1142 war and conquest: Europe In battle Celtic horsemen the heads from the necks of their horses as part of the intimidation of opponents that was always a part of Celtic warfare Celtic homes offer some indication of what Celtic wars were usually like Most Celts lived in homesteads, which were houses on farms The ground around the houses was fortified with a wooden wall Although the defenses of a homestead would not protect residents from large armies, they were adequate for keeping out raiders Most Celtic warfare consisted of raids, mostly for stealing cattle Cattle were a form of booty that successful raiders could show off to others Young men in small groups often wandered Celtic Europe looking for adventure, gaining experience in combat skills while fighting warriors at homesteads This activity was treated more as a sport than serious warfare More serious were disputes over land, insults, or large numbers of stolen cattle Protecting one’s land and defending one’s honor or the honor of one’s group were considered imperative Stealing a few dozen cattle was seen as excessively greedy To settle these disputes, sometimes hundreds of warriors met for combat The two sides would agree to meet at a place with sufficient open ground for everyone to see and to fight Honor came from being seen to overcome a foe Until about the time of the Roman general Julius Caesar (100–44 b.c.e.), chariots figured prominently in Celtic warfare in continental Europe, and they lingered in Britain and Ireland for about 100 years after Caesar’s era The chariot had a driver who was a follower of the warrior who owned the chariot He would stand out on the shaft that thrust out between the two horses from the car, maneuvering the chariot quickly to take his warrior through battle In doing so, he won merit for his skill and for the great courage that it took for him to be vulnerable to the enemy In the 200s b.c.e the Celts invented the fourpommel saddle, which had two pommels in front of the thighs to hold them in place and two at the rear of the saddle This gave the Celtic cavalryman the stability that allowed him to become a fighting machine, protected by chain-mail armor and shield while wielding an assortment of weapons that would be given to him by two mounted followers The team was called a trimarcisia, which meant “three horses” in Celtic Sometimes these battles ended without bloodshed A warrior might take charge of his chariot and put on a display of acrobatic daring—handstands, leaps, and tumbles—while racing in front of the enemy Often, the warrior rode out on horseback and performed a variety of impressive stunts Sometimes the skill of such a warrior was so great that both sides agreed to settle the dispute in favor of the side of the outstanding performer Roman soldiers were amazed at the skill of such warriors before combat, but they had no idea the demonstrations were intended to substitute for actually killing people On the other hand, the Romans well understood the idea of duels between champions to settle battles without additional bloodshed Before battle the champions would step forward from the ranks of their sides The champions would proclaim their he- roic deeds and the deeds of the warriors they had killed The objective was to overawe the other side The Celts believed that the spoken word was as powerful as the might of a wellarmed warrior, and they took boasting seriously Sometimes no one would emerge to answer the boasting of the opposing champion, and the battle was settled without bloodshed If the boasting was answered by a champion, then each would compete in oratory, trying to make the other back down If neither backed down, then they would fight During the duel the other warriors of both sides would shout and blow their carnyxes, which were horns with the heads of animals on one end They made a great din of harsh sounds Many of the warriors would have drunk alcohol before battle to make themselves reckless Once one champion or the other won, the battle could be settled, and everyone could go home Sometimes a new challenger emerged One oral account tells of a warrior who killed more than 100 challengers before everyone agreed to stop fighting Sometimes after a duel was over, the warriors of both sides would charge at each other in a frenzy of bloodlust, each hoping to be seen to be heroically felling enemies This charge was intended to settle the battle; the Celts had no backup strategy if the charge failed Thus, the losers in a charge often ran away The Romans learned to take advantage of this: If they could withstand the first charge of the Celts, they could win, because the Celts had no idea what to next There was another kind of war for the Celts, and this was the war of conquest When a tribe grew too big for its territory or was driven from its lands by an invader, the members sometimes abandoned their homes and carried their property on carts If attacked while carting across country, the men would engage the enemy in combat If they were overcome, the women would fight next To actually seize the carts meant having to defeat the children, who would guard them A Greek explorer, Posidonius (ca 135–51 b.c.e.), was awed by the size and strength of Celtic women He and others noted that if a Celtic man fell in combat, the fighting was not always over, because his wife was skilled in hand-to-hand combat and could deliver tremendously powerful blows with her feet and her fists as well as with weapons Children were trained in fighting almost from birth When Caesar invaded central Europe in 58 b.c.e he introduced a form of warfare that was unfamiliar to the Celts The Roman troops fought as tightly structured units Like the Celts, their objective was usually to fight hand to hand, using their superior skill, armor, and weapons to overcome their adversaries Further, the Roman objective was to annihilate the enemy Over hundreds of years the Celts had developed a structure for combat that usually allowed them to avoid much bloodshed The objective was to make one’s point, dazzling friends and foes, and then go home and feast, exaggerating one’s heroism while telling about the battle The Romans rarely quit, but just kept coming Celts often panicked and ran after their initial charge if this failed to put the Romans to flight When the Celts had competent leadership and worked together, they were almost more than the Romans could handle