Julius Caesar spent two full years preoccupied with an expedition of Britain.
While this was happening, the political situation back in Gaul was in a state of flux.
Leaders from rival Gallic tribes were holding secret meetings behind Caesar's back.
At these meetings, they openly complained about the Roman presence in Gaul, and expressed
concern that it was all just a prelude to full blown annexation.
Over time, a consensus emerged.
Gallic independence was non-negotiable.
From now on, the leaders agreed to secretly coordinate when dealing with the Romans.
A conspiracy was born.
But Caesar didn't know any of this.
Before the snows came, he divided up his eight legions and sent them to winter with different
tribes all over Gaul.
One group of 15 cohorts, which was one and a half legions, went to Belgae territory,
near the Rhine river.
At full strength these 15 cohorts would have been equivalent to like 7,000 soldiers, but
after years of campaigning it was more like 5,000.
These cohorts were under the joint command of two legates, named Sabinus and Cotta.
The cohorts arrived in the region and built their camp, settling in for the winter.
Only a few days later, some soldiers were attacked by the locals while they were out
gathering wood.
The camp quickly mobilized and chased the attackers off.
This incident was relatively minor, but it took everybody by surprise, and the Romans
didn't quite know what to make of it.
Then, a Gaul approached the Roman camp.
He said that Ambiorix, the leader of the local Gallic tribe, wished to speak with the Romans.
Intrigued, Sabinus and Cotta sent a delegation to go and find out what he had to say.
When the Romans met with Ambiorix, he put all his cards on the table.
He told them that the Gauls were secretly conspiring against the Romans.
He said that he had been pressured by other Gallic tribes into participating in a coordinated
attack.
He said that although honour demanded that he stay true to his word and carry out an
attack, he had made sure that it was small, and symbolic.
Ambiorix continued: any day now, other Gallic tribes were going to rise up and attack a
Roman legion stationed nearby.
If Sabinus and Cotta wanted to march to this legion's aid, Ambiorix could guarantee safe
passage through his territory.
Let's just pause here, and just take a breath.
This story is bananas.
These Gauls kill a few Romans, and then claim to be loyal, and then claim that the other
Roman legions are in danger, and then offer to help?
Talk about whiplash.
The delegation returned to the Roman camp, and told Sabinus and Cotta what they had heard.
The legates were understandably stunned and confused.
They decided to invite a handful of high ranking centurions to a meeting, to discuss their
next move.
The majority of the centurions argued that they shouldn't consider abandoning the camp
until first consulting with Caesar.
These men had risen through the ranks under Caesar's leadership, and many were die-hard
loyalists.
Furthermore, they argued, why were they trusting the Gauls?
Sabinus responded.
To his mind, he said, there were two possible scenarios.
If the story was true, then they should move with haste to assist the nearest Roman legion
while there was still time.
If the story was false, that would become clear once they reached the nearest Roman
camp.
In that case they could just turn around and come back, no big deal.
The other legate, Cotta, disagreed, and sided with the centurions, arguing that their first
duty was to fulfil Caesar's orders, and Caesar's orders had been to build a camp and stay there
for the winter.
Imagination wasn't exactly one of Cotta's strong suits.
This set Sabinus off.
He raised his voice so that nearby soldiers could hear.
If they insisted on staying in camp, he said, and some disaster befell the nearest legion,
they would all have blood on their hands.
Sabinus's outburst shamed everybody into an awkward silence.
Cotta relented, and the rest of the centurions followed suit.
They agreed to break camp at first light, and march to the aid of the nearest Roman
legion.
The next day, all 15 cohorts marched off.
One of the first things they had to do was pass through a small valley.
As they were midway through, Ambiorix appeared, with an army of Gauls.
The whole thing had been a trick to get the Romans to leave their camp.
The Gauls blocked the Romans in by cutting off both ends of the valley.
Then, more Gauls appeared on the hills.
They started hitting the Romans with projectiles.
Cotta immediately started issuing orders, and had some nearby soldiers charge straight
up the hill.
It didn't go very well.
When the Gauls saw them coming they started hitting them with javelins and arrows, and
after some time, the Romans had to pull back.
While this was going on, Sabinus was at the front of the column issuing orders that contradicted
what Cotta was trying to do.
It's hard to tell exactly what was going on here, but it looks like Sabinus was trying
to keep pushing foward, while Cotta wanted to turn and fight.
After a time, Sabinus's push at the front of the column fell apart under some heavy
fighting, and they were totally overrun by Gauls.
Sabinus formally surrendered to Ambiorix.
He was executed on the spot.
Cotta had no idea that Sabinus had surrendered, and continued to organize a defence near the
centre of the column.
The Gauls slowly closed in, and Cotta eventually died in combat.
All 15 cohorts, consisting of at least 5,000 soldiers, were killed on that day.
It's worth saying that the ancient sources treat Sabinus like a bumbling villain, which
in my opinion isn't fair.
When something like this happens it's easy to find a scapegoat, but we should all remember
that Sabinus was the only person with a proactive plan to deal with the revolt.
Nine times out of ten, this kind of thing would be celebrated.
But nevertheless, this time it ended in disaster, and for the moment, nobody knew that it happened.
Not very far away there was another legion, under the command of a legate named Quintus
Tullius Cicero.
This was the younger brother of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the politician we all know and love,
who was still down in Rome.
Imagine Quintus's surprise when, without warning, Ambiorix's army showed up and besieged his
camp.
Ambiorix informed Quintus that his two colleagues were dead, and their 15 cohorts had been destroyed.
He asked Quintus to surrender.
To Quintus, this was a shocking revelation.
They needed to get a message to Caesar, immediately.
Quintus sent a rider on horseback, but they were captured before they could slip through
the Gallic line.
The Romans watched from their camp as the Gauls tortured their man to death.
Ambiorix ordered the Gauls to attack, but the Romans fended them off.
Barely.
When the sun fell, a big portion of the Roman garrison had to remain on duty repairing the
walls and repelling nighttime raids.
Quintus refused to sleep.
The next day, the same thing happened.
Quintus sent out another rider, who, again, was captured and tortured to death.
There was another attack, and again, the Romans repulsed it.
Then the same thing happened the next day.
And the next day.
Quintus was very hands on with the defence, and his men eventually had to stage an intervention
just to get him to sleep.
After more than a week of this, a messenger disguised in Gallic clothing managed to sneak
through the siege without being detected.
Now, all he had to do was find Caesar.
Luckily, Caesar was still in Gaul getting ready to head south for the winter.
It didn't take long for the messenger to reach him.
Quintus's letter informed Caesar that Sabinus and Cotta's 15 cohorts had been annihilated,
and that Quintus himself was now besieged by a Gallic army.
Caesar was stunned.
As far as he was concerned, this was the worst case scenario.
Everything that he had spent years working for was beginning to unravel.
He wasted no time.
Ignoring the snow, he immediately grabbed the nearest legion and marched off.
He also sent messages to two other legions, instructing them to meet up with him on the
march if at all possible.
One legion answered the call, but the other, lead by his right hand man Labienus, wrote
back saying that there was another Gallic army mobilizing near his location.
This was probably Caesar's first indication that the revolt was bigger than any one tribe.
Caesar, in command of only two legions, marched as fast as he could to Quintus's aid.
Back behind the Gallic siege, Quintus's men were in rough shape.
The entire garrison was running on minimal sleep, and had to rebuff Gallic raids on a
daily basis.
Virtually every soldier had sustained some kind of injury.
One day, one of the soldiers looked up and noticed a funny looking javelin sticking out
of a Roman defensive tower.
He brought the javelin down to have a look at it.
It had a note attached to it.
He unrolled the note.
It was written in Greek.
The soldier took the note to Quintus, who was able to decipher it.
The note simply read: Caesar is on his way.
Stay strong.
Finally, some good news.
A few days later, they could see smoke rising in the distance.
Caesar was close, and his legions were setting fire to Gallic villages.
Now, my first thought when I read this was that this was a mistake on Caesar's part,
since the Gauls now knew that he was coming.
But now I'm not so sure, because Ambiorix's reaction was to immediately break the siege,
and march off to meet this new threat.
I'm not sure, but that might have been the plan.
As soon as the coast was clear, Quintus sent a rider to Caesar, informing him that the
Gauls were on their way.
Some time later, Caesar came upon the Gallic army.
They were hunkered down on a hill, with a small stream in front of them.
This was a very strong defensive position.
On the first day, each side sent its cavalry forward to skirmish, but that was it.
Caesar had no interest in attacking a larger army from a weaker position, but he also didn't
really bring any food with him.
This had to be resolved quickly.
On the second day, Caesar sent his cavalry forward again, but this time he told them
to retreat when the Gauls charged.
That's exactly what happened.
The Roman horse fell back all the way back to the Roman camp, with the Gauls hot on their
heels.
When the Gauls got close, they could see Roman soldiers abandoning the walls.
They sent word to Ambiorix that the Romans might be on the verge of breaking, and in
response, Ambiorix ordered his army forward, across the stream.
Actually, the Romans were fine.
They were huddled behind their walls, waiting.
The whole thing had been a trick.
When the Gauls got close they encircled the Roman camp, and offered terms of surrender.
The Romans responded by bursting through the gates in all four directions, taking the enemy
completely by surprise.
The Roman infantry charged, but many Gauls simply broke formation and fled.
Those that held their ground were easily defeated.
Caesar just let the rest of the Gauls escape.
Now that the siege had been lifted, there was no reason to act recklessly.
When news of Caesar's victory spread, the other Gallic army pestering Labienus faded
away.
Historians are kind of split on how to evaluate Quintus's leadership during this siege.
Some say that the only reason Quintus had the job in the first place was because of
his famous older brother, and that the whole incident was the story of a political appointee
in way over his head.
According to this argument, Caesar could not openly criticize Quintus, because doing so
would alienate his older brother.
Others say that Quintus was a mediocre soldier and a mediocre politician who really distinguished
himself during a crisis.
I guess I'm kind of in this camp.
When I read Caesar's account of this whole thing, I see somebody pleasantly surprised
by Quintus's conduct.
Once the dust had settled, Quintus wrote a letter to his brother back in Rome, telling
him all about the siege and his near-death experience.
The elder Cicero wrote back, telling his brother to stop whining.
In light of recent events, Caesar decided to stay in Gaul for the winter.
There was lots to do.
First, he needed soldiers.
He'd lost 1 of his 8 legions, and there might be more losses coming.
He wrote to Pompey in Rome, who, as a favour, agreed to loan him 2 legions from Hyspania.
He also started the recruitment process for a new legion in Cisalpine Gaul, which, once
completed, would bring his grand total up to 10.
At full strength would have been around 50,000 men.
Second, the revolt had done some damage to Caesar's prestige, and he needed to reassert
himself.
I won't bore you with the details, but Caesar spent the winter going from tribe to tribe
demanding hostages, and attacking Gauls that had shown disloyalty.
When the snows melted, he ruthlessly attacked Ambiorix's tribe on three separate occasions,
enslaving civilians and burning down villages.
He also crossed the Rhine, chasing down rumours that the Germans had supported the revolt.
Nothing really came of this, he just marched around for a while and then came back.
For the entire summer that followed, it was kinda like that.
Lots of marching around, lots of busyness, but nothing really changed.
As winter approached, Caesar returned to Roman territory for the first time in almost two
years.
Everything had nearly fallen apart, but after a full year of hard work, he was finally convinced
that Gaul had been stabilized.
But he was wrong.
The conspiracy was alive and well.
The Gauls were just waiting for their moment to strike.