Vercingetorix may be a title, not a name, and Caesar wrote his story
The man France later adopted as a symbol of resistance is known only by a Gaulish title meaning roughly supreme king of warriors. His birth name is lost, and almost everything about him comes from Julius Caesar, the general who defeated him, kept him prisoner for six years, and then had him executed.
He belonged to the Arverni of what is now Auvergne, a people whose power had been checked when Rome defeated their king Bituitus in 121 BC. His father Celtillus, called by Caesar the foremost man of Gaul, was killed by fellow aristocrats around 70 to 60 BC for trying to restore kingship in place of their oligarchy. The traditional birth date of about 82 BC is only a guess, based on Caesar calling him a young man in 52 BC.
Early that year, with Caesar in Italy, revolts erupted across Gaul. Vercingetorix tried to raise the Arverni, was driven out by pro-Roman nobles, came back with followers, expelled them and was hailed king. Around ten peoples between the Seine, the Loire and the Atlantic then made him supreme commander, and he imposed tough discipline to forge a coherent army. After Caesar's speed cost him the initiative, he switched to scorched earth and harassment rather than pitched battles. Rome captured Avaricum anyway, yet his coalition held together.
At Gergovia his counterattack drove the legions from the walls and forced Caesar to withdraw, one of just three recorded Roman defeats in the Gallic Wars. The success did not last. In September 52 BC he surrendered at Alesia, spent six years imprisoned in Rome, and was executed after Caesar's triumph in 46 BC.
Modern historians stress that Caesar used him to personify Gallic resistance and described him through Roman eyes, while Plutarch, Florus and Cassius Dio largely relied on Caesar. Largely forgotten in the Middle Ages, he was rediscovered in the sixteenth century, and from the nineteenth he became an emblem of French national identity.
Source: Vercingetorix
