Ambiorix

In the pages of Caesar's Commentaries on the Conquest of Gaul, Vercingetorix emerges as an anti-hero who doggedly fought against the Roman conquest, first by forceful and mostly honorable means, but later with desperation and by any means necessary, sinking to inhumane measures to force his countrymen to continue a hopeless opposition. Finally, when he realized the Romans had won Gaul at Alesia, he heroically surrendered himself to the Romans to prevent further bloodshed and destruction, again becoming a hero in French eyes, as well. France still honors and memorializes Vercingetorix as the first, national hero. Not surprisingly, several other nations select their own first, national hero from the Roman era. For obvious reasons, Germany honors Arminius (aka Hermann), the man who drove out the Romans after they had successfully colonized both sides of the Rhine River in the infamous Teutoburger Wald uprising. The Swiss likewise celebrated Divico, a Helvetian chief in the first century BC, who defeated the Romans. But surprisingly Portugal and the Netherlands chose as their first, national heroes leaders of failed resistance to the Roman conquest, namely Viriathus and Julius Civilis. In other words, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands celebrate men who stood in the way of history, but were run down by the advance of Roman civilization. In the case of France and Portugal, who so long stood in the Latin orbit during the North-South European divide, this contains some irony. Let us reexamine the deeds of these first national heroes, the major sources that record those deeds, and the modern reception and revivals that re-popularized them in the nationalist movements of the 19 th century, leading to the erection of statues of them in Germany and France (and elsewhere). They may not all have resisted Rome, but they won honor for themselves and eternal fame that Odysseus and Achilles would envy. When the Borg on Star Trek are poised to attack they inform the other vessels that " resistance is futile, " and then raid them for their technology and assimilate their people; for most ancient Mediterranean peoples, including the Celts, Carthaginians, Greeks, Syrians, and others, the Romans were just as formidable, just as ruthless, and just as invincible an adversary. The will to resist Roman imperialism required a near suicidal devotion to freedom that did not always guarantee success, sometimes it guarantied only a free death, as in the case of Numantia and Xanthus. In the 19th century and in a few cases earlier, the search of a unifying national figure led most nations that had been part of the Roman Empire to embrace and sometimes misrepresent an early figure of local history as a great freedom fighter for that specific people, although in many cases the national hero did not actually succeed against the Romans, and if they had, it would have prevented the expansion of Western civilization; it is not a matter of " the winners write the history, " since the underdog can inspire local pride and nationalism even if he did not actually win, and especially if he faced overwhelming odds but resisted anyway.