Posted on 11/18/2018 9:49:28 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Battle of Alesia took place in September, 52 BC around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia, a major town centre and hill fort of the Mandubii tribe... To guarantee a perfect blockade, Caesar ordered the construction of an encircling set of fortifications, called a circumvallation, around Alesia. The details are known from Caesar's Commentaries. About 18 kilometres of 4 metre high fortifications were constructed in about three weeks (Wikipedia). This line was followed inwards by two four-and-a-half metre wide ditches, also four-and-a-half metres deep. The farthest from the fortification was filled with water from the surrounding rivers. These fortifications were supplemented with mantraps and deep holes in front of the ditches, and regularly spaced watch towers equipped with Roman artillery. Vercingetorix's cavalry often raided the construction works attempting to prevent full enclosure. Caesar ordered the construction of a second line of fortifications, the contravallation, facing outward and encircling his army between it and the first set of walls. The second line was identical to the first in design and extended for 21 kilometres (Wikipedia)... V-cross-section ditches more than a meter or so deep have long been recognized as especially defensive. Their surface width, depth, steep sides, and narrow bottoms make them difficult for attackers to negotiate. This was well recognized by the Romans... When Julius Caesar's army built siege fortifications (a contravallation) in A.D. 52 surrounding the Gallic hillfort of Alesia, the Romans dug two 2.4-2.7-m deep ditches in front of their curtain wall. The innermost (i.e., closest to Gallic Alesia), a water-filled moat, was trapezoidal in section, while the dry ditch just below the Roman palisade was V-sectioned (Keppie, 1989, pp. 181-183).
(Excerpt) Read more at thecivilengineer.org ...
It wasn't Napoleon, it was Napoleon the 3rd; and there has been discussion over the years, different proposed sites, I just didn't turn any of those proposals up using the search, and am pleased that anyone's interested, regardless.
wikipedia for the official site and wikipedia for Chaux-des-Crotenay, BBC article for Chaux-des-Crotenay, image search
;^)
104!
;^)
The gubmint of France has an official location of the site, so if the site is found to be somewhere else, they've got an embarrassing huge-ass statue in the wrong place and on their hands. Something similar happened in Germany, a big statue commemorating the Varian disaster was built in the 19th century, and it's about sixty miles from the actual location of the battle.
I hate using a phone keyboard.
MASADA.
Why did the celts hole up in place called Alesia? It was the most prominent place in the druid’s sacred geometry. In fact most of the places where the celts battled the romans were important places in their sacred geometry. The geometry didn’t help their cause.
The celts were much more of a civilization than Caesar gave them credit for. After all, traveled quickly through gaul on their roads.
There’s a book out now by Graham Robb called “The discovery of middle earth” which does a good job of telling the celts story. apparently they were a mixture of an older people in the land and some new arrivals carrying greek mythology science and culture about 600 BC.
The Romans were grossed out by the Celts human sacrifice practices and they were appalled by Caesar extermination of much of the celtic population in Gaul.
I understood the history. Less so the geometry.
Interesting how some historical places, even relatively recent, can be lost to time. It reminds me that no one is quite sure where the Rubicon was when Caesar crossed it.
Not only that, I don't think the Rubicon even exists now, the wikipedia page has a quite extensive discussion about it, but a quick online search turns up more. Basically, though, the law about crossing the Rubicon under arms was apparently never enforced, against Caesar or anyone else, and throughout the imperial period the Praetorian Guard -- a full legion that was at least supposed to be the bodyguards of the Emperor as well as the local gendermes for Rome -- were stationed right in the city, fully armed. The law was probably not ancient, and very likely wasn't even a law, just more of a guideline or tradition.
Hey, be glad that the spell check didn’t change it to “Macaca”. ;^)
Celtic roads were indifferently improved "turkey trails" that connected villages with the most convenient fords of streams; mostly they resembled the grassy lanes familiar to those of us who grew up on or near rural farmland (even the fords would be familiar), and the most maintenance they received was the continual traffic. The English tradition of "the old straight track" grew, for the most part, out of the continued use of Roman roads, which did indeed, sometimes, get built over one or more existing tracks, here and there.
The Romans introduced bridgebuilding to Britain, so they weren't concerned about the best location to ford a river or stream. By the Middle Ages the locals had quarried the Roman bridges (probably mostly in poor repair by then) out of existence, and created the "birdfoot" -- as the road started down the slopes toward the river or stream, switchbacks were used to keep the carts of the time from rolling out of control, and to reach whatever ford or crossing had come into use.
By Caesar's account, he and his army killed perhaps a million Gauls (a figure that is probably too high, but the economic disruption of the Gallic Wars may have led to that many deaths through loss of breadwinners, famine, and introduced diseases), and enslaved perhaps a further million. The Romans are, and the Roman era in Europe is, fascinating and inspirational in many ways, but the brutality of their slave-based economy grosses me out.
Graham Robb should be regarded as an entertaining speculative writer, and not much else, imho.
Greatest battle involving a siege in history
He never did anything by half -- most effective siege, ever, by anyone -- and I'm even counting the Assyrian sieges, which were ruthless, but they were also over with fairly quickly, ancient shock and awe. A common phrase in the Assyrian kings' description is, "I burned with fire".
Of course, the Roman siege (70 AD) of Jerusalem was somewhat similar -- the Romans built a barrier around the Old City, meanwhile one Jewish faction controlled the Temple, another controlled another area. And Masada -- although that's difficult to call a siege per se, as the terrain made the place naturally isolated on all sides but one.
Well, and Vespasian (same era as the siege of Jerusalem) made his name using Roman artillery and standard infantry tactics to reduce British hill forts, one after the other, in a single season of warfare -- again, ancient shock and awe.
Well, the Rubicon meets the sea, perhaps in a different spot today, but this is how it now looks:
https://www.hotelfantini.it/gatteo-mare_it.php
Hail Caesar! Party time!
Is that 23 daggers in your toga, or are you just happy to see us?
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