Celts - do you find it Gauling how rulesets treat them...

[Tim]

In another thread it was posted

'
I have always loved the Celts but their complexity is usually matched by the stereotyping many rules give them. Is this right or wrong or can they have the best, or worst, of both worlds? In my hands they are loved yet doomed.....
'

To protect the guilty I won't mention that it was Steve Neate's post. Are Celts sterotyped by rules writers? Should we treat the La Tene cultures the roughly the same as the Galatians in Asia Minor hundreds of years later? Would you be able to recreate the Battle of the Allia (in any of the versions in the ancient sources or the modern interpretations) using wargames rules? Or is it just that some people don't know how to get the best out of them...?

[Justin Swanton]

Which leads to the question: exactly how good were they? They made mincemeat of the Etruscans and initially the Romans, and they fought their way right into the middle of Anatolia, hellenistic armies notwithstanding. But then Caesar beats them with relative ease. Could it be that the earlier Gauls were a good deal more deadly than the later ones? Or did it have something to do with the equipment, training and fighting technique of Marian legionaries?

[Duncan Head]

Caesar does something of a Cortez on the Gauls, beating themin part due to their disunity and the use of local allies. He also talks about the state of Gaulish society in terms which are sometimes thought to indicate a change from earlier times:

Throughout Gaul there are two classes of persons of definite account and dignity. As for the common folk, they are treated almost as slaves, venturing naught of themselves, never taken into counsel. The more part of them, oppressed as they are either by debt, or by the heavy weight of tribute, or by the wrongdoing of the more powerful men, commit themselves in slavery to the nobles, who have, in fact, the same rights over them as masters over slaves. Of the two classes above mentioned one consists of Druids, the other of knights (equites).
...
The other class are the knights. These, when there is occasion, upon the incidence of a war — and before Caesar's coming this would happen well-nigh every year, in the sense that they would either be making wanton attacks themselves or repelling such — are all engaged therein; and according to the importance of each of them in birth and resources, so is the number of liegemen and dependents (ambactos clientesque) that he has about him. This is the one form of influence and power known to them.

Loeb note to "ambactos": This is probably a Celtic word. The service of the ambacti (cf. VII.40) seems to have been similar to that of the soldurii among the Aquitani (III.22); both stand in a somewhat higher relation to their lords than the clientes.

This doesn't sound like a setup that is going to produce a large force of enthusiastic "warband" infantry.

[DougM]

Which leads to the question: exactly how good were they? They made mincemeat of the Etruscans and initially the Romans, and they fought their way right into the middle of Anatolia, hellenistic armies notwithstanding. But then Caesar beats them with relative ease. Could it be that the earlier Gauls were a good deal more deadly than the later ones? Or did it have something to do with the equipment, training and fighting technique of Marian legionaries?

Far more to do with their inability to coordinate into large forces under a single command in my view. When Roman organisation reached the point they could reliably put enormous multi-legion armies in the field, and come back after losing battles, the Celts were doomed. Caesar beat them with relative ease in my view, because he outnumbered them, there was no such thing as a unified resistance to him, Celtic tribes allied with Rome against their Celtic rivals, and his logistics were better. I don't think there is any need to find a further reason.

[Jim Webster]

Which leads to the question: exactly how good were they? They made mincemeat of the Etruscans and initially the Romans, and they fought their way right into the middle of Anatolia, hellenistic armies notwithstanding. But then Caesar beats them with relative ease. Could it be that the earlier Gauls were a good deal more deadly than the later ones? Or did it have something to do with the equipment, training and fighting technique of Marian legionaries?

Far more to do with their inability to coordinate into large forces under a single command in my view. When Roman organisation reached the point they could reliably put enormous multi-legion armies in the field, and come back after losing battles, the Celts were doomed. Caesar beat them with relative ease in my view, because he outnumbered them, there was no such thing as a unified resistance to him, Celtic tribes allied with Rome against their Celtic rivals, and his logistics were better. I don't think there is any need to find a further reason.

Whilst not disagreeing with your points Doug, we accept considerable changes in the Roman army  (And society) between Allia and Caesar. There is no reason that Gallic society and warfare had stayed unchanged over the same period

The problem with the descriptions of Gallic warfare is we have a strong literary topos (topoi, I can never remember plural/singular in a language  I never learned    ) and writers keep referring back to it.

After all it's a bit embarrassing to finally lay the ghosts of Allia and have to confess that the modern Gauls weren't a patch on the men their great great etc grandfathers were

[Erpingham]

One question I would have is , if we follow Caesar's ideas of a warrior class and followers supported by serfs/slaves, how do we explain the large armies of Celts in our classical sources (including Caesar)?  Are the large numbers not fighting men but some kind of peasant horde?

[DougM]

There may be no reason not to suppose changes in Gallic society but Roman politics was in constant ferment in the mid to late Republic, which created dynamic societal change. Do we have any evidence that Gallic society was anything other than conservative and fairly static till the Romans upset the apple cart.

[Justin Swanton]

One question I would have is , if we follow Caesar's ideas of a warrior class and followers supported by serfs/slaves, how do we explain the large armies of Celts in our classical sources (including Caesar)?  Are the large numbers not fighting men but some kind of peasant horde?

There was an article in Slingshot on that.

[Imperial Dave]

plus....just to chuck in the curve ball.....are all Gauls equal? I mean its a vast area and multi-tribal. I cant for one moment believe they were all armed, trained etc to the same standard

[aligern]

I expect that there is a difference between settled Northern Barbarians and migrating forces.  Although the ties of dependence for a migrating society will be much the same the need for mobilisation is much greater. Thus, if you are the Cimbri and Teutones marching from Southern Denmark to Gaul and Spain the majority of adult males are lijely to be available to fight. If you are the Aedui sitting in Central Gaul in 60BC then there is less need to call out the whole hst. Lets assume that all free men have arms and can be called up to defend the oppidum, its less lijely that the whole mass marches off to dona little cattle raiding and then back for boasting and feasting. We shoukd expect warfare in settled tribes to become more of a professional thing.  One wonders if the Gauls had a system lije the Anglo Saxon select levy which restricted the numbers required but demanded better equipment.

Doug makes good points, it takes the forces of several tribes, allied, to take on Caesar, one is not enough, whereas  the Romans have mastered mass recruitment and training. Probably it was a matter that one could raise a lot of Gauls , but not of high quality.
Roy

[Imperial Dave]

I expect that there is a difference between settled Northern Barbarians and migrating forces.  Although the ties of dependence for a migrating society will be much the same the need for mobilisation is much greater. Thus, if you are the Cimbri and Teutones marching from Southern Denmark to Gaul and Spain the majority of adult males are lijely to be available to fight. If you are the Aedui sitting in Central Gaul in 60BC then there is less need to call out the whole hst. Lets assume that all free men have arms and can be called up to defend the oppidum, its less lijely that the whole mass marches off to dona little cattle raiding and then back for boasting and feasting. We shoukd expect warfare in settled tribes to become more of a professional thing.  One wonders if the Gauls had a system lije the Anglo Saxon select levy which restricted the numbers required but demanded better equipment.

Doug makes good points, it takes the forces of several tribes, allied, to take on Caesar, one is not enough, whereas  the Romans have mastered mass recruitment and training. Probably it was a matter that one could raise a lot of Gauls , but not of high quality.
Roy

exactly my point and in fact the Teutones and Cimbri are to a lesser or greater extent 'gallicised' Germanic tribes

[Duncan Head]

There may be no reason not to suppose changes in Gallic society but Roman politics was in constant ferment in the mid to late Republic, which created dynamic societal change. Do we have any evidence that Gallic society was anything other than conservative and fairly static till the Romans upset the apple cart.

The shift from rule by kings in the earlier accounts, to rule by squabbling aristocrats in the 1st century BC (Caesar is always going on about "the leading men" of such-and-such a state, and their rivalries; Strabo say sthat the pre-Roman governments were mostly aristocratic).

Incipient urbanism, fuelled presumably by Meditarranean trade.

There are certainly changes going on, but their military impact (let alone how it can be modelled on the table) is less clear.

[Imperial Dave]

There may be no reason not to suppose changes in Gallic society but Roman politics was in constant ferment in the mid to late Republic, which created dynamic societal change. Do we have any evidence that Gallic society was anything other than conservative and fairly static till the Romans upset the apple cart.

The shift from rule by kings in the earlier accounts, to rule by squabbling aristocrats in the 1st century BC (Caesar is always going on about "the leading men" of such-and-such a state, and their rivalries; Strabo say sthat the pre-Roman governments were mostly aristocratic).

Incipient urbanism, fuelled presumably by Meditarranean trade.

There are certainly changes going on, but their military impact (let alone how it can be modelled on the table) is less clear.

could go either way.....a rise in urbanism and confederacy between tribes could have raised the general level of training and tactics to something near a standard OR could have fuelled even greater stratification of the population and thus the military

[Erpingham]

could go either way.....a rise in urbanism and confederacy between tribes could have raised the general level of training and tactics to something near a standard OR could have fuelled even greater stratification of the population and thus the military

We perhaps ought to be cautious with the word "training".  If we take examples from British and Irish contexts (with caution), our socio-professional warrior group practiced fighting skills (and showing off).  To what extent would the artisans in the urban centres or the peasants in the field have done this?  To what extent would oppidum dwellers have had arms?  Enough perhaps to defend the place but not conduct expeditionary warfare?

[aligern]

A matter of individual tribes, perhaps, but the Nervii or was it the Atuatuci were able to surrender enough arms to convince Caesar that they had dis arned and then next day tobrearm themselves from hidden stovis.
Roy