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Short description

Celtic Light Cavalry were effective skirmishers who could also deliver a shock charge.

Description

The Celts were famous for their cavalry and their Light Cavalry was well mounted on strong horses, and capable of operating both as mounted skirmishers and as shock cavalry, fighting in close order.

Celtic Light cavalry used round shields, with the spine carried horizontally, though oval shields were used to. They were unarmoured, although they did wear the common Montefortino-style helmet. Celtic cavalry also used short prick spurs.

These warriors were armed with a bundle of javelins, which they discharged when fighting in their role as scouts, foragers, ambushers and mounted skirmishers on the battlefield. When engaged in close-in fighting, the principal weapon of these warriors was a light thrusting spear. There was a strong heroic ethos in Celtic society, and a cavalryman that slew his enemy in single combat would sever the head and carry it from the saddle as a trophy, a gory custom that terrified their enemies.

Known as "the Keltoi" or the "Galatae" by the Greeks, and "Celtae" or "Galli" by the Romans - they are one of the great barbarian peoples of Europe. Celtic tribes were found stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the upper Danube, and in 279-76 BC some Celtic tribes settled in the Balkans (Scordisci) and even Asia-Minor (Galatians).

In the middle of the fifth century BC the Celts came to be dominated by the so-called "La Tene" culture. With its epicentre in the middle Rhineland and the regions north of the Alps, the La Tene culture was typified by a warrior dominated social system and a common material culture, with active trade connections with both the Greek colonists of the Golfe du Lion (esp. Massalia) and the Etruscans of northern Italy. In c. 400 BC tribes of La Tene Celts migrated into the Po Valley, overran the Etruscans there, and the Boii, Insubres and Cenomani permanently settled northern Italy; at this same time La Tene populations spread east, through the Danube corridor, settling Bohemia and the middle Danube. In c. 390 a Celtic horde sacked Rome itself, an event that left an indelible mark on the Roman folk memory. La Tene influences were also transmitted into the Iberian Peninsula, and are found among the Celtiberians there.

Celtic society was made up of extended families or clans, that grouped together to form territorially-based tribes. These were ruled by a king or high chief, although by the middle of the first century BC some of the more urban Celtic tribes in the Rhone Valley had come to be ruled by elected magistrates. Tribes were dominated by councils of elders and popular assemblies of all the free men of a tribe. Cattle thieving, slave raiding and vendettas ensured a constant level of low intensity warfare between Celtic clans and tribes.