Caesar's Footprints: Journeys to Roman Gaul
Click here to listen to Bijan Omrani's interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme with John Humphrys...
Click here to watch a three-minute video introduction from the author...
Click here to read Daisy Dunn's review of Caesar's Footprints in the Literary Review...
“Without the conquests of Caesar there would have been no Roman Empire – and, so many of us believe, no continuing Freudian impulse for a European Union today. This terrific account lays bare the horror and cruelty of Caesar's campaigns – as well as the astonishing achievements of the Romans. Bursting with anecdotes and fizzing with unexpected information, Caesar's Footprints compels us to ask – how much does our continent owe to one man and his naked and cynical lust for glory.” – Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary.
"Caesar’s Footprints is a compelling, richly researched account of a little understood chapter of European history, packed with insightful parallels between the world of Caesar and our own." - Justin Marozzi, author of The Way of Herodotus.
In the 50s BC, Julius Caesar conducted a blood-soaked sequence of campaigns against the tribes of ancient Gaul. On the pretext of curbing an imminent barbarian threat to the Roman Republic, he first defeated and decimated the Helvetii tribe, before going on to subjugate the other Celtic peoples who occupied the territory of what is now France. By the time the Gallic commander-in-chief Vercingetorix laid his weapons at Caesar’s feet at Alesia in 52 BC, most of Gaul had been tamed.
Caesar laid Gallic civilisation to waste, but within half a century of the conquest the Romans had begun to remake Gaul in their own image. They introduced the notions of cities and civic life: triumphal arches, forums, amphitheatres and temples sprang up in new urban centres such as Lugdunum (Lyon) and Arelate (Arles). Celtic chieftains exchanged their quarrels (and their trousers) for togas, worshipping Roman gods, taking on Roman names and learning Latin. Across the countryside elegant villas replaced simple Gallic farmsteads. The vine and the olive spread across the land. In this Gallo-Roman soil, the seeds of modern European civilization took root and flourished.
From Marseille to Mulhouse, from Orléans to Autun, and from Geneva to Gergovia, Bijan Omrani makes a revelatory journey across Gaul in the footsteps of its Roman conquerors. Fusing authoritative historical narrative and analysis with atmospheric evocations of place, he tells the story of Caesar’s Gallic Wars and traces the indelible imprint on modern France of the Gallo-Roman civilisation that emerged in their wake.
"Before nice gîtes in Provence, steak frîtes, Beaujolais nouveau, haute couture, General de Gaulle, Edith Piaf and Joan of Arc there was a kind of pre-France called Gaul, which the Romans destroyed and then remade in their own image. Caesar’s Footprints tells the extraordinary story of how the seeds of a new Gallo-Roman civilisation were sown, grew and flourished in the ashes of the old. Very few writers have the ability to write interestingly as well as rigorously about the Roman world. Bijan Omrani – an extraordinarily talented scholar and writer – is one of them. Read this book.” - Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile, Micromastery, and Angry White Pyjamas.
“This is a wonderful evocation of how Rome civilised Gaul and through Gaul laid the foundations for European civilisation. Omrani’s golden pen produces prose that is a pleasure to read. He is a polymath who delights us with his learning – in literature, history and geography – but wears it lightly. His sense of time and place and true civilisation is extraordinary.” - Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO, author of Ever the Diplomat.
“A real delight. Caesar’s Footprints exuberantly marches around France and Britain with the Roman legions, vividly bringing the formation of a shared European identity to life. It pulls no punches on the shocking violence and naked self-interest of Caesar’s northern wars, but is equally candid on the ways he laid the foundations of the medieval and modern West. Striding from Marseille and Arles to Autun and Deal in Kent, the book grippingly blends the unified world the Romans created with the landscapes and cultures two thousand years on. It is a bold vision, elegantly evocative, and an accomplished tribute to year zero of our shared modern European identity.” - Dominic Selwood, author of Knights of the Cloister and Daily Telegraph columnist.
Click here to watch a three-minute video introduction from the author...
Click here to read Daisy Dunn's review of Caesar's Footprints in the Literary Review...
“Without the conquests of Caesar there would have been no Roman Empire – and, so many of us believe, no continuing Freudian impulse for a European Union today. This terrific account lays bare the horror and cruelty of Caesar's campaigns – as well as the astonishing achievements of the Romans. Bursting with anecdotes and fizzing with unexpected information, Caesar's Footprints compels us to ask – how much does our continent owe to one man and his naked and cynical lust for glory.” – Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary.
"Caesar’s Footprints is a compelling, richly researched account of a little understood chapter of European history, packed with insightful parallels between the world of Caesar and our own." - Justin Marozzi, author of The Way of Herodotus.
In the 50s BC, Julius Caesar conducted a blood-soaked sequence of campaigns against the tribes of ancient Gaul. On the pretext of curbing an imminent barbarian threat to the Roman Republic, he first defeated and decimated the Helvetii tribe, before going on to subjugate the other Celtic peoples who occupied the territory of what is now France. By the time the Gallic commander-in-chief Vercingetorix laid his weapons at Caesar’s feet at Alesia in 52 BC, most of Gaul had been tamed.
Caesar laid Gallic civilisation to waste, but within half a century of the conquest the Romans had begun to remake Gaul in their own image. They introduced the notions of cities and civic life: triumphal arches, forums, amphitheatres and temples sprang up in new urban centres such as Lugdunum (Lyon) and Arelate (Arles). Celtic chieftains exchanged their quarrels (and their trousers) for togas, worshipping Roman gods, taking on Roman names and learning Latin. Across the countryside elegant villas replaced simple Gallic farmsteads. The vine and the olive spread across the land. In this Gallo-Roman soil, the seeds of modern European civilization took root and flourished.
From Marseille to Mulhouse, from Orléans to Autun, and from Geneva to Gergovia, Bijan Omrani makes a revelatory journey across Gaul in the footsteps of its Roman conquerors. Fusing authoritative historical narrative and analysis with atmospheric evocations of place, he tells the story of Caesar’s Gallic Wars and traces the indelible imprint on modern France of the Gallo-Roman civilisation that emerged in their wake.
"Before nice gîtes in Provence, steak frîtes, Beaujolais nouveau, haute couture, General de Gaulle, Edith Piaf and Joan of Arc there was a kind of pre-France called Gaul, which the Romans destroyed and then remade in their own image. Caesar’s Footprints tells the extraordinary story of how the seeds of a new Gallo-Roman civilisation were sown, grew and flourished in the ashes of the old. Very few writers have the ability to write interestingly as well as rigorously about the Roman world. Bijan Omrani – an extraordinarily talented scholar and writer – is one of them. Read this book.” - Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile, Micromastery, and Angry White Pyjamas.
“This is a wonderful evocation of how Rome civilised Gaul and through Gaul laid the foundations for European civilisation. Omrani’s golden pen produces prose that is a pleasure to read. He is a polymath who delights us with his learning – in literature, history and geography – but wears it lightly. His sense of time and place and true civilisation is extraordinary.” - Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO, author of Ever the Diplomat.
“A real delight. Caesar’s Footprints exuberantly marches around France and Britain with the Roman legions, vividly bringing the formation of a shared European identity to life. It pulls no punches on the shocking violence and naked self-interest of Caesar’s northern wars, but is equally candid on the ways he laid the foundations of the medieval and modern West. Striding from Marseille and Arles to Autun and Deal in Kent, the book grippingly blends the unified world the Romans created with the landscapes and cultures two thousand years on. It is a bold vision, elegantly evocative, and an accomplished tribute to year zero of our shared modern European identity.” - Dominic Selwood, author of Knights of the Cloister and Daily Telegraph columnist.