v61_0320 - GALLIA - BITURIGES CUBI (Area of Bourges) Statère ABVCATOS à l’aigle

GALLIA - BITURIGES CUBI (Area of Bourges)

(2nd - 1st century BC)

The territory of the Bituriges Cubes extended over part of Bourbonnais, Touraine and Berry. Their capital was the oppidum of Avaricum (Bourges). The Loire separated them from the Aedui and the Carnutes. In 52 BC, they supported Vercingetorix who pushed them to practice the scorched earth technique. They thus destroyed more than twenty oppida, but refused the same fate to their capital, Avaricum (Bourges). Caesar came to besiege the oppidum, defended by thirty thousand Bituriges and ten thousand allies. The city was taken and set on fire, only eight hundred soldiers were able to escape, while the garrison and the population were massacred. Nevertheless, the Bituriges would still have provided a contingent of twelve thousand men to the relief army of the Gallic coalition, during the siege of Alesia. At the beginning of 51 BC, Caesar led a new campaign among the Bituriges who submitted very quickly..