Introduction

'All Gaul is divided into three parts…' This opening sentence has been the first line of Latin for countless European schoolchildren. In these seven books Caesar narrates in the third person, with perfect composure, his conquest of Gaul from 58 to 52 BC: the battles with the Helvetii and the Germans, the bridge over the Rhine, two expeditions across the sea to Britain, and at last the siege of Alesia and the defeat of Vercingetorix, leader of the united Gauls. The book also preserves the earliest accounts of the customs of the ancient Gauls, Germans and Britons.