Perhaps by this stage Caesar’s officers were beginning to realise that something big was occurring, and their report on this episode was enough to convince him of the need to rejoin the army. The situation in Rome had stabilised by this time, Pompey having been made sole consul rather than dictator, and having brought troops into the city to restore order by force. Caesar crossed the Alps to Transalpine Gaul. By this time more tribes had joined Vercingetorix and the rebels-some willingly and others through coercion. The revolt was gaining momentum. Tribes loyal to Rome or her close allies were being systematically attacked, and most were switching sides. Caesar was in one of the worst possible situations for any general, separated from his army by hundreds of miles at a time when an enemy was in the field against him. If he ordered the army to march to join him, then it might encounter the enemy’s main force on the journey and have to fight without him. That could mean defeat, or at best a victory where the credit went to Labienus or one of the other legates. There were also great risks if he went to the legions, since his escort would be small and with so many tribes defecting to the rebels he would not know which chieftains could be trusted. It is doubtful that he took long reaching his decision. For Caesar danger to himself was preferable to risk to his army. Even after six years of victories, he knew that one bad defeat would be all the ammunition needed by his domestic enemies to destroy his reputation. He also knew that it would be quicker for himself, his attendants and probably some staff, and his escort of 400 German cavalrymen, to hasten to the army than for the legions to march to him. Yet before he could set out, there were threats to the Transalpine province itself. A number of tribes living on the borders had gone over to the rebels, and now a rebel force had invaded the province and was moving against the colony of Narbo.8
COUNTER ATTACK
Caesar rushed to the town and organised its defence. There were no legions in the province, but there were a number of locally raised cohorts as well as drafts of new recruits he had brought from Cisalpine Gaul. He probably also had cavalry from the tribes of the province. Some of these he stationed in a defensive line to protect against attacks and soon forced the raiders to withdraw, but he ordered the bulk to concentrate in the lands of one of the Gaulish tribes living in the province, the Helvii. From there he led this improvised and largely inexperienced force over the Pass of the Cevennes and down to attack the Arverni. Surprise was complete, for it was still winter and even the locals assumed that the road would be closed by snow. Caesar’s men toiled to clear a path through 6 foot drifts, and then pushed on to reach Arvernian territory. Once there Caesar sent his cavalry out in small detachments, ordering them to range over a wide area, burning and killing. The damage they inflicted was probably slight, but the attack gave the impression of the beginning of an all-out invasion. Messengers went to Vercingetorix who was camped with his main army about 100 miles north amongst the Bituriges. The Gaulish leader started his army marching south to reassure his own people. After two days of raiding the surrounding country, Caesar left Decimus Junius Brutus in charge, telling him to continue sending the cavalry on marauding expeditions. The proconsul announced that he needed to return to the province to raise more levies and allied cavalry, but that he would return in three days. He seems to have been confident that this news would swiftly reach the enemy, for after recrossing the mountains he rode quickly to Vienna (not the modern Austrian capital but Vienne in the Rhône Valley). Earlier he had arranged for a force of cavalry to be waiting there for him. Without halting even for one night, he took this force on, riding hard through the lands of the Aedui, until he reached the two legions wintering amongst the Lingones to the north. Once there he halted, but sent despatch riders to the other legions and ordered them to concentrate at Agedincum (probably near modern Sens). It had been a bold ride through potentially hostile territory. (Suetonius tells a story of Caesar disguising himself as a Gaul to reach his army during a rebellion, which, if true, may refer to this incident.) The commander and his army were reunited. Now it was a question of seizing back the initiative.9
Vercingetorix had been wrong-footed by the raid over the Cevennes and it had taken him several days to realise that this was only a feint. Then he returned to his plan of moving against the tribes still loyal to Rome. He came north again and attacked the Boii, who had accompanied the Helvetii in 58 BC and been permitted to settle on their lands at the request of the Aedui. The Gaulish army besieged one of their main towns at a place called Gorgobina. It was still winter and it would be difficult to supply the legions if they took the field, since there had been no time to prepare for operations and to gather food and transport animals. Yet if Caesar delayed the Boii might be forced to capitulate and join the rebellion. Vercingetorix would then be free to attack other tribes and clans allied to the Aedui, demonstrating to all that even the Aedui, the people closest to Rome, were unable to protect their friends. If this happened, then there was little incentive for any tribe to remain loyal to Rome. Rather than accept such a ‘shameful humiliation’, Caesar sent envoys to the Boii telling them that he and the army were coming to their relief. The Aedui were instructed to gather sufficient grain supplies for the army’s need. Then, leaving two legions to guard his baggage train at Agedincum, he led the remaining eight to help the Boii. Only weak cavalry forces accompanied the column, for Caesar had not had a chance to raise the usual levy of allied contingents from the tribes. The Romans also had little food, which meant that they could not afford to remain in the field for very long unless they were able to find a new source of supply. It was a gamble, but it was better than sitting idly by and watching the revolt gain strength and momentum. Inactivity would be seen as weakness, but putting on a bold front and counter-attacking was likely to make wavering tribes and chieftains pause, at least for the moment.10
After a day Caesar reached Vellaunodunum, one of the walled towns of the Senones. The legions began to besiege the place and on the third day the inhabitants surrendered, promising to hand over their weapons, 600 hostages and – most important of all for the army’s immediate needs-pack animals. Moving on the Romans came swiftly to Cenabum, the place where the rebellion had begun with the massacre of the Roman merchants. Caesar reached it in only two days, surprising the townsfolk who had not yet finished their preparations to resist a siege. It was late when the legions arrived, so the proconsul decided to postpone his assault until the following morning. Yet he also ordered two legions to stand to arms during the night, in case the townsfolk chose to flee across to the far bank of the Loire. The guess proved correct, and at about midnight the Roman scouts reported that crowds of people were heading from the town for the bridge over the river. There was no significant resistance when he sent his two legions into the town, while congestion at the bridge prevented many of the people from escaping captivity. Caesar ordered the town to be sacked and then burned down, and presumably had most of the prisoners sold as slaves. Then he crossed the Loire and advanced against the Bituriges. The Romans had regained the initiative, forcing Vercingetorix to respond to their actions and not vice versa. The latter had already abandoned his attack on the Boii and hurried back to protect the Bituriges. The Gaulish army arrived just as the Romans were accepting the surrender of the town of Noviodunum, and prompted the townsfolk to renew the fight, chasing out the centurions and small groups of soldiers who had entered their walls. A cavalry combat took place in the fields outside the town, and the Romans eventually won this when Caesar threw in his band of 400 Germans. This minor success, as well as the fact that the Romans were close outside their walls and the bulk of the Gaulish army still some way away, prompted the people of Noviodunum to change their minds for a second time, and they surrendered again, handing over the men responsible for breaking the truce. Caesar resumed his advance, heading for Avaricum (modern Bourges), one of the most important and certainly the best defended town of the Bituriges. Having regained the initiative, it was vital to keep it and give the enemy no chance to recover.11
&nb
sp; From the beginning Vercingetorix was sceptical about his ability to defeat the legions in battle, and the speed with which the Romans had taken three towns had only confirmed his respect for their fighting power and siegecraft. Instead he planned to shadow the enemy, ambushing small detachments but not risking a massed encounter. He wanted to deprive the Romans of supplies, and to do this he told his followers that they must be utterly ruthless: ‘… private possessions must be disregarded, villages and houses put to the torch in all areas as far afield as the enemy foragers were likely to range from their main route of march’.12 Even entire towns that could not be protected from the enemy were to be destroyed, to prevent the legions from capturing the food stores within them. The Bituriges set fire to twenty of the main settlements in response to this order. Vercingetorix argued that terrible though this was, the alternative was death for the warriors and enslavement for their families. His strategy was considerably more sophisticated than that employed by Caesar’s earlier opponents, and Vercingetorix must clearly have possessed considerable charisma and force of personality to persuade his followers of the necessity of such uncompromising measures. It was remarkable just how much the tribes were willing to sacrifice, but unsurprising that they occasionally balked at the prospect. After pleas from all the leaders of the Bituriges, Avaricum itself was not destroyed. Vercingetorix grudgingly made an exception of the town, although he lacked their conviction that its natural and man-made defences rendered it impregnable.13
Avaricum was certainly a more daunting prospect than the towns taken so easily in the past weeks. Surrounded by river or marshes on most sides there was only one practical route for an assault, and it was next to impossible to create a solid blockade. Caesar’s army camped at the foot of this slope and began to build a ramp that would allow them to reach the wall. The legionaries also made mantlets and sheds to shelter the workers as they got nearer to the enemy, and two siege towers to climb the ramp when it was finished. Caesar’s eight legions were most likely under strength, so that he had perhaps 25,000 – 30,000 men, along with a few thousand auxiliaries and many more slaves and camp followers. It was very difficult to feed such a force while it was moving. When it settled down to besiege Avaricum the task became almost impossible. Foraging was unproductive and dangerous, since Vercingetorix was camped no more than 16 miles away and shadowed every detachment the Romans sent out, cutting up any group that became exposed. The proconsul sent repeated messages to the Aedui and Boii asking them to send him convoys of provisions, but very little arrived. The Aedui showed no enthusiasm for this task, although-perhaps in part because-they had been one of his main sources of supply since 58 BC. The Boii were still grateful for his support, but were too small a people to have much of a grain surplus available. The scorched earth tactics of Vercingetorix were beginning to bite. At one point the Romans completely exhausted their stocks of grain, but fortunately the foragers had brought in enough cattle for these to be slaughtered and a meat ration supplied. Caesar praised his men for their fortitude in keeping on working while receiving only a meagre and monotonous issue of food. (The persistent myth that Roman legionaries were vegetarian is based on a misunderstanding of this and a couple of other passages. Normally they ate a balanced diet of meat, grain and vegetables. What was exceptional in this case was that they were receiving only meat, not that they were eating it at all.)14
In spite of the shortages, and the watching menace of the main Gaulish army – for Vercingetorix kept in close communication with the defenders of the town-the legionaries kept toiling at the siege works. Caesar toured the lines as they laboured, inspecting the work and encouraging the men. On several occasions he offered to abandon the siege and withdraw if they felt that the task was beyond them. It was a clever way of exploiting the legionaries’ pride in themselves and their units, as no one wanted to be seen as the first to quit. The men implored him to let them finish the job, rather than suffering the shame of giving up. The memory of the massacre of the Romans at Cenabum was still strong and provoked widespread anger. Caesar tells us that the soldiers requested their officers to emphasise to him their determination to continue and their absolute faith in their ultimate victory By this time the ramp was getting bigger, so that the siege towers could move close to the walls, though not yet close enough for the rams mounted in them to begin creating a breach.
It was not only the Romans who were facing supply problems, and there were serious shortages in the Gaulish camp. In part this was simply because of the season and the need to remain in one place, but it also highlights the lack of logistic organisation in tribal armies. Vercingetorix was a better commander than most Gaulish leaders, and his army more flexible and better prepared than the average tribal force, but it still lagged a long way behind the Roman army in these respects. The progress of the siege may also have made him feel that he needed a fresh victory to encourage his men. The Gaulish army moved a little closer to the town. He then led out his cavalry and light infantry in person, hoping to mount an ambush on the Roman foragers. Caesar found out about this, either from his patrols, from prisoners or from deserters, and took the bulk of his army out to threaten the Gaulish camp. The enemy formed up to meet him, but were in too strong a position for him to attack without suffering heavy losses. The legionaries were keen for battle-encouraged by their own record of success and brimming over with the frustration caused by hard work and short rations. Caesar told them that he would not suffer casualties needlessly, for ‘their lives were more important than his own needs’. The Romans watched the enemy for a while and then marched back to camp. The threat had been enough to cause Vercingetorix to change his plans and return to his main force. Caesar had made it clear that he could not press too closely if he was unwilling to fight. For a while there was dissension in the Gaulish army, some even claiming that Vercingetorix was in league with the Romans and wished to be made king of all Gaul with Caesar’s aid. It is more than likely that the two men had met, and fairly probable that Vercingetorix had even received some favours from Caesar during his cultivation of the Arvernian aristocracy. Eventually he calmed them, bringing out captive Roman slaves and claiming that they were legionaries. The men had been coached to tell a plaintive story of the hardships and shortages in the Roman camp. Having convinced the men of the wisdom of his plan, he and the other chieftains selected 10,000 warriors and sent them to reinforce Avaricum.15
Sieges were tests of ingenuity as much as sheer determination. Some of Avaricum’s importance came from the iron mines in the area and as a result skilled miners were available to try to undermine the Roman ramp. Other men worked to run up wooden towers strengthening the wall, and kept adding to these as the Romans increased the height of their own works. As the defender or attacker gained an advantage, so the other tried to devise a countermeasure to rob them of it. Yet in the end the Romans had greater engineering skill and, in spite of frequent sallies aimed at setting light to it, after twenty-five days the ramp was virtually complete. All in all it measured 330 feet wide and 80 feet high and had almost reached the town wall, so that soon the battering rams in the towers would be in range. That night the defenders set light to the timber supports in their mine, hoping either to collapse the whole ramp or to set fire to it. In the small hours Roman sentries spotted smoke coming from the wooden ramp. Almost immediately a shout went up from the wall and two groups of defenders charged out of separate gates carrying torches and incendiary material as well as weapons. According to Caesar’s standing orders, two legions were on piquet duty throughout the hours of darkness. More Roman troops were sent in to support them as the furious combat swayed back and forth. Some of the legionaries fought off the enemy, while others dragged the siege towers back to safety, although they were not able to save some of the mantlets and shelters further up the ramp. It was a desperate struggle, and in the Commentaries Caesar makes one of those rare mentions of a minor incident that he witnessed. A Gaulish warrior stood near one of the town gates and kept hurling lumps
of pitch and tallow at the Roman works. He was killed by the bolt from a scorpion-one of the Romans’ light artillery pieces that shot its projectile with great accuracy and appalling force. As soon as he fell, another took his place, then another and another, as each was struck down by a bolt from the same ballista. Caesar was clearly impressed by their courage, something that the Commentaries never tried to deny the Gauls, even if Caesar tended to depict it as somehow not quite as good as the disciplined bravery of the legions.16
After bitter fighting the defenders were driven back inside their walls, having failed to inflict enough damage to seriously impede the Romans. A day later they willingly obeyed Vercingetorix when he urged them to escape from the town. Under cover of darkness the warriors tried to sneak out of the town and make their way through the marshes to the main army. The attempt failed when their abandoned families realised what was happening and raised such loud cries that it was feared the Romans would discover their purpose. On the following day-the twenty-seventh of the siege-the legionaries completed the ramp. It was raining heavily and Caesar decided on an immediate assault, judging that the defenders were likely to be off their guard. Orders for the storming were issued, and the necessary preparations made, the attacking troops forming up under cover of the sheds and shelters of the siege works to conceal the Roman purpose. Roman generals were always keen to encourage individual boldness, and the proconsul promised great prizes to the first men over the wall. At a signal the men suddenly erupted from cover and charged forwards, overcoming the surprised defenders and quickly seizing the rampart. A few parties of Gauls formed up in such open spaces as the market place, but their nerve cracked when they saw the Romans swarming around the walls. Throughout history troops who have stormed a fortified position have often been inclined to run amok once inside. Sieges have always been difficult and dangerous operations, the actual assault even more hazardous, and it was often hard for men who had endured both to switch off once they were inside, especially since in the narrow streets they were no longer under the close gaze of their officers. When a town was stormed it was normal for anyone who showed even the slightest resistance to be killed, while women were raped. This time the mood of the soldiers was more ferocious even than was usual on such occasions. Caesar says that the legionaries: ‘Remembering the massacre at Cenabum and the labours of the siege, did not spare the elderly, the women and the infants. In the end from the whole number, about 40,000 people, little more than 800 who had fled the town at the first shout escaped to join Vercingetorix.’17
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