Vercingetorix

Part 1.

        Vercingetorix stormed across the fertile plains of Gaul with vengeance in his heart and conquest at his feet. 100, 000 men ride at his heels, two prime Roman cities demolished in his wake. They sought to enter Italy, the “land of gold."

 But Caesars legions had halted them. They were only half the size of his force, but Vercingetorix knew not to face Romans in a fixed battle. So he rode for Alesia. A strong fort that sat atop a flattened hill. Almost impenetrable, the sieging Romans would crash upon its walls wave after wave only to die in the thousands. Or at least, that’s what he hoped.

He arrived with his army at sundown. The fort stood just as he remembered it from almost twenty years ago, when he had lived through a siege as a child. He remembered his mother’s franticness. Her paranoia that if the city fell her children would be slaughtered or worse. She stood over him and his sibling with a small vial that Vercingetorix now knew had been poison.

As they approached they were met with a crowd of mixed emotions. Some cheered for them. “Our champion!” They yelled. “Savior of Gaul!” they proclaimed. “You’ll have Caesars head on a stick come tomorrow!”

But others; the adults, the elders, saw through this. They had been through previous sieges. They had been through the overcrowded homes, the starvation, and the stench of death that filled the city. 100, 000 men had just entered an already populated city, and 50, 000 more were coming to lock them in. They knew Vercingetorix wasn’t their savior, he was their hell.  And they cursed him for choosing their home.

.                               .                               .                               .                               .

Gaius Julius Caesar sat in a camp with his generals 100 miles away staring at a map of Alesia.

His most trusted officer, Fillenius Crassus Alexander Trajan, was waving his finger around different points of the cities walls, elaborating on its weak points and the best vicinities of assault.

                Another officer, Lucius Artorius Castus, shadowed Trajan with similar recommendations and slightly altered siege tactics. In total seven high ranking Roman officers surrounded the oversized map of Alesia. Each stood back patiently waiting for a moment to shower Caesar with their esteemed military prowess. To have a contingency picked by one of the Triumvirate could bring very healthy opportunities. For that Triumvirate to be Julius himself, guaranteed them.  

                Caesar,however, seemed not to be showing the same interest in his soldiers’ strategies as they themselves. He sat quietly in his hastily crafted wooden chair with not much of an expression on his face at all. Not that any of the officers noticed.

In fact, Titus Avidius Cassius was still in the middle of proposing that they continuously launch all of their men’s excrement’s over the walls until the Gaul’s were forced to evacuate the city when Caesar raised his hand.

At this, all of the men silenced and turned to him, knowing he had made his decision. A decision that disregarded the cost of lives would become set the same as stone. It was not what his officer’s had hoped it to be.

“We cannot siege this city.”

It took a moment for the men to react. For almost a full thirty seconds the most powerful men in Rome, and by extension the world, sat dumbstruck.

“But, sire…” spoke Titus. “…we must. They have destroyed two of our cities. The consul’s….”

“Forget the Consuls!” came Lucius, much less hesitantly. “What about us. Our names will be tarnished. Who can follow men who would run from a wall?”