Note 9 — Chapter VI

"Caesar in his Commentaries, and after him the later historians, took the title of command held by this hero of Gaul for his proper name, and, by corruption, wrote Vercingetorix in place of Ver-cinn-cedo-righ, Chief of the Hundred Valleys," observes Amedée Thierry (History of the Gauls, vol. III, p. 86). "Vercingetorix, a native of Auvergne, was the son of Celtil, who, guilty of conspiring against the freedom of his city, expiated on the pyre his ambition and his crime. The young Gaul thus became heir to the goods of his father, whose name he nevertheless blushed to bear. Having become the idol of his people, he traveled to Rome and saw Caesar, who attempted to win his good graces. But the Gaul rejected the friendship of his country's enemy. Returned to his native land he labored secretly to reawaken among his people the spirit of independence, and to raise up enemies against the Romans. When the hour to call the people to arms was come, he showed himself openly, in druid ceremonies, in political meetings; everywhere, in short, he was seen employing his eloquence, his fortune, his credit, in a word all his means of action upon the chiefs and on the multitude, to spur them on to reconquer the rights of old Gaul."—Thierry.