to his genius. It was given to him, as a man, because of his
charm.

For nine years Caesar was in Gaul. For nine years Rome saw nothing of
him, though he spent winters at Ravenna and Lucca, and all the time
never lost touch with what was going on in the capital, or hold over men
there. He had left one or two faithful friends, among them Marcus
Antonius and Curio, to look after his interests. But his whole mind and
energy were devoted to his work in Gaul. It was a great work. Caesar not
only fought battles and conquered territories, as Pompeius and Lucullus
had done in the East. He did what they had never even tried to do: he
romanized the country. Understanding, with rare quickness and sympathy,
the nature of the people with whom he had to deal, he did not try to
alter their deep-rooted habits. But he started the work, completed under
the Empire, of spreading Roman law and order, coins and ways of trading,
in a word Roman civilization, over Central Europe. Caesar's mark
remained upon it all. There were disturbances in various parts of the
country after he left it. What the Romans called Gaul was a vast region
inhabited by numerous tribes who hated and warred against one another,
and had not learnt how to live in peace side by side. When Caesar took
up his command, the wild hordes of the north were ready to swoop down
upon Rome as they had done in the time of Brennus and again later when
Marius defeated them at Vercellae and the Raudine Fields. As the result
of Caesar's work they were held back for more than four hundred years.
And since Caesar was a statesman as well as a soldier his work was never
wholly undone: the stamp of his genius and of Rome was set once and for
all on North-western Europe.

As a soldier Caesar ranks among the greatest in the world. When he first
went to Gaul his army was small--but four legions in all. The rest of
his army he created, enlisting and training it on the spot. With his
small forces he had to meet not Orientals, driven into battle by fear,
but sturdy and fiercely warlike men with whom fighting was a natural
passion. Among the Gaulish chieftains too there were leaders of great
military gifts--Ariovistus, the chief of the Teutons, and Vercingetorix
of the Arverni.

Some idea of the means by which Caesar stirred and inspired his men, and
checked the danger of insubordination in his own ranks, which rose at
times when they were called upon to fight forces far greater in numbers,
is gi