War in the Guals

Gaul as a whole consisted of a multitude of states of different ethnic origin. In the Iron Age, their different cultures had started to resemble each other, largely by processes of trade and exchange. The Greeks and Romans called all these people Celts or Gauls. In the fourth century, Gallic warriors had settled along the Po and had invaded Central Italy (capturing Rome in 387). Most people in Italy were afraid of new Gaulish invasions. In …

…numbers, and Vercingetorix surrendered. The whole of Gaul was now conquered. Three million people had been living in Gaul before Caesar arrived in 58; one million had been killed and one million had been sold as slaves when he left in 50. Caesar himself wrote in his Commentaries on the War in Gaul that peace had been brought to the whole of Gaul. It is not hard to see that this was the peace of a graveyard.