Dumnonii of Devon

[dwkay57]

and bits of the country nearby...

For various reasons, I decided to use some left over Celtic British figures to start an army based on the Dumnonii from the South West of England. I've scoured through my range of reference books and searched the Internet to find some information about how they might be different in some ways to my existing Celtic British tribes (the Trinovantes and the Deceangli).

I think I've concluded that they were a fairly distributed and loosely associated tribe who kept much to themselves and had more in keeping with their cousins in Northern France and possibly in Ireland and Scotland. There doesn't appear to be any record of battles between them and the Romans, although they could have been one of the tribes that Vespasian subdued, but apparently they did have conflicts with their neighbours the Durotriges and undertook the usual Celtic sport of cattle raiding etc. The lack of coinage and large hill forts and settlements seems to indicate they didn't have the powerful warlord aristocracy of the eastern tribes. And apart from Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth, I've not found any references to chariots this far south-west.

This has started to guide my plans for forming the army but I wondered if anyone else had any findings that might be helpful?

[Anton]

You will find some interesting stuff in Mattingly's An Imperial Possession.  He does a survey of the tribes.

Koch comments that Cunedda may have been of northern (now Scotland) Dumnonii origin.  From memory the key element of the tribal name is "Deep" so "Deep Ones" or something akin.

[Andreas Johansson]

You will find some interesting stuff in Mattingly's An Imperial Possession.  He does a survey of the tribes.

I'm suffering a sudden pang of conscience that I've not got any books to go with my ancient Britons. I guess the wishlist just grew again.

(The only other of my armies with the same predicament would be the Sea Peoples. Since I've barely touched them since 2008 (when they won the LinCon DBA tournament), my conscience is considerably tougher on that front.)

[dwkay57]

One of my reference books did suggest strong cultural links with the Domnonee in Armorica and noted the similar names of Domnann in Connacht and Damnonii in Scotland. This could be consistent with the Atlantic Trade zone theory mentioned in several books.

https://veryverylittlewars.wordpress.com/the-links/reference-material/

Link above is to my library of reference books (some of which are a bit dated as I tend to pick them up at second hand book shops at National Trust properties). I'll look out for the Mattingly book - thanks Anton.

[DBS]

I would not rush to assume a lack of chariotry.  If it was not for Caesar and Tacitus, we would have no real evidence of the use of the vehicles on a large scale, whether in the south during Caesar's expeditions, the east during the unpleasantness with the Iceni, or the north with the Caledonians.  Arguably chariots, permitting the use of ponies in a militarily effective manner, might have been more likely in the south-west than cavalry.  The south-west was never renowned for horse breeding in pre-modern times as far as I can tell.  Personally I would have chariots, if only for the leadership, just not lots of them.

There are a lot of hill forts and cliff castles in Devon and Cornwall, just perhaps not the very large ones.  Traditionally in wargaming terms, that has been used to justify slingers in the wider south west, given the archaeological evidence of their use at places like Maiden Castle and Danebury.  Personally I have always questioned whether that should transfer into lots of slingers in field forces (as opposed to Celtic types, normally using melee weapons, realising that simple missile weapons do have a utility in keeping your naughty neighbours at a distance from the palisades of the hillfort in which you have stashed your cattle and women), but if you do want slingers, probably as good a case for the Dumnonii as anyone.

Given the Clonoura shield in Tipperary to the north as it were, and the St Peter Port shield to the south (and indeed at a pinch the caetrati of the deep south in Iberia), maybe, I emphasise maybe, a case could be made for the Dumnonii subscribing to an Atlantic fringe tendency towards smaller/lighter shields.  I just throw that in so that if you are using Baccus figures and have the odd Celtic or German skirmisher figures in your stash, you could use them as part of warband bases for a little variety.

[Anton]

One of my reference books did suggest strong cultural links with the Domnonee in Armorica and noted the similar names of Domnann in Connacht and Damnonii in Scotland. This could be consistent with the Atlantic Trade zone theory mentioned in several books.

https://veryverylittlewars.wordpress.com/the-links/reference-material/

Link above is to my library of reference books (some of which are a bit dated as I tend to pick them up at second hand book shops at National Trust properties). I'll look out for the Mattingly book - thanks Anton.

Happy to help. 

The Atlantic zone links are real enough I think.  The Domnonee link is solid, the Dumnonii migrated there and there is some suggestion that they established a cross channel polity.  I don't find this unlikely, they may have been living on both sides for a very long time. 

There was an Irish presence in Dumnonia attested by Ogham Stones but possibly much older.  I'd be inclined to see the erectors of the stones as part of Maxim's arrangements for Britannia.

Koch thinks the Cornovii migrated south into Dumnonia post the migration to Armorica.

[dwkay57]

My Celtic warbands (apart from the very early ones) do have a smattering of Celtic and German skirmishers in them. Along with a few Dacians and other left over figures sneaking in and even a number of Rapier figures (one of whom seems to be based on Neil Oliver, the Scottish historian/broadcaster). I wasn't planning to put in loads of slingers - just a few to act as skirmishers in support of the warbands.

I'm still a tad hesitant about the chariots. I haven't found anything that states their use in the south-west (but then there isn't that much written) and they didn't stand out as grave goods in this area as far as I can recall, but this may be down to different burial rituals. However, as the unique point of a British Celtic army is the chariots it would seem inappropriate not to include a few - probably for the mounts of the chieftains of the larger clans and their entourage.

In terms of size, I aiming at around 15,000 men (converts to 300 figures) organised into a number of allied clans, each with its own sub-clan allies, to represent the distributed and loose knit nature of the tribe.

[Ian61]

Living just north of the Devon border in Somerset I am quite familiar with the topography of the Area. (I am quite lucky, my study looks out to the top of a Hill Fort, the earthworks beginning perhaps a hundred meters away)  As an occasional cyclist I can attest that though not that mountainous the lands is very undulating and the Somerset levels would have been boggy at best I would not think ideal for chariots but surely not impossible. That said as described made of wood, wicker and leather they would not have survived well in the archaeological sense so absence of evidence is not in this case very firm evidence of absence.

I did a double take on the lack of evidence of horse breeding and was surprised that the Dartmoor ponies (that could have pulled chariots) only enter written history in Norman times but are described as  'wild horses' so they may well have been there much longer, Wikipedia suggesting 1500BCE...

"Archeological investigation from the 1970s has shown that domesticated ponies were to be found on Dartmoor as early as 1500 BC.[5] The first written record, dated to AD 1012, refers to wild horses at Ashburton, and early records from Dartmoor manors refer to ponies being branded and earmarked."

Go for the chariots, they look cool! 

[DBS]

My point on the chariots is that the only area with significant burial of them is Yorkshire as part of the Arras culture, that even then we do not know whether the vehicles buried were genuine war chariots or funerary/parade specials, said burials may predate even Caesar by several decades at a minimum, and that if it was not for Caesar and Tacitus, we would have no reason to believe that Cassivellaunus could supposedly muster 4,000, or that they formed a significant element at Mons Graupius.  We would still have a few vehicle fittings turning up in the archaeology, but no idea of numbers.  Sadly no one ever did an "Agricola" for the south west (at least not one that has survived), so we simply have no way of knowing one way or the other.

[dwkay57]

Thanks gents, you've persuaded me to get some chariots (I'll put some in my next order).

Envious of your study view Ian.

[Ian61]

What can I say, perhaps just a pic of Boudicca :-