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that he wrote these chapters with a very superficial and
inadequate knowledge of the facts and that his statement
was coloured by bias and by political intentions. This
verdict seems to me rather exaggerated. We have, after
all, a very scant knowledge of the cultural and religious
state of Gaul, a knowledge which has moreover so many
gaps and uncertainties that we should be most cautious
in criticizing Caesar so severely.
Caesar, at any rate, had the opportunity of seeing with
his own eyes and hearing with his own ears, and we may
be sure that he made a copious use of this opportunity.
For Caesar was not doing this merely out of more or less
scientific curiosity, as a modern ethnographer would do,
but he was a general and a statesman. In this position,
he had to inform himself about the ways of thinking and
believing of his enemies. Nowadays a general may
wage war without bothering himself about the imponderables
of creed and mind; but even now the history of
modern times has demonstrated that they should not and
cannot be neglected with impunity. Entering into a conflict
with a people whose religious beliefs are still in full
vigour, it would be unwise to leave them altogether outside
the scope of consideration.
In ancient times religion was the pivot of all social
and political activity. I remind you of the Roman
custom of the euocaiio : the gods of the enemy had to be
propitiated by a promise of a temple and a cult in the
city of Rome itself. So it seems quite unthinkable to
me that Caesar should have contented himself with a
couple of ethnological common-places culled from writers
like Poseidonios. He must have been aware of the
necessity of being acquainted as fully as possible with the
real state of affairs in Gaul. He had the opportunity for
it. He had many transactions with the nobles and even
with the druids of the Gaulish tribes: he could get from
them reliable information. Moreover, in the Narbonnensis
Romans and Gauls had lived in close contact for