The story of this place
In 52 BC the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, having united the tribes in revolt, made his final stand against Julius Caesar at the hilltop oppidum of Alesia. Caesar besieged the fortress with an astonishing double ring of siege works—an inner wall to trap Vercingetorix and an outer one to fend off a vast Gallic relief army of perhaps a quarter-million men. When the relief attacks failed, the starving Vercingetorix surrendered, riding out to lay his arms at Caesar's feet. He was paraded in Caesar's triumph in Rome and executed years later. Alesia sealed the conquest of Gaul; the site near Alise-Sainte-Reine now holds a museum and a 19th-century statue of the vanquished hero.