Later that year, Vercingetorix and his men were trapped in the stronghold of Alesia, near present-day Dijon. Caesar surrounded the oppidum and began to construct siege works. The defenders had food only for a month, and Caesar hoped to starve them into surrender before reinforcements could arrive. The circumvallation extended around the town for ten miles, too large to be occupied by the Romans. It therefore was made more secure by a series of defenses. First, facing the town, a trench twenty-feet wide was dug to protect against surprise attack. Six hundred and fifty yards behind this ditch two more trenches were dug, each fifteen feet wide and the inner one filled with water. Behind these trenches was a palisaded rampart twelve feet high, with a breastwork of earth studded with forked branches. Around the entire circuit of the wall, towers were erected every 130 yards.
Still, there were attacks by the Gauls, and the siege works were strengthened even more. Tree trunks and strong branches were cut and sharpened, and buried securely in rows in front of the trenches. In front of them, diagonal rows of pits also were dug, each three-feet deep with a thick sharpened stake at the bottom and covered with brush to hide the trap. And, in front of these, blocks of wood were buried in the ground with iron barbs (stimuli) fixed in them. Aware that Vercingetorix had sent for reinforcements to break the siege, Caesar had an similar line of defense constructed facing outward to protect against attack from a relief force. By now, the food in the town had been exhausted, and it was determined that all those who could not fight were to be turned out. The inhabitants of Alesia, who had given refuge to Vercingetorix and his men, now were compelled to leave the town, together with their wives and children. Starving, they beseeched the Romans on the surrounding walls to take them in as slaves. But the population was refused any refuge and left to die of hunger between the two armies.
Caesar writes that 250,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry assembled to relieve the besieged town. But the Gauls had difficulty communicating across the Roman siege works that ringed the oppidum and were not able to coordinate their efforts. Now surrounded, themselves, the Romans were able to repel the first assault. At midnight the next day, the Gauls suddenly attacked again, and Vercingetorix led his men out of the town in support. But it was too dark to see and, when the relief army came nearer the Roman defenses, "they suddenly found themselves pierced by the goads or tumbled into the pits and impaled themselves, while others were killed by heavy siege spears discharged from the rampart and towers." Before he could even reach the trenches, Vercingetorix heard the army retreating and was forced back behind the town walls. Again, the relief force reassembled: "The Gauls knew that unless they broke through the lines they were lost; the Romans, if they could hold their ground, looked forward to the end of all their hardships....on that day, he said, on that very hour, depended the fruits of all their previous battles." There was a desperate struggle. The Gauls filled the trenches with dirt and bundles of sticks, pulled down the breastworks with hooks, and drove the Romans from the towers. But Caesar, his presence marked by a scarlet cloak, attacked with cavalry and additional cohorts. The Gauls broke and fled, the relieving army giving up and returning to their homes.
Vercingetorix was forced to surrender and allowed himself to be given up to the Romans. The Gallic chieftain languished in the Tullianum at Rome for five years before being publicly beheaded as part of Caesar's triumph in 46 BC. Two years later, Caesar, himself, was dead
Posts
