Gaul and Licinius, in the presence of Augustus. The Gauls complain of
paying too many imposts: Licinius replies that Gaul is very rich;
that it grows rich quickly and therefore it ought to pay as much as is
demanded of it, and more. Not only did the freedman show rooms full of
gold and silver to his lord; he showed him the great economic progress
of Gaul, its marvellous future, the immense wealth concealed in
its soil and in the genius of its inhabitants. In other words, this
chapter of Dion makes us conclude that Rome--that is, the small
oligarchy that was directing its politics--realised that the Gaul
conquered by Cæsar, the Gaul that had always been considered as
a country cold and sterile, was instead a magnificent province,
naturally rich, from which they might get enormous treasure. This
discovery was made in the winter of 15-14 B.C.; that is, forty-three
years after Cæsar had added the province to the Empire; forty-three
years after they had possessed without knowing what they possessed,
like some _grand seigneur_ who unwittingly holds among the common
things of his patrimony some priceless object, the value of which only
an accident on a sudden reveals.

This chapter of Dion allows us also to affirm that he who first
realised the value of Gaul and opened the eyes of Augustus, was no
great personage of the Roman aristocracy whose names are written in
such lofty characters on the pages of history, whose images are yet
found in marble and bronze among the museums of Europe; no one of
those who ruled the Empire and therefore according to reason and
justice had the responsibility of governing it well: it was, instead,
an obscure freedman, whose ability the masters of the Empire scorned
to exploit except as to-day a peasant uses the forces of his ox,
hardly deigning to look at him and yet deeming all his labour but the
owner's natural right.