Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words

2. The “Other” and the Other “Other”

2. The “Other” and the Other “Other” The Ethnographic Tradition W e have small traces of Roman (or Roman-directed) views of Gauls (in this case, living in northern Italy) from about a century before Caesar: a few fragments from a historical work by Cato the Elder, and half of a section in the narrative history of the Greek Polybius.1 Though Williams has been able to trace and explain differences in the perspectives (and so versions) of the authors, the surviving elements seem typical of the later tradition.2 Because of this overlap with later accounts, and because those later accounts deal with roughly the same territory as Caesar, I concentrate in this chapter on that later tradition. Potential chronological problems that this could raise are addressed below. We also have three Greek ethnographic accounts of the northern “barbarians ” from around Caesar’s time, by Posidonius, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo.3 The earliest of these, dating to the first half of the first century, comes from the Historiae (“Researches”) of the polymath Posidonius.4 Posidonius’ work does not survive as a whole, but large sections on the Celts are quoted in the late second century a.d. miscellany of Athenaeus, the Deipnosophistae (“Feast of Learning”); due to Athenaeus’ interests, the surviving fragments concern mainly dining customs. Posidonius is unique among the three Greek authors in having had direct experience of at least some of the Celtic peoples of whom he wrote (4.45). He also had substantial personal contact with the Roman aristocracy of Caesar’s day, including Publius Rutilius Rufus, Cicero, and Pompey.5 Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliothe -ke - (“Library”), a “universal history,” contains a substantial section on the people and territory of Gaul (5.25–32). Diodorus refers to Caesar as “the one called a god” (5.25.4), and so must have been writing (or at least revising) after Caesar’s death, and a fortiori after the publication of De Bello Gallico.6 In the same passage, Diodorus refers to Caesar’s bridging of the Rhine (cf. BG 4.17), but he never directly cites 48 caesar in gaul and rome Caesar. Probably the latest of the three is the “geographer” Strabo, who wrote during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, in the early first century a.d.7 Strabo’s Geography contains a great deal of cultural information in addition to physical geography. He offers separate accounts of the Gauls (4.4), Britons (4.5), and Germans (7.1–2). His sources include both Caesar and Posidonius, as well as the work of the obscure figure Pytheas (especially in the sections to be discussed below), though the latter was perhaps known to Strabo only through the intermediary of Posidonius. He also preserves information from other sources no longer extant (including the histories of Ephorus and the geography of Artemidorus).8 The various sources we have—Caesar and the three Greeks just cited— offer mutually consistent descriptions of the Gauls for the most part, and their citations of authors no longer extant make little note of contradictory accounts.9 Caesar and Posidonius are the only authors likely to have had any direct experience of the Gauls, so it is possible that much of the information in the other texts derives eventually from only a few sources. Even if there is a common ancestor, we do not have enough information to construct a convincing family tree. In any case, the various accounts share both a general direction and speci fic details. All might be characterized in modern terms as anthropological rather than sociological. (This is true to a great extent of ancient treatments of any non-Greco-Roman people.) They stress individual behaviors rather than social structure, personal rather than political concerns. They focus especially on what seems to have been picturesque detail for the Greco-Roman audience (long hair, unusual sexual habits, and the like). The nature of their interest can be illustrated by the following passage from Strabo. Most of their governments were aristocratic, and they chose one leader annually, and similarly one general was designated by the people for a war. But now they generally follow the orders of the Romans. Their assemblies have a unique characteristic: if someone disturbs and harasses the speaker, an officer, approaching with sword drawn, orders him to be silent with a threat. If he does not stop, the officer does the same thing a second and a third time. Finally, he cuts off enough of the bottom...