Talk:Gallic Wars

Divico
I think that Divico should be included in "Commanders and leaders" because he was very important person in Battle of Bibracte and leader of one of main tribe took part in this war Helvetii. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sfaxx (talk • contribs) 00:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Gallic Wars
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Gallic Wars's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Hans Delbrück": From Battle of Alesia: Delbrück 1990, p. 504 From Hannibal's crossing of the Alps: Delbrück 1990, p. 303 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 07:18, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Source wanted...
...for the claim that C. became notably wealthy after defeating the Gauls. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:30, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Found, in Gilliver. Through selling of slaves, and plundering cities. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:13, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Orig-year for ancient texts
I believe that the  parameter is not necessary for ancient texts, which were not originally "published" as we understand it. It is useless to direct researchers to a millennia-old manuscript. wikinights talk 04:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Gallic genocide into Gallic Wars
Pretty much the article for the Gallic Wars, which is much better written and places the events in their proper context. Nothing this article covers that the Gallic Wars don't already touch on Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 13:34, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose The articles cover different topics. This article is about Gallic Wars which itself is (arguably) not designated as genocide. The other article specifically covers systematic destruction and genocide of Gallic people by Roman war criminals. The right action to take is not merge them but to improve them. Madame Necker (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Madame Necker@Dunutubble Merged. Gallic genocide isn't independently notable. It had some sourcing problems. "Making sense of the senseless" by Chirot & Edwards doesn't even mention the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar, Rome, or Romans. Madame Nekcer, you didn't provide a page for Kiernan 2007, so I had to go look it up and find the page number for you. I was lucky my library had an online copy of it. But my library does not have an online copy of Lash 2006, and you have not provided a page number. So all I have to go off of is one source. That is not enough to make the subject independently notable, especially considering that it gets barely one page in a 400+ page work. I have gone ahead and included the useful information out of Kiernan 2007 here under Historiography. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 17:37, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @CaptainEek You've merged the pages when there is a lack of substantial discussion for it. Along with your impatience to wait for enough time to have a definitive consensus formed, as apparent from your rashly action, I view your merger as a violation of the relevant Wikipedia policy, thus illegitimate. I also denounce your falsification of sources. Chirot & Edwards do describe the genocide, but you are attempting to spin it by stating they are not mentioning Gallic Wars. You are also ignoring dozens of reliable sources both in English and other languages about the genocide, available both online and offline. The righteous thing to do for you right now is to revert your merger and wait for an actual consensus to form. Madame Necker (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Madame Necker On what page do Chirot & Edwards mention it? Can you copy the relevant text here? CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @CaptainEek Pages 15-16. You are still maintaining your illegitimate merger despite the lack of a consensus. You must revert it now. Madame Necker (talk) 19:11, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Madame Necker My bad, I do see the mentions now in Chirot & Edwards. Not very substantive I must say, its unclear which actions they're referring to. It provides very little detail, only mentioning the Eburones in passing. At any rate, that seems better covered at Eburones, so I've gone ahead and added Chirot & Edward's paper there. Lastly, no, I don't need to revert. Dunutubble proposed, I seconded, and I'd be somewhat surprised if someone else chimed in here. You don't seem to have a policy based reason as to why your article should cover the topic in a standalone form when this article can cover it with more context, and also prevent a WP:CONTENTFORK. I'll ping @Levivich though, perhaps he has some thoughts on the matter. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:35, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @CaptainEek I do have a policy based reasoning. WP:MERGECLOSE states that you should wait at least a week before closing a merger discussion. You waited only 4 hours. Your implementation of the merger is a violation of this clause. Madame Necker (talk) 20:32, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Fair, I've reverted the redirect for the time being. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 21:21, 19 September 2022 (UTC) Arrrr,, I offer me congratulations on a fine International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I support merger because I don't think the sources support the notion of the "Gallic genocide" as being something separate from the Gallic Wars. The Wars were the genocide; or, at least, genocide was part of the Wars. That said, I think there are plenty of sources to expand the coverage of genocide in our Gallic Wars article, perhaps even as a separate section somewhere. Here are some sources:
 * Support - This Gallic genocide article has been on my watch list for a week or so and per WP:DEMOLISH I have left it alone to see how it develops, but I was never convinced it was a notable subject apart from the Gallic wars article. Neither is it the only such action taken by Romans on the period. The information on these things is better contextualised within the head articles (Gallic wars etc.), because other than a historical account of the action, what more can be said? I am also worried by the oppose argument above that says The other article specifically covers systematic destruction and genocide of Gallic people by Roman war criminals  (the other article being the genocide article). Romans cannot be war criminals when war crimes were not defined in that day and age. Neither can their actions be divorced from the nature of the time, and the only reason we know this about Roman actors and not others is because Romans kept better records. An article that adds a gloss in wiki voice on such actions that suggests war crimes fails WP:NPOV. So again, this article is better placed into a historical context of the Gallic wars, and merge is appropriate. I agree that we should wait a week before requesting merge close. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Ben Kiernan's Blood and Soil is already in the article
 * Lash 2006 discusses Gallic genocide at some length, but there are probably better (scholarly) sources, such as:
 * (PDF) - The first three section headings of this chapter are: "Introduction", "Re-addressing the Roman conquest of Northern Gaul", and "Towards an archaeology of mass violence and genocide".
 * - on p. 4 discusses Nico Royman's work, which, in Creighton's words, "broadens out the focus from military installations to include the consideration of enslavement, genocide, and scorched earth policies"
 * "Gaul, the Celtic world, was thus, through violence and genocide, brought into the realm of Roman 'civilisation' ... The human and cultural loss which this genocide represented was recognised and denounced by, among others, the great historian Camille Jullian, who emphasised how Caesar's conquest of Gaul brought the autonomous development of Celtic civilisation to an abrupt end." -
 * (PDF)
 * A conference paper, but
 * I thought this was interesting: "In fact, Raphael Lemkin, the originator of the term 'genocide,' specifically referred to the destruction of Carthage as an early example of this crime. In later times, Julius Caesar's victorious campaigns in Gaul were often achieved through the annihilation of entire Celtic tribes that had either opposed him or rebelled against Roman control. The famous Pax Romana was created on the ashes of countless communities." -
 * Raphael Lemkin's unpublished manuscripts mention that he had "partially written up nine cases of genocide in Antiquity" and lists Gaul among them -
 * Gaul is also mentioned (briefly) in ABC-CLIO's Encyclopedia of Genocide and Routledge's History of Genocide. Levivich (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support Article is too short to really stand on its own, its also a very disputed concept.★Trekker (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support Article is too short to really stand on its own, its also a very disputed concept.★Trekker (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose There is a general tendency to mush facts and the various outcomes of War in articles or publications— depending on the story teller the outcome could simply be presented as victory versus loss or winners versus losers and so on.... War articles may or may not emphasize the War crimes, Genocide and Crimes against humanity committed in such events. The same way as the story of Holocaust is told independently from the wars associated to the terrible event (World War- and it is often be referenced together). Another example is also the Armenia genocide is also captured with independent article but the Turkish-Armenian war article sits separately. There are more examples that emphasize the cruciality of writing the story of Genocide and its outcomes independently whenever possible, weather the root cause is war or other situations. To help adding more stories that are specific to the genocide of Germanic tribes, the Usipetes and the Tencteri, I added a new "Reaction" section. I started with the reaction of the Senate in Rome- this significantly shows the perception of considering genocide as a "stepping stone" for political power, for instance. I plan to improve the genocide article’s Notability but I recommend editors to allow time for the article content to develop. Nominating articles for Merge while contents are still being added, could discourage editors since this sometimes amount to deletion of articles that consist and provide information on overlooked but crucial events such as acknowledging genocide Merge_what%3F. Petra0922 (talk) 13:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. Caesar did not commit a genocide on the Gauls as a people, but on distinct tribes that revolted against him. Many Gauls lived within the Roman Republic at the time, and several tribes enjoyed considerable benefits from their alliance with Caesar, such as the Remi or the Aedui. I think there is better ground for creating articles on separate instances of genocide, such as that of the Eburones. T8612  (talk) 14:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The certainty of your comment about a series of events that occurred 2000 years ago asks more information! We know the fact that Caesar’s documents are arguably the sole reference that we can find and widely cited. He himself wrote the process and numbers of causalities specifying the ethnic groups. Petra0922 (talk) 15:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Declaring Himself vs. Being Declared
Hey, small thing, but I made an edit to the assertion in the lede that Caesar declared himself dictator. Technically, he didn't; the Senate voted for it and elected him into the office of dictator perpetuo. Now, the Senate was filled with his allies in this period, so honestly they may be interchangeably (someone with deeper knowledge than me would probably have more to say about that). As I said in my edit summary, the page for dictator perpetuo notes this and says he was elected to the office. In my mind, it's probably best to have those two things consistent; you don't want to link to the page just for it to contradict this one.

I suppose I'm mostly just curious on everybody's thoughts on this. Delukiel (talk) 20:41, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Delukiel I believe I was inspired to write that line by the final line in Gilliver's book (before the epilogue) on page 88. She writes "He had the means by 50 BC to wage successful civil war and make himself dictator." So I interpreted that as declare himself dictator, but I guess "make" is the more technically accurate term? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:25, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @CaptainEek That makes sense, yeah! I think either "made himself" or "being declared" works just fine, so I'd just use whichever you think is better. Frankly, I barely know what I'm doing on Wikipedia, so I'll leave the choice to you. Delukiel (talk) 00:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Why is David Henige so extensively cited in the article?
Henige is a specialist in African studies, and the citations all point towards a single minor paper of his, yet the article cites him extensively as though his thoughts represented the mainstream view, including a note under the main 'Casualties and losses' section. While the numbers are likely inaccurate, and the article should note that, the repetition of Henige's paper does not seem warranted or helpful. 137.103.149.109 (talk) 02:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Henige is not actually cited that extensively. The article is mostly built off the work of Gilliver, Henige is being used only to present a section on the historicity of the Commentarii. His name is present a lot because we are attributing the claims to him, because they are opinions. Now, I think they're quality opinions, Henige is a solid historical writer. Just because his specialty is African studies doesn't mean he can't write about other areas of history. If you have other papers that you think we should include, which contest Henige's perspective on the historicity of the Commentarii, please link them here. But I'm not in favor of reducing the mentions of his name, because then we're saying it in WP:WIKIVOICE, which assumes a certain fundamental truthfulness. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree with this 100% Henige's expertise on this topic seems tangential at best, and may warrant a citation or two in the historicity section, and only after a consensus is reached. But beyond that, as you say, his is a minor publication, and is given far too much weight in this entry, and certainly doesn't warrant a need for him to be featured  in the introduction.HoundofBaskersville (talk) 21:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @HoundofBaskersville If folks could find some other quality, recent sources that tackle the issue, I could use them to reduce the reliance on Henige. But I'm not sure any modern writer is disagreeing with Henige's main point, which is that the Comentarrii are heavily biased in Caesar's favor. CaptainEek <i style="font-size:82%; color:#a479e5">Edits Ho Cap'n!</i>⚓ 22:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Campaign map of 57 BC.
First of all I would like to apologize, it looks like this topic is talked out. However, this map, although very interesting and likely represents substantial effort, places the Battle of the Sabis in the current Maubeuge area, where Napoleon III placed it in his work. The current Wikipedia consensus locates it at Saulizor. Is this a concern for anyone? Droopyfeathers (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2023 (UTC)