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That conquest was brutal btw, estimates are that Rome killed 1.5m combatants and 1m+ civilians enslaved / executed. There’s also that part where they just cut o

That conquest was brutal btw, estimates are that Rome killed 1.5m combatants and 1m+ civilians enslaved / executed. There’s also that part where they just cut off the hands of any fighting age males they came across for a while. Really was closer to a genocide.

bogtog 3y ago
I recently discovered that Dan Carlin has a series on this topic, "Hardcore History 60 - The Celtic Holocaust". I just listened through, and it's pretty solid. Based on the number of deaths and attitude, I think "genocide" is pretty fine, but he makes it clear that the Gauls actually had a fighting chance in their fights. In some timelines, the Romans get sent home with a bloody nose and no intention to return for a while.
gentleman11 3y ago
A recent term for it is the Celtic genocide
- decentomyous 3y ago
  As we've seen, genocide has become a recent term for almost any kind of warfare. It used to have a much more narrowly defined usage that was accordingly more meaningful. Caesar's goal in Gaul was certainly not the extermination of its people or its culture. He wanted to pacify Gaul and Germany, for his own glory, but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons. And the Romans, as a rule, were famously tolerant of other people's national pride, customs, and religions. And of course, the Gaul and German tribes were at least as brutal to each other as Caesar was to them. The entire region was filled with constantly warring tribes that would often commit something much closer to actual genocide. Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > He wanted to pacify I'm not sure pacify is the right word. > but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons Not really. By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. If his goals were primarily 'pacification' and 'self-defense' a much more limited and cheaper campaign would've been more than sufficient. In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense. > Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. > commit something much closer to actual genocide That's a massive a stretch. Even the Romans themselves understood that e.g. the "They Make a Desert and Call it Peace" quote Tacitus put into into the mouth leaders of one of the tribes subjugated by the Romans. The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated. It might have turned into something else in the later periods (by the 1st and 1nd centuries AD). But the Romans certainly did not really improve the lives of the people the conquered during the Republican period. > The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow. Well however you put it it was still an extremely violate imperialist war of conquest. Of course yes, technically it wasn't a genocide in the direct sense subjugating, enslaving and stealing their stuff rather than extermination were their primary goals.
    - decentomyous 3y ago
      > The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated. This is a description of virtually every ancient society in this region. The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced. > By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense. Nothing fundamental had changed. The Romans were stronger by then but the territories bordering Gaul were still at risk. Vercingetorix himself attempted an invasion of the Roman province as a response Caesar's invasion. > In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense. This is really accepting ancient propaganda at face value. It's more accurate to say that Caesar's opponents in the senate claimed it was unnecessary as a means of attacking him politically. Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Caesar was brutal in Gaul, a mere part of the vast Celtic-speaking world, and his campaign probably impacted a decent amount of Proto-Basque or Para-Basque speakers as well. Many historians and linguists prefer to see “Celtic” as a linguistic distinction only and therefore are reluctant to speak of “the Celtic people”. If you ever see anyone online write of “Celtic genocide”, you can be pretty sure that the person has little formal training in this field and is going off of low-quality pop-sci publications or pure internet amateurism.
decentomyous 3y ago
"There’s also that part where they just cut off the hands of any fighting age males they came across for a while." IIRC that was done in a single instance in order to try to pacify Gaul while Caesar was about to be away invading Britain.
qwytw 3y ago
>Really was closer to a genocide. Yes but that was a pretty ordinary occurrence in the ancient world. I don't think the Celts were that much nicer when they invaded Greece a couple of hundred years earlier (or Rome/Italy itself prior to that). The Romans supposedly murdered up to half a million people just during the siege of Carthage. When Ceasar was ~12 the rebelling Greek kingdoms/cities basically exterminated almost all the Italians living in Asia Minor (~100k people). The amount of violence violence committed in Gaul seems to be only unperrendented in the sense that most generals weren't really successful enough to be in a position to murder that many people compared to Caesar.

bogtog 3y ago

I recently discovered that Dan Carlin has a series on this topic, "Hardcore History 60 - The Celtic Holocaust". I just listened through, and it's pretty solid. Based on the number of deaths and attitude, I think "genocide" is pretty fine, but he makes it clear that the Gauls actually had a fighting chance in their fights. In some timelines, the Romans get sent home with a bloody nose and no intention to return for a while.

gentleman11 3y ago

A recent term for it is the Celtic genocide

decentomyous 3y ago
As we've seen, genocide has become a recent term for almost any kind of warfare. It used to have a much more narrowly defined usage that was accordingly more meaningful. Caesar's goal in Gaul was certainly not the extermination of its people or its culture. He wanted to pacify Gaul and Germany, for his own glory, but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons. And the Romans, as a rule, were famously tolerant of other people's national pride, customs, and religions. And of course, the Gaul and German tribes were at least as brutal to each other as Caesar was to them. The entire region was filled with constantly warring tribes that would often commit something much closer to actual genocide. Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > He wanted to pacify I'm not sure pacify is the right word. > but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons Not really. By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. If his goals were primarily 'pacification' and 'self-defense' a much more limited and cheaper campaign would've been more than sufficient. In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense. > Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. > commit something much closer to actual genocide That's a massive a stretch. Even the Romans themselves understood that e.g. the "They Make a Desert and Call it Peace" quote Tacitus put into into the mouth leaders of one of the tribes subjugated by the Romans. The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated. It might have turned into something else in the later periods (by the 1st and 1nd centuries AD). But the Romans certainly did not really improve the lives of the people the conquered during the Republican period. > The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow. Well however you put it it was still an extremely violate imperialist war of conquest. Of course yes, technically it wasn't a genocide in the direct sense subjugating, enslaving and stealing their stuff rather than extermination were their primary goals.
  - decentomyous 3y ago
    > The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated. This is a description of virtually every ancient society in this region. The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced. > By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense. Nothing fundamental had changed. The Romans were stronger by then but the territories bordering Gaul were still at risk. Vercingetorix himself attempted an invasion of the Roman province as a response Caesar's invasion. > In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense. This is really accepting ancient propaganda at face value. It's more accurate to say that Caesar's opponents in the senate claimed it was unnecessary as a means of attacking him politically. Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Caesar was brutal in Gaul, a mere part of the vast Celtic-speaking world, and his campaign probably impacted a decent amount of Proto-Basque or Para-Basque speakers as well. Many historians and linguists prefer to see “Celtic” as a linguistic distinction only and therefore are reluctant to speak of “the Celtic people”. If you ever see anyone online write of “Celtic genocide”, you can be pretty sure that the person has little formal training in this field and is going off of low-quality pop-sci publications or pure internet amateurism.

decentomyous 3y ago

"There’s also that part where they just cut off the hands of any fighting age males they came across for a while." IIRC that was done in a single instance in order to try to pacify Gaul while Caesar was about to be away invading Britain.

qwytw 3y ago

>Really was closer to a genocide. Yes but that was a pretty ordinary occurrence in the ancient world. I don't think the Celts were that much nicer when they invaded Greece a couple of hundred years earlier (or Rome/Italy itself prior to that). The Romans supposedly murdered up to half a million people just during the siege of Carthage. When Ceasar was ~12 the rebelling Greek kingdoms/cities basically exterminated almost all the Italians living in Asia Minor (~100k people). The amount of violence violence committed in Gaul seems to be only unperrendented in the sense that most generals weren't really successful enough to be in a position to murder that many people compared to Caesar.