The Bellum Gallicum is Caesar's record of his fight with the right kind of enemy. This study reads the BG against the notion that victory and conquest were in some sense problematic in the late Republic. The Romans, ever concerned with their own moral decline, often attributed that decline to their own military triumphs. Roman authors of the middle and late Republic frequently suggested that their expansion in Asia had brought home an influx of corrupting foreign goods; that their soldiers' experience fighting weak opponents in pleasant and enervating locations had drained them of their inborn strength; that the elimination of their most threatening enemies had allowed greed and strife to flourish at home. All these ideas--in particular, the notion that fighting the wrong enemy could drain your courage while fighting the right one would increase it--are at work in Julius Caesar's narrative of his conquest of Gaul. The BG emphasizes Gallic valor, bravery, and moral worth to a degree that is little seen in the earlier written sources on the Gauls. The Roman victories are hard-won, and the Gauls often display admirable endurance in defeat. Caesar emphasizes that his Gallic opponents are ascetic primitives, in contrast to their more Romanized neighbors, whose virtus has been eroded by goods from the Province. Caesar's final opponent, Vercingetorix, is constructed as a double of Caesar. He is an effective strategist, an eloquent leader, and a charismatic figure, fighting for the freedom of his people. The Gauls are certainly depicted as savage, fickle, and threatening, but at the same time they are strikingly imbued with a virtus that at times rivals that of the Romans. A victory over the Gauls of the BG can only increase the virtus of their conqueror and the mores of his homeland.
