Gaul (ancient region)

Gaul was an ancient region of Western Europe that encompassed mainly the area of twenty-first-century France, as well as parts of Belgium, Germany, and Italy. The people who inhabited this region were known as Gauls, a tribe of the larger Celtic people of Western Europe, whose existence dates to more than two thousand years ago.

The Gauls were a mostly agricultural people who were skilled in tool and weapon creation. They were also highly religious, worshiping many gods and deferring always to the wisdom of the druids, or educated priests. The Gauls were skilled and proud warriors; they conflicted almost constantly among themselves and with neighboring powers, including the great civilization of Rome.

The Gauls sacked Rome in the 300s B.C.E., pillaging the city's treasures before returning to their homeland. More than three hundred years later, Roman dictator Julius Caesar conquered and occupied all of Gaul. The region thereby became a Roman province. By the medieval period, Germanic tribes had overtaken Gaul and turned it into the kingdom of the Franks. The Franks ultimately became the French people, who inhabited the kingdom and later the nation of France.

Background

Early humans settled in what would become Gaul about 450,000 years ago. Approximately sixty different groups of Gauls eventually emerged from these ancient humans. At their height in the 100s B.C.E., the Gauls probably numbered about ten million.

Ancient Gaul was an agricultural society. The Gauls survived by growing crops and raising farm animals for food, especially pigs for ham. They only rarely hunted or fished. The Gauls were skilled craftspeople who developed a variety of tools for everyday living. These included scythes and bladed plows for farming, other blades for woodwork, and implements for cobblers. The Gauls' ability to clear forests allowed the people to establish villages for their communities, with wooden and clay houses and thatched roofs.

Like other world cultures, the Gauls employed a priestly class to guide them in matters of the natural world, spirituality, the afterlife, law, and ethics. Gallic priests were known as druids. Highly respected in their society, Gallic druids probably instructed the commoners about the universe by studying the movements of stars and other celestial objects. The druids allegedly taught the Gauls that their souls would survive their deaths and subsequently pass into other bodies. The druids did not record their wisdom in writing but rather passed it down to younger generations through oral tradition, as they considered memorization an art. Young Gauls who wished to become druids might have to study this ancient wisdom for twenty years before being declared ready.

Gallic druids also served as mediators between the people and their gods, of which the Gauls had many. Lugh was the god of artisans, while Taranis was the god of the skies. The Gauls believed they had to appease these gods with regular human sacrifices. Only the druids could kill the sacrifices and offer them to the gods.

The Gauls were also a warlike people who, according to some accounts, did not pass a year without engaging in conflict of some kind with opposing tribes. Other people knew the Gauls by their aggression in combat. With their unruly hair, bare chests, and swords and lances they had fashioned themselves, the Gauls could intimidate their foes with their appearances alone. Due to the nearly constant expectation of enemy attacks, the Gauls established large fortified settlements called oppida. These were bustling trading hubs protected by high walls. The people in any given region of Gaul usually considered their oppidum as their capital. The Gauls' penchant for warfare eventually brought these Celtic warriors into contact with Rome, one of the most powerful and culturally influential civilizations of the ancient world.

Impact

The historical narrative of the Gauls' sack of Rome is bereft of many verifiable details, but a few facts are generally known. In the late 380s B.C.E., the city of Rome was still building the power for which it would later become famous. Around this time, the city began fighting with a roving army of Gallic warriors led by the warlord Brennus. On July 18 of either 387 or 390 B.C.E., the Gauls and Romans met in battle at the Allia River near Rome. The Romans had not yet perfected the discipline of their military, and many Roman soldiers either fled from or were killed by the Gauls. The invaders then entered Rome itself and killed and plundered as they liked. The Gauls left Rome only when the survivors had paid them handsomely in gold.

Gaul's later experiences with Rome would have more lasting political effects on Western Europe. In the late 50s B.C.E., Roman dictator Julius Caesar began attempting to conquer Gaul and make it a Roman province. In 58, he saw a threat to Roman interest in Gaul when the Helvetii people from the east invaded central Gaul. Caesar led his Roman army into Gaul to repel the Helvetii and reserve his own right to the region.

Later in 58, some Gallic chiefs in central Gaul requested Caesar's protection from another Germanic invader. Caesar defended them, and the long Roman occupation of Gaul thereby began. Over the next five to six years, through a series of individual assaults against various regions, Caesar gradually conquered all of Gaul. The Gauls responded to this in 52 by launching a series of insurrections against the Romans, and the Gallic chief Vercingetorix even defeated Caesar in battle with his superior strategies. By 50 B.C.E., however, Caesar had overcome all resistance and brought Gaul fully under his control.

Within only a few more decades, the Roman Republic had become the Roman Empire, a colossal political and military force that eventually encompassed much of Europe. As such, Gaul under Roman occupation rapidly became less Gallic and distinctly more Roman. The Romans replaced most aspects of Gallic culture with Roman culture, with the Romans installing their trademark baths, theaters, and aqueducts—raised drain-like structures for transporting water—throughout Gaul. The Romans also obliterated the oral tradition of the druids, whose ancient wisdom the Romans viewed with deep suspicion.

Over the next few centuries, the Frankish people from the Rhine River region in Germany swept into Gaul, pillaging as they went. At some point in the early Middle Ages, in the late 400s or early 500s C.E., Gaul became known as the kingdom of the Franks, a Christian entity. It later became the kingdom of France before finally transitioning to the country of France.

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