Julius Caesar was one of the most ambitious and successful politicians of the late Roman Republic and his short but bloody conquest of the Celtic tribes led to the establishment of the Roman province of Gaul (modern France). Caesar's commentaries on his Gallic Wars provide us with the most detailed surviving eye-witness account of a campaign from antiquity. Kate Gilliver makes use of this account and other surviving evidence to consider the importance of the Gallic Wars in the context of the collapse of the Roman Republic and its slide toward civil war.

Dr Kate Gilliver is a a Reader in Ancient History and Director of Learning and Teaching at Cardiff University. A Roman military historian and archaeologist, she has particular interests in the conduct of war and the practicalities of waging war in the Roman world from the second Punic war to the third century AD. She has published on the Roman Art of War, display and uniformity in Roman military equipment, and on temporary encampments.