Roman Gaul: a Review

Extract

About one-third of this book consists of a general introduction to the study of Roman Gaul; the rest is concerned with the Roman fortifications of the province; and all was to have been produced by Déchelette himself, but, after his untimely death in battle, it passed to Albert Grenier, Professeur d’Antiquités nationales et rhenanes à la Faculté des Lettres de Strasbourg. The choice is significant, for this is the first general publication by a French specialist on a Gaul which includes the Germanies, and it was therefore not beyond hope that pride and emulation would inspire an achievement equal to those of Espérandieu and Gsell, not to mention the German treatments which had already preceded it. But, from the start, cheapness has blighted the presentation, with that surety of touch in which Parisian publishers excel; and the editors have not chosen an author with those abilities in vulgarization which make French treatments, at their best, so very stimulating. The few scintillating remarks which brighten these pages are usually false lights, while the treatment as a whole lacks both the broad basis derived from a knowledge of general works, and the detailed acquaintance with the monuments and their analogies which is indispensable in a treatise upon fortification. It is amazing that anyone should now write upon Roman Gaul and omit from his bibliography Mommsen, Egger, Dragendorff, Folzer, Leitzmann, Loeschcke, Krencker, Kruger, Knorr, Mélida, Macdonald, ParvPn, Promis, Rostovtseff, Schulten and Schramm. The memory of Déchelette deserved better than this regnum Galliarurn in scholarship.