Vercingetorix
Template:Multiple issues Template:Short description Template:Infobox officeholder Vercingetorix (Template:IPA; Template:Langx Template:IPA; Template:Circa – 46 BC) was a Gallic king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe who united the Gauls in a failed revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. After surrendering to Caesar and spending almost six years in prison, he was executed in Rome.
Vercingetorix was the son of Celtillus the Arvernian, leader of the Gallic tribes. Vercingetorix came to power after his formal designation as chieftain of the Arverni at the oppidum Gergovia in 52 BC. He immediately established an alliance with other Gallic tribes, took command, combined all forces, and led them in the Celts' most significant revolt against Roman power. He won the Battle of Gergovia against Julius Caesar in which several thousand Romans and their allies were killed, and the Roman legions withdrew.
Caesar had been able to exploit Gaulish internal divisions to easily subjugate the country, since Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late.<ref name="EB_The_Roman_Conquest">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="The_first_triumvirate_and_the_conquest_of_Gaul">Template:Cite web</ref> At the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC the Romans besieged and defeated his forces. To spare as many of his men as possible, he gave himself to the Romans. He was held prisoner for five years. In 46 BC as part of Caesar's triumph, he was paraded through the streets of Rome and then executed by garrote. Vercingetorix is primarily known through Caesar's Template:Lang (Commentaries on the Gallic War). He is considered a folk hero in France, and especially in Auvergne, his native region.
Name
The Gaulish name Template:Tlit can be literally translated as victorious, great king, or leader of warriors, from Template:Tlit (over, superior) + Template:Tlit (warrior, hero) + Template:Tlit (king), but it mainly means victorious [Vercingetorix free English translation = Victor = victorious].Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Scholar Maigréad Ní C. Dobbs has proposed to see an Irish cognate of the name in the form Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch renders the name as Template:Tlit (Template:Lang).<ref>Plutarch, Life of Caesar 25; 27.</ref> According to Florus he was "endowed [...] with a name which seemed to be intended to inspire terror".<ref>Florus, Epitome of Roman History, 1:45.</ref>
Early life
Having been appointed governor of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (modern Provence) in 58 BC, Julius Caesar proceeded to conquer the surrounding Gallic tribes over the next few years, maintaining control through a careful divide-and-rule strategy. He made use of the factionalism among the Gallic elites, favouring certain noblemen over others with political support and Roman luxuries such as wine. Attempts at revolt, such as that of Ambiorix in 54 BC, had secured only local support, but Vercingetorix, whose father Celtillus had been put to death by his own countrymen for seeking to rule all of Gaul, managed to unify the Gallic tribes against the Romans and adopted more current styles of warfare.
Averni nobleman
The revolt that Vercingetorix came to lead began in early 52 BC while Caesar was raising troops in Cisalpine Gaul. Believing that Caesar would be distracted by the turmoil in Rome following the death of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the Carnutes under Cotuatus and Conetodunus made the first move, slaughtering the Romans who had settled in their territory.
Vercingetorix, a young nobleman of the Arvernian city of Gergovia, roused his dependents to join the revolt, but his followers and he were expelled by Vercingetorix's uncle Gobannitio and the rest of the nobles because they thought that opposing Caesar was too great a risk. Undeterred, Vercingetorix raised an army of the poor, took Gergovia, and was hailed as king.<ref>Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book VII, sect. 4.</ref>
War with Rome
Vercingetorix made alliances with other tribes and united Gaul under the pretense of escaping Roman rule. After having been unanimously given supreme command of their armies, he imposed his authority through harsh discipline and the taking of hostages. Leadership and unification on this level were unprecedented in Gaul and would not happen again for decades.
He adopted a policy of retreating to natural fortifications and undertook an early example of a scorched earth strategy by burning towns to prevent the Roman legions from living off the land.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Vercingetorix scorched much of the land marching north with his army from Gergovia in an attempt to deprive Caesar of the resources and safe haven of the towns and villages along Caesar's march south.
Siege of Avaricum
Avaricum (the capital of the Bituriges, near modern-day Bourges) was spared, even though it lay directly in Caesar's path. Because of the town's strong protests, naturally defensible terrain, and apparently strong, man-made reinforcing defenses, Vercingetorix decided against razing and burning it. Vercingetorix camped well outside of Avaricum and focused on conducting harassing engagements of the advancing Roman units led by Caesar and his chief lieutenant Titus Labienus. Upon reaching Avaricum the Romans laid siege and captured the capital. Afterwards, in a reprisal for 25 days of hunger and of laboring over the siegeworks required to breach Avaricum's defenses, the Romans slaughtered nearly the entire population, some 40,000 people, leaving only about 800 alive.<ref>Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War vii.</ref>
Battle of Gergovia
At the Battle of Gergovia, capital city of the Arverni, Vercingetorix and his warriors crushed Caesar's legions and allies, inflicting heavy losses. Vercingetorix then decided to follow Caesar but suffered heavy losses (as did the Romans and their allies<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) during a cavalry battle, and he retreated and moved to a stronghold at Alesia.
Battle of Alesia
In the Battle of Alesia in September 52 BC, Caesar built a fortification around the city to besiege it. However, Vercingetorix had summoned his Gallic allies to attack the besieging Romans. These forces included an army of Arverni led by Vercingetorix's cousin Vercassivellaunos and an army of 10,000 Lemovices led by Sedullos. With the Roman circumvallation surrounded by the rest of Gaul, Caesar built another outward-facing fortification (a contravallation) against the expected relief armies, resulting in a doughnut-shaped fortification. The Gallic relief came in insufficient numbers; estimates range from 80,000 to 250,000 soldiers. Vercingetorix, the tactical leader, was cut off from those on the inside, and without his guidance the attacks were initially unsuccessful. The attacks did reveal a weak point in the fortifications though, and the combined forces on the inside and the outside almost made a breakthrough. Only when Caesar personally led the last reserves into battle did he finally manage to prevail. This was a decisive battle in the creation of the Roman Empire.
According to Plutarch, Caes. 27.8-10, Vercingetorix surrendered in a dramatic fashion, riding his beautifully adorned horse out of Alesia and around Caesar's camp before dismounting in front of Caesar, stripping himself of his armor and sitting down at his opponent's feet, where he remained motionless until he was taken away.<ref>Plutarch's Lives; Caes. 27.8-10; Flor. 1.45.26; Dio 40.41.3. Medieval French historians are also partly responsible for romanticising Vercingetorix's surrender. Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France, by Gabrielle M. Spiegel, page 143, Berkeley: 1993.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Caesar provides a first-hand contradiction of this account, De Bell. Gal. 7.89, describing Vercingetorix's surrender much more modestly.<ref>Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, Everyman's Edition, 1953 (Trans: John Warrington); Book VII, sect. 89.</ref>
Imprisonment and death
Vercingetorix was imprisoned in the Tullianum in Rome for almost six years before being publicly displayed in the first of Caesar's four triumphs in 46 BC.Template:Citation needed He was ceremonially beheaded at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus after the triumph.<ref>Dio 40.41.3, 43.19.4</ref>
Legacy
Memorials
Napoleon III erected a Template:Convert Vercingetorix Monument in 1865, created by sculptor Aimé Millet, on the supposed site of Alesia. The architect for the memorial was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.<ref>Statue of Vercingetorix Template:Webarchive, Art and Architecture, 2006</ref> The statue still stands. The inscription on the base, written by Viollet-le-Duc, which copied the famous statement of Julius Caesar, reads (in French):
Many other monumental statues of Vercingetorix were erected in France during the 19th century, including one by Frédéric Bartholdi on the Place de Jaude in Clermont-Ferrand.<ref>Dietler, Michael, "Our ancestors the Gauls": archaeology, ethnic nationalism, and the manipulation of Celtic identity in modern Europe Template:Webarchive (7.3M), American Anthropologist, 1994, 96: 584–605. Dietler, M., A tale of three sites: the monumentalization of Celtic oppida and the politics of collective memory and identity, World Archaeology, 1998, 30: 72–89.</ref>
Asteroid 52963 Vercingetorix, discovered by the OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey, was named in his honor.<ref name="MPC-object"/>
Media
The 1962 Italian movie Caesar the Conqueror, starring Rik Battaglia as Vercingetorix and Cameron Mitchell as Julius Caesar. The movie centers around Caesar's battles with the Gauls, as well as his political battling in Rome. The movie ends with the Battle of Alesia and Vercingetorix's subsequent surrender.
The 2001 French film Druids, starring Christopher Lambert as Vercingetorix and Klaus Maria Brandauer as Julius Caesar, depicts the Gallic chieftain's struggle against Caesar. The film is infamous in France for its poor quality and dismal box-office performance. The script was written by Norman Spinrad, who also authored the novelization The Druid King.
Joseph Canteloube composed an opera, Vercingétorix, about the defeat of the Gauls by Julius Caesar. The libretto was by Étienne Clémentel. The Paris Opéra gave the first performance in 1933.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
Template:Portal Template:Div col
- Ambiorix
- Alaric I
- Ardaric
- Ariovistus
- Arminius
- Autaritus
- Battle of Baduhenna Wood
- Bato (Daesitiate chieftain)
- Boudica
- Caratacus
- Fritigern
- Gainas
- Gaius Julius Civilis
- John of Gothia
- Spartacus
- Totila
- Tribigild
- Viriathus
References
Primary sources
- Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico Book 7
- Dio Cassius, Roman History 40:33–41, 43:19
- Plutarch, Life of Caesar 25–27
Further reading
External links
- A reconstructed portrait of Vercingetorix, based on historical sources, in a contemporary style.
- Curchin, Leonard A. Lingua Gallica (The Gaulish Language). Retrieved January 23, 2010 from Uwaterloo.ca Template:Webarchive
- [1], Vercingétorix : le politique, le stratège. Paris : Perrin, 2000, 260 p. Template:ISBN.
- Pages with broken file links
- Vercingetorix
- 80s BC births
- 46 BC deaths
- 1st-century BC executions
- 1st-century BC monarchs in Europe
- Barbarian people of the Gallic Wars
- Celtic warriors
- 1st-century BC Gaulish tribal chiefs
- People executed by strangulation
- People executed by the Roman Republic
- Year of birth unknown
- Executed monarchs