08-18-2011, 04:30 PM
Quote:Caesar's own words. I was shocked at the numerical statistics and those left out.
True enough, and it makes you wonder about other campaigns for which we do not have those 'own words'. Then again, in an age when killing people was not thought intrinsically wrong (although wasting 'natural resources' might be!), it's possible that Caesar exaggerated the number of the dead to accentuate his own severity and the scale of his conquests.
We should be careful about using the word genocide anyway. The concept did not exist in antiquity, and arguably belongs to the era of industrialisation and the modern nation state. Caesar was clearly not attempting to entirely exterminate the race of the Gauls - his executions were intended as a stern warning to the survivors, and with genocide there are no survivors to warn. The Germans might have been a different matter, of course.
As I mentioned above, there are few cases in Roman history that might suggest a deliberate attempt at extinguishing an entire people. Domitian's 'banning' of the Nasamones was a mere boast, and we know nothing about what really happened. Severus' Homeric injunction to his sons to spare "not even the babe in the womb of the mother,
if it be male; let it nevertheless not escape sheer destruction" was a act of desperation, not a considered policy. He was attempting to denude Caledonia of warriors (only the male children are slain) - whatever the further effect might have been seems not to have concerned him.
Nathan Ross
