Julian Augustus
Of the cities of Gaul, I like Paris the best and I spent three contented winters there. The town is on a small island in the River Seine. Wooden bridges connect it to both banks where the townspeople cultivate the land. It is lovely green country where almost anything will grow, even fig trees. My first winter I set out a dozen (jacketed in straw) and all but one survived. Of course the Paris winters are not as cold as those at Sens or Vienne because the nearness of the ocean warms the air. As a result, the Seine seldom freezes over; and its water—as anyone knows who has ever visited there—is remarkably sweet and good to drink. The town is built of wood and brick, with a fair-sized prefect’s palace which I used as headquarters. From my second-floor study, I could see the water as it divided at the island’s sharp tip, like the sea breaking on a ship’s prow. In fact, if one stares hard enough at that point in the river one has a curious sense of movement, of indeed being on a ship in full sail, the green shore rushing past.
As for the Parisians, they are a hard-working people who delight in the theatre and (alas) in Galilean ceremonies. In the winter they are townsfolk, and in the summer peasants. By the most remarkable good luck, they combine the best rather than the worst aspects of the two estates. We got on very well together, the Parisians and I.
Relations with Florentius grew worse. At every turn he tried to undermine my authority. Finally I fell out with him over money. Because of the German invasion, the landowners had suffered great losses.
Year after year, whole harvests had been destroyed, buildings burned, livestock stolen. To lessen the burden of men already bankrupt, I proposed that both the poll tax and the land tax be reduced from twenty-five to seven gold pieces a year. Florentius vetoed this, countering with an outrageous proposal that a special levy be raised against all property, to defray the cost of my campaign! Not only was this proposed tax unjust, it would have caused a revolt.
Now although Florentius controlled the administration and civil service, as resident Caesar, no measure was legal without my seal.
So when Florentius sent me the proposed capital levy, I sent it back to him unsigned. I also enclosed a long memorandum reviewing the financial situation of Gaul, proving by exact figures that more than sufficient revenue was now being raised through the conventional forms of taxation. I also reminded him that many provinces had been wrecked before by such measures as he proposedparticularly Illyricum.
Messengers spent the winter dashing back and forth along the icy roads from Paris to Vienne. The capital levy was dropped, but Florentius was still determined to raise taxes. When he sent me a proposal to increase the land tax, I would not sign it. In fact, I tore it up and told the messenger to return the pieces to the praetorian prefect, with my compliments.
Florentius then appealed to Constantius, who wrote me a surprisingly mild letter. Part of it read:
“You must realize, my dear brother, that it hurts us if you undermine confidence in our appointed officers of state at Gaul. Florentius has his faults, although youthful impetuosity is not one of them.” (I was now quite hardened to this sort of insult.) “He is a capable administrator with great experience, particularly in the field of taxation. We have every confidence in him, nor can we in all honesty disapprove any effort towards increasing the state’s revenue at a time when the empire is threatened both on the Danube and in Mesopotamia. We recommend to our brother that he be less zealous in his
attempts to gain fayour with the Gauls, and more helpful in our prefect’s honest attempts to finance your defence of the province.”
A year earlier I would have bowed to Constantius without question. I would also have been furious at the reference to my victory at Strasbourg as a mere “defence of the province”, but I was learning wisdom. I also knew that if I were to succeed in Gaul, I needed the wholehearted support of the people.
Already they looked to me as their defender, not only against the savages but against the avarice of Florentius.
I wrote Constantius that though I accepted his judgment in all things, we could not hope to hold the province by increasing the taxes of ruined men. I said that unless the Emperor directly ordered me to sign the tax increase, I would not allow it to take effect.
There was consternation at Paris. We waited several weeks for some answer. The betting, I am told, was rather heavily in fayour of my being recalled. But I was not. By not answering, Constantius condoned my action. I then reduced taxes. So grateful and astonished were the provincials that we obtained our full tax revenue before the usual time of payment. Today, Gaul is on a sound financial basis.
I mean to make similar tax reforms elsewhere.
I am told that Constantius was shattered by the news of my victory at Strasbourg. He was even more distressed when I sent him King Chnodomar in chains, as visine proof of my victory. But men have a way of evading hard fact, especially emperors who are surrounded by toadies who invariably tell them what they want to hear. The court nicknamed me “Victorinus” to emphasize the tininess—in their eyes
—of my victory. Later in the winter, I was astonished to read how Constantius had personally taken Strasbourg and pacified Gaul. Proclamations of his great victory were read in every corner of the empire, with no mention of me. I have since been told by those who were at Milan that Constantius eventually came to believe that he had indeed been in Strasbourg that hot August day and with his own hands made captive the German king. On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.
The only sad matter that winter was my wife’s health. She had had another miscarriage while visiting Rome, and she complained continually of pain in the stomach. Oribasius did his best for her, but although he could lessen the pain, he could not cure her.
My own health—since I seem never to refer to the subject—is invariably good. Partly because I eat and drink sparingly, and partly because our family is of strong stock. But I did come near to death that winter. It happened in February. As I have said, my quarters in the governor’s palace overlooked the river, and my rooms were not equipped with the usual heating through the floor. As a result, I was always slightly cold. But I endured this, realizing that I was hardening myself for days in the field. My wife used to beg me to use braziers but I refused, pointing out that if the rooms were overheated, the damp walls would steam, making the air poisonous.
But one evening I could bear the cold no longer. I was reading late—poetry, as I recall. I summoned my secretary and ordered a brazier of hot coals. It was brought. I continued to read. Soothed by the lapping of the river beneath my window, I got drowsier and drowsier. Then I fainted. The fumes from the coal combined with the steam from the walls nearly suffocated me.
Fortunately, one of the guards, seeing steam escape from underneath the door, broke in and dragged me into the corridor where I finally came to. I vomited for hours. Oribasius said a few more minutes in that room and I would have been dead. So my Spartan habits saved my life; though some, of course, would say it was my stinginess! Curiously enough, thinking back on that night, I cannot help but reflect what a pleasant death it might have been. One moment reading Pindar, the next a pleasant drowsiness, and then the end. Every day I pray to Helios that my death when it comes be as swift and as painless as that night’s beginning.
• • • My days were full. I gave justice or, as some say, merely executed the law, since there is no true justice that is man-made. I conferred daily on administrative problems with the various officers of the province, and each month I personally paid the salaries of the high officials. This is an ancient custom and I have always meant to investigate its origins. They date, I suspect, from the early Republic. Among those I personally paid were the secret agents. Though I disapproved of them—and knew that their main occupation at Paris was watching me and reporting on my movements to Milan—I usually concealed my dislike. Except on one occasion.
I sat at a table covered with hides. Gold in various piles was set before me. When it came time to pay the chief agent, Gaudentius, he reached forward and took the gold for himself, not waiting for me to give it to him. Even his fellow agents were startled by this rude gesture, to which I responded: “You see, gentlemen, it is seizing, not accepting, that agents understand.” This was much quoted.
Evenings were spent, first, in business, then in sleep and, finally, the best part, late at night, talking philosophy and literature with friends, who used to wonder how I could so quickly fall asleep and then awake at exactly the hour I wanted. I don’t know myself how this is done but I have always been able to do it. If I tell myself I wish to awaken in the first hour of the night, I shall—to the minute. I attribute this lucky gift to Hermes. But Oribasius thinks it has to do with something in my brain and he wants to take a look at it when I am dead!
Sallust was a considerable historian and drilled me extensively in both domestic and foreign history.
We particularly studied the era of Diocletian, for it was he who renewed the empire in the last century and his reforms are still with us.
One of our continuing arguments concerns Diocletian’s edict which ordered all men to remain for life at whatever happened to be their craft or labour; also, their descendants must continue in the same way: a farmer’s son must be a farmer, a cobbler’s son must be a cobbler, and the punishment for changing one’s estate is severe. Sallust maintained, as did Diocletian, that this law was necessary for social stability. In the old days, people drifted from city to city, living on doles or through crime. As a result, production of all things was inadequate. Diocletian not only stabilized production but he even tried to set prices for food and other essentials. This last failed, which was a pity. A few months ago I myself tried to set the price of grain at Antioch, and though I have for the moment failed, I think in time this sort of manipulation will succeed.
Priscus took the view that Diocletian’s law was too rigid. He thought the people should be allowed to change their lot if they showed sufftcient capacity. But who is to iudge their capacity? He was never able to answer this. Oribasius proposed that the court send out commissions to the main cities to examine the young men to determine which ones showed ability. I pointed out that the corruption involved would be formidable; not to mention the impossibility of judging thousands correctly. Personally,!
believe that the lower orders do, on occasion, produce men of ability and I believe that that ability, if it is sufficiently great, will be somehow recognized and used. For one thing, there is always the army. A farmer’s son who is ambitious can join the army, which is—in the old Greek sense—the most democratic of institutions: anyone can rise through the ranks, no matter how humble his origins. Pdscus responded to this by saying that not every one of abiliW is inclined to warfare. I was forced to agree that there is indeed some hardship for a man whose talents might be for literature or for the law, but as Sallust was quick to point out, the law schools at Beirut and Constantinople are crowded, and the civil service has more “capable” candidates than it can find jobs for. We have quite enough lawyers.
Priscus thinks that there should be widespread literacy. Sallust thinks not, on the grounds that a knowledge of literature would only make the humble dissatisfied with their condition. I am of two minds. A superficial education would be worse than none: envy and idleness would be encouraged. But a full education would open every man’s eyes to the nature of human existence; and we are all of us
brothers, as Epictetus reminds us. I have not yet made up my mind as to this problem. It is doubly difficult because of language. To educate anyone properly he must be taught Greek. Yet in a supposedly Hellenic city like Antioch, less than half the population knows Greek; the rest speak one or another of the Semitic languages. The same is true of Alexandria and the cities of Asia. A further complication is the matter of Latin. The language of both law and army is Latin, while that of literature and administration is Greek. As a result, an educated man must be bilingual. If he were the son, say, of a Syrian tailor in Antioch he would have to be trilingual. Just learning languages would take up most of his time. I know. As much as I have studied Latin, I’can still hardly read it. And though I speak the military jargon easily, it bears little relation to Cicero whom I read in Greek translation! So we argued among ourselves in the best of spirits through the winter and a most beautiful spring which covered the banks of the Seine with flowers, and reminded us, in life, what Eleusis shows us in mystery.
At the beginning of June the idyll ended. Constantius transferred Sallust to army headquarters at Milan. He cut off my right arm. My response: grief, rage, and, finally, in imitation of the philosophers, I composed a long essay on the gods, and dedicated it to Sallust.
Insert account of that summer’s campaign.
Priscus: That year’s campaign was a troublesome one. Constantit:s had neglected to supply Julian with money to pay his troops. Also, supplies were short and what grain Julian could amass, he was forced to render into hard tack, not the sort of ration calculated to please troops already exhausted from much fighting, Julian was so short of funds that on at least one occasion when a soldier asked him for what the men call “shave money” or “the barber’s due”, he was not able to give the man even one small coin.
Julian moved north to Flanders. In a most guileful way, he conquered a Frankish tribe which occupied the city of Tongres. Then he defeated a German tribe called the Chornevi who dwell at the mouth of the Rhine. After that he marched to the Meuse River and restored three of our ruined fortresses. At this point, the food gave out. The local harvest was late, and the troops were on the verge of mutiny. They jeered Julian in public and called him
“Asiatic” and “Greekling”. But he comported himself with dignity, stripped the countryside of what food there was, and quelled the mutiny.
Next Julian built a pontoon bridge across the Rhine and we crossed over into the country of the German king, Suomarius… but all that is in the military history. After this short campaign, we recrossed the Rhine and returned to Paris for the winter.
Julian Augustus
Our second winter in Paris was even more agreeable than the first, though I missed Sallust more than I could say—but then I did say it, in panegyric prose! I still had no money. I was watched and reported on by the secret agent Gaudentius. My wife continued to be ill. Yet despite all this, I was content. I had grown used to governing, and I no longer thought wistfully of a private life, teaching at Athens. I was well pleased to be Caesar in Gaul.
The principal event of the winter was the first major trial I was to preside over. Numerius, governor of Gallia Narbonensis (one of the Mediterranean provinces), was accused of embezzling state funds.
Enemies had prepared a damning case against him. He was brought to Paris for trial. It was a fascinating experience for me and almost as interesting for the Parisians as their beloved theatre, for I allowed the public to attend the trial.
Day after day the hall of justice was crowded. It was soon apparent that there was no proper evidence against Numerius. He was a striking-looking man, tall and stately. He chose to defend himself against
Delphidius, the public prosecutor. Now Delphidius is one of the most vigorous speakers and cunning legal minds in the empire but even he could not make evidence out of air, though he certainly tried, using his own breath.
Numerius had made political enemies, as we all do, and they had trumped up charges against him in the hope that I might remove him. Point by point Numerius refuted every charge against him so skilfully that Delphidius finally turned to me and shouted angrily, “Can anyone, great Caesar, ever be found guilty if all he must do is deny the charge?” To which I answered in one of those rare unpremeditated bursts in which—at least so I like to thinkthe gods speak through me: “Can anyone ever be found innocent, if all you must do is accuse him?” There was a sudden silence in the hall. Then a great burst of applause, and that was the end of the trial.
I tell this story out of vanity, of course. I am very pleased with what I—or Hermes—said. But to be honest, I am not the best judge in the world. Often when I think I am making some subtle point, I am actually only spreading confusion. Yet I mention this story because it demonstrates, I believe, the true basis of law. Those of the earth’s governors who have been tyrants have always presumed that if a man is thought guilty then he must be guilty because why otherwise would he find himself in such a situation.
Now any tyrant knows that a man may be perfectly blameless but have powerful enemies (very often the tyrant himself is chief among them), which is why I prefer to place the burden of proof on the accuser rather than on the accused.
• • • Helena was somewhat better that winter. She was particularly animated whenever she discussed her visit to Rome. “Do you think we shall ever be able to live there?” she asked me one day, when—rather unusually—we found ourselves dining alone.
“That is for your brother to decide,” I said. “Personally, I like Gaul. I could be quite happy living here the rest of my life.”
“In *Paris? *” The way she said it revealed how much she hated our life.
“Yes, but then who knows what will happen next year, next week?”
“You would love the house in Via Nomentana,” she said wistfully. “I have the most beautiful gardens…”
“Better than ours? Here?” We were quite proud in Paris of the many flowers and fruit trees that grew with small effort.
“Infinitely!” she sighed. “I should so much like to go back.”
“I’m sorry.” This was an awkward moment and I silently cursed whoever it was had contrived for us to be alone together for a meal. I don’t think it ever happened again.
“My brother respects you.” This was also unusual. We seldom spoke of Constantius. “He only fears that you will… listen to wrong advice.” She put the case tactfully.
“He has nothing to fear,” I said. “Either from me or my advisers. I have no intention of usurping the throne. I want only to do what I was sent here to do: pacify Gaul. And I may say your brother has not made it easy for me.”
“Perhaps he listens to bad advisers.” That was the most she would admit.
I nodded grimly. “And I can name them, starting with Eusebius…”
She broke in, “You have one friend at court.” She pushed her plate from her, as though clearing a place for something new to be set down. “The Empress.”
“I know…” I began. But Helena stopped me with a strange look; for the first time in our marriage she struck an intimate note.
“Eusebia loves you.” Helena said this in such a way that I could not precisely tell what she meant by
that overused and always ambivalent verb. “Her love is constant,” she went on, adding but not defining.
“While she lives, you are safe. Of course, that may not be long.” Her voice shifted; she became more ordinary, more of a woman telling gossip. “The night we arrived at Rome, there was a reception for Constantius in the palace on the Palatine. The senate of Rome and all the consulars were present. I’ve never seen anything quite so splendid. My brother meant it when he said, ‘This is the great moment of my life!’ I suppose it always is when a Roman emperor first comes to Rome. Anyway, Constantius wore the crown, and Eusebia sat beside him. She seemed tired but no one suspected she was ill. Then during the Emperor’s reply to the senate’s welcome, she turned deathly pale. She tried to rise but her robes were too heavy for her. Since everyone was watching Constantius, hardly anyone noticed her. But I did. I was the first to see the blood flow from her mouth. Then she fell backwards on to the floor. She was unconscious when they carried her from the room.”
I was appalled. Not only at this bad news, but at Helena’s pleasure in Eusebia’s pain. “Naturally, my brother—all of us—were concerned. But in a few days she was all right. And of course she was most kind to me when it came my turn to… bleed. All through my labour, Eusebia was beside me. She could not have been more kind. She even arranged for our dead child to be buried in Constantia’s mausoleum.
She was as thoughtful as though I were her own sister… instead of her enemy.” Helena flung this last word at me, and got to her feet. I was startled by the quality of her rage.
“Your friend, your protectress, killed both our children.” Helena was now at the door. She spoke with complete calm, like a Sophist who has studied exactly what and how he will say a written speech.
“You pride yourself on your philosophy, your love of harmony and balance. Well, how do you measure this in your scales? Two children here.” She held up her left hand. “Eusebia here.” She held up her right hand and made the scales even. I did not answer her. How could I? Then Helena left the room. We never spoke of this matter again, but I respected her passion, realizing that one can never entirely know another human being even though one has shared the same bed and the same life. A month later, we received word that Eusebia was dead.
• • • While I wintered at Gaul, Constantius was a thousand miles away at Sirmium, a large city on the border between Dalmatia and Illyricum. Unlike me, he had a troubled winter. First Eusebia died. Then, though he managed to put down the Sarmatians for a second time, the Danube was far from pacified.
The tribes were constantly on the move, causing much damage to us. Constantius, however, issued a proclamation declaring that as victor once again over the Sarmatians, he was for a second time taking the title of “Sarmaticus”. He did not say how he wished to be styled but Priscus thought we should refer to him as Constantius Sarmaticus Sarmaticus.
My own relations with Constantius were no worse than usual. Actually, his reverses tended to keep his mind off me. I do know that he always referred contemptuously to my “success” in Gaul. In fact, Eusebius used to delight in thinking up epithets for me, knowing that they would amuse his master.
Among the ones repeated to me—and it is amazing how much princes are told if they choose to listen
—were “chattering mule”, “ape in purple”, “Greekish pedant”, and “nanny goat” because I had let my beard grow again.
Men are curious when it comes to fashion. Since Constantine and his heirs were clean-shaven, everyone must now be cleanshaven, especially high officials. I always answer those who criticize my beard by pointing out that Hadrian and his successors were all bearded, and that I consider their age superior to ours. Actually, my beard is resented because philosophy is resented. Philosophers wear beards; Julian wears a beard; therefore Julian is a philosopher and may well share with that subversive tribe sentiments hostile to the superstitions of the Galileans. I have elsewhere described that year’s campaign. In brief, I rebuilt seven ruined towns on or near the Rhine, restored their defences, filled their
granaries and garrisoned them. The towns were: Fort Hercules, Schenkenschanz, Kellern, Nuys, Andernach, Bonn and Bingen. All were regained without great effort.
• • • At Bingen, I had a surprise. The praetorian prefect Florentius, whom I had not seen for more than two years, suddenly appeared at the head of his army to assist me in my task. Since the campaign was nearly over, I could do no more than thank him for the graciousness of his gesture and extort as much grain and gold as I could from him. We had an amusing interview.
Both our camps were pitched outside Bingen. I chose to live in my tent since the town was in considerable turmoil with rebuilding, while the praetorian prefect’s army was encamped to the south of me, close to the river. Florentius requested audience the day after our armies had converged. I granted it to him, noting with some pleasure that Florentius now came to me instead of insisting that I attend him.
Florentius arrived at sundown. I received him inside my tent, alone. He saluted me with unusual ceremony. He was noticeably changed. There was no ironic reference to my Spartan quarters. He was plainly nervous. But why?
We sat in folding chairs near the opening of the tent through which came the golden light of a summer evening. Birds sang. The noise of the army about us was constant but soothing. In the distance one could see, just above the green of woods, the grey walls of Bingen. Florentius began the dialogue.
“You know, Caesar, that Persia is now in arms against us.”
I said that I knew only what was common knowledge, that an embassy Constantius had sent to Sapor had failed.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that.” Her nervous gaze flitted here and there like a bird searching for a branch to light on. His hands trembled. “Several months ago Sapor marched on Mesopotamia. He laid siege to Areida.”
I was surprised, not so much that Sapor had attacked us as I was that the news had been kept from me. Ordinarily not a head can fall in the empire that word of it does not circulate thousands of miles in an instant, like the wind—no, swifter, like the sun’s rays. No one knows how it is that news travels faster than men and horses, but it does. Yet this news had not. I said as much.
Florentius gestured. “The Augustus,” he said. “He has kept the matter as secret as possible. You know how he is.”
It was part of Florentius’s task in dealing with me to make subtly derogatory remarks about Constantius, hoping to lure me into expressing treasonable sentiments. But I never fell into this trap, and he knew that I never would; yet we continued to play the familiar game, rather like those old men one sees in the villages who sit hour after hour, year after year, playing draughts with one another, making the same moves and countermoves to the end of their lives.
I was puzzled. “Why would he want to keep the matter secret?”
“Because, Caesar, it is a disaster.” Florentius withdrew his purse of doeskin and fingered his gold.
“Amida has been destroyed.”
I could not have been more affected if he had said that Antioch or even Constantinople had fallen to the barbarians. Amida was the most important of our border cities, and supposedly impregnable.
“The city was besieged for twenty-three days. I have a full account for you, if you want to study it.
There were seven legions inside the city walls. Those troops, plus the inhabitants, meant that one hundred and twenty thousand people were crowded in a single small space. They suffered from plague, hunger, thirst. Sapor himself fought in the first ranks. Fortunately, we fought better, and Sapor lost thirty thousand men.”
“But we lost Amida?”
“Yes, Caesar.”
“What now?”
“The Augustus plans to move to Antioch for the winter. Next spring he will launch a major offensive against Persia. He has sworn to recover Amida.”
“And Sapor?”
“He has withdrawn to Ctesiphon to prepare… who knows for what?”
We sat in silence as the light fell behind the trees. The warm air was full of the smell of cooking. Men laughed. Metal struck metal. Horses whinnied; a soldier’s dog barked. I thought of Amida, destroyed.
“Naturally, the Augustus will want all the troops he can muster.”
I said this first, knowing that was why Florentius had come to see me.
“Yes, Caesar.”
“Has he specified what he will want from me?”
“No, Caesar. Not yet.”
“I have, all told, twenty-three thousand men, as you know.”
“Yes, Caesar. I know.”
“Most of my men are Gallic volunteers. They joined me on condition that they fight only in Gaul for the protection of their own country.”
“I am aware of that, Caesar. But they are also Roman soldiers. They have taken the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. They must obey him.”
“Even so, I cannot guarantee how they will act if the word I gave them should be broken.”
“Let that be my responsibility, Caesar.” Florentius put away the purse.
“Nothing in Gaul can be done without me, Prefect. All responsibility is mine.” I let that hard statement fall between us like a slab of marble dropping into place.
“Such is the will of Caesar,” said Florentius politely, with only the slightest trace of his usual irony.
We both rose. At the opening to the tent, he paused. “Might I see the agent Gaudentius?”
“Haven’t you already talked to him?” I was as bland as he. “But of course you may. Ask my chamberlain. He’ll know where to find him. I’m sure you will find Gaudentius in excellent health, and informative, as always.”
Florentius saluted me. Then he disappeared into the twilight. I sat alone for a long time. It was my duty to let Constantius have whatever troops he wanted; yet if I sent the Gauls to Asia I would have broken my word to them. I would also be fatally weakened as a commander. What to do?
In the next few days, every detail of the fall of Amida was known to the army. We also learned that Constantius had dispatched Paul “the chain” to the Orient to conduct treason trials. It was Constantius’s inevitable reaction. Any defeat must be the work of traitors. For a season, Paul wreaked havoc in Asia, and many blameless men were exiled or executed.
The remainder of that summer I spent on the Rhine, treating with the German kings, sometimes severely, sometimes generously. The Germans are innately treacherous, and their word means nothing.
They are unfathomable. If we had taken their forestcountry away from them, I might understand their constant duplicity: love for one’s own land is common to all, even to barbarians. But it was not their land and cities we took from them, but our own, held by us for centuries and ravaged by them. Yet whenever a treaty could be broken, they would break it. Whenever any dishonourable thing might be done, it was done. Why are the Germans like this? I don’t know. They are difficult to understand, even those who have been educated by us (ever since Julius Caesar we have taken kings’ sons as hostages and civilized them, but to no avail). They are wild by nature. They love fighting as much as Greeks and Romans hate it.
To govern at all, it was necessary for me to obtain a reputation for strictness. I achieved it. I executed kings who broke their word. I crossed the Rhine whenever I chose. I was hard. I was just. Slowly it dawned upon the Germans that I meant to keep them to their side of the Rhine and that any man who chose to rise against me would be struck down. When I left Gaul, the province was at peace.