World History 101
Final Paper: Celtic Warfare
Kevin Hardin
Imagine if you will, sat perched upon a low hill, a massive band of hooting, screaming,
yelping Celtic warriors. Carrying bloody enemy spoils stapled to their horses, adorned in not
armor but in blue body paints and ta$oos, they make a frightening force. However, this picture
we have of Celtic tribes has been, as much of history, hijacked by Hollywood. Celtic life and
warfare were synonymous de’nitely, children and women were taught, and expected, to carry a
blade or an axe and protect what was theirs when necessary, warriors and war culture was
highly praised and for most tribes survival was dependent on raiding from other tribes or from
Roman se$lements. But this “barbarian” warrior is not quite the proper picture. Celtic
innovations in warfare, including the tower shield and the Celtic Sword, and updates on older
tactics, such as using the long abandoned (at least on the “modern” ba$le’eld) chariot in new
and destructive ways, would challenge the mighty Roman Empire; in fact the Romans would
adopt the Celtic Sword later into the famous Roman Gladius. (Paton, Plutarch chapter 2 part
28.) However even some Romans and other contemporaries would see the Celts as savage and
uncoordinated, like this passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, where he described the Celtic,
“manner of ‘ghting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic
procedure, quite lacking in military science,” (Cary 259) “as if they intended to cut to pieces the
entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armor and all.” (Cary 259.) This is, however, a
theory challenged by the actual facts.
Celtic armies were o<en known to employ current and time proven military tactics like
the Phalanx of the Greek Hoplites, (Ellis 60) as opposed to the common held image of Celtic
warriors blindly rushing into enemy lines in the “berserker” mold. Julius Caesar witnessed the
‘erce ‘ghting style of the Celtic people’s when he pushed into the area known as Gaul (modern
day Switzerland and France) and met the Gaul’s head on with an invasion that would be the
beginning of his rise to power. In or around 58 BC, Roman troops began to push their way into
Gaul from Roman held provinces in the area, including Caesar’s procounsilship Cisalpine Gaul; a
large part of Northern Italy ancestrally inhabited by the Celts. This was a common occurrence
for Celts not only in the area of France and Italy, but also on the Iberian Peninsula and the Island
of Britain. The constant ba$le and push, and usually the eventual defeat at the hand of Rome,
would help the Celtic culture in many ways, but most powerfully in their warfare. While the
Romans undoubtedly copied the design of their Gladius from that of the Celtic sword, the Celts
alternatively absorbed much of the Roman ‘ghting culture which they were constantly
witnessing themselves. However there were some things that Celtic warriors did that were
completely alien to the Romans, such as body painting or ta$ooing, and head hunting.
In his Gallic War commentary, Caesar remarks upon the strange way that the Celtic
warriors would have looked in the waning period before a ba$le. He describes their bodies as
such, that they would “dye themselves with wood, which occasions a bluish color, and thereby
have a more terrible appearance in ‘ght. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their
body shaved except their head and upper lip.” (Caesar Book 5 Chapter 14) This sort of
psychological warfare actually comes from the Celtic worship of small gods, which would also
factor into many parts of Celtic life, including the act of head hunting, which I will elaborate on
in a moment. Celtic cultures were known to worship a verity of Gods, inhabiting many places,
things, and even everyday objects. Therefore, the practice of painting one’s body with the dye
of a tree is in a way the act of connecting and invoking that small god, the god of that tree, and
a$empting to use its divine inCuence to keep them safe on the ba$le‘eld. This same idea would
be prominent in Western Europe long a<er the fall of Rome and rise of Christianity, in the form
of saints and prayer objects or holy artifacts.
Headhunting was of that selfsame branch of ideology. To the Celts, as to many cultures
