Vellaunodunum
Vellaunodunum in Gallia. In B.C. 52 Caesar, leaving two legions and all the baggage at Agedincum (Sens), marches on Genabum (Orléans). On the second day he reaches Vellaunodunum. (B. G. 7.11.) In two days Caesar made a vallum round Vellaunodunum, and on the third day the place surrendered, and the people gave up their arms. There is no evidence about the site of Vellaunodunum, except that it was on the road from Sens to Orléans, and was reached in the second day's march from Sens, and that Caesar reached Orléans in two days from Vellaunodunum. Caesar was marching quick. D'Anville conjectures that Vellaunodunum may be Beaune, in the old province of Gâtinois; for Beaune is about 40 Roman miles from Sens, and the Roman army would march that distance in two days. Beaune is named Belna in the Pagus Vastinensis (Gâtinois, Gastinois, Vastinois; VAPINCUM), in the acts of a council held at Soissons in 862, and D'Anville thinks that Belna may be a corruption of Vellauna, which is the name of Vellaunodunum, if we cut off the termination dunum. (D'Anville, Notice, &c.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.