It is important to remember that Caesar was one man leading an army of many thousands. His campaigns were not conducted in a void, and there was a constant stream of letters and people moving from the theatre of war to the capital of Rome. Information was a valuable commodity, and there were individuals in Rome whom wanted to know what was occurring during the war.

Every plan put into action was carried out by thousands, and many of these people could read and write, and all of them could speak. Essentially, war was a public affair.

Therefore, it would not have been possible for Caesar to distort events too greatly, nor to invent gross fabrications, since these would have been spotted, and loudly announced. It is certain that Caesar represented events in the most favourable possible light, finding scapegoats when disasters occurred, and always blaming his enemies for the starting of hostilities. We know as well that, like most if not all ancient historians, Caesar inflated the sizes of the enemy armies, minimized his own losses, and exaggerated the number of enemies slain and captives taken. That being said, it is likely that when Caesar says he was outnumbered, he probably was, and there are situations where he genuinely may have been at a significant disadvantage in manpower. Again, he was constrained in the extent to which he could fudge the facts.

Caesar drew heavily upon the inhabitants of Gaul for his support troops, called auxilia. These auxiliary units would have been lead by their own chieftains, however, since they were a part of Caesar's army, any victories won due to the intervention of the auxiliaries would have ultimately belonged to Caesar. At various points, Caesar highlights the bravery and skills of the Gauls (sometimes quite grudgingly), even those with whom he was at war.

It must be noted that Gauls had no interest in assisting Caesar to subject themselves. Caesar was originally brought into the fold of Gallic geopolitics when the Aedui requested his help in defeating the migrating Helvetii. Caesar presents his intervention as a campaign conducted by a proconsul of Rome to assist an ally, not as a joint venture between equal parties. If the latter truely were the case, and Caesar had been lying, this would have been known and widely publicized. In this case, the Aedui were using their status as Friends of the Roman People in order advance their own aims, and though they assisted the Romans in what ways they could, there is no reason to doubt that the bulk of fighting was truly fought by the Romans. A Gallic army was a clumsy thing, lacking the training, discipline, and equipment of the Roman legion. While there was a very small class of semi-professional warriors which surrounded the chieftains of the tribes, there were few such men. Their strength came in their numbers and familiarity of the land.

Caesar's Gallic conquest and Cortes' conquest of Mexico were two fundamentally different wars, and it is surely important that there was not an entire ocean separating Italy from Gaul. Caesar could rely on recruiting new legions from Cisalpine Gaul (which had been a Roman province since 81BC and considered part of Italy for far longer) and Illyricum, as well as support from Rome itself. Similarly, Gaul was hardly terra incognita. Rome had had contact with Gaul for centuries (in trade and in warfare), and the philosopher Posidonius had studied the Gauls early in the first-century BC for his ethnographic work. Caesar certainly read this work, and it is possible he had even met the man, since he had settled in Rome.

While Caesar certainly deliberately misrepresented his actions in his commentaries, he was not in a position to fabricate a wholly different narrative when he could be contradicted by other first-hand witnesses to the events. It was necessary for him to stick as close as he could to the facts without diminishing his dignitas. I will take a moment to address a passage from Suetonius, where states that Asinius Pollio believed that Caesar composed without much "diligence or absolute concern for truth" since Caesar was "too willing to believe the versions given by other people of their actions, or gave a twisted version of his own, whether on purpose or merely from genuine forgetfulness." Asinius Pollio did not serve in the Gallic war, but rather in the Civil war, and had in fact survived a disastrous landing in Africa lead by a man whom was given favourable treatment in De Bello Civili. It is likely that these circumstances are what prompted his comment, and it goes to show how Caesar was not able to present a possibly incompetent man as competent without being criticized.

There is good reason to believe that Caesar's account is reliable in the telling of the basic events of the war, though caution is necessary when we get into the specifics. The Roman legions as commanded by Caesar likely won its battles without relying upon Gallic allies to make the decisive action - and there is no reason to assume that Caesar could not have taken credit if such a thing had happened - although they, and every unit which fought in Caesar's legions deserve credit for every battle in which they fought. The Gauls were certainly not passive observers to Caesar's conquest of their homes and if he did not have the (somewhat tenuous) support of allied tribes to help him secure grain, billet his troops in winter, provide essential intel', and make up his auxiliaries, the war might have gone very differently for the Romans.