Gaius Valerius Troucillus or ProcillusSee discussion of name under Two names, one man. (fl. mid-1st century BC) was a Helvian Celt who served as an interpreter and envoy for Julius Caesar in the first year of the Gallic Wars. Troucillus was a second-generation Roman citizen, and is one of the few ethnic Celts who can be identified both as a citizen and by affiliation with a Celtic polity. His father, Caburus, and a brother are named in Book 7 of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum as defenders of Helvian territory against a force sent by Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Troucillus plays a role in two episodes from the first book of Caesar's war commentaries (58 BC), as an interpreter for the druid Diviciacus and as an envoy to the Suebian king Ariovistus, who accuses him of spying and has him thrown in chains.
Troucillus was an exact contemporary of two other notable Transalpine Gauls: the Vocontian father of the historian Pompeius Trogus, who was a high-level administrator on Caesar's staff; and Varro Atacinus, the earliest Transalpiner to acquire a literary reputation in Rome as a Latin poet. Their ability as well-educated men to rise in Roman society is evidence of early Gallo-Roman acculturation.Ronald Syme, "The Origin of Cornelius Gallus," Classical Quarterly 32 (1938) 39–44, especially p. 41. Syme's article, which is not the last word on the subject (see Cornelius Gallus), considers whether Gallus himself might be the best example of the cultured Narbonese Gaul: "If the foregoing argument is correct," he concludes, "Gallus was not of colonia Roman or of freedman stock, but, like Caesar's friends Trogus and Procillus (= Troucillus), the son of a local dynast of Gallia Narbonensis" (p. 43).
Two names, one man? Caesar first mentions Valerius Troucillus in Bellum Gallicum 1.19, when the Roman commander is made aware of questionable loyalties among the Celtic Aedui, Rome's allies in central Gaul since at least the 120s BC. Caesar represents this divided allegiance in the persons of two brothers, the druid Diviciacus, who had appeared before the Roman Senate a few years earlier to request aid against Germanic invaders, and the enterprising populist Dumnorix, who was the leading Aeduan in terms of wealth and military power.Jonathan Barlow, “Noble Gauls and Their Other in Caesar’s Propaganda,” in Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments, edited by Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell (Classical Press of Wales, 1998), pp. 139–170; Serge Lewuillon, "Histoire, société et lutte des classes en Gaule: Une féodalité à la fin de la république et au début de l'empire," Aufstieg under Niedergang der römische Welt (1975) 425–485. Dumnorix stood accused of conspiring with the enemy Helvetii; when Caesar holds a confidential discussion with his friend Diviciacus, he dismisses the usual interpretersCotidianis interpretibus remotis. and calls in Troucillus. Caesar describes Troucillus as a leading citizen of the province of Gallia Narbonensis and his personal friend (familiaris),The word amicus can mean a political friend or a socially useful friend, but familiaris implies intimacy. adding that he placed the highest trust (fides) in the Helvian in all matters.Cui summam omnium rerum fidem habebat. Latin fides represents a complex of meanings rendered variously in English as "trust," "confidence," "trustworthiness," "credibility," "fidelity," and "loyalty."
At Bellum Gallicum 1.46 and 52, Caesar names a Transalpine Gaul, this time according to the manuscripts as Gaius Valerius Procillus, whom he again calls his familiaris as well as his hospes. The hospes, sometimes translatable as a "family friend" and meaning "guest" or "host" in Latin interchangeably, is a participant in the mutual social relationship of hospitium, reciprocal guest-host hospitality. Caesar's use of the term may imply that he was a guest of the Helvian Valerii when he traveled through the Narbonensis, as he did to or from one of his two postings in Hispania during the 60s, or that the Helvian had been a guest of Caesar in Rome before the war.Christian Goudineau, César et la Gaule (Paris: Errance, 1990), p. 74. Most scholarsT. Rice Holmes reviews the 19th-century scholarship in his classic work Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (London, 1903), p. 170 online. Holmes holds with the single-man identification, as do Ramsey MacMullen (who also cites a two-men argument), Romanization in the Time of Augustus, pp. 166–167, note 48, limited preview online, though he calls this man "Procillus"; and John C. Rolfe, "Did Liscus Speak Latin? Notes on Caesar B.G. i. 18. 4–6 and on the Use of Interpreters," Classical Journal 7 (1911), p. 128 online; and Ronald Syme (discussed passim in this article). See also C.-J. Guyonvarc'h, “La langue gauloise dans le De bello gallico,” Revue du CRBC 6: La Bretagne linguistique (1990), discussed at L'Arbre Celtique, "Les personnages Celtes," Troucillus/Procillus. assume that the two names refer to a single man; although Troucillus is a problematic reading of the text, it is a well-established Celtic name,D. Ellis Evans, Gaulish Personal Names (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 380; Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), p. 303, giving a derivation from trougo-, trouget-, "sad, unhappy, miserable." The name Troucillus also appears in inscriptions. whereas Procillus appears to have been confused with a Roman name.In discussing the importation of the Roman system of three names into Gaul, the 19th-century Celticist Arbois de Jubainville accepted the name Procillus as correct and derives it from Latin procus, like the gentilic Procilius; see Recherches sur l'origine de la propriété foncière et des noms de lieux habités en France (Paris, 1890), p. 131 online. Procillus is also one of the names in the epigrams of Martial (Epigrams, book 1, poems 27 and 115), who was a Celtiberian. In this episode, Caesar sends Troucillus as a diplomatic envoy to the Suebian king Ariovistus,A mission referred to also by Appian, Celtic Wars 17, where Troucillus is not identified by name. and again commends his linguistic skills and his fides, his loyalty or trustworthiness.
Caesar identifies Troucillus as an adulescens, a young man, generally in Caesarian usage between the ages of 20 and 30 and not having yet entered the political career track or held a formal command. The term is used elsewhere in the Bellum Gallicum for Publius CrassusBellum Gallicum 1.51.7; 3.7.2 and 21.1. and Decimus Brutus,Bellum Gallicum 3.11.5; 7.9.1 and 87.1. who were born in the mid-80s.Guyonvarc'h, "La langue gauloise dans le De Bello Gallico"; Elizabeth Rawson, “Crassorum funera,” Latomus 41 (1982), p. 545 on the meaning of adulescens. See further discussion at Publius Licinius Crassus: Early military career. Vercingetorix is called adulescens at BG 7.4, as is the Aeduan Convictolitavis at 7.32.4, who was one of two candidates in the disputed election for 52 BC. The Aeduan co-commanders at Alesia, Eporedorix and Viridomarus, are described as adulescentes (7.39.1 and 63.9).
Princeps and legate
Caesar's identification of Troucillus's citizen status provides a piece of evidence for the history of Roman provincial administration in Gaul. Caesar notes that he is the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus, who was granted citizenship by G. Valerius Flaccus during his governorship in the 80s. Caburus took his patron's gentilic name, as was customary for naturalized citizens. Although Caburus's two sons retain a Celtic cognomen (personal name), by the third generation a member of such a family is likely to be using a more typically Roman name, and the Helvian Valerii cannot be identified further in the historical record.MacMullen, Romanization p. 99 online.
The reference to Caburus's grant of citizenship in 83 BC helps date the term of Flaccus in his Transalpine province, and shows that Gauls were receiving Roman citizenship soon after annexation.Although Gallia Transalpina was brought under Roman control as a result of wars concluded in 120 BC, and the Roman colonia at Narbonne was established in 118, there is little evidence that the Narbonensis was regularly administered as a province till the 90s. Valerius Flaccus, a highly experienced administrator, had held one of the longest terms in the province until Caesar's proconsulship; see T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 363 online. As indicated by his closeness in age to Crassus and Brutus, Troucillus was born shortly before or after his father became a citizen, and was among the first Transalpiners to grow up with a dual Gallo-Roman identity.