The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

In the year 52 BC, the Roman General Julius Caesar fought the last major battle in the conquest of Gaul. The implications of the

battle have reverberated throughout history and can still be felt in the world today.

But the real story isn't the implications of the battle, but how it was won. It was one of the most audacious

gambles in military history, and it worked. Learn more about the Battle of

Allegia, one of the greatest feats of tactical military genius in history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. During the Roman Republic, the area we now know as France was called Gaul.

The Gauls had a special place in the Roman psyche.

Over 300 years earlier in 390 BC, a tribe of Gauls entered Italy and sacked Rome.

The sack of Rome by the Gauls created a deep-seated fear of Gaul amongst the Romans.

Other than a thin strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, the Romans left most of the

Gaulle alone for most of the period of the Republic. In the years after the sack of

Rome, periodic raids by Gauls into Italy caused the Romans to resort to human sacrifice, which was something they otherwise

never engaged in.

It was in this environment that Julius Caesar, after he was finished in his term as

consul, was sent to be the pro-consul of the Roman provinces of

Cis alpine Gaul, which was in northern Italy, and Trans-Alpine Gaul, which was the Roman

controlled part of southern France. Caesar came into the position highly in debt, having spent lavishly to attain the consulship.

It was now that his time in office was over that he was going to cash in.

Most pro-consuls would go to a province and make money off of the run-of-the-mill corruption and

squeezing people with high taxes.

Caesar, however, was much more ambitious.

Much more ambitious. He began waging an unauthorized war with all the tribes in Gaul.

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