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00:032,000 years ago, this small plateau in a rural corner of France was the front line between two very
00:11different cultures.
00:14They ordered civilizing presence of the Roman Empire, facing off against an ancient Iron Age tribal people, the Celts.
00:34In Britain, we're never far from our Celtic past.
00:39The Celts seem to belong to a shadowy, wilder, more primal time than anything in more recent history.
00:48But much about their origins, beliefs and ultimate fate remains a mystery.
00:59But a story etched in vivid color is how these powerful tribal people battled for survival against their arch enemy,
01:10the Roman Empire.
01:12From the first Celtic raiding parties that rampaged through ancient Italy, to Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, and the Celts'
01:21last stand under the warrior queen, Boudicca.
01:25One of the greatest cultural conflicts that still defines our world today, and reveals Europe's most enigmatic ancient people.
01:46To be continued.
01:47To be continued.
02:06By the 4th century BC, the Celts were at the peak of their military and cultural powers.
02:15They were establishing themselves far beyond their homeland, aggressive in their pursuit
02:21of new territory.
02:25In 387 BC, they burned the city of Rome to the ground.
02:32This marked a new era for the Celts, when conflict and war became a means of gaining social status.
02:40An era when the warrior was king.
02:47But the Celts weren't alone as a military force.
02:51After the destruction of Rome, the city had been rebuilt and the Romans were flexing their
02:57muscle right across the Mediterranean world, forging a new empire that would become the
03:04model for all empires to come.
03:08But the Roman army had yet to conquer the Celtic heartlands of Central and Western Europe.
03:15And the Celts presented a formidable obstacle to Rome's expansionist plans.
03:24What was at stake was the future of Europe and the civilization that would shape it.
03:29On the one hand, centralized modern Rome.
03:33On the other, an Iron Age culture that had its roots deep in prehistory.
03:42Two vast armies and a brutal conflict fought between two of the ages' greatest generals.
03:56The Celts' new era will forever be associated with a tiny village that lies on the shores of Lake Nerschatel
04:04in Switzerland.
04:05It's now perhaps the most famous name in Celtic history.
04:14Latin.
04:16Those are words writ large in every book about the Celts.
04:21For many archaeologists, they're a kind of shorthand.
04:24For that period when the Celts are at the peak of their power and of their artistic achievement,
04:28there are objects, artefacts of Latin culture scattered across Europe from Britain to the Balkans.
04:36It was their golden hour.
04:43This golden age is epitomized by intricate Celtic art and craftsmanship.
04:48It's this art that has come to be seen as quintessentially Celtic.
04:59But beneath that romance and beauty, there appears to be a much darker underbelly to Celtic culture.
05:08Savage customs and bloody brutality.
05:15In 1857, archaeologists excavating an ancient riverbed on the shores of Lake Nerschatel discovered the remains of an Iron Age
05:24wooden bridge.
05:28Surrounding the structure, they found an enormous horde of Celtic artefacts, including swords, scabbards and spearheads.
05:39In total, over 3,000 objects, all beautifully preserved in the mud.
05:46What they'd stumbled upon is believed by some archaeologists to have been a wooden platform used by Celtic warriors as
05:55a sacrificial altar to their gods.
05:58One where the victims of bloody conflict might have been ritually displayed.
06:07The finds from the lake are now held in the Latenium Museum, under the watchful eye of Marc-Antoine Kayser.
06:18What do you think happened here at Laten? Why do we have this huge collection of material here?
06:25Well, I think first, Laten is an important place, a passage place, with this or these bridges on the water,
06:35on the river.
06:35And probably after a big battle, the peoples put all those weapons and other kinds of objects in display as
06:48a show commemorating the battle.
06:50So, these were obviously kinds of offerings, offerings to the gods, and it was discovered 2,000 years later.
06:59In addition to all the weaponry, we have, well, you see this human skull.
07:04Yeah.
07:05And you see the marks on the forehead.
07:07All these slices. Is that from a sword?
07:09Yeah.
07:10But the main interesting thing is that these are not marks of wounds which you have received into battle.
07:18So, we think these are marks of sacrifice.
07:23Ah, so it's a trophy.
07:24Exactly.
07:25We have many skulls of horses like this one.
07:28If you look at the inside here, you see that the pellet has been...
07:34Ah, smashed through.
07:35Smashed through.
07:36And you see here...
07:38Oh.
07:38...the small hole.
07:40From the point of something, a spear or...?
07:42Yeah.
07:42Oh, no, not a spear, a pike.
07:45So, the horse's head was on display like that on a pike.
07:51So, you've got possibly the whole bodies of dead men or their heads and then accompanied by horses' heads as
07:58well.
07:59Mm.
07:59Gosh.
08:01It's a very grisly tableau.
08:03It's not just a spectacular display of beautiful weapons.
08:07It's also the bloodied and ultimately rotting corpses.
08:13It's almost...
08:15Well, it is theatrical.
08:19Latin exposed a culture where war was a way of life and where the tools of battle, beautifully crafted weapons,
08:28became a means of displaying a warrior's status.
08:34When you handle and look at these objects, what are the details that leap out at you and say this
08:39is something special?
08:41This is not just a tool.
08:44Well, if you take a look at the objects, and especially here, when you see the surface here, the treatment
08:51of the surface, which is quite particular.
08:53And then you have the decor, the figures, which you see here.
09:01Every object, every thought, is unique.
09:04And this was different then, to see weapons, but weapons that were also works of art.
09:11Mm-hmm.
09:12Since it's a way of life, you have to show that all the art, all the beauty, which you invest
09:20into your warlike occupation.
09:23So as well as being a tool of his trade, it shows his status.
09:29Yeah.
09:29And the fact that the way in which he makes his living is almost an art.
09:34Mm-hmm.
09:34Yeah.
09:42The Fines at La Taine revealed a very different Celtic world, one that was aggressive and warlike.
09:48It was also a world of stark contrasts, in which beauty and creativity were entwined with cruelty and extreme violence.
10:03This double edge of beauty and beast is epitomized by one extraordinary and apparently sacred object, the Gundestrup Cauldron.
10:19Beaten into the silver are images of Celtic gods, strange beasts and rituals.
10:27But even this exquisite object points to a preoccupation with war.
10:33Warriors are depicted being dipped into what some believe to be sacred liquid to improve their military rank in the
10:40afterlife.
10:40It's thought the cauldron was used ceremonially at feasts where soldiers would drink from it, before battle, in the belief
10:48that it bestowed immortality.
10:55Although the silver work is rich in their imagery, it was not the work of Celts, but probably crafted by
11:03a people known as the Thracians and believed to be a gift of friendship to their neighbours, the Celts.
11:08The cauldron was made, not in the traditional Celtic heartland of Central Europe, but over a thousand miles further east,
11:18in the Balkans.
11:20So, as well as embodying the beauty and violence of Latin culture, the cauldron shows a civilisation seeking power and
11:28land more forcefully than ever before.
11:39Where they had previously negotiated through trade, Celtic warriors and their raiding parties now seized slaves and luxury goods with
11:48the blade of a sword.
11:52And by the early 3rd century BC, Celts could be found as far south as Delphi in Greece.
12:01Their skill and bravery on the battlefield were legendary.
12:06As a result, they became hired guns, willing to kill for whoever was willing to pay.
12:14This was the Latin Celt in full flow.
12:34We think of the Celts as European people traditionally originating in Central Europe during the Iron Age,
12:41but with new theories suggesting that they might have originated much earlier in Western Europe.
12:46But, by the 3rd century BC, we know that they were here, in what is now Turkey.
12:57Alexander the Great once ruled these lands.
13:00But when he died in 323 BC, his empire started to crumble, leaving a power vacuum.
13:10Celtic raiding parties crossed from Europe into this part of Asia.
13:16And they came to the heart of Turkey, just south of modern day Ankara.
13:23This was once Galatia, and its capital was Gordian.
13:28This is what I'm interested in.
13:31That flat-topped hill over there.
13:34That is the remains of ancient Gordian.
13:37The city that's famous for Alexander the Great having come and cut the Gordian knots there.
13:43But that's not why I'm here.
13:45I'm here because the Celts also settled in Gordian.
13:51And we know this from the Roman historian Livy.
13:56Gareth Derbyshire is an archaeologist who has been working at Gordian since 1998.
14:01So, Gareth, when did the Celts arrive here in Gordian?
14:06Well, we don't know precisely when, but it would have been sometime in the mid to later 3rd century BC.
14:13And what were they doing here?
14:16Well, we know that from written sources that were serving as mercenaries in various Hellenistic period armies,
14:24they were probably also looking for land for settlement,
14:27either taken by force or the same kind of thing through diplomatic negotiations.
14:33So they were given free reign to come here and settle and then to raid around Asia Minor?
14:38That's the picture we get.
14:39What kind of evidence are you finding of their material culture?
14:43We're finding items that are new to this region
14:47and which are comparable in various ways with areas further west in Celtic Europe.
14:53For example, in the lower town, very dramatically,
14:56we're finding human and animal remains mixed together with signs of violence, broken necks, beheadings, etc.
15:03Which again, you know, they're attested in various forms in areas to the west,
15:09areas that are known to have been Celtic speaking.
15:13Classical historians associated the Celts with violent death rituals.
15:18And at Gordian, archaeologists think they've found evidence of gruesome, possibly Celtic practices.
15:27The skeletons here are some of the human remains from the site at Gordian.
15:32But they're a bit odd.
15:33This woman is about 30 to 45 years old.
15:38If we look at the back of the skull here, on the side of the skull, you can see this
15:43depression.
15:45So that is a blunt injury.
15:48She's been struck on the head.
15:50And we can imagine that this probably was the cause of death.
15:53So somebody who died a violent death.
16:02And her body was placed on top of that of a younger woman.
16:07She was laid out like this.
16:08I've got the actual photograph of the excavation back in the 90s.
16:14But rather strangely, she's got these two quernstones buried just on top of her.
16:22Now, the Roman authors tell us about all sorts of what seem to us very bizarre and even gruesome rituals
16:29that the Celts indulged in.
16:31Human sacrifice, decapitation.
16:33And some experts have suggested that we've got something like this happening at Gordian.
16:39There's certainly evidence of strange rituals.
16:42I mean, just look at this.
16:43And there's evidence of violent death.
16:46But when it comes to decapitation and human sacrifice,
16:51I'm not sure.
16:56Some of the bones at Gordian were found alongside animal bones,
17:00possibly as part of the burial ritual.
17:04Archaeologists have come across similar practices as far afield as Yorkshire and northern France.
17:10Celtic graves have been discovered containing disarticulated bones of pigs and horses mixed with human remains.
17:18And sometimes entire chariots, perhaps providing the deceased with transport into the afterlife.
17:33Death rituals played a central part in Celtic civilization.
17:38But these ancient people were now being confronted by a very different power.
17:45A structured, ordered culture with a conflicting idea of what civilization meant.
17:56Galatia represents the easternmost extent of the Celtic world.
18:00But by the second century BC, the Celts here were coming under pressure from the expanding Roman Empire.
18:06And we learned from Livy that in 189 BC, a Roman army came to attack Gordian
18:12and ended up fighting the Galatians in the mountains.
18:15And within a century, Galatia would be subsumed into the Roman Empire.
18:24Since their defeat at the hands of the Celts in 387 BC, Rome had been rebuilt and was now the
18:31fastest developing power in Europe.
18:36By the middle of the first century BC, the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean region from Syria to Spain.
18:46But standing in the way of further expansion to the north and west was the Celtic heartland of Gaul.
18:57Southern Gaul had long been under the influence of the classical world.
19:03As long ago as 600 BC, a port had developed on the south coast of France called Massalia, now Marseille.
19:14It became a trading hub for ships importing exotic luxuries from Italy and Greece.
19:24Celtic tribes were only too happy to barter with their Mediterranean neighbours,
19:30offering grain, leather and slaves in exchange for Roman wine.
19:39But these two very different worlds of the Celts and Romans were now about to collide.
19:51In 58 BC, the job of subjugating Gaul was assumed by the most famous Roman of all time,
19:59the seasoned general, Gaius Julius Caesar.
20:07Caesar was an inspirational leader. He was a fighting man. His cunning and daring had earned him the respect of
20:14his men.
20:15He was confident of his own decisions, while at the same time able to take advice from his centurions.
20:20But he had plenty of enemies back in Rome, where he faced allegations of political corruption.
20:26A stunning victory here in Gaul would enable him to go home a war hero.
20:33But Gaul was a treacherous land populated with warring and infighting Celtic tribes.
20:42Caesar set about crushing those hostile to him, while cementing alliances with others who were accepting of Roman control.
20:53The Roman Empire had forged trading connections with Celtic tribes for some time.
21:02One tribe in Gaul in particular had had a lucrative formal arrangement with them for almost a hundred years.
21:12This is Bibracte in Burgundy, nearly 200 miles south-east of Paris.
21:19It was once the territorial capital of one of the most powerful Celtic tribes in Gaul, the Edoui.
21:33Bibracte's chief archaeologist is Vincent Guichard.
21:37What was the relationship between the Edoui and the Romans before the conquest?
21:42We've got trace of a military treaty between the Edoui and Rome.
21:48And why would the Romans take that step? Why would they sign a document with a neighbour?
21:54The territory of the Edoui, modern-day Burgundy, is just midway between the Mediterranean and the North Sea.
22:00So it's a really key location along two main rivers, which are the Seine River and the Loire River.
22:06And, of course, the Romans wanted to have this route free for trading,
22:13and especially for metal ores of any sort, like tin, for example.
22:17But on the reverse side, what was brought from Italy to Gaul was Italian wine.
22:23It's that traditional model of alcohol, of all things,
22:27greasing the wheels of commerce and bringing people together.
22:31The Gauls were trapped by the taste for Roman wine.
22:34And I suppose it's easier, isn't it, from the Roman point of view,
22:37rather than go in and fight and conquer, if you can just softly get involved with the people
22:43who have the things that you want, then it's less effort and less expense.
22:47Yes, make business. Business can make a lot. And that's what they did, actually.
22:54And yet, with his invasion of Gaul, Caesar effectively tore up the treaty.
23:01His aim was to bring the more troublesome Gallic tribes,
23:06with their barbaric rituals, under control,
23:09to assimilate them into the civilised Roman Empire.
23:16By 53 BC, five years into his campaign, he believed the job was almost done.
23:24The savage Celt he boasted had been tamed.
23:38But Caesar couldn't have been more wrong.
23:40In the early months of 52 BC, when he returned to complete his Gallic campaign,
23:45he found his progress challenged by a young Celtic warrior named Vercingetorix,
23:50son of Celtulus, leader of the Averni tribe.
23:52A man Caesar himself described as having boundless energy and iron discipline.
23:59The legendary challenge of Vercingetorix has meant that he's been elevated
24:04to French national hero.
24:07And he's celebrated with a 19th century romantic statue.
24:13At only 30 years of age, this warrior king was a brilliant military tactician.
24:23For months, his band of rebels had used guerrilla tactics to provoke and harry Caesar at every turn.
24:35Vercingetorix persuaded his fellow chiefs that victory depended upon disrupting the supply lines
24:41that Caesar needed to keep his men fed and watered.
24:45So they adopted a scorched earth policy.
24:49Every main settlement on Caesar's path of advance was burned to the ground.
24:54Every field of standing crops was cleared.
24:57Not a stalk was left standing.
25:00Vercingetorix reminded his people that if they didn't do as he said,
25:03their fate was inevitable, slavery or death.
25:10Two great armies, led by two charismatic leaders,
25:15would soon go head to head in a battle that would shape the future of Europe.
25:28Vercingetorix was a warrior from the Celtic Golden Age of La Taine.
25:33Yet almost everything we know about him comes from the campaign diaries of his arch-enemy, Caesar.
25:42But there's one place, 25 miles north-east of Frankfurt,
25:46that gives us a sense of how the Celts themselves depicted their leaders.
25:53We have plenty of images of Julius Caesar,
25:56but we don't know what Vercingetorix looks like.
25:59The most famous image of him is a 19th century statue,
26:03but it's more romantic than accurate, I think.
26:06But in 1996, an incredible discovery was made in a field just here,
26:12in Glauberg in Germany.
26:30And here it is, or perhaps I should say he,
26:37the Glauberg warrior.
26:44Isn't that wonderful?
26:49I'm going to get up here.
26:53And get a better look.
26:56So I'm looking right into his face.
26:59He's got this astonishing headgear.
27:02Some people have suggested that this is a mistletoe leaf.
27:06I'm not sure.
27:08It's just an odd-looking helmet.
27:09And round his neck, he's wearing something very Celtic indeed.
27:14He's got this fantastic neck ring.
27:19So this is a torque.
27:20These are these neck rings which we know were worn by rich and powerful people.
27:25And we've also got Celtic imagery showing gods wearing torques as well.
27:29So they're symbols of power,
27:31and perhaps even offered some kind of protection to their wearers.
27:36This statue dates to about 400 BC.
27:39So he is 2,500 years old.
27:45He's a little bit early for Vercingetorix.
27:48This statue was carved a few centuries before Vercingetorix was born.
27:52But what we're seeing here is this fantastic representation
27:57made by Celts of what a Celtic warrior looked like.
28:05The person who carved this knew these warriors.
28:12This statue is one of four that surrounded a burial mound close to the Glauberg hillfort.
28:21Inside it lay the body of a real Celtic warrior.
28:31And these are the remains of the person buried underneath that mound.
28:35We can tell quite a bit about this individual from analysis carried out on the bones and the teeth.
28:42And in particular, looking at his teeth, we can see that there's some wear on those.
28:46You can tell that this is quite a young individual, perhaps in his 20s when he died.
28:52But really it's what was buried with him that is absolutely astonishing.
28:57This is quite clearly the grave of somebody who was very high status.
29:02Essentially Glauberg royalty.
29:10This beautiful piece of jewellery, which is a brooch or a fibula, there's a fantastical horse-like creature here.
29:17Perhaps with wings and then a little human head with a face looking back at the horse.
29:23This is classic, this playfulness, this combination of animals and humans.
29:31And here is the incredible gold torque that was lying around the neck of this individual in the grave.
29:39And you can see that you've got this plain band around the back of his neck.
29:42And then here, a lot of detail.
29:49And here is the sword of the warrior that lay at his right side.
29:54And then the scabbard is absolutely beautiful.
29:57It's made of bronze but it has iron over laying it as well.
30:02And there's even a piece of textile. Can you see that there?
30:05And you can see the weave of that material where it's been lying close to this sword and it's been
30:11preserved because it's close to the metal.
30:13And there's something else as well that provides a connection with that statue outside the grave.
30:18There was the wire frame and even the remnants of some leather of his headgear.
30:24And it was the same helmet with those strange projections on each side.
30:39The lavish grave goods buried with this young man, his stunning jewellery and that beautifully decorated sword,
30:47tell us that he was a person of extremely high social standing.
30:52And being a warrior was inextricably bound up with that status.
30:56He lived and died at a time when the Celtic world was evolving.
31:02And amongst those changes was the emergence of a new type of leader, the warrior king.
31:11The ritual burial of the Glauberg warrior, complete with lavish grave goods, was part of a rich and ancient culture.
31:21Hundreds of years later, it would fall to Vercingetorix to defend that shared heritage.
31:30In the spring of 52 BC, leaders of the Celtic tribes convened to agree a strategy for the survival of
31:37Gaul.
31:39Their tactics now required a much larger offensive if they were to defeat the forces of Rome.
31:47The only option was to overcome tribal rivalries, combine forces and elect Vercingetorix, the supreme commander of the allied army
31:57of Gaul.
32:02An arc of resistance formed from the river Seine in the northeast to the Garonne in the southwest.
32:09United, Gaul's Celts were now a more formidable force than ever.
32:1652 BC was shaping up to be a decisive year for Rome, for the Celts and the entire future of
32:24Europe.
32:33By the summer of 52 BC, Vercingetorix and his army of 80,000 men and 15,000 cavalry were in
32:40position on top of a huge Celtic hill fort or opidum called Alessia in the heart of Gaul.
32:47After a bloody skirmish with the Roman army, Vercingetorix commandeered the heartland fortress, home of the Mandubii tribe.
32:59Caesar had pursued him and was now positioned on the plain below.
33:04But Alessia provided Vercingetorix with an ideal vantage point.
33:11Vercingetorix had every confidence in his decision. The plateau at the top is fully 400 feet above the plain below.
33:18There are sheer cliffs at one end. By the standards of the day, Alessia was all but impregnable.
33:30While the Celts were here, they would have kept this place clear of trees, so anywhere on the high ground
33:35would have had a perfect panorama of the surrounding low ground.
33:39The hill is further cut off from its surroundings by two gorges, two valleys running either side, cut by rivers.
33:46Across the gentler slope of Alessia, Vercingetorix ordered his men to dig a deep ditch and build a six foot
33:53high stone wall.
34:00Now, safely inside this apparently impregnable fortress, Vercingetorix must have believed he held the upper hand.
34:09But Caesar saw it as the perfect opportunity for siege warfare, a favoured tactic of the Roman general, who had
34:18many more years of battle experience than his younger opponent.
34:23By surrounding Alessia, he could trap the Celtic rebel army and their Mandubii supporters inside the stronghold, cutting them off
34:32from vital communication and provisions.
34:34He now had Vercingetorix exactly where he wanted him.
34:42The area was cleared.
34:44The trees logged.
34:47Three and a half metre high palisade walls were erected.
34:51And studied with observation watchtowers.
34:56Caesar's plan was for the fortifications to eventually run 11 miles around the entire plateau.
35:08To protect his army from attack, he also included a deadly system of defences.
35:16Mike Lodes, an expert in ancient military strategy, has been researching the battle tactics.
35:23How did the Romans prepare the ground, Mike?
35:25Well, what we're doing here is we're digging a minefield.
35:30That's what they did in front of these great earthworks.
35:33They dug a really elaborate minefield with spikes and stakes and ditches and moats and mounds and palisades.
35:41It's a good reminder of what an old word minefield is, isn't it?
35:44We think of the explosive, but it's a field that has been mined that people have dug traps in.
35:50Exactly that.
35:52So what we're digging here is a hole for a stimuli, one of these.
35:57It's set in a bit of wood to hold it in place, but you've got this iron shank coming up
36:02with that barb.
36:04You step on, and if it's hidden, you just do not see that in the ground.
36:09So whether you're a horse or a human foot stamping down on there, it shoots right through your foot.
36:16And see that barb? It will not pull out easily.
36:19So they're a terrible, terrible, ugly thing.
36:22It would stimulate you, wouldn't it? If you stood on that, you'd be squealing like a stuck pig.
36:31Inside this defensive line were moats and ditches that the Celts would first have to cross.
36:39And after the water-filled ditches, the booby traps, you run onto this forest of sharpened stakes.
36:46Yeah, they're very simple. They're called sippy.
36:48They're kind of groin height for a man and chest height for a horse.
36:51So men would come with shields protecting men while they cleared a path through here.
36:57So they'd be slowed. But slowed is important because up there you've got archers,
37:02you've got slingers, you've got javelin men. Up there you've got ballista, catapulter, scorpion,
37:08all these great throwing engines. And these guys would be bombarded with missiles.
37:15Another problem, I suppose, for the Celts up there, far away on their hilltop,
37:18is to even begin to conceive of the connected scale of what Caesar's got in mind down here.
37:26Absolutely. And that's one of the interesting things about coming to the place, is you see the scale of it.
37:36In the hillfort of Alessia, Vercingetorix witnessed Roman progress.
37:42It was clear he needed more troops.
37:52Under cover of night, he released a group of riders to summon help from across Gaul,
37:58before Caesar's defences were finished.
38:02On their arrival, the Celtic relief force would attack the Roman army from behind.
38:12Only days later, the Roman fortifications were completed.
38:16The siege had begun.
38:19And Caesar had already predicted Vercingetorix's next move.
38:24It's all very well digging that, to keep Vercingetorix and his men in.
38:29But how do you protect your rear?
38:32Because you are, after all, outside something, in open space.
38:35That's exactly right. And Caesar knew that, and he knew that there were reinforcements.
38:40I mean, by his account, hundreds of thousands of reinforcements on their way.
38:44So, what he did, having sealed him in, having contained Vercingetorix,
38:49is he says to his men, build another wall.
38:52Another wall. A bigger, longer wall, all around that first wall, to protect my flank.
38:58Such a feat of ambition to even think that you could.
39:03And you put them both together, and you've got something like 35 kilometres of wall.
39:08Done in about five weeks.
39:14To throw up these fortifications so quickly involved almost superhuman effort.
39:22Caesar had contained Vercingetorix's troops within his inner line,
39:27and had now defended his rear against attack from the approaching Celtic relief army.
39:36But even Caesar's plan had a flaw.
39:39By sealing himself inside that double line of walls and ditches,
39:45Caesar had effectively caught himself in his own trap.
39:49The would-be besieger was now besieged.
39:58Vercingetorix, also trapped in his hillfort,
40:01had to wait for the arrival of the relief force before he could attack.
40:06The question was, would his food and water last?
40:15After weeks of siege with still no sign of the relief force,
40:19rations inside Alessia were running dangerously low,
40:23and the morale of Vercingetorix's men was waning.
40:30He was left with no choice but to expel all non-combatants from the hillfort,
40:35in the hope that Caesar would let the Mandubii women and children
40:39cross the lines to safety.
40:43But Caesar showed no mercy.
40:47The refugees pushed out by Vercingetorix,
40:50and ignored by Caesar, were trapped in no man's land.
41:00Imagine Vercingetorix up on the ramparts of Alessia,
41:03looking out and down onto his own people,
41:06starving to death in the valley below him.
41:08He was becoming increasingly determined.
41:10It wasn't just defending a hillfort,
41:12but something much more important.
41:14This was a fight between centralised modern Rome
41:18and an ancient Iron Age culture that had roots stretching deep into prehistory.
41:23What was at stake was an entire way of life
41:26that the Celtic tribes had carried with them into the classical age.
41:37For centuries, the Celts had developed and prospered.
41:41They were technologically advanced and respected as warriors.
41:47They had migrated and their ideas had spread right across Europe and beyond.
41:54They'd established trading links with the Mediterranean world of the south,
41:58and with the temperate lands of the north.
42:02Now, this great world was under threat.
42:17By October 52 BC, after months of standoff, a vast Celtic army was seen massing on that string of hills
42:26rising in the west.
42:27A quarter of a million men had gathered from every corner of Gaul.
42:33Surely, just the thought of them, far less the sight of them, would have been enough to make the Romans
42:38turn and run.
42:39A quarter of a million men.
42:46Vercingetorix had a numbers advantage over Caesar, but he also had a psychological weapon.
42:53Roman garrison camps were rife with rumours of the grisly fate awaiting them, if they lost.
43:02To understand what Caesar was up against in Gaul, I've come to northern France, to an area just a few
43:09miles outside of Amiens,
43:11which is famous for the Battle of the Somme, and the spectre of that terrible period in history still haunts
43:17these woods.
43:19But 2,000 years before the First World War, another mass slaughter took place here.
43:25One that shows us some evidence of particularly gruesome Celtic practices.
43:33In the 1960s, archaeologists excavating near the village of Ribemont-sur-Ancre unearthed the dismembered bones of 200 people.
43:51They believe that the bodies were the result of an inter-tribal conflict, and their treatment bore the signs of
43:58Celtic ritual.
44:01These are just a few of the thousands of bones discovered at this Celtic sanctuary site at Ribemont, and many
44:10of these bones bear evidence of violent injuries.
44:14Here's a pelvis, and you can see here that something, probably the point of a spear, has made several holes
44:22in this bone.
44:24There are other cut marks. This is a humerus, an arm bone, and here's another blade injury right at the
44:31top, just under the shoulder.
44:32And here's a collar bone, and you can see quite clearly along that where a blade has come down on
44:40that surface, leaving marks on it.
44:42But what is conspicuously missing is any evidence of heads, of skulls.
44:51And we see the reason for that in the bones themselves.
44:54This is the skeleton of a young man who died in his twenties.
44:59And if we come up his spine here, we get to a point where it stops abruptly.
45:05And if we then look at that vertebra, we can see that it has been cleanly sliced.
45:10A blade has come through the front of his neck, and his head was removed.
45:14He was decapitated.
45:16So then we wonder what happened to those heads, and we might get a clue if we turn to the
45:21classical writers.
45:23The Greek writer Strabo, who lived from the first century BC into the first century AD, writes,
45:30There is among the Celts the barbaric and highly unusual custom of hanging the heads of their enemies from the
45:37necks of their horses when departing from battle.
45:40The heads of those enemies that were held in high esteem, they would embalm in cedar oil and display them
45:46to their guests.
45:48Now, we'll never know exactly what happened to the heads of all these decapitated and possibly beheaded people.
45:55But I think to us it seems very bizarre.
45:58And to the Romans coming into Gaul, it must have seemed very strange and very barbaric.
46:16At Alessia, Caesar knew he would need a combination of tactics and luck if he was to avoid ending up
46:23with his own head hanging from a Celtic horse.
46:30250,000 Celtic warriors were gathered overlooking the Roman army, waiting to launch their attack.
46:41In spite of sacrificing the women and children, Vercingetorix's troops were at breaking point and close to starvation.
46:51But even with reinforcements on the hills opposite him, Vercingetorix still had a problem.
47:01Besieged up there on his hilltop, Vercingetorix had no way of communicating directly with the Celtic relief army.
47:08So he was dependent upon tribal leaders who didn't necessarily have his military skill.
47:16But the relief army had seen that there was a vulnerable spot in the Roman fortifications.
47:22And on October the 2nd, 52 BC, they decided to strike.
47:33Around noon, 60,000 Celtic warriors launched an attack.
47:38Their target was a Roman garrison up here on Mount Rhea, the northwest corner of Caesar's defences.
47:45The steep slopes here had prevented the Romans from digging proper ramparts and ditches.
47:50It was a weak point in their defences. The Celts knew that and closed in for the kill.
48:02In an attempt to coordinate the attack, Vercingetorix led his troops downslope to try and punch a hole through the
48:10inner Roman fortifications.
48:22His thinking was that such a move would leave the Roman troops no alternative but to fight in both the
48:28front and in the rear.
48:31So wave after wave of Celtic warriors smashed against the Roman defences.
48:37The stakes could not have been higher.
48:40For Caesar, this was his chance to secure the title conqueror of Gaul.
48:48Whereas Vercingetorix was fighting for his homeland.
48:56And there are new ideas about how the Celtic warriors might have fought this decisive battle.
49:03The Roman writers make a big deal about the Celts being an undisciplined, unruly, wild mob.
49:09Is that right?
49:10The Celts did go into battle with great cries and shouts.
49:14But once they're fighting, I think it would look more like this.
49:17Because you wouldn't survive for two minutes on the battlefield unless you had some military discipline.
49:26So although it's not hundreds of men all working together to the beat of a drum in maybe the Roman
49:31fashion, it's nonetheless small tight units who are paying attention to one another and working as a group.
49:37Exactly.
49:38That whole thing, you say they're wild, slashing barbarians.
49:41Everyone talks about the Celtic sword being a slashing weapon.
49:45Already, you're playing into the hands of the Roman writers.
49:49Slashing is a pejorative term.
49:51It implies he just slashes like a clown in a wild sort of way.
49:57No, what the Celtic weapon is, it's a cutting weapon.
49:59It will do very precise cuts.
50:02It's a thrusting weapon.
50:03It will do both those jobs and they're both deeply unpleasant, but it's not a wild slashing weapon.
50:11The spear, for instance, this was really the primary weapon.
50:15So rather than the sword?
50:17Yeah, I mean, swords were a relative rarity.
50:20They were high status, but they were relatively rare.
50:22More people would have this because it's so versatile.
50:26It gives you reach in battle.
50:28It gives you an ability. Look at that edge.
50:30It gives you the ability to cut and scythe at hamstrings and legs and the backs of horses.
50:35It's a martial art.
50:36It's a martial art. And the Celts were professional martial men.
50:44As the fighting continued, the Romans desperately shored up their defences.
50:52But the Celtic relief army, attacking from the rear, was breaking through.
50:58Sensing victory, Vercingetorix's warriors on the other side pounded the Romans' inner defensive line.
51:09Caesar was on the brink of defeat.
51:15He had one last card to play, and it relied on his power as a charismatic leader.
51:24Draped in his distinctive red cloak, Caesar led 6,000 men, every last soldier he had, into a desperate do
51:32-or-die counter offensive.
51:40The sight of Caesar entering the fray re-energised the men, and a cheer erupted from the legionaries, as they
51:47gave everything to one final push.
51:51With Caesar leading from the front, and with his men believing in victory, the battle began to turn in their
51:59favour.
52:01Caesar boasts in his memoirs how his troops forced the Celts to flee across the battlefield.
52:11Vercingetorix watched the final defeat from the hillfort.
52:15Still besieged, he was left with two options, to surrender or die.
52:20He left the decision to his war council.
52:28The following day, together with his men and in full regalia, he rode down the slope.
52:44Legend has it that he leapt from his horse, threw down his arms and said,
52:48here I am, a strong man, defeated by an even stronger man.
52:56The freedom fighter had finally been outwitted by the wily old strategist.
53:02The golden age of the Celts was over.
53:25The Romans celebrated their victories in monumental architecture.
53:33This is the triumphal arch in Orange, in the south of France.
53:42This archway tells a story, all about the Roman conquest of Gaul.
53:47On the top, you can see Celtic warriors, naked warriors, being trampled under the hooves of Roman cavalry.
53:54And on either side, there are piles of the spoils of war.
54:00The archway straddles a road, heading south towards Rome and heading north to the land of the dead.
54:06And that's just about right.
54:08Julius Caesar reckoned there were about three million Gauls.
54:12By the time he'd finished with them, one million lay dead.
54:15A second million had been sold into slavery.
54:18If that happened today, they'd call it genocide.
54:25As for Vercingetorix himself, Caesar showed no mercy.
54:30He had him taken to Rome, imprisoned for six years, and then killed in a public garrotting.
54:41Centuries later, he would re-emerge as a national hero, who gave his life for the dream of a free
54:49Gaul.
54:58Caesar's victory at Alessia was a defining moment in European history.
55:03The Celts, an ancient and deep-rooted culture, lay crushed.
55:07Not in some foreign field, but in their heartland.
55:10It was a defeat that would consign generations of Celts to Romanisation and servitude.
55:39This statue is known as the Vashur warrior.
55:42Dates to around 28 BC, 24 years after the Battle of Alessia.
55:48You take a passing glance at him and you see Roman soldier.
55:52That's largely down to the clothes and the weapon.
55:55He's wearing a tunic. It's long, it comes down to his thighs.
55:59A shirt of chain mail.
56:01On his side here, on a belt, is a gladius.
56:05That's the classic short sword of the Roman legionnaire.
56:08Everything about it seems to say Roman soldier.
56:12But appearances are deceptive.
56:14Take a closer look and you see around his neck he's wearing a torque.
56:19Now that's the status symbol of the elite warrior of the Celts.
56:24He is Celtic.
56:25He's a typical Gallo Roman soldier.
56:28That's to say, a Celt employed by Rome as an auxiliary soldier.
56:34Vercingetorix would be turning in his grave.
56:36The infamous, wild, long-haired barbarian is gone.
56:40He's been smartened up.
56:42He's been Romanised and tamed.
56:54It looked like the end for a great culture that had once stretched from Turkey to France.
57:01But the Celts weren't quite finished yet.
57:07By 51 BC, not long after the Battle of Alessia,
57:12Bibract was sufficiently Romanised that Julius Caesar himself came to stay
57:16while he was writing the conquest of Gaul.
57:19It's one of the great histories of the Roman Empire.
57:22He may even have written some of it in one of these rooms.
57:25In that book, as well as writing about the campaign,
57:29he also described two exploratory expeditions that he made in 55 and 54 BC
57:35to a mysterious island across the sea he called Britannia.
57:39It's the first detailed eyewitness account we have of Britain and the people who lived there.
57:50Next time, the Romans turn their attention further north
57:55to one of the last bastions of Celtic culture, Britain.
58:00An island of rich resources.
58:04Powerful tribes.
58:06Advanced military equipment.
58:10And another great leader.
58:14A woman.
58:16The warrior queen, Boudicca.
58:39She loves the navy.
58:40And she follows another musician Saint LeBlanc.
58:46She loves Jupiter apınt ello.
58:50Sometimes, basically have a new 돌아way.
58:50Matthew was a dangerous addition to life and that means
58:50Two million ships.
58:53And people stopped at the base of Troops.
58:53Is there a law of Israel?
58:53If there are hospitals that are really a nation?
58:53She isabethgrchen, people without looking to the human,