ABSTRACT
Cæsar had emerged from the war against Vercingetorix victorious but discredited. His reputation as the conqueror of Gaul and Rome's one and only general had been seriously imperilled. During the seven long and eventful months of the war against Vercingetorix, in the vicissitudes and excitements of the first revolt and its extinction, of the failure before Gergovia and the last desperate struggle at Alesia, Italy had at length realized that the conquest of Gaul, which Cæsar had so boldly proclaimed in 57 and the Senate ratified in 56, was still far from accomplished; relapsing from a mood of blind confidence to a still blinder pessimism, the public began to think that Cæsar would now take years to carry through the enterprise he had so rashly undertaken. In a capitalist democracy where the general public is composed of nobles and landed proprietors, merchants and professional men, all supremely ignorant of military affairs, success is the sole standard by which a war can be judged. A victorious general is a hero and a genius, while failure becomes the stamp of weakness and incapacity. This is the explanation why armies operating in distant countries are so often distracted by the excited prognostications of the home public. The present juncture was a case in point. Italians had seen Syria and Pontus securely annexed to the Roman dominion after the campaigns of Lucullus and Pompey; they now saw Gaul invaded and annexed, yet still stirring and simmering with constant rebellions. They concluded that the Gallic war was being so indefinitely prolonged because Cæsar had not the skill to bring it to a conclusion. They did not stop to reflect that, unlike Pompey and Lucullus, Cæsar was engaged in combating, not settled kingdoms with regular armies, but the entire strength of a people in whom the sentiment of nationality and the love of independence were still ruling passions. They did not know that ordinary warfare against great armies is mere child's play compared with a struggle against a nation, however insignificant in numbers, which has made up its mind, in whole or in part, to give no quarter to the invader. The conquest of Gaul, which posterity was to reckon as Cæsar's greatest achievement, seemed to observers at the time little better than an inglorious failure, discreditable to its author and proportionately encouraging to his enemies. So the public willingly lent ear to the familiar Conservative comminations. Fiascos such as they had seen in Parthia and Gaul were the inevitable consequence of the corruption and injustice, the aggression and illegality, of the Democratic leaders.
