The Chronology of the Campaign against the Helvetii: A Clue to Caesar's Intentions?

The Chronology of the Campaign against the Helvetii: A Clue to Caesar's Intentions?Author(s): James ThorneSource: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 56, H. 1 (2007), pp. 27-36Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25598373 .

Accessed: 30/08/2013 23:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Franz Steiner Verlag is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Historia:Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.3 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 23:25:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=fsv

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25598373?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HELVETII: A CLUE TO CAESAR'S INTENTIONS?1

What were Caesar's intentions for Gaul when he left Rome, on or shortly after the 19th March 58 BC? Tenney Frank thought it likely that at this stage his plans already 'contemplated a rapid conquest of the whole of Gaul up to the Rhine'.2 But Gen. J.F.C.

Fuller disagreed: 'if so, why at the start did not Caesar take all his legions with him?'3 In this article I aim to show that Caesar did, in fact, 'take all his legions with him' to

Transalpine Gaul, from the start of the marching season in 58, in the following sense: he sent the orders for the legions at Aquileia to get on the move to the Rhone as he himself was setting out from Rome, rather than when he had reached Geneva, as is usually as

sumed.4 Whilst this will invalidate Fuller's objection to Frank, it will not prove Frank's

point, since by now Caesar's intentions can only honestly be said to belong within the realm of speculation. Nonetheless, speculation has its boundaries, which this piece of research aims to confine. My purpose is to show that Caesar moved single-mindedly to concentrate not just some, but all of his forces in Gaul at the earliest opportunity in his command.

My method is to re-examine the chronology of the campaign, in order to show that

Napoleon Ill's version, which is followed by most later writers, and envisages Caesar

summoning his legions from Aquileia only after his own arrival in Geneva, is implau sible, because it implies that the Helvetii - whose activities we will need to consider -

inexplicably did nothing for more than three weeks. I will then propose an alternative

chronology for Roman activity, one in which Caesar sent orders from Rome to Aquileia that would get the troops on the move concurrently with his actions in Geneva, in order to meet up with him much closer to the Alps (though still in Cisalpine Gaul). This ver sion can marry up with a plausible Helvetian time line. But I will begin by reviewing the uncontroversial facts.

1 My thanks for stimulating ideas and sound advice go to Professor Tim Cornell, my supervisor when

I first looked into this question. Any errors, needless to say, are mine.

2 T. Frank, Roman Imperialism (New York 1914) 339.

3 J.FC. Fuller, Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant (London 1965) 102.

4 So J.A. Froude, Caesar: a Sketch (New ed., London 1890) 233-234; T. Rice Holmes, Caesar's

Conquest of Gaul (2nd ed., Oxford 1911 [1899]) 48; J. Carcopino, Jules Cesar (Nouvelle ed., Paris

1965 [1935]) 146; J.F.C. Fuller, Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant (London 1965) 101-2; J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Julius Caesar and Rome (Harmondsworth 1967) 76; M. Gelzer, Caesar: Politician

and Statesman (Trans. P. Needham, Oxford 1969 [6th ed., Wiesbaden]) 103-104. Two exceptions are M. Grant, Julius Caesar (London 1969) 92, who speaks only of a 'lightning transfer of troops from north Italy...', and so by his brevity is at least ambiguous, and T.P. Wiseman, CAFf-, ix, ch.10

(Cambridge 1994) 383, who, following his description of Caesar's delaying actions at Geneva uses

the pluperfect - in the view of this article quite correctly

- as follows: 'The army at Aquileia had been sent for, and Caesar's legates had been busy recruiting in Transalpine Gaul'.

Historia, Band 56/1 (2007) ? Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart



28 James Thorne

We know that the Helvetii agreed to muster on the 24th March, Julian calendar.5 Caesar reached Geneva from Rome in probably not much more than seven days,6 and

certainly arrived there before the 9th April: when the Helvetian ambassadors approached him at Geneva for permission to march through the Province, that was the day on which he told them to return for their answer.7 When the answer turned out to be 'no', the Helvetii made an apparent and desultory attempt to overcome Caesar's defences on the

Rhone, before setting off on an alternative route via the Defile de l'Ecluse, and the ter

ritory of first the Sequani, and then the Aedui. There then followed an interval, whose

length the sources do not specify, in which Caesar crossed the Alps to meet up with his

reinforcements, re-crossed the Alps, and then attacked the Tigurini, one of the Helvetian

pagi, as they were crossing the Saone north of modern Lyon. In this article I refer to the

day of this attack as T (after the Tigurini). No absolute date is given for it, but Caesar does say that it was the twentieth day after the Helvetii started crossing the Saone.8

After T, the relative chronology of the campaign becomes very clear. (This is not relevant to the argument about Caesar's intentions, but I include it for completeness.) Caesar's force made the crossing in a single day;9 there was the day of the cavalry skir mish between the Helvetian rearguard and Caesar's Gallic cavalry, followed by circa fifteen days in which Caesar shadowed the Helvetii to the vicinity of Bibracte;10 there was a day on which the Romans unsuccessfully manoeuvred to encircle their enemy, then on the next day the battle near Bibracte was fought;11 after the day of the battle, the Helvetii marched away for three days, during which time the Roman army stayed on

the battlefield;12 Caesar then received their surrender after setting out to follow them, so this was at least one day subsequent.13 Therefore the day of the cavalry skirmish was T+\, (i.e. one day after T), the abortive encirclement was on c. jT+17, the battle near Bibracte took place on c. 7+18, and the surrender not before c. 7+22, but probably not after c. 7+24, as by this time Caesar would have caught up with the main body of the Helvetii, and not met their envoys 'on the march'.14 The margin allowed by 'circa'

in all of this is dependent on what Caesar meant by 'circiter quindecim' at BG, 1.15. These dates also assume that the 'single day' the Romans took to cross the Saone was

the same day as their dawn attack; if it was the next day, then all other events need also to be put back one day.

The central question this article must address is, when was 77 Napoleon estimated that it took Caesar around 60 days to pick up his troops in Cisalpine Gaul, and therefore

placed T on around 7th June (implying Caesar despatched messengers from Geneva for Aquileia on 8th April);15 Rice Holmes and Carcopino followed him.16 Napoleon's

5 BG, 1.6 gives 28th March. All dates are converted to the Julian calendar, following T. Rice Holmes,

'A Supplementary Note on the Julian Calendar', CQ 14 (1920) 46-47.

6 Plutarch, Caesar, 17: 'On his first journey from Rome to Gaul he reached the Rhone in seven

days'. 7 BG, 1.7.

8 BG, 1.13.

9 BG, 1.13.

10 BG, 1.15, 1.23.

11 BG, 1.21-22.

12 BG, 1.26.

13 BG, 1.27.

14 BG, 1.27.

15 Napoleon, Histoire de Jules Cesar (Paris 1865) ii, 57, n. 2.

16 Holmes, Conquest (as in n. 4) 49; Carcopino, Cesar (as in n. 4) 148.



The Chronology of the Campaign against The Helvetii: a Clue to Caesar's Intentions? 29

chronology for Roman activity runs as follows (the phase numbering is mine, added for

clarity of reference in subsequent discussion):

I Phase I Activity_| Days | 1. Messengers go 1000km from Geneva to Aquileia, where the veteran 6

_| legions (VII, VIII and IX) were wintering._ 2. Enrolment of the new troops, the XI and XII Legions

- on the basis that, 8

I | in 169 BC, it took eleven days to enrol four legions (Livy, xliii.15). |_

| 3. I Troops move from Aquileia to Ocelum (681 km, at 24 km/day)._| 28 | 4. Delay in the Alps (BG, 1.10). 6

I 5. | Move from Ocelum to Grenoble to Lyon (300 km at 25 km/day). | 12 | Total duration: 60

Regardless of what the Helvetii were doing, Napoleon's chronology contains an inter

nal problem, which needs correction: the first three phases need not be consecutive. Phases 1 and 3 would have to be, but they could run concurrently with phase 2, since

Aquileia was almost the most distant point in Gallia Cisalpina, and it was not necessary for a messenger to reach there before the new legions started to be enrolled, nor was

it necessary for the enrolment to be complete before the veterans could set out. If we

assume, like Napoleon, that Caesar did not send for the Aquileian troops until 8th April, we should nonetheless revise his estimate by removing his eight-day phase 2, and add

ing whatever delay there was between messengers arriving and the legions setting out -

something he does not account for. This would depend on their state of readiness, but we will assume they were under way within 24 hours. It therefore seems appropriate to

reduce Napoleon's estimate of minimum time by a week, to 53 days. This chronology, which I will call the 'Napoleon (revised)', puts T, the day of the attack on the Tigurini, on 31st May. This, however, is still implausibly late, since, as I will show in the next

part of the article, it is very unlikely the activities the Helvetii were meanwhile engaged in took this long.

The Napoleon (revised) chronology implies that the lead elements of the Helvetii arrived at the Saone on the 12th May (the twentieth day before T). This leaves 32 days after the 9th April, when Caesar denied them access to the Province, to account for in

travelling time and delays. As will be demonstrated, this cannot be done: travelling time will be estimated first, followed by a consideration of the possible delays

- either

wrangling with the Sequani for passage through the Defile de l'Ecluse, or lingering to

plunder the Allobroges and Ambarri. The Helvetii's travelling time obviously depends on the length of the route and their

speed. It is possible to work out the rough distance the Helvetii had to travel to get to the

Saone, which Rice Holmes argued convincingly they crossed near St Bernard, 3 km west

of Trevoux17 (as opposed to Jullian, who had suggested Macon as the crossing point18). Although there is little ancient evidence for the route itself, the mountainous terrain in the first part leaves only a few options, whereas in the latter part it would be possible to travel almost straight. Napoleon argued for a route via Virieu-le-Grand and St. Rambert

17 Holmes, Conquest (as in n. 4) 617-619.

18 C. Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule (Paris 1920) iii, 205, n. 1; 207, n. 1.



--^?^?_? OJ

y _ ^7 J *k -^ ̂̂ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ffelvetii mustJjjpf

^^^B^^L ( Bourg-en-Bres?e ^k ̂̂m ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m ^^/1*^<TG?Mwa

Clermont-FCTTimd V \\ r3 ^VilaaflF^LIaaaaaam ^LtaaV!/ A '-',. am M^H o

(Gfc^ilOkms ^W Roman attack on \ ̂̂ B^^^^Li^W A 1AM

* <v Tigurini, c. 9th May f / \ ^Kmlki^* **a^Lam I ^aaal ^^LammmWTlil Roiii^V 7/OLyon ^V^^H jllB .eammmmmmmmmU

L^*mml_X_._ \^m 4v mm AmmmmmmmmmmH

Ground generally over 500m Hehfljai route to fo Saone t p ̂ P JJ| ̂^^^^^^^^^M Ground generally over 1000m ^......... Senault \ / J^Mmm ammmmmmmmmmmmV

A Peak (metres) 4. Napoleon 7 fA^M** ammmmmmmmmmmM

0_km_50 _^\ ^H^H mmmmmmmmmmmmmi

Map. The Helvetian Campaign from the Defile de l'Ecluse to the Saone

For the areas inhabited by the various Gallic peoples see the map in H.J. Edwards (trans.), The Gallic War (Loeb: London 1917), or pref erably, Rice Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul. The

topographical map used for researching this article was the Institut Geographique

National, Top 100 (Green) 1:100,000 series, Sheet 44, Lyon / Geneve.




to the crossing at St. Bernard, a distance of some 156 km; Senault19 offered a route via Nantua and Bourg-en-Bresse, a distance of 128 km. For present calculations, Napoleon's route will be used, as it is the longer, and therefore the least convenient to my argument (Jullian's route to Macon, incidentally, would only have been 112 km).20

How fast could the Helvetian vanguard have travelled? Bodies of infantry could have sustained around 25 km per day for long periods, but it is not likely that, if these existed on the march, they greatly outstripped their wagons. First, they were not rushing to seize any particular crossing point; second, the Helvetii would have wanted to protect their property. So the important rate is that of the carts. Whilst some evidence suggests a

speed of up to 32 km per day is possible, most researchers agree that around 16 km per day is more realistic.21 Furthermore, this broadly corresponds with the speed at which the Helvetii moved between crossing the Saone and the battle near Bibracte. Delbnick calculates that the Helvetii were moving at about 8-11 km per day at this stage,22 but this is based on the element that Caesar was in contact with, i.e. the rearguard. The rearguard

were certainly no faster than any other part of the column (or they would soon not have been the rearguard any more!), and are likely to have been the slowest, perhaps because

they were protecting stragglers, and certainly because Caesar's presence would have forced them to move warily.23 So the evidence from the campaign confirms what we would expect from comparative data: the Helvetian vanguard would have been able to march from the Defile de l'Ecluse to the Saone at about 16 km per day. Following the route via Tenay that Napoleon suggested, they could easily have reached the Saone on the tenth day after passing through the Defile de l'Ecluse.

If the Helvetii could have reached the Saone from the Defile de l'Ecluse in ten days, what were they doing the rest of the time? If we follow the Napoleon (revised) chronol

ogy, this leaves at least 23 days unaccounted for: the 53 days of Roman activity, less

a) the ten days on the march, and b) the twenty days making the crossing -

assuming that Caesar was not exaggerating when he stated that it took the Helvetii twenty days to cross.24 No convincing case has been put to suggest that the Helvetii lingered on the

march: whilst Caesar reports the complaint of the Allobroges and Ambarri that the Hel vetii were plundering them,25 this does not at all imply that the migrants slowed down

19 A. Senault, UOeuvre de Jacques Maissiat (1892) 24-25, 28-29 (non vidi, cited in Holmes, Conquest [as in n. 4] 616).

20 via Nantua and Bourg-en-Bresse. 21 J. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War 264 BC-AD 235 (Leiden 1998) 211.

22 H. Delbriick, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History, trans. Walter J. Renfroe (London 1975 [Berlin 1900]) i, 462, points out that if the Helvetii crossed the Saone 15-29 km north of Lyon (this is certain enough), and the battle was fought to the east and within 27 km

(18 Roman miles) of Bibracte (as he convincingly argues), then the Helvetii moved 100-115 km as the crow flies in 15 days. Allowing that the bends of the road would have increased the distance

Delbriick reckons the Helvetii must have covered 8-11 km road distance per day. 23 BG, 1.15.

24 The possibility of exaggeration presents further problems for the Napoleon (revised) chronology, since reducing the number of days the Helvetii spent crossing adds the same number of days to the

period in which they were inexplicably doing nothing. Although Caesar had good reason to exag

gerate - in order to contrast the slowness of the Helvetian crossing with his own celeritas - I will

assume he did not, simply because this is the least convenient assumption for my argument, and puts it to the strongest test.

25 BG, 1.11. The complainants had reason to exaggerate this, as did Caesar; which helps to explain how we hear that the Trans-Rhodane Allobroges had 'nothing but the bare ground' left to them.



32 James Thorne

to do so. On the contrary, in fact: they were in a hurry to get to their destination whilst their supplies held out. This applies regardless of whether they were really migrating to the territory of the Santoni, as Caesar claims, or the 'migration' was a cover for a

military expedition against Ariovistus - Delbriick's theory.26 Neither is there good reason to posit an interval of delay between 9th April, when the

Helvetii were refused passage through the province, and their start through the Defile de l'Ecluse, despite the testimony of BG, 1.9, which details the negotiations between the Helvetii and the Sequani, who controlled the pass:

Relinquebatur una per Sequanos via, qua Sequanis invitis propter angustias ire non poterant. His cum sua sponte persuadere non possent, legatos ad Dumnorigem

Haeduum mittunt, ut eo deprecatore a Sequanis impetrarent. Dumnorix gratia et

largitione apud Sequanos plurimum poterat et Helvetiis erat amicus, quod ex ea

civitate Orgetorigisfiliam in matrimonium duxerat, et cupiditate regni adductus novis rebus studebat et quam plurimas civitates suo beneficio habere obstrictas volebat.

Itaque rem suscipit et a Sequanis impetrat ut per fines suos Helvetios ire patiantur, obsidesque uti inter sese dent perficit: Sequani, ne itinere Helvetios prohibeant, Helvetii, ut sine maleficio et iniuria transeant.21

There is good reason to believe that these negotiations had, in reality, already taken place before Caesar turned the Helvetii back from Geneva. Delbriick argues compellingly that they never had any intention of marching through the Province, since if they had wanted to they could. From a military point of view, a concerted Helvetian attack on the

eighteen-mile stretch of the Rhone between Geneva and the pass could not have been resisted by Caesar's single legion, even if the fighting men of the very warlike Helvetii numbered far fewer than the 92,000 Caesar claims.28 Therefore, they always intended to pass through the Defile de l'Ecluse, and would have made their arrangements with the Sequani before burning down their towns (if indeed they did)29 and setting out.

Delbriick thought that the Helvetii never had any intention of passing through the

Province, nor indeed reaching Saintonge, since they were not in fact a migration, but more likely an army marching against Ariovistus. His contention has some bearing on our argument, and is worth taking a moment to discuss. He points to a number of fea

26 Delbriick, Art of War (as in n. 22) 476-470.

27 'There remained only the route through Sequanan territory, which was impossible to travel without

their consent, owing to its narrowness. When the Helvetii could not persuade them themselves, they sent emissaries to Dumnorix the Aeduan, in order that by his intercession they might gain from the

Sequani what they wished. Dumnorix had both great influence amongst the Sequani on account of his

largesse, and was a friend to the Helvetii, since he had taken from that state in marriage the daughter of Orgetorix. Induced by his desire for kingship, he was always eager for revolution, and wanted to

have as many states as possible obliged to him on account of his beneficence. He therefore takes on

the affair, so that the Sequani allow the Helvetii to pass through their territory, and he arranges that

they give each other hostages: the Sequani so as not to obstruct the Helvetii on their journey, and

the Helvetii so that they will pass without mischief and damage.' 28 Delbriick, Art of War (as in n. 22) 461: 'A hastily constructed, 18-mile-long field fortification attacked

simultaneously at three places by a force several times larger than the defenders would (before the

most modern developments in weapons) always and under all circumstances be penetrated, if the

attacker was in earnest.' Quite so.

29 G. Walser, Bellum Helveticum: Studien zum Beginn der caesarischen Eroberung von Gallien (Stuttgart

1998) 44-45, on BG, 1.5, points out that the archaeological evidence relating to what is claimed to

have been a very widespread burning of settlements is, at best, ambiguous.




tures of Caesar's account which are inconsistent with the idea of a migration en masse,

including the agility with which their column manoeuvred, which to him implied a

strength of a few tens, not hundreds, of thousands,30 and the turn northwards after the

Saone, leading away from direct, practicable routes towards their supposed destination31

(not to mention the strangeness of the plan Caesar attributes to them: in order to con

quer Gaul, they would first destroy their homeland, and set out for the opposite side of

Gaul, all the time with no reference to Ariovistus).32 In addition to this, critics including Rauchenstein33 have pointed out that in situations of overpopulation we would expect a

part of the population, not the whole, to migrate, an oddness in Caesar's account which is compounded by the ambiguity of the archaeological evidence relating to his claim of wholesale burning of the Helvetian settlements.34 All of these factors lead Walser to conclude that the Helvetii did not undertake a migration, but the last of the great Celtic

mercenary expeditions of antiquity, of which he provides a short history.35 The present argument does not stand or fall on this question, but the Delbruck/Walser version is more favourable to my case, since it implies a faster moving expedition, which puts more pressure still on the Napoleon (revised) chronology.

If we follow Delbriick and Walser, we must assume the request of the Helvetii to Caesar to enter the Province was mere disinformation to a representative of Rome who had named Ariovistus as an ally. But we do not need to believe in the subterfuge Delbriick

suggests36 in order to think that the Helvetii preferred not to march through the Province. Even if they really were heading for Saintonge, then a straight line route was perfectly practicable, political considerations being equal: a line from the Defile de l'Ecluse to St. Bernard near Trevoux (on the route the Helvetii actually took) leads straight on to Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne, from where the migrants would very soon be able to follow the route of one of the numerous tributaries of the Dordogne in, again, a virtually straight line to their destination. The terrain is quite negotiable: the Monts du Beaujolais, du Lyonais, and de la Madeleine are no more without routes than the Jura, which the Helvetii successfully negotiated, and roads most certainly passed through the vicinity of Clermont-Ferrand, since Gergovia

- in political terms one of the top handful of Gal lic centres at the time - was located there. In these circumstances, the request to march

through the Province may, again, have been a feint. Even if the Helvetii had at some

point preferred to march through the Province, it still seems unlikely that they did not

prepare the diplomatic ground for the alternative route before burning their towns and

setting off: the 'migration' had, after all, been in preparation for two years.37 I therefore assume that the first of the Helvetii rolled through the Defile de l'Ecluse

on the 10th April. The Helvetian attacks on the Rhone defences that Caesar says followed

30 Delbriick, Art of War (as in n. 22) 475.



33 H. Rauchenstein, Der Feldzug Caesars gegen die Helvetier (Diss. Jena 1882) 37?40. 34 See note 29, above.

35 Walser, Bellum Helveticum (as in n. 29) 81-85.

36 And he himself was very tentative {Art of War [as in n. 22] 470): 'I am not claiming that things took

place exactly as I have just recounted them', but 'Caesar's account does not stand up... and I have wished to propose in its place another account, possible and imaginable, which also differs less from Caesar's account of events than do the interpretations by Mommsen, Napoleon III, and Holmes.'

37 BG, 1.3. (Walser, Bellum Helveticum [as in n. 29] 54, on BG, 1.9, comments 'without doubt the use of this route had already been discussed in the negotiations between Orgetorix and Casticus'.)



34 James Thorne

his rejection of their request for passage are not envisaged as a delay. The Helvetii were not short of manpower, and the attacks could easily have been carried out by elements that were later to follow on, even a few days behind the vanguard. The Helvetian leaders

may have planned the attacks in order to deceive Caesar as to their true intent, or they may have been relatively autonomous actions, since the discipline within the expedition was perhaps not very strict. If the first of the Helvetii started moving through the pass on 10th April, they could have reached their crossing point over the Saone on the 19th

April; this would make Tfall on 9th May (twenty days later, assuming that Caesar has not overstated the duration of their crossing).

As we saw above, the Napoleon (revised) chronology, based on Roman activity, would have us put T on 31st May, which is too much of a discrepancy with the chro

nology based on Helvetian activity (which gives T as 9th May) to be simply shrugged off. Fortunately, as I suggested at the outset, an alternative Roman time-line which is

compatible with plausible Helvetian activity can be suggested. We simply need to as sume that, on leaving Rome, Caesar sent messengers to Aquileia to get the troops from there on the move. He proceeded to Geneva, and having personally assessed the situa tion there, given his orders, and left Labienus in charge, he returned to join up with the three veteran legions in Cisalpine Gaul. Since these had been moving up all the time, this rendezvous could have been affected much earlier than Napoleon envisaged. I sum

marise the chronology in tabular form. (I omit the time taken to enrol the new legions, which, as already pointed out, could have been accomplished concurrently with the other moves.) Let us call it the 'new' Roman chronology:

Phase Activity Days 1. Messengers go 700 km from Rome to Aquileia, where the veteran 5

legions (VII, VIII and IX) were wintering, plus one day for the troops to start moving.38

2._Troops move from Aquileia to Ocelum (681 km, at 24

km/day)._|28_

[3~~ Delay in the Alps (BG, 1.10). 6

J 4._Move from Ocelum to Grenoble to Lyon (300 km at 25 km/day)._| 12_ Total duration: 51

51 days after 19th March - Caesar's rough departure date from Rome - puts Caesar and

the veteran legions in the vicinity of Lyon on 9th May, and could make T the 10th. The chronology for the Helvetii, outlined above, puts T on the 9th May, whilst the

new Roman chronology proposed here suggests T was the 10th May.39 Such a level of

agreement is regrettable from a rhetorical point of view, since it looks too good to be true. Nonetheless, I will let it stand, as for both time-lines the date is the result of a

combination of factors which I have tried to judge independently. Crucially, it should be noted that I am not saying that Caesar attacked the Tigurini on the 9th or 10th May 58 BC, but rather that reasonable calculations show it was on, around, or slightly later than this date. Had the Helvetian chronology and the new Roman come up with dates for T of, say, 11th May and 16th May respectively, this would have been compatible with

my argument, since it has been an exercise in which getting the right week, rather than

38 The same speed as Napoleon assumed, but two-thirds the distance.

39 And therefore put the Helvetian surrender which ended the campaign on c. 2nd/3rd June (c. T+24).




the right day, was acceptable, and in which the ultimate aim was to show that previous accounts were too wide of the mark to be plausible.

Finally, let us deal with some potential complications which I have reserved until now lest they obscure an already complex argument.

First, Napoleon's chronology glosses over the implication in Caesar's text that he

lingered for some days between crossing the Rhone in the territory of the Segusiavi, and

attacking the Tigurini, as he did not strike until scouts informed him that three-quarters of the Helvetii were across.40 This implies he held back, waiting for an appreciable drop in their numbers, and since they were crossing very slowly, this may indicate a wait of several days. What does this mean in terms of the arguments advanced above, in which we have tried to make Roman and Helvetian activity of compatible duration? Simply this: we cannot move T, since the Helvetii's activities give us a rough fix. Therefore, any additional days in the Roman scheme cannot be fitted in by pushing Tback, but have to be accommodated by starting the Romans earlier. In summary, a careful reading of BG, 1.12 lends further support to the new Roman chronology I have advanced here.

Second, what of BG, 1.10, which seems to state that Caesar only went off for rein forcements after he arrived at Geneva?41 It is true that this is the most obvious and literal

interpretation, which we might easily favour if we did not have all the reasons outlined above to not do so. But even then we should remember that Caesar is compressing two months' activity by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people into a narrative of 6

chapters42: that means a lot of contextual information has necessarily been pruned away. Besides which, a strictly literal interpretation is equally implausible. Caesar could not be everywhere at once, although he liked to give this impression: he could not be rac

ing to Aquileia and simultaneously spending time enrolling the new legions; even these were not necessarily recruited or wintering at exactly the same spot. An illuminating comparison here is with the famous passage from the battle with the Nervii: Caesari omnia uno tempore erant agenda,43 he claims initially. In reality, as he later admits, it was the usus (experience) and scienda (knowledge) of his troops, combined with good anticipation by the legates, that enabled everything to be done at once. BG 1.10 does not, therefore, disprove that Caesar sent the veteran legions their orders from Rome as he himself set out for the Alps.

To conclude: the Saone is not very far at all from the Defile de l'Ecluse, and the Helvetii had no reason to dither along the way. Even on the assumptions least favour able to my argument, i.e. that they took the longer route, via Virieu-le-Grand, and that

they really had been at the Saone for as long as twenty days when Caesar attacked them

there, this still implies that the attack took place no more than thirty days after they set out. This is obviously not enough time for troops to be summoned from Aquileia to Transalpine Gaul. In fact, it is half the time Napoleon III thought was necessary. The problem can easily be resolved by realising instead that Caesar must have sent his

troops at Aquileia their orders from Rome; most likely they were already on the move

up towards the Rhone whilst Caesar himself was making his first crossing of the Alps,

40 BG, 1.12.

41 Ipse in Italiam magnis itineribus contendit duasque legiones conscribit et tres, quae circum Aqui leiam hiemebant, ex hibernis educit... ('he himself hurries to Italy by forced marches and enrols two

legions, and leads three which were wintering around Aquileia out of their winter quarters...'). 42 BG, 1.7-12 deal with the period c. 19th March -

(I argue) c. 9th May. 43 BG, 2.20: 'Caesar had to do everything at once'.



36 James Thorne

towards Geneva. Fuller was wrong to say that Caesar 'did not take... all his legions with him'44 - he did, but they took time to gather; meanwhile the commander-in-chief was

taking a good look at the enemy. Whether Tenney Frank45 was right in suggesting that Caesar probably already planned to conquer Gaul up to the Rhine in 58 is not certain; what I have tried to show is that he acted positively, early, and with full force.

University of Manchester James Thorne

44 Julius Caesar (as in n. 4) 102.

45 Roman Imperialism (as in n. 2) 339.



The Chronology of the Campaign against the Helvetii: A Clue to Caesar's Intentions?

Documents

Transcript of The Chronology of the Campaign against the Helvetii: A Clue to Caesar's Intentions?