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ALESIA
◼
52 BCE
Julius Caesar’s successful
conquest of Gaul between
58 and 54
BCE provoked a backlash
among the conquered peoples.
Gaulish tribes, angry at the savagery
with which an uprising by Ambiorix
of the Eburones had been put
down, rallied around Vercingetorix, the young chieftain
of the Arverni. In the spring of 52
BCE, Caesar began a
counteroensive, using siege earthworks to smash the
defenses of Avaricum, the capital of Vercingetorix’s allies,
the Bituriges. However, at Gergovia, in February 52
BCE,
Vercingetorix trapped Caesar by luring him into a siege
against the Gauls, and the Roman army only extracted
itself at the price of a thousand dead.
After the siege, it appeared that the Romans might
retreat to southern Gaul, so Vercingetorix decided to repeat
the ruse on a larger scale, selecting the easily defended high
promontory of Alesia. However, the massive 250,000-strong
Alesia
52 BCE
◼
CENTRAL FRANCE
◼
ROMAN EMPIRE VS. GAUL
CAESAR’S GALLIC WAR
2
ALESIA BESIEGED
This 16th-century painting shows the
wall encircling Vercingetorix’s Gauls at Alesia. Despite their
entrenched defensive positions, the Gauls’ nal attack nearly
overwhelmed the Roman legions, and it required Caesar’s
masterful deployment of his German mercenary cavalry at
the critical moment to turn the tide of the battle. The German
imperial eagle on the Romans’ standard is an anachronism
dating to the painter’s day.
4
THE CIRCUMVALLATION
OF ALESIA
Although Alesia
was easily defended, once
encircled by the Roman wall—
as in this Roman siege in
54
BCEit became a trap.
Attempts by the relieving
force to use the surrounding
mountains to screen an
attack on a lightly held
Roman camp failed to
break the deadlock.
army sent to relieve Vercingetorix was delayed by heavy
rains, giving Caesar time to reach Alesia and build a pair
of walls—one to hem Vercingetorix in, the other to keep
the relief force out. Disrupted, the Gaulish armies failed to
coordinate their attacks, and a nal assault on September 15
was held o by Caesar’s timely commitment of his nal
reserves. With the relief force suering thousands of
casualties and the besieged unable to break out, the Gauls
held out for a further week in Alesia before Vercingetorix
surrendered, his men starving and desperate. He was taken
as a captive to Rome, where he was murdered six years
later. Leaderless, the Gaulish revolt collapsed.
1
VERCINGETORIX SURRENDERS
At the height of the
siege, Vercingetorix released Alesia’s noncombatants,
but the Romans refused to let them pass. Six days later,
with supplies all but exhausted, Vercingetorix rode out
to surrender to Caesar in person.
JULIUS CAESAR 10044 BCE
Politically ruthless, Caesar used the First
Triumvirate (his alliance with Crassus and
Pompey) as a springboard for a consulship in
59
BCE and then the governorship of Cisalpine
Gaul. From there, he conquered Gaul in four
campaigning seasons. With expeditions to
Britain in 55 and 54
BCE behind him, he became
Rome’s premier general, turning on Pompey
after the Gallic Wars and ghting a civil war
that ended in his victory in 48
BCE. In 45 BCE, he
declared himself “dictator for life,” which led to
his assassination by rivals the following year.
4Julius Caesar laid the
foundations of the Roman Empire.
In context
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