This high-relief sculpture carved on a sarcophagus of the 2nd century ably depicts the confusion and havoc of battle between Romans and Celtic warriors.

Gaul

The Gallic Wars: To Northern Gaul

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

The gray skies of winter still shrouded the town of Vesontio on the Dubis River. To the south, when not obscured by mist and rain, rose the Jura Mountains, and beyond that the lofty peaks of the Alps and the nearest Roman Province, Gallia Cisalpina. Read more

Gaul

Noble Celtic Warrior, 1st Century, B.C.

The Gauls were Celtic people who lived in much of Europe from the 5th century BC. They were described by Greek and Roman historians as tall, muscular, fair-skinned, with long blonde, or reddish hair. Read more

Roman legionaries clamber out of galleys and wade toward the battle on the English shore.

Gaul

Julius Caesar’s Expedition to Brittania

By Ludwig Dyck

By the summer of 55 bc, 45-year-old Roman proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar was a veteran military campaigner. For the past three years, under his lead, the tramp of hobnailed sandals had resounded across the countryside of Gaul, the westernmost province of the Roman empire. Read more

Gaul

Teutonic Fury

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

As part of tribal obligations to appease Rome, Segimer, the powerful Cherusci chief, surrendered his sons Arminius and Flavus to the Roman emperor Augustus. Read more

Gaul

Drusus the Elder: Hero of Rome

By P. Lindsay Powell

On a sultry summer night in 9 BC, 29-year-old commander of Augustus Caesar ’s army in Germania bolted upright in his cot, dripping with sweat. Read more

A modern illustration shows Roman legionnaires on the march. The front ranks typically charged into battle, stopping to hurl their pilum before closing with the enemy using their gladius. In the melee, they used their scutum to knock their opponents off balance.

Gaul

Roman Armageddon at Pharsalus

By William E. Welsh

The snow-capped peaks of the Ceraunian Mountains stared down on the sturdy barks hunting for a suitable place to land on the coast of Epirus on January 5, 48 bc. Read more

Gaul

The Scholarly Spies

By Tim Miller

Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more

Gaul

Frankish Disaster in Saxony

By William E. Welsh

The Saxon warriors worked tirelessly from dawn to dusk atop the mountain felling trees, cutting them into logs, and adding them to the field fort they were building on a flat spur of the Suntel Mountains in the heart of their homeland. Read more

In August 1944, the Allies followed up the massive Normandy Invasion with another in southern France known as Operation Dragoon.

Gaul

Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon

By Glenn Barnette and André Bernole

Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more

When Julius Caesar and Pompey squared off in their Civil War, ruses, lies, and interrogations affected the outcome.

Gaul

Julius Caesar vs Pompey: A Civil War of Subterfuge

By Douglas Sterling

Unlike Pompey, much of Julius Caesar’s military successes in the late Roman Republic stemmed not only from his ability as a leader of men and from tactical prowess on the battlefield, but also from his understanding of the importance of military intelligence. Read more

An engraving depicts the death of Roman emperor Julian the Apostate at the hands of Persians.

Gaul

Emperor Julian “The Apostate”

By Kaveh Farrokh

“[W]hen Emperor Julian had received the wound [in Persia], he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, Thou hast won, O Galilean,” wrote Theodoret of Cyrus. Read more

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