How has no one pointed out this awesome boardgame yet?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1430/caesar-epic-battle-...
Battle of Alesia
41–50 of 97 posts
Re: Battle of Alesia
#42> The battle of Alesia marked the end of Gallic independence in France and Belgium. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.
On the subject of Alesia: https://www.pipelinecomics.com/asterix-v11-asterix-and-the-c...
Re: Battle of Alesia
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You are not a descendent of "celts" who lived what is now "France". Your culture wasn't lost. Any Celtic culture that might have been present in France in pre-Roman times has nothing to do with you or your ancestry. It was not "your" culture. The Celtic culture in Brittany is not something that survived from pre-Roman times, it's a later re-import from the British isles. Stop making up silly, false, fake identiti…
> Stop making up silly, false, fake identities. I think this is an unnecessarily negative framing. All national and regional identities are mostly socially constructed "imagined communities"[1]. For example, most Americans aren't descended from colonial settlers, but they still identify with the colonists when they read about or discuss the Revolutionary War. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_community
I would go further than say it is an unnecessarily negative framing, this idea always seemed pretentious to me, nowadays it seems supressive.
Are they really imagined? Or is this idea mostly a "social contruct" that is not really accepted as reality outside of a few "intellectuals". They seem to be describing their delusions of grandeur. Is it not them that have the problem?
Re: Battle of Alesia
#44Historia Civilis has a video about this battle: https://youtu.be/SU1Ej9Yqt68
Came here to share this link. I think Historia Civilis is a channel a lot of HNs would really enjoy.
Re: Battle of Alesia
#45In France, this event is well known and taught in class (at least it was in the 80's). As I remember it now, this was taught as a bittersweet moment in our history. We united, we were brave and fought a stronger army but still we were defeated and our chief was captured and killed by the enemy. As a result we were colonized and we lost almost all our Celtic culture (Celtic culture remains present notably in Bretagne…
It’s always funny how the Franks are seens as “us”, when looking throught history France has been washed by waves of invasions that all left deep cultural mixes. Going to Normandy nowadays and looking at general public exposition it’s make pretty clear their ancestry is mostly from the Vikings and Nords. In the east it’s also clear that their frenchness is a fluctuating and partial attribute. All around the country,…
It is almost as if you have an agenda of trying to suppress the identities of european people for the sake of your political delusions.
You are trying to legimtise the current invasion of France. Of course French identity does not match non-french people.
Re: Battle of Alesia
#46serious question, how is this interesting beyond "Caesar had a significant cavalry advantage"?
I think there's plenty interesting.
The sophistication of Roman siege warfare. There is an entrenched enemy. Caesar's legions build miles of fortification to surround and starve out the enemy. Many more enemies come to break the siege. Caesar's legions build second miles long fortification, around the first.
It is a defining moment in Caesar's rise to fame and infamy, laying the groundwork for his eventual emperorship. Without this victory and Caesar's popular support, the history of Rome may have been very different.
There is a noble sacrifice by the Gallic general, Vercingetorix. Realizing the imminent defeat, he suggests to his people that they kill him or surrender him as a bargaining chip to receive lenience from the conquering Caesar. He does this knowing that the Roman tradition is to march defeated generals through the streets of Rome before ritually killing them. Turns out he got to be imprisoned for years before that "honor".
These are the three things that stood out most to me.
Re: Battle of Alesia
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You are not a descendent of "celts" who lived what is now "France". Your culture wasn't lost. Any Celtic culture that might have been present in France in pre-Roman times has nothing to do with you or your ancestry. It was not "your" culture. The Celtic culture in Brittany is not something that survived from pre-Roman times, it's a later re-import from the British isles. Stop making up silly, false, fake identiti…
> Stop making up silly, false, fake identities. The irony of course is that "Celtic" is a silly word to begin with. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence that the 'Celtic' culture of Gaul was reasonably similar (and quite close in cultural 'ancestry') to Roman culture anyway, making assimilation relatively painless. The British isles may have been a somewhat different case.
To be fair, "circumstantial evidence" in archaeology is just saying something because you found a pot that looks like another pot. There will plenty of "circumstantial evidence" to suggest the opposite. :)
Re: Battle of Alesia
#48Reading this made me realize how little Roman history I know. What's the best source for learning about the major people and events of that era? EDIT: I guess what I'm really looking for is a hierarchy of topics, starting extremely broad (e.g. Roman Republic vs. Roman Empire) and drilling down into individual people and events. In other words, I want to do a breadth-first traversal, rather than depth-first.
The Masters of Rome novels by Colleen McCullough are historically accurate, incredibly dramatic, gripping and realistic. They tell the story of Rome from the birth of Caesar in the Republic to the ascension of his successor Augustus in the Empire.
I, Claudius by Robert Graves is fascinating and very readable. One of the greatest examples of historical fiction. All of the major events of the book are historically accurate, and Graves just brings them to life with dialog and his knowledge of daily life in Rome. The sequel Claudius the God, is good, but honestly covers a less interesting period in Roman history.
Re: Battle of Alesia
#49In France, this event is well known and taught in class (at least it was in the 80's). As I remember it now, this was taught as a bittersweet moment in our history. We united, we were brave and fought a stronger army but still we were defeated and our chief was captured and killed by the enemy. As a result we were colonized and we lost almost all our Celtic culture (Celtic culture remains present notably in Bretagne…
Reminder: the Franks were Germanic invaders who kicked the Romano-Gaulish in the teeth. This is like Englishmen mourning King Arthur and his Romano-British followers, ignoring that their ancestors were probably more the Hengests and Horsas of the story.
But...Is it not more like Englishmen celebrating Alfred the Great? You know, the Anglo-Saxon leader. A Germanic peoples (Alfred's army was also made up of Britons)
Re: Battle of Alesia
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s always funny how the Franks are seens as “us”, when looking throught history France has been washed by waves of invasions that all left deep cultural mixes. Going to Normandy nowadays and looking at general public exposition it’s make pretty clear their ancestry is mostly from the Vikings and Nords. In the east it’s also clear that their frenchness is a fluctuating and partial attribute. All around the country,…
It is almost as if you have an agenda of trying to suppress the identities of european people for the sake of your political delusions. You are trying to legimtise the current invasion of France. Of course French identity does not match non-french people.
Not sure to get what you are pointing at by “invasion”, but I was talking about french residents with french nationality.
PS: for additional context, vikings were around the 9th century. I am not pointing at just current trends.