"carthefied celts" Topic

So all that make carthagenians make the vetrans with roman gear, but all spanjards or gallic troops are just their old barbarian self.

Why would they not put om roman gear if the libyans found it superoir to their own

Libyans got first dibs, presumably, and there was only so much in serviceable condition to go around. Plus the historical sources only attest to Africans in former Roman gear. Realistically I suspect some of the Iberians and Celts did grab Roman gear, but not enough to be noteworthy.

-Will

If you were doing Celts in England, I would certainly use some Roman gear!

IMHO, I also would think they had roman gear!!!! Mike Adams

Would be cool if some one did Special celts, mabye two packs of 8, one with 8 spaniards, with random roman gear, a few with roman armor some in helmets ect. A and another one the same but with galls, just one pack each that you could ad to a ubot, so say you have 40 spanjards. And like 4 with roman gear

Why would they not put om roman gear if the libyans found it superoir to their own

Roman equipment and weapons would not fit their style of fighting.

The Celts taught the Romans how to make chainmail. If they wanted it, they would be wearing it.

The Libyans took Roman armor if theirs was worn out. Not because it was superior.

I have to imagine after being in Italy for so many years Hannibal's "veterans" would include some number of Africans, Spaniards,& Celts – most wearing equipment and clothing obtained from their enemies. As John the OFM said, the Celts invented mail – how could wearing it not fit their style of fighting?

the Celts invented mail – how could wearing it not fit their style of fighting?

Celts in Carthaginian armies are not usually considered to be heavy infantry.

John one thing is inventing it, another is to aford to massproduce it. It was much more time consuming and hence expencive then leather, bronze or linen armor.

Roman gear was Celtic gear:

Mail armour- check
Montefortino helmet- check
Scutum- well at least a relative of the Celtic shield.

Celtic saddle – check

Lets not forget where they later got the Gladius from.

After Roman defeats like the Trebbia and Cannae, the "naked" lower-class Celts probably would have upgraded their equipment with captured Roman mail and helmets at the earliest looting opportunity, resulting in Hannibal's Celts looking more upper class than usual for a Celtic army. However, as noted above, much Roman panoply was already similar or identical to Celtic panoply, so obody would notice a Celt wearing a Roman mail coat that looks exactly like a Celtic mail coat or a Roman helmet that looks exactly like a Celtic helmet. The Celts seem to have preferred longer swords and smaller shields, so might not have adopted Roman versions of these items much or at all. The Celts also had a very strong tribalistic identity and antagonism toward Romans, so to avoid jeering from their fellow warriors probably preferred not to look "too Roman".

The Iberians probably would have used Roman swords interchangeably with their own without anybody ever noticing, since they were basically the same design (the Roman sword was called "Gladius Hispanicus" because it was a Roman interpretation of the Iberian design). Iberians didn't wear armor in Iberia, but it would be easy to imagine Iberians fighting for Hannibal adopting mail coats if they thought a pitched battle or siege assault was imminent, since their normal panoply was suited to their traditional hit-and-run tactics but not so much for "civilized" slugfests. However, Hannibal made constant use of hit-and-run tactics, and probably kept his Iberians quite busy this way, so perhaps mail coats would have just been rejected by Iberians as too much of a burden for the majority of campaign life. Iberian scutarii already used the scutum (thus the name) so probably nobody would notice whether an Iberian's shield was manufactured by an Iberian or Latin (especially after the Iberian owner had finished painting it to his unique tastes). The shields carried by miniature versions of Iberians and Romans look different (Roman shields tend to be convex, Iberian ones flat), but it's hard to tell if that difference was so notable in real life. That may be an artifact of gamer preferences for "national character". If you want to build a unit of Hannibal's "veteran Iberians", modify some Roman figures to make Iberians wearing mail coats and/or curved Roman scutums and mix them into the ranks of the scutarii. That might look pretty cool.

The African spearmen already wore body armor, greaves, bronze helmets and large shields, so adopting Roman versions of all these wouldn't have had any effect on their tactics, and they would have welcomed superior (or at least less used) versions of equipment they already utilized. However, Roman shields, helmets, and mail armor looked different than their traditional panoply, so observers would notice the change of appearance and comment on it (as Polybius did).

Everyone probably adopted Roman spears and javelins if they wanted them, but nobody would ever notice. Those are pretty generic weapons and nearly all Mediterranean cultures used them.

I don't remember any mentions of non-Roman adoption of the pilum. Either that was a weird Romanism that nobody else valued, or nobody noticed that the Carthaginian skirmishers were throwing a few pila mixed in with their shower of javelins. Since the pilum was meant to be a self-destructing throw-and-forget weapon, perhaps there was no good use for captured pila. Or perhaps each fighting style in Hannibal's ranks had a different reason to reject it: African phalangite spearmen wouldn't want to carry an extra shafted weapon or break ranks to throw anything, mature Celtic warriors probably looked down on throwing weapons as a weapon of childhood that they had already outgrown, and Iberians had their own iron throwing spears that were either functionally equivalent (again leading to unnoticed adoption of Roman versions) or superior for their own fighting style (thus leading them to reject pila as a crappier Roman version of their own throwing spears).

The big question is the Italian "allies" (of both Rome and Carthage). The Romans descriptions of them are from previous eras before they became client states, and there's not much written about them from Hannibal's era. I expect the Latins used Roman equipment and tactics, but the other Italians are a mystery. The Romans probably discouraged the use of arms by "allied" Italians except when levied for Rome's wars, so in order to fit into Roman armies the other Italians may have adopted Roman panoply. I don't think anybody really knows for sure.

- Ix

I believe the Romans adopted Spanish-style swords later.
(btw, what is "chainmail"?)

Miniatures of Polybian legionaries typically show them with short swords like the gladius hispanicus, so QED. :-P

The actual era of adoption of the "gladius hispanicus" is usually attributed to the 3rd C. BC, possibly as early as the 220's BC, possibly not until after contact with Hannibal's Iberian troops, possibly not until after conquering parts of Spain from the Barcids… or maybe not until well after the Punic Wars when Spain became a bit of a Roman ulcer. Nobody is really sure. It's not even clear if the "gladius hispanicus" was so named because it was actually like Spanish swords, or just used similar manufacturing techniques.

If the Romans were still using edgeless stabbing-only swords during Hannibal's invasion, then the Iberians probably wouldn't have looted them. They had their own falcata which could stab or slash.

- Ix

Sobieski-this might explain:

link

link

IIRC the Roman Leves changed to velites about 212BC when they adopted shields, javelins (pila like?) and Spanish swords, after coming off badly fighting Punic light infantry. Presumably the legions had already adopted the sword (Gladius Hispaniensis). The Spaniards used both types of sword, not just the falcata.

Sobieski-this might explain:

I think the point that Sobieski was making is that it is incorrect to refer to mail as "chainmail".

Apart from picking up Roman armour I suspect Gallic and Spanish veterans may have changed their fighting 'styles'?

Thus in Hail Caesar terms veteran Gauls may loose their wild fighting bonus and become say stubborn tough fighters instead. Up to you and your opponents to agree a slight tweak here and there.

Garry

As mentioned on a similar thread…

Livy tells us that the Africans used the looted gear.
Livy tells us that the Gauls are still using their same shields and swords. Individuals may have grabbed some armour but the mass are described as still naked to the waist.

A literary flourish to emphasise the national stereotypes? Then why single out the Africans as those who had adopted the Roman gear.