Gaius Valerius Troucillus
Encyclopedia
Gaius Valerius Troucillus or Procillus (fl. mid-1st century BC) was a Helvian
Celt
who served as an interpreter and envoy
for Julius Caesar
in the first year of the Gallic Wars
. Troucillus was a second-generation Roman citizen, and is one of the few ethnic Celts who can be identified both as a citizen and by affiliation with a Celtic polity. His father, Caburus, and a brother are named in Book 7 of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum
as defenders of Helvian territory against a force sent by Vercingetorix
in 52 BC. Troucillus plays a role in two episodes from the first book of Caesar's war commentaries (58 BC), as an interpreter for the druid
Diviciacus
and as an envoy to the Suebi
an king Ariovistus
, who accuses him of spying and has him thrown in chains.
Troucillus was an exact contemporary of two other notable Transalpine Gauls: the Vocontian
father of the historian Pompeius Trogus
, who was a high-level administrator
on Caesar's staff; and Varro Atacinus
, the earliest Transalpiner to acquire a literary reputation in Rome as a Latin poet
. Their ability as well-educated men to rise in Roman society is evidence of early Gallo-Roman
acculturation
.
, Rome's allies in central Gaul since at least the 120s BC. Caesar represents this divided allegiance in the persons of two brothers, the druid Diviciacus, who had appeared before the Roman senate
a few years earlier to request aid against Germanic
invaders, and the enterprising populist Dumnorix
, who was the leading Aeduan in terms of wealth and military power. Dumnorix stood accused of conspiring with the enemy Helvetii
; when Caesar holds a confidential discussion with his friend Diviciacus, he dismisses the usual interpreters and calls in Troucillus. Caesar describes Troucillus as a leading citizen of the province
of Gallia Narbonensis
and his personal friend (familiaris), adding that he placed the highest trust (fides) in the Helvian in all matters.
At Bellum Gallicum 1.46 and 52, Caesar names a Transalpine Gaul, this time according to the manuscript
s as Gaius Valerius Procillus, whom he again calls his familiaris as well as his hospes. The hospes, sometimes translatable as a "family friend" and meaning "guest" or "host" in Latin interchangeably, is a participant in the mutual social relationship of hospitium
, reciprocal guest-host hospitality. Caesar's use of the term may imply that he was a guest of the Helvian Valerii when he traveled through the Narbonensis, as he did to or from one of his two postings in Hispania
during the 60s, or that the Helvian had been a guest of Caesar in Rome before the war. Most scholars assume that the two names refer to a single man; although Troucillus is a problematic reading of the text
, it is a well-established Celtic name, whereas Procillus appears to have been confused with a Roman name. In this episode, Caesar sends Troucillus as a diplomatic envoy to the Suebi
an king Ariovistus
, and again commends his linguistic skills and his fides, his loyalty or trustworthiness.
Caesar identifies Troucillus as an adulescens, a young man, generally in Caesarian usage between the ages of 20 and 30 and not having yet entered the political career track
or held a formal command. The term is used elsewhere in the Bellum Gallicum for Publius Crassus
and Decimus Brutus
, who were born in the mid-80s.
Caesar's identification of Troucillus's citizen status provides a piece of evidence for the history of Roman provincial administration in Gaul. Caesar notes that he is the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus
, who was granted citizenship by G. Valerius Flaccus
during his governorship
in the 80s. Caburus took his patron
's gentilic
name, as was customary for naturalized
citizens. Although Caburus's two sons retain a Celtic cognomen
(personal name), by the third generation a member of such a family is likely to be using a more typically Roman name, and the Helvian Valerii cannot be identified further in the historical record.
The reference to Caburus's grant of citizenship in 83 BC helps date the term of Flaccus in his Transalpine province, and shows that Gauls were receiving Roman citizenship soon after annexation. As indicated by his closeness in age to Crassus and Brutus, Troucillus was born shortly before or after his father became a citizen, and was among the first Transalpiners to grow up with a dual Gallo-Roman identity.
Although no title or rank is given for Troucillus, Caesar calls him a princeps
Galliae provinciae, "a leading citizen of the Province of Gaul". His father, Caburus, is called princeps civitatis of the Helvii, who are identified in this phrase not as a pagus
, much less a "tribe" (Latin tribus
), but as a civitas
, a polity
with at least small-scale urban centers (oppida
). It has been argued that princeps denotes a particular office in the Narbonensis, but the word is usually taken to mean simply a "leader" or "leading citizen." Troucillus is listed among legates
and envoys for 58 BC in Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Erich S. Gruen
notes the presence of Troucillus among those who demonstrate that Caesar favored men of non-Roman and equestrian origin among his junior officers and lieutenants. Ronald Syme
calls the Helvian "a cultivated and admirable young man."
Troucillus was accompanied on the mission to Ariovistus by Marcus Mettius
(or Metius), a Roman who had a formal social relationship (hospitium
) with the Suebian king. Since Ariovistus had been declared a Friend of the Roman People (amicus populi romani) during Caesar's consulship in 59 BC, the hospitium between him and Mettius might have had to do with the diplomacy that led to the declaration of friendship; business dealings involving goods, slaves, or animals are also not out of the question. In 60 BC, the senate had sent three legates
on a diplomatic mission to shore up relations to key Gallic civitates, including the Aedui, against the threatened invasion or inducements of the Helvetii
, whose entry into Allobrogian
and Aeduan territory two years later provided Caesar with a casus belli
. One of these legates was Lucius Valerius Flaccus, the nephew of the Valerius Flaccus who had granted Caburus's citizenship. Lucius had served under his uncle in the Narbonensis at the beginning of his career. Because of their ties to the Valerii Flacci, Troucillus or another member of his family might have traveled with Flaccus as interpreter or liaison. Caesar explains his decision to send Troucillus to Ariovistus on linguistic grounds, saying that the Suebian king had learned to speak Celtic.
Despite Caesar's assertion that the king should have no cause to find fault with Troucillus, Ariovistus immediately accuses the pair of envoys of spying and refuses to allow them to speak. He has Troucillus thrown in chains. Such treatment of envoys was a violation of the ius gentium, the customary law of international relations, but it has been observed that Ariovistus's charge may not have been groundless.
Troucillus is held by the Suebi until the decisive battle, in which the Romans are victorious. Caesar gives the recovery of the young Celt an emphatic place in the penultimate paragraph of the book; several scholars have detected a degree of personal warmth in the passage that is atypical of the commentaries:
In his discussion of racial stereotyping among the Romans, A.N. Sherwin-White
takes note of this passage in Caesar's overall depiction of Ariovistus as "an impossible person" who thought "nothing of frying an envoy." For reasons that are unclear, the Roman Mettius seems to have received better treatment during his captivity than did the Celtic envoy. The episode allows Caesar himself to display by contrast the aristocratic virtue of treating one's dependent friends well, which fosters obligations that enhance the important man's prestige.
and proposed immolation of Troucillus as a form of human sacrifice
in the context of Germanic religious practice
. Both Celtic and Germanic peoples were said to practice human sacrifice, and it had been banned from Roman religious use by law only about forty years before the Gallic War. In his ethnography
Germania
, Tacitus
notes that divination by means of lots was pervasive among the Germans, and records a rite of human sacrifice among the Semnones, "the most ancient and noble of the Suebi," that involves binding the participant in a chain; in his edition, J.B. Rives connects the practice to the incident involving Troucillus. Tacitus describes the use of twigs with markings in the casting of lots, and it has been suggested that these were used to cast the lots for Troucillus, with the markings an early form of runes
. An 8th-century source says that the Germanic Frisians
cast lots over a period of three days to determine the death penalty in cases of sacrilege, and the lots were cast three times for Troucillus; spying in the guise of diplomatic envoy would violate the sacred trust under the aegis of hospitium.
within Caesar's Narbonese province joined the pan-Gallic rebellion of 52 BC
, nor engaged in any known acts of hostility against Rome during the war. The family of Troucillus, in fact, plays a key role in securing Caesar's rear militarily
against Vercingetorix, who sent forces to invade Helvian territory. In his 1861 history of the Vivarais
, Abbé
Rouchier conjectured that Caesar, seeing the strategic utility of Helvian territory on the border of the Roman province along a main route into central Gaul, was able to cultivate the Valerii by redressing punitive measures taken against the civitas by Pompeius Magnus
("Pompey the Great") in the 70s. During the secession of Quintus Sertorius
in Spain, Celtic polities in Mediterranean Gaul were subjected to troop levies
and forced requisitions to support the military efforts of Metellus Pius
, Pompeius, and other Roman commanders against the rebels. Some Celts, however, supported Sertorius. After the renegade Roman was assassinated, Metellus and Pompeius were able to declare a victory, and the Helvii along with the Volcae Arecomici were forced to cede a portion of their lands to the Greek city-state Massilia (present-day Marseilles), a loyal independent ally of Rome for centuries, located strategically at the mouth of the Rhone river
. Caesar mentions the land forfeiture in his account of the civil war, without detailing Helvian actions against Rome. During the Roman civil wars of the 40s
, Massilia chose to maintain its longstanding relationship with Pompeius even in isolation, as the Gallic polities of the Narbonensis continued to support Caesar. The Massiliots were besieged and defeated by Caesar, and as a result lost their independence, as well as possibly the land they had taken from the Helvii. Rouchier presents an extended portrait of Troucillus in his history, viewing the educated young Celt through Caesar's eyes as an example of a visionary meritocracy
in Rome.
, Caesar extended full rights of Roman citizenship to ethnically Celtic Cisalpine Gaul
(northern Italy
), and filled the roll of the Roman senate
with controversial appointments that included Cisalpine and possibly a few Narbonese Gauls. Although accusations of degrading the senate with uncivilized "trouser-wearing Gauls
" were exaggerations meant to disparage Caesar's inclusive efforts, Ronald Syme
has pointed out that men such as Troucillus and Trogus
were educated citizens worthy of such appointments:
Troucillus's fluent bilingualism is asserted by Caesar. The French scholar Christian Goudineau found it "perplexing" to have Caesar take special note that a native Gaul spoke Gaulish, and suggests that this emphasis on Troucillus's retention of what should have been his first language indicates that the Helvian had been given the same education as a Roman, perhaps even in Rome and maybe as a hostage.
Syme points out that the Gauls of the Provincia had direct exposure to the Greek language and to Hellenic culture through the regional influence of Massilia, which had well-established contact with the Helvii (see "The Helvii and Roman politics" above). The cultural and linguistic complexity of Mediterranean Gaul is asserted by Varro
, who says Massilia is "trilingual, because they speak Greek, Latin, and Gaulish."
Caesar employs two abstract nouns from the Roman moral vocabulary to describe Troucillus: he is said to be outstanding for his humanitas and his virtus
. Humanitas was "a keyword for late Republican elite self-definition"; it embraced a range of ideals including culture, civilization, education, and goodwill toward one's fellow human beings. Cicero
considered humanitas to be one of Caesar's own outstanding qualities, and often pairs it with lepos, "charm"; in his speech arguing for the extension of Caesar's proconsul
ar command, he distinguishes Roman culture from Gallic by mockingly asking whether "the culture and charm of those people and nations" could possibly be the attraction for Caesar, rather than the war's usefulness to the state (utilitas rei publicae). Cicero also associates humanitas with speaking well, the ability to hold a cultivated conversation free of vulgarity and to speak in an urbane manner.
A hundred and fifty years later, Tacitus takes a more cynical view of humanitas as an illusion of civilization that is in fact submission to the dominant culture. Tacitus observes that as governor of Roman Britain
, Agricola
had engaged in a program of
The Roman concept of humanitas as it took shape in the 1st century BC has been criticized from a postcolonial
perspective as a form of imperialism
, "a civilizing mission: it was Rome's destiny and duty to spread humanitas to other races, tempering barbarian practices and instituting the pax Romana
."
The word humanitas appears only twice throughout the entirety of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum, both times in Book 1. In the famous opening, in which the commander parcels out Gaul into three divisions (Belgae
... Aquitani
... Celtae, 1.1.1) for potential conquest, Caesar reports that the Belgic Gauls are the bravest (fortissimi) fighters, "because they are at the farthest remove from the cultivation (cultus) and civilization (humanitas) of the Province." By contrast, Troucillus is said to possess the highest level of both humanitas and virtus. Virtus, which shares a semantic element with the Latin word vir, "man," is most commonly translated by either "virtue" or "courage, valor"; it is "the quality of manliness or manhood." As an active quality, appropriate to the man of action, virtus balances the potentially enervating effects of civilization in the natural aristocrat. Caesar's prolific use of the word virtus — fourteen instances in Book 1 alone, in reference to Celtic nations as a whole, and to the Roman army — points to "no easily articulated essential meaning": "Virtus was whatever it was that Romans liked when they saw it." Although the word appears frequently throughout the Bellum Gallicum, Caesar attributes the quality of virtus to only a few individuals: Troucillus; three Roman officers; and two Celts, Commius
of the Atrebates
and Tasgetius
of the Carnutes
.
saw the role of Troucillus in Bellum Gallicum 1 as one indication of the breadth of Caesar's intended audience. Wiseman argues that the commentaries were first published serially, with a year-by-year account to keep Caesar and his achievements vivid in the mind of the public (populus
) on whose support he counted as a popularist
leader. The seven individual books were then collected and supplemented by Aulus Hirtius
at the end of the 50s or beginning of the 40s. "Publication" in ancient Rome relied less on the circulation of written copies than on public and private readings, which were an important form of entertainment; this circumstance, Wiseman intuits, goes a long way toward explaining Caesar's narrative use of the third person in regard to himself, since the audience would be hearing the words spoken by a reader. In addition to public relations
efforts among the Roman people
, Wiseman believes that Caesar would have sent readers to the Narbonensis, the Mediterranean region of Gaul already under Roman administration, because he required Narbonese support at his back if he was to succeed in independent Gaul.
The prominent attention given to the recovery of Troucillus from the Suebi at the end of Book 1, and the unusual warmth with which Caesar speaks of him, suggests that the proconsul valued his friends to the south and was careful to show it. In another indication of Narbonese regard for Caesar, the poet Varro Atacinus
, the contemporary of Troucillus, wrote an epic poem called the Bellum Sequanicum (Sequani
an War), no longer extant, about the first year of Caesar's war in Gaul.
Helvii
The Helvii were a relatively small Celtic polity west of the Rhône river on the northern border of Gallia Narbonensis. Their territory was roughly equivalent to the Vivarais, in the modern French department Ardèche...
Celt
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
who served as an interpreter and envoy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
for Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in the first year of the Gallic Wars
Gallic Wars
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. They lasted from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the...
. Troucillus was a second-generation Roman citizen, and is one of the few ethnic Celts who can be identified both as a citizen and by affiliation with a Celtic polity. His father, Caburus, and a brother are named in Book 7 of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum
Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Commentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination.The "Gaul" that Caesar...
as defenders of Helvian territory against a force sent by Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix was the chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars....
in 52 BC. Troucillus plays a role in two episodes from the first book of Caesar's war commentaries (58 BC), as an interpreter for the druid
Druid
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....
Diviciacus
Diviciacus (Aedui)
Diviciacus or Divitiacus of the Aedui is the only druid from antiquity whose existence is attested by name. He should not be confused with the king of the Suessiones also known by the Latinised name Diviciacus; coins, possibly issued by the latter, give the Gaulish name in Greek lettering as...
and as an envoy to the Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
an king Ariovistus
Ariovistus
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, after which they settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic...
, who accuses him of spying and has him thrown in chains.
Troucillus was an exact contemporary of two other notable Transalpine Gauls: the Vocontian
Vocontii
The Vocontii were a Gallic people who lived on the east bank of the Rhône.-Location:Their main towns were Lucus Augusti and Vasio , but they occupied an extensive territory stretching from Vercors in the north, the buttresses of Mont Ventoux in the south-west, Manosque in the south-east and...
father of the historian Pompeius Trogus
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus
Gnaeus Pompēius Trōgus, known as Pompeius Trogus, Pompey Trogue, or Trogue Pompey, was a 1st century BC Roman historian of the Celtic tribe of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished during the age of Augustus, nearly contemporary with Livy.His grandfather served in the war against Sertorius...
, who was a high-level administrator
Military administration
Military administration identifies both the techniques and systems used by military departments, agencies, and Armed Services involved in the management of the armed forces...
on Caesar's staff; and Varro Atacinus
Varro Atacinus
Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus was an early Roman poet, more polished than the more famous and learned Varro Reatinus, his contemporary, and more widely read by the Augustans, who apparently dared not mention the other Varro's name...
, the earliest Transalpiner to acquire a literary reputation in Rome as a Latin poet
Latin literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...
. Their ability as well-educated men to rise in Roman society is evidence of early Gallo-Roman
Gallo-Roman culture
The term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman mores and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context...
acculturation
Acculturation
Acculturation explains the process of cultural and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and...
.
Two names, one man?
Caesar first mentions Valerius Troucillus in Bellum Gallicum 1.19, when the Roman commander is made aware of questionable loyalties among the Celtic AeduiAedui
Aedui, Haedui or Hedui , were a Gallic people of Gallia Lugdunensis, who inhabited the country between the Arar and Liger , in today's France. Their territory thus included the greater part of the modern departments of Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d'Or and Nièvre.-Geography:The country of the Aedui is...
, Rome's allies in central Gaul since at least the 120s BC. Caesar represents this divided allegiance in the persons of two brothers, the druid Diviciacus, who had appeared before the Roman senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
a few years earlier to request aid against Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
invaders, and the enterprising populist Dumnorix
Dumnorix
Dumnorix was a chieftain of the Aedui, a Celtic tribe in Gaul in the 1st century B.C. He was strongly against alliance with the Romans, particularly Julius Caesar, who sparred with him on several occasions...
, who was the leading Aeduan in terms of wealth and military power. Dumnorix stood accused of conspiring with the enemy Helvetii
Helvetii
The Helvetii were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC...
; when Caesar holds a confidential discussion with his friend Diviciacus, he dismisses the usual interpreters and calls in Troucillus. Caesar describes Troucillus as a leading citizen of the province
Roman province
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...
of Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...
and his personal friend (familiaris), adding that he placed the highest trust (fides) in the Helvian in all matters.
At Bellum Gallicum 1.46 and 52, Caesar names a Transalpine Gaul, this time according to the manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s as Gaius Valerius Procillus, whom he again calls his familiaris as well as his hospes. The hospes, sometimes translatable as a "family friend" and meaning "guest" or "host" in Latin interchangeably, is a participant in the mutual social relationship of hospitium
Hospitium
Hospitium , hospitality, among the Greeks and Romans, was of a twofold character: private and public.-Private:In Homeric times all strangers without exception, were regarded as being under the protection of Zeus Xenios, the god of strangers and suppliants...
, reciprocal guest-host hospitality. Caesar's use of the term may imply that he was a guest of the Helvian Valerii when he traveled through the Narbonensis, as he did to or from one of his two postings in Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
during the 60s, or that the Helvian had been a guest of Caesar in Rome before the war. Most scholars assume that the two names refer to a single man; although Troucillus is a problematic reading of the text
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
, it is a well-established Celtic name, whereas Procillus appears to have been confused with a Roman name. In this episode, Caesar sends Troucillus as a diplomatic envoy to the Suebi
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
an king Ariovistus
Ariovistus
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, after which they settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic...
, and again commends his linguistic skills and his fides, his loyalty or trustworthiness.
Caesar identifies Troucillus as an adulescens, a young man, generally in Caesarian usage between the ages of 20 and 30 and not having yet entered the political career track
Cursus honorum
The cursus honorum was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the Roman Republic and the early Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office had a minimum...
or held a formal command. The term is used elsewhere in the Bellum Gallicum for Publius Crassus
Publius Licinius Crassus (son of triumvir)
Publius Licinius Crassus was one of two sons of the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus and Tertulla. He belonged to the last generation of Roman nobiles who came of age and began a political career before the collapse of the Republic...
and Decimus Brutus
Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus
Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus was a Roman politician and general of the 1st century BC and one of the leading instigators of Julius Caesar's assassination...
, who were born in the mid-80s.
Princeps and legate
Gaius Valerius Caburus
Gaius Valerius Caburus was a leader of the Helvii, a relatively small Celtic polity whose territory was more or less equivalent to the Vivarais , on the northern border of Gallia Transalpina. Caburus was granted Roman citizenship in 83 BC by Gaius Valerius Flaccus during his governorship of Gaul...
, who was granted citizenship by G. Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus (consul 93 BCE)
Gaius Valerius Flaccus was a consul of the Roman Republic in 93 BC and a provincial governor in the late-90s and throughout the 80s...
during his governorship
Roman governor
A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire...
in the 80s. Caburus took his patron
Patronage in ancient Rome
Patronage was the distinctive relationship in ancient Roman society between the patronus and his client . The relationship was hierarchical, but obligations were mutual. The patronus was the protector, sponsor, and benefactor of the client...
's gentilic
Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...
name, as was customary for naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
citizens. Although Caburus's two sons retain a Celtic cognomen
Cognomen
The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...
(personal name), by the third generation a member of such a family is likely to be using a more typically Roman name, and the Helvian Valerii cannot be identified further in the historical record.
The reference to Caburus's grant of citizenship in 83 BC helps date the term of Flaccus in his Transalpine province, and shows that Gauls were receiving Roman citizenship soon after annexation. As indicated by his closeness in age to Crassus and Brutus, Troucillus was born shortly before or after his father became a citizen, and was among the first Transalpiners to grow up with a dual Gallo-Roman identity.
Although no title or rank is given for Troucillus, Caesar calls him a princeps
Princeps
Princeps is a Latin word meaning "first in time or order; the first, chief, the most eminent, distinguished, or noble; the first man, first person."...
Galliae provinciae, "a leading citizen of the Province of Gaul". His father, Caburus, is called princeps civitatis of the Helvii, who are identified in this phrase not as a pagus
Pagus
In the later Western Roman Empire, following the reorganization of Diocletian, a pagus became the smallest administrative district of a province....
, much less a "tribe" (Latin tribus
Tribal Assembly
The Tribal Assembly of the Roman Republic was the democratic assembly of Roman citizens. During the years of the Roman Republic, citizens were organized on the basis of thirty-five Tribes: Four Tribes encompassed citizens inside the city of Rome, while the other thirty-one Tribes encompassed...
), but as a civitas
Civitas
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas , according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law . It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other...
, a polity
Polity
Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...
with at least small-scale urban centers (oppida
Oppidum
Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome. The word is derived from the earlier Latin ob-pedum, "enclosed space," possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, "occupied space" or "footprint."Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age...
). It has been argued that princeps denotes a particular office in the Narbonensis, but the word is usually taken to mean simply a "leader" or "leading citizen." Troucillus is listed among legates
Legatus
A legatus was a general in the Roman army, equivalent to a modern general officer. Being of senatorial rank, his immediate superior was the dux, and he outranked all military tribunes...
and envoys for 58 BC in Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Erich S. Gruen
Erich S. Gruen
Erich Stephen Gruen is an American classicist and ancient historian. He was the Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught full-time from 1966 until 2008...
notes the presence of Troucillus among those who demonstrate that Caesar favored men of non-Roman and equestrian origin among his junior officers and lieutenants. Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. Long associated with Oxford University, he is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest historian of ancient Rome...
calls the Helvian "a cultivated and admirable young man."
Troucillus was accompanied on the mission to Ariovistus by Marcus Mettius
Marcus Mettius
Marcus Mettius or Metius was a supporter of Julius Caesar in the 50s and 40s BC.-Diplomatic envoy:During the first year of the Gallic Wars, Caesar sent Mettius and the Helvian Celt Gaius Valerius Troucillus as envoys to the Suebian king Ariovistus, in what is presented as a last-ditch effort to...
(or Metius), a Roman who had a formal social relationship (hospitium
Hospitium
Hospitium , hospitality, among the Greeks and Romans, was of a twofold character: private and public.-Private:In Homeric times all strangers without exception, were regarded as being under the protection of Zeus Xenios, the god of strangers and suppliants...
) with the Suebian king. Since Ariovistus had been declared a Friend of the Roman People (amicus populi romani) during Caesar's consulship in 59 BC, the hospitium between him and Mettius might have had to do with the diplomacy that led to the declaration of friendship; business dealings involving goods, slaves, or animals are also not out of the question. In 60 BC, the senate had sent three legates
Legatus
A legatus was a general in the Roman army, equivalent to a modern general officer. Being of senatorial rank, his immediate superior was the dux, and he outranked all military tribunes...
on a diplomatic mission to shore up relations to key Gallic civitates, including the Aedui, against the threatened invasion or inducements of the Helvetii
Helvetii
The Helvetii were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC...
, whose entry into Allobrogian
Allobroges
The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of ancient Gaul, located between the Rhône River and the Lake of Geneva in what later became Savoy, Dauphiné, and Vivarais. Their cities were in the areas of modern-day Annecy, Chambéry and Grenoble, the modern of Isère, and modern Switzerland...
and Aeduan territory two years later provided Caesar with a casus belli
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
. One of these legates was Lucius Valerius Flaccus, the nephew of the Valerius Flaccus who had granted Caburus's citizenship. Lucius had served under his uncle in the Narbonensis at the beginning of his career. Because of their ties to the Valerii Flacci, Troucillus or another member of his family might have traveled with Flaccus as interpreter or liaison. Caesar explains his decision to send Troucillus to Ariovistus on linguistic grounds, saying that the Suebian king had learned to speak Celtic.
Despite Caesar's assertion that the king should have no cause to find fault with Troucillus, Ariovistus immediately accuses the pair of envoys of spying and refuses to allow them to speak. He has Troucillus thrown in chains. Such treatment of envoys was a violation of the ius gentium, the customary law of international relations, but it has been observed that Ariovistus's charge may not have been groundless.
Troucillus is held by the Suebi until the decisive battle, in which the Romans are victorious. Caesar gives the recovery of the young Celt an emphatic place in the penultimate paragraph of the book; several scholars have detected a degree of personal warmth in the passage that is atypical of the commentaries:
In his discussion of racial stereotyping among the Romans, A.N. Sherwin-White
A.N. Sherwin-White
Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White was a British historian of Ancient Rome. He was a fellow of St John's College, Oxford, president of the Society for Promotion of Roman Studies, and a fellow of the British Academy...
takes note of this passage in Caesar's overall depiction of Ariovistus as "an impossible person" who thought "nothing of frying an envoy." For reasons that are unclear, the Roman Mettius seems to have received better treatment during his captivity than did the Celtic envoy. The episode allows Caesar himself to display by contrast the aristocratic virtue of treating one's dependent friends well, which fosters obligations that enhance the important man's prestige.
Religious significance
H.R. Ellis Davidson views the casting of lotsCleromancy
Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortition, casting of lots, or casting bones or stones, in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but are sometimes believed to reveal the will of God, or other supernatural entities.-In...
and proposed immolation of Troucillus as a form of human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
in the context of Germanic religious practice
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
. Both Celtic and Germanic peoples were said to practice human sacrifice, and it had been banned from Roman religious use by law only about forty years before the Gallic War. In his ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...
, Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
notes that divination by means of lots was pervasive among the Germans, and records a rite of human sacrifice among the Semnones, "the most ancient and noble of the Suebi," that involves binding the participant in a chain; in his edition, J.B. Rives connects the practice to the incident involving Troucillus. Tacitus describes the use of twigs with markings in the casting of lots, and it has been suggested that these were used to cast the lots for Troucillus, with the markings an early form of runes
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...
. An 8th-century source says that the Germanic Frisians
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...
cast lots over a period of three days to determine the death penalty in cases of sacrilege, and the lots were cast three times for Troucillus; spying in the guise of diplomatic envoy would violate the sacred trust under the aegis of hospitium.
The Helvii and Roman politics
No polityPolity
Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...
within Caesar's Narbonese province joined the pan-Gallic rebellion of 52 BC
Battle of Alesia
The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia took place in September, 52 BC around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia, a major town centre and hill fort of the Mandubii tribe...
, nor engaged in any known acts of hostility against Rome during the war. The family of Troucillus, in fact, plays a key role in securing Caesar's rear militarily
Rear (military)
In military parlance, the rear is the part of concentration of military forces that is farthest from the enemy . The rear typically contains all elements of the force necessary to support combat forces - food, medical supplies and substantial shelters, planners and command headquarters....
against Vercingetorix, who sent forces to invade Helvian territory. In his 1861 history of the Vivarais
Vivarais
Vivarais is a traditional region in the south-east of France, covering the département of Ardèche, named after its capital Viviers on the river Rhône...
, Abbé
Abbé
Abbé is the French word for abbot. It is the title for lower-ranking Catholic clergymen in France....
Rouchier conjectured that Caesar, seeing the strategic utility of Helvian territory on the border of the Roman province along a main route into central Gaul, was able to cultivate the Valerii by redressing punitive measures taken against the civitas by Pompeius Magnus
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
("Pompey the Great") in the 70s. During the secession of Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius was a Roman statesman and general, born in Nursia, in Sabine territory. His brilliance as a military commander was shown most clearly in his battles against Rome for control of Hispania...
in Spain, Celtic polities in Mediterranean Gaul were subjected to troop levies
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
and forced requisitions to support the military efforts of Metellus Pius
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was a pro-Sullan politician and general. He was named Pius because of his 99 BC petition to return his father from exile and was true to his cognomen for the constance and inflexibility with which he always fought for his father's rehabilitation and return to...
, Pompeius, and other Roman commanders against the rebels. Some Celts, however, supported Sertorius. After the renegade Roman was assassinated, Metellus and Pompeius were able to declare a victory, and the Helvii along with the Volcae Arecomici were forced to cede a portion of their lands to the Greek city-state Massilia (present-day Marseilles), a loyal independent ally of Rome for centuries, located strategically at the mouth of the Rhone river
Rhône River
The Rhone is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in Switzerland and running from there through southeastern France. At Arles, near its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, the river divides into two branches, known as the Great Rhone and the Little Rhone...
. Caesar mentions the land forfeiture in his account of the civil war, without detailing Helvian actions against Rome. During the Roman civil wars of the 40s
Caesar's civil war
The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...
, Massilia chose to maintain its longstanding relationship with Pompeius even in isolation, as the Gallic polities of the Narbonensis continued to support Caesar. The Massiliots were besieged and defeated by Caesar, and as a result lost their independence, as well as possibly the land they had taken from the Helvii. Rouchier presents an extended portrait of Troucillus in his history, viewing the educated young Celt through Caesar's eyes as an example of a visionary meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
in Rome.
Humanitas, virtus and becoming Roman
During his dictatorshipRoman dictator
In the Roman Republic, the dictator , was an extraordinary magistrate with the absolute authority to perform tasks beyond the authority of the ordinary magistrate . The office of dictator was a legal innovation originally named Magister Populi , i.e...
, Caesar extended full rights of Roman citizenship to ethnically Celtic Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul, in Latin: Gallia Cisalpina or Citerior, also called Gallia Togata, was a Roman province until 41 BC when it was merged into Roman Italy.It bore the name Gallia, because the great body of its inhabitants, after the expulsion of the Etruscans, consisted of Gauls or Celts...
(northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
), and filled the roll of the Roman senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
with controversial appointments that included Cisalpine and possibly a few Narbonese Gauls. Although accusations of degrading the senate with uncivilized "trouser-wearing Gauls
Braccae
Braccae is the Latin term for trousers, and in this context is today used to refer to a style of pants, made from wool. The Romans encountered this style of clothing among peoples whom they called Galli...
" were exaggerations meant to disparage Caesar's inclusive efforts, Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. Long associated with Oxford University, he is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest historian of ancient Rome...
has pointed out that men such as Troucillus and Trogus
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus
Gnaeus Pompēius Trōgus, known as Pompeius Trogus, Pompey Trogue, or Trogue Pompey, was a 1st century BC Roman historian of the Celtic tribe of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished during the age of Augustus, nearly contemporary with Livy.His grandfather served in the war against Sertorius...
were educated citizens worthy of such appointments:
Troucillus's fluent bilingualism is asserted by Caesar. The French scholar Christian Goudineau found it "perplexing" to have Caesar take special note that a native Gaul spoke Gaulish, and suggests that this emphasis on Troucillus's retention of what should have been his first language indicates that the Helvian had been given the same education as a Roman, perhaps even in Rome and maybe as a hostage.
Syme points out that the Gauls of the Provincia had direct exposure to the Greek language and to Hellenic culture through the regional influence of Massilia, which had well-established contact with the Helvii (see "The Helvii and Roman politics" above). The cultural and linguistic complexity of Mediterranean Gaul is asserted by Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...
, who says Massilia is "trilingual, because they speak Greek, Latin, and Gaulish."
Caesar employs two abstract nouns from the Roman moral vocabulary to describe Troucillus: he is said to be outstanding for his humanitas and his virtus
Virtus
In Roman mythology, Virtus was the deity of bravery and military strength, the personification of the Roman virtue of virtus. The Greek equivalent deity was Arete....
. Humanitas was "a keyword for late Republican elite self-definition"; it embraced a range of ideals including culture, civilization, education, and goodwill toward one's fellow human beings. Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
considered humanitas to be one of Caesar's own outstanding qualities, and often pairs it with lepos, "charm"; in his speech arguing for the extension of Caesar's proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
ar command, he distinguishes Roman culture from Gallic by mockingly asking whether "the culture and charm of those people and nations" could possibly be the attraction for Caesar, rather than the war's usefulness to the state (utilitas rei publicae). Cicero also associates humanitas with speaking well, the ability to hold a cultivated conversation free of vulgarity and to speak in an urbane manner.
A hundred and fifty years later, Tacitus takes a more cynical view of humanitas as an illusion of civilization that is in fact submission to the dominant culture. Tacitus observes that as governor of Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
, Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. His biography, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him.Born to a noted...
had engaged in a program of
The Roman concept of humanitas as it took shape in the 1st century BC has been criticized from a postcolonial
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
perspective as a form of imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, "a civilizing mission: it was Rome's destiny and duty to spread humanitas to other races, tempering barbarian practices and instituting the pax Romana
Pax Romana
Pax Romana was the long period of relative peace and minimal expansion by military force experienced by the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Since it was established by Caesar Augustus it is sometimes called Pax Augusta...
."
The word humanitas appears only twice throughout the entirety of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum, both times in Book 1. In the famous opening, in which the commander parcels out Gaul into three divisions (Belgae
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
... Aquitani
Aquitani
The Aquitani were a people living in what is now Aquitaine, France, in the region between the Pyrenees, the Atlantic ocean and the Garonne...
... Celtae, 1.1.1) for potential conquest, Caesar reports that the Belgic Gauls are the bravest (fortissimi) fighters, "because they are at the farthest remove from the cultivation (cultus) and civilization (humanitas) of the Province." By contrast, Troucillus is said to possess the highest level of both humanitas and virtus. Virtus, which shares a semantic element with the Latin word vir, "man," is most commonly translated by either "virtue" or "courage, valor"; it is "the quality of manliness or manhood." As an active quality, appropriate to the man of action, virtus balances the potentially enervating effects of civilization in the natural aristocrat. Caesar's prolific use of the word virtus — fourteen instances in Book 1 alone, in reference to Celtic nations as a whole, and to the Roman army — points to "no easily articulated essential meaning": "Virtus was whatever it was that Romans liked when they saw it." Although the word appears frequently throughout the Bellum Gallicum, Caesar attributes the quality of virtus to only a few individuals: Troucillus; three Roman officers; and two Celts, Commius
Commius
Commius was a historical king of the Belgic nation of the Atrebates, initially in Gaul, then in Britain, in the 1st century BC.-Ally of Caesar:...
of the Atrebates
Atrebates
The Atrebates were a Belgic tribe of Gaul and Britain before the Roman conquests.- Name of the tribe :Cognate with Old Irish aittrebaid meaning 'inhabitant', Atrebates comes from proto-Celtic *ad-treb-a-t-es, 'inhabitants'. The Celtic root is treb- 'building', 'home' The Atrebates (singular...
and Tasgetius
Tasgetius
Tasgetius, the Latinized form of Gaulish Tasgetios or Tasgiitios , was a ruler of the Carnutes, a Celtic polity whose territory corresponded roughly with the modern French departments of Eure-et-Loire, Loiret, and Loire-et-Cher. Julius Caesar says that as Roman proconsul he made Tasgetius king in...
of the Carnutes
Carnutes
The Carnutes, a powerful Celtic people in the heart of independent Gaul, dwelled in a particularly extensive territory between the Sequana and the Liger rivers. Their lands later corresponded to the dioceses of Chartres, Orléans and Blois, that is, the greater part of the modern departments of...
.
The Bellum Gallicum audience
T.P. WisemanT.P. Wiseman
Timothy Peter Wiseman FBA , who usually publishes as T.P. Wiseman and is named as Peter Wiseman in other sources, is a classical scholar and professor emeritus of the University of Exeter...
saw the role of Troucillus in Bellum Gallicum 1 as one indication of the breadth of Caesar's intended audience. Wiseman argues that the commentaries were first published serially, with a year-by-year account to keep Caesar and his achievements vivid in the mind of the public (populus
SPQR
SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus , referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic, and used as an official emblem of the modern day comune of Rome...
) on whose support he counted as a popularist
Populares
Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...
leader. The seven individual books were then collected and supplemented by Aulus Hirtius
Aulus Hirtius
Aulus Hirtius was one of the consuls of the Roman Republic and a writer on military subjects.He was known to have been a legate of Julius Caesar's starting around 54 BC and served as an envoy to Pompey in 50. During the Roman Civil Wars he served in Spain, he might have been a tribune in 48, and...
at the end of the 50s or beginning of the 40s. "Publication" in ancient Rome relied less on the circulation of written copies than on public and private readings, which were an important form of entertainment; this circumstance, Wiseman intuits, goes a long way toward explaining Caesar's narrative use of the third person in regard to himself, since the audience would be hearing the words spoken by a reader. In addition to public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
efforts among the Roman people
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...
, Wiseman believes that Caesar would have sent readers to the Narbonensis, the Mediterranean region of Gaul already under Roman administration, because he required Narbonese support at his back if he was to succeed in independent Gaul.
The prominent attention given to the recovery of Troucillus from the Suebi at the end of Book 1, and the unusual warmth with which Caesar speaks of him, suggests that the proconsul valued his friends to the south and was careful to show it. In another indication of Narbonese regard for Caesar, the poet Varro Atacinus
Varro Atacinus
Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus was an early Roman poet, more polished than the more famous and learned Varro Reatinus, his contemporary, and more widely read by the Augustans, who apparently dared not mention the other Varro's name...
, the contemporary of Troucillus, wrote an epic poem called the Bellum Sequanicum (Sequani
Sequani
Sequani, in ancient geography, were a Gallic people who occupied the upper river basin of the Arar , the valley of the Doubs and the Jura Mountains, their territory corresponding to Franche-Comté and part of Burgundy.-Etymology:...
an War), no longer extant, about the first year of Caesar's war in Gaul.
Further reading
- Christian Goudineau, "A propos de C. Valerius Procillus, un prince helvien qui parlait ... gaulois," Études celtique 26 (1989) 61–62.