C., Gauls, who soon became the dominant
race, and so have remained until this day, masterful and fundamental. When
Caesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial nobility, leaders of a
warlike people, with chieftains whose names are familiar in the mouths and
ears of all schoolboys--Aricvistus and Vercingetorix. When Vercingetorix
was overthrown at Alesia, Gaul became definitely Roman. For five hundred
years it remained loyal to Rome. Within its borders, was established the
Pax Romana, and in 250 A.D., under St. Denis, Christianity. When the
disintegration of the empire set in five centuries afterward, Gaul was
among the first provinces to suffer. With the coming of the Visigoths and
Huns from the Black Sea, the Pranks and Bnrgundians from beyond the Rhine,
the Roman fall was near, but great battles were first fought in Gaul,
battles which rivaled those of Caesar five centuries before. Greatest of
all these was the one with Attila, at Chalons, in 451, where thousands
perished.
When the Roman dominion ended, Rome's one great province in Gaul became
seventeen small principalities, and power drifted fast into the hands of a
warlike aristocracy.
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