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Vercingetorix and the other leading men of to the north-west of the Arverni, were the the greater part of the Gauls canvassed, at important tribe of the Bituriges, who were the end of the year 52 B. c. They met in overawed by the vicinity of the Edui from forests and caverns, for the sake of avoiding joining Vercingetorix, though they were well the observation of the spies of Rome. A affected to the national cause. Vercingetogeneral rising was determined on, and the rix, therefore, marched with the greater part day fixed; and the chiefs of the Carnutes, a of his forces into their territory, and was tribe inhabiting the territory of the modern readily welcomed among them. He took up Orleanois, volunteered to strike the first a position there, both for the sake of protectblow. At sunrise, on the appointed day, ing them, and because it enabled him to they massacred the Romans in their chief cross the line of march of any of the Roman city Genabum, (now Orleans,) and messen- legions in the north, that might endeavor to gers were forthwith dispatched far and wide move southward. At the same time he dethroughout Gaul, to announce that the Car- tached one of his generals, named Luterius, nutes were up, and to call on all patriots to to compel the states in the south to join him, rise and follow their example. The tidings and to assail, if possible, the Roman province were transmitted from man to man, over field, of Narbonne, where the Romans had been over mountain, over moor, with such rapidity, long established, and where, consequently, no that the deed which was done at Genabum spontaneous feeling for the cause of Gallie at dawn, was known one hundred and fifty independence could be expected. miles off, at Gergovia, in the Auvergne, be- While Vercingetorix was pursuing this fore sunset. At eventide, Vercingetorix, at prudent scheme of operations, and was orthe head of his retainers, entered that impor-ganizing his insurrectionary levies on the tant city, and summoned the inhabitants to pronounce against Rome. But the party that had slain his father was strong there, and met him with armed resistance. He was repulsed from the city, but the reverse was only temporary. He collected a numerous force near Gergovia, and soon made himself master of the town, the Romanizing faction being in turn expelled. Vercingetorix now sent his envoys in all directions through Gaul, exhorting the various states to keep their pledges, and act up to their resolutions. Those of nearly all western, and of great part of central Gaul, readily obeyed him, and by universal consent made him supreme commander of the league. Invested with this authority he forthwith required hostages of the several states, appointed the contributions which each was to supply of men and military stores; and in particular, endeavored to raise as numerous and as efficient a cavalry as possible. He established a fearfully severe system of military discipline among the levies which he thus drew together; and soon found himself at the head of a large and rapidly increasing army.

The Roman legions of Cæsar's main army were at this time cantoned in the modern territories of Champagne, Lorraine, and Picardy, having communications open with the powerful Gallic nation of the Edui, who occupied the territory that now forms the Nivernois and part of Burgundy, and who were the most zealous adherents of the Romans.

To the south-west of the Edui, and

banks of the Loire, he received the startling intelligence that Cæsar and a new Roman army were in Auvergne, and were spreading fire and desolation throughout the native state of the Gallic commander-in-chief. The Roman general, in truth, had not only hurried from the south of the Alps, on hearing of the risings in Gaul, but he had repelled Luterius from Narbonne, and with a body of troops, principally horse, which he had partly brought with him from beyond the Alps, and partly levied in the Narbonese province, he had made his way over the Cevenne mountains into Auvergne, though it was still winter, and the snow lay six feet deep in the passes. Moved by the entreaties of his countrymen, who flocked around him, Vercingetorix broke up his encampment among the Bituriges, and marched southward to protect Auvergne. Cæsar, however, had no intention to encounter the Gallic main army with the slight force of recruits which he had with him. His object was to join his veteran legions in the north; and having drawn Vercingetorix away from the frontiers of the Edui, Cæsar left his army of the south under Decimus Brutus, and hurried himself, with a small body-guard, to the neighborhood of the modern city of Chatillon, where two of his legions were stationed. He there rapidly drew the rest together, and had thus a force of sixty thousand veteran troops concentrated under his own personal command.

Vercingetorix had failed in his first project of interposing between the Roman general

and the Roman legions; but he now adopted a line of action which reduced Cæsar, by Cæsar's own confession,* to extreme difficulty.

mand; nor could Cæsar's horse cope with them. It was only by the capture of towns that the Romans could obtain supplies. Vercingetorix perceived clearly the way in Vercingetorix did not march into the which the enemy might be baffled and denorth-east to attack the Romans, but he stroyed; and calling together a council of laid siege to a town of the Boii, a peo- his chief followers, he told them that "It ple under the protection of the Edui, was necessary to resolve upon a new plan of and, like the Ædui, adherents of Rome. war. Instead of giving battle to the Romans, The town, which Vercingetorix so assailed, they should bend their whole aim to interwas in the modern district of the Bour- cept their convoys and foragers; that this bonnois, and at a considerable distance might be easily effected; they themselves from the region where Cæsar's military abounded in cavalry; and, as in the present stores and provisions were collected. It was season of the year there was no sustenance in still mid winter; and it was evident that if the fields, the enemy must unavoidably disthe Romans were to leave their quarters and perse themselves into the distant villages for march southward they must be exposed to subsistence, and thereby give daily opportuserious trouble and risk in bringing supplies nities of destroying them: when life and libwith them; while, if they were to remain erty were at stake, private property ought quiet, and leave the Boii to their fate, they to be little regarded; and therefore the best would expose their inability to protect their resolution they could take, was at once to allies; and Vercingetorix might fairly expect burn all their buildings and villages throughto see the Gallic states, which as yet contin- out the territories of the Boii and elsewhere, ued to recognize the Roman authority, de- as far as the Romans could send detachments clare against the foreigners, and range them- to collect supplies; that they themselves had selves on his side. But his adversary also no reason to apprehend scarcity, as they appreciated the moral effect of such an aban- would be plentifully supplied by the neighdonment of the Boii. Leaving two legions boring states; whereas, the enemy must be to protect the dépôt of his stores and bag- reduced to the necessity of either starving or gage at Agendicum, (Sens,) the Roman com- making distant and dangerous excursions mander moved southward, and in spite of from their camp. It equally answered the sufferings and privations, which none but purpose of the Gauls to kill the Romans, or Roman soldiers could or would have endured, to seize upon their stores; because, without he forced Vercingetorix to raise the siege these, it would be impossible for the enemy which he had formed, and took, himself, to carry on the war. Vercingetorix told three of the patriotic cities by storm. them, moreover, that they ought to set fire Though numerically superior to the Ro-to the towns which were not strong enough mans, Vercingetorix was well aware of the impolicy of encountering them in the open field. He knew the worthlessness of his own infantry in opposition to Cæsar's legionaries. In the vicious political system of the ancient Gauls, the commonalty were held of no account; and all power and wealth were monopolized by the priests and nobles. Hence the inferior Gauls, though personally brave, were ill-armed and ill-disciplined. Their principal weapon was a clumsy broadsword; in addition to which they carried bows and arrows, or javelins. Their only defensive armor was a feeble and narrow buckler. The nobility disdained to serve on foot. Each high-born Gaul rode to the battle-field equipped with helm, with breastplate, with the broad belt, with sword and spear. Vercingetorix had many thousands of these gallant cavaliers at his com

* De Bell. Gall., vii. 10.

to be perfectly secure against all danger. By this being done their towns would neither be hiding-places for their own men to skulk in from military service, nor support the Romans by the supplies and plunder they might furnish. These things might seem grievous calamities, yet they ought to reflect that it was still more grievous to see their wives and children dragged into captivity, and be themselves put to the sword,-the unavoidable fate of the conquered."

The stern proposition was accepted, and was at first heroically executed. Twenty towns of the Bituriges were given to the flames, and throughout the whole neighboring districts, the country gleamed with voluntary desolation. But when it was known that the Romans were marching against the wealthy and populous city of Avaricum, (the modern Bourges,) and it became necessary to put the self-sacrificing ordinance in force there, the hearts of the Gaulish chiefs failed

them. They listened to the entreaties of the inhabitants, who implored them not to destroy a city that was almost the fairest in Gaul. The place was strong by nature, and well fortified. The inhabitants pledged themselves to defend it to the utmost. It was proposed, in the council of war, to spare Avaricum from the general doom, and to garrison it against the Romans. Vercingetorix reluctantly yielded, against his better judgment; and Avaricum was manned with picked troops from the Gallic army. Cæsar soon appeared before its walls, and commenced the siege, while Vercingetorix took up a position at a little distance, whence his cavalry harassed the besiegers, intercepted their convoys, cut off stragglers and small detachments, and inflicted severe loss and suffering, with almost total impunity to them selves.

The besieged defended their walls bravely; but the disciplined courage and the engineering skill and the patient industry of the Romans at last prevailed. The town was stormed with frightful carnage, neither sex nor age being spared. Out of forty thousand human beings who were in Avaricum, when the siege commenced, only eight hundred escaped; the rest perished beneath the Roman sword; and Cæsar gained a town, which not only abounded in provisions and stores of every description, but which served him as a secure basis for his subsequent operations.

Afflicted, but not disheartend at this calamity, Vercingetorix reminded his followers. that the defence of Avaricum had been undertaken against his opinion, and exhorted them not to be cast down by a blow which was caused, not by any superior valor of the enemy, but by their superior skill in carrying on sieges; an art with which the Gauls were little familiar. He assured them of the successful efforts which he was making to bring other Gallic states into their league; and he skilfully availed himself of the humbled condition in which he saw his troops, to persuade them thenceforth to fortify their camps; a military toil, for which the Gauls had always previously been too proud or too idle. So different were the men, whom Vercingetorix led, to those whom he had to encounter the laborious legionaries of Rome, to whom the toils of the pioneer, the sapper, and the miner were daily tasks; and who won Cæsar's victories for him, more even by their spades than by their swords.

Vercingetorix was pre-eminent in the quality, which is the peculiar attribute of

genius, the power of swaying multitudes by the impulse of his single will, and inspiring them with his own enthusiasm. It is the quality which Malebranche has expressively called "the contagiousness of a great mind." At his exhortations the Gaulish soldiery resumed their courage and their patriotic zeal ; nor were the assertions which he made to them of his success in acquiring fresh members of the national league, deceptions or exaggerated boasts. Choosing his emissaries with marvellous discernment of character, and infusing into them his own persuasive eloquence, he had won over many more valuable adherents, and had even made the

dui, those inveterate partisans of Rome, waver in their anti-national policy. The loss which the disaster at Avaricum had made in his ranks was soon repaired; and when Cæsar moved southwards to chastise the Arverni in their own territory with six of his legions from Avaricum, (having sent Labienus with the other four, to put down the risings of the Gauls in the north,) he found no signs of submission or despair. The passage of the Elaver was guarded against him, and when he had succeeded, by an able manoeuvre, in crossing it, and advanced through Auvergne to its capital, Gergovia, he found Vercingetorix, with a numerous and efficient army, skilfully posted so as to cover the easiest approaches to the town; and with intrenchments formed round his camp, in which the Roman engineers recognized how well their own lessons had at last been learned.

Cæsar proceeded to besiege both the city and the Gaulish camp; but in the narrative which he himself has given us of the operations before Gergovia it is palpable that he has concealed much, and colored much, in order to disguise the defeat which Vercingetorix undoubtedly gave him. According to his own version, the indiscreet zeal of some of his soldiers, in following too far an advantage which they had gained in an assault upon the enemy's camp, led to their being driven back, with the loss of forty-six centurions, and seven hundred rank and file. But it is clear from the statements of other writers, that his loss was far greater; and he was obliged to raise the siege, and retreat towards the territory of the Edui.

There is no Celtic Livy of the Gallic war. No one has recorded the rapturous joy that must have pealed through Gergovia, when Vercingetorix entered it as its deliverer, and when the previously invincible Cæsar was seen retiring with his beaten legions from their expected prey. The glad intelligence

soon afterwards arrived that the rich and powerful Ædui had renounced the Roman alliance, and were in arms for the independence of Gaul. This seemed to secure success. Cæsar had been principally dependent on the Edui for his supplies; and the best part of his cavalry had been composed of their auxiliary squadrons. All these resources were now given to the already victorious patriots; and the speedy destruction of the invaders appeared inevitable.

The accession, however, of the Edui to the national cause was not unattended by disadvantages. The chiefs of that wealthy and strong people thought themselves entitled to the principal command of the national armies; but the Arverni naturally refused to let their young hero be deposed from the dignity which he had filled so well. A general assembly of the warriors of all Gaul was then convened at Bibracte, (the modern Autun;) and of all the Gallic states only three neglected the summons. When the great national army was fully collected, the question whether the Eduan princes or Vercingetorix should have the supreme command was left to the general suffrage of the soldiery. To a man they voted for Vercingetorix. The duans submitted to the decision, and professed obedience to the commander-in-chief; but it was with reluctance and secret discontent. They repented at heart of having abandoned the Romans, who had always treated them as the first in rank among the Gallic states. And it is more than probable that the national cause must have suffered during the subsequent military operations through the disaffection and divisions which were thus introduced in the Gaulish army.

During these delays and deliberations of the Gauls, Cæsar gained time, which to him was invaluable, and had marched northwards, and reunited his legions with those of Labienus. He also employ the interval thus given him, for the purpose of calling new allies to his aid from the right bank of the Rhine. During his campaigns against the Germans, he had learned to appreciate the valor of that nation, far more enduring than the fiery but transient energy of the Gauls; and he had especially observed and experienced the excellence of the German cavalry. This was the arm in which he had always been weakest, and in which the defection of the Edui had now left him almost helpless. Employing his treasures, and the influence of his name and renown among the adventurous warriors of the German tribes, he succeeded in bringing

a large force of their best and bravest youth across the Rhine, to fight under his eagles against their old enemies, the Gauls. He does not specify the number of the German auxiliaries whom he thus obtained; probably he was unwilling to let it appear how much Rome was indebted to German valor for her victory. But they were evidently many thousands in number, and their superiority, as cavalry, to the Romans, is evident from the fact, that Cæsar not only made his officers give up their chargers, in order to mount the Germans as well as possible, but he compelled the Roman cavalry to take the slight and inferior horses which the Germans had brought with them, and give up their own superior and better trained steeds to the new allies, who were the fittest to use them. Besides the German cavalry, he also obtained a considerable force of German light infantry; of youths, who were trained to keep up with the horsemen in the march or in action, to fight in the intervals of the ranks and squadrons, and whose long javelins, whether hurled, or grasped as pikes, were used with serious effect against both riders and horses in the enemy's troops.

With this important accession to his army, Cæsar began his southward march towards Provence. He seems to have collected all his stores and treasures from his various dépôts, and to have completely abandoned his hold on northern and central Gaul. His army was encumbered with an unusually large amount of baggage; and the difficulty was great of conducting it without serious loss through a hostile territory, and in face of a numerous and spirited foe.

Vercingetorix thought that complete vengeance now was secured. He led his army near that of Cæsar, and though he still avoided bringing his infantry into close action with the Roman legionaries, he thought that the magnificent body of cavalry, which was under his command, gave him the means of crushing that of the enemy, and then seizing favorable opportunities for charging the legions while on the march. He watched till the Romans had reached some open ground near the sources of the Seine, and then called his captains of horse around him, and told them that the hour of victory was come. He urged them to ride in at once upon the long, encumbered Roman line.

The Gallic cavaliers shouted eager concurrence with their general's address. In their excitement a solemn oath was proposed and taken, by which each of them bound himself never to know the shelter of a roof,

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reducing his enemy by blockade. As the speedy approach of a new army of Gauls to the relief of Vercingetorix was certain, the Roman general required also an outer line of contravallation to be formed. The patient discipline and the indomitable industry of his veterans accomplished this miracle of military engineering in five weeks. During these weeks the messengers of Vercingetorix were stirring up all Gaul to the rescue of her chosen chief; and at length Vercingetorix and his comrades saw from their ramparts an apparently innumerable and irresistible host of their fellow-countrymen marching down from the neighboring mountains, and preparing to besiege the Roman besiegers.

and never to look on parent, wife, or child, until he had twice ridden through the Roman ranks. Thus inspirited and devoted, the nobles of Gaul rode forth in three large squadrons to the fight. Two were to assail the Romans in flank, the third was to charge the marching column in front. Cæsar also divided his cavalry into three divisions to meet the enemy. But Cæsar also arranged his legions so as both to protect the baggage, and to afford a shelter behind their brigades, whither any squadron of his horse, that was severely pressed, might retreat, and reorganize itself for a fresh charge. Vercingetorix could not trust his Gaulish infantry so near the foe, as to give any similar support to his horsemen. But his cavaliers charged desperately on each A series of battles followed, in which Verof the three points against which he had cingetorix and the garrison of Alesia sallied marshalled them; and the combat was long desperately against the inner line of the Roand desperate. At first the Gauls had the man works, while the external line was assailadvantage. Cæsar was obliged to rally his ed by the myriads of the outer Gaulish squadrons, and lead them on in person: he army. But nothing could drive the steady himself was, at one time, nearly captured, legionaries from their posts; and at the close and his sword was wrested from him during of each day's engagement the Gauls recoiled the close hand-to-hand fight, in which he with diminished numbers and downcast hopes was engaged. At last the obstinate valor of from either ambit of the bloodstained rethe German horsemen, aided by the skilful doubts. At last Cæsar, by a skilful manœumanœuvres of the supporting legions, pre- vre, launched his German cavalry against vailed, and the remains of the Gaulish caval- the outer army of the Gauls, and the intendry fled in confusion to where their infantryed deliverers of Alesia fled in irretrievable was posted. This also caught the panic and the whole Gaulish army was driven by the conquering Romans and Germans in ruinous flight to the walls of Alesia, where Vercingetorix at last succeeded in rallying his dispirited and disorganized host.

He might easily have made his own escape; for some time elapsed before the Romans were able to occupy all the approaches to the city, and he actually, in this interval, sent away all his cavalry. But he was resolved to maintain the struggle for his country as long as a spark of hope survived. His infantry, though ill suited for manoeuvres or battles, was excellent in the defence of fortified posts; and at the head of the eighty thousand foot soldiers, whom he had rallied at Alesia, he resolved to defend the city, and the fortified camp which he formed beneath its walls, against Cæsar, while a fresh army of his countrymen could be assembled, and brought to his assistance. The victorious defence of Gergovia was remembered, and a similar success was justly hoped for now. Cæsar, however, instead of wasting the lives of his legionaries in assaults upon the Gaulish camp or city, formed the astonishing project of carrying fortified lines all round Alesia, and the hill on which it stood, and of

disorder, never to rally again.

The doom of Alesia and its garrison was now inevitable. Their stores of provisions were almost utterly exhausted, and their own numbers increased the horror of their position. Vercingetorix alone was calm and undismayed. He thought that the lives of his countrymen might yet be saved by the sacrifice of his own. He reminded them that the war had not been undertaken for his private aggrandizement, but for the common interests of all; yet, inasmuch as the Romans represented it as a war made through his schemes only, and for his purposes only, he was willing to be given up to them either alive or dead, as an expiatory offering to their wrath. The other Gaulish commanders then sent to Cæsar to treat for the terms of capitulation. The answer was, that they must instantly give up their chief, and their arms, and surrender at discretion. Cæsar forthwith caused his tribunal to be set up in the space between his lines and the Gaulish camp, and took his seat there to receive the submission of the conquered, and to pronounce their fate.

Vercingetorix waited not for the Roman lictors to drag him to the proconsul's feet. The high-minded Celt arrayed himself for

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