This Week in Ancient Warfare - Battle of Allia, 18 July 387 BC

A civilization's first battlefield encounter with the Gauls tended to be a memorable one. We only know a few such examples, the invasion of Greece in 280-279 BC, the present TWAW topic, some vague references to a devastating attack by Gauls on the Etruscans of North Italy, and some even more vague references to their attacks on the Thracians and Getai.

In 387 BC (often given as 390 BC following the Varronian calendar), a large group of Gauls, the tribe of the Senones, under the leadership of Brennos invaded Etruria, to the north of Latium. Their attack on Etruria coincided with other attacks being launched against the crumbling Etrurian state--at that same moment a large Roman army had invested the major Etrurian city of Veii. The Gauls under Brennos hoped to seize a piece of the Etruscan pie. They attacked Clusium, a city that lacked any major allies, and so seemed a wise target.

The people of Clusium, though they had no friendly relationship with Rome, sent envoys to Rome begging for help. The Romans, already engaged in a project of seizing parts of Etruria for themselves, seized on this opportunity and sent a delegation to negotiate between the two parties. In the negotiation, it is said that a haughty Roman slew a Gallic chieftain. At that sign of disrespect, the Senones lifted the seige of Clusium and marched on Rome. This parallels nicely with the stories of the Gallic invasion of Greece, where the haughty Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Makedonia, treated the negotiation-minded Gallic chieftains like fools, and in so doing invited a devastating invasion of Makedonia. Both stories likely contain a bit of moralizing invention "if you're haughty with your power, young prince, the Gallic bogey-monsters will descend on and devour you."

The Senones pushed toward Rome, and the city quickly mustered its fighting force to face the invading army. They met on the banks of the stream Allia, on the banks of the Tiber, about 10 miles from Rome. The invaders were estimated at either 30 or 70 thousand, the former number being remotely possible if we include non-combatants, but both--and especially the latter--likely contain exaggeration. The Romans mobilized several legions (depending on the sources there could have been 2 or 4 mustered for the battle), and likely numbered between 10 and 20 thousand fighting men. In the early 4th century, we should not imagine these Roman soldiers looking like the uniformly equipped and heavily armored legionaries of the Imperial age. The core of the Roman army, and the center of its battle-line at Allia, were the hoplites of the lower nobility and middle class. They formed a dense formation (the phalanx) in the Greek style, and carried the round aspis rather than the Roman scutum. The rest of the army, which likely accounted for more than 50 percent of its total, were the lower land-holding classes, armed as skirmishers and light spearmen.

The Romans extended their line from the banks of either the Allia or the Tiber, across to a small hillock, hoping that by laying their wings against those topographical features they would prevent attempts by the Gauls to outflank them. The downside to this stratagem was that it thinned the line, and according to Livy, the Romans actually had to use their reserves to be able to secure the hillock. So, with their hoplite phalanx likely as little as 4 ranks deep, they went to battle, awaiting the Gallic attack.

According to Livy's account, it seems that the Gauls advanced their soldiers within charging distance from the Roman line, but then paused. Brennos had seen the reserve soldiers gathered on the higher ground. Fearing that they might charge onto his flank or rear when he committed his leading companies against the Roman phalanx, he halted the rest of his army within range of the Romans and concentrated an assault on the reserves. So across most of the battle line, soldiers likely skirmished at distance with one another, and brazen Celtic warriors may have stepped forward to challenge Roman warriors to ritualistic single combat. That situation could have lasted for some time.

It didn't. The Gallic attack on the hill proved successful, their ferocity overwhelmed the Roman reserves and the Gauls gained the elevated position overlooking the whole Roman line of battle. with this tactical advantage, the whole Gallic army began its surge forward. Up to that time, most Roman combat had been against other hoplite armies, like those of the Etruscans, or armies of light and medium spearmen, like those of other states in Latium. The Gauls charged the Roman lines with brightly painted shields, fierce war cries, raised swords, and many a disconcertingly nude body. Their wild charge, size, and fierceness quickly overwhelmed the morale of the Roman wings, which are said to have faltered at contact. It is possible that they never even came to blows, but set immediately to flight.

The Roman phalanx seems to have held its ground, though. With stronger armor and better morale--many of the soldiers would have been veterans of a number of other wars, for Rome went to war on a yearly basis then, and lacked the manpower for the men who constituted the cream of the army to have much chance of avoiding eventual service. Hoping in their heavy armor and Roman virtue, or despising the disorder and light equipment of the Gauls, they fought. But with the wings in flight, the thinned and outflanked phalanx was pushed back, and eventually surrounded. Many were killed, and others took to flight or fought their way to safety.

In the aftermath of this disastrous defeat, the Gauls chased the fleeing Romans right into the city of Rome herself. They encamped in the city for seven months, and forced the Romans to pay a heavy tribute. Their eventual departure was assured by the help of the Roman forces from around Veii, and their leader, Camillus, in the wake of the defeat, reformed the army. In addition to organizational reforms, soldiers began carrying new equipment, tall and narrow or smaller oval shields like those carried by many of the Gauls, and which eventually developed into the large Roman scutum we know from the middle Republic and the Empire.

The Gauls, though they withdrew, were not gone. They would continue to harass parts of Etruria and Latium over the next 150 years from their cities in Cisalpine Gaul, along the Po valley. But they were not only marauders. A painted sarcophagus from late 4th century Etruria depicts a Celtic mercenary, partially armed in the Etruscan manner, fighting alongside Etruscan warriors in a mythological combat scene. The presence of this incorporated Gaul, who carries the round aspis and wears a Hellenic helmet, but who is clothed only in the light blue robe of Celtic warriors and wears his sword on a chain link belt, shows the slow integration of these Gauls, and reminds us that they were not always only enemies, and were not always only barbarians beyond the pale of civilization.

This Week in Ancient Warfare – Battle of Raphia, 22 June 217 BC

One of the largest battles of antiquity was fought a few miles south of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. Credible sources give us around 150,000 combatants, which makes Raphia the biggest of the Hellenistic age. It pitted the young Antiochos III of Syria, later called Antiochos the Great, against the young Ptolemy IV of Egypt, called Philopater. Since I’m already actually past the week of Raphia, I’ll just play catch up a little bit by highlighting one aspect of the battle.

The two huge armies encamped within sight of each other for several days before fighting. During those several days, the soldiers from each army went out to skirmish with one another. Scholars have generally viewed this as a minor occurrence, something practiced by the skirmishers of the army involved, and not really worth comment. This is due to a tendency to imagine that in the Hellenistic period, characterized by powerful kingdoms, ever-developing bureaucracies, and a new cosmopolitan world, the Greeks would have been too practical to risk their best and brightest in pointless skirmishes. It sounds like the stuff of David and Goliath, not Ptolemy and Antiochos. We could actually identify several types of skirmish:

1) Between foraging parties (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia)

2) Between pickets and screens (mentioned in other situations, but not expressly mentioned at Raphia.

3) Between cavalry forces (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia). These are generally assumed to have been light cavalry, but well-born cavalrymen are probably at least as likely.

4) Between groups of infantry (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia as involving an exchange of missiles). This could be, in reality, very similar to foraging or picket skirmishes, the main differences being a) the greater organization or status of the soldiers, and b) the reason for skirmishing, in this last case being the skirmish itself, while in 1) and 2) the skirmish arises due to detachments attempting to execute particular duties.

But we have good reason to believe that the noblemen in the army actively participated in the skirmishes prior to battle. Polybius tells us that on one day, the skirmishing actually carried rather close to the Ptolemaic camp. Now, what should we imagine this skirmishing to be? From one perspective, it would involve hundreds, up to a few thousands, of light infantry—slingers, archers, and javelineers—scattered across the No Man’s Land, aiming their missiles occasionally at their enemy and yelling the best insults that could come to mind. But based on what follows in Polybius’ narrative, it might be preferable to imagine noblemen and a couple of attendants, sometimes on horseback, challenging their social equals to do battle, at least in some parts of the battlefield. Polybius expressly mentions the participation of the cavalry (5.80), and it is worth noting that neither army had very many specifically “light cavalry.”

It would seem that some of the leaders of the armies involved may have participated in these skirmishes or duels between social equals. Theodotos, an Aitolian officer who had deserted Ptolemy’s side to join Antiochos, had, according to Polybius, come close enough to the Ptolemaic lines during the skirmishes that he had actually seen Ptolemy’s royal tent and noted its position in the encampment. Rather than imagining that he managed this by slipping into a light soldier’s gear, it is preferable to consider that he, rather like a warrior of the heroic age, had ridden out on horseback to challenge an enemy rider, and there exchanged javelin fire aimed at demonstrating virtue, skill and courage, in emulation of the heroes of the Iliad.

By means of the skirmishers Theodotos located the king’s tent, and so one morning, probably a day or two before the battle was fought, Theodotos and two attendants slipped into the Ptolemaic camp. If groups of nobles were going out to the lines to protect foragers and seek out opportunities to challenge their enemies, it would not have been unusual for a few of them to head back to camp together, which means that Theodotos and his associates were able to enter the Ptolemaic lines unopposed. It is also possible that the pickets and lookouts were less than vigilant so soon after dawn. After entering the camp, they made their way to the king’s tent, where they slipped past the watching guards and entered the tent. There, they rushed around, but could not find the king, though they did apparently run into and kill or injure several of the men that they did find, including the king’s physician. The cries of one of these must have alerted the guards, for Theodotos escaped the camp only with some trouble, and we hear no further word of his two attendants. A few days later, Theodotos commanded part of the Seleukid phalanx in the battle, the ten thousand elite argyraspides, or “silver shields.” And to think that a man, who in battle commanded ten thousand pikemen, had only a day or two earlier snuck into the enemy’s camp and attempted to slay the enemy king by his own hand, and the day before had sought—in grand Homeric fashion—to demonstrate his personal virtue by challenging enemy horsemen to single combat.