mpatible with their subjection
to Rome, he did so, not as renouncing the fundamental idea of his
conquest, the Romanization of Gaul, but with a view to realize it
in the most indulgent way. He did not content himself with letting
the same circumstances, which had already in great part Romanized
the south province, produce their effect likewise in the north;
but, like a genuine statesman, he sought to stimulate the natural
course of development and, moreover, to shorten as far as possible
the always painful period of transition. To say nothing
of the admission of a number of Celts of rank into Roman citizenship
and even of several perhaps into the Roman senate, it was probably
Caesar who introduced, although with certain restrictions,
the Latin instead of the native tongue as the official language
within the several cantons in Gaul, and who introduced the Roman
instead of the national monetary system on the footing of reserving
the coinage of gold and of denarii to the Roman authorities, while
the smaller money was to be coined by the several cantons, but only
for circulation within the cantonal bounds, and this too in accordance
with the Roman standard. We may smile at the Latin jargon,
which the dwellers by the Loire and the Seine henceforth employed
in accordance with orders;(52) but these barbarisms were pregnant
with a greater future than the correct Latin of the capital.
Perhaps too, if the cantonal constitution in Gaul afterwards appears
more closely approximated to the Italian urban constitution,
and the chief places of the canton as well as the common councils
attain a more marked prominence in it than was probably the case
in the original Celtic organization, the change may be referred
to Caesar. No one probably felt more than the political heir
of Gaius Gracchus and of Marius, how desirable in a military
as well as in a political point of view it would have been to establish
a series of Transalpine colonies as bases of support for the new rule
and starting-points of the new civilization. If nevertheless
he confined himself to the settlement of his Celtic or German horsemen
in Noviodunum(53) and to that of the Boii in the canton
of the Haedui (54)--which latter settlement already rendered quite
the services of a Roman colony in the war with Vercingetorix(55)--
the reason was merely that his farther plans did not permit him
to put the plough instead of the sword into the hands of his legions.
What he did i