MERCENARIES

In 369-368 BC some 2,000 Celtic soldiers were hired by Dionysius I of Syracuse and sent to Greece to help his ally Sparta against Thebes; they received pay for five months. Celtic mercenaries played an important part in the wars of the western Mediterranean, in Asia Minor and in Egypt from the fourth century BC; from these encounters we learn something of the warfare and tactics of the Celts themselves, even if it is only in comparison to contrasting approaches (Xenophon, Hellenica VII.1.20; Diodorus Siculus, History XV.70.1). Pyrrhus with a host of Celtic soldiers defeated Antigonus of Macedonia and his Celtic followers. Later Pyrrhus captured Aegae, the cult centre of the royal house and left the Celts to garrison the city. Driven by their insatiable appetite for money, they dug up the tombs of the rulers and stole their treasures (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 1.13.2; Plutarch, Pyrrhus 26.6). From this time on it could be said that no eastern king waged war without Celtic warriors. Such was the terror of the Celtic name, and so sure the success of their arms that the kings thought they could not protect their royal power nor recover it, if lost, without the support of Celtic valour. Ptolemy II Philadelphus brought in 4,000 Gauls (277-276 BC), but he caught them plotting to take over Egypt. He put them on an uncultivated island where they murdered one another or perished from hunger. In another unsuccessful campaign the Gelts who were serving with Attains I, King of Pergamon, became discontented with the hardship of the march, chiefly because they were accompanied by their wives and children, and refused to go on. Attains made all sorts of offers to make them stay, but finally led them back to the Hellespont (Polybius, Histories V.77-8).

The Garthaginians recruited Gelts for their army in Sicily (250-241 BC), and during the Punic Wars Gauls and Iberians (usually cavalry) fought in all the major battles of Hannibal. Army leaders of both camps were aware of the fickleness and treachery of the Gauls. Scipio remembered the perfidy of the Boii. Hannibal, constantly on guard against attempts on his life, even had various wigs made to give the impression of a man of a different age (Polybius, Histories 1.43, 67, 77).

To make a list of the mercenary groups and to marvel at the large numbers involved is easy; to explain how the system, begun by Dionysius of Syracuse in 369 BC and lasting three centuries, worked is quite baffling. It Is important to give an account of mercenary activity, however, for even if the numbers are widely exaggerated, the readiness of large bands of warriors to travel over great distances Is well recorded - movements that are for the most part undetected from archaeological evidence. Mercenary groups such as these must also be among the first where financial gain rather than political or economic pressures was paramount - with consequential effects on the economies around them. But they must often have become so detached from the original heartlands of Celtic tribes that their importance lies as much in their ability to retain a recognizably Celtic identity as in their prowess as warriors. The relationship between payment and military activity is also raised by the possibility of standing armed forces in first-century Gaul based on both the evidence of Caesar and that of the production of gold coinage; but there is as yet no general agreement on the importance of the social divisions outlined by Caesar, t\epagus for example, and the military organization of Gaulish forces (Ralston 1992: 142-3).

The era of stylized warfare and ceremonial, symbolized by La Gorge Meillet for example, the age of myth and single combat evoked by the tales of Titus Manlius, Marcus Valerius and Marcus Claudius Marcellus gave way in the first century BC to the reality of warfare for political freedom. Perhaps the record of the dedication and eventual deposition over two centuries of many hundreds of weapons at Gournay-sur-Aronde gives the most telling indication of the endemic nature of warfare among the Celtic tribes themselves. The weapons of Caesar’s protagonists in Gaul, for example, were thus made in workshops and armouries with several centuries of tradition in maintaining a high order of manufacture; something of the respect in which the Romans held their adversaries may be sensed in the careful way such arms are depicted on such monumental statements of victory as the Arc de Triomphe at Orange. In the end it was superior military organization and tactics that won the day rather than superior weaponry, for, as Tacitus says of the Caledonians after Mons Graupius, ‘they would try to concert plans, then break off’.