- My family spended often its holidays around Europe. In the early eighties my sons would like to visit a place that did not exist. Not the mythological Atlantis or the dream of some El Dorado. Or a Tartessos that most scientists would like to rediscover. We were going to a place that did not exist because it was to be forgotten: Alesia. But my sons knew were it was! In Astérix! In the comic that is called "Le bouclier Arverne" (The Shield from Arverne). This pamphlet tells the sad story - for the French - how Cesar conquered Gaul in 52BC.
Cesar would like to impose his will on the Gauls by using the shield captured from their leader, Vercingétorix, at Alesia. Astérix and his friend Obélix are getting involved in the struggle to obstruct the Romans from recovering the shield. But - during their struggle, everybody got angry being asked about Alesia. There was - and will never be a place called Alesia...
So far that is exactely what happened. Alesia was forgotten. The place where Cesar defeated the Celts by building a fortress around Alesia, defying every effort of the isolated population of Alesia from breaking out. This population included the army of Vercingétorix consisting of Celtic tribes. At the same time the Romans were obstructing other tribes to provide supplies to the encircled village. The Romans had catapults and some German tribes as allies. The people of Alesia had only thirst and hunger.I leave the carnage to Cesar's "De bello gallico", but historians are calculating the losses of Celts during Cesar's campaign, to a number of five-six ciphers. Figures I did not tell my sons. They only knew that Vercingétorix had to lay down his weapon at the feet of Cesar. Although in the comic of Astérix, he drops his weapons upon the toes of the conqueror - a small revenge from posterity... Never-the-less, the defeated Gaul had to spend six years as a piece of museum in Rome before being executed. And Alesia disappeared from the maps as from the celtic language.At last - more than 1950 years later - after puttting an end to Muslim advancing at Poitiers in 732, after a Charlemagne, a "successful" war during hundred years against the English, after Versailles and 18 kinds of Louis, Age of Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789, a Napoleon that conquered most of Europe - did the French venture the humiliating defeat at Alesia, a notion Cesar had made immotal, but of which the French had disposed.I brought my boys to Alise-Sainte-Reine, a small hamlet of seven hundred inhabitants not far from Dijon in the Côte d'Or in the North-East of France. There were a lot of fragments from equipment and arms used by the Romans and the ones belonging to Celtic warfare - and a lot of remains of horses. That is why scholars centered their interest on Alise-Sainte-Reine when they during the reign of Napoleon III finaly started the search for Alesia.Alesia - Alise... Homogenous, but jumping to conclusions is a famous - and sometimes erratic sport. Places change names. The old Nicea is to-day called Iznik, Austerlitz is Slavkov, Stalingrad Volgograd... But my boys were delighted and quite certain of the choise I had made: On the hill of Auxois above Alise-Sainte-Reine they met with the very Vercingétorix!
The French finaly decided to raise a statue of the old warrior upon the mountain of Auxois close by Alise-Sainte-Reine 1865. My boys immediately recognized Vercingétorix from their story of Astérix - or was it the opposite?! Besides - the fellow on the pedestal had no shield! Their heroes in "Le bouclier Arverne" had taken care of this memorable item. They were convinced that their father had found the place that do not exist.The battle of Alesia did not end with the statue on the Auxois mountain. From being a plce that did not exist, Alesia turned into a phenomenon that emerged in a lot of places. During the last hundred years, archelogists have discovered several sites that might be the one and only Alesia. Not so strange, regarding all the fighting between the Romans and the Celts in Gallia. One of the more interesting battlegrounds is situated outside Champagnole in the Jura, close to the Swiss border. Another one is called "L'archéodrome", southeast of Beaune in Bourgogne, in a huge area of recreation along the southbound part of Autoroute sud or "E 15". There is a model of the wall Cesar built around Alesia. In these surroundings a lot of remains of Roman and Celtic weaponry are found. Maybe this is created as a compromise between Alise-Sainte-Reine and Champagnole?My boys were satisfied. They had found the place that do not exist - regardless of where it really exist. The statue of Vercingétorix was their evidence. On the top of his pidestal I guess the old chief is listening to the discussions from the scientists - and enjoy the memory of the children that found their place that do not exist...Yours Thor Thorstensen
fredag 7 februari 2014
Visiting a Place that Do Not Exist.
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