All the Romans wanted to do was engage in commerce and make money. At the dawn of the empire the French Gauls hit the Romans much the way the Al Quada hit us, by surprise. The Romans said to the rest of the nation states in and around the known world: "Hey, we didn't start this but we'll finish it. You're either with us or against us" Sound familiar?
All Americans want to do is engage in commerce and make money and be left alone. They didn't leave us alone. Like the Romans after the Gauls, America is at the dawn of a multi century empire. I, for one, plan to engage in commerce and make money. Anyone else?
Not really true. The group that controlled Rome during almost all of the republican period, the senatorial nobility, was specifically prohibited from engaging in commerce. (Although they did thru proxies.)
The main ways the senatorial nobility got rich were through looting (especially the selling of captives into slavery), the illegal appropriation of conquered "public" lands and extortion when they were governing a province. They were not what anybody would consider proponents of a free market. By the time Caesar showed up, they were essentially a mafia gang pillaging the rest of the world.
At the dawn of the empire the French Gauls hit the Romans much the way the Al Quada hit us, by surprise. The Romans said to the rest of the nation states in and around the known world: "Hey, we didn't start this but we'll finish it. You're either with us or against us" Sound familiar?
Sorry, but this won't fly. The original Gallic invasion was from Northern Italy, not what is now France, in 390 BC, a good 300+ years before the Empire. Since the Gauls had to fight their way down the length of the Italian peninsula to get to Rome, their attack was certainly not a surprise.
The Roman Republic fought and gradually conquered the Gauls in that region over the next 200 years.
Caesar's invasion of what is now France and Belgium was just a plain old-fashioned imperialistic war. The Gauls of "France" were no threat to Rome whatsoever other than that their weakness might allow the Germans to get up close and personal with the Roman border.