Battle of Alesia - Aftermath

Aftermath

Alesia proved to be the end of generalized and organized resistance to the Roman invasion of Gaul, marking the definitive conquest of the Continental Celtic people by the Roman Republic. After Alesia, Continental Gaul was subdued, becoming a Roman province and was eventually subdivided into several smaller administrative divisions. Not until the third century would another independence movement occur (see Gallic Empire). The garrison of Alesia was taken prisoner as well as the survivors of the relief army. They were either sold into slavery or given as booty to Caesar's legionaries, except for the members of the Aedui and Arverni tribes, which were released and pardoned to secure the alliance of these important tribes to Rome.

For Caesar, Alesia was an enormous personal success, both militarily and politically. The senate, manipulated by Cato and Pompey, declared 20 days of thanksgiving for this victory, but refused Caesar the honour of celebrating a triumphal parade, the peak of any general's career. Political tension increased, and two years later, in 50 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, which precipitated the Roman civil war of 49–45 BC, which he won. After having been elected consul, for each of the years of the war, and appointed to several temporary dictatorships, he was finally made dictator perpetuus (dictator for life), by the Roman Senate in 44 BC. His ever increasing personal power and honours undermined the tradition bound republican foundations of Rome, and led to the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

Caesar's cavalry commanders followed different paths. Labienus sided with the Optimates, the conservative aristocratic faction in the civil war, and was killed at the Battle of Munda in 45 BC. Trebonius, one of Caesar's most trusted lieutenants, was appointed consul, by Caesar, in 45 BC, and was one of the senators involved in Caesar's assassination on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BC. He was himself murdered a year later. Antony continued to be a faithful supporter of Caesar. He was made Caesar's second in command, as Master of the Horse, and was left in charge in Italy during much of the civil war. In 44 BC he was elected as Caesar's consular colleague. After Caesar's murder, Antony pursued Caesar's assassins and vied for supreme power with Octavian (later to become Caesar Augustus), first forming an alliance with Octavian (and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus) in the Second Triumvirate, then being defeated by him at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Along with his ally and lover queen Cleopatra, he fled to Egypt, where they committed suicide, the following year.

Vercingetorix was taken prisoner and languished in prison for the next five years while waiting to be exhibited at Caesar's triumph. As was traditional for such captured and paraded enemy leaders, at the end of the triumphal procession, he was taken to the Tullianum (also known as the Mamertine Prison) where he was said to have been strangled, although he was most likely executed in a Roman dungeon.