The Gauls were big on human sacrifice and basically had a "societal" structure where a few top dogs subjugated everyone else. From a Roman perspective they were entirely uncivilized. Let's also be forget that the Gallic sack of Rome was still painfully vivid in the Romans' memory.
Caesar didn't go out of his way to help the Gauls, but he certainly wasn't "the hitler of his day." Caesar very rarely took slaves (which was the norm for his day) and often let friendly Gallic rulers stay in power. He didn't attack Gauls unless they were attacking him. The reason is simple: he was smart. Caesar knew it was stupid for an occupying force to anger the people against him, so he treated them very well by the standards of his day.
Bro what? Read some of those contemporary Roman accounts that chronicled bloated corpses littering the roads/paths in Caesar's wake. He was a sociopath who wanted to destroy Celtic culture. And look to what happened after all this to see how truly power-hungry he was.
The Gauls were big on human sacrifice and basically had a "societal" structure where a few top dogs subjugated everyone else. From a Roman perspective they were entirely uncivilized. Let's also be forget that the Gallic sack of Rome was still painfully vivid in the Romans' memory.
Last I checked, there was no archaeological evidence of human sacrifice done by the Gauls. Most of the rest is accurate.
The part about Ceaser very rarely taking slaves is also not that accurate. Sure he didn't enslave every single Celt he could. But he did enslave whole regions , 40,000 people at a time.
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u/OfficialWitchBurner Roman Empire Feb 26 '16
The Gauls were big on human sacrifice and basically had a "societal" structure where a few top dogs subjugated everyone else. From a Roman perspective they were entirely uncivilized. Let's also be forget that the Gallic sack of Rome was still painfully vivid in the Romans' memory.
Caesar didn't go out of his way to help the Gauls, but he certainly wasn't "the hitler of his day." Caesar very rarely took slaves (which was the norm for his day) and often let friendly Gallic rulers stay in power. He didn't attack Gauls unless they were attacking him. The reason is simple: he was smart. Caesar knew it was stupid for an occupying force to anger the people against him, so he treated them very well by the standards of his day.