Hirtius, Book VIII and Uxellodunum: The Gallic Year Caesar Did Not Write

Book VIII of the Gallic War is by Aulus Hirtius, not Caesar. It covers the Bellovaci, the siege of Uxellodunum and a harsh clemency in 51 BC.

13 November 2026 · Part of Roman Empire & Republic — a guide to 30 articles →

Book VIII of the Gallic War was not written by Julius Caesar. It was added by his officer Aulus Hirtius, and it covers 51 and 50 BC, the year of a harsh mopping-up campaign that Caesar himself never described. Its centrepiece is the siege of Uxellodunum, the last big stand of the Gallic revolt, where Roman engineers took away the defenders' water and Caesar then cut off the hands of those who had fought. Because the book is by a loyal subordinate, it deserves a different kind of reading from the seven that precede it.

Why there is a Book VIII

Caesar's seven books end with the surrender of Vercingetorix after Alesia in 52 BC (BG VII.89-90). The war did not end there. Several communities were still in arms, and the Roman army spent another campaigning season subduing them. Caesar left no account of it. Hirtius filled the gap, and in a preface addressed to Lucius Cornelius Balbus he explains himself: he had been pressed to continue the commentaries, he says he is conscious of being no match for Caesar as a writer, and he wanted the narrative to run on to the later events without a break.

The preface is one of the few places where an ancient continuator tells us why he wrote. Suetonius, writing much later, records the tradition that Hirtius finished the last, unfinished book of the Gallic commentaries, while also noting disagreement over who wrote the other continuations (Suet. Jul. 56). That is the weight of the evidence: a self-declared author, supported by a later tradition. It is a good reminder that the Gallic War is a composite text, not one man's voice from start to finish. Scholars such as Andrew Riggsby have argued at length that the commentaries are carefully shaped political writing, not neutral reports.

Hirtius's own position matters too. He served under Caesar, rose in Caesar's party and was later consul in 43 BC. He is not a rival witness. He is a friend finishing a friend's work, which is why his Book VIII reads so much like a defence of what happened.

The year in outline

The dataset behind our record of these operations lists three entries for this book, each cited to Hirtius's chapters:

Other actions fill the gaps between them, including operations by Caesar's lieutenants in the west and the cavalry victory of Labienus over the Treveri (VIII.45), which we discuss in the account of Titus Labienus. Hirtius organises the year around Caesar's movements, which is a choice about emphasis and not a neutral grid.

The Bellovaci

The first big campaign, in Hirtius's telling, was against the Bellovaci of what is now Picardy (VIII.6-23). Their leader was Correus, and Hirtius says Commius the Atrebatian, a man who had once served Caesar, was associated with the effort to raise German horse (VIII.7). The Romans and the Bellovaci faced each other across marshy ground for days, with skirmishing and foraging fights, until Correus was killed in an ambush on a Roman foraging party and the Bellovaci sued for terms (VIII.19-23).

It is the sort of campaign that interests a specialist more than a general reader: no single dramatic battle, a war of camps, supply and patience. That is precisely why it is thinly covered in English. It shows an army that, after Alesia, no longer feared a decisive defeat and could afford to wait.

Uxellodunum

The final and most vivid episode is the siege of Uxellodunum (VIII.32-44). Two leaders still holding out, Lucterius of the Cadurci and Drappes, a Senonian, took refuge in a hilltop town. Roman lieutenants had hemmed them in, and Caesar came up with his cavalry to take charge.

What decided it was water. The town stood on a steep rock with a river below, and the Romans could not easily bring up works to the walls. According to Hirtius, the besiegers first denied the defenders access to the river and then turned to the spring that supplied the town from the foot of the hill. Roman engineers raised a ramp and a tower on it to threaten the spring, and, as a second measure, drove tunnels towards its source. The tunnels tapped the veins of the spring, the flow failed, and the defenders, seeing it as a sign of divine anger, gave up (VIII.40-43). Drappes, we are told, starved himself to death after capture. Lucterius was handed over by an Arvernian.

The hands

Then comes the passage that makes Book VIII hard to forget. Hirtius reports that Caesar knew his own reputation for mildness was well established and that he did not fear being thought cruel by nature. He decided to make an example, so that no others would attempt a rising. All who had carried arms had their hands cut off and were let go, to be living proof of what rebellion cost (VIII.44).

We should read that carefully. The explanation, that Caesar acted from calculation and not from anger, comes from Hirtius, a man with every reason to defend it. The act itself is not in doubt as a claim of the text, but the justification is the author's. Compare how Caesar treated the Usipetes and Tencteri in the Rhine massacre, discussed in our account of that episode: in both cases the narrative frames severity as policy. Some modern writers read the mutilation as a deliberate attempt to end a war by terror, while others stress that Hirtius is anxious to excuse it. Both readings start from the same text.

Where was Uxellodunum?

The site is disputed, although most scholars now accept one answer. The long-favoured identification is the Puy d'Issolud in the Lot, where nineteenth-century and later excavations found Roman siege works and a spring tunnel, and where French cultural authorities have officially endorsed the identification. Capdenac and other locations were proposed earlier. The dataset keeps the note "site disputed" because Hirtius's description is not a map, and a careful historian says "probably Puy d'Issolud" and not more.

The final settlement

The last chapters (VIII.46-49) describe the closing of the war. Caesar toured Gaul, imposed light terms and avoided further punishment, and spent the winter at Nemetocenna in Belgic Gaul. Hirtius presents this as the reward of a calmer policy, and the sequence from terror to leniency is neat enough to look edited. After the narrative ends, the larger political drama begins: the dispute with the Senate, the crossing of the Rubicon and the civil war that Hirtius's later chapters foreshadow.

What the book teaches us

Book VIII is a lesson in how a text can change author without changing tone. The Latin is plainer than Caesar's, and the gloss on events is more openly apologetic, but the chain of evidence is the same: a Roman officer describes a Roman victory, and the other side does not speak. For comparison with the defeat Caesar admitted in his own pages, see Gergovia, and for the earlier winter crisis, the camp of Quintus Cicero.

Conclusion

Aulus Hirtius preserved a year of Gallic history that Caesar left blank, and in doing so left us a text with a visible seam. The Bellovaci campaign, the water war at Uxellodunum and the severity that followed are known almost entirely through him. He is a valuable witness and a partial one. Treat Book VIII as the voice of a loyal staff officer, check its claims against archaeology where possible, and keep the dataset's chapter references close.

Frequently asked questions

Did Caesar write Book VIII of the Gallic War? No. Hirtius says in his own preface that he is adding the book to complete the commentaries, and the later tradition reported by Suetonius agrees that Hirtius finished the last book. Books I to VII are Caesar's.

What happened at Uxellodunum? In 51 BC Roman forces besieged the Cadurci and their allies in a hilltop town. According to Hirtius, the Romans cut off the water supply by tunnelling towards the spring, and the defenders surrendered.

Did Caesar really cut off the hands of the prisoners? Hirtius reports that he did, to those who had borne arms, and gives deterrence as the reason. The reason is Hirtius's explanation, so it should be treated as the view of a supporter.

Where was Uxellodunum? The most widely accepted site is the Puy d'Issolud in the Lot department of France, though the identification has been contested and the text alone cannot settle it.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in Recommended reading — and in Further reading on older articles — may earn Writesides of History a commission at no extra cost to you.