Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman imperial system . mer. Then without hesitation he took the impor-tant step of crossing the river and thus passingbeyond the limits of his province. He was joinedhere by Labienus and the tenth legion ; and thusevery available trained soldier under his commandwas brought to bear upon the threatened rapidity with which this concentration waseffected was then almost unprecedented in miHtaryhistory, and would be remarkable even at the presentday. [Its boldness, too, was only justified by suc-cess, tor it left the whole of the Alpine frontier o
Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman imperial system . mer. Then without hesitation he took the impor-tant step of crossing the river and thus passingbeyond the limits of his province. He was joinedhere by Labienus and the tenth legion ; and thusevery available trained soldier under his commandwas brought to bear upon the threatened rapidity with which this concentration waseffected was then almost unprecedented in miHtaryhistory, and would be remarkable even at the presentday. [Its boldness, too, was only justified by suc-cess, tor it left the whole of the Alpine frontier ofItaly bare of troops. jBut just as the political cam-paign of the previous year had shown the idlers ofthe forum that a man had arisen who would not beturned aside from his path by any petty obstacles,so this campaign against the Helvetii taught thewhole body of disaffected Gauls that they had aRoman to deal with whose like had not been seensince Marius. f The operations which followed, and the final defeatof the Helvetii, are described by Caesar in chapters. cc . I UJ -) n < _i O o li C/J o 58 ] The Defence of Transalpine Gaul. 145 twelve to twenty-nine of his first book, with self-evident candour and modesty. Both he himself, hislieutenants, and his troops were only learning thebusiness of really critical warfare, and when hewrote this account some years later he must havelooked back on these few weeks as a time of re-peated danger and disappointment. His officerswere many of them quite worthless and inexperi-enced, and even some who were old soldiers werefrightened by the new and formidable enemies theyhad to face. His troops were unseasoned, and thereal brunt of the work had to be often borne bythe one legion on which he could wholly rely ; incavalry in particular he was very weak, and the rawlevies which he raised in the province and amongthe Gallic tribes were at first of little use. Hisenemy, though encumbered by women, children, andbaggage, was reckoned at more
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