The Arverni were a Gallic tribe living in what is now the Auvergne region of France during the last centuries BC. One of the most powerful tribes in ancient Gaul, they opposed the Romans on several occasions. Their most important stronghold was Gergovia, near the present-day commune of Clermont-Ferrand. The Averni, for roughly a century between the Third to Second centuries BCE, were the most powerful tribal confederation in Gaul, with their possession of many gold mines and control over the trade routes from the Mediterranean coast to the north of Gaul. The rise of the Arverni to their paramount status over the other Gallic tribes was accomplished under the rule of the apocryphal King Luernius, a wealthy ruler mentioned in the writings of the ancient Greek author Posidonius, who describes the Gaulish king as travelling through his realm on his chariot while scattering coins to his adoring subjects. The Arverni hegemony during this period would extend from the Atlantic coast to the Rhine river valley.
The Arverni would lose their supremacy during a conflict with Rome in 121 BCE. The Arverni Verrix (over-king) at the time was Bititius, who had lost the war against the Roman Consuls Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Bititius would hence be kept as a prisoner at the Roman town of Alba Fucens alongside fellow captive kings such as Perseus of Macedonia and Syphax of Numidia. Afterward, despite the Romans having annexed the territories of the Volcae-Arecomici and the Allobroges to their growing empire, the defeated Arverni managed to make a treaty with Rome to preserve their own independence. They switched their form of government from that of a monarchy to that of a republican oligarchy.
In 52 BCE, Vercingetorix, a young Arverni nobleman who had previously served as an officer of Auxiliary Gauls in Caesar's cavalry, returned to Gergovia to lead the Arverni and other Gallic nations in a final revolt against growing Roman dominion in Tranalpine Gaul under the governorship of Julius Caesar. Despite one major victory over Caesar's forces at the Battle of Gergovia, Vercingetorix would be eventually starved into submission during the great siege of Alesia, where Caesar ordered the construction of a massive circumvallation to contain the Arverni army within Alesia, and yet another one to shield the entrenched Romans from Gallic reinforcements from the outside.