When Cæsar was forty-two he was chosen Consul and received Gaul as his province (B.C. 58). Pompey, Crassus and he divided the power of the Roman state. Cæsar proposed to himself, eventually, to monopolize it. His reasons do not here concern us. For this purpose he needed a thorough knowledge of war and an army devoted to his interests. He had neither, but he made Gaul furnish him both. Let us follow Cæsar in a cursory way through all his campaigns and see what the grain of the man does to make the general; for here we have the remarkable spectacle of a man entering middle life, who, beginning without military knowledge or experience, by his own unaided efforts rises to be one of the few great captains. I shall speak more of the Gallic War, because its grand strategy is not often pointed out. [Illustration: GAUL] Cæsar’s object in Gaul was not merely to protect Roman interests. He needed war to further his schemes of centralization. On reaching the Province, as was called the territory at that time held by Rome in Gaul (B.C. 58), he encountered an armed migration of the Helvetii, moving from the Alps, by way of Geneva, towards the fertile lowlands. This was a dangerous threat to the Province, and, moreover, to attack this tribe would serve as initiation to Cæsar and his men. He commanded the Helvetii to return to their homes, which being refused, he first outwitted them in negotiations, until he assembled troops, followed, surprised, and attacked them while crossing the Arar, and annihilated a third of their force. Then following them up with a cautious inexperience, but, though making mistakes, with extraordinary foresight and skill, he finally, in the battle of Bibracte, after grave danger and against heroic resistance, utterly worsted them, and obliged the relics of the tribe to obey his mandate. Of the entire body, numbering three hundred and sixty-eight thousand souls, but one hundred and ten thousand lived to return home. Thus began what will always be a blot on Cæsar’s fame as a soldier,--his disregard for human life, however brave his enemies, however unnecessary its sacrifice. Alexander, on several occasions, devastated provinces. But in his case the military necessity was less doubtful; and the number of Alexander’s victims never rises to the awful sum of Cæsar’s, nor was the law of nations as definite in his day as it had become fifty years before the Christian era.