Original subtitles

2 ,000 years ago, this small plateau in a rural corner of France was the front

line between two very different cultures.

They ordered civilising presence of the Roman Empire, facing

off against an ancient Iron Age tribal people, the Celts.

In Britain we're never far from our Celtic past.

The Celts seem to belong to a shadowy, wilder, more primal time than anything

more recent history.

But much about their origins, beliefs and ultimate fate remains a mystery.

But a story etched in vivid colour.

is how these powerful tribal people battled for survival against their

archenemy, the Roman Empire.

From the first Celtic raiding parties that rampaged through ancient Italy to

Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul and the Celts' last stand under the warrior

queen, Boudicca.

One of the greatest cultural conflicts that still defines our world today.

and reveals Europe's most enigmatic ancient people.

By the 4th century BC, the Celts were at the peak of their military and cultural

powers.

They were establishing themselves far beyond their homeland, aggressive in

pursuit of new territory.

In 387 BC, they burned the city of Rome to the ground.

This marked a new era for the Celts.

when conflict and war became a means of gaining social status.

An era when the warrior was king.

But the Celts weren't alone as a military force.

After the destruction of Rome, the city had been rebuilt, and the Romans were

flexing their muscle right across the Mediterranean world, forging a new

It would become the model for all empires to come.

But the Roman army had yet to conquer the Celtic heartlands of central and

western Europe.

And the Celts presented a formidable obstacle to Rome's expansionist plans.

What was at stake was the future of Europe and the civilisation that would

it. On the one hand... Centralised modern Rome. On the other, an Iron Age

culture that had its roots deep in prehistory.

Two vast armies and a brutal conflict fought between two of the age's greatest

generals.

The Celts' new era will forever be associated with a tiny village that lies

the shores of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland.

It's now perhaps the most famous name in Celtic history.

La Tène.

Those are words writ large in every book about the Celts.

For many archaeologists, they're a kind of shorthand for that period when the

Celts were at the peak of their power.

and of their artistic achievement.

There are objects, artefacts of La Tène culture scattered across Europe, from

Britain to the Balkans.

It was their golden hour.

This golden age is epitomised by intricate Celtic art and craftsmanship.

It's this art that has come to be seen as quintessentially Celtic.

But beneath that romance and beauty, there appears to be a much darker

underbelly to Celtic culture.

Savage customs and bloody brutality.

In 1857, archaeologists excavating an ancient riverbed on the shores of Lake

Neuchatel discovered the remains of an Iron Age wooden bridge.

Surrounding the structure they found an enormous hoard of Celtic artefacts,

including swords, scabbards and spearheads.

In total, over 3 ,000 objects, all beautifully preserved in the mud.

What they'd stumbled upon is believed by some archaeologists to have been a

wooden platform used by Celtic warriors.

are the sacrificial altar to their gods one where the victims of bloody conflict

might have been richly displayed

the fines from the lake

are now held in the latinium museum under the watchful eye of mark antoine

what do you think happened here at latin why

Do we have this huge collection of material here?

Well, I think first, La Tène is an important place, a passage place, with

or these bridges on the water, on the river.

And probably after a big battle, the people put all those weapons

and other kinds of objects.

in display as a show commemorating the battle.

So these were obviously kinds of offerings, offerings to the gods, and it

discovered 2 ,000 years later.

In addition to all the weaponry, we have, you see this human skull.

Yeah. And you see the marks on the forehead.

Slices. Is that from a sword?

Yeah. But the main interesting thing is that these are not marks of wounds which

you went... have received it into battle.

So we think these are marks of sacrifice.

Ah, so a trophy. Exactly.

We have many skulls of horses like this one. If you look at the inside here, you

see that the palate has been smashed through. And you see here

the small hole.

from the point of something a spear or yeah another spear a pike so the horse's

head was on display like that on a pike right so you've got the possibly the

whole bodies of dead men or their heads and then accompanied by horses heads as

well it's a very grisly tableau It's not just a spectacular

display of beautiful weapons, it's also the bloodied and ultimately rotten

corpses.

It's almost, well, it is theatrical.

La Tène exposed a culture where war was a way of life and where the tools of

battle, beautifully crafted weapons, became a means of displaying a warrior's

status.

When you handle and look at these objects, what are the details that leap

you and say this is something special, this is not just a tool?

Well, if you take a look at the objects, and especially here, when you see the

surface here, the treatment of the surface, which is quite particular, and

you have the decor, the figures which you see here.

Every object.

Every thought is unique.

And this was different then, to see weapons, but weapons that were also

art. Since it's a way of life, you have to show all the art, all the beauty

which you invest into your warlike occupation.

So as well as being a tool of his trade, it shows his status and the fact that

the way in which he makes his living is...

It's almost an art.

Yeah.

The finds at La Tène revealed a very different Celtic world, one that was

aggressive and warlike.

It was also a world of stark contrasts in which beauty and creativity

were entwined with cruelty and extreme violence.

This double edge of beauty and beast is epitomised by one extraordinary and

apparently sacred object, the Gundestrup Cauldron.

Beaten into the silver are images of Celtic gods, strange beasts and rituals.

But even this exquisite object points to a preoccupation with war.

Warriors are depicted being dipped into what some believe to be sacred liquid to

improve their military rank in the afterlife.

It's thought the cauldron was used ceremonially at feasts where soldiers

drink from it before battle in the belief that it bestowed immortality.

Although the silver work is rich in their imagery, it was not the work of

but probably crafted by a people known as the Thracians and believed to be a

gift of friendship to their neighbours, the Celts.

The cauldron was made not in the traditional Celtic heartland of central

but over a thousand miles further east, in the Balkans.

So, as well as embodying the beauty and violence of La Tène culture, the

cauldron shows a civilisation seeking power and land.

more forcefully than ever before.

Where they had previously negotiated through trade, Celtic warriors and their

raiding parties now seized slaves and luxury goods with the blade of a sword.

And by the early 3rd century BC, Celts could be found as far south as Delphi in

Greece.

Their skill and bravery on the battlefield were legendary.

As a result, they became hired guns, willing to kill for whoever was willing

pay.

This was the La Tène kelt in full flow.

We think of the Celts as European people, traditionally originating in

Europe during the Iron Age, but with new theories suggesting that they might

have originated much earlier in Western Europe.

But by the 3rd century BC, we know that they were here, in what is now

Turkey.

Alexander the Great once ruled these lands.

But when he died in 323 BC...

his empire started to crumble leaving a power vacuum celtic

raiding parties crossed from europe into this part of asia and they came to the

heart of turkey just south of modern -day ankara this was once galatia

and its capital was gordian this is what i'm interested in

that's Flat -topped hill over there, that is the remains of ancient Gordion,

the city that's famous for Alexander the Great having come and cut the Gordion

not there.

But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because the Celts also settled in

And we know this from the Roman historian Livy.

Gareth Derbyshire is an archaeologist who has been working at Gordion since

1998.

So, Gareth, when did the Celts arrive here in Gordion?

Well, we don't know precisely when, but it would have been sometime in the mid

to later 3rd century BC.

And what were they doing here?

Well, we know that from written sources that they were serving as mercenaries in

various Hellenistic period armies.

They were probably also looking for land for settlement, either taken by force

or the same kind of thing through diplomatic negotiations.

So they were given free reign to come here and settle and then to raid around

Asia Minor? That's the picture we get.

What kind of evidence are you finding of their material culture?

We're finding items that are new to this region and which are comparable in

various ways with areas further west in Celtic Europe. For example, in the lower

town, very dramatically, we're finding human and animal remains mixed together

with signs of violence, broken necks, beheadings, etc., which again, you know,

they're attested in various forms in areas to the west, areas that are known

have been Celtic speaking.

Classical historians associated the Celts with violent death rituals, and at

Gordion, archaeologists think they found evidence of gruesome, possibly Celtic,

practices.

The skeletons here are some of the human remains from the site at Gordion, but

they're a bit odd. This woman is about 30 to 45 years old. If we look at the

back of the skull here, the side of the skull, you can see...

this depression so that is a blunt injury she's been struck on the head

and we can imagine that this probably was the cause of death so somebody who

died a violent death

and her body was

placed on top of that of a younger woman she was laid out like this i've got the

the actual photograph of the

the excavation back in the 90s but rather strangely she's got these two

stones buried just on top of her now the roman authors tell us about all

sorts of what seemed to us very bizarre and even gruesome rituals that the celts

indulged in human sacrifice decapitation and some experts have suggested that

we've got something like this happening at gordian There's certainly evidence of

strange rituals. I mean, just look at this.

And there's evidence of violent death.

But when it comes to decapitation and human sacrifice, I'm not sure.

Some of the bones at Gordian were found alongside animal bones, possibly as part

of the burial ritual.

Archaeologists have come across similar practices as far afield as Yorkshire,

and northern france celtic graves have been discovered containing

bones of pigs and horses mixed with human remains and sometimes entire

chariots perhaps providing the deceased with transport into the afterlife

death

rituals played a central part in celtic civilization

But these ancient people were now being confronted by a very different power.

A structured, ordered culture with a conflicting idea of what civilization

meant.

Galatia represents the easternmost extent of the Celtic world. But by the

century BC, the Celts here were coming under pressure from the expanding Roman

Empire. And we learned from Livy that in 189 BC, a Roman army came to attack

Gordion and ended up fighting the Galatians in the mountains.

And within a century, Galatia would be subsumed into the Roman Empire.

Since their defeat at the hands of the Celts in 387 BC, Rome had been rebuilt

and was now the fastest developing power in Europe.

By the middle of the 1st century BC, the Roman Empire dominated the

Mediterranean region from Syria to Spain.

But standing in the way of further expansion to the north and west was the

Celtic heartland.

Southern Gaul had long been under the influence of the classical world.

As long ago as 600 BC, a port had developed on the south coast of France

Massalia, now Marseille.

It became a trading hub for ships importing exotic luxuries from Italy and

Greece.

Celtic tribes were only too happy to barter with their Mediterranean

offering grain, leather and slaves in exchange for Roman wine.

But these two very different worlds of the Celts and Romans were now about to

collide.

The job of subjugating Gaul was assumed by the most famous Roman of all time,

the seasoned general, Gaius Julius Caesar.

Caesar was an inspirational leader.

He was a fighting man.

His cunning and daring had earned him the respect of his men.

He was confident of his own decisions, while at the same time able to take

advice from his centurions.

But he had plenty of enemies back in Rome where he faced allegations of

political corruption.

A stunning victory here in Gaul would enable him to go home a war hero.

But Gaul was a treacherous land populated with warring and infighting

tribes.

Caesar set about crushing those hostile to him while cementing alliances with

others. or accepting of Roman control.

The Roman Empire had forged trading connections with Celtic tribes for some

time.

One tribe in Gaul in particular had had a lucrative formal arrangement with them

for almost a hundred years.

This is Bibract in Burgundy, nearly 200 miles south -east of Paris.

It was once the territorial capital of one of the most powerful Celtic tribes

Gaul, the Aedui.

Bibrak's chief archaeologist is Vincent Guichard.

What was the relationship between the Aedui and the Romans before the

We've got trace of a military treaty between the Aedui and Rome.

And why would the Romans take that step? Why would they sign a document with a

neighbor? The territory of the Edwin, modern -day Burgundy, is just midway

between the Mediterranean and the North Sea. So it's a really key location along

two main rivers, which are the Saône River and the Loire River.

And, of course, the Romans wanted to...

to have this route free for trading and especially for metal ores of any sort,

like tin, for example.

But on the reverse side, what was brought from Italy to Gaul was Italian

It's that traditional model of alcohol, of all things, greasing the wheels of

commerce and bringing people together.

The Gauls were trapped by their taste for Roman wine.

And I suppose it's easier, isn't it, from the Roman point of view, rather

go in and fight.

If you can just softly get involved with the people who have the things that you

want, then it's less effort and less expense.

Yes, make business.

Business can make a lot, and that's what they did, actually.

And yet, with his invasion of Gaul, Caesar effectively tore up the treaty.

His aim was to bring the more troublesome Gallic tribes with their

ritual. under control to assimilate them into the civilized roman empire

by 53 bc five years into his campaign

he believed the job was almost done the savage celt he boasted

had been tamed

But Caesar couldn't have been more wrong. In the early months of 52 BC,

returned to complete his Gallic campaign, he found his progress

young Celtic warrior named Vercingetorix, son of Celtilus, leader

tribe, a man Caesar himself described as having boundless energy and iron

discipline.

The legendary challenge of Vercingetorix has meant that he's been elevated to

French national hero.

And he's celebrated with a 19th century romantic statue.

At only 30 years of age, this warrior king was a brilliant military tactician.

For months, his band of rebels had used guerrilla tactics to provoke and harry

Caesar at every turn.

Vercingetorix persuaded his fellow chiefs that victory depended upon

the supply lines that Caesar needed to keep his men fed and watered.

So they adopted a scorched earth policy.

Every main settlement on Caesar's path of advance was burned to the ground.

Every field of standing crops was cleared. Not a stalk was left standing.

Fersen Getterich reminded his people that if they didn't do as he said, their

fate was inevitable.

Slavery or death.

Two great armies, led by two charismatic leaders, would soon go head to head

in a battle that would shape the future of Europe.

Vercingetorix was a warrior from the Celtic Golden Age of La Tène.

Yet almost everything we know about him comes from the campaign diaries of his

archenemy, Caesar.

But there's one place, 25 miles northeast of Frankfurt, that gives us a

how the Celts themselves depicted their leaders.

We have plenty of images of Julius Caesar, but we don't know what

looked like. The most famous image of him is a 19th -century statue, but it's

more romantic than accurate, I think.

But in 1996, an incredible discovery was made in a field just here

in Glauberg in Germany.

And here it is. Or perhaps I should say he.

The Glauberg warrior.

Isn't that wonderful?

I'm going to get up here.

And get a better look.

I'm looking right into his face.

He's got this...

Astonishing headgear. Some people have suggested that this is a mistletoe leaf.

I'm not sure. It's just an odd -looking helmet.

And round his neck, he's wearing something very Celtic indeed.

He's got this fantastic neck ring.

So this is a talk. These are these neck rings which we know were worn by rich

and powerful people, and we've also got Celtic imagery showing gods wearing

talks as well.

symbols of power and perhaps even offered some kind of protection to their

wearers. This statue dates to about 400 BC, so he is two and

a half thousand years old.

He's a little bit early for Vercingetorix. This statue was carved a

centuries before Vercingetorix was born, but what we're seeing here is this

fantastic representation made by Celts.

of what a Celtic warrior looked like.

The person who carved this knew these warriors.

This statue is one of four that surrounded a burial mound close to the

hill fort.

Inside it lay the body of a real Celtic warrior.

And these are the remains of the person buried underneath that mound.

We can tell quite a bit about this individual from analysis carried out on

bones and the teeth, and in particular looking at his teeth, we can see that

there's some wear on those. You can tell that this is quite a young individual,

perhaps in his 20s when he died.

But really it's what was buried with him that is absolutely astonishing.

This is quite clearly the grave of somebody who was very high status,

essentially Glauberg royalty.

This beautiful piece of jewellery, which is a brooch or a fibula, there's a

fantastical horse -like creature here, perhaps with wings, and then a little

human head with a face looking back at the horse.

This is classic, this playfulness, this...

combination of animals and humans and here is the incredible gold

talk that was lying around the neck of this individual in the grave and you can

see that he's got this plain band around the back of his neck and then here a

lot of detail

And here is the sword of the warrior that lay at his right side.

And then the scabbard is absolutely beautiful.

It's made of bronze, but it has iron overlaying it as well.

And there's even a piece of textile.

Can you see that there?

And you can see the weave of that material, where it's been lying close to

sword, and it's been preserved because it's close to the metal.

And there's something else as well that provides a connection with that statue

outside the grave.

There was the wire frame and even the remnants of some leather of his

And it was the same helmet with those strange projections on each side.

The lavish grave goods buried with this young man,

stunning jewellery and that beautifully decorated sword tell us that he was a

person of extremely high social standing.

And being a warrior was inextricably bound up with that status.

He lived and died at a time when the Celtic world was evolving, and amongst

those changes was the emergence of a new type of leader, the warrior king.

The ritual burial of the Glauberg warrior, complete with lavish grave

part of a rich and ancient culture.

Hundreds of years later, it would fall to Vercingetorix to defend that shared

heritage.

In the spring of 52 BC, leaders of the Celtic tribes convened to agree a

strategy for the survival of Gaul.

Their tactics now required a much larger offensive if they were to defeat the

forces of Rome.

The only option was to overcome tribal rivalries, combine forces and elect

Vercingetorix the supreme commander of the allied army of Gaul.

An arc of resistance formed from the river Seine in the northeast.

to the Garonne in the southwest.

United, Gaul's Celts were now a more formidable force than ever.

52 BC was shaping up to be a decisive year for Rome, for the Celts,

and the entire future of Europe.

By the summer of 52 BC, Vercingetorix and his army of 80 ,000 men and 15 ,000

cavalry were in position on top of a huge Celtic hillfort or opidum called

Alessia in the heart of Gaul.

After a bloody skirmish with the Roman army, Vercingetorix commandeered the

Heartland Fortress, home of the Mandubii tribe.

Caesar had pursued him and was now positioned on the plain below.

But Alessia provided Vercingetorix with an ideal vantage point.

Vercingetorix had every confidence in his decision.

The plateau at the top is fully 400 feet above the plain below.

There are sheer cliffs at one end. By the standards of the day, Alessia was

but impregnable.

While the Celts were here, they would have kept this place clear of trees, so

anyone on the high ground would have had a perfect panorama of the surrounding

low ground.

The hill is further cut off from its surroundings by two gorges, two valleys

running either side, cut by rivers.

Across the gentler slope of Alethia, Vercingetorix ordered his men to dig a

ditch and build a six foot high stone wall.

Now safely inside this apparently impregnable fortress, Vercingetorix must

believed he held the upper hand.

But Caesar saw it as the perfect opportunity for siege warfare, a

tactic of the Roman general, who had many more years of battle experience

his younger opponent.

By surrounding Alessia, he could trap the Celtic rebel army and their Mandubii

supporters inside the stronghold, cutting them off from vital

provisions. He now had Vercingetorix exactly where he wanted him.

The area was cleared.

The trees logged.

Three and a half metre high palisade walls were erected.

and studied with observation watchtowers.

Caesar's plan was for the fortifications to eventually run 11 miles around the

entire plateau.

To protect his army from attack, he also included a deadly system of defences.

Mike Lodes, an expert in ancient military strategy, has been researching

battle tactics.

How did the Romans prepare the ground, Mike?

Well, what we're doing here is we're digging a minefield.

That's what they did. In front of these great earthworks, they dug a really

elaborate minefield with spikes and stakes and ditches and moats and mounds

palisades. It's a good reminder of what an old word minefield is, isn't it? We

think of the explosive, but it's a field that has been mined, that people have

dug. Traps in.

Exactly that.

So what we're digging here is a hole for a stimuli.

One of these.

It's set in a bit of wood to hold it in place, but you've got this iron shank

coming up with that barb. You step on, and if it's hidden, you just do not see

that in the ground. So whether you're a horse or a human foot stamping down on

there, it shoots right through your foot. And see that barb? It will not.

pull out easily.

So they're a terrible, terrible, ugly thing.

It would stimulate you, wouldn't it? If you stood on that, you'd be squealing

like a stuck pig.

Inside this defensive line were moats and ditches that the Celts would first

have to cross.

And after... the water -filled ditches, the booby traps, you run onto this

forest of sharpened stakes.

Yeah, they're very simple. They're called sippy.

They're kind of groin height for a man and chest height for a horse. So men

would come with shields protecting men while they cleared a path through here.

So they'd be slowed.

But slowed is important because up there you've got archers, you've got

slingers, you've got javelin men. Up there you've got ballista.

Catapult, a scorpion, all these great throwing engines. And these guys would

bombarded with missiles.

Another problem, I suppose, for the Celts up there far away on the hilltop

even begin to conceive of the connected scale of what Caesar's got in mind down

here. Absolutely. And that's one of the interesting things about coming to the

place is you see the scale of it.

In the hillfort of Aletheia, Verthan Getarix witnessed Roman progress.

It was clear he needed more troops.

Under cover of night, he released a group of riders to summon help from

Gaul, before Caesar's defences were finished.

On their arrival, the Celtic relief force would attack the Roman army from

behind.

Only days later, the Roman fortifications were completed.

The siege had begun.

And Caesar had already predicted Vercingetorix's next move.

It's all very well digging that to keep Vercingetorix and his men in, but how do

you protect...

You're rear, because you are, after all, outside something in open space.

That's exactly right, and Caesar knew that, and he knew that there were

reinforcements. I mean, by his account, hundreds of thousands of reinforcements

on their way. So what he did, having sealed him in, having contained

Vercingetorix, is he says to his men, build another wall.

Another wall. A bigger, longer wall, all around that first wall, to protect my

flank.

Such a feat of ambition to even think that you could put them both together

you've got something like 35 kilometers of wall done in about five weeks.

To throw up these fortifications so quickly involved almost superhuman

Caesar had contained Vercingetorix's troops within his inner line.

and had now defended his rear against attack from the approaching Celtic

army.

But even Caesar's plan had a flaw.

By sealing himself inside that double line of wall and ditches, Caesar had

effectively caught himself in his own trap.

The would -be besieger was now besieged.

Vercingetorix, also trapped in his hillfort, had to wait for the arrival of

relief force before he could attack.

The question was, would his food and water last?

After weeks of siege with still no sign of the relief force, rations inside

Alessia were running dangerously low, and the morale of Vercingetorix's men

waning.

He was left with no choice but to expel all non -combatants from the hillfort in

the hope that Caesar would let the Mandubii women and children cross the

to safety.

But Caesar showed no mercy.

The refugees pushed out by Vercingetorix and ignored by Caesar were trapped

in no man's land.

Imagine Vercingetorix up on the ramparts of Alesia, looking out and down onto

his own people, starving to death in the valley below him. He was becoming

increasingly determined.

He wasn't just defending a hill fort, but something much more important.

This was a fight between centralised modern Rome and an ancient Iron Age

that had roots stretching deep into prehistory.

What was at stake was an entire way of life that the Celtic tribes had carried

with them.

into the classical age.

For centuries, the Celts had developed and prospered.

They were technologically advanced and respected as warriors.

They had migrated and their ideas had spread right across Europe and beyond.

They'd established trading links with the Mediterranean world of the south.

and with the temperate lands of the north.

Now this great world was under threat.

By October 52 BC, after months of standoff, a vast Celtic army was seen

massing on that string of hills rising in the west.

A quarter of a million men had gathered from every corner of Gaul.

Surely, just the thought of them, far less the sight of them, would have been

enough to make the Romans turn and run.

Vercingetorix had a numbers advantage over Caesar, but he also had a

psychological weapon.

Roman garrison camps were rife with rumours of the grisly fate awaiting

they lost.

To understand what Caesar was up against in Gaul, I've come to northern France,

to an area just a few miles outside of Amiens, which is famous for the Battle

the Somme, and the spectre of that terrible period in history still haunts

woods.

But 2 ,000 years before the First World War, Another mass slaughter took place

here, one that shows us some evidence of particularly gruesome Celtic practices.

In the 1960s, archaeologists excavating near the village of Riedmont -sur -Angre

unearthed the dismembered bones of 200 people.

They believe that the bodies were the result of an intertribal conflict and

their treatment bore the signs of Celtic ritual.

These are just a few of the thousands of bones discovered at this Celtic

sanctuary site at Riedmont, and many of these bones bear evidence of violent

injuries. Here's a pelvis, and you can see here that something, probably

the point of a spear, has made several holes in this bone.

There are other cut marks.

This is a humerus, an arm bone, and here's another blade injury right at the

top, just under the shoulder.

And here's a collarbone, and you can see quite clearly along that where a blade

has come down on that surface, leaving marks on it.

But what is conspicuously missing is any evidence of

heads, of skulls.

And we see the reason for that in the bones themselves.

This is the skeleton of a young man who died in his 20s. And if we come up his

spine here, we get to a point where it stops abruptly.

And if we then look at that vertebra, we can see that it has been cleanly

sliced. A blade has come through the front of his neck and his head was

He was decapitated.

So then we wonder what happened to those heads.

And we might get a clue if we turn to the classical writers.

The Greek writer Strabo, who lived from the 1st century BC into the 1st century

AD, writes, There is among the Celts the barbaric and highly unusual custom of

hanging the heads of their enemies from the necks of their horses when departing

from battle.

The heads of those enemies that were held in high esteem, they would embalm

cedar oil and display them to their guests.

We'll never know exactly what happened to the heads of all these decapitated

possibly beheaded people.

But I think to us it seems very bizarre.

And to the Romans coming into Gaul, it must have seemed very strange

and very barbaric.

At Aletheia.

caesar knew he would need a combination of tactics and luck if he was to avoid

ending up with his own head hanging from a celtic horse

250 000 celtic warriors were

gathered overlooking the roman army waiting to launch their attack

in spite of sacrificing

the women and children

Vercingetorix's troops were at breaking point and close to starvation.

But even with reinforcements on the hills opposite him, Vercingetorix still

a problem.

Besieged up there on his hilltop, Vercingetorix had no way of

directly with the Celtic relief army, so he was dependent upon tribal leaders

who didn't necessarily have his military skill.

But the relief army had seen that there was a vulnerable spot in the Roman

fortifications. And on October 2nd, 52 BC, they decided to strike.

Around noon, 60 ,000 Celtic warriors launched an attack.

Their target was a Roman garrison up here on Mount Rhea, the northwest

of Caesar's defences. The steep slopes here had prevented the Romans from

digging proper ramparts and ditches. It was a weak point in their defences. The

Celts knew that and closed in for the kill.

In an attempt to coordinate the attack, Vercingetorix led his troops downslope

to try and punch a hole through the inner Roman fortifications.

His thinking was that such a move would leave the Roman troops no alternative

but to fight in both the front and in the rear.

So wave after wave of Celtic warriors smashed against the Roman defences.

The stake could not have been higher.

For Caesar, this was his chance to secure the title Conqueror of Gaul.

Whereas Vercingetorix was fighting for his homeland.

And there are new ideas about how the Celtic warriors might have fought the

decisive battle.

The Roman writers make a big deal about the Celts being an undisciplined,

unruly, wild mob.

Is that right? The Celts did go into battle with great cries and shouts, but

once they're fighting, I think it would look more like this, because you

wouldn't survive for two minutes on the battlefield unless you had some military

discipline.

So although it's not hundreds of men all working together to the beat of a drum

in maybe the Roman fashion, it's nonetheless small, tight units who are

attention to one another and working as a group.

Exactly. That whole thing you said, they're wild, slashing barbarians.

talks about the Celtic sword being a slashing weapon.

Already. You're playing into the hands of the Roman writers.

Slashing is a pejorative term. It implies he just slashes like a clown in

wild sort of way. No, what the Celtic weapon is, it's a cutting weapon. It

do very precise cuts. It's a thrusting weapon. It will do both those jobs, and

they're both deeply unpleasant. But it's not a wild slashing weapon.

The spear, for instance, this was really the primary weapon.

So rather than the sword?

Yeah, I mean, swords were a relative rarity. They were high status, but they

were relatively rare.

More people would have this because it's so versatile.

It gives you reach in battle. It gives you an ability. Look at that edge. It

gives you the ability to cut and scythe at hamstrings and legs and the backs of

horses. It's a martial art. It's a martial art, and the Celts were

martial men.

As the fighting continued, the Romans desperately shored up their defences.

But the Celtic relief army, attacking from the rear, was breaking through.

Sensing victory, Vercingetorix's warriors on the other side pounded the

inner defensive line.

Caesar was on the brink of defeat.

He had one last card to play, and it relied on his power as a charismatic

leader.

Draped in his distinctive red cloak, Caesar led 6 ,000 men, every last

he had, into a desperate do -or -die counter -offensive.

The sight of Caesar entering the fray re -energised the men and a cheer erupted

from the legionaries as they gave everything to one final push.

With Caesar leading from the front and with his men believing in victory, the

battle began to turn in their favour.

Caesar boasts in his memoirs how his troops forced the Celts to flee across

battlefield.

Burton Getterichs watched the final defeat from the hillfort.

Still besieged, he was left with two options, to surrender or die.

He left the decision to his war council.

The following day, together with his men and in full regalia, he rode down the

slope.

Legend has it that he leapt from his horse, threw down his arms and said,

am, a strong man, defeated by an even stronger man.

The freedom fighter had finally been outwitted by the wily old strategist.

The golden age of the Celts was over.

The Romans celebrated their victories in monumental architecture.

This is the triumphal arch in Orange in the south of France.

This archway tells a story all about the Roman conquest of Gaul.

On the top, you can see Celtic warriors, naked warriors, being trampled under

the hooves of Roman cavalry.

Piles of the spoils of war.

The archway straddles a road heading south towards Rome and heading north to

land of the dead. And that's just about right.

Julius Caesar reckoned there were about three million Gauls.

By the time he'd finished with them, one million lay dead. A second million had

been sold into slavery.

If that happened today, they'd call it genocide.

As for Vercingetorix himself, Caesar showed no mercy.

He had him taken to Rome, imprisoned for six years, and then killed in a public

garrotting.

Centuries later, he would re -emerge as a national hero, who gave his life for

the dream of a free Gaul.

Caesar's victory at Alessia was a defining moment in European history. The

Celts, an ancient and deep -rooted culture, lay crushed, not in some

field, but in their heartland.

It was a defeat that would consign generations of Celts to Romanisation and

servitude.

This statue is known as the Vashur Warrior.

It dates to around 28 BC, 24 years after the Battle of Alessia.

You take a passing glance at him and you see Roman soldier.

That's largely down to the clothes and the weapon.

He's wearing a tunic, it's long, it comes down to his thighs, a shirt of

mail. On his side here, on a belt, is a gladius.

That's the classic short sword of the Roman legionnaire.

Everything about it seems to say Roman soldier.

But appearances are deceptive. Take a closer look and you see around his neck

he's wearing a torc. Now that's the status symbol of the elite warrior of

Celt. He is Celtic. He's a typical gallo Roman soldier. That's to say a Celt

employed by Rome as an auxiliary soldier.

Vercingetorix would be turning in his grave.

The infamous, wild, long -haired barbarian is gone.

He's been smartened up. He's been romanised and tamed.

It looked like the end for a great culture that had once stretched from

to France.

But the Celts weren't quite finished yet.

By 51 BC, not long after the Battle of Alessia, Mabract was sufficiently

Romanised that Julius Caesar himself came to stay while he was writing the

Conquest of Gaul. It's one of the great histories of the Roman Empire.

He may even have written some of it in one of these rooms.

In that book, as well as writing about the campaign, he also described...

two exploratory expeditions that he made in 55 and 54 BC to a mysterious island

across the sea he called Britannia.

It's the first detailed eyewitness account we have of Britain and the

lived there.

Next time, the Romans turn their attention further north to one of the

bastions of Celtic culture, Britain.

An island of rich resources, powerful tribes,

advanced military equipment, and another great leader.

A woman.

The warrior queen, Boudica.

Stunning landscapes tomorrow on BBC Two on a grand tour of the Scottish islands,

from the remote communities of Fula and Feral to the landlocked islands of Loch

Lomond at seven.

Mock the Week's coming next, one on BBC Four, rhymes, rock and revolution, the

story of performance poetry.