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Endemic warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than an organized territorial conquest, the historical record is more of different groups using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.
After the death of Alexander the Great, Celtic armies began to bear down on the southern regions, threatening the Greek kingdom of Macedonia and the rest of Greece. In 310 BC, the Celtic general Molistomos attacked deep into Illyrian territory, trying to subdue Dardanians, Paeonians and Triballi. However Molistomos was defeated by the Dardanians.
Diagram comparing the Celtic, astronomical and meteorological calendars. Among the Insular Celts, the year was divided into a light half and a dark half.As the day was seen as beginning at sunset, so the year was seen as beginning with the arrival of the darkness, at Calan Gaeaf / Samhain (around 1 November in the modern calendar). [4]
Trimarcisia (Ancient Greek: τριμαρκισία, trimarkisia), i. e., "feat of three horsemen", [1] was an ancient Celtic military cavalry tactic or organisation; [2] it is attested in Pausanias' Description of Greece, in which he described the use of trimarcisia by the Gauls during their invasion of Greece in the third century BCE.
Caesar, however, had denied their earlier request to settle in Gaul, and the issue turned to war. The Celtic tribes sent out a cavalry force of 800 against a Roman auxiliary force of 5,000 made up of Gauls, and won a surprising victory. Caesar retaliated by attacking the defenseless Celtic camp, and slaughtering the men, women, and children.
These were well-trained and equipped professional soldiers made up of infantry and cavalry. [5] Aside from Hobelars, who were highly mobile, lightly armoured, cavalry skirmishers and archers, used primarily for scouting and ambushes, the main Gaelic cavalry was usually made up of a king or chieftain and his clan.
The First Celtiberian War (181–179 BC) and Second Celtiberian War (154–151 BC) were two of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians (a loose alliance of Celtic tribes living in east central Hispania, among which we can name the Pellendones, the Arevaci, the Lusones, the Titti and the Belli) against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.
The small size of Celtic horses meant that the Celtic heavy cavalry of north-western and central Europe appear to have been employed as heavy skirmisher cavalry, rather than the shock cavalry of the Middle East and North Africa, the heavy cavalry of Gaul and Celtiberia being widely regarded as some of the finest horsemen of the ancient world ...