Alesia

Alesia was the capital of the Mandubii, one of the Gallic tribes allied with the Aedui. The Celtic oppidum was conquered by Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars and afterwards became a Gallo-Roman town. Modern understanding of its location was controversial for a long time; however, it is now thought to have been located on Mont-Auxois, near Alise-Sainte-Reine in Burgundy, France.

The country of Keltikē was ruled by a renowned king whose daughter was unusually tall and was more beautiful than all other maidens, due to which she considered every man who asked her hand in marriage as unworthy of her and rejected them. "Hēraklēs", during his struggle against "Gēryōn", visited Keltikē and founded the city of Alesia there. The king's daughter was impressed by his physical excellence and had a son with him named Galatēs, who was more righteous and powerful than all the youths of his tribe. When Galatēs had reached adulthood, he became king and a great warrior, and he conquered much of the areas surrounding his tribe's territory. Due to the bravery of Galatēs, he called his subjects Galatai (that is, Gauls) after himself, and they in turn gave their name to Galatia (that is Gaul).

Alesia is best known for being the site of the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC that marked the defeat of the Gauls under Vercingetorix by the Romans under Julius Caesar. Caesar described the battle in detail in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Book VII, 69–90). The battle's outcome determined the fate of all of Gaul: in winning the battle, the Romans won both the Gallic Wars and dominion over Gaul.

The enormous measures taken during the battle were impressive: in only six weeks, Caesar's troops built a ring of fortifications 15 km (9.3 mi) long (circumvallation) around Alesia and an additional ring 21 km (13 mi) long (contravallation) around that to stop reinforcements (around 250,000 men according to Caesar) from reaching the Gauls.

After being conquered by Caesar, Alesia became a Gallo-Roman town. It featured a town centre with monumental buildings such as temples and a forum. There was also a theatre.

For a long time after the abandonment of the Roman town, the location of Alesia and thus the site of the important battle was unknown and subject to speculation.

Text adapted from “Alesia (city)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Alesia ranks #182 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #24 of the 456 mapped in France. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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