he moment in the East,
ought to interfere in the affairs of Gaul. The man who first had the
idea of a Gallic policy was Quintus Metellus Celerus, husband of the
famous Clodia, and consul the year before Caesar. Taking advantage of
certain disturbances arisen in Gaul from the constant wars between the
differing parts, Metellus had persuaded the Senate to authorise him to
make war on the Helvetians. At the beginning of the year 59, that is,
the year in which Caesar was consul, Metellus was already preparing
to depart for the war in Gaul, when suddenly he died; and then Caesar,
profiting by the interest in Rome for Gallic affairs, had the mission
previously entrusted to Metellus given to himself and took up both
Metellus's office and his plan. Here you see at the beginning of this
story the first accident,--the death of Metellus. An historian curious
of nice and unanswerable questions might ask himself what would have
been the history of the world if Metellus had not died. Certainly Rome
would have been occupied with Gallic concerns a year sooner and by
a different man; Caesar would probably have had to seek elsewhere a
brilliant proconsulship and things Gallic would have for ever escaped
his energy.

However it be, charged with the affairs of Gaul accidentally and
unexpectedly, Caesar went there without well knowing the condition of
it, and, in fact, as I think I proved in a long appendix published in
the French and English editions of my work, he began his Gallic policy
with a serious mistake; that is, attacking the Helvetians. A superior
mind, Caesar was not long in finding his bearings in the midst of the
tremendous confusion he found in Gaul; but for this, there is no need
to think that he carried out in the Gallic policy vast schemes, long
meditated: he worked, instead, as the uncertain changes of Roman
politics imposed. I believe that there is but one way to understand
and reasonably explain the policy pursued by Caesar in Gaul, his sudden
moves, his zigzags, his audacities, his mistakes; that is, to study
it from Rome, to keep always in mind the internal changes, the party
struggle, in which he was involved at Rome. In short, Gaul was for
Caesar only a means to operate on the internal politics of Rome, of
which he made use from day to day, as the immediate interest of the
passing hour seemed to require.

I cite a single example, but the most significant. Caesar declared Gaul
a Roman province and annexed it to the