Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

Brittonic Slingers would hurl carefully selected stones or baked clay glandes at their enemy, capable of breaking limbs, and even fracturing skulls protected by helmets.

Description

The sling was a common missile weapon used throughout the Celtic world, and so it was customary for Celtic chieftains to muster a force of slingers from among their poorer vassals and clients to support their warbands.

Celtic Slingers wore the colourful patterned woollen trousers and tunics typical of the Celtic tribes. Unarmoured and carrying only light shields, they functioned as skirmishers who depended primarily on speed of movement and manoeuvrability to keep them safe, although they were equipped with sidearms for use when forced to defend themselves at close quarters.

While Celtic warriors celebrated prowess in hand-to-hand combat with sword and spear, it appears that missile weapons such as the bow and the sling were in wide use. Celtic boys become proficient with the sling very early in life, using it to protect crops and livestock from birds and predators. Some - particularly members of the lower socio-economic strata of Celtic society, who were less likely to serve in the warbands and well-armed retinues - retained their skill with the sling, an ability that can be put to good use in war.

The sling seems to have been the most common missile weapon of the Celts, being attested over a wider area than the bow, and is associated particularly with the defence of hillforts and large settlements. The sling could fire missiles of stone or baked clay with a force capable of breaking limbs and even fracturing a skull protected by a helmet.

Roman writers later detailed how tribes like the Silures (in south-west Wales) used the sling to pepper advancing Roman soldiers with sling stones. Huge magazines of carefully selected stones, typically weighing 50 grams, have been found in Celtic hillforts such as Maiden Castle and Danebury. More sophisticated missiles were also available; Caesar describes how the Gauls used baked clay bullets (glandes) sometimes heated to act as incendiary missiles (Caesar, De Bello Gallico, 5.43.1).