This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past.
52 BC – Gallic Wars: Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia
Vercingetorix throws down his arms at the feet of Julius Caesar in this 1899 depiction by Lionel Royer
One of the best-sourced and most famous periods of Roman history is the time between 83 BC and 32 AD, when the Roman Republic was destroyed and replaced by the Roman Empire.
This story begins with the civil war between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, which was ultimately won by Sulla.
While Sulla wanted to preserve the Roman Republic, he did so by using fear, military might and executing his opponents. He taught an entire generation of ambitious Roman aristocrats that might makes right and that the virtues of Republicanism were simply a facade to legitimise power.
Roman politics had been radically changed by the impact of the war between Gaius Marius and Sulla. Around this time, the Roman army was slowly reformed away from being a citizen militia, in which men served for quite limited periods and bought their own equipment. This had led to a military dominated by wealthier men who purchased the best gear for themselves and saw themselves as citizens first and soldiers second. In the old system, only the rich were conscripted to fight wars, with the poorest class being pushed into service only in emergencies.
After the reforms, however, the Roman army became a more permanent force, where men would become professional soldiers, with equipment provided in a uniform manner by the state. At the culmination of this system, men would serve for 25 years in the army and be granted a plot of land and a pension once they had completed their service. The unfortunate side-effect of this development was that the armies became increasingly loyal to the generals who spent time with them and ultimately rewarded them with money and land. This would accelerate during the civil wars of this period, as the reasons for supporting their general against the government might start out as a more idealistic attempt to right wrongs but would become more materially focused as these conflicts dragged on.
Pompey and Sulla
When Sulla died, the next major authoritarian power block in Roman politics was formed by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), Marcus Licinius Crassus and a young charismatic man called Gaius Julius Caesar. This alliance was known as the First Triumvirate.
The Triumvirate allowed these three men to effectively control Roman politics, and placed Pompey above all other figures in the Roman Republic to become its de facto leader. Ambitious politicians sought to to conqueror new lands to enhance their own power. Roman society was very militaristic and great generals were esteemed above all else.
Conquering new territory for Rome made you popular back in the capital and it ensured the loyalty of your soldiers.
The Tusculum portrait of Julius Caesar, possibly the only surviving sculpture of Caesar made during his lifetime
For these reasons, when Julius Ceasar was appointed governor of Transalpine Gaul in 58 BC, today’s southern France, the only Roman territory in France or Gaul as it was then known, he looked for opportunities for conquest.
The Gauls of the 50s BC were not quite what one might imagine when reading Roman descriptions of them as barbarians. Some of the Gallic peoples lived in cities and were plugged into the trade networks of the Mediterranean. Some of these peoples had republican forms of government much like the Romans’.
Others were more rural and more akin to tribal groups. Some were halfway between. Generally speaking, they were poorer and, at least militarily, less organised than the Romans.
That being said, the Gauls as a people were greatly feared by Rome.
The Gaulish Scouts by Évariste Vital Luminais, Bordeaux Fine Arts Museum
In its early history, Rome had been sacked by an army of Gauls, and the Romans often clashed with the Gauls on the battlefield. Many Gaulish peoples also allied with Rome, and across Gaul the Romans had various allies and trade partners.
The Gauls did not seem themselves as a unified people. They shared the same Celtic language for the most part and some common religious and cultural institutions, but politically they were divided. It was only through interactions with Rome that a common identity began to develop.
Ceasar’s conquest of Gaul began when he got involved in the migration of the Helvetic people. The Helvetti were under attack from the Germanic peoples to the east, and so had decided to migrate across Roman territory to find a safer place to settle. Ceasar halted their migration and fought them in a number of battles. He then decided to cross the Rhine River and battle the Germanic tribes who had sparked the initial migration.
What followed was a campaign across Gaul which ultimately ended in every single Gallic group submitting to Rome. Ceasar even went across the English channel, becoming the first Roman leader to do so.
During his exploits Ceasar wrote dispatches for people in Rome which narrated his story of conquest as a glorious epic, a piece of political propaganda so excellent you can download the audio book of these “commentaries” to this day. Ceasar’s writings on his conquest are one of the primary written sources of this period.
In 53 BC, Ceasar declared Gaul to now be a Roman province, subject to the laws and religious practice of Rome. This greatly worried the Gauls, who were willing to pay tribute to Rome but now saw the Roman invasion as an existential threat to their way of life. The Druids, religious and cultural figures for the Gauls, were in particular worried about this as they would not be included in the new Roman religious structures.
Vercingétorix Memorial in Alesia, near the village of Alise-Sainte-Reine, France [Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33251795]
The chieftain of the Arverni tribe, a group based in central France, a man named Vercingetorix, organised a revolt against Rome by many of the recently conquered tribes. Now, for the first time, the Gauls would be largely united against the Romans.
In 52 BC, he launched his rebellion and initially achieved success at the Battle of Gergovia. He was defeated in another battle, the Battle of the Vingeanne, however, and retreated with his forces to the walled city of Alesia.
Ceasar laid siege to Alesia, building a wall around the town to starve it into submission. What Ceasar didn’t know initially was that this was Vercingetorix’s plan; while the Romans laid siege, an army of Gauls was gathering and would strike the Romans from behind. He would then emerge from the city and crush the Romans in a pincer attack.
Ceasar caught wind of the gathering relief force, and ordered his men to build a second wall around the city, facing outwards. This they managed to complete, and when Vercingetorix sprung his trap, the double wall allowed the Romans to defeat the Gauls and secure the city.
Modern recreation of the Alesia fortifications, featuring rows of stakes in front of a moat, a high banked approach, and regular towers for Roman sentries [Prosopee, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19204553]
Low on supplies, Vercingetorix surrendered in early October 52 BC. Soon after, Ceasar crushed the remnants of the revolt, adding Gaul firmly to the Roman state.
Vercingetorix was imprisoned for the next six years, then paraded through the streets of Rome and strangled in front of cheering crowds outside the Roman temple of Jupiter.
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