Siege of Alesia: plan based on recent and nineteenth century excavations. Not all of the area has been fully excavated, given the vast size of the site.
In the west where the plain was open, the Romans dug a straight-sided ditch some 20 feet in width, which ran from one stream to the other. This was intended as an obstacle to delay any attack and give warning of its approach. Four hundred paces (c. 130 yards) further back was the main defence line. This consisted of a double ditch, the inner one flooded wherever this was possible, and behind this a 12-foot high rampart strengthened with high towers at 80foot intervals. In front of the ditches were a series of obstacles and traps to which the legionaries gave macabre nicknames. The stakes with ends that had been sharpened and fire hardened were `marker-stones' (cippi), those hidden in circular pits covered in foliage were lilies (lilia), from their shape, while the caltrops and spikes half buried were spurs (stimuli). Such traps might cause an attacker some casualties, especially if he came under cover of darkness, but their main function was to slow a charge down and rob it of momentum, as men were forced to walk past them somewhat gingerly. The defences were strong enough so that even a small number of men could hold the lines under all but the heaviest assault, so that much of the army would be free to forage and to continue building. As soon as this line was complete, the proconsul set his men to building another, even longer line - a line of contravallation - facing outwards to defend against the relief army that was bound to come. It was vital to hunt out as much grain and round up as many farm animals as possible before it arrived, and Caesar instructed his men to gather sufficient to supply the entire army for thirty days. The labour and effort involved in these tasks had been massive, but Caesar now had his whole army and his ablest senior officers. In addition to the legates, who included Quintus Cicero and Caius Trebonius, he also had young Decimus Brutus and his new quaestor Marcus Antonius - Shakespeare's Mark Antony. The Romans worked and the Gauls in Alesia watched them, occasionally launching harassing raids but unwilling to chance a major encounter until outside aid arrived. Both sides were waiting for the storm to break.3o
It took time for the tribes to mass a relief force. The chieftains met and agreed on the numbers of warriors to be supplied by each people. Caesar gives a long list of the contingents requested from each tribe and claims that the army eventually mustered 8,000 cavalry and 250,000 infantry. His information may have been incorrect, and he may deliberately have inflated the figure, but it is worth noting that the numbers are in keeping with those he gives throughout the Commentaries for tribal forces, although that may mean no more than that he was consistent in his exaggeration. Nevertheless, even if he exaggerated, the circumstances of such a big coalition, aware that it was fighting the critical battle, would make it likely that this was one of the largest Gaulish armies ever to take the field. Caesar says that the tribes did not call out everyone who could bear arms, since they judged that such a host would be too vast, making it clumsy to control and almost impossible to feed. Even so we would guess that many men who would normally only have fought in defence of their own lands were included in the army, whether willingly or at the command of their chieftains. Four leaders were appointed. One was Commius, the king of the Atrebates, and two of the others were the chieftains who had commanded Caesar's Aeduan cavalry at the beginning of the year. The other was Vercassivellaunus, a cousin of Vercingetorix, the only one who does not seem to have served with Caesar's army at some stage in the past. The army gathered slowly and then moved slowly, as was inevitable with such a big force. The men surrounded at Alesia grew nervous as aid failed to arrive and decided on desperate measures. The people of the town itself - the women, children and the elderly who could not fight effectively - were driven out so that these `useless' mouths would no longer consume provisions needed by the warriors. Vercingetorix may have assumed that the Romans would permit them to pass through their lines to safety. If so, then he was disappointed. Caesar strengthened the sentries on the rampart and would admit no one. He may have feared that the passage of so many refugees could shield an attack by the warriors, or have been reluctant to let them go into an area where his army was still foraging and use up resources that he needed for his army. Perhaps he just felt that the Gauls would be forced to take the civilians back and so make his blockade more quickly effective. They did not. At this stage of the campaign each commander was able to match the other's cold ruthlessness. The townsfolk's pleas were ignored and they were left to starve to death between the lines. Caesar may have felt that the sight would demoralise the Gauls. It certainly made the final clash an even grimmer affair.31
The relief army finally arrived and camped on high ground, probably to the south-west, little more than a mile from the outward facing line of contravallation. On the following day the army massed, with the cavalry in advance on the plain and the vast crowds of infantry on the slopes behind, showing their great numbers to the enemy and their beleaguered friends. In response Vercingetorix brought his warriors out of the town and their camp. They moved forward and filled in a section of the wide trench Caesar's men had dug in advance of their lines. There they waited, ready to attack in concert with the relief army. The legions were ready, men deployed on both of the siege lines to meet attack from each direction. As a gesture of confidence, Caesar sent his cavalry out from the lines to engage the horsemen of the relief force. A whirling fight developed and lasted throughout the afternoon, and seemed for a long time to have been going the Gauls' way, when once again Caesar's German cavalry charged and won the day for the Romans. The Gauls did not commit their infantry, and the armies returned to their camps as darkness fell. The next day was spent in preparation, the Gaulish warriors working to make ladders and gathering ropes to climb the Roman rampart and preparing fascines - bundles of sticks to fill the enemy ditches. The relief army attacked at midnight, raising a great cheer to let Vercingetorix know what was happening - with the Romans between them the two Gaulish armies had no means of direct communication. The Arvernian ordered trumpets to be sounded as a signal for his own warriors to attack, targeting the corresponding stretch of the line of circumvallation. However, it took them a long time to organise, and then even more time to fill in more stretches of the Roman ditch. In the end they were too late to help their comrades. Fighting was bitter but eventually Mark Antony and the legate Trebonius, who were in charge of this section of the lines, moved up reserves and repulsed both attacks. The defences constructed with so much labour by Caesar's men had proved their worth .12
Before launching another assault the four leaders of the relief army took more care to scout and to speak to locals who knew the ground. They decided that the vulnerable spot was a Roman camp on the slopes of a hill that formed the north-western tip of the crescent-shaped high ground surrounding the town. The Romans had been unable to include the hill within their lines, since this would have massively increased the already huge task of building the lines. Only two legions occupied the camp, but Commius and his fellow chieftains resolved to send almost a quarter of their infantry, some 60,000 picked warriors, against the position. Vercassivellaunus took his men out at night, leading them to the reverse slope of the hill where they could wait out of sight of the enemy. Diversionary attacks would be launched elsewhere before the real assault began at noon. Vercingetorix saw some of the preparations and, although he did not know the details of the plan, resolved to give what aid he could by launching an all-out attack on the inner lines. At midday Vercassivellaunus and his men spilled over the brow of the hill and poured down the slope against the vulnerable camp. Attacked in so many places simultaneously, the Roman defenders were spread thinly and came under great pressure. The lines were very extensive, but Caesar went to a position from which he could see most of the action and began ordering reserves up to reinforce threatened sectors. Even so, he was especially reliant on his senior officers to keep him informed and to take the initiative where there was not time to consult him. Vercassivellaunus steadily began
to make headway against the camp on the hillside, so Caesar sent Labienus - his best subordinate - with six cohorts to reinforce the men there. The senior legate was told to use his judgement, giving up the position and getting the garrison out if he felt that it could not be held.
Caesar now moved, knowing that it was not enough simply to observe and direct. He went to the men and encouraged them as they fought, telling them that this day would decide the whole war. Vercingetorix and his warriors had been repulsed in their first attacks against the weakest sections of the line of circumvallation. Now they switched to assaulting several spots that were better protected by the slopes, but only thinly guarded by the Romans. At one point they got over the rampart and used grappling irons and ropes to pull over one of the Roman towers. Caesar sent Decimus Brutus to the spot with some troops, but he could not hold the enemy back. More cohorts led by the legate Caius Fabius were despatched to support them and the gap in the line was plugged. The crisis over, Caesar galloped off to see how Labienus was coping at the fort on the hillside. He did not go alone, but hastily gathered four cohorts from one of the nearby fortlets. Most of the army's cavalry was also uncommitted and he split these into two, keeping one force with him and sending the other outside the line of contravallation to come round and take Vercassivellaunus' men in the flank. By this time Labienus' men had lost control of the fort's rampart, but the legate had managed to find fourteen cohorts to add to the six he had brought and the two-legion garrison. With this formidable force he had patched together a fighting line inside and near the fort and sent messengers to Caesar letting him know what was happening. Everything was set for the crisis of the siege and the campaign - in many ways, at least as far as the Commentaries were concerned, the culminating point of Caesar's campaigns since 58 Bc. In his account the skilful actions of Labienus and the other legates are noted, but the focus at the end is on the author himself. His:
... arrival was known through the colour of his cloak, which he always wore in battle as a distinguishing mark; and the troops of cavalry and the cohorts which he had ordered to follow him were also visible, because from the higher parts of the hill these downward slopes and dips could be seen. Then the enemy joined battle: both sides cheered, and the cry was taken up by a shout from the men within the fortifications and rampart. Our troops threw their pila and got to work with their swords. Suddenly [the Gauls] spotted the cavalry behind them; other cohorts approached. The enemy turned around and were caught as they fled by the cavalry; and a great slaughter ensued... 74 captured war standards were carried to Caesar; very few of this vast host escaped unscathed to their camp.33
The Roman counter-attack tipped the balance irrevocably in their favour. The attempt to break into Caesar's lines ended in bloody repulse. Vercingetorix and his men had also been unable to break out and withdrew when they saw the utter failure of the relief army's efforts. Although the fortunes of the day may not have turned quite as quickly or simply as Caesar suggests, the decisive nature of his victory is unquestionable. The heart went out of the rebellion. Vercingetorix and his men were now very short of food and saw no prospect of escape. The relief force had made two great attacks and failed in both. Such an enormous tribal army could not hope to supply itself in the field for very long and there was no prospect of mounting a successful assault before they had to disperse .14
The next day Vercingetorix summoned his chieftains to a council. He suggested that they surrender, saying that he was willing to hand himself over to the Romans. None of the council seem to have demurred. Envoys went to Caesar, who demanded that they hand over weapons and that their leaders surrender. In the Commentaries the act of capitulation is briefly described. According to Plutarch and Dio, Vercingetorix put on his finest armour and rode out of the town on his best warhorse. Approaching Caesar on the tribunal where he sat on his magistrate's chair, the Arvernian chieftain rode once around his adversary, dismounted, lay down his weapons and sat down at his feet waiting to be taken away. The Commentaries could not allow their hero to be upstaged in this way.35
Virtually all the tribes involved in the rebellion capitulated. In many ways Caesar's final victory was all the greater because so many peoples had joined. The Celtic/Gallic tribes had finally tested the military strength of the legions and been utterly defeated. Virtually all of them now accepted the reality of conquest. Caesar was generous to the captives from the Aedui and Arverni, and probably also those from their dependent tribes. These men were not sold into slavery, although Vercingetorix was held as a captive until the celebration of Caesar's triumph, when he was ritually strangled in the traditional Roman way. However, there were plenty of other captives who could be sold and the profits shared amongst the army. The Aedui and Arverni were important peoples whom Caesar would prefer as more or less willing allies, hence his leniency. He had won military victory, but knew that creating an enduring peace was now a question of politics and gentle diplomacy. In the case of both tribes, it seems to have worked.36
`ALL GAUL IS CONQUERED'
`Regarding Caesar, there are lots of rumours whispered about him, none of them very good. According to one his cavalry have been wiped out - but that one is certainly a fiction in my view; another says that the Seventh legion has been badly mauled, and that Caesar himself is surrounded in the territory of the Bellovaci and is cut off from the rest of his army. However nothing is actually known so far, and even these unconfirmed stories are not circulating widely, but told as an open secret amongst a clique - you know who they are; Anyway, Domitius [Ahenobarbus] puts his hand over his mouth before he speaks.' - Marcus Caelius Rufus writing to Cicero, c. 26 May 51 BC.
Throughout his time in Gaul, Caesar took great pains to remind Rome of his existence and to celebrate his achievements. The Commentaries were a major part of this effort, but they were not his only literary output during these years. Early in 54 BC, while travelling north from Cisalpine Gaul to rejoin his army, he produced a two-volume work On Analogy (De Analogia). The title was Greek, but the book analysed Latin grammar and argued for accuracy and simplicity in speech and writing, in contrast to the fashion for using archaic forms of words and complicated expressions. It was dedicated to Cicero, and paid tribute to him as Rome's greatest orator and `virtually the creator of eloquence', but followed this by saying that it was also a good thing to consider everyday speech. No more than a few fragments of the book have survived, but to have written such a detailed and authoritative study at a time when his mind was occupied with the affairs of Gaul and preparations for his second British expedition was an indication of both Caesar's intellect and his restless energy. In comparison with the Commentaries, it was aimed at a narrower audience, though one that included the many senators and equestrians obsessed with literature. Caesar the author was a figure whom many found less controversial than Caesar the popularis politician. The praise of Cicero was unforced and had much to do with his new, closer relationship with Caesar resulting from his return from exile. The orator sent drafts of his own works to Caesar and the two men discussed these in a way that cemented the political friendship between them.2
Literature was important to Rome's elite, but other means were necessary to reach much of the wider population. There was a long tradition of distinguished men, and especially successful generals, building monuments in Rome as physical memorials to their achievements. In 55 tic during his second consulship Pompey commemorated his unprecedentedly great victories with a grander monument than anyone else had ever built, formally opening his great theatre complex. It was the first permanent stone theatre ever to be built in the city and Dio still considered it to be one of Rome's most spectacular features almost three centuries later. Some ten thousand people were able sit on its stone seats - the sensible and well prepared took along cushions when they attended a performance. It stood on the Campus Martius, towering high above a row of temples dedicated by other victorious commanders over the centuries. No less than five shrines were actually built into the structure, the main
one to Venus Victrix (Venus the victorious), and others to the deities personifying such virtues as Honour (Honos), Courage (Virtus), and Good Fortune (Felicitas). Attached to the semi-circular theatre was a portico, which itself covered an area of some 585 feet by 440 feet, and everything about the structures from design to materials testified to the vast expense of the whole project.
The same was true of the lavish festivities that marked the opening of the complex. There were musical performances and displays of gymnastics, as well as chariot racing and beast fights in the nearby Circus Flaminius. Five hundred lions were killed in five days, while at one point heavily armoured hunters were matched against about twenty elephants. The beasts made an effort to escape from the arena, frightening the crowd as they tried to smash through the iron railings, until they were driven back. Fear soon turned to sympathy, and the people began to feel sorry for the animals and angry against Pompey for ordering their slaughter. For all that the Romans craved violent displays in the circus, simply spending huge amounts of money on a show did not necessarily mean that the crowd would enjoy it and so feel gratitude to the man who had provided it. Privately, Cicero also felt that the sheer scale of Pompey's theatre and portico were excessive. Other conservative senators muttered that it was a mistake to give the theatre - that most Greek of institutions - a permanent home in the city In the past most of the audience for any performance had stood, and they feared that giving them seats would just encourage more citizens to waste their days as idle spectators.'
Caesar: Life of a Colossus Page 46
