Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
That, however, begs the question what withered the warrior class... I went through the EB text files a while ago, and saw in passing a mention of Celtic (or Gallic, anyway) tactics and soldiery only becoming more sophisticated towards the end, in response to the rather pressing stimulus from invading Romans. I've no idea of the historicity of the postulation, but I understand the Gauls were among the more "advanced" Celtic peoples and the stimulus-response scheme certainly makes sense - if the old "charge and destroy" approach has been consistently trounced by another system as of late, taking a few pages of that system's book only makes sense right ?
According to the EB team, Gaul's warrior elite had been almost wiped out by the interminable civil war. The Neitos units, representing the proffesional soldiers trained to fill this hole in response to German and Roman incursions mostly suffered the same fate. From what I understand, Celtic soldiers varied widely in quality in training, from lightly-armed young men and levy warriors to highly disciplined proffesionals. The armies the Romans faced at Watling street and Alesia were composed mostly of the former.