Vercassivellaunus

Vercassivellaunus commanded the Gallic relief force at Alesia in 52 BC and came closer than anyone to breaking Caesar's army. He was an Arvernian noble and a cousin of Vercingetorix, who had been trapped in the hill fort of Alesia with about eighty thousand men after a failed cavalry action. Caesar's response was to build two complete lines of fortification: an inner ring of some eleven miles facing the town, and an outer ring of fourteen facing outward, with towers, ditches, stakes, pits and iron caltrops — a circumvallation and a contravallation, so that his army besieged and was besieged simultaneously. The Gallic confederacy raised a relief army that Caesar puts at a quarter of a million, a figure nobody believes. The relief commanders identified the weak point by reconnaissance: a camp on the north-west slope of Mons Rea where the ground did not permit the line to be closed properly, held by two legions. Vercassivellaunus was given sixty thousand picked men and led them there by a concealed night march. He attacked at noon on the third day, in coordination with a sortie from the town, and his men filled the ditches and pulled down the rampart with hooks. Caesar committed his last reserves, was seen personally in his red cloak, and finally led a cavalry force out and round behind the attackers. Vercassivellaunus was captured. Vercingetorix surrendered the next day. Gaul was conquered, and the campaign is the one Caesar wrote up most carefully. Vercingetorix was held for six years and strangled after Caesar's triumph in 46 BC.

• Lived: 80 BCE – 45 BCE
• Nationality: Gallic
• Roles: general, military