The site is identified with Merdogne, since renamed Gergovie, a village located on a hill within the town of La Roche-Blanche, near Clermont-Ferrand, in south central France.

As with much of the conflict between Rome and Gaul in the first century BC, information about this battle comes principally from Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War (De Bello Gallico).

In winter 53 BC, while Caesar was gathering his forces for a strike against the Gauls, Vercingetorix came back to Gergovia but was now supported by the Arverni, his people.

He could have kept his forces safe over the winter, but would have shown Roman weakness in defending its allies the Aedui and thus losing their support.

After resting his forces at Avaricum, he sent his top legate, Titus Labienus, with four legions north; this to keep the northern Gauls from interfering with his campaign against the Arverni.

[2] Realizing that its mountainous location made a frontal assault risky, he decided to rely on his superior siege tactics.

He then linked it to his main camp by digging a double trench, twelve feet (3.6 metres) wide, with a parapet.

Caesar suggests in his writing that Aeudui leaders were both bribed with gold and sent misinformation by emissaries of Vercingetorix.

Instead, spurred on by the ease with which they captured the camps, they pressed on toward the town and mounted a direct assault on it, exhausting themselves.

[3] The noise of the assault alerted Vercingetorix, who arrived and saw the Roman and Aedui in dissension just beneath the walls of Gergovia.

Then the warriors left their horses and joined the infantry in their fight against the Romans, who soon had suffered heavy casualties.

In the wake of the battle, Caesar lifted his siege and retreated from the Arverni lands northeastwards in the direction of Aedui territory.

Meanwhile, Labienus had finished his campaign in the north and marched back to Agedincum, Caesar's base in the centre of Gaul.

[5] Emperor Napoleon III was a patron of archaeology and funded research into France's Gallic past, including the battles of Gergovia and Alesia.

[4] As a result of the sponsored dig at Gergovia, the town of Merdogne, the closest to the commonly agreed likely site of the battle, was renamed to Gergovie in honor of its past in 1865.