  THE ANCIENT WORLD EXTENDED TO THE SHORES OF THE ATLANTIC New Conquests of the Romans. The Romans had as yet conquered only civilized peoples like themselves, with the exception of the tribes in Spain and southern Gaul. Now the Roman armies were to push northward over the plains and through the forests of Gaul, across the Rhine into unknown Germany, and over the Channel into Britain, equally unknown. They were to be explorers as well as conquerors. In this way they were to carry their civilization to the Rhine and the Atlantic, and so increase greatly the part of the earth where men lived and thought as the Romans did and as the Greeks had before them. The ancient civilized world was beginning to move from its older center, the Mediterranean, toward the shore of the Atlantic. Ancestors of the French and the Germans. The tribes living in Gaul were not at that time called French, but Gallic. The Gauls were like the Britons who lived across the Channel in Britain. The German ancestors of the English had not yet crossed the North Sea to that land. Beyond the Rhine lived the Germans, who had but little to do with the Romans and the Greeks and were still barbarians. The Gauls living farthest away from the Roman settlements were not much more civilized. The principal difference between the Germans and the Gauls was that the Gauls lived in villages and towns and cultivated the land or dug in mines or traded along the rivers, while the Germans had no towns and dwelt in clearings of the forest. Their wealth, like that of the early Romans, was their cattle. The land they cultivated was divided between them year after year, so that a German owned only his hut and the plot of ground or garden about it. Some of the towns of the Gauls were placed on high hills and were protected by strong walls. The Terrible Germans. The Romans had at first been afraid of the Gauls, because they had never forgotten how terribly these people had once defeated them. But since that time they had fought the Gauls so often that they were losing this fear. They now dreaded more to meet the Germans, who seemed like giants because they were taller even than the Gauls.
Gallic and German Warriors. The leaders of the Germans were sometimes kings and sometimes nobles whom the Romans called duces, from which comes our word duke. The Gallic chieftains were adorned with gold necklaces, bracelets, and rings. When they went out to battle, they wore helmets shaped like the head of some ravenous beast, and their bodies were protected by coats of chain armor made of iron rings. Their principal weapon was a long, heavy sword. Both German and Gallic nobles were accompanied by bands of young men, their devoted followers, who shared the joys of victory or died with them in case of defeat. It was a disgrace to lose one's sword or to survive if the leader was killed. How the Germans lived. When the Germans were not fighting they were idle, for all work was done by women and slaves. They were great drinkers and gamblers, and often in their games a man would stake his freedom upon the result. If he lost, he became the slave of the winner. The Germans respected their wives, even if they compelled them to do the hard work. The women sometimes went with the men to battle, and their cries encouraged the warriors, or if the warriors wavered, the fierce reproaches of the women drove them back to the fight. Religion of the Germans. We remember the religion of the Germans because four days of the week are named for their gods or the gods of their neighbors across the Baltic. Their principal god was Wodan, or Odin, god of the sun and the tempest. Wodan's day is Wednesday. Thursday is named for Thor, the Northmen's god of thunder. The god of war, Tiw, gave a name to Tuesday, and Frigu, the goddess of love, to Friday. The German, like his northern neighbors, thought of heaven as the place where brave warriors who had died in battle spent their days in feasting. Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar was the great Roman general who conquered the Gauls and led the first expeditions across the Rhine into Germany and over the Channel into Britain. He was a wealthy noble who, like other nobles, held one office after another until he became consul. He was also a great political leader, and with two other men controlled Rome. We should call them "bosses," but the Romans called them "triumvirs."
Caesar in Gaul. As soon as Caesar became governor of the province of southern Gaul, he showed that he was a skilful general as well as a successful politician. He interfered in the wars between the Gauls, taking sides with the friends of the Romans. When a large army of Germans entered Gaul, he defeated it and drove it back across the Rhine. One war led to another until all the tribes from the country now called Belgium to the Mediterranean coast professed to be friends of the Roman people. His campaigns lasted from 58 B.C. for nine years. Two or three times Caesar was very close to ruin, but by his courage and energy he always succeeded in gaining the victory. Vercingetorix, Gallic Hero. The great hero of the Gauls in their struggle with the Romans was Vercingetorix. He was a young noble who lived in a mountain town of central Gaul. His father had been killed in an attempt to make himself king of his native city. Vercingetorix believed that if the Gauls did not unite against the Romans they would soon see their lands become Roman provinces. As he knew his army was no match for the Romans in open fight, he persuaded the Gauls to try to starve the Romans out of the country. He planned to destroy all village stores of grain, and to cut off the smaller bands of soldiers which wandered from the main army in search of food. Caesar and Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix found the work of conquering Caesar in this way too difficult. He was finally driven to take refuge in Alesia, on a hilltop in eastern Gaul. Here the Romans prepared to starve him into surrender. They dug miles of deep trenches about the fortress so that the imprisoned Gauls could not break through. They dug other trenches to protect themselves from the attacks of a great army of Gauls which came to rescue Vercingetorix. These trenches were fifteen or twenty feet wide; they were strengthened by palisades and ramparts, and filled with water where this was possible. Several times the Gauls nearly succeeded in breaking through, but the quickness and stubborn courage of Caesar always saved the day. Death of Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix now proved that he was a real hero. He offered to give himself up to Caesar, if this would save the town. But Caesar demanded the submission of all the chiefs. When they had laid down their arms before the conqueror, Vercingetorix appeared on a gaily decorated horse. He rode around the throne where Caesar sat, dismounted in front, took off his armor, and bowed to the ground. His fate was hard. He was sent to Rome a prisoner, was shown in the triumphal procession of the victorious Caesar, and was then put to death in a dungeon. On the site of Alesia stands a monument erected by the French to the memory of the brave Gallic hero. The defeat of Vercingetorix ended the resistance of the Gauls, and not many years afterward their country was added to the long list of Roman provinces.
Caesar in Germany. Caesar crossed the Rhine into Germany on a bridge which his engineers built in ten days. He laid waste the fields of the tribes near the river in order to make the name of Rome feared, and then returned to Gaul and destroyed the bridge. Twice he sailed over to Britain, the last time marching a few miles north of where London now stands. His purpose was to keep the Britons from stirring up the Gauls to attack him. Other generals many years later conquered Britain as far as the hills of Scotland. The German Hero Hermann. The Romans were not fortunate in their later attempts to conquer a part of Germany. When Caesar's grandnephew Augustus was master of Rome, he sent an army under Varus into the forests far from the Rhine. Hermann, a leader of the Germans, gathered the tribes together and utterly destroyed the army of Varus. Whenever Augustus thought of this dreadful disaster, he would cry out, "O Varus, give me back my legions!" The Rhine and the Danube became the northern boundaries of the Roman conquests. Gauls and Britons become Roman. Although the Gauls had fought stubbornly against Caesar they soon became as Roman as the Italians themselves. They ceased to speak their own language and began to use Latin. They mastered Latin so thoroughly that their schools were sometimes regarded as better than the schools in Italy, and Roman youths were sent to Gaul to learn how best to speak their own language. The Britons also became very good Romans. Even the Germans frequently crossed the Rhine and enlisted in the Roman armies. When they returned to their own country they carried Roman ideas and customs with them. The Interest of Americans in Roman Successes. For Americans the influence the Romans exerted in Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain is more important than their work in the eastern Mediterranean, because from those countries came the early settlers of America. The civilization which the Romans taught the peoples of western Europe was to become a valuable part of the civilization of our forefathers.
Size of the Roman World. We may realize how large the world of the Romans was by observing on a modern map that within its limits lay modern England, France, Spain, Portugal, the southern part of Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, the Turkish Empire both in Europe and Asia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. For a time they also ruled north of the Danube, and the Rumanians boast that they are descended from Roman colonists. The peoples in southern Russia were influenced by the Greeks and by the Romans, although the Romans did not try to bring them under their rule.
No modern empire has included so many important countries. If we compare this vast territory with, the scattered colonies of the Greeks, we shall understand how useful it was that the Romans adopted much of the Greek civilization, for they could carry it to places that the Greeks never reached.
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