Games Monitor

At risk of opening a can of classical worms I should like to comment on Peter’s piece because it raises interesting ideas about how different political systems and their leaders arise from different and deep cultural roots.

Martin Slavin

According to the historian Livy (X, 27,30), in the battle near Sentino with the Gauls in 295BC, the Romans “were terrified by a new method of warfare; the enemy arrived armed, on two-wheeled and four wheeled vehicles…; great was the noise of the horses and wheels and the Roman mounts were thrown into a panic by that fearful din to which they were unaccustomed.”

In the year 55 BC Caesar had this to say in his account of his experience in Britain: “The method of combat is as follows; first the Britons race in all directions across battlefield [in two man chariots] hurling spears,……; then they force their way into the cavalry lines and, jumping down off their chariots, proceed to fight on foot. The charioteers in the meantime slip out of the battle zone and arrange the chariots so that, should their kinsmen be beset by the enemy they can quickly turn back and return to their positions. Hence in battle they have the dual advantage of the mobility of horsemen and the stability of infantry.

Owing to their daily practice, they are capable of reining in the galloping horses even on steep ground, and adroitly maneuver their mounts, rush forward, seize the yoke of their horses and then nimbly leap back into their chariots” (Gallic War, IV, 33)

Further passages in Polybius, Strabo, Diodorus, and Tacitus attest …..that each one was manned by a charioteer and a warrior; as in the case of Homer’s heroes, the chariots were reserved for high-ranking figures.

Source; The Celtic War Chariot, Andres Fuger-Gunti, p356, The Celts, Rizzoli, 1991

In other words the political elite were the front line shock troops who put their lives on the line for the benefit of their tribe.