Early Galatians

[Tim]

For reasons I will not bore you all, with Invasion of Greece (or invited in to help liberate the people from a tyrant, depending upon your point of view) Galatians may be my next army.  Three questions for those likely to have more knowledge than I.

1, Do our sources specifically state they fought naked or is it some Greek word that could also mean without armour?

2, Assuming Naked means without clothes, does that apply to all or just the warriors?

3, given the answers to the above skin and hair colour might be rather more crucial than normal when painting the figures; Do our sources having anything to say on colour of hair and skin?

If these questions are answered in a published volume I am more than happy to be directed there.

[Duncan Head]

The only substantial source for the invasion itself is Pausanias, whose text is here. He doesn't actually mention nudity; but Livy describes the Galatians who'd settled in Asia fighting naked 90 years or so later:

Their practice of always fighting naked makes their wounds more visible, and their bodies are white and fleshy as they never strip except in battle. Consequently more blood flowed from them, the open gashes appeared more horrible, and the whiteness of their bodies showed up the stain of the dark blood. Open wounds, however, do not trouble them much. Sometimes, where it is a surface bruise rather than a deep wound, they cut the skin, and even think that in this way they win greater glory in battle. But when the head of an arrow has gone in or a leaden bullet buried itself and it tortures them with what looks like a slight wound and defies all their efforts to get rid of it, they fling themselves on the ground in shame and fury at so small an injury threatening to prove fatal.

(Livy 38.21, http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy38.html )

As for "warriors" only, I don't know of any evidence suggesting naked cavalry (except perhaps one Italian vase-painting, which of course doesn't show a Galatian anyway).

[Tim]

Duncan

Thank you.  I had checked Pausanias - was hoping I had missed something more substantial elsewhere.  Pale 'white' skin with wounds it is.  Some of Caesar's Gallic cavalry may be pressed into service to save on cost.

Regards
Tim

[Erpingham]

How, if at all, does this naked fighting style fit with other mentions of naked Celts elsewhere?   

[Duncan Head]

It's essentially the same habit as we see described, and pictured in the art of various cultures, elsewhere - Gallic/Galatian infantry stripping naked except for their weapons and shields. Except that in the case of Telamon (our other main written source) we're specifically told it is only one part of the army stripping, but Livy implies that all the Galatians do it. Why that difference we don't really know. If the Gaisatai are an old-fashioned survival of an archaic nude-fighting habit, perhaps the Central European areas the Galatians migrated from are old-fashioned traditionalists. On the other hand if the Gaisatai were always eccentric in their combat naturism, perhaps the habit became standard in Galatia to intimidate - and/or to mark the Galatians off from - the Greek and Anatolian locals.

[Paul Innes]

Personally, if I were Gallic, I definitely wouldn't go without clothes in Asia Minor. Too much risk of sunstroke!

Speaking as a Scot, this does make sense, I think...