Julius Caesar (21 page)

The Aedui under their new leader (whom Caesar had himself appointed) had, in fact, already decided to withdraw their support from the Romans. The news that Caesar’s troops had attempted to storm Gergovia and had met with a serious reverse—several hundred legionaries and, even worse, forty-six centurions killed—must have encouraged them in their decision. Caesar was compelled to raise the siege and turn back to deal with this new danger. No general, whatever his skills, could have carried on with a siege when his principal allies had risen against him. The Aedui had indeed thrown their hand in with the insurgents with a vengeance, massacring all the Romans at Noviodunum and seizing their stores and provisions. At the same time, evidence enough of how well-coordinated was the rebellion, the Parisii burned Lutetia (Paris) to the ground in defiance of Labienus. At this juncture Caesar realized that his only sensible recourse was to retreat with his six legions and join up with Labienus and his four since the latter, being only second-grade troops, would be unable to cope on their own with the weight of enemy forces massing against them. With his ten united legions he felt confident that he would be able to crush the Gallic uprising and impose a peace upon the territory that would last.

Finally, after a march of amazing rapidity toward the Loire through a country in which tribe after tribe seemed to be defecting, Caesar met up with Labienus who had withdrawn from Lutetia on hearing rumors that Caesar had been defeated by Vercingetorix and was retreating toward the Roman province. The reunion of the two halves of the army resulted in an upsurge in morale that from then on never seemed to leave the soldiers. This was as well, for a conference at Bibracte (Autun) of the Aedui, the Arverni and the league led by Vercingetorix, confirmed the latter as commander-in-chief.

This was the high point of his career. Caesar had been forced to retreat from Gergovia and all Gaul, so it seemed, was united under a single Celt. The Aedui, however, were far from happy at submitting to the leadership of this Arvernian chief, who, despite the formidable preponderance of manpower available, seemed to keep as his overall strategy the idea of starving the Romans out by the scorched-earth policy that he had consistently urged upon his allies. Vercingetorix had ridden with the Romans; he knew their formidable discipline and capacity for war, and he did not want to engage Caesar and his legions in any set-piece battle. To the south he had the Roman province apparently at his mercy (Caesar’s cousin who was in command had little more than two legions with which to defend it), and he had Caesar and his army cut off to the north, unable even to communicate with Italy. He also trusted in his immense cavalry superiority and thought that he would be able to throw the weight of his horsemen against the Romans at some favorable opportunity, without risking a stand-up battle involving great numbers of infantry.

His opportunity came as Caesar, Labienus and the ten legions, made their way in the direction of the Sequani, who it was hoped were still faithful to Rome and willing to allow them to pass so as to effect a junction with his cousin’s two legions. Vercingetorix misinterpreted Caesar’s move as an indication that he was in flight and, in the area of Dijon, unleashed a massive cavalry attack upon the marching legions. His own infantry were held back—to give a show of force, no more—while a three-pronged charge was launched against the Roman columns, from ahead and on both flanks simultaneously. Despite the weight of the attack the legionaries fought back fiercely, assisting their own cavalry and—unlike the Gallic foot soldiers held in reserve—took part in every moment of the battle. Caesar, furthermore, had an unpleasant surprise in store for the Gauls. He had noticed from his very first encounter with the Germans how admirably-mounted, well-equipped, and stern-spirited were their horsemen, and he had hired a considerable number of them from across the Rhine to put some additional weight into his own cavalry. At the height of the battle they were unleashed from a position on high ground, and drove in the right wing of the Gauls, putting Vercingetorix’s cavalry to flight. The Gallic infantry who had been kept back in their thousands as passive spectators of the battle—the aim being to throw them in when their cavalry had completed the demoralization of the Romans—now found themselves facing the victorious German cavalry. The legionaries, heartened by their successful containment of the enemy horsemen, were eager for revenge. Vercingetorix, witnessing the flight of his cavalry, could think of nothing but withdrawing his fighting men from the field—even abandoning his camp. Caesar was already in full pursuit and, leaving two legions to guard the Roman camp, stormed after the retreating Gauls. Now, as was so often the case with brave but undisciplined troops, these had turned into a demoralized mob and were making for shelter in the great fortress city of Alesia, standing proud and isolated on the high plateau of Mount Auxois. Whether either of the leaders realized it or not—the end of the great Gallic revolt was in sight.
 

21

Alesia and an Example in the Dordogne

ALESIA was so situated that it would have been almost impossible to storm. Caesar remembered his defeat at Gergovia, and Alesia was built on a similar high plateau and was even more formidable. On all sides the ground fell away steeply, in some places precipitously, while two small rivers, the Ose and the Oserain, enclosed the area, forming natural defenses as well as ensuring a supply of water. Inside Alesia were Vercingetorix and some 80,000 men, as well as the permanent inhabitants. But herein lay his weakness for, although there was adequate water, there would hardly be enough provisions for so many people. Vercingetorix had counted on defeating Caesar by a scorched-earth policy combined with guerrilla tactics and then, when he thought that the Romans were retreating, by a major cavalry attack while they were on the march. He had not counted on his cavalry being defeated, nor on a siege, and there was no reason to imagine that the storerooms of Alesia contained enough provisions for such an army as well as the inhabitants. Caesar knew this and, while he had not been prepared to sit out a lengthy siege at Gergovia, he now counted on the legions being able to supply themselves from the country around Alesia and to reduce the citadel before reinforcements could come up to relieve Vercingetorix.

He settled down confidently for a lengthy siege as, on their very first day before the walls, the legionaries began digging. The tenacity and endurance of the Roman soldier was never shown to greater advantage than during the conduct of a siege, and their engineering skills as well as their perseverance became so well known throughout the world that those familiar with Roman techniques usually abandoned hope when they saw siege-works rising around their town or fortress. One Roman commander was said to have replied to a delegation from a town he was about to besiege, who told him that they had enough food for ten years, that in that case he would take it in the eleventh year. The delegation went back within the walls and the town at once capitulated. The process by which Caesar intended to reduce Alesia (described in detail in the
Commentaries)
was bicircumvallation—surrounding the town with two double lines of fortified trenches; the circumference of the outer being some fourteen miles and of the inner ten. Between these two great lines of entrenchments there was ample space for Caesar’s troops and cavalry as well as all the baggage and provision carts. Within this area, protected also by tall watchtowers, the troops could face both inward toward Alesia and outward, if and when Gallic reinforcements came to relieve the city.

Before the noose could close around the threatened fortress Vercingetorix decided to send all his horsemen out secretly by night to take word to their tribes that Caesar was besieging Alesia, and that their only hope for a free Gaul was to come in their thousands and break the siege. Once Caesar and his army had been in their turn surrounded and defeated, the Roman threat to the people of Gaul would be over. It has often been debated why Vercingetorix decided to send all his horsemen away from the threatened city—surely a hundred at the most would have been enough to take the word to the other tribes? Lack of forage seems an obvious answer, but the horses could have been methodically slaughtered for rations (and there is no evidence that the Gauls had the Roman aversion to horsemeat), while the horsemen themselves would have proved useful in the garrison force. In any case, they rode out through gaps in the unfinished entrenchments—with the knowledge that Vercingetorix had supplies for thirty days—and made their way throughout Gaul to summon help.

Then the noose closed, the days passed, and after a month starvation began to grip the besieged. The difficulty of summoning so many men from so many tribes (many of them at variance with one another) and the slowness of communications, all contributed to Vercingetorix’s next action. After an assembly of the Gallic leaders within Alesia, capitulation having been rejected, as well as a suggestion that the old and those unable to bear arms should be killed, the decision was taken for all the noncombatant civilians to leave the city. Vercingetorix may have hoped that the Romans would let them pass through their lines to the outside world; in which case he knew little about the real purpose of a siege. This was to ensure that the excessive numbers of those within a city or a fortress would lead to mass starvation and, in its turn, to capitulation. The strength of the besieging army lay in the numbers and weakness of the besieged. The inhabitants of Alesia were rebuffed when they came up to the Roman lines and when in desperation they turned back toward their own city, they found that the gates had been closed against them. So they wandered about between the encircling Roman cordon and the doomed garrison until they died.

The grain in Alesia had run out and the Romans were also reduced to minimal rations when the relief force finally arrived—a swirl of dust in the distance beyond the river Brenne into which the two tributaries that encircle Alesia emptied. Caesar estimated the relieving army at a quarter of a million infantry and eight thousand cavalry, but these figures—like others in the
Commentaries
—must be regarded with some suspicion. There could be no doubt, however, that the relief force by far outnumbered the besieging Romans, who were outnumbered in any case by Vercingetorix’s besieged army. Certainly, they represented a large part of that Gaul which the Romans had thought was willingly accepting the New Order, and they were led by senior chieftains: Commius of the Atrebates, Vercassivellaunus, an Arvernian cousin of Vercingetorix, and the two Aedui, Eporedorix and Viridomarus, who had been responsible for taking their tribe into the great revolt against Rome. Vercingetorix is reputed to have said that the Romans won their victories, not by superior courage, but by superior science. Certainly it was the scientific ingenuity of the bicircumvallation with all its outer defenses of staked pitfalls, calthrops and barbed spikes (the minefields of the day) which, combined with the courage of the legionaries, were to defeat the Gauls.

For four days, lashed by spears and arrows within their double lines, the Romans fought off wave after wave of attacks from both sides. Cavalry charges (in which the Germans again proved their superiority) were followed by massed infantry assaults in which both Caesar and Labienus showed not only their tactical abilities but their personal courage. At one moment, when the fighting had grown desperate around a weak point, Caesar “left his own station: he called up the reserves which had not yet been engaged, and he rode across the field, conspicuous in his scarlet dress and with his bare head, cheering on the men as he passed each point where they were engaged, and hastening to the scene where the chief danger lay.” The final attack came about noon on the fourth day. Caesar in person took charge of a legion plus an extra cohort, to fall upon the Gauls at their thickest point. The loyal German cavalry came to his assistance, taking the great mass of Gallic infantry from the rear, and the last major assault was over.

The relieving army, their morale shattered, turned in flight as the legionaries swarmed from their positions and took the offensive. By the end of that day—while thousands of Gauls dispersed throughout the countryside around—it was clear that Alesia would never be relieved. Seventy-four captured standards were piled at Caesar’s feet, while the broken Vercingetorix, seeing that the great relief force had failed in its purpose, turned back into Alesia, a man without hope. So many thousands had come to his assistance and yet they had been unable to break that cordon of steel which surrounded him… Too many thousands was perhaps the answer, for it seems as if many of them had never been able to get even near the Roman perimeter, while the problems of food and weaponry supply for so vast a number were beyond their simple logistics. The horsemen and foot soldiers, who now spread back into Gaul like a great ripple on a pond, carried with them a very different message from that which Vercingetorix had originally sent out. The message was that the Romans had triumphed at Alesia and that the dream of a free Gaul was over. The dream of a united Gaul was something that few had ever been able to understand.

On the following day, seated formally on a curule chair on the Alesia side of the encircling Roman defenses, Caesar accepted the submission of the defeated Gallic leaders. His own cool prose tells it all: “…the commanders were brought before him, Vercingetorix was given up to him, their arms were cast at his feet.” His verdict on the rebellion and on those who had taken part in it was pronounced. Vercingetorix was to be kept a captive in chains until the time came for his death. The other leaders were pardoned. The prisoners of war were to be divided among the Roman soldiers as slaves. (This meant that, if not personally wanted, they could be sold to the contractors.) The Aedui and Arverni, however, were separated from the other prisoners and, after a short detention, were restored to their states. The Arverni had to produce a large number of hostages, but the Aedui were even restored to their former position of free allies. Caesar’s magnanimity was to yield dividends, for his preferential treatment of the two major tribes secured them to his interest permanently. Nationalism was over for them, they had “swallowed the toad” and would remain faithful to Rome. And Caesar had every reason for requiring all the assistance he could find in the current tumultuous state of Gaul.