Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul

Wednesday, May 21 at 8 pm at the Bender JCC

Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul

Jennifer Paxton – The Catholic University of America

The famous formulation that all Gaul was divided into three parts came from the self-serving pen of Caesar himself, whose conquest of Gaul served as the springboard for a quest for power that ended fatally on the Ides of March in 44 B.C.E.

Rome gradually acquired commercial and military interests in southern Gaul that provided the pretext for Roman intervention in the complicated politics of the region. Caesar then exploited internal divisions within Gaul to bring about the largest single acquisition of territory for Rome north of the Alps, a project that he conducted largely on his own initiative with only the grudging approval of the Roman Senate.

The conquest of Gaul has left a deep impression in the French national consciousness, from Louis Napoleon’s obsession with the rebel Vercingetorix to the comics of Astérix le Gaulois.

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Donald O Kane