Why didn't the gauls try to use the caos during the civil war between Cesar and Pompey to rebel against the romans?

by rafico25
Libertat

There's more to be told, but you might find a partial answer there.

This situation seem to have been willy-nilly accepted by Gauls in their majority. The Gallic Wars had important human and social consequences on the region : not only maybe as far as a tenth of Gaulish population might have died (making it one millon out of a generally agreed on ten millions inhabitants) but it might have concerned firstmost Gaulish warring and social elites, or equites, and a good part of the anti-Roman factions that existed before the conquest (meaning the dependent of these elites).

Furthermore, even before the Roman conquest, a good part of these elites were rather dependent or supportive of Roman influence in regard to their political or economical interests : figures as Diviciacos or Epasnactos as allies of Caesar certainly benefited from it later as confirming or obtaining political and military charges in Gaul both from Gaulish and Roman institutions (Epasnactos' coinage, for instance, hint at the Arvern leader being the officer of an Arvern army "integrated" within Roman frames). Other archeological evidence points to the maintain of Gaulish aristocratic display of late independent Gaul with an even more important presence of Roman goods and material, as well as growing borrowing of Roman features (such as Roman-style painted walls in the oppidum of Corent).

Acceptance wasn't universal, though, and defiance existed up to open revolt. Bellovaci did so in -46 (possibly because they lost, with the Roman conquest, their primacy on Belgica) and participated to every noteworthy rebellion until the reign of August (just as they participated to many of anti-Roman coalitions during the Gallic Wars). Other revolts took place in the two peripheral regions (maybe in conjunction) of Belgica and Aquitania in -39/-38 as the Roman Civil Wars' trouble and changing jurisdiction of the trimuvirs led to some of provincial "interregnum". Agrippa eventually crushed the revolt, we eventually know little about except it might have been the reason why Ubii were settled in Gaul to act as local garrison. Morini, among other Belgians revolted, possibly with the support of Germani mercenaries, without success there as wel. As far as we can tell, there wasn't much political echo among other Gaulish peoples, more or less content with the situation for the aforementioned reasons, with a spirit of revolt being either crushed or subverted. While we're really badly informed about these late revolts, Romans authors being prudishly silent on the details, they seem to be in some continuation of the Gallic Wars, while later revolts (such as Sacrovir's) having a much more important anti-tributary and anti-fiscal aspect.

This difficult political and social situation, which at the risk of repeating myself, due to the brutality of the conquest that far from being genocidal was nevertheless brutal (North-Eastern regions seem to have been particularily depopulated due to counter-guerilla tactics) in addition to Roman management of Gaul continuing on the momentum of the conquest during the Civil Wars, Roman focus being set elsewhere, eventually lead to limited immediate changes for the population : an increased fiscal pressure, presence of Roman (if essentially made-up of native people) garrisons in or nearby oppida, utter dominance of Roman traders, political shifting and limitations, dismantlement or remaking of indigenous regional institutions etc. All of these had immediate consequences among the population, and necessarily obvious, coercive if not humiliating to it.