Week 3: Secondary Sources Exploration

Welcome, one and all, to the third installment of your favorite blog series, Ballistas to Battle Rams. My name is Aadrit T, and I will be your classicist guiding you through my research journey. 

Now instead of taking a trip down Ancient Avenue, we’ll be going through Modern Street. In other words, we’ll be looking at secondary sources about the primary sources of the sieges. For this blog post, we’ll be focusing on Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, covered in the previous blog post. 

One of the key secondary sources I was aiming for was physical traces on the wars and sieges. For Caesar, his important presence has led to many archeological interests around his sieges, especially in what the Romans called Gaul. 

One of the first papers I’ve started with was Fernandez-Gotz’s and Nico Roymans’s work in “Caesar in Gaul” [1], which is essentially a research of the genocidal properties of Caesar’s actions, especially surrounding the Eburones and Aduatuci. One of the more interesting highlights of the paper showcased evidence of lead bullets, fired via slings, used by Romans in Thuin. This gives me hope that other machinery may work out to exist, as there’s already proof of Roman Ballista bolts in Hod Hill (introduced to me by my External Advisor, Dr. Leese), which signals to me that remains of metal weaponry is not as uncommon that I may have thought it to be. 

Branching off of that paper, looking through assorted bibliographies, I saw the Siege of Alesia was a major focus on recent archeological missions. Particularly, an analysis by the Madain Project [2] showcases what was left behind in such a big site. Something I learned was how Napoleon sponsored excavations of the area to build French culture, but the place is still under dubious authenticity. 

Such archeology drives modern recreations of the sieges, like by Historia Civilis [3] or SLICE History [4]. While they may not be the most academic of all sources, they tie in many expert testimonials and archeological evidence cutting between the dramatic retellings.  They also include sources that they have, which have useful information that I can further trace.

I do apologize if this update seems short due to the trip, but we’ll be backed to regularly scheduled action next week,

Signing off,

Aadrit T

Citations:

1. Roymans, N., & Fernández-Götz, M. (2015). Caesar in gaul: TRAC 2014, 70–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dw2c.9 

2. Archaeological Site of the Gallo-Roman Town of Alesia. Madainproject.com. (2025). Editors, Retrieved on March 18, 2026, from https://madainproject.com/archaeological_site_of_gallo_roman_town_of_alesia

3. Historia Civilis (2015, April 24),  The Battle of Alesia (52 B.C.E.) [Video] YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68

4. SLICE History, (2025, Jul 3) The Siege of Alesia: Caesar’s Greatest Victory I SLICE HISTORY [Video] YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oufffrL0UME