5th Century Basques?

[Ade G]

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has any guidance on the appearance of Basque skirmishing foot and horse in the 5th Century?
Want to have a couple of elements in my Spanish Visigothic army but cannot find anything that does not look like a "Roman" of the period.
Of course that may be exactly what they looked like ;-)

Thanks

[Justin Swanton]

For skirmisher foot you have this from http://sortegia.blogspot.es/1392734191/los-vascones/




For cavalry Magister Militum offer this:

[Ade G]

Hi Justin, that link just sent my security settings a bit mad so may want to watch it.

Thanks for the picture, he looks a lot earlier than 500AD though! The Baueuda look like all the other Romanised looking images so maybe they were just that as I guessed. May have to give them a smaller shieldand caps to distinguish them.

Cheers for taking the time to help. Appreciated.

Ade

[Swampster]

You could use some Roman auxilia with caps, but something a bit more irregular looking, how about using something like Early Saxons? They often have the same sort of cap.

Or how about Essex almughavars? You would probably need to cut away the long spear but the poses lend themselves to replacing that with a round shield.

[aligern]

Hmmm, cannot recall a picture of Basques, but logically.
They are hill peoples and famously lights and also poor, which is why they hire out as mercenaries.
They are very likely one of the  few groups left as coherent entities after the Indo  European invasion, so I am thinking a tunic without trousers ( bare legged) and round shields with a number of javelins,
The figures with trousers and leg bindings might not be wrong , but the logic is that they look more like ancient Spaniards as they rebuffed Roman and CelIberian influence.
Roy

[Martin Smith]

Hmmm, cannot recall a picture of Basques, but logically.
They are hill peoples and famously lights and also poor, which is why they hire out as mercenaries.
They are very likely one of the  few groups left as coherent entities after the Indo  European invasion, so I am thinking a tunic without trousers ( bare legged) and round shields with a number of javelins,
The figures with trousers and leg bindings might not be wrong , but the logic is that they look more like ancient Spaniards as they rebuffed Roman and CelIberian influence.
Roy

On that basis, the Feudal Castings Welsh sound about right (I've used them to sub for Basques in the past...)

[Ade G]

Many thanks for all these suggestions. I am looking at 25mm which is actually easier to convert than 15mm as I can use plastics ;-)
Kit bashing GB "Dark Age" infantry with Warlord bearded heads with caps. drill out spears and replace with wire javelins and use a small round shield. Have some smaller pony-sized mounts for the LC as well.

Sorted!

[Anton]

The latest thinking on the Basques is that they were first wave Indo-Europeans rather than a pre Indo-European survival.  A shame really as I quite liked the original idea.  The new theory appears in Celtic from the West a collection of essays edited by Koch and Cunliffe and I'm not aware so far of any kick back against it.

[Duncan Head]

The latest thinking on the Basques is that they were first wave Indo-Europeans rather than a pre Indo-European survival.

A theory of which most commentators have been quite scornful, judging by the opening to this article.

The more moderate response of Koch (the same Koch recently cited on another thread!) unconvinced but without rejecting it out of hand, is here.

[Anton]

Thanks Duncan for an interesting article.  No one has claimed Basque as a Celtic language so far as I know.  Certainly that was not proposed in Celtic from the West.

[Duncan Head]

Mind you, I expect the linguistic affinity of the Basques would have minimal impact on the appearance of Basque wargames figures.

Does anyone make figures with the distinctive Hispano-Roman or Hispano-Visigothic dagger - second post here?