A Brief History of the Celts (12 page)

Leaving aside the misconception of ‘slave’ in the description, certainly the word
marca
is accurately recorded as one of the old Celtic terms for a horse.
The word is easily recognisable as
march
(Welsh),
margh
(Cornish) and
marc’h
(Breton).

Flavius Arrianus, or Arrian (b.
c.
AD
85–90), a Greek from Nicomedia in Bithynia, who made a career in the Roman army, was much impressed by Celtic cavalry
and says that the Romans borrowed their cavalry tactics from the Celts. Talking of witnessing some military manoeuvres, Arrian says that the Celts, on one particular training exercise,

Livy has much to say about the tactics of the Celtic cavalry. The Spartans respected the Celtic cavalry when they fought for them against the Thebans. The Hellenic kingdoms were among the first
to hire the services of Celtic mercenaries, specifically cavalry units. The Carthaginians also used Celtic cavalry to good effect and, as we have seen, even the Romans, in spite of their sneering
criticisms, eventually employed Celtic cavalry as auxiliaries in their army after they had conquered the Celts of Gaul. Indeed, Celtic cavalry became an essential part of the imperial army of the
Caesars.

The Celts were among the first Northern Europeans to evolve a saddle and the Celtic saddles were very intricate. A key technical innovation was the four-pommel saddle. Historians once thought
that cavalry could have only a limited effectiveness until the invention of the stirrup. However, in the La Tène period the Celts developed a saddle with a firm seat by means of the four
pommels, two behind the rump and one angled out over each thigh. The rider sat in, rather than on, this saddle.

Greek and Roman writers mention the spectacular clothing which the Celts wore in battle. According to Diodorus Siculus, the Celts ‘wear colourful clothing, tunics dyed and embroidered in
many colours, and garments which they call
bracae
[breeches]; and they wear striped cloaks, fastened by a brooch, thick in winter and light in summer, worked in a variegated,
closely set pattern.’ The trousers were particularly worn by Celtic cavalrymen; being such a strange garment to the toga-wearing Romans, they were quickly noticed and adopted
whence the Celtic word
bracae
came into the Latin language and from there made its way into other languages including English (as breeches).

Linen shirts, tunics and shoes of leather were worn, often with cloaks of coarse wool. It later became fashionable in Rome to wear a
sagus
(later
sagum
), initially a Celtic
warrior’s cloak. The word was used symbolically by Cicero in the phrase
saga sumere
or
ad saga ire
– to take up arms or prepare for war – and
saga
poner
, to lay down arms. Another Celtic cloak used by the Romans was the
caracallus
(hooded cloak). The word
cacullus
derived from this and eventually gave English the word
‘cowl’ with cognates to be found in many other European languages.

The Celts also liked wearing ornaments to indicate their status in society, such as gold bracelets or the brooches with which their cloaks were fastened. Kings and chieftains, together with
warriors and women of position, wore gold necklets, usually a torc around their necks.

One particular aspect of several of the battles they fought with the Celts fascinated the Romans. They found that bands of Celtic warriors went into battle naked. These warrior bands were
wrongly identified as a tribe which the Romans, using a Celtic word, called the Gaesatae. Polybius describes a contingent at the battle of Telamon. They went into battle with only sword and shield.
Camillus had earlier captured some of these naked Celtic warriors and showed them to the Romans saying, according to Appian: ‘These are the creatures who assail you with such terrible cries
in battle, bang their swords and spears on their shields to make a din, and shake their long sword and toss their hair.’

The Greeks also encountered these special groups. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was disparaging:

At Telamon Polybius gives a totally misleading interpretation:

The Gaesatae were not a tribe at all but a group of élite professional warriors who fought naked for religious purposes as they believed that it enhanced their martial karma, their
spiritual vibrations in battle. This contact with Mother Earth added to their spiritual aura, ensuring rebirth in the Otherworld if they perished in this one. The word ‘Gaesatae’ has a
cognate in the old Irish
gaiscedach
, a champion or one who bears arms.
Gaisced
is a word for weapons, and
gaesum
is a spear. We have an entire series of words from this
root such as
gaisemail
(warlike or valiant),
gaiscemiacht
(military prowess and wisdom) and
gaisce
(wisdom). Was the warrior deemed to be a wise person?

In spite of Dr Simon James’ claim that the insular Celts, unlike their Continental cousins, were ‘egalitarian farming communities lacking warrior nobles’, we find that such
warrior nobles did exist. In fact, insular Celtic mythology and
record is full of references to such groups. We have the Fianna of Fionn Mac Cumhail – the word means
‘warriors’, and it appears as an ancient Indo-European term. The cognate in Sanskrit,
vanóti
, means ‘to win or conquer’. The word survives in Latin as
venatio
, a hunter, and in English as ‘win’. More interestingly, it appears in the Gaulish Celtic tribal name of the Veneti, who gave their name to Vannes in Brittany, and to
the Veneti of the Po valley, who gave their name to Venice. We also have the term
feinnid
, a word allied to Fianna, for a band of warriors.
Tréin-fher
, man of strength,
described a champion, and
óglach
a young hero. More ancient than these words is
curad
, which, according to Windisch and Stokes, is the root of the name for the warrior
élite of the kings of Connacht, Gamanrad. Yet in later texts the name is expressed as Gamhanrhide, using
rhide
or
ridire
meaning ‘knight’.

There are other groups of warrior élites such as the Craobh Ruadh (Red Branch) warriors of Ulaidh (Ulster) which Professor O’Rahilly argues was probably a mistranscription of Craobh
Rígh (Royal Branch). We also find the Degad, a band of warriors exiled to Munster. The Nasc Niadh were the élite bodyguard serving the kings of Munster. From its beginnings the Niadh
Nask (the military order of the golden chain), as it is now called, developed into a dynastic nobiliary honour at the bestowal of the head of the Eóghanacht dynasty. Since the death of Donal
IX MacCarthy Mór (1596), last regnant King of Desmond and titular King of the Two Munsters, the order has remained as a valid and legal dynastic honour into modern times. According to the
late The Rt Hon. The Lord Borthwick of that Ilk, President of the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry: ‘The Niadh Nask is without doubt one of the most ancient nobiliary honours
in the world, if not the most ancient!’

In several ancient Irish sources there appears another warrior élite called the Ríglach, or royal heroes. In the
Metrical Dindshenchas
, the
Book of Leinster
and
the
Betha
Colmáin maic Lúachain
, it denotes a royal bodyguard, meriting a capital letter. In later middle Irish texts the meaning of the word
has degenerated first to veterans and then simply to old people.

The Ríglach, as a group of young warriors recruited only from the sons of kings, finds a parallel in the Rajputs of the Hindu culture, who developed into a warrior tribe, their name
deriving from
raj
, king, and
putrá
, sons. The Rajputs of India boasted they were all the sons of kings, descendants of royal warriors, and formed the principality of
Rajputana in north-west India arising as a powerful force in the seventh century
AD
. They lost power after Indian independence. In the folk memory of the Ríglach,
might we be seeing the basis of that Irish cliché, ‘We are all kings’ sons’?

In the ancient Celtic world we have overwhelming numbers of names incorporating the royal element, both tribal names such as Bituriges, ‘Kings of the World’, and personal names such
as Dumnorix, ‘World King’. We know that after the Claudian invasion of Britain, King Cogidubnus of the Regni, whose territory was in West Sussex, was given the title ‘
rex (et)
legatus Augusti in Britannia
’ for his pro-Roman attitudes. His capital Noviomagus, Chichester, was called the ‘New Plain’. Regni was not, as some have suggested, a renamed
Celtic tribe because their king had been confirmed in his kingship by the Romans. They still bore their old Celtic name – ‘King’s People’ or perhaps even ‘King’s
Sons’!

The Romans even had lessons to learn from the Celts in terms of battle tactics. Livy mentions that at Sentium the Celtic warriors deployed a
testudo
(tortoise) – a battle tactic
in which the fighting men locked their shields together to form an impregnable wall. Once the Romans had adopted the Celtic shield, for it is clear that such interlocking could not be achieved with
the older Roman round shield or buckler, the
testudo
became regarded as a Roman battle tactic.

If the Celts were initially able to teach the Romans about
warfare, why was it that, with the exception of northern Britain and Ireland, they were eventually defeated and
swallowed in the
pax Romana
? Dr Simon James proposes that the explanation lay in the contrasting nature of the two societies. They thought about war and waged it in different ways.

To the Celts warfare was a matter of honour which could begin and end in a personal single combat. It was often a matter of individual courage. Generally, the Celts were not interested in
central authority and discipline. They thought and acted as individuals and were natural anarchists. In modern times these attributes are seen as laudable. In ancient times, they were the reason
for the downfall of the Celtic peoples.

We find that the excuse for many of the invasions of Celtic territory by foreign forces, who then remained to exploit the Celts, was an invitation from a disgruntled Celtic leader who refused to
accept the decision of his fellows. Caesar invaded Britain on the excuse of putting back a prince on his father’s throne. Mandubracius of the Trinovantes, chased out of his territory, went to
Gaul and sought Caesar’s help. Caesar did place him on the throne of his father. But, if Celtic law was being followed, in which primogeniture was not recognised, perhaps Mandubracius had no
right to sit there? Mandubracius, ironically, means ‘Black Traitor’.

The same internal squabbles, in which the electoral system of the Celtic succession laws was challenged or a deposed king did not accept the ruling of the law, can be seen in many examples
throughout Celtic history. Diarmuid Mac Murrough of Hy-Kinsella, deposed as King of Leinster, sought Henry II’s aid to put him back on the throne of Leinster with results that still rebound
in Ireland until this day. Maol Callum (Malcolm), grandson of Duncan, sought English help to put him on the throne of Scotland, and overthrow the legitimate ruler Macbeth who had ruled for
seventeen years. Today it is Macbeth who is the villain and Maol Callum the ‘rightful’ king.

It was the Celtic custom, as Diodorus Siculus remarked, when gathered for battle, for a warrior to step out of the ranks and challenge the most valiant champion among the
enemy to single combat, brandishing his weapons, boasting of his deeds and those of his ancestors in order to break the nerve of his opponent. Depending on the results of the combat the entire
battle could be decided.

The problem was, in battle against the Romans, that cultural differences resulted in different endings. If a Celt was beaten in single combat, often the Celtic army would accept that the matter
had been resolved and fade away. If a Celt won the combat then the Roman forces did not go away and merely fell on the Celts in fury to exact revenge.

In defeat, the Celtic leaders who had led their people into such extremity would either seek death in combat or commit ritual suicide. This was not at all unusual among the ancient Indo-European
societies. The Roman generals often did the same. Catuvolcus, an ageing joint king with Ambiorix, of the Eburones, ‘poisoned himself with yew’ when his people’s countryside was
laid waste by Caesar. When the Gaulish uprising of
AD
21 failed, Julius Florus of the Treverii and Julius Sacrovir of the Aedui both committed suicide, as did Boudicca of
the Iceni in Britain following her defeat in
AD
61.