Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When were the Gallic Wars?
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. Rome's war against the Gallic tribes lasted from 58 BC to 50 BC and culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul (mainly present-day France and Belgium). While militarily just as strong as the Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes helped ease victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late.[6][7] The wars paved the way for Julius Caesar to become the sole ruler of the Roman Republic.
Ships were sometimes camouflaged in classical times. Mediterranean pirate ships were sometimes painted blue-gray for concealment. Vegetius records that Julius Caesar's scout ships were painted bluish-green when gathering intelligence along the coast of Britain during the Gallic Wars. Ships were sometimes painted deceptively during the Age of Sail, while both sides in the American Civil War camouflaged their ships, whether to run blockades or for night reconnaissance.
Since many of the Gauls and Germans joined Caesar's army after his victory over Gaul, their war chants were added to the Roman oeuvre of army songs: When 2000 soldiers from the Gallic cavalry defected to Octavian before the battle of Actium, they didn't only cheer for Caesar but presented genuine Gallic war songs. Probably the most popular vocal performers were the Celtic bards, whose national heroic songs were known in Rome throughout antiquity.
Through avarice Perseus also lost a chance to hire Gallic mercenaries. A body on infantry and cavalry of Gauls who lived in the Balkans offered its services to Perseus for money. Perseus went to one of his camps with a small amount of gold to give to a few of the men hoping that this would entice the others. He got an envoy to tell the Gauls to move their camp to a place near Macedon. The Gauls asked whether the gold had been brought. There was no reply and they said that they would not move unless they received the gold. Perseus gave his officers the excuse that the Gauls were savages and that he would hire only 5,000 cavalry, which were enough for war and not too many to be dangerous, in order to justify not wanting to spend money on the whole of the Gallic body. When the Gauls heard that only 5,000 cavalry and no infantry were going to be hired, the rest of their army was disgruntled. The Gallic chieftain asked whether the 5,000 men would receive the agreed pay, but received an evasive answer. The Gauls left, devastating part of Thrace as they went. Livy thought that this large force of effective fighters could have been used effectively in combined operations with the forces of Perseus, which could have put the Romans in an untenable position.
A popular series by Conn Iggulden called, The Emperor, depicts the Gallic Wars in its third book, The Field of Swords.
The concept album Helvetios by Swiss folk metal band, Eluveitie, tells the story of the Gallic Wars through the eyes of the Helvetii.
The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio. Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded both happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland due to incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes: to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring.[4] After the Helvetii were defeated by a combined Roman-Gallic force, the Helvetii were forced to rebuild themselves on the shattered German and Swiss plains they themselves had destroyed.
The Gauls thought the Romans were retreating towards Italy and decided to attack.
One group of Gallic cavalry blocked the Roman advance while two groups of cavalry harried the Roman's flanks.
After hard fighting, the German cavalry broke the Gallic cavalry on the right and chased them back to the main Gallic infantry force.
The remaining Gallic cavalry fled, and Vercingetorix was forced to retreat to Alesia, where he was besieged by the Romans.
The Battle of Alesia decided the war in the Romans' favor.
The "Gallic Wars" were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against Gallic tribes, lasting from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Romans would also raid Britannia and Germania, but these expeditions never developed into full-scale invasions. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul. The wars paved the way for Caesar to become the sole ruler of the Roman Republic.
Following the battle between Marcellus and the king of the Gauls, the outnumbered Romans broke the siege of Clastidium, won the battle and proceeded to push the Gallic army all the way back to their primary headquarters of Mediolanum. Here, the Romans defeated the Gauls, who surrendered themselves to the Romans. The terms between the Romans and Gauls were accepted and the Gallic war ended. Polybius, a historian of the 2nd century BC and client to the Scipiones, states that much of the overall success in the Gallic War belongs to Marcellus’ colleague, Scipio, but we know from other sources that because Marcellus had won the "spolia opima", Marcellus was awarded a triumph. Following the Gallic wars, Marcellus seems to drop below the historical radar until the year 216 BC, ushering in the latter part of his life.
The power of the Aedui capital was related in the "Commentaries on the Gallic War", which underlined the many alliances held by the Aedui with neighboring peoples. Julius Caesar also mentioned the wars that set the Aedui against the Arverni and the Sequani for hegemony over a large part of Gaul. These references were not impartial, since Rome had been allied with the Aedui, "our blood brothers", since at least the 2nd century BCE. Moreover, they maintained commercial links and military alliances: Rome helped the Aedui in the 2nd century to defeat an Arverni army and rose to their defense against the invasion of the Helvetii that precipitated the Gallic War.
The 2001 film, Druids, starring Christopher Lambert as Vercingetorix, depicts the Gallic Wars from the Gallic perspective.
58-50BC. Julius Caesar leads Roman armies in the Gallic Wars in France and Belgium.
The "Gallic" then served on the Australian service as a cargo vessel, and was later switched to Atlantic cargo service. As a result of the Depression and the merger of White Star with the Cunard Line, in October 1933 the "Gallic" was sold to the Clan Line and renamed "Clan Colquhoun". She continued her service on the same Atlantic route for the next 14 years. During the Second World War, she was operated by the Ministry of War Transport as a refrigerated cargo carrier; unlike many other cargo steamers, she survived the war without incident.
The Nervii were especially renowned for skills at warfare. They ruled and subsisted by warfare and by taxing their dependent and client tribes while adhering to a heroic hoplitic tradition. These Gallic conventions were something Caesar exploited as often as he could.
The Roman-Gallic Wars were a series of conflicts between the forces of ancient Rome and various groups identified as Gauls (or Galli, Galatai, Celts, Celtae, Keltai, Keltoi). Among these were the Senones, Insubres, Boii and Gaesatae.
Around 125 BC, the south of France is conquered by the Romans who called this region "Provincia Romana" ("Roman Province"), which evolved into the name Provence in French. Brennus' sack of Rome was still remembered by Romans, when Julius Caesar conquered the remainder of Gaul. Initially Caesar met with little Gallic resistance: the 60 or so tribes that made up Gaul were unable to unite and defeat the Roman army, something Caesar exploited by pitting one tribe against another. In 58 BC, Caesar defeated the Germanic tribe of the Suebi, which was led by Ariovistus. The following year he conquered the Belgian Gauls after claiming that they were conspiring against Rome. The string of victories continued in a naval triumph against the Veneti in 56 BC. In 53 BC, a united Gallic resistance movement under Vercingetorix emerged for the first time. Caesar laid siege to the fortified city of Avaricum (Bourges) and broke through the defenses after 25 days, with only 800 out of the 40,000 inhabitants managing to escape. He then besieged Gergovia, Vercingetorix's home town, and suffered one of the worst defeats in his career when he had to retreat to suppress a revolt in another part of Gaul. After returning, Caesar surrounded Vercingetorix at Alesia in 52 BC. The townspeople were starved into submission and Caesar's unique defensive earthworks, protruding towards the city and away from it in order to stop a massive Gallic relief force, eventually forced Vercingetorix to surrender. The Gallic Wars were over.
Owing to the First World War and the increased demand for cargo vessels, the British government set into motion a programme to rapidly build emergency cargo ships. Of those, 22 of the Standard "G" Type were ultimately built. Among those was the SS "War Argus", built for HM Shipping Controller by Workman, Clark & Co. of Belfast in 1918. She was launched on 19 October and completed on 12 December, a month after the end of the war. She was then operated by the White Star Line for the government until she was officially declared surplus in 1919. In August 1919, the "War Argus" was purchased by White Star and renamed SS "Gallic".
The "De Bello Gallico" is Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars. As the Wars were raging on, Caesar fell victim to a great deal of criticisms from Rome. "De Bello Gallico" is a response to these criticisms, and a way for Caesar to justify these wars. His argument is that the Gallic Wars were both just and pious, and that he and his army attacked Gaul in self-defense. The Helvetians were forming a massive migration straight through the provinces. When a group of neighboring allies came to Caesar himself asking for help against these invading Helvetians, that was all the justification Caesar needed to gather his army. By creating an account that portrays himself as a superb military hero, Caesar was able to clear all doubts in Rome about his abilities as a leader.
The Gauls emerged around the 5th century BC as the bearers of the La Tène culture north of the Alps (spread across the lands between the Seine, Middle Rhine and upper Elbe). By the 4th century BC, they spread over much of what is now France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia by virtue of controlling the trade routes along the river systems of the Rhône, Seine, Rhine, and Danube, and they quickly expanded into Northern Italy, the Balkans, Transylvania and Galatia. Gaul was never united under a single ruler or government, but the Gallic tribes were 
capable of uniting their forces in large-scale military operations. They reached the peak of their power in the early 3rd century BC.
The rising Roman Republic after the end of the First Punic War increasingly put pressure on the Gallic sphere of influence; the Battle of Telamon of 225 BC heralded a gradual decline of Gallic power over the 2nd century, until the eventual conquest of Gaul in the Gallic Wars of the 50s BC. 
After this, Gaul became a province of the Roman Empire, and the Gauls were ethnically and culturally largely assimilated into Latin (Roman settlers) majority, losing their tribal identities by the end of the 1st century AD.
Caesar remarked that the warlike Nervii refused to yield their ground even after the Atrebates and Virumandui had been put into disarray. When finally surrounded by Roman reinforcements the Nerviians continued fighting as a pitiless hail of missiles rained down on them from the many archers and peltasts Caesar had brought from overseas. The peltasts, slingers and archers were brought for the specific purpose of confounding the Gallic proclivity for shield wall tactics, mass attack and individual close combat.
The Latin title, "Commentaries on the Gallic War", is often retained in English translations of the book, and the title is also translated to "About the Gallic War", "Of the Gallic War", "On the Gallic War", "The Conquest of Gaul", and "The Gallic War".
The historical novel Caesar, by Colleen McCullough, gives a thorough, popular account of the Gallic Wars.
The Gallic sack led to a long-lasting and profound fear of the Gauls in Rome. In 350 and 349 BC, unspecified Gauls attacked Latium. They were probably marauding raids. On the second occasion, Marcus Valerius Corvus was said to have fought a duel with a Gallic champion. Polybius said that Rome made a peace with the Gauls, who did not return for 30 years. Despite Rome defeating the Senones in the Battle of Sentinum (295) during the Third Samnite War (298-290), popular fear of the Gauls persisted. In 228, 216, and 114 fears of Gallic attacks led to the Romans performing human sacrifices by burying alive a pair of Gauls and a pair of Greeks even though human sacrifice was not a Roman custom. Presumably, that was to avert the danger of Gallic disaster.
The DLC campaign Caesar in Gaul for the strategy game Total War: Rome II is set during the Gallic Wars.