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Vercingétorix et la Période Romaine (200 av. J.-C. – 450 apr. J.-C.) By the second century BC, France was called Gaul (Gallia Transalpina) by the Romans. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between Rhine and Seine), the Celts in the centre and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans In the second century BC, Mediterranean Gaul had an extensive urban fabric and was prosperous, while the heavily forested northern Gaul had almost no cities outside of fortified compounds (or oppida) used in times of war. The prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia (Marseille), who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 125 BC, and by 121 BC they had conquered the Mediterranean region called Provincia (Provence). This conquest upset the ascendancy of Gaul’s Arverni tribe. The Roman proconsul and general Julius Caesar pushed his army into Gaul in 58BC, on the pretext of assisting Rome's Gaullist allies against the migrating Helvetii. With the help of various Gallic tribes (for example, the Aedui) he managed to conquer nearly all of Gaul. But the Arverni tribe, under Chieftain Vercingetorix, still defied Roman rule. Julius Caesar was checked by Vercingetorix at a siege of Gergorvia (Gergovie), a fortified town in the center of Gaul (Auvergne). Caesar's alliances with many Gallic tribes broke. Even the Aedui, their most faithful supporters, threw in their lot with the Arverni. Caesar captured Vercingetorix in the Battle of Alesia, which ended Gallic resistance to Rome. As many as a million people (probably 1 in 4 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 tribes were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars. The entire population of the city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) were slaughtered.[8] During Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) approximately 60% of the tribe was destroyed, and another 20% was taken into slavery.