Question on Popular Portrayals of Gallic Peoples

[Iustinus]

Ok. I haven't been in these forums in quite a while, so I hope this question is relevant in a way! Anyway, this is just a question that has been burning in me for a while. Please, bear with me, and I would highly prefer answers supported by period evidence and not by popular conceptions.
(Please forgive me, for I am no expert in this subject.)

1.So. One of the common portrayals of earlier Gallic warriors in books, movies, mods, etc., is with the hair spiked up and bleached with lime.
Is there any evidence of this being done outside of Cisalpine Gaul? I don't recall ever seeing any!

2. From the little I know, the Gaesatae seem to come from the Alps. Is there solid evidence of similar forces to the Gaesatae anywhere else? (Transalpine Gaul, Iberia, the invasion of Greece and Asia Minor, etc.) People love to show naked "celts" but beyond the Gaesatae I have seen little evidence of *complete* nudity.

I had a couple of other questions that I forgot :oops: C'est la vie.

I've just been growing sick of all the smashing together of time and cultures ranging from Golasecca to Dark Age Ireland as if they were all the same people and culture. (For example, paintings of pale, red or blond haired, blue painted warriors from Gaul with British style spears, Cisalpine Armor, and Transalpine trousers. How utterly ridiculous.)

Thanks,

Iustinus

[The Wizard]

As far as I know, Gaesatae were young men from all over Gaul who came to make war, the prime enemies of the Gaulo-Celtic people being the Romans at that time. In effect, the makeup of these bands of Gaesatae was very similar to that of the Germanic comitati a couple of centuries later: loyalty was based more on the warband (and the chief) than it was on tribe or clan.

[Watchman]

I'd be very surprised if the Romans were the only foes such freebooters fought. Apparently a comparable tradition migrated with the Galatians into Anatolia, incidentally, which would logically suggest the institution wasn't alien to the Central European Celts either.

[Incongruous]

Watchman, I would love to pick at you're brain.:shame:
Have you ever written a very long essay which you might be willing to send to me?

[Randarkmaan]

Maybe another question would be: To what extent did they use woad? And who used it?
Another popular portrayal of celts is that their women wore their hair so long that, if they were doing hard work, they stuffed it into a basket they had on their back.

[The Wizard]

As far as I know, only Britannic Celts used woad; tribes such as the Belgae come to mind. I'm not sure if the Picts used it, too.


I'd be very surprised if the Romans were the only foes such freebooters fought. Apparently a comparable tradition migrated with the Galatians into Anatolia, incidentally, which would logically suggest the institution wasn't alien to the Central European Celts either.

True enough. As I said: the Romans were merely the most well-known foes the Gaesatae fought. I didn't know the Galatians had such naked warriors with them, though :inquisitive:

[Watchman]

My knowledge mostly comes from EB you know... :sweatdrop:

Anyway, I understand war-paint was once a very practice common among the Celts, but by Roman times only somewhat out-of-the-way and otherwise peculiar groups such as the Britons, some isolated mountain tribes, odd warrior cults and suchlike still stuck to the custom.

The Picts would almost certainly have adhered to the practice, as the name pretty obviously derives from "pictones", Celtic for "painted" AFAIK, whereas the specific people in question were originally known as Caledonians.

[The Wizard]

Ah, so war paint was akin to the chariot in being a practice that had been going out of use amongst the larger part of Celtic culture for a while now. That brings up an interesting question: the Galatians seem to have used the chariot for a longer time than, say, the Arvernic Gauls, but did they also keep using woad for a longer time as well?

[Watchman]

Never heard of them doing so, anyway. The custom had probably already withered away in Central Europe by the time they migrated.

I wonder if their sticking to chariots longer than most other Celts had anything to do with the scythed chariots their Hellenic neighbours kept dabbling with ? A sort of "keeping up with the Joneses" phenomenom ?

[Kralizec]

I wonder if their sticking to chariots longer than most other Celts had anything to do with the scythed chariots their Hellenic neighbours kept dabbling with ? A sort of "keeping up with the Joneses" phenomenom ?

I recall the Galatians used chariots against Antiochus I (soon to be Soter), at wich point the west-European Gauls still used them as well, albeit less and less. I imagine they quickly fell out of favour with the Galatians as well because all their neighbours employed heavy cavalry. For the Hellenes they were little more then gimmick weapons and as far as I know they never proved themselves to be useful against phalangites.