Thanks for your response, Flaccus. Caesar is an interesting character throughout his commentaries. Pardon my extended response to this comment, but I felt that it was neccesary for further disection of this topic.

Flaccus said,

Naturally they would revolt, given the fact that they did not go willingly into the Roman realm

On the contrary, Gaul was already heading into the Roman realm before the conquest of Caesar. The time of the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus was an important stage of Romanization of Gaul.

The Triumviral period in southern Gaul was an important time for Romanization not only in Gaul but also in the entire Roman Empire. Until the Augustan age, the landscape of southern Gaul was still characterized primarily by oppida and rather dispersed tribal organizations. Although Greek colonies were set up in areas in Gaul such as Massilia, the Greeks were not as adamant as spreading their culture throughout Gaul as the Romans were. Prior to the fifties and Caesar's conquest, much of the areas of southern Gaul remained essentially non-Greek, and according to Charles Ebel, "[T]he Greeks did not have an inclination to Hellenize, which is in marked contrast to the Roman's sometimes almost missionary zeal to Romanize" (572). The rapid amount of change seen throughout the region during this time is surely remarkable and there was a large portion of social and political restructuring that allowed the area to become an extension of Italy.

Although the archaeological record of Roman economic and cultural influence is scarce, there is the famous milestone from southern Gaul marking the twentieth mile south of Narbonne on Domitian Way, which was set up around 118 BCE. This appears to be the only Latin inscription prior to the Triumviral Period, and only a few more are dated within the Triumviral Period. In his defense of Fonteius, Cicero provides an example of the Roman view of the isolation of the Transalpine province, calling Narbo a bastion of defense against the threatening Gauls. It is the great architectural monuments of the Empire that have drawn attention away from the less obvious, but these marked the important changes in Gaul during this time.

There is, however, a clear and gradually increasing volume of commercial activity dating back to the 2nd-century BC with the representation of wine trade in the area. Dressel I amphorae found in the area covers the period of time from about 130 to 20 B.C. Although the indication of wines being traded by the Romans in this area of Gaul during this time, it is not an indication of Romanization in Transalpine Gaul. The Gauls imported Italian wine for their own, Gallic, reasons and not because they were adopting the Roman lifestyle. As Andre Tchernia points out, "the way the Gauls used wine was altogether alien, and even shocking, to Roman practice" (Ebel, 575). We see more evidence of this taken from Diodorus Siculus in which he states,



"Being inordinately fond of wine, they gulp down what the merchants bring them quite undiluted. They have a furious passion for drink and get altogether beyond themselves, becoming so drunk that they fall asleep or lose their wits."
(Diodorus Siculus, History of the World V.2)

It is not until after 30 B.C. that we find the first great Roman monuments in which a new level of Romanization begin to show up along the Gaulish countryside. A few examples of which are the triumphal arch and the tomb monument at Glanum, the temple known as the Maison Carree at Nimes, and large warehouse facilities at Narbonne and Arles. Later, but still in the early empire, we find the triumphal arch and theater at Orange and the amphitheaters at Mimes and Arles.

But how did such a change take place so quickly? There had to be political, cultural, and psychological changes prior to the Augustan age and would best be found in the Triumviral Period. The presence of Roman colonies throughout Gaul by sheer transfer made the province more Roman, but in addition they provided ready examples of how the ruling class lived and worked, as well as living illustrations of the advantages of being Roman. It was here that social mobility and cultural change worked effectively, converting southern Gaul into a region that was, by Pliny's day, "more truly Italy than a Roman province."