Cisalpine Gaul
89
MENTIONS
19
EPISODES
16
PODCASTS
Search complete. 89 mentions across 19 episodes found for "Cisalpine Gaul".
Oct 17, 2026
Trevor CulleyHOST
So for six years, raids, sieges, and attacks on supply lines became standard.
Trevor CulleyHOST
Carthage deployed almost 60,000 mercenary soldiers recruited from North Africa, Gaul, and the Iberian Peninsula to the island.
Trevor CulleyHOST
The problem was Rome had proven itself to be all but undefeatable on land, and Carthage controlled the sea.
Trevor CulleyHOST
The Carthaginians could always resupply and bring in more mercenaries.
5 MINS LATER
Trevor CulleyHOST
Carthage didn't have the funds left to rebuild, and this allowed Rome to solidify a blockade of the last Punic strongholds in Sicily.
Trevor CulleyHOST
Carthage sued for peace, agreed to pay an indemnity, and ceded control of not only Sicily, but Corsica and Sardinia to Rome.
Trevor CulleyHOST
When the dust cleared, Syracuse was the only independent state anywhere near Italy south of Cisalpine Gaul, and Carthage was confined to North Africa and southern Iberia.
Trevor CulleyHOST
This defeat, and the financial demands that Rome imposed along with it, would further destabilize Carthage over the coming years.
Becky CookNARRATOR
The Citrones, Graioceli, and Cotoriges seized the Alpine heights and tried to stop the advance of the army.
Becky CookNARRATOR
Beating them off in several combats, he made his way in seven days from Aquilum, the extreme point of the Cisalpine province, into the territory of the Vocontii in the Further province.
Becky CookNARRATOR
Thence he led the army into the country of the Allobroges, and from their country into that of the Segusiavi, the first people outside the province beyond the Rhone.
Becky CookNARRATOR
The Helvetii had by this time threaded the pass, crossed the country of the Sequani, and reached that of the Aduae, whose lands they were ravaging.
18 MINS LATER
Becky CookNARRATOR
The Helvetii, believing that the Romans were moving away because they were afraid of them, especially as on the day before though they had occupied a position of vantage they had declined an action, were confident of being able to cut them off from supplies, altered their plans, reversed their march, and began to hang upon our rear guard and harass them.
Becky CookNARRATOR
Observing this, Caesar withdrew his troops on a hill close by and sent his cavalry to stem the enemy's attacks.
Becky CookNARRATOR
Meanwhile, he formed his four veteran legions in three lines halfway up the hill, posting the two which he had recently levied on Cisalpine Gaul and all the auxiliaries above on the ridge and thus occupying the whole hill.
Becky CookNARRATOR
At the same time, he ordered the men's packs to be collected and the space which they covered to be entrenched by the troops posted on the high ground.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
We tend to picture a single gamble at a riverbank in 49 BC, and that picture puts the decisive moment years too late.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
The damage came in the consulship of 59, when Caesar forced his laws through and treated his colleague's lawful obstruction as if it didn't exist, and then in Gaul, where a provincial command turned into his own private supply of soldiers and money.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
The record leaves us a consul standing in the Forum with dung dumped over his head, and his rods of office broken, a timber bridge across the Rhine that Caesar says his men built in 10 days, and a double ring of siege walls closing in around Alesia.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
We'll follow him from the young man that hid from Sulla's purges and borrowed his way upward, to 50 BC, when giving up his command meant facing prosecution for everything he did in 59.
12 MINS LATER
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
So if you run into the name Calpurnius in the sources from this year, it's worth checking which one you're reading about.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
Then came the law that mattered most to Caesar himself.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
A trium named Vatinius passed the Lex Vatinia, the Vatinian Law, giving Caesar a five-year command over Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
Every one of the triumvirs got what he came for that year, and Caesar's share was an army and five years of distance from Rome.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
We tend to picture a single gamble at a riverbank in 49 BC, and that picture puts the decisive moment years too late.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
The damage came in the consulship of 59, when Caesar forced his laws through and treated his colleague's lawful obstruction as if it didn't exist, and then in Gaul, where a provincial command turned into his own private supply of soldiers and money.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
The record leaves us a consul standing in the Forum with dung dumped over his head, and his rods of office broken, a timber bridge across the Rhine that Caesar says his men built in 10 days, and a double ring of siege walls closing in around Alesia.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
We'll follow him from the young man that hid from Sulla's purges and borrowed his way upward, to 50 BC, when giving up his command meant facing prosecution for everything he did in 59.
12 MINS LATER
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
So if you run into the name Calpurnius in the sources from this year, it's worth checking which one you're reading about.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
Then came the law that mattered most to Caesar himself.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
A trium named Vatinius passed the Lex Vatinia, the Vatinian Law, giving Caesar a five-year command over Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum.
Jeremy Ryan SlateHOST
Every one of the triumvirs got what he came for that year, and Caesar's share was an army and five years of distance from Rome.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
For his starting-line in reckoning north and south, he used a meridian passing through the first cataract, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Byzantium.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
The next two hundred years after Eratosthenes' death was filled up by the spread of the Roman Empire, by the taking over by the Romans of the vast possessions previously held by Alexander and his successors and by the Carthaginians, and by their spread into Gaul, Britain, and Germany.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
Much of the increased knowledge thus obtained was summed up in the geographical work of Strabo, who wrote in Greek about 20 B.C.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
He introduced from the extra knowledge thus obtained many modifications of the system of Eratosthenes, but on the whole kept to his general conception of the world.
19 MINS LATER
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
Meanwhile, in the western portion of the civilized world, a similar process had gone on.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
In the Italian peninsula, the usual struggle had gone on between the various tribes inhabiting it.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
The fertile plain of Lombardy was not in those days regarded as belonging to Italy, but was known as Cisalpine Gaul.
Steven SeitelNARRATOR
The south of Italy, as we have seen, was mainly inhabited by Greek colonists, and was called Great Greece.
speaker_3NARRATOR
Furthermore, they would distribute the Roman provinces among themselves.
speaker_3NARRATOR
Antony was to govern Gallia Cisalpina and Gallia Comata, Lepidus took over Gallia Narbonensis, and the two Spains, while Octavian was put in charge of Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia.
speaker_3NARRATOR
Italy remained neutral ground.
speaker_3NARRATOR
Each of the three also assumed a different task.
Tony RobinsonNARRATOR
Caesar ignored them and wangled the job he wanted.
Tony RobinsonNARRATOR
He took the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, a lucrative province that also let him keep in close touch with his interests in Rome.
Tony RobinsonNARRATOR
He could have ended up as just another corrupt Roman politician, a footnote in history.
Tony RobinsonNARRATOR
Then fate intervened.
Trevor CulleyHOST
But tensions flared again in 283, when a group of Senone's Gauls, possibly at Etruscan urging, attacked a Roman ally and defeated the Roman army sent to respond.
Trevor CulleyHOST
That led to Rome's first invasion of Gaul, or more accurately, Cisalpine Gaul, meaning Gaul on this side of the Alps from the Roman perspective, roughly corresponding to the eight northernmost regions of modern Italy and Marche, which was the target of the current invasion.
Trevor CulleyHOST
The Senones Gauls were defeated, and the Roman colony of Senigallia was founded in their former territory, prompting another battle with allied Gauls and Etruscans at Lake Vadimo in 283, which was, of course, another Roman victory.
Trevor CulleyHOST
This was effectively the end of organized, unified central Italian resistance to Rome.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
The civil war between Marius and Sulla had been succeeded by conflict between Pompey and Julius Caesar for supreme power.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
When Virgil was 20, Caesar with his army swooped south from Gaul, crossed the Rubicon, and began the series of civil wars that were not to end until Augustus's victory at Actium in 31 BC." Side note, side note from Jen, this is outside of the quote.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
It was Julius Caesar, actually, who gave Virgil the right to become a Roman citizen.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
He famously granted citizenship to everyone along the Po River around the area where Virgil lived.
7 MINS LATER
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
So the conflict played out like this, and this is a quote from The Historian's Hut.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
Quote, "To understand the situation, one must take into account the times in which Virgil lived.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
He grew up in the province of Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy during the heyday of Julius Caesar.
Jenny WilliamsonHOST
In the year 49 BC, Caesar gave the people of Cisalpine Gaul, including Virgil, the gift of Roman citizenship.
Simon WhistlerHOST
This was building up to more than just a confrontation between two men, because Caesar had the favor of the Populares, while Pompey was supported by the Optimates.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Before all of this, while the first triumvirate was still in effect, with the help of his allies, Caesar had gained multiple governorships and had used the army at his command to conquer Gaul.
Simon WhistlerHOST
This move was popular with the people, but it also provided ammunition for his political enemies, who claimed that Caesar did this without the approval of the Senate and that his military campaign had been illegal.
Simon WhistlerHOST
At the time, Caesar was safe because he had been a pro-consul and this gave him immunity from prosecution, but that expired in 50 BC.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Therefore, on January 10, 49 BC, Caesar did something that forever changed the course of Roman history.
Simon WhistlerHOST
He crossed the Rubicon Nowadays, crossing the Rubicon is an expression meaning to pass the point of no return, but back then it was literal.
Simon WhistlerHOST
The Rubicon was the river that separated Italy proper from the province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Crossing it with an army was forbidden, as it was considered an attempted coup, so it As soon as he did this, Caesar became an enemy of the state and plunged Rome into civil war.
9 more episodes mention Cisalpine Gaul.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.