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Two of their confederations, the AEduans, of whom mention has already been made, and the Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and the Rhone, were at war. A third confederation, the most powerful in Gaul at this time, the Arvernians, who were rivals of the AEduans, gave their countenance to the Allobrogians.
In less than twenty-four hours the signal of insurrection against Rome was borne across the country as far as the Arvernians, amongst whom conspiracy had long ago been waiting and paving the way for insurrection. Amongst them lived a young Gaul whose real name has remained unknown, and whom history has called Vercingetorix, that is, chief over a hundred heads, chief-in-general.
Except the AEduans and Arvernians, whom Caesar kept for the purpose of trying to regain their people, he had the prisoners distributed, head by head, to his army as booty of war." The account of Dion Cassius is more varied and dramatic.
He came of an ancient and powerful family of Arvernians, and his father had been put to death in his own city for attempting to make himself king. Caesar knew him, and had taken some pains to attach him to himself.
In Caesar's time we find the Belgae in north-eastern Gaul between the Seine and the Rhine still forming such an association, which, however, apparently no longer extends to Britain; by their side there appears, in the modern Normandy and Brittany, the league of the Aremorican or the maritime cantons: in central or proper Gaul two parties as formerly contended for the hegemony, the one headed by the Haedui, the other by the Sequani after the Arvernians weakened by the wars with Rome had retired.
There lived among the Arvernians, in the high mountainland, among the volcanic peaks of Auvergne, as it is now called, a young chief, whose real name is not known, but whom history calls Vercingetorix, that is, Head over a Hundred Tribes. The time was come for an united, determined, and desperate resistance. He sent messengers throughout Gaul.
But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the accepted historian of the period, and living only in the next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more signal for he reduces the troopers to ten. The mixture of "Arms" and the "Gown" is noteworthy. If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons.
The descriptions of the open table which he kept in an enclosure of 1500 double paces square, and to which every one who came in the way was invited, vividly remind us of the marriage table of Camacho. In fact, the numerous Arvernian gold coins of this period still extant show that the canton of the Arvernians had attained to extraordinary wealth and a comparatively high standard of civilization.
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