• The account of the revolt led by Vercingetorix was only transmitted to us by Roman sources favorable to the victor, according to our partner The Conversation.
  • Caesar himself wrote The Gallic Wars, of which he is both actor and commentator, a biased work in which he does not hesitate to distort the facts.
  • This analysis was conducted by Christian-Georges Schwentzel, professor of ancient history at the University of Lorraine.

The Asterix saga, imagined in the form of a comic strip by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, is now part of the French cinematographic landscape, having inspired five films since 1999. The latest, directed by Guillaume Canet – Asterix and Obelix, the Middle Kingdom – is already a certain success, just a few days after its theatrical release. The opportunity to reflect on the history of Vercingetorix and how it has been told and revisited since antiquity.

In 52 BC. The famous revolt led by Vercingetorix against Caesar broke out in Gaul. The account of the events is transmitted to us only by Roman sources, in Latin or Greek, all favorable to the victor: Caesar himself in The Gallic Wars of which he is both the actor and the commentator; then the historians Plutarch (c. 46-125), Florus (c. 70-140) and Cassius Dio (c. 155-235).

The Gallic Wars is not a history book, as we understand it today, but first and foremost a work of propaganda to the glory of Caesar. It is a biased work in which the author does not hesitate to disguise the facts.

The women of Avaricum and the geese of the Capitol

Thus, in his account of the siege of Avaricum, capital of the people of the Bituriges, today Bourges, Caesar (Gallic War VII, 26) invents a very unbelievable anecdote. The besieged Gallic warriors, feeling that the game is lost, decide to abandon the city, in favor of the night. It is then, says the author, that their wives suddenly leave the houses; They throw themselves at the feet of their spouses and beg them to stay.

As the warriors refused to yield, they began to scream so loudly that they warned the Romans of the plan to flee. The Bituriges then gave up, fearing that the enemy horsemen would cut off their way.

All this is unbelievable: the Romans, outside the walls and hundreds of meters away, could not have heard the cries of the Gauls. As historian Jean-Louis Brunaux points out, Caesar's account is modeled on the famous anecdote of the geese of the Capitol.

A well-known story, thanks to the account given by Livy (Roman History V, 47). Around 390 BC, Gauls, commanded by King Brennus, invaded Italy and sacked Rome. Only Capitol Hill escaped looting. As the Gauls attempt a night assault on the citadel, geese dedicated to the goddess Juno begin to howl, waking the Romans and alerting them to danger.

The similarity with Caesar's account is obvious: thanks to the cries of geese as well as by the women of Avaricum, the Romans escape, each time, a military maneuver by their Gallic enemies.

Vercingetorix delivered to Caesar

The most famous scene of the Gallic Wars is the surrender of Vercingetorix at the end of the siege of Alesia in September 52 BC. However, Caesar's evocation of it is very brief. After convening a final council of war, Vercingetorix announces to his men: "You can dispose of me, kill me or surrender me to the Romans" (Caesar, Gallic Wars VII, 89).

The Gauls decided to hand over their commander after sending emissaries to Caesar. The victor comes to sit on a seat in front of his camp. Then: "the chiefs are brought to him, Vercingetorix is delivered, the arms are thrown away" (eo duces producuntur, Vercingetorix deditur, arma proiciuntur).

The Latin phrase, in three tenses, is punctuated by verbs in the passive that produce an inner rhyme. Vercingetorix is not the actor of his surrender: he is delivered by his own, at the same time as the other leaders of the revolt. This time, Caesar sticks strictly to the facts. It does not embroider to embellish reality.

A romantic surrender

Plutarch (Life of Caesar 27), Florus (Abridgement of Roman History III, 11) and Cassius Dio (Roman History XL, 41) give us another, much more romantic, version of this surrender. According to them, Vercingetorix came of his own accord to go to Caesar.

Let us listen to Florus, "The king himself, the finest ornament of victory, came in supplication to the Roman camp and threw at Caesar's feet the harnesses of his horse and his weapons [...]. " Take them," he said, "you have defeated, you the most valiant of men, a valiant man." »

It is totally unlikely that Vercingetorix arrived alone on horseback and armed. He was probably already chained when he was handed over to the Romans. The face-to-face between the two military leaders, popularized by nineteenth-century painters in imagery repeatedly reproduced in school books, never took place.

But why did you invent this improbable surrender? And why didn't Caesar himself mention it?

Vercingetorix directed by Caesar

Caesar exploits the figure of Vercingetorix whose failure helps to forge the legend of the victor. Without Vercingetorix, Caesar would not be Caesar. Pompey, Caesar's rival, had failed to capture his enemy, Mithridates, king of Pontus, who had committed suicide, thus escaping his conqueror. By contrast, Caesar will be happy to show the Romans the captive Gaul, covered in chains, during the ceremonies of his triumph in Rome, in 46 BC.

It is for this reason that he deliberately highlighted Vercingetorix, making the Gallic leader the most important figure of the Gallic Wars, after himself, of course. An ideal enemy and at its height, or almost. Caesar understood that it was much more rewarding for him to defeat a powerful enemy than a weak opponent with no chance of winning from the start.

But Caesar uses different simultaneous channels of propaganda that do not have the same status. He leaves it to collaborators, who do not sign their compositions with his name, to disseminate the most unlikely anecdotes, so that he himself does not have to accredit them.

The romantic account of the surrender of Vercingetorix falls into this category. Plutarch, Florus and Cassius Dio took it from a work, now lost, composed to the glory of Caesar, and offering a version of the Gallic Wars more attractive than the Caesarian account. The episode helps to strengthen the charismatic figure of Caesar. This is why, according to Florus, Vercingetorix defines himself as a "valiant man", defeated by "the most valiant man".

Brennus defeated

It was again in the story of Brennus that Caesar's advisors were able to find the model that inspired this story. After the failure of his attempted night assault, Brennus finally negotiated the lifting of the siege of the Capitol with the Roman military tribune Quintus Sulpicius. He will withdraw in exchange for a thousand pounds of gold. The Romans accepted the deal. While they bring the precious metal to weigh it, Brennus throws his sword into the scales, demanding its weight in gold, in addition to the amount previously negotiated. He then launches his famous "Woe to the vanquished!" (Vae Victis!).

The account of the surrender of Vercingetorix could refer to this famous episode of which it provides an image turned in a positive direction for the Romans. Vercingetorix, like Brennus, throws away his weapon, but he is in a position of defeat. We have, in both cases, a confrontation between Romans and Gauls, an attempt at negotiation that fails and a comparable conclusion: woe to the vanquished! Caesar will not pardon Vercingetorix.

The narrative scheme is the same, but in an inverse sense, to allow the victor of the Gallic Wars to imply that he has overcome a new Brennus. A beautiful revenge for the Romans once humiliated by the Gauls!

Vercingetorix "barbaric"

Caesar had many coins minted which served him as much to pay his men as to spread his propaganda. On the obverse of a denarius, issued in 48 BC, appears the caricatured face of a Gaul in which we can recognize Vercingetorix, dressed as a shaggy Barbarian. It was in this accoutrement that the vanquished were paraded in the streets of Rome, during the triumph of Caesar.

The real Vercingetorix was perfectly shaved, like the Romans of the time, as shown by its own coins. Its profile is very different from that of the Roman denarius. An eminent member of the elite of the Arvern people, Vercingetorix found himself, after his defeat, assigned by Caesar to the appearance of the Gaul caricatured according to the imagination of the Romans. Caesar wanted a true barbarian as a fool, not a Romanized Gaul.

A fake horned helmet?

On the reverse of another denarius, Caesar had a trophy made up of traditional Gallic weapons depicted, including an impressive helmet that seems to have horns, unless they are cheek guards raised upwards.

Either way, the intention to make the enemy terrifying is obvious. It can even be assumed that if Caesar's trophies were topped with these helmets, it was because Caesar himself had them made. Scary fake headgear to highlight Caesar as the hero and savior of civilization.

OUR "PROPAGANDA" DOSSIER

More than 2000,2003 years after Julius Caesar, US President George W. Bush and his administration invented Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. A lie that served as a pretext for the US invasion of Iraq in <>.

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