[Sidenote: His great military genius.]

[Sidenote: His difficulties in the conquest of Gaul.]

[Sidenote: Results of the Gaulish wars.]

[Sidenote: Gaul becomes Latinized.]

That field, however, established his military fame, and paved the way
for his subsequent usurpations. The conquests of Caesar in Western Europe
are unique in the history of war, and furnish no parallel. Other
conquests may have been equally brilliant and more imposing, but none
were ever more difficult and arduous, requiring greater perseverance,
energy, promptness, and fertility of resources. The splendid successes
of Lucullus and Pompey in Asia resembled those of Alexander. We see
military discipline and bravery triumphing over the force of multitudes,
and a few thousand men routing vast armies of enervated or undisciplined
mercenaries. Such were the conquests of the English in India. They make
a great impression, but the fortunes of an empire are decided by a
single battle. It was not so with the conflicts of Caesar in Gaul. He had
to fight with successive waves of barbarians, inured to danger,
adventurous and hardy, holding life in little estimation, willing to die
in battle, intrepid in soul, and bent on ultimate victory. He had to
fight in hostile territories, unacquainted with the face of the country,
at a great distance from the base of his supplies, exposed to perpetual
perils, and surrounded with unknown difficulties. And these were
appreciated by his warlike countrymen, who gave him the credit he
deserved. The ten years he spent in Gaul were the years of his truest
glory, and the most momentous in their consequences on the future
civilization of the world, since it was not worn-out monarchies he added