from these primitive people, compared …show more content…
The Romans saw the legions as liberators of an oppressed people, bringing them civilization and Roman law, which, of course, was the best law to them. Among the legion of Julius Caesar was Octavian, a boy who had been brought up in the Germanic tribes to be a Roman soldier. This boy caught Julius’ eye with his fighting skill and quick thinking. Julius took him with his legion, to test him for a plan Julius had. He wanted to make this Germanic boy his heir, as he had no sons to take his legacy on. A Germanic heir to Julius Caesar was not the most ideal proposal to the Roman people, but no one dared to question Julius Caesar. This boy would be trained in court and to fight with the legion, to prove himself that one day, he would be the leader of the Roman people, and arguably the best they would ever …show more content…
brawn, the Romans, as they had many times before, had emerged victorious. The Gauls had been defeated and become technically under Roman control. But the Gallic people had no intentions of obeying the Romans, at one point the Gauls lied in wait for a Roman legion, who had been collecting outrageous tribute, to cross through a forest. The leader of the Romans, an older man, had little martial skill any longer, and overall had not planned well on their return to Rome. The legion marched through a dense forest, mountain on one side, marsh on the other, the Gauls were used to the this terrain and used that to their advantage. They ambushed the Romans from both flanks, even being outnumbered they crushed the legion, and the Golden eagle of Rome they had carried with them had now been stolen by the Gallic tribes. This was a huge disgrace for the Romans, The Eagle of Rome was practically an embodiment of Rome itself they carried into battle, and having that stolen was like having Rome itself