52 BC is the key year of the Gallic Revolt, with the near-disastrous Roman defeat at Gergovia followed by the climactic victory over the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix at Alesia. In 52, BC Caesar's continued strategy of annihilation had engendered a spirit of desperation, which detonated into a revolt of Gallic tribes under the leadership of the charismatic young Arvernian noble Vercingetorix. Major engagements were fought at Noviodunum, Avaricum, and Gergovia, with the last action being the most serious reverse that Caesar faced in the whole of the Gallic War. However, Vercingetorix soon realized that he was unable to match the Romans in pitched battle. Taking advantage of the tribesmen's superior knowledge of their home territory, Vercingetorix began a canny policy of small war and defensive manoeuvres, which gravely hampered Caesar's movements by cutting off his supplies. For Caesar it was to be a grim summertime – his whole Gallic enterprise faced disaster. In the event, by brilliant leadership, force of arms, and occasionally sheer luck, Caesar succeeded in stamping out the revolt in a long and brutal action culminating in the siege of Alesia. Vercingetorix finally surrendered and Alesia was to be the last significant resistance to the Roman will. Never again would a Gallic warlord independent of Rome hold sway over the Celts of Gaul.

This is the first commentary on Caesar's Bellum Gallicum to approach it as a literary text. It attempts a contextualized reading of the work through the eyes of a contemporary Roman reader, who was trained in rhetoric, versed in Greek and Roman literature, and familiar with the same political and cultural conventions and discourses as its author. In appreciating Caesar as a writer and situating the seventh book of the Bellum Gallicum within its 'horizon of expectations' and especially its historiographical tradition, it reveals much that rewards careful attention, including: a dramatized narrative, sustained intertextual borrowings and allusions (especially from and to Thucydides and Polybius), (in)direct speeches telling of Rome's second-greatest speaker, and word- and sound-play telling of the leading linguist, not to mention artful technical descriptions that lack parallels in the Roman republic. Ultimately, both author and text emerge as quite different from their grossly generalized reputations.