Celtic overpowered!

[Geoffrey S]

What generalities? These are actual battles that show the effectiveness of the Germanic horsemen of the time. These are specific events that show their abilities in combat.

Precisely: they are specific events, from which generalities about German cavalry prowess is drawn.

I'm assuming your referring to the supposed Gallic "Devastating Civil War"

I'm referring to the use of information from Caesar to support claims about 270 bc.

I'm not just quoting Caesar. I'm quoting the exact type of people who's primary occupation is archeology,history, philology and etc, the type of people who do use those research tools. What more "up-to date" information are you referring to?

As far as I can tell the sources you use are books, which by their nature generalise and condense. They're summaries and overviews, with different aims to articles which expand on more detailed issues. They tend to focus on events and histories, based mainly on original texts such as Caesar, or on presenting an overview of Celtic culture through archeology, such as Barry Cunliffe's The Ancient Celts. Blank spots in our knowledge such as what exactly the history of Gaul was like outside of contact with classical cultures like Rome and the Greeks are very rarely addressed in literature, with the occasional exception such as in Holt's Thundering Zeus illuminating the darker corners of Greek-Bactrian history. That's why information about Gaul for the majority of EBs timescale is hard to come by (and why it's so disputed, as this topic illustrates!).

But now comes the question, I have posted what 2 authors have said that support what I'm saying. The only citation I have seen that was supposed to support the "Devastating Civil War" was a misunderstanding of what Caesar said.
Surely if there is proof of the supposed "Devastating Civil War" where is it? Do you know of any reputed author, paper, or anything on this subject? If you mention the book,paper or whatever research I will be more then happy to read it.

It's a blank spot open to speculation. Whereas you take the side that the Germans became stronger and/or more skilled than the Celts based on numbers in various battles and individual details of battle skills late in the period of EB, I take the side that the Celts became weaker based on the information that a once large area that was predominately Celtic shrank considerably after a period of relative peace under larger confederacies was replaced by what was essentially a civil war with every smaller group for itself.

The Celts weren't incapable of fielding well-armed and skilled professional soldiers, but somehow the amounts had greatly decreased by the time Caesar entered the picture. Certainly for some time they had become less able to launch the expansions which so troubled the Romans and Greeks, which indicates a drop in the population growth which made such largescale expeditions possible. I argue that this drop in population growth indicates the severity of the conflict within Gaul and that this hampered the ability to field professional and experienced troops. Certainly the population was growing a lot prior to Celtic migrations; these migrations alleviated the population pressure somewhat, but probably caused population density to lower too much. In that regard Gaul was recovering later in its independant history, but not at a rate as high as the Germanic population boom.

The Celts were being defeated most of the time by a pre-Marius conscript army. The Romans were generally outnumbered and won the majority of the battles.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=144

I'll repeat the arguments that were probably made in that topic and believe are still relevant: the account of these battles is from a Roman perspective and frequently biased in their favour, and the long period in which these events took place illustrate the challenge the Celts were to the Romans despite the amount of large victories Roman historians make claim to.

As for the Germans these events happened prior to the supposed "Devastating Civil War"

William H. Maehl-"Germany in Western Civilization"All efforts to block the German advance availed nothing. At some time in the course of the third century B.C. the backbone of the Celtic resistance was broken, and this people for the most part evacuated central and western Germany, fleeing to the east, south, and west. Many Celts, of course, were captured and enslaved or even remained behind as allies or free subjects of the Germans." pg.7

J.B. Bury-"The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians"-" After 1000BC a double movement of expansion began. The Germans between the Oder and the Elbe pressed westward, displacing the Celts. The boundary between the Celts and Germans advanced to the west, and by about 200BC it had been pushed forward to the Rhine, and southward to the Main. Throughout this period the Germans had been also pressing up the Elbe. Soon after 100BC southern Germany had been occupied, and they were attempting to flood Gaul. This inundation was stemmed by Julius Caesar." pg.5

You're arguing that the Germans should be made stronger, statwise, than Celts. These quotes however, rather than implying that the Germans were expanding at the cost of the Celts in outlying territories due to martial skills or better tactics, imply that their advantage was numerical: they were going through a large population growth similar to what gave Celts an advantage in their expansion to such areas as Asia Minor. What exactly do these quotes add to support your claims?

I would say that these quotes do however hint at the important part: Gaul had a lower population density than at the time of Celtic migrations and was only recovering slowly (hinting at plenty of warfare and/or problems with agriculture), what was left was instable and frequented by war, whilst the Germanic population was increasing at a high rate. Ultimately these factors combined to create a weak celtic position, not some superiority of Germanic troops, and certainly not something that should be reflected right at the start of EB when there is still time to recover.

Stephen Allen-"Lords of Battle, the World of the Celtic Warrior"-"The change in emphasis from skirmishing with javelins to shock tactics using a spear and long sword can be detected in Caesar's description of the cavalry engagements during his campaigns in Gaul. By this period, the elite Gallic warriors who provided the urban aristocracies with their armed retainers were almost entirely cavalry, armed with spear and long slashing sword, protected by an iron helmet and mailshirt, and mounted on a larger horse capable of bearing the weight of the rider and his equipment. To the Romans, they were the equivalent of their own 'knightly' class, the equites." pg.132

The elites during this time were the cavalry and there were plenty of them.

Again, a misinterpretation of a quote in my opinion. This is referring clearly to elites of society, the rich who afford a mount and quality equipment, something distinct from professional soldiers with good training (and possibly, though not necessarily with good equipment) which were sorely lacking in the first century BC. The quote literally calls them a 'knightly' class, and it does not equate to professionals.

Practically every society has a societal elite that can afford better equipment than the masses due to their relative wealth and as long as wealth doesn't flow outward too much (out of Gaul, that is) this wealthy group will remain, but this says nothing about the standard of training or skills as warriors. That despite their (supposed) large numbers and good equipment they failed in against such enemies as Caesar says something about their experience. It doesn't take skill or professionalism to inherit armour and wealth from a dead father and charge into battle at Alesia.

Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me that you haven't been reading the discourse between Psyco V and myself. I would suggest starting with post 265 on page nine and going from there.

Don't worry, I have read the discourse and have found it extremely informative and interesting. Interesting enough in fact, to wish to add my own contributions!