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A Good Old Fashioned

Roman Thanksgiving

By Philip Katz, author of Imperator

Copyright 2010

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September, 52 BC

Alesia, Gaul (Modern-day Alise-Sainte-Reine, France)

Forty thousand fit Roman veterans were a long way from home. Over the nine years of JuliusCaesars Governorship of Romes Gallic province, in modern day southern France, he and his

men had been drawn into the internal politics of the autonomous regions of Gaul, Britain and the

German frontier.

Caesar had first been drawn into the affairs of Further Gaul, as the vast collection of autonomous

tribes that populated Western Europe was known, at the behest of the Gallic nation of the Aedui.

The Aedui were Friend and Ally of the Roman People by decree by the Senate. Their nation

was located on the northern border of the Roman Gallic Province in Southern France.

Just as Caesar had just assumed his Governorship of The Gallic Province there was a massive

migration of Further Gauls most powerful nation, a peoples known as the Helvetii. Caesar was

still in Rome making preparations to leave the city when he received the news. He made haste

the scene to forestall the Helvetii while he assembled his troops to defend the Aedui from the

ruinous migration of possibly millions of people. Their homeland was in modern day

Switzerland. The Aristocracy of the Helvetii believed that they were too restricted in their

homeland by the Alps and the Rhine River bordering the bellicose German nations to the east.

Caesars account in The Gallic War says:

Among the Helvetii by far the most aristocratic and the richest man was Orgetorix.his desire

to become king led him to start a conspiracy among the aristocracy and he persuaded all the

citizens to leave their land in full force. It would be perfectly simple, he said, to win power over

the whole of Gaul, so superior were they in courage to all the rest. - Caesar

After nine years and countless campaigns in the war to pacify Gaul, Caesar and his men were at

the battle that would mean the end of the Gallic wars.

Caesars legions had laid siege to a hill top fortress by building a wall and ditches around Alesia

to starve the leader of the Gallic army, Vercingetorix and his men into submission. Caesar then

built a wall and ditches as a fortress to protect the legions from a Gallic relief army three times

the size of Caesars army.

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Following a desperate battle in which Caesar and his small army were fighting on two fronts

simultaneously, against an enemy five times their number, the legions emerged victorious. As a

result, the biggest threat to peace, hostile Gallic tribes like the ones that had sacked Rome herself

a mere three hundred years before, had been neutralized for centuries to come.

To publicly recognize this achievement, the Senate voted that there be twenty days of

Thanksgiving to commemorate Caesars and his armys contribution to the Republic. A

Roman Thanksgiving consisted of a cessation of public business for the duration of the holiday,

Feasting and Games! Sound familiar?

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Check out the Imperator fan page!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Philip-Katz-Imperator-Life-of-Caesar/143874958987216

-Philip Katz