VIII
There was such a passion among the Gauls for liberty and for renewing the ancient glory of war that no Roman rewards, no alliances, not even any friendship with Caesar could hold them back from throwing themselves with all their heart and soul into the fight for freedom.
—CAESAR
The first blow in the Gaulish war for independence came from an unexpected source. The Eburones were a small Belgic tribe of little significance that had played no great role in the war against Caesar, dominated as they were by their far more powerful neighbors. Their leader, Ambiorix, was an amiable man who had been as friendly with Rome as possible under the circumstances and was honored by Caesar in turn. The Roman leader had placed several thousand of his men in the Eburonian territory for the winter under the command of the generals Sabinus and Cotta. Ambiorix was no doubt vexed to feed so many additional mouths during the upcoming months, but he willingly agreed and supplied the legions with grain he had collected from his meager harvest that year.
Scarcely had the Romans settled in their winter camp when Ambiorix was approached by Indutiomarus, the chieftain of the Treveri who had rebelled the previous year but whom Caesar had pardoned. The disgruntled Indutiomarus had sought support among the neighboring kings for action against Caesar, but it was with the seemingly peaceful Ambiorix that he at last found a sympathetic ear. Drawing on a keen intelligence and devious side of his personality no one had ever suspected, Ambiorix devised an ingenious plan for destroying the Romans quartered among his tribe and hopefully igniting a revolt that would spread across Gaul.
Ambiorix ordered some of his warriors to attack a small Roman force gathering firewood, then sent his troops against the nearly impregnable fort manned by the soldiers of Sabinus and Cotta. The Eburones were easily driven back, at which point Ambiorix asked the Roman leaders for a parley. He apologized profusely for the assault and swore that his feelings for Caesar and the Romans were as warm as ever. He explained that the weak Eburones had been bullied into attacking the Romans by the dire threats of the larger Gaulish tribes surrounding them, who even now were engaged in a vast conspiracy against Rome. The Gaulish leaders had all agreed to fall on the isolated winter camps of the Romans simultaneously so that the legions might not be able to send aid to one another. Moreover, the Gauls had hired hordes of fierce German warriors, who would be present among them in less than two days. He pleaded with Sabinus and Cotta, for their own safety and the lives of the troops under them, to abandon their camp and march as quickly as possible to the stronger positions held by Quintus Cicero or Labienus. He tearfully swore by all the gods that they would be granted safe passage through his territory, but they must hurry while there was still time to reach safety.
The Roman leaders quickly held a council to discuss the matter, in which the generals, tribunes, and centurions present were of two minds. Both sides agreed that it was most unlikely for a minor tribe led by a man like Ambiorix to attack the Romans unless there was a much larger rebellion afoot. But one group, led by Cotta, argued against doing anything rash and for staying in camp until ordered otherwise by Caesar. They had plenty of troops, abundant supplies for the winter, and their walls could hold back tens of thousands of Gauls and Germans if necessary. The other contingent, led by Sabinus, warned that they had no time for deliberation and must seek safety while they could. The Rhine was nearby and if the fierce Suebi chose to cross over and fight with the Gauls, even a well-fortified Roman camp might not survive. In any event, he claimed, Caesar was probably already far away in northern Italy. They would have to take decisive action immediately and move the troops without waiting for his orders. Speedy and decisive action was the only hope for survival.
The bickering continued until midnight when Sabinus finally claimed that Cotta was going to get them all killed because of his caution. Cotta then yielded with the warning that this was a most foolish decision. The soldiers packed through the night and headed out of the camp gates the next morning in a long column heavy with the booty of four years of war. They comforted themselves that their safety had been guaranteed by Ambiorix himself, a proven friend of Caesar. About two miles from the camp the road led through a narrow ravine—and it was here that Ambiorix sprang his trap. One group of his warriors attacked the Romans from the front while another hit their rear, sealing them in a narrow valley in which they could barely maneuver. Sabinus panicked and ran among the troops, shouting conflicting orders to his terrified men, but Cotta held firm and commanded those nearest him to form into protective squares. The confusion of the battle was such, however, and the confines of the ravine so limited, that the concentrated squares only hampered the movement of the Romans and made it easier for the Gauls to strike them down at a distance with spears.
As the hours passed, the exhausted Romans were slowly worn down. Cotta was wounded in the face but continued to lead his men bravely. Sabinus, in an utterly foolish move, called out to Ambiorix for a conference, hoping he could still salvage the situation. Ambiorix agreed provided that Sabinus and his officers lay down their arms before approaching his lines. Sabinus ordered his reluctant men to comply. Ambiorix welcomed the general and his men with a warm smile and open arms, then signaled his men to slaughter them all. Cotta and his officers fought on in the ravine, but the wiser leader soon fell along with most of his troops. When darkness at last descended, the few Romans who had survived the day held a final council, then slew each other to deny the Gauls any further victory. Only a handful of Roman soldiers that night managed to slip away from the terrible valley where the bodies of thousands of their comrades lay. A few escaped through swamps and forests to reach the camp of Labienus and eventually pass on to Caesar the story of their crushing defeat.
After destroying the army of Sabinus and Cotta, Ambiorix set off at once toward the lands of the Aduatuci and Nervii. These Belgic tribes were easily fired by the tale of the recent slaughter of Caesar’s troops and eagerly joined in the rebellion. Gathering together more neighboring tribes until they had a force of perhaps sixty thousand warriors, the rebel army approached the winter camp commanded by Quintus Cicero, brother of the famous orator, deep in the forests of northern Gaul. Encirclement and total surprise were the watchwords of the Belgic commanders as they moved quickly to cut off the camp from any possible contact with Caesar, who was, in fact, still in his own winter quarters a hundred miles away. The Eburones, Nervii, Aduatuci, and their allies all burst out of the woods and rushed Cicero’s camp in hope of taking the Romans off guard, but the surprised troops quickly manned the ramparts and held firm against the first Gaulish assault. Quintus Cicero now showed that he was as good a general as he was a scholar by inspiring and organizing his few thousand men against a determined army perhaps ten times their size. All through the frantic first night of the siege the Romans erected over a hundred towers along their walls and deepened the trenches surrounding the fort. Weak spots in camp defenses were strengthened and weapons made ready, but every man on the walls knew they were facing the fight of their lives.
And so a grim routine began. Each morning the Gaulish army would surge forward against the Romans’ fort, filling in trenches, launching fiery missiles, and trying the storm the walls. By late afternoon each day, the exhausted Romans had driven them back, but at a terrible cost in casualties. The Gauls could draw on practically unlimited replacements to fill in their front lines, but the Romans could not afford to lose a single man, so that the wounded served their turn on the ramparts alongside those few legionaries still unharmed. Quintus Cicero was everywhere among his men at all hours of the day and night until they forced him to rest for a few moments.
Ambiorix and the Gaulish leaders then decided to try the same trick on Quintus Cicero that had worked so well at the previous Roman camp (Quintus Cicero had not yet heard the fate of Sabinus and Cotta). They called a meeting and told Quintus Cicero of the supposedly widespread rebellion throughout northern Gaul. The Germans, they claimed, had already crossed the Rhine and were now on their way to attack Cicero’s camp. They confided to the commander that they had nothing personal against the Romans but merely wanted them to remove their winter quarters farther south so that they could have enough grain to feed their own tribes. The Gaulish chieftains offered the Romans safe passage anywhere they might choose to go, as long as it was out of their territory. Quintus Cicero rejected their offer outright—and boldly advised them to surrender to him instead. Caesar, he declared, might show them mercy if they did so, but he himself would never negotiate under threat nor would he move one inch from his camp.
The enraged Gauls then redoubled their efforts to take the camp. Learning from their own service among the Romans over the last few years and from Roman prisoners, they began to construct a siege wall around the camp. The result was a poor imitation of a Roman effort, but it served well enough to trap Cicero’s men. The Gauls then heated balls of red-hot clay and launched them over the walls onto the thatched roofs of the camp buildings, but the Romans refused to abandon their posts even to save their burning huts. Next the Gauls moved wheeled towers up to the walls to climb onto the ramparts, but were forced back by the Roman troops. When one tower did approach close enough for the Gauls to leap across onto the walls, the Romans invited them to come over and try their luck—but none of the Gauls dared. Old rivals in the legions fought to outdo one another in bravery and honor. The centurions Pullo and Vorenus, bitter adversaries for years, fought side by side against tremendous odds, each gladly saving the life of the other.
Throughout the endless days and nights of battle Quintus Cicero had been dispatching riders in hope of getting a message through to Caesar, but each of these men had been captured and tortured to death by the Gauls in full view of the Roman soldiers on the walls. Now, a nobleman of the Nervii inside the camp who was still loyal to Rome presented a plan to Cicero. He had a faithful slave he was willing to send across the lines that night with a message inserted in the hollow of his spear. In exchange for his freedom and a large reward, the slave agreed to risk his life blending in among the Gaulish troops besieging the camp. He would then quickly make his way west to Caesar. Cicero gladly accepted the offer, and to make sure the note could not be read if discovered, he wrote it in Greek—a language he and Caesar understood but no Belgic Gaul knew.
At Caesar’s camp at Samarobriva a few days later, an aide came bursting into the command tent with the slave’s message. After scanning the few lines, Caesar immediately sprang into action. He ordered all the available legions in northern Gaul to join him, sparing only enough men to guard the scattered camps against further Belgic attacks. He was able to gather together only two understrength legions of perhaps seven thousand men total to form the relief force for Quintus Cicero, nevertheless, he quickly led his army out into the freezing Gaulish winter at a forced march toward Quintus Cicero’s camp.
Caesar had sent his own messenger back to Quintus Cicero to deliver the news—again in Greek—that help was on the way. However, the loyal Gaulish horseman who carried the letter panicked when he approached Cicero’s camp. Instead of dashing past the hostile Belgae and through the gates, he tied the message onto a spear and threw it with all his might toward the camp wall. There it lay stuck in the rampart for two days until one of Quintus Cicero’s men noticed it and brought it to his commander. Cicero quickly called together his beleaguered men and read the letter from Caesar—cheers of joy then rang throughout the camp.
Caesar soon drew near and realized it would be foolish to attempt a direct relief of the camp with his vastly outnumbered men. He therefore led the attacking Belgae away from Cicero with a series of feints and pretended cowardly moves until he was able to maneuver the Gaulish host into a setting of his own choosing and crush them in battle. Later that day, the gates of Quintus Cicero’s camp were opened as Caesar marched through with his men. Scarcely a man among Quintus Cicero’s troops was unscathed, but they stood proudly for review. For his part, Caesar said he had never been more pleased with any soldiers and honored many of them personally for their extraordinary bravery.
At about this same time, Caesar at last learned the fate of his men under Sabinus and Cotta. The blow to Caesar was so terrible that he adopted the traditional Roman signs of mourning for the dearest of friends, leaving his hair and beard uncut. It was clear to all who saw him and heard his few terse words that Ambiorix and the tribe who had betrayed and slaughtered thousands of his men were going to pay a terrible price for their actions.
Caesar spent the few remaining weeks of 53 B.C. and the first few months of the next year in preparation for his punitive campaign. There was no thought of even a brief return to northern Italy that year as there was so much to do in Gaul. He brought Quintus Cicero and his battered troops back to his headquarters at Samarobriva and began recruiting new troops from northern Italy to replace those lost by Sabinus. Three new legions soon joined him in Gaul, one of which was on loan from Pompey. This more than made up for the slaughter of his men by the Eburones and gave him a total of ten legions or roughly fifty thousand troops on the ground in Gaul. He called together a council of all the Gaulish tribal leaders to threaten them into submission. Several tribes ignored his summons completely, tantamount in Caesar’s eyes to a declaration of war. Caesar knew from his spies that news of the massacre of his troops under Sabinus had spread throughout the land and heartened the discontented tribes. Even many of those leaders who answered his call to a council were plotting with each other against Rome behind his back. Of all the Gaulish tribes, Caesar trusted only the Aedui in the southeast and the Remi of Belgic Gaul, the first because of their long-standing alliance with Rome and the latter because of their steadfast support. This short list of firm allies coupled with the poor harvest and general discontent throughout Gaul gave Caesar many a sleepless night throughout the long northern winter.
One bit of good news for Caesar that winter was the success of his chief lieutenant Labienus against his old foe Indutiomarus of the Treveri. After stirring up Ambiorix and the Eburones against Sabinus and Cotta, Indutiomarus had returned to his own people and held a secret war council. He deposed his rival and Caesar’s friend Cingetorix from the tribal leadership by invoking an ancient Celtic tradition. When the warriors of a tribe were summoned to a military council, the last one to arrive was publicly tortured to death. This not only discouraged tardy attendees in general, but served as a pretext in this particular case for Indutiomarus to declare the life of the absent Cingetorix forfeit. Indutiomarus had little luck persuading German mercenaries to cross the Rhine and join his cause, but he was successful in recruiting disgruntled warriors to his standard from all the tribes of Gaul.
Once his forces were gathered together, Indutiomarus led them west to destroy the winter camp of Labienus. Caesar’s best general in Gaul was as tough a soldier as Rome had ever produced, but he was also a clever strategist. When he saw the massive army of Indutiomarus approaching, he shut his troops inside his camp walls and gave every impression of being terrified of the Treveri and their allies. The Gauls should have learned this particular Roman trick after so much experience, but they flattered themselves into thinking they had terrified the great Labienus. Each day the Gaulish troops moved a little closer to the Roman camp, taunting the soldiers with spears and insults. The Romans shrank from any conflict until the Gauls were beyond contempt for the legionaries. One particular evening after the Gauls had spent the whole day mocking the Romans, they broke up in a disordered mass and began sauntering back to their own camp for a hearty meal and a mug of beer. The two gates of the Roman camp suddenly sprang open and out poured the entire cavalry of Labienus to fall on the surprised Gauls, who quickly scattered in all directions. Labienus had given them orders not to attack the entire army, but to aim for Indutiomarus alone. The Treveri leader watched in horror and frustration as hundreds of horsemen separated him from the rest of his army and moved in for the kill. In the best tradition of Gaulish war trophies, his body was left on the field but his head soon graced the wall of the Roman camp. The Treveri lost the nerve to fight after the death of their king and returned home, at least for the present.
Caesar’s campaign of terror and revenge in Gaul began early in the spring of 53 B.C. while snow still covered the ground. Four legions moved to Nervian territory with lightning speed and devastated the countryside as punishment for their attack on Quintus Cicero’s camp. What the Romans didn’t burn they seized as booty, including thousands of cattle and slaves distributed by Caesar to the troops. Next, Caesar moved south against the rebellious Senones and Carnutes, led by a rebel named Acco, who were caught totally off guard by the speed of Caesar’s approach. They quickly surrendered and were spared the devastation of the Nervii through the intercession of the Aedui. Caesar satisfied himself with hostages rather than pillaging in this case as his more pressing desire for revenge lay east along the Rhine.
The truculent Menapii, who dwelt in the Rhine delta, were next on Caesar’s list. They had never sent deputies to any of Caesar’s councils and had always disappeared into their endless swamps when the Romans drew near. This time, however, Caesar was determined to teach them a lesson. When the Menapii predictably hid deep in the marshes, Caesar outwitted them by ordering his legions to build long causeways to connect their islets to the mainland. Without their usual protection, the Menapii were completely vulnerable to the legions, who stripped the region of cattle and took many slaves before the Menapii finally surrendered.
The powerful Treveri, who had fought against Labienus just weeks before, were a more difficult case. Caesar’s chief lieutenant took the lead in chastising his old foes and again tricked them into fighting in an unfavorable position. The result for the Treveri was a crushing defeat that resulted in the restoration of Cingetorix as their king. A group of Germans who were on their way to aid the Treveri quickly returned to their own country when they heard the news of the Roman victory. Caesar was so infuriated that the Germans had not yet learned their lesson about aiding his Gaulish enemies that he built a second bridge across the Rhine in just a few days and marched across to terrorize the nearby tribes. After only a few days he returned to Gaul but left the bridge mostly intact and heavily guarded as a warning to the Germans that he would be back if they failed to stay on their side of the river.
All of these brutal strikes during the summer of 53 B.C. drew an ever-tightening circle around the territory of the Eburones. More than anything Caesar wanted to capture Ambiorix and destroy the tribe that had killed thousands of his men. With this goal in mind, he issued an invitation throughout Gaul to come and help him plunder the land of the Eburones. However much the Gauls hated the Romans, the chance to seize cattle, slaves, and rich booty from a doomed tribe was too tempting to resist. Thousands of Gauls from the Atlantic to the Rhine descended on Eburonian territory and began to strip the land like locusts.
By early autumn, the Eburones were only a memory. Their land was completely devastated and their people sold into slavery, so that the name of their tribe utterly vanished from history after this point. But Caesar’s greatest disappointment was that Ambiorix himself managed to escape the dragnet of Gauls and Romans searching for him. With only four loyal comrades left to him, the king of the Eburones disappeared, never to be seen again.
The summer campaign season ended with a grand tribunal held by Caesar in the land of the loyal Remi. Some rebellious leaders were outlawed while Acco, chief conspirator in the uprising of the Senones and Carnutes, was sentenced to the fustuarium—the traditional form of Roman military execution. While all the Gaulish leaders watched, Acco was beaten to death with a club.
Caesar established his legions in strongly fortified winter camps and set out for northern Italy. After an absence of two years it was time to devote himself to provincial affairs and neglected duties at Rome. He hoped that at last Gaul might be at peace, but the bitter Gaulish chieftains returning home after Acco’s tribunal now had no doubt of their place in the new Roman world.
Caesar’s return from Gaul to northern Italy in the winter of 53 B.C. provided him with the opportunity to again be close to the political action in Rome. He had never been out of touch with developments at home even during his most difficult times in Britain and Gaul, but the proximity of his headquarters just across the Apennine Mountains from Rome allowed him to receive frequent visitors, communicate more quickly with his supporters, and supervise a new series of public works in the city. As early as 54 B.C., Caesar had been working to endow Rome with magnificent buildings using the spoils he had taken from Gaul. His first major project was the new Basilica Julia on the southwest side of the Forum, between the temples of Saturn and of Castor and Pollux. A Roman basilica was a large hall used for a variety of purposes, including judicial functions, commerce, and public gatherings. The standard layout included a long, high-roofed central hall separated from side chambers by columns, with a semicircular apse for speakers at the far end (the basilica is the direct ancestor of most Christian churches). At over three hundred feet long, Caesar’s basilica was enormous, paved with the finest marble, and decorated with beautiful artwork. As was Caesar’s intention, it came to dominate the Forum as a center of activity and constant reminder of his benevolence. Caesar also planned and financed an entirely new forum just to the northwest of the Capitoline Hill, though construction was delayed for several years. The crumbled remains of both projects can still be seen today by visitors to Rome.
Caesar’s primary concern that winter, however, was not mortar or marble but politics, especially the sudden end of the triumvirate and Pompey’s rising power. The most drastic change in Caesar’s web of political alliances had come the previous summer while he was conducting his campaign of revenge in Belgic Gaul. On that fateful June day, Marcus Crassus, the silent but powerful third member of the triumvirate along with Caesar and Pompey, was killed during battle with the Parthians in Mesopotamia. Crassus had long been jealous of the military success of his two partners, so as proconsular governor of Syria he had lost no time in provoking a confrontation with Rome’s greatest enemy. He invaded the Parthian empire with over thirty thousand infantry troops but almost no cavalry aside from a contingent of homesick Gauls brought to the desert by his son Publius. Crassus intended to make for the city of Seleucia on the Tigris River, near modern Baghdad, but unwisely took a shortcut across the parched plains of northern Mesopotamia, where he met ten thousand mounted Parthian archers. The mobility and deadly accuracy of these famous bowmen sealed the doom of the Roman infantry. The younger Crassus, who had served Caesar so well, was cut down along with his hopelessly outclassed Gaulish cavalry. The elder Crassus was soon slaughtered as well, with barely a third of his men surviving to return to Roman territory led by a young lieutenant named Cassius. It was an ignominious end for a man who had served Sulla, defeated Spartacus, and been a major player in Roman politics and commerce for decades. His death, following so soon after the demise of Julia, strained the partnership of Caesar and Pompey to the breaking point. It was, of course, the perfect opportunity for Cato and the optimates to sever the remaining ties between Rome’s two most powerful men.
The split between Caesar and Pompey began with a chance meeting of two of Rome’s most infamous thugs along the Appian Way. The veteran troublemaker and ex-patrician Clodius was returning from a small town south of Rome in January of 52 B.C., when he and his bodyguard of thirty armed slaves passed his rival in urban gang warfare, Milo, heading south to his hometown to participate in a local ceremony. Milo was accompanied by his wife, a friend named Saufeius, and a band of hired guards that included at least two off-duty gladiators. Near the small village of Bovillae—across the road, ironically, from a shine to the goddess Bona Dea—the two parties met. Milo and Clodius seemed content at first to go their separate ways exchanging just a few choice words of derision, but the bodyguards in both parties started a brawl that ended with one of the gladiators hurling a spear into Clodius’s shoulder. While the gangs battled on the road, Clodius was rushed to a nearby inn in Bovillae for medical attention. Milo quite rightly realized that Clodius would be a more far serious threat wounded and vengeful than dead, so his men dragged him from his sickbed and slew him, leaving his body on the road. Thus Clodius, the man who had defiled the Bona Dea mysteries in Caesar’s own house, met his end in the dust at the foot of her shrine.
Rioting broke out in Rome when the supporters of Clodius heard of his murder. The Senate house was burned and even the optimates now began to call on Pompey to restore public order by any means necessary. Cato could not bring himself to support Pompey for the office of dictator, but he did nominate the general as consul without a colleague at least to assure some accountability from him when his term was complete. Pompey was duly elected and began recruiting troops throughout Italy to put down mob insurrection. Cicero, incidentally, jumped at the chance to defend Milo for killing Clodius, a man who had been nothing but trouble to the orator for years.
The optimates now began to work steadily on the newly empowered Pompey to distance him from Caesar. A law was passed with Pompey’s approval requiring candidates for office to be present in Rome for election, a bill aimed at ruining Caesar’s chances at a future consulship. Caesar attempted to renew family ties with Pompey, offering to marry Pompey’s daughter and give his own grandniece Octavia (sister of the future emperor Augustus) to his colleague as a bride. Instead, Pompey married the daughter of Quintus Metellus Scipio, one of Caesar’s most bitter enemies. Still, Pompey did not completely break with Caesar. He maintained cordial relations with his old partner while frustrating the optimates with his lack of enthusiasm for their agenda. Pompey was certainly jealous of Caesar’s military victories and wanted to teach the younger man who was really in charge in Rome, but he had no thoughts at this point of an open break. Such a rupture would have inevitably led to civil war between Rome’s two greatest generals, an outcome neither desired. Caesar’s position in Gaul was secure for the immediate future, as was Pompey’s in Rome, but both men now looked at each other with growing suspicion and mistrust.
The unrest in Rome, especially the threatened political situation of Caesar, did not escape the notice of the Gauls. The chieftains who gathered together in secret councils that winter hoped that events in the city would force Caesar to remain in Italy during the coming summer. They believed, with good reason, that the fickle nature of Roman politics guaranteed that Caesar would either be recalled by his enemies or become embroiled in a distant civil war, during which he and Rome would have more pressing matters to attend to than Gaul. If by chance he did return to Gaul for the campaign season, the leaders reasoned they could still stage a successful rebellion if he could be cut off from his army stationed in the north. The Gauls realized that this year would be their last chance to throw off the Roman yoke and live as a free people.
The tribe of the Carnutes south of Paris struck the first blow by murdering all the Roman merchants resident in the Gaulish town of Cenabum. Their willingness to challenge Caesar and Rome in this drastic fashion may have been due to religion, since their territory was considered the sacred center of Gaul, the holy gathering place each year for all druids. If the druids felt threatened by a Roman takeover, as is likely, it was clearly in their interest to stoke the fires of war. With their contacts throughout Gaul, they could also be a vital element in any widespread rebellion. In any case, with the slaughter of the Roman citizens of Cenabum, the Carnutes had taken an irreversible step towards freedom or destruction.
The Arverni, on the other hand, were generally pro-Roman. This large and powerful tribe occupied the rich lands just north of the mountainous Massif Central above the Province. They had clashed with the Romans in the late second century B.C., but had shown little interest thus far in Caesar’s Gallic war and had consequently been left untouched by the Romans. The Arverni had dutifully contributed their share of cavalry to Caesar’s auxiliaries and faithfully attended his annual councils, turning a deaf ear to any calls for rebellion. Being near the Mediterranean, they had long been accustomed to Greek and Roman visitors and were closely connected to the classical world. Their nobles enjoyed a level of prosperity and culture unknown among the more distant tribes of the north. The Arverni were also led by cautious and conservative men who were dedicated to maintaining the status quo with Rome.
But among the Arverni was a tall young warrior named Vercingetorix, who did not fit the mold of his peaceful tribe. Coins show him as a striking figure with long flowing hair and a bushy mustache typical of the Gaulish aristocracy. His father had once held the tribal leadership, but had been deposed and executed when he aimed for greater power than the elders thought prudent. Vercingetorix himself had probably served under Caesar and was considered a friend by the Roman general, but when the siren call of rebellion reached his ears that winter he responded with a passion, calling together the more hot-blooded warriors of his tribe and firing their imagination with dreams of casting the Romans out of Gaul. His uncle Gobannitio and the council of Arverni elders promptly exiled him.
Undeterred, Vercingetorix borrowed a page from Roman history and, like Romulus and Remus, gathered together the outcasts of society to forge them into an army. He used these troops to depose the old leadership of the Arverni and take over the entire tribe. He then sent forth a call throughout the land to join him in a crusade against Caesar and the Roman occupation. Warriors from every part of Gaul flocked to his standard and hailed him as their king. For the first time in history, the Gauls put aside their bitter rivalries and united behind a single leader.
In spite of the initial enthusiasm of his followers, Vercingetorix realized that they would soon collapse into a ungovernable mob unless he applied some Roman discipline to his new army. It is testimony to the leadership of Vercingetorix that he was able to forge thousands of unruly and fiercely independent Celtic warriors into a coordinated military force. Discipline came first, so that any soldier who committed a minor infraction of the rules was sent home in shame with his ears cut off or eyes gouged out. Major crimes were punished by burning the offender at the stake. Vercingetorix had also learned from Caesar that the acquisition and distribution of supplies were essential for military success. He told each tribe exactly what they were going to contribute, whether horses, grain, or weapons, and demanded they meet their obligations.
Caesar soon heard of these developments through his intelligence network and decided to cut short his stay in northern Italy. He calculated that his troubles with Pompey and the Senate were less of a danger to his career than a massive rebellion in Gaul. With just a handful of troops, Caesar crossed to the Province while it was still winter, but there faced a difficult decision. If he summoned his legions out of their camps to join him, they would have to fight their way through Gaulish territory without his leadership. But on the other hand, he did not have enough troops with him to safely reach his army in the north.
To make matters even worse, Vercingetorix devised a brilliant plan worthy of Caesar himself to keep him occupied in the Province. While Vercingetorix led part of his army north, he sent his chief lieutenant Lucterius south. There Lucterius persuaded the smaller Gaulish tribes along the Roman border to join the rebellion, then led them in a daring invasion of the Province. Vercingetorix had no intention of liberating the long-tamed Gauls of the coast from Roman rule; he simply wanted to cause widespread panic along the Mediterranean and force Caesar to deal with an unexpected threat. The plan worked beautifully. Although Lucterius never reached the coast, the mere presence of thousands of wild Gaulish warriors in lands that had known peace for decades threw the natives into a frenzy. Instead of finding a way north to his legions, Caesar was forced to organize a local militia to drive the invading Gauls away from the border. Caesar was compelled to waste time shoring up defenses in the Province when he was urgently needed in the north. But, cut off by the armies of Vercingetorix and the winter snows of the Massif Central, how could he hope to reach his legions in time?
The solution was typical of Caesar. Everyone knew that the mountains of the Massif Central were covered in six feet of snow and impassible, therefore Caesar led his small force of infantry and cavalry directly across them:
The Romans opened up a path through the mountains with the greatest of difficulty and reached the border of the Arverni. The Gauls were caught totally unprepared as they believed these peaks guarded them like a wall. Not a single traveler had ever crossed them in winter.
Caesar ordered the small cavalry force that had accompanied him to strike north at the soft underbelly of Arvernian territory, spreading panic. He then dashed down the mountains, through the territory of the loyal Aedui, and on to the lands of the Lingones, where two of his veteran legions were quartered. His troops were amazed that he had crossed the mountains in winter and arrived at their camp so quickly. Caesar immediately sent orders for most of the remaining legions to gather together. This was risky since Caesar knew even the Aedui might revolt if he quartered fifty thousand men on their lands, so he devised a strategy of sacking rebellious towns for supplies. This would not only feed his troops, but would, he hoped, demoralize the Gauls and undermine the authority of Vercingetorix.
Caesar soon reached Vellaunodunum in the territory of the Senones and surrounded the town. After learning what would happen if they resisted, the inhabitants surrendered and furnished Caesar’s army with food and pack animals, as well as six hundred hostages. Two days later Caesar was at Cenabum on the Loire River, where the Roman merchants had been murdered. The townspeople didn’t even bother to ask for terms as they knew what their fate would be. Instead, about midnight, the men of Cenabum slipped out one of the gates and began crossing the river to escape in the darkness. Caesar, however, had been expecting just such a move and had his men waiting by the bridge. They rushed the open gates, stormed the town, and slaughtered the whole population. The next morning Caesar distributed everything of value in the town to his troops as booty, then burned Cenabum to the ground.
Caesar moved to sack the nearby town of Noviodunum, but the residents, fearing the fate of Cenabum, surrendered immediately. They were in the process of turning over supplies to the Romans when someone on the walls saw the cavalry scouts of Vercingetorix approaching. The townspeople suddenly had a change of heart and slammed the gate shut in Caesar’s face. The Romans easily drove away the Gaulish scouts using their auxiliary band of German cavalry, fearless men with a well-earned reputation for brutality. Caesar then returned to the town, where the inhabitants fell before him and begged his forgiveness. His response is not recorded, but given his record on granting second chances he was unlikely to have been merciful.
Caesar had now captured three Gaulish towns while Vercingetorix watched impotently. Any other leader in Gaulish history would have been deposed or worse after such setbacks, but not Vercingetorix. He was held in such respect by the tribes that he not only survived the disasters of that spring but now drew on his authority to propose a far-sighted but radical change in strategy. He ordered all the towns, farms, hamlets, and barns anywhere near Caesar to be burned along with any stores of grain the Gauls could not carry away. By doing so, Caesar’s army would starve, while Roman foraging parties would have to scatter far and wide to seek supplies, making them easy targets for the Gaulish cavalry to pick off. As Vercingetorix grimly explained to the exasperated nobles:
If this plan seems drastic or cruel to you, consider that it will be worse if instead your wives and children are dragged away into slavery while you are slaughtered—for that is the fate of the conquered.
The council agreed and that day set fire to more than twenty towns of the Bituriges. The leaders of this tribe begged only that their capital, Avaricum, be spared. It was, they pleaded, the grandest city in Gaul and absolutely safe from siege because of its location, surrounded as it was by rivers and swamps save for one small and easily defended approach. Vercingetorix argued that sparing Avaricum was a foolish indulgence, but in the end yielded to the pressure of the Bituriges.
Caesar soon arrived at Avaricum and examined the city closely, realizing immediately that it was unlike town any he had stormed in the past. It could not be approached from any direction save one narrow slice of land protected by immense fortifications. Nevertheless, Caesar immediately ordered his troops to begin constructing a huge ramp of wood and earth three hundred feet wide and eighty feet tall, as well as towers for the assault. For almost a month Caesar’s starving men labored through late winter rain and bitter cold while many of those assigned to search the countryside for food were picked off by Vercingetorix and his cavalry. On the walls, the warm and well-supplied Gauls showered the miserable Romans with artillery, fire, and endless abuse. Being a master of military psychology, Caesar encouraged his men by offering them the opportunity to lift the siege and withdraw from the town if the task was too grueling. Their pride forbade the Roman soldiers even to consider such a suggestion and they begged Caesar not to give up, no matter the cost.
After twenty-five days, the ramp was at last complete and almost touched the top of the town walls. The same night there was a pounding rain that drove all but the most steadfast Gaulish sentries on the walls to seek cover. Caesar saw his opportunity and ordered his men milling about the ramp to act as if they longed for nothing except a dry bed. Slowly, quietly, and under cover, the legions armed and prepared to assault the town. At Caesar’s signal thousands of men dashed up the muddy ramp and bridged the final gap to the town walls. The Romans quickly seized the entire circuit of walls and gazed down at the terrified townspeople, no mercy in their eyes. The Romans were so angry at having labored in wretchedness for almost a month to take Avaricum that they killed every man, woman, and child they could find. Only a few hundred of the forty thousand inhabitants of the town escaped to reach Vercingetorix.
Caesar captured enough grain and supplies at Avaricum to supply his army for the next few weeks. Surprisingly, the fall of the town only enhanced the standing of Vercingetorix. The Gauls now saw that he had wisely advised them to abandon the town. With renewed energy and dedication, the tribes of Gaul recommitted themselves to Vercingetorix and the war against Caesar.
The terrible fury of Caesar against Avaricum was barely spent when he was distracted by petty politics among his Aeduan allies. After a bitter contest, two nobles of the tribe both claimed the title of chief magistrate for the year. Convictolitavus was an up-and-coming young warrior favored by the druids, while Cotus hailed from a powerful family with long experience in government. Normally, Caesar would not have broken off a war to deal with such squabbles, but concord among the Aedui was essential to his campaign. Their ancient ties with Rome and their steady support of his army demanded his attention to settle the dispute. On the other hand, he knew the situation had to be handled delicately. Whichever party he rejected might seek support from Vercingetorix, splitting the tribe. After hearing the arguments of both sides, he chose to back Convictolitavus, largely, it seems, because he had the backing of the religious authorities. Caesar did not want to alienate Cotus and his supporters, but it was even more important that he not make enemies among the druids of the Aedui.
With this matter settled, Caesar asked the Aedui for more cavalry support and ten thousand additional auxiliary troops for his war against Vercingetorix. He then sent four of his legions north with Labienus to the rebellious region around Paris, taking the other six to the citadel of Gergovia, the home town of Vercingetorix, deep inside the lands of the Arverni. Unfortunately for Caesar, he was still five days’ march from Gergovia with the raging Allier River, fed by melting snows from the mountains to the south, blocking his way. Moreover, Vercingetorix had gotten wind of Caesar’s plans almost before he made them and had beaten him to the few bridges spanning the swollen stream. These he quickly destroyed, trapping Caesar and his army on the east side of the river. One look at the torrents of the Allier convinced Caesar that it would be suicide to ford the stream. The camp of Vercingetorix lay within sight of the Romans on the far bank of the river, with the Gauls watching closely to make sure Caesar’s engineers did not attempt to rebuild any bridges. In apparent frustration, Caesar withdrew his camp into the dense forest away from the river. The next morning Vercingetorix followed the Romans on the opposite bank as they left the woods and headed south along the stream toward Gergovia. But that night, with the Gauls far away, Caesar and two legions that had remained secretly hidden in their forest camp crept toward the river. Before Vercingetorix received any word from his scouts, Caesar had already built and secured a new bridge on the piles of one of the old structures the Gauls had torn down. His main force then returned north and crossed the Allier. Vercingetorix knew he had been outmaneuvered yet again, but rather than being forced into battle on unfavorable ground, he quickly marched his army to the fortifications of Gergovia.
Caesar arrived near Gergovia soon after Vercingetorix. Surveying the city from afar, the Roman leader despaired at taking it by storm or siege. The citadel rose over the plain on a steep-sided plateau almost a mile wide with no easy approach for engines of war such as he had used at Avaricum. The Gaulish fortress also had ample food in its stores and easy access to water. Given unlimited time and manpower, Caesar knew he could eventually seize the city, but it would require months of arduous labor. With most of Gaul in rebellion and his Aeduan allies divided and wavering still, he could not afford a protracted siege. Thus he put his faith in good fortune and the quality of his men.
He began the next night by securing a small hill that lay closer to the citadel than his main camp. He posted two legions there, then built a long wall between the two camps to give safe passage to his troops. Just as things were starting to look up for Caesar, he received word that a large number of nearby Aeduan warriors were now in open rebellion, having tortured and slaughtered the Romans in their company. Caesar immediately left his camps at Gergovia under heavy guard and marched over twenty miles at lightning speed to the Aeduan rebels. He quickly surrounded the Gauls—who rightly feared revenge at the hands of the angry legions—but Caesar forbade his men to take any action. Instead Caesar spoke to the Aedui and convinced them they had been deceived by their leaders into turning against Rome. Caesar knew not all the Aeduan soldiers were innocent, but he was willing to overlook their misbehavior as he desperately needed them on his side. In what had become a regular performance among the Gauls, the tearful Aedui threw down their arms and begged Caesar’s forgiveness. They swore eternal loyalty to Rome and joined his army on the fast march back to Gergovia.
Soon after his return, Caesar made an inspection tour of his smaller camp below the citadel and noticed that the heights between his camp and the city itself were less well defended than in days past. Seeing an opportunity to edge his forces closer to the town and perhaps cut off the Gauls from supplies and reinforcement, he decided to take the heights that night. First, he dressed the camp mules and their handlers to look like armed cavalry from a distance, then paraded them noisily around his lines to confuse the enemy. Then he quietly moved his real troops into position at the small camp and ordered them forward with a stern warning that they were to stop at the heights and by no means attempt to take Gergovia itself. But because of the difficulties of communication over broken ground and the eagerness of the troops for glory and spoils, the Roman soldiers pressed forward to the walls of the town. At first it seemed they might actually take Gergovia when a few of the legionaries managed to scale the walls, but soon the battle turned sorely against the Romans. Spears and rocks poured down on the troops and those few who had climbed to the top of the walls were hurled to their deaths below. By the time Caesar was able to recall his troops to a safe position he had lost almost 700 men, including forty-six veteran centurions.
Caesar assembled his army the next morning and raked them over the coals. Your reckless stupidity, he declared, has cost us a certain victory and endangered everything we are fighting for. As if the Gauls needed any more incentives to rebel, they can now point to the defeat of Caesar’s fabled legions at Gergovia. Vercingetorix could not have been handed a more powerful recruiting tool. What I require from my soldiers, Caesar concluded, is discipline and restraint as much as bravery and courage.
But being the shrewd leader of men he was, once he had chastised his troops Caesar then strove to encourage them and restore their confidence by arranging a few easy victories in skirmishes with the enemy cavalry over the next few days. Nevertheless, Caesar knew that his hopes of taking Gergovia had been dashed on the heights beneath its walls. There was nothing he could do but order a humiliating retreat back to the lands of the Aedui.
Caesar could not imagine how things could get much worse—but soon they did. The crucial Aedui now abandoned Caesar altogether and joined forces with Vercingetorix. At the town of Noviodunum in their territory, they first murdered the Romans they could find inside the walls, then stole the Roman horses and supplies, and finally liberated all the Gaulish hostages Caesar had kept there for safekeeping. What food they couldn’t carry off, they burned along with the town, threatening Caesar’s army with starvation. The Gauls rightly believed that unless fortune favored Caesar very soon, he would be forced to abandon Gaul and withdraw south to the Province. But instead of heading toward the Mediterranean, Caesar marched his army north to the Loire, which the Gauls had deemed impassable. There at last he found a ford across the raging river. By stationing his cavalry just upstream to break the current, his infantry was able to cross in water up to their necks, holding their weapons high above their heads.
The Gaulish rebels meanwhile had gathered at Bibracte in the lands of their new allies, the Aedui. There they unanimously confirmed Vercingetorix as commander in chief even though some of the Aedui believed they could better lead the alliance. Vercingetorix ordered a continuance of his slash-and-burn policy to deny the Romans any supplies, then sent forces south to attack the borders of the Province and put even more pressure on Caesar to withdraw. The Romans were soon in such trouble that Caesar appealed to the Germans for cavalry support and gave them horses requisitioned from his own officers. Caesar knew that unless he could perform a miracle in the next few days, his Gaulish war was over. He would be forced to pull back to the Province and pray that Vercingetorix didn’t decide to press on to the coast or even into Italy. The Senate, led by Cato and the optimates, would gleefully strip him of his command. The remainder of his miserable life would be spent defending himself against punitive lawsuits or in wretched exile in some distant land.
Vercingetorix was well aware of Caesar’s predicament and now prepared to crush his enemy once and for all. Somewhere near modern Dijon, a far superior number of Gauls suddenly descended from the hills against the legions on the march. There was little time for Caesar to draw up his lines since he was attacked on all sides at once. The Gauls were so confident of victory that their cavalry had vowed to ride through the Roman lines twice or never go home again. Caesar rushed everywhere encouraging his men to stand against the onslaught. After a grueling fight, the Romans at last began to press the Gauls back just as the German cavalry drove Vercingetorix from a nearby hill. The Gauls, afraid that they would be encircled and trapped, abandoned their attack and ran, only to be cut down by the pursuing Romans. Caesar had won an unexpected victory just when he needed it most.
It was now that Vercingetorix made his fatal mistake. Stunned by this relatively minor defeat, he ordered his men to take refuge behind the towering walls of nearby Alesia. As the last of the Gauls entered the gates of this impregnable town, Caesar arrived on the scene and knew that he would win the war. Vercingetorix had led his army into a citadel surrounded by rivers and steep cliffs. There was no way for Caesar to storm the fortress, but there was also no way for the Gauls to escape if Caesar could find a way to entrap them. He immediately ordered his engineers to begin construction of an enormous wall over ten miles long that would completely encircle Alesia. The astonished Gauls looked on in dismay as they realized Caesar’s intentions. At alarming speed, a twelve-foot-high palisade backed by deep trenches on both sides and manned by guard towers every eighty feet sprang up around the town. The Roman soldiers also rammed thousands of sharpened stakes, nicknamed “tombstones,” into the ground along the wall to discourage attacks. As if this remarkable feat of construction under adverse conditions wasn’t enough, Caesar built a second wall over a dozen miles in circumference facing outward to ward off any hostile forces sent to relieve Alesia. Caesar had soon completely cut off Vercingetorix and his army, but he had also sealed his own forces inside a gigantic double-ringed camp.
Just before the trap closed, Vercingetorix sent messengers out to recruit a relief force. He knew he had little chance of breaking out of Alesia on his own and, with only thirty days of food in the citadel, he needed help quickly. The call was answered by a vast army of Gauls from almost every tribe, but cut off from the outside world, Vercingetorix had no way of knowing help was on the way. He therefore called an assembly inside Alesia and asked the tribal leaders gathered there for advice. Some urged surrender and an appeal to Caesar’s clemency, others, immediate attack before they were too weak to fight the Romans. One chieftain, Critognatus, even advocated cannibalism to sustain their men. This latter suggestion was unthinkable to Vercingetorix, but he did take the drastic step of expelling all the unfortunate townspeople of Alesia, including the women and children, to seek mercy among the Romans. When this crowd of civilians reached the inner wall of the Roman camp and begged to be sold into slavery if only they would be fed, Caesar sent them back to Alesia to starve.
At this desperate hour, the Gaulish relief army arrived at last and began assaulting the outer walls of the Roman camp. Vercingetorix and his men soon joined in, pouring down from Alesia to attack the inner walls. From noon to sunset, a two-sided battle raged as the Gauls tried to scale the Roman walls from both directions, but Caesar and his men held their positions. With the help of his German cavalry, Caesar at last managed to push the relief force back to their own camp a mile away, but it was a hard-fought battle. At one point, Caesar even lost his sword while fighting on the front lines. (After the war, when he saw it displayed as a trophy in an Arverni temple, he smiled and refused the request of his officers to remove it.)
The Gauls from Alesia had retreated in despair but were not beaten yet. After giving his men a day to rest and prepare, Vercingetorix again attacked the inner walls with scaling ladders and grappling hooks, but was beaten back at last by a young Roman officer named Mark Antony. After this second defeat, Vercingetorix knew his men had only enough strength and courage left for one last assault. He learned from those familiar with the area that there was one weak spot in the Roman fortifications on the north side of the town, where a steep ridge had prevented a solid enclosing wall. He sent a large force of his men by night to this spot and the next morning led the rest of his army in a diversionary attack against the main walls to the south. The Gaulish relief force joined in against the outer walls until thousands upon thousands of warriors on both sides of the Roman camp were joined in a final, frenzied struggle to destroy Caesar’s army. For a few hours, it seemed that the Gauls might win. Then Caesar dashed to the front lines, clad in his crimson commander’s cloak, to inspire his men. A shout went up from the Roman troops as they rushed the Gauls with their swords drawn until at last the relief army was destroyed.
The next morning, Vercingetorix called together the survivors of Alesia and declared he would now offer himself to the Romans, alive or dead, as they wished. He ordered all the weapons from the citadel to be brought to Caesar’s camp and surrendered. At last Vercingetorix himself rode proudly through the gates of the town and came before Caesar, falling silently to his knees. Some of the Roman officers at hand were touched by his humility, but if he had hoped for mercy from the man who had once named him a friend, it was in vain. Caesar ordered all the defenders of Alesia to be taken into slavery, aside from the Aeduan and Arvernian tribesmen, whom he spared for political reasons. Vercingetorix was taken to Rome, where he would be held prisoner for six long years until he could be displayed as an ornament at Caesar’s triumphal parade and then executed.
Much to the disappointment of his enemies in the city, the Roman Senate declared a public thanksgiving of twenty days to celebrate Caesar’s victory at Alesia. However, the destruction of Vercingetorix and his army did not bring an immediate end to the Gallic war, though only the most ardent Gaulish patriots still pressed for independence. Caesar’s mercy in sparing from slavery the Aedui and Arverni captured at Alesia went a long way to pacifying these two powerful and influential Gaulish tribes. Only in the north and in the far south was there any serious continued resistance to Roman rule. The Bellovaci near the English Channel fought bravely against the legions during 51 B.C., but were at last crushed by Caesar. His clemency to them soon won over the remainder of the Belgae, and even the recalcitrant Commius eventually surrendered to Mark Antony on the promise that his life would be spared.
Still, the southern fortress of Uxellodunum held out against Caesar. The stubborn natives hoped they could stave off the Romans until Caesar’s governorship was over. Caesar, however, brought an end to their dreams when he diverted their water supply by undermining the citadel’s only spring. The hapless citizens then surrendered to the Romans and begged Caesar’s forgiveness. But in this instance he was determined to make a profound statement to end the Gaulish rebellion once and for all. He therefore spared the lives of all those who fought against him at Uxellodunum, but ordered that both their hands be cut off. The war in Gaul was now over, but for the rest of their days the mutilated men of Uxellodunum would serve as a living warning that Caesar’s mercy had its limits.