Caesar's De Bello Gallico (No spoiler alerts because it's history)

De Bello Gallico, written in the time of the consulship of Gaius Julius Caesar, is about his conquests in Gaul (modern day france and bits of Germany), as wel as ventures into Britain, and his political strife with the local leaders of the barbarians. It gives step by step accounts of every battle he fought while in Gaul, along with propagandistic reasoning as to why and the position the Romans stood in each one. I was written with semi-third person narration. While Caesar (usually) refers to himself in the third person, he uses “our” and “us” when speaking about the Roman military or the ill-fated republic. This creates a very us-versus-them mentality, which was particularly needed, because much of the information in De Bello is actually false. While the Gauls were frequently referred to as “barbari”(barbarians), they were not so at all. They had clearly organized walled towns, political factions, nobility, and were not nomadic. In fact, they were quite worthy opponents for the Romans, happened to be rather wealthy, and sitting on very good, easily protected, and fertile land.

De Bello opens with the famous line “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres”.  The first book begins to expand on the Helvetii tribe in northern Gaul, who are planning to uproot themselves and march through the Roman province, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake, and take over the other Gallic tribes, maybe even uniting them against a common enemy: The Romans. This poses a serious threat. The book continues to explain the geography and political history of the various Gallic tribes, especially on the relationship of a king, Orgetorix and Caesar. It is, as it turns out, quite complicated and strained.  

Then the Aedui enter (as usual) several serious battles with their surrounding provinces. However, the decide to bring in German mercenaries, true barbarians. Soon more and more germans are continuously migrating into Gaul, led by Ariovistus, and this poses a serious problem. Luckily for them, the Aedui are friends of Rome, so Caesar and his legions step in to help. Soon the Romans and Germans are in an all out war, and the Germans are crushed.

Starting in chapter XXII of book IV, Caesar  begins an assault on Britain. Although the infantry manage across the English Channel (simply called Oceanus by the Romans), the cavalry cannot. After much strategy and engineering, Caesar finally manages to put forth an attack on the Britons. Finally, with the Britons having been defeated (ablative absolutely!), they send their men back to fields. There is peace for a short time. However, a storm heavily damages Caesar’s war and cargo ships.  Vulnerable, the Britons assemble and attack, however they are finally routed by the Romans. We leave of at book IV with preparations being made to return to the main continent.

Caesar had many reason for starting his war in the first place. Although he explains some of them to us, threats to Rome and the like, he was also desperately wanting for money, and successful war brings in lots of it. In his term as consul, he spent almost all of it on elections and gaining the favour of the people. Now he needed more before he returned to Rome. As history knows, when Caesar returns he incites despicable and lamentable (according to Eutropius) civil war, which tears apart the country and ultimately brings the republic of Rome to and end.